Chapter Twelve: Guī Yìn

  Facing his grandfather who seemed to know the secret, Qin Feng suddenly became excited. After searching for so long, it was finally his own grandfather who knew the answer to this riddle.

  "What is written on this?" Qin Feng repeated again.

  Grandfather carefully looked at it again, frowning and locking his eyes with a serious expression. He was somewhat incredulous, but more surprised. "Xiao Feng, this is not some kind of text, this is a symbol seal!"

  "Seal?"

  Qin Feng spent so many days and didn't think it was this kind of thing. The marks on it look very much like text, especially the second character, which is indeed similar to the "yìn" in clerical script. However, upon closer inspection, one will find that the marks on it are more pictorial than text, approaching the edge of graphics.

  "What is this seal?" Qin Feng asked again.

  Grandfather looked at it for a long time, only to see that the strokes and patterns on this thing are far more complex and symbolic than traditional Chinese talismans. To say that Grandfather is also a genuine Taoist master with some skill in brushwork, he has seen his fair share of Daoist talismans, but this one has left him completely baffled.

  Grandfather shook his head, didn't know what the symbol was, and just said: "The use of this symbol is not common, and I haven't seen it before. It doesn't seem to be a Taoist thing."

  "Isn't it something from Taoism? What could it be?"

  "I'm not sure." Grandpa pulled out a pack of Long White Mountain cigarettes from his breast pocket, lit one up, took a sudden drag, and exhaled a swirling mist of smoke. He continued, "But based on my years of experience, I can tell you that this thing is definitely unusual. You'd better be careful."

  "Could it be another Taoist sect?"

  "It's not like that, all Taoist sects' talismans are connected in a certain way, and they can't escape the category of starting with a stroke, hooking, and adding seals. The corresponding text symbols also have rules. However, the seal on this box is something I've never seen before, but at first glance, I can tell it's round and messy, and the symbol is unique, which goes against the heavenly mechanism and violates common sense."

  Grandfather spoke a string of professional terms, Qin Feng listened and got a headache, but he could hear the general idea from it, that is, this symbol was not done by the Taoist sects. "Could it be Buddhism?" Qin Feng turned his gaze to Buddhism.

  "It's also impossible, Buddhism doesn't have such a symbol. It's even more impossible to come up with such a strange and weird seal!"

  "So what's the meaning of this? It can't be a prank, drawn carelessly at the time of burial, right?"

  "It's impossible! As a Taoist disciple, how could he possibly blaspheme against the divine and recklessly paint with abandon?"

  Grandpa puffed on his pipe and began to ponder again, repeatedly looking at the patterns on it, which seemed like a snake-like tiger walk, somewhat like hieroglyphics, and somewhat like foreign characters... It seemed like he had seen them somewhere before. In a daze, Grandpa suddenly remembered something: "This looks like a Gu insect seal!"

  "Gu Yin?" "What's that?" Qin Feng asked in confusion.

  "Have you heard of Gu sorcery?" Grandfather continued.

  "I've heard of it, it seems to be a kind of sorcery popular in the Miao-Xiang region. Is this related to this talisman?"

  He trampled out his cigarette butt and stood up, walking around the room with his hands behind his back. "This is probably the Gu Yin."

  Later, Grandfather recalled the past: "You don't know that when I was young, to avoid war, I entered the Tian Shi Dao. At that time, it was during the Japanese devils' sweep period. I thought that after becoming a monk, there would be no more trouble, but those beasts still found us. To avoid the war, my master had no choice but to pack up and leave Longhu Mountain with us, coming to Yunnan. Unexpectedly, we stayed in Yunnan for seven years until the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, when we returned to Tian Shi Dao. It was also because of this that I came into contact with Gu techniques there and saw this Gu seal.

  Qin Feng had heard his grandfather mention that he had been to Yunnan to avoid chaos when he was young, but as for what his grandfather saw and heard after arriving there, his grandfather did not mention it. Even if he mentioned it when Qin Feng was young, Qin Feng had already forgotten it at such a young age.

  Before Qin Feng could speak, Grandfather opened the box and found it empty, but a chill emanated from it. Grandfather shivered unexpectedly and said: "This must be where the souls of those possessed by Gu are stored!"

  Grandpa said up to here, Qin Feng still didn't quite understand, after all he was hearing about Gu Yin for the first time, and he himself had no idea what it was used for. "Grandpa, what's the use of this Gu Yin?"

  "Guī yìn is a special technique in Guī shù used to seal the soul. If someone has been sealed with Guī yìn, their soul will be trapped in a container and cannot reincarnate, unable to escape. It's an extremely evil Guī shù technique. Years ago when I was in Yunnan, I saw a local witch cast Guī yìn on a traitor as punishment. Since it only works on the dead, Guī yìn is also known as 'hún guī', meaning to seal the soul of the deceased."

  (In some places in Miao areas, "Gu" is also called "grass ghost", and women who practice Gu are often referred to as "grass ghost mothers".)

  Upon hearing this, Qin Feng finally understood what a Gu Yin was. After some thought, he realized that such an unorthodox and sinister technique had been used on his fellow disciple, but for what reason? He couldn't figure it out, so he asked his grandfather: "Then why did the Gu Yin appear on him, and on a Tian Shi Dao practitioner from over 300 years ago?" As for Zhang's vengeful spirit, Qin Feng had always been skeptical, but now he couldn't help but feel puzzled - why would the Gu Yin seal him away, preventing him from reincarnating? Did he have some deep-seated grudge against the Gu master?

  Grandpa also wanted to know the answer. "It seems that this box is used to seal the vengeful spirits, but it's not certain if it was used on him, after all, Manager Liu got it from someone else, and who knows if there are other tombs at the construction site..."

  Too many maybes, and there's never a definite answer. Faced with numerous pressing problems, for now the only solution is to go to the construction site and look at that grave.

  It's finally Saturday, and this morning Qin Feng called Liu Manager early, saying he wanted to go take a look at the construction site.

  This time, Qin Feng planned to take Fang Yu with him, but Fang Yu said on the phone that their professor was taking them to the suburbs for an archaeological expedition today, so they didn't have time. Disappointed, Lin Ruochen suddenly came to find Qin Feng, insisting that she wanted to follow and record, planning to write a report and publish it in the newspaper, so she followed along.

  To be a journalist is to be bold, no matter how dangerous Qin Feng said it was, Lin Ruochen always had the same four words: "I must go!" Seeing that he couldn't persuade her otherwise, Qin Feng could only let things be. Manager Liu was also very generous and sent a black Passat from the company to pick up Qin Feng. When his classmates saw this, they all thought Qin Feng had landed a rich boyfriend and was walking in luck, but they didn't know about the danger that Qin Feng would soon face.