Chapter 116 - 109 Tattoo Evil Ghost

Chapter 116: Chapter 109 Tattoo Evil Ghost"What? Your painting catches fire?" Sitting in the gazebo feeding the fish, Zhou Lingyi tossed the fish food into the pond after hearing this and wiped her hands with a towel. "Where’s Master?" Zhou Xuan hadn’t seen Yuan Buyu since he went to the dining hall that morning. "Your master is in a daze again. His incense is too high; it takes him a long time to stabilize." Zhou Lingyi just noticed Little Fuzi putting out the opera costumes to dry, so she said, "Fuzi, go find Fifth Brother, have him bring a piece of human skin here, along with a paintbrush and cinnabar. The skin shouldn’t be too big." The Zhou Family’s Troupe offers corpse purification services. Some clients die tragically from fires or car accidents. If they want the bodies to look decent after purification, patches of skin sometimes need to be stitched on. The human skin was purchased by the Zhou Family’s Troupe through connections. It’s not cheap, but they always keep some in stock. Before long, Lv Mingkun arrived, placing the human skin, paints, and paintbrush on the stone table in the gazebo. "Brother, draw your painting again." Zhou Lingyi said. Zhou Xuan took the brush and painted the third time. This time he finished it completely, accurately replicating the Blood Map on the White Lantern from the Secret Realm, yet the human skin did not catch fire. "Strange, it burns on paper but not on human skin?" Zhou Lingyi picked up the painting on the human skin, holding it up to the sunlight. The sunlight made the skin appear pink, and under the light, the painting on the skin rippled as though it were moving on its own. "This isn’t a painting; it’s a tattoo." "The blood in this tattoo is too rich. When painted on paper, the blood will ignite the paper, but the human skin has spirit, which absorbs the blood, preventing it from burning..." Zhou Lingyi feared she might be wrong, so she put away the painting on human skin and stood up to take Zhou Xuan to find Yuan Buyu. Yuan Buyu was lying on a deck chair at his room’s doorway, snoring loudly, deeply asleep. "Elder Yuan, Elder Yuan..." Zhou Lingyi called Yuan Buyu. After several calls, Yuan Buyu finally stirred. "What, we’re out of firewood?" His eyes barely opened, and he was still unclear of the situation. "Lao Yuan, help me see what Tangkou the second incense is?" "How am I supposed to see, your Secret Realm is beyond my sight, too." Yuan Buyu’s response this time was way slower than usual. Zhou Xuan had to use a wet towel, apply cooling oil, and finally drip three drops of balm behind Yuan Buyu’s ears to barely wake the master back to normal. "I painted a painting, on paper it burns, but on skin it does not." "Where’s the painting? Let me see." Yuan Buyu, with a refreshing scent about him, sat erect, taking the human skin from Zhou Lingyi and looked at it against the sunlight. As he looked, his expression grew darker, scolding: "How did your nine altars opportunity come about? If it was the Nuo God who ordained it personally, doesn’t the Nuo God want you dead? This painting is indeed a tattoo, and not just any tattoo, it’s the work of a Tattoo Evil Ghost! Your second incense altar, it’s ’Tattoo’." Yuan Buyu shook his head with a sigh: "To burn the second incense, you need to gather incense using the ’Tattoo’ method. But this altar is a Forbidden Hall. Who knows where you can find out how it gathers incense? Master Zhou, do you know?" Zhou Lingyi shook her head, "Tattoo and our Old Hall Witches both belong to the Wu Family branch, but... they are too secretive, and haven’t emerged for a century. The Old Hall has no records on how the Tattoo gathers incense." Zhou Xuan was momentarily at a loss for words. *A Tangkou neither his sister nor master knew much about, let alone gathering incense, they probably couldn’t even name any of their methods.* *To cultivate such a Tangkou, it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack.* "The path of the nine altars is too tough." Zhou Lingyi sighed, "If it were a Great Hall, it wouldn’t be so bad, as the Tangkou Disciples are many, and more people to guide you... but this ’Tattoo’..." She suddenly thought of the Forbidden Artifact imprisoning the Ten Fingers and said, "Brother, wait here for a bit. I have an authentic tattoo I can show you." With that, she left first. Zhou Xuan and Yuan Buyu, meanwhile, chatted: "Lao Yuan, you called ’Tattoo’ Tattoo Evil Ghost, is there a story behind it?" "The formal nickname for them should be Tattoo Master, but these people in this Tangkou behave even more evilly than ghosts. Over time, those who travel among ghosts and worship gods have come to call them Tattoo Evil Ghosts. But these people, according to the records of the Tangkou ancient texts, don’t randomly kill. Mainly, their methods are too bizarre. It’s rumored they raise Evil Ghosts within living bodies, but it’s just a rumor; whether there’s exaggeration, it’s too ancient to verify." "Are their methods advanced?" "They’ve been reclusive for a hundred years, so it’s unclear specifically how advanced their methods are, but any Tangkou deemed a Forbidden Hall doesn’t lack powerful methods." *The more Zhou Xuan listened, the more confused he became. Initially, his mood was good that morning, as he finally knew which Tangkou the second incense should cultivate.* *But who would’ve thought it was something as obscure as the ’Tattoo’ altar.* "Xuan, you should keep an open mind. The second incense going through the ’Tattoo’ Tangkou isn’t entirely without benefits." "Like what..." "Your skill is that one incense can master nine methods, as I told you, methods are methods, incense is incense, they can’t be confused together, but having many methods can make up for incense fire levels. The more unique and unconventional your methods are, the more bewildered your opponent will be, allowing you to take risky moves and achieve victory unexpectedly." *Zhou Xuan thought Yuan Buyu made a valid point, but there was a prerequisite: he must first find a way to accumulate incense fire through the Tattoo altar, which was incredibly difficult.* "Brother, look at this box." Zhou Lingyi handed a human skin box to Zhou Xuan for examination. Yuan Buyu glanced at it and immediately discerned its significance: "This is a Forbidden Artifact from the God Traveling Department." "Used to contain Alien Ghosts, this box has been passed down in the God Traveling Department for two or three hundred years." "I’ll try to check its condition." Yuan Buyu took the box in his hands. The box bore an Iron Lock Tattoo, which clanged in his hands. The box was now open, and Yuan Buyu placed his gavel inside it. With a "click, click", the mechanism inside the box went into action, moving the iron lock to close the box. Yuan Buyu held the box up to his ear, and no matter how he shook it, he couldn’t hear any sound from the inside, nor could he perceive the presence of his gavel. "*The craftsmanship of this Tattoo Evil Ghost is truly miraculous. I’ve used this gavel for years, and it’s as if an extension of my arm. Yet, just a piece of human skin and a tattoo cut the connection so cleanly, as if severing my arm.*" Zhou Lingyi took back the box, silently recited an incantation, and once again the mechanism buzzed, unlocking the box. After returning the gavel to Yuan Buyu, she instructed Zhou Xuan to try it. "Sensing this tattoo, see if you can comprehend something?" Zhou Lingyi said. Zhou Xuan listened, pressed his right hand onto the Iron Lock Tattoo on the box, and released all his Perception. At that moment, he felt a strange sensation. The tattoo seemed like a living soul rather than a peculiar design simply inked onto the human skin. When his Perception permeated the tattoo, the iron lock violently resisted. It transformed into an iron whip, twisting its body, lashing fiercely at Zhou Xuan’s intense Perception. The first whip raised its body high, and when the iron lock was fully stretched and the force reached its peak, it fiercely struck Zhou Xuan. "Snap!" The sound of a heavy whip echoed near Zhou Xuan’s ear, as if his soul cracked with the blow, and a buzzing sound resonated in his head, causing everything he saw to sway. But he didn’t withdraw his right hand placed on the tattoo. Instead, the iron lock’s inexplicable lashing sparked his desire to subdue it. The iron lock achieved its strike, its body coiled like a snake, with the lockhead standing rigidly. A slight tremor gave it a poisonous snake’s threatening demeanor. It evaluated, judging whether Zhou Xuan would counterattack. Yet Zhou Xuan simply continued releasing his Perception within the tattoo, without moving, appearing very harmless to it. Upon noticing Zhou Xuan’s lack of resistance, the iron lock tightened again, gathering strength, then unleashed a mighty strike. This stroke was powerful enough almost to strike Zhou Xuan’s soul out of his body. "Damn it, lash me? I’ll tear you in two..." Zhou Xuan shut his eyes. The pain from the two soul-deep lashes turned his anger into a raging fire. As this flame blazed, his right hand, infused with energy, shuddered violently. The iron lock failed to notice Zhou Xuan’s transformation. With the ease of the first two lashes, it now fully disdained Zhou Xuan, skipping any probing as it brought down the third lash. The iron chain howled like the wind, striking deep into Zhou Xuan’s soul. As the lockhead was just a foot from Zhou Xuan, he moved, easily grabbing the iron lock with his right hand. "Burn, burn." With Zhou Xuan’s low growl, his right hand emitted a light blue glow. Wherever the light touched, the iron lock rapidly melted, dissipating into a faint green mist, which Zhou Xuan’s vibrant Perception enveloped and consumed. ... "This hand, indeed terrifying." "Brother will be the Tattoo Evil Ghost’s nemesis." Zhou Xuan’s encounter with the Iron Lock Tattoo existed solely in Perception, a clash of souls. Zhou Lingyi and Yuan Buyu couldn’t see it naturally, they only saw—Zhou Xuan’s expression transform from pain to ferocity, with eyes seemingly ablaze. As his fury peaked, the right hand pressed on the human skin box stretched into the skin, turning into a patterned right hand, moving within the skin until it grasped the Iron Lock Tattoo. At that moment of capture, the Iron Lock Tattoo corroded into scattered inkblots, then entirely absorbed by the right hand... Yuan Buyu furrowed his brows tightly and asked Zhou Lingyi, "The tattoo is destroyed, this two-three-hundred-year-old Forbidden Artifact is wasted, won’t the God Traveling Department trouble you?" "No, although the human skin box is quite valuable, the God Traveling Department disposes of numerous Magic Artifacts and Forbidden Artifacts yearly. A letter to Lord Jiu explaining the reason will suffice. I won’t even need to lie, The emergence of the Nuo God has special implications for the God Traveling Department in Ping Shui Prefecture." Zhou Lingyi spoke with great candor. "That’s good then." Yuan Buyu looked up at the Ancestor Tree, saying, "It seems, Xuan’s second altar is quite interesting. Not only must he learn the tattoo methods, but he is also the nemesis of those Evil Ghosts, carrying a certain fate-like bond of mutual opposition." ... As Zhou Xuan’s Perception devoured the Iron Lock Tattoo entirely, suddenly a thunderous shout erupted in his ear. "Alien Ghost Liao Jin, for secretly building a City God Temple and deluding people, your skin will be stripped and your bones pulled, as a warning to others!" Zhou Xuan could tell that this thunderous voice wasn’t directed at him but related to the "Iron Lock Tattoo’s" origin. Or rather, it was the memory from the soul inside the Iron Lock Tattoo when it was alive. With that thunderous shout, the memories of the Alien Ghost "Liao Jin" and the surrounding sounds at the time unfolded in Zhou Xuan’s mind like a vivid, audible scroll... ps: The third update is here, kisses.