Chapter Sixteen: Spiritual Medium

  "Classmates, these paper men have been initially identified as having a relatively high research value, so you must be careful when moving them!"

  Professor Xie's hands held a rectangular wooden box, watching the busy students carefully directing them to move the paper people.

  The paper man looks lifelike, with a large body, nearly one meter high. In order to protect the cultural relics, Professor Xie asked his students to put each paper man in a square plastic box for easy transportation and unloading.

  "Professor, today's luck is really good, and the harvest is quite a lot!"

  "Yes, you see, just this ancient sword in the box in my hand, I can tell it has a history of nearly five hundred years." Professor Xie was quite pleased with himself as he took out the ancient sword from the wooden box and handed it to Fang Yu with a smile.

  "Thank you, Professor. Looking at the quality of this sword, it should be a top-grade iron treasure sword."

  "Yes, just from this sword alone, it can be seen that the ancient people's smelting technology was already quite high..." Professor Xie couldn't help but admire it, looking at it several times before putting it away. Then, excitedly, he said to Fang Yu: "Fang Yu, everyone has worked hard, today I'll treat you all, let's go have a good meal and celebrate this big harvest!" Perhaps because of the discovery of so many artifacts, Professor Xie generously invited more than 20 students from the archaeology department to drink some celebratory wine, celebrating his own harvest in the suburbs.

  As the day passed noon, the warm spring breeze stirred the newly awakened grass, burying the desolation and dispersing the fear. Standing on the mountain top, Qin Feng was staring foolishly at the three tombstones with green bricks, the reality before his eyes making him tense up, sitting on top of doubts. "Strange, where did the paper man go!? Could it be that Manager Liu took it away?" But soon Qin Feng called Manager Liu, and on the phone, Manager Liu said he hadn't gone back to take the paper man.

  Back at the funeral home, Qin Feng told Grandfather and Lin Ruochen about what had happened. Both of them were shocked, but for different reasons: Lin Ruochen was shocked because the paper man had disappeared without any reason, which was inexplicable; while Old Man Qin was shocked because the disappearance of the paper man might trigger something. After all, the paper man was quite strange.

  Thinking about it without a result, Qin Feng could only sigh and pray in his heart that nothing would happen. And Grandpa Qin was also preparing to go out and let Qin Feng buy some sacrificial items such as paper money. Qin Feng didn't understand, so he asked his grandfather, who told him that today was the 15th of March on the lunar calendar, and at the time of the heavenly gate (9-11 pm), they could use a method to communicate with spirits to let Zhang Lai out, and have him explain everything from start to finish.

  Normally, humans and ghosts cannot communicate directly unless through a certain medium. For example, with the help of a Ouija board, ghosts can only communicate with people through a certain interface, and vice versa, people can only communicate with ghosts through a certain method. Like Dish Spirit, Pen Spirit, Chopstick Spirit, etc., they all belong to inviting ghosts onto a certain medium, rather than actually having specific spirits in charge of pens, dishes or chopsticks.

  According to Grandpa's request, Qin Feng bought all the items needed for Tong Ling.

  The method used by Qin Ye is the Taoist ritual of setting up an altar to summon ghosts, which refers to the establishment of a sacrificial altar and the recitation of "soul-summoning incantations" to summon the ghost. This method can greatly reduce unnecessary trouble (everyone knows that inviting gods is easy but sending them away is difficult, and it's the same with ghosts).

  In the evening, Qin Feng set up the urn in a small courtyard behind the funeral home according to his grandfather's instructions. Because this place is not often passed by people, and at night, except for an old man guarding the gate, only Qin Ye lives in this gloomy place. Therefore, the backyard was filled with all kinds of discarded items, such as broken coffins, broken stools, abandoned clothes... piled up all over the ground.

  The towering tung tree half blocked the bright moonlight, and the cool breeze opened a gloomy prelude. With candles lit, Qin Ye put on the five-dragon crown and eight-trigram yellow robe left to him by his master in Dragon Tiger Mountain, holding a peach wood sword in his right hand and constantly scattering paper money into the air with his left hand, looking just like a Taoist priest catching ghosts.

  Paper money fluttered in the air, borrowing the night wind, a desolate scene. Qin Feng looked at the altar set up by his grandfather and asked, "Grandfather, how do you plan to summon him?"

  "Xiao Feng, watch closely, what I taught you was just the surface, these are the real skills. You must learn them!" Qin Ye didn't answer Qin Feng's question, but instead let Qin Feng figure it out himself. Next, he saw Qin Ye take a talisman from the table with his left hand and stick it onto the peach wood sword, closing his eyes and reciting: "Above responds to the Three Pure Ones, below responds to the Earth Spirit, summoning ghosts to ask about things, the hidden path of the Fowling; the altar's symbol is present, the heavenly realm requests communication with spirits, don't forget the difference between humans and ghosts, willingly sending off the divine light..."

  "What is this?"

  "Invoke the spirits! Don't talk nonsense, or the gods and ghosts around you will cause you trouble!"

  Stopping Qin Feng's curiosity, Master Qin continued to perform the ritual: he lit the talisman on the peach wood sword and threw it into the bowl. He opened his eyes, used the peach wood sword to cut his finger, and shouted: "Blood falls on the symbol, sincerely inviting the ghost!" Next, Master Qin picked up a thin red string from the table and threw it into the bowl with the remaining ashes. He said to Qin Feng: "Little Feng, this is called 'red thread piercing the soul'." "Quickly, bring the box over!"

  Qin Feng handed over a small box and asked: "Grandfather, will this work?"

  "Nonsense! This was given to me by your grandfather's master, who is also my master. Your ancestor entrusted it to me, so you just take good care of it!"

  He took over the box, and Qin immediately removed the red rope from the bowl, tied one end to the box and locked it, and the other end was tied to the hilt of the peach wood sword (because the peach wood sword could ward off evil spirits, doing so could prevent ghost changes and also serve as a medium for communication). "Little Maple, come over. It's time to start communicating with the spirit."

  Although Qin Feng didn't understand, he still came to the back of Master Qin, looking at both ends of the red rope. Master Qin muttered again: "Requesting heavenly soldiers, it has already communicated with the spirits!"

  Then, Mr. Qin opened the box.

  At first, Qin Feng didn't feel anything, but soon after, the red rope suddenly moved on its own. The frequency of the vibration was abnormally fast, as if someone was shaking it.

  "How come I still haven't seen it!"

  "It's out!" Qin Feng was puzzled as to why he hadn't seen Zhang Lai yet, when suddenly Qin Bo let out a loud shout, immediately catching Qin Feng's attention.

  "Where?"

  "With this red string, I led him into the red string."

  "Zhang, come here!" Qin shouted loudly.

  "Who are you!? How dare you use the Soul Calling Technique!" In the red rope, Qin Feng heard that familiar voice of Zhang.

  "I am the 67th generation successor of Tian Shi Dao, with the surname Qin, name Han, courtesy name Qingye, and Daoist name Yanqing. Are you also from Tian Shi Dao?"

  "In the next chapter, Dao Huan returns to Xuan, the 57th generation successor of the Tian Shi Dao. Zhang Lai then repeated what Qin Feng had said in the hospital that day."

  "That's good, since you're all from the same school, why must you commit evil and cause trouble for others?"

  This time, Zhang came perhaps was afraid, did not refute, but honestly replied: "It's hard to say..."