"Our inn's business is to collect people's longevity, merit or luck."
"Generally speaking, merit is collected, but you are neither a Taoist, nor do you have much longevity or luck..."
"I'm afraid..."
Lao Xu's eyes dimmed again, and after giving a wry smile, he picked up the wine glass and looked at Zhang Hao:
"Master, I wonder if all my lifespan can be exchanged for my son's life?"
Zhang Hao also picked up the wine glass, took a sip silently, then picked up a piece of chicken and put it in his mouth.
Lao Xu now knows that Zhang Hao is the shopkeeper.
Seeing that he remained silent, my heart sank. But thinking about what Zhang Hao had said before, it was a good thing they saw him earlier, otherwise they would have died within three days.
If you say so, Zhang Hao must have a solution. So why are you so silent now?
Is it really all just because of those rules?
Lao Xu showed a wry smile, then waved his hand gently, and said helplessly: "Well, maybe this is fate, the Xu family is destined to have this difficulty." His eyes were full of sadness, "It's just that I have suffered so much." Innocent child! ”
After saying that, he sighed, turned around and walked into the kitchen, continuing to work on the dishes in his hands, without mentioning this matter again.
In an instant, only Zhang Hao and a few others were left in the room.
The atmosphere was silent, everyone just ate in silence and occasionally drank a few sips of wine.
After the meal, Zhang Qilin walked straight to the yard and stood by the door to rest for a while.
Hao Xie and Fatty Wang were full of wine and food. After a brief chat with Zhang Hao, they also came to the yard. They stared at the corpse on the ground, affixed a general talisman, mixed cinnabar with glutinous rice, and poured it into the corpse.
Huo Xiuer stayed in the house and helped Lao Xu clean up the room.
After Zhang Hao finished his meal, perhaps because he was drunk, he fell directly on the bed.
When Lao Xu saw that Hao Xie and Fatty Wang had disposed of the body properly, a glimmer of hope ignited in his heart. He was about to ask Zhang Hao when a cold wind suddenly blew in the yard. Then, a strange and ethereal voice came from the corpse: "What a delusion, do you think you can avoid me like this?"
Then, there was a sinister sneer, "Stop dreaming!"
Immediately afterwards, bursts of shrill cries echoed in the yard.
Everyone knew as soon as they heard it that it was Huang Pizi's voice.
However, Fatty Wang, Hao Xie, and Zhang Qilin were all people who had seen the world, but at this moment they did not feel the slightest trace of Yin Qi or evil spirit, and did not even see any ghosts.
This unusual situation made them panic. After all, this was their first time dealing with monsters.
When Lao Xu saw this, he was even more frightened. He asked Hao Xie and others with a trembling voice: "Master, what should we do? Has Huang Pizi come to the door already?"
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Hao Xie and others also looked confused, knowing nothing about the origin of Huang Pizi.
The cry seemed to have magic power, making people dizzy after listening to it. Hao Xie and others even felt a surge of anger in their chests for no reason, as if it was about to explode at any time.
At this moment, a deep roar suddenly came from inside the house: "What are you talking about! Don't you know I'm sleeping? Get out of here!" This roar came from Zhang Hao.
The strange thing is that after Zhang Hao's voice, everyone seemed to have been poured a basin of cold water on them, and they suddenly woke up, and the weird crying stopped abruptly.
Everyone looked at each other with fear in their hearts. Lao Xu looked at the steel fork tightly held in his hand, secretly glad that he was not impulsive. He muttered to himself: "Did I get crazy just now? If I really bumped into it, wouldn't I have to keep company with that corpse?" Thinking of this, he couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat.
Hao Xie and others also came to their senses and found that the anger in their hearts had dissipated with Zhang Hao's roar. They hurriedly ran into the house and saw Zhang Hao turned over on the bed, closed his eyes and took out a piece of red paper sprinkled with cinnabar from his arms, dipped it with the remaining wine in the cup, and then wrote on the red paper A word "福".
After he finished writing, he threw the word "Fu" to Lao Xu and cursed in a rare way: "Did this yellow-skinned boy grow up eating a lot of fat? It makes me upset." Then he ordered, "You guys put this first The word "Fu" is posted on the window of the north room, and I will do the rest after I wake up."
Lao Xu took the word "Fu" with a puzzled look on his face. This piece of "Fu" character looks no different from the one posted at his home during the Chinese New Year. It is even simpler, without any decoration, just one word written on cinnabar paper. However, anyone who knows Zhang Hao knows that he never does useless work.
Seeing this, Hao Xie patted Lao Xu on the shoulder and told him to do as Zhang Hao said.
After Lao Xu hesitated for a moment, he stuck the word "福" on the window of the north room.
The strange thing is that after putting the word "Fu" on it, he did feel that the atmosphere around him was not as oppressive as before.
After pasting the words "Fu", Lao Xu returned to the house and saw that Zhang Hao was still sleeping soundly, so he did not disturb him. He followed Hao Xie and others outside the house. Fatty Wang asked Hao Xie and Zhang Qilin with a confused look on his face: "What does the shopkeeper's painting of the word "Fu" mean? Is there any secret in it? I have never seen him like this before. One move." Zhang Qilin also shook his head and remained silent.
After Hao Xie pondered for a moment, he slowly said: "I have heard about it. The word "Fu" was not only posted during the Spring Festival. It first had the function of warding off evil spirits. "Mengliang Lu" records... No matter the family of scholars or common people, Everyone cleans the door and courtyard to remove dust and filth, cleans the courtyard, changes the door god, hangs the bell and nail the peach charms, puts up the spring sign, and worships the ancestors. The spring card refers to the word "福" written on red paper. Today, the word "福" means happiness and blessing, but in the past, the word "福" was the same as "Fu" for "Conquer", so it also contained the meaning of "Conquering evil things". This unique skill has been gradually lost over the course of history, and few people can write the word "福" with this function. ”
After Hao Xie finished speaking, Zhang Qilin, Fatty Wang and Huo Xiuer all froze on the spot, looking confused.
Hao Xie smiled awkwardly and said: "This is just a legend I heard. As for whether it is true, I don't know. If you want to know the truth, I'm afraid I can only wait until Brother Zhang Hao wakes up."
At this time, Zhang Qilin nodded slightly, stared at the north room and said, "I can feel that after pasting this blessing character, this room was enveloped by a layer of auspicious aura. The evil spirit does not dare to come near here now. It seems that , the shopkeeper’s blessing word has taken effect.”
After listening to the conversation between several people, Lao Xu became even more convinced that Zhang Hao was the legendary master.
However, he also knew that an expert would not take action easily. It was already a great gift for Zhang Hao to give him a blessing. Now he wanted to ask Zhang Hao to help solve Huang Pizi's problem, and he couldn't help but feel a lot of pressure in his heart.
At this moment, Zhang Qilin drew out the ancient black gold sword behind him, walked into the yard, and with one blow picked out the yellow leather hidden in the corpse.
Although one is yellow-skinned and the other is human, they are both corpses after all.
With these two corpses combined in this way, it is inevitable that the evil spirits will blend together. If time goes by, some monster might be born.
Just as Zhang Qilin separated the two bodies, Xu's anxious voice suddenly came from outside the yard: "Old Xu! Old Xu, it's not good! Our Tiezhu is dying!" Xu's voice was full of panic. and eagerness.
After a while, her figure appeared at the door of the yard, looking at Lao Xu in the yard with a panicked look, and continued to shout: "Lao Xu! Look at Tie Zhu..."
Then, before Lao Xu could react, several men appeared behind Mrs. Xu. One of the strongest men hugged a child about twelve or thirteen years old and hurried into the yard.
The man did not put the child down, but looked at Sister-in-law Xu with a reproachful look on his face and asked, "Sister-in-law, this child is going to die. If you don't send him to the hospital, why do you have to send him home?"
At this time, the child in the man's hands turned pale, as if suffocated, and the skin on his body began to turn purple. He had a heartbeat, but he wasn't breathing at all.
Under normal circumstances, it is impossible to hold your breath like this even if you hold your breath. Therefore, the child's symptoms were extremely strange, as if something was holding his throat and preventing him from breathing.
If it had been a few more minutes, the child would have suffocated to death. Although the man was blaming, he also understood in his heart that the conditions in their small village were limited and there was not even a trace of a motor vehicle.
If you want to send your child to a hospital in the county town, the only way is to use an old ox cart to drive there slowly. By the time you reach the county town, you may have missed the best opportunity for treatment.
However, the village is lucky enough to have a health station that can respond to emergencies.
On weekdays, it's pretty okay to prescribe cold medicine, injections, etc. to the villagers.
But when faced with this sudden and strange disease, the people at the health station were helpless.
As for the man holding the child, he is the person in charge of the health station.
He looked at Tie Zhu, completely confused as to why he was suddenly suffocated.
From a medical point of view, this child is obviously very healthy.
But it happened that he fell into a coma as if possessed by an evil spirit, and Tie Zhu behaved irrationally.
When Lao Xu saw Tie Zhu's appearance, he was so anxious that he couldn't help shouting:
"Tie Zhu! What's wrong with you? Wake up! Aren't you suffocating yourself to death?"
At this time, Zhang Qilin, Hao Xie and Fatty Wang also gathered around. Hao Xie and Fatty Wang were not very sensitive to evil spirits, but Zhang Qilin immediately noticed that there were two evil spirits in Tiezhu's body.
One stream of demonic energy stuck in his throat, and another stream filled his lungs, making it impossible for Tie Zhu to breathe.
Although Zhang Qilin sensed the evil spirit, he didn't know how to deal with it.
He hurriedly took out a Great General Talisman from his arms and stuck it on Tiezhu, only to find that the demonic energy only made him even more panicked.
I thought it would start to work, but I didn't expect that the demonic energy in the throat actually penetrated directly into the trachea as if it was avoiding something.
This not only failed to force out the demonic energy, but also made Tiezhu's situation more dangerous.
Zhang Qilin couldn't help but panic. Seeing this, Lao Xu quickly asked Zhang Qilin:
"Master, how is my child doing?"
Zhang Qilin looked troubled, shook his head, and said softly: "This evil spirit is too stubborn, and I am helpless."
As soon as he finished speaking, the surrounding villagers began to whisper.
"What kind of evil spirit is this? From the Xu family, you came back in a hurry just because you invited these magicians?"
"Xu family, please stop messing around! If your child is sick, instead of sending him to the hospital, he comes to see these immortals. You are trying to harm the child!"
"That's right, what age are we in, do you still believe this?"
"It's over, it's over. It's too late to send him to the hospital now. This child... I'm afraid he won't last long."
"If I had known you came back for this, I shouldn't have advised you to come back with Tiezhu."
"Stop dawdling, and rush to the hospital!"
……
Sister-in-law Xu was speechless after being criticized by the villagers, but at the moment she only had Tiezhu in her heart and could not listen to any words at all. She only saw Tie Zhu lying in the man's arms with a livid face.
At this time, Huo Xiuer stood up and explained to the villagers:
"Everyone, listen to me. It's too late to send Tiezhu to the hospital."
"There's no better way anyway, why don't we give it a try?"
Then, she turned to Lao Xu and continued:
"Old Xu, if Brother Qilin is right, what suffocates Tie Zhu is the evil spirit of Huangpizi."
"As long as we can dispel this yellow-skinned evil spirit, Tiezhu should be able to get better."
"Why don't we move the iron pillar to the north room? Isn't the north room protected by the fortune sign?"
"If that still doesn't work, let's stick the lucky character on Tiezhu, maybe we can force out those two evil spirits!"
After hearing Huo Xiuer's words, the villagers wanted to refute, but in this era, although there are not many people who believe in evil spirits, no one is willing to say anything at this time.
At this moment, Lao Xu suddenly snatched the iron pillar from the man's hand and ran straight to the north room.
As soon as he entered the room, he found that Tie Zhu began to foam at the mouth and twitched all over, which made Lao Xu even more flustered.
"Tiezhu! What's wrong with you? Don't scare dad!"
Before he finished speaking, Tie Zhu suddenly straightened up and then fainted.
Seeing this scene, everyone was stunned. Lao Xu shook Tiezhu's body in disbelief, but he had no reaction.
Tiezhu Niang collapsed instantly, collapsed on the ground and cried loudly.
At this time, the room was filled with Tiezhu Niang's cries, and the villagers who originally wanted to gossip also closed their mouths and looked at poor Tiezhu Niang and Lao Xu with sympathetic looks in their eyes.
Lao Xu stared at Tie Zhu blankly, not daring to accept this fact. He suddenly remembered that there was an expert living in the house, so he didn't care about etiquette and rushed directly into the house next to him.
As soon as he entered the room, he saw that Zhang Hao had sat up, obviously awakened by the movement just now.
Seeing Zhang Hao getting up, Lao Xu only had Tiezhu's safety in his mind. Without thinking, he knelt down in front of Zhang Hao and begged with tears in his eyes:
"Master! Please save my child!"
"He must have been avenged by that yellow man! Otherwise, how could he have such a strange disease?"
Hao Xie briefly told Zhang Hao what happened. After hearing this, Zhang Hao patted the edge of the bed and motioned to Lao Xu to put down the iron pillar.
He felt Tie Zhu's pulse, frowned slightly and said, "There are still signs of life."
"Go and get me cinnabar and yellow dog's blood. It doesn't take much, just a few bottle caps."
"Take two more cloves of garlic and chop them into minced garlic." (End of Chapter)