Chapter 87: Yellow paper and cinnabars
With Long Zhanye keeping watch, everyone naturally feels more secure. While Qin Jun cradles Li Qing in his arms and nap in the back seat of the off-road vehicle, Huo Zaiyuan is manhandled into a comfortable position by Long Zhanye and has a deep, sizzling kiss stolen by the man. In another fit of embarrassment, he escapes into his space.
"Rascal…" Red lips pinched together and face still aflame, Huo Zaiyuan huffily walks into the bamboo house. To think that his calm and tranquil heart can be so easily shaken by a man's intense kiss!
"Squeak…cheep!" Seeing Huo Zaiyuan appear, the little tree spirit is filled with joy, immediately drifting towards the human, arms wrapped around a bright red apple this time. Hovering in the air before the youth, it presents the fruit like a precious treasure.
Rubbing a palm gently on the little guy's soft hair, Huo Zaiyuan conveys that he has just eaten his fill and urges the spirit to go play.
Ever since the tree spirit resides in this space, the crops on the plantation grow increasingly lush. In addition, when a few fruits and vegetables ripen, they will always transform, appearance becoming very different from the others that are still not ready to be harvested. Even the ten plus potted, near-death fruit tree saplings he found in the back of the truck have been coaxed into great health once more by the spirit.
When the little guy leaves the house, Huo Zaiyuan sits before the low table, drinking a mouthful of peach juice to replenish some of the energy he spent setting up the large-scale, multiple-layered barrier. Setting the tube aside, he opens the chest of items left by grandmother Zhang.
Although he was absolutely clueless about spells and Taoist Arts before, when he first got started on carving his own talismans, he stubbornly stuck to his own peach wood tiles and coins. A Taoist using yellow paper, he has only ever seen that on television.
Within this chest, there are several stacks of yellow paper. Taking one from each pile out to study, he realises that each paper feels different. Some are thin like normal writing paper while others are cardboard hard. He eventually narrows them down to three different kinds, but in the end, which amongst the three is the best type, he has absolutely no idea. The only way to find out is to use them.
He doesn't touch the cinnabar jars in the chest, instead taking out the saucer and placing a few crystals on it before adding a few drops of spring water. The Holy Dragon Bome Brush appears in his hand. Dipping the bristles into the scarlet ink, he proceeds to draw runes onto the yellow paper.
Mixing materials like spring water with devil ant crystals have always yielded ink with potent spiritual energy, and when one uses it to draw runes, one can feel a fascinating flow of power moving through it.
In one go, he draws the simplest charm for repelling evil aura onto the paper. Just as he pens the final strike, a sudden 'boom' rings out and the paper ignites in golden flames, burning to ashes.
Having never been met with such a situation, Huo Zaiyuan is a little alarmed. The shock turns into puzzlement as he feels the spiritual energy originally gathered in the piece of paper scatter the moment it burns to ash.
Perhaps this ink created from the fusion of spring water and crystal contains too much spiritual power for the yellow paper to properly contain it. Thus, the overload of energy caused the paper to ignite.
After that revelation, Huo Zaiyuan tests the ink on the other two types of paper. At last, he determines that only the flat and smooth one has the ability to contain the large power of the scarlet ink. Like this, he categorises them as low quality, medium quality and high quality papers. Naturally, the lower quality it is, the less energy it can contain before it overloads. From this, he concludes that the peach wood he has been using all this time is of a much higher quality than these yellow papers.
Once he confirms the grades of these papers, Huo Zaiyuan moves on to experimenting with the various pottery jars of cinnabars. He at least knows cinnabars are materials used to create paint to draw runes on the talismans, so they should yield similar results to his scarlet ink. As there is only powder within each of the jars, Huo Zaiyuan directly pours some amount of spring water into one of them, blending them together. As one is unable to see any results from this simple mixture, he dips the brush into the cinnabar paint and draws another simple evil aura warding spell on the lowest quality paper.
Nothing startling happens when the last stroke is drawn, obviously showing that the cinnabar paint contains a lot less spiritual energy than his scarlet ink. This discovery serves to pique his inquisitive mind.
To contain such rich spiritual energy…what in the world are devil ant crystals made of?
Are they truly mere matter left behind after the living ants are burned by his golden flames?
Or are there more secrets he has yet to uncover behind it?