Chapter 840 — How to Cure Illness?
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"All right, I understand. Great Immortal Lin hasn't turned his anger on you, has he?" That was what Zou Tiandi feared most. As for whether the Zhen father and son lived or died, that was nothing to him at all.
"No. Earlier there was a red-haired fellow who provoked Great Immortal Lin, and I helped him out by teaching the red-haired one a lesson. From what I could see, Great Immortal Lin was quite pleased with that!" Zou Ruoguang said, very cautiously.
"That's good, then!" Zou Tiandi nodded. "All right. I'll find Zhen Yingjun a spirit-medium to perform the rites — that will be as far as my benevolence goes. Then we send them on their way."
Though Wei Zhao had trodden on Zou Tiandi any number of times, it had to be said that his connections in Songshan City were still quite extensive. Before long he had found a famous master of the spirit-dancing rites. This master was called Aku, and he enjoyed a modest reputation in these parts — whenever a family had a wedding, a funeral, or any other rite to perform, they sent for him.
But whether his arts actually had any power, no one could say for certain. Some claimed he could seize wicked ghosts bare-handed; others said he could converse with the dead. Whether any of it was true, only the wicked ghosts he had seized and the dead he had conversed with could possibly know.
When Aku arrived, he began leaping and capering about, performing his rites over Zhen Yingjun. He chanted his incantations a hundred times over, fixed a yellow paper talisman on the tip of a peachwood sword, jabbered a stream of gibberish that no one could make out, then suddenly let out a thunderous shout, set the yellow talisman alight, quenched it in a bowl of water, and carried it before Zhen Yingjun. To Zhen Dazhou he declared, "Young Master Jun has been possessed by a thing called a vengeful spirit, and that is what has brought on all these bizarre symptoms! I have now performed the rites and captured the vengeful spirit. However, the evil qi remaining in Young Master Jun's body cannot be dispelled in a single day or night. He must drink the sacred water for three days before he can be fully cured!"
"My thanks for your hard work, Master!" Seeing Aku flail about like Sun Wukong himself, Zhen Dazhou concluded that the man's powers must truly be extraordinary, and so he believed every word. "Here is the offering money we agreed upon. Please, Master, do not refuse it!"
"Surely, surely!" Aku glanced at the thickness of the red envelope — a full fifty thousand at least — and took it with a smile.
Tap water mixed with paper ash — and Zhen Yingjun drank it down. Whether it drove out the evil qi, no one could say, but the diarrhea was quite real. From the moment he downed that bowl of sacred water, he began to run, and he ran all night with no sign of improvement.
But Master Aku had explained beforehand that this was the detoxification stage, the expulsion of the evil poison from the body. So Zhen Yingjun took it as proof that the magic was working, and happily ensconced himself in the outhouse.
The Zou father and son, however, had kept to one side the whole time, watching with cold, aloof eyes. They did not believe for a moment that some spirit-dancing shaman could cure the illness the great god Lin had inflicted on Zhen Yingjun. Yet neither of them said a word about it. This was a matter best kept to themselves; why bother telling the others?
What did the fate of Zhen Dazhou and Zhen Yingjun matter to them? Say too much, and if the great god Lin got wind of it, he might bring down blame on the Zou father and son. What then?
"Dad, is this really going to cure Zhen Yingjun's ailment? True or not? Is he honestly purging the poison?" Zou Ruoguang watched Zhen Yingjun vomit and shit, until at last the man took up permanent residence in the toilet, and said with a touch of sympathy.