Shizun - 006 - Requesting an exorcism from god

Lu Yunzhen mad dashed towards the shop, terrified that if he was half a step late he’d see a police car. Mo Changkong followed in confusion.

Luckily, Chen jie and her partner were both rather timid... They thought Mo Changkong was some kind of gourmet thug. Since they didn’t lose much, they thought they’d write it off as bad luck and was too scared to call the police.

When the two got to the shop, the couple was still joking about the situation. Saying that it wasn’t easy to see a thug after all these years of justice system reforms. That the rock was quite pretty and they should commemorate the morning by making it into a pendant.

Lu Yunzhen immediately bowed his head and apologized.

Mo Changkong saw what Shizun was doing and immediately knew that he messed up again. He knew that ever since he was little, he was a bad disciple who was violent and caused trouble. But this time... he really didn’t know what he did wrong.

He’s not going to think about thinks that he can’t understand.

He reflected on everything in purgatory already. If he was born evil and could not differentiate between good and evil, if he constantly made mistakes, then he must not be selfish and listen to Shizun properly.

Shizun is always right!

If Shizun is wrong then that means the others are wrong!

Mo Changkong apologized obediently.

Chen-jie heard the explanation, realized it was a misunderstanding, and wasn’t mad. She collected the price of the breakfast and joked, “look at this young man, he’s so energetic, so tall and handsome, and with that tattoo you scare me... don’t tell me you’re in a band?”

“Yes!”, Lu Yunzhen got a flash of inspiration, grabbed Mo Changkong, and patted his shoulder. “My buddy here is a rocker, a drummer... but the band couldn’t make it big and disbanded, and he has no relatives so he came to me.”

Mo Changkong said obediently, “En, I drummed.”

Back in the day he had made a divine drum with Kui leather, and played for fun with a drumstick made of the thunder beasts’s bone. The sound travelled for five hundred li, caused massive waves in the oceans, and scared dragons. It was a lot of fun.

That drum seems to be still in his seed space?

If Shizun wants to listen to him drum, of course he would. But all the water-beings around might cause a fuss. Though he’s not afraid of a fuss either, they’ll settle down if he beat them all up...

Lu Yunzhen saw that the matter was settled and let out a breath. Seeing that Mo Changkong wasn’t asking for the rock back, he decided not to bring it up again and leave it with Chen-jie as an apology for scaring her.

He turned around, and noticed a black BMW parked near the street corner. A middle aged man in a fine suit got out of the car and carefully opened the door. Two men who seem to be daoshi got out and walked together into the run down building nearby.

The rundown building was built only five years ago. It was originally going to be some kind of commerce center and bolster the local economy. Lu Yunzhen was actually looking forwarding to it for quite a while, thinking that there would be more part time jobs available.

But then, whether it be the developer had lacked capital or run into trouble, the building had been abandoned for several years. Is the work restarting?

Lu Yunzhen asked Chen-jie about it out of curiosity. She chuckled and explained, “Longhui Developers took it over. I heard that it wasn’t going well and a few workers had gotten injured. The boss thought it might be haunted and invited some masters here for an exorcism.”

Lu Yunzhen was about to scoff at the notion of ghosts, but luckily remembered the previous night and the supernatural being standing beside them. He quickly swallowed the words back down.

He can’t be an atheist anymore...

Lu Yunzhen was dejected for a moment, but then cheered up immediately. He’s never seen real daoshi at work, how interesting! He followed the aunties to watch, not wanting to lose a good spot if he was slow.

After running for two steps, he remembered Mo Changkong and asked hurridly, “Are you afraid of daoshi?”

Mo Changkong shook his head, “Daoshi are afraid of me.”

Lu Yunzhen had realized quite quickly that Mo Chankong wasn’t afraid of sunlight, ate normally, and casts a shadow... He was probably not some kind of a demon but something nice like a nature spirit.

Thus he happily skipped over to watch the exorcism.

There was no fence around the building. Longhui Developers had hired a few guards, but he couldn’t stop gawkerrs on the street. Everyone stood on the other side of the warning tape and gossiped while snacking on sunflower seeds.

“I heard the fengshui is bad in this building, it’s a fortune loser.”

“No no, I heard the developer ran off.”

“Didn’t they say the owner was sent to jail for embezzlement and accepting bribes?”

“You’re all wrong. I have a relative who’s security at a real estate place. He said the original owner had a thing going on with his relative and wanted a divorce. The wife made a huge fuss, reported him, and sent him to jail herself.”

“I see, I wonder if the secretary was pretty...”

“These homewreckers are all vixens. Didn’t Aunt Xie’s son also get a divorce?”

“No, he was a gambler...”

After a few back and forths the topic had been completely derailed.

Lu Yunzhen took the chance to introduce everyone to the unemployed drummer Mo Changkong, so he couldn’t be taken as a thug and get the police called on him.

The neighbourhood had watch Lu Yunzhen grow up and knew he was a good, likeable guy. The explanation was accepted very easily.

...

The owner of Longhui Developers is Mr. Wang. He bought the land at a discount and then realized there were issues. Construction workers would hear strange noises at night, carefully stacked bricks would fall over. Luckily he hadn’t skimped on the safety helmets, otherwise the workers would have been sent to the crematorium instead of the hospital.

Mr Wang didn’t dare take on a lawsuit for wrongful death, but he didn’t want to give up on the land either.

He reached out through connections to the Association of Mystical Arts and spent a fortune bringing in two masters. Supposedly they’re direct disciples at the Baimao sect, and are very strong cultivators who specialized in summoning divinity for exorcisms.

The two are sect brothers. The elder was around fourth, with a dashing aura and a slight beard on his dark face. He brought in a new shidi who held a bagua compass and circled the building.

Lu Yunzhen suddenly felt like there was something wrong with his eyes. He seems to to have seen some black mist rising from the old ficus by the door of the building?

He rubbed his eyes hard.

Mo Chagkong had only focused on his Shizun. Seeing that he was a little uncomfortable, he asked with concern, “Shizun, what happened?”

Lu Yunzhen whispered back, “I saw some strange black mist...”

Mo Changkong followed his line of slight, took a glance, and replied with a total lack of interest. “It’s nothing, just a weak little evil spirit.”

“Oh, an evil spirit.” Lu Yunzhen relaxed, then a moment later he realized what just happened. He tugged at Mo Changkong’s hem and was so panicked his voice had changed, “why am I seeing these things?”

Mo Changkong couldn’t understand. “You’ve always been able to see them.”

Shizun’s body was filled with the spiritual energy of the earth and skies, not to mention he was an innate sword cultivator. Hie eyes could catch the fastest of speeds. Even now that he’s a mortal and there’s been a 70 or 80 percent discount on his sight it’s still natural for him to see the supernatural.

He organized his words, prepared and script, and explained.

“This isn’t natural is it?” Lu Yunzhen was feeling hopeless. He explained desperately, “that tree has been there for years, I even climbed it when I was a kid, and I’ve never seen these....”

Mo Changkong thought for a moment. “Shizun’s destiny has been changed by force. The shackles that shielded your spiritual power has also been loosened.”

Immortals who fall into the mortal realm will all have their powers restrained as to shield divine secrets along with stopping cheating and hiding from punishment.

Lu Yunzhen was punished harshly and been tortured at every lifetime, he shouldn’t have been able to live past twenty.

Now that he’s not dead, his destiny has been changed and his powers weren’t restrained anymore.

Lu Yunzhen understood, “I have yinyang eyes now?”

Mo Changkong nodded, “En.”

Lu Yunzhen was still hung up on it, “I’m going to see ghosts?”

Mo Changkong nodded, “En.”

The image of scary ghosts from movies floated in to Lu Yunzhen’s head. He was a little scared and a little sad... but Mo Changkong’s calm attitude comforted him a lot.

His life was snatched from death anyway, it’s no big deal to see the dead... He’ll just pretend he can’t see any, and anyway maybe he can see some gentle and cute ghost ladies?

Lu Yunzhen thought of the movie A Chinese Ghost Story and chuckled wryly. He was used to all kinds of misfortune. If he couldn’t self soothe and self comfort he wouldn’t have been able to last for this long.

He decided to not think about it and keep watching the excitement.

The two daoshi circled the ficus a few times, confirmed the direction on the bagua compass, frowned with a serious expression, and took out a money sword.

The old copper pieces carried a faint spiritual power and was definitely not an ordinary sword. Seems like they’re really pulling out the stops.

Mr Wang was a little panicked, “Master? Is this going to be difficult?”

The older daoshi nodded, “It’s rather difficult.”

He pointed at his shidi, placed 5 soul gathering flags around the ficus, then pulled up an incense table, put down a divine tablet, and offered up incense, flowers, light, water, and fruits.

After a fervent prayer to their patriarch, they asked the magic sigil, then stood up and yelled, “Dig!”

A few construction workers followed the instructions and started with shovels, About two meters in they finally dug up a tattered old idol.

The crowd cheered.

The daoshi felt helpless against the crown. He wrapped the statue in yellow cloth imbued with spells, then invited his shidi to start reciting the scripture to summon divinity.

Lu Yunzhen’s eyesight was simply fantastic. He could see that a black mist was wriggling around the idol and trying to escape from the cloth.

Every line of scripture added an additional bit of power from the patriarch. With the evil spirit inside the idol the power was rather balanced on both sides. It was going to be a battle of attrition.

The time was creeping closer to noon and the sun was getting hotter.

The crowd of aunties and uncles saw that the daoshi was just reciting sutras for ages and felt bored at the lack of action. With the hot weather it was getting uncomfortable to keep standing, so they scattered to go have lunch.

Lu Yunzhen could see more than the others and listened to Mo Changkong’s explanation. He knew the daoshi wanted to use the yang energy at noontime to seal the spirit, but it really was very boring and he wanted to go.

He looked up at the tablet on the incense table and muttered, “Supreme Taiqing Zhenyuan Zhengjun? Who’s that? They seem powerful...”

Mo Changkong thought for a long time and whispered, “Xuanyuan daoren was a good friend of yours back in the day, he was shameless and often came to Wujian peak to steal alcohol...”

Lu Yunzhen chuckled and felt like the joke sounded too serious.

How could he be friends with a lofty immortal?

AS noon approached, the evil creature in the idol realized the daoshi’s intentions and resisted frantically, finally breaking through the seal.

The elder daoshi grabbed a bottle of old Maotai that was prepared earlier and poured it directly into the earth. His spiritual power immediately increased by another notch with the offering.

The aroma of the drink wafted out for ten meters.

Lu Yunzhen smelt his heart breaking. That was a bottle of wine that he would never afford in this lifetime... To think that this offering only gained so little spiritual power, he couldn’t help but retort, “The Xuanyuan immortal really is a stingy...”

Mo Changkong agreed, “You always called him a miser.”

As soon as those words were uttered...

Thunder crackled across the clear sky, and the spiritual power on the daoshi surged and rushed towards the idol like a tidal wave.