Chapter 1

Chapter 1

By the time the sun was about to set, Lu Lingzhu and I had finally reached Zenlei Water Village.

The village was built halfway up the mountain. Because the terrain was uneven, the lower level stood on stilts, and most of the houses were built in the style of stilted homes.

An old man with a face full of wrinkles was crouched under one of the houses, smoking as he squinted at the few of us.

“You outsiders here to travel?”

I took a pack of Zhonghua out of Jiang Haoyan’s pocket and handed it over.

“Sir, I need to ask you something. Do you know where Wei Wuyang’s house is?”

The old man didn’t answer. Instead, his face went pale when he stared at the wound on my wrist. He jerked backward so hard he nearly fell off his stool.

“Jibber-jabber, wula wula-”

He rattled off a long string of dialect I couldn’t understand, then scrambled onto the stairs and quickly shut the door.

I pressed down on the wound on my wrist, where yellow pus was oozing out, and exchanged a glance with Lu Lingzhu.

Sure enough, we had found the right place.

My name is Qiao Moyu. I’m a junior at Nanjiang University, and the current and only Earth Master successor.

There’s an old saying: first-rate geomancers read the stars, second-rate wind masters search for the water outlet, and third-rate masters walk the earth by the dozen. Most of the people traveling the world nowadays are just ordinary geomancy masters. As for those who can grasp the art of observing the stars and sensing qi, in ancient times they all served in the Imperial Astronomical Bureau and worked for the imperial family.

My Qiao ancestors served as chiefs of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, and the title of Feng Sect Master was passed down through our family.

Half a month ago, Lu Lingzhu and I were bitten on the arms by a giant monitor lizard. The wounds on our wrists split open, and no matter what we did, they wouldn’t heal. People from Lu Lingzhu’s sect told her to go to Sandu County in Guizhou and find the Shui people’s water masters to treat us.

The Shui people are a special ethnic minority with their own writing system and calendar.

Legend has it that Lu Duogong, the ancestor of the Shui people, created Tian Script, a kind of writing meant for the dead. Their characters are structured in reverse or opposite to oracle bone script, so it’s also called Reversed Script.

Reversed Script is divided into two types: Black Book and White Script. White Script is mainly used for funerals, sacrifices, and other customs in daily life. The other type is Black Book, used for releasing ghosts and driving them away.

The Shui people firmly believe that mountains, rivers, lakes, seas, plants, trees, birds, beasts-everything has a soul. A soul that leaves its own body becomes a ghost. Ghosts seize human bodies, and when that happens, a ghost master has to drive them out.

Lu Lingzhu and I didn’t think much of it.

I, Qiao Moyu, the Earth Master successor, and Lu Lingzhu, the eldest disciple of Maoshan-what evil thing could we not handle? Why would we need someone else to drive a ghost out?

But we had tried everything we could think of. We even took the Thunderstruck Wood Talisman and struck Lu Lingzhu’s hand with it a few times, yet the wound was still there.

The flesh around it had turned red and turned outward, with a long split in the middle leaking yellow fluid. In the center of the gap was a mass of white, jelly-like substance. It didn’t look like bone, and we had no idea what it was.

Lu Lingzhu sighed.

“Let’s go find a water master and try our luck. I heard the Shui people are a minority that has been around since the Shang Dynasty. Maybe they really do have some skills we don’t know about.”

Unexpectedly, there were quite a few water masters who knew White Script, but finding a ghost master who could understand Black Book was especially difficult. Lu Lingzhu and I had spent several days asking around in all kinds of water villages in Guizhou, and it was only after a lot of effort that we finally got a lead.

In Zenlei Water Village in Sandu County, there was an old man named Wei Wuyang who could understand Black Book.

Judging from the old man’s reaction at the village entrance, we had definitely come to the right place.