Chapter 316 - Talisman

Chapter 316 - Talisman

The wheels of the horse carriage slowly rolled down the path. The weight of the Black Taisui and Li Huowang’s belongings made the heavy carriage leave a trail on the muddy path.

Li Huowang carefully drove the carriage as he glanced at Bun who was walking beside the carriage. Then, he held Bun’s neck and pulled it up onto the carriage.

Bonk bonk bonk bonk~

Bun’s wagging tail was like a wooden stick that kept hitting the wooden carriage. New novel chapters are published on

Seeing this, Li Huowang irritatedly pushed Bun and said, “Calm down!”

Then, he took out the letter that Tuoba Danqing had given him.

Just as before, there was an address written on it, but compared to last time, there was nothing else written on it about what had happened at the place. The only thing that was written on it was that two Yellow-ranked informants had died at the location, and so the person going there had to be extra cautious.

While Li Huowang didn’t know how strong Yellow-ranked informants were, he knew that it was not a minor issue.

There was no way that Tuoba Danqing would be able to use this to help him get promoted to the next rank if this were a minor issue.

While he knew that it might be dangerous, Li Huowang wasn’t afraid. He was already used to it after encountering so many deadly situations. After all, a man who had overcome the fear of death would be fearless.

After that, Li Huowang took out the talisman guidebook and read it once again. He read the first page which contained a brief introduction on talismans.

The introduction explained that there was either a Daoist by the surname He or someone called He Dao who discovered a method to use the power of the world through observing nature, either by listening to the calls of the bird or by looking at the patterns left behind by insect bites[1].

The method that was born through listening to the sound of bird calls and beast howls used sound as a medium. These were categorized as ‘Chants’. On the other hand, the method that was born through the observation of the insect’s bite marks and the constellations used drawings as a medium. These were categorized as ‘Talismans’.

However, the introduction only said that the methods were derived through observation. Thus, Li Huowang didn’t think that the power of the world would bite back at the user just by looking at it accidentally. Who knew what kind of power they’d borrowed from in this crazy world.

At the same time, he realized that everyone had their own logic in this crazy world, and that most of their viewpoints clashed with those of others.

When Li Huowang raised his head, he saw that it was a peddler. As he saw the peddler walking into the distance, Li Huowang quickly chased after him with his horse carriage. He was quite close to the destination and he needed more information on the town.

“Hey! Wait up!”

When the peddler saw the bronze coin sword on Li Huowang’s back and his red Daoist robes, he placed down his shoulder pole and rubbed the sweat on his face. Then, he stared warily at Li Huowang. “What do you need, Daoist?”

“Nothing much. I was just thinking that it would be safer to travel with others. No reason to lose our lives to the bandits,” replied Li Huowang.

“Haha, Sir Daoist is quite the jokester. I don’t know about the other places, but there are no bandits around here. Rather than bandits, we should be more wary about the beasts within the forest,” replied the peddler.

“Really? But I’ve heard that this area is not very safe?” said Li Huowang, throwing out the hook as he waited for the fish to bite.

“That’s just within the county, and has nothing to do with us. Besides, there’s the merchant guild within the county and they don’t really need peddlers like us.”

“Oh? Is that so? This is my first time here and I don’t know the place all that well,” said Li Huowang, trying to dredge up some more information.

However, faced with his questions, the peddler kept his mouth sharp; it was as if he was wary of something.

Seeing this, Li Huowang did not ask any further but instead looked at the peddler’s wares as he asked, “What do you have for sale?”

Seeing that there was business to be done, the peddler instantly perked up. “I’m a food peddler, so I naturally sell food. I have a lot of types of pastes, orange dumplings, maltose sweets, and other such knick-knacks.”

After buying half of the peddler’s wares, Li Huowang once again raised his earlier queries. This time, the peddler finally answered after much hesitation.

The peddler looked toward the forest warily before whispering to Li Huowang. “Remember; you mustn’t tell this to others. I’ve heard that the Cangshui County has ghosts.”

“Ghosts?” Li Huowang was shocked. He had never expected someone to tell him something like this.

“Yeah. Do you remember the Ghost Festival that we celebrated recently in July? It’s said that the King of Hell forgot to close the gates, and now the beings of Hell have escaped.”

However, Li Huowang did not believe any of it. The peddler would have to be a God to know that the King of Hell forgot to close the gates to Hell. “What has happened to Cangshui County? Don’t exaggerate anything and tell me only the truth.”

1. Bite marks refer to the path certain insects make when feeding, such as termites where you can see the hollow paths in the wood they chewed through ?