He led the four children out of the temple, where a dense crowd of villagers had gathered outside, watching him intently without even taking a breath.
Chen Shi looked back and saw that only Liu Fugui was following him; the other three children were trapped by the temple's threshold, unable to jump out no matter what they tried.
Chen Shi returned to the temple and said, "Follow me out, we'll go have a look at the scene."
One of the children said, "I can't get out. When I get to the threshold, it just keeps getting higher, blocking us!"
The other two children nodded repeatedly.
Upon hearing this, Chen Shi looked towards the fat deity behind the offerings.
The fat deity said lazily, "Others get the meat, I get the soup; these three little ghosts are dead, and their souls have been sacrificed to me. You can't take them away."
Chen Shi asked, puzzled, "Why is Fugui able to leave?"
"He's not dead yet, only his soul has left his body," the fat deity said, "Once he dies, his soul will belong to me too."
Chen Shi gave him a deep look and, without trying to take the other three children, said to Liu Fugui, "Let's go to the Tian Family's abandoned house!"
He walked outside, and the villagers made way for him. Liu Fugui hurriedly followed him through the crowd.
"Will this little talisman master be able to handle it?" someone worriedly said.
"There's nothing in the temple; he's just there talking to himself, he might have mental problems."
Chen Shi ignored the comments and asked Liu Fugui to lead the way, quickly arriving at the front of the Tian Family's abandoned house.
The abandoned house was also made of earthen walls with not a single brick; it was built of mud and ash, simply erected with beams and columns, covered with straw for a front hall.
The door to the front hall was locked with a chain that had rusted over.
In the yard stood an old locust tree, incredibly huge and lush, almost covering the entire yard.
Beyond that, the view was unclear.
Chen Shi didn't rush in. He set down his book box, took out a small knife, and Black Pot immediately stepped forward for him to draw blood with a cut.
"Black Pot, I'm sorry you're inconvenienced; I don't have the flesh of mutant beasts with me. I'll compensate you when we return."
Chen Shi ground the ink, mixed it with vermillion black dog blood, and without using a talisman paper, he directly went to the front of the Tian Family's abandoned house and started drawing a talisman on the door.
He activated the Three Light Righteous Qi Technique, and starlight began to gather around him, transforming into the constellation of the Big Dipper above him. A divine light appeared behind his head, coalescing into a shrine.
Chen Shi took a deep breath, focusing his intent and energy into the tip of his brush, and with a swift hand, he drew a complex Shen Tu Diagram on one of the door panels. Then he exhaled, and the divine light behind his head dissipated as the shrine vanished.
Since he couldn't retain True Qi, he could only manifest his divine shrine with a single breath; as soon as the breath was gone, the shrine would also dissipate.
Chen Shi took another deep breath, moistened the brush with plenty of ink, and the shrine reappeared. He then drew another Divine Talisman.
These two diagrams were the Divine Talismans depicted on the Peach Talisman.
As the two diagrams took shape, a faint divine radiance burst forth from the door, which then gradually faded until it was barely visible, merging into the air and becoming indistinguishable to the naked eye.
Chen Shi exhaled foul air and said, "The Peach Talisman shows no reaction, which suggests that there is no evil spirit inside this abandoned house at all."
Had there been an evil spirit, it would surely have triggered the Peach Talisman, causing the two Door Gods depicted on it to leap out and drive away the evil spirit!
Now that the Peach Talisman wasn't activated, it indicated there were no evil spirits in the abandoned house.
"Then, who exactly is it that kidnapped the bed-wetting children?"
Chen Shi, holding his ink and brush, lightly pinched and broke the chain that locked the door, then pushed open the door and walked into the courtyard—although he lacked mana, his physical strength had been growing stronger.
Black Pot and Liu Fugui hurriedly followed after him.
The villagers stayed outside, not daring to enter.
The yard was overgrown with wild grass and trees, with the locust tree being the largest.
Chen Shi approached the locust tree, and concentrating with the brush in hand, he took advantage of the True Qi that had yet to dissipate and drew a Five Mountains House Charm on the tree.
He glimpsed a dried-up well in the courtyard and immediately approached it, drawing a Well Talisman along its edge.
With this, the Peach Talisman at the front warding off evil, the Five Mountains House Charm in the center, and even the well sealed by the Well Talisman, the abandoned Tian Family house became as secure as a fortified city, impenetrable to outside evils. If there was any malevolence within the courtyard, it would feel as though it was being suppressed by the great weight of the Five Mountains, unable to move an inch.
Chen Shi put away his brush and asked, "Fugui, where did you wake up?"
"Right in the family hall!"
Liu Fugui hurried into the family hall and said, "It was here!"
Chen Shi followed but saw no sign of Liu Fugui.
The family hall was empty, with only an altar table, upon which sat eight pitch-black ancestral tablets, and the tables and chairs were covered in dust, the corners of the walls were cobwebbed.
Chen Shi called out loudly, but the Fugui who had just rushed into the family hall had disappeared without a trace.
Chen Shi went to the side room on the left and immediately felt an oppressive chill. There, in this left side room, stood four jet-black coffins, each placed neatly atop benches.
He bravely approached and saw the nails were still in the coffins, indicating they had been placed here a long time ago.
Chen Shi thought about it but decided not to open the coffins.
He moved to the side room on the right, where four more black coffins were stationed on benches but had not been placed on the ground.
Chen Shi slightly furrowed his brows; these eight black coffins were likely the Tian Family's, and for some reason, they had only been enclosed in coffins but not buried.
There were no signs of the coffin nails being removed.
"Fugui clearly came in just now; how could he suddenly vanish? Unless..."
Chen Shi's gaze fell on the coffins, hesitated for a moment, then moved to open a coffin - at that moment, a barking sound came from a dog. Chen Shi returned to the main hall, only to see Black Pot staying outside the family hall, not entering, but instead staring upward and barking incessantly.
Chen Shi looked up and was stunned.
The roof above the great beams of the family hall appeared to have been recently repaired, not with straw thatch but with evenly placed wooden boards, arranged in a herringbone pattern, the thick boards planed smooth and brilliant. Therein, painted in blood from some mysterious source, were the highly complex and brilliant red talismans.
These talismans were exceptionally large, each with a circumference of more than a yard, with a total of five talismans.
The structure of the talismans was very bizarre; squinting, the lines would blur, and they resembled five ferocious heads with gaping bloody mouths and tongues stretching more than a yard long, ghastly and ghostly!
Hanging from the mouths of the talismanic ghost heads were five chains, on each of which was strung a child, their hands and feet bound and suspended from the roof.
The eyelids of these children had been hooked open with fishhooks, pulling up both the top and bottom lids, and their noses were also hooked upward.
Their mouths were stretched open in four directions with fishhooks at each corner, making their mouths appear very large.
With their heads down and bodies hanging diagonally, their tongues were pierced through with iron hooks and pulled downward.
The iron hooks were connected to thin iron chains that led to a small cauldron the size of a palm at the end.
Their tongues were stretched out long, and the blood flowing down from their tongues followed the hooks and chains into the small cauldron.
Chen Shi saw that one of the children was the skinny boy who had just wanted to befriend him and quickly shouted, "Liu Fugui! Wake up! Wake up!"
The boy seemed to hear his call, his eyes moving dimly.
A surge of elation rose in Chen Shi's heart.
"You're still alive!"
"Don't move, Fugui! I'm coming to save you!"
——The talismans used by Xiao Shi in this Chapter will be detailed in the author's comments at the end of this Chapter; readers are invited to consult them!!