Chapter 144
Chapter 144
Once every preparation was complete, the group made ready to leave for Liujia Village and confront the Eight Valiant Generals.
At that moment, Zhao Fei, his face still streaked with tears, insisted on going with them.
“Everyone is risking their lives to save my wife. What kind of man would I be if I stayed behind?”
“I might as well cut off those two ounces of flesh and feed them to a dog!”
Zhao Aiguo gave his son his full support.
“That’s my son!”
“Please let Zhao Fei go with them, Old Auntie!”
“If he loses his nerve now, he’ll never be able to hold his head up as a man again!”
“He might as well die and be done with it!”
Deaf Granny was resolute by nature and drew a firm line between good and evil.
The words and conduct of the Zhao Family’s father and son suited her temperament perfectly.
“Good lad, Zhao Fei!”
“With courage like that, Fengmei’s devotion to you was not wasted!”
The old woman paused.
“But you are an ordinary person. If you go as you are now, not only will you be unable to help, you’ll become a burden!”
Zhao Fei grew anxious.
“Then tell me what to do, Grandma.”
“As long as I can save my wife, I don’t care how much I suffer!”
The problem put Deaf Granny in a difficult position.
The first choice for granting an ordinary person the power to fight filthy things in a short time was inviting an Immortal Spirit to possess them.
But Zhao Fei was not a spirit medium disciple, so he naturally could not summon any Immortal Spirits serving a spirit medium.
Although the secret incantations of the wu shamans included a method for “inviting a deity,” it could summon only wandering ghosts from various regions, never a righteous deity of Heaven and Earth.
As the saying went, inviting a deity was easy; sending one away was hard.
Letting those wandering ghosts possess Zhao Fei would cause endless trouble afterward.
At best, Zhao Fei would fall gravely ill, his vital energy severely damaged, and need years to recover.
At worst, they would steal his fortune, rank, and allotted lifespan, leaving him little time to live.
Deaf Granny also possessed a secret art of the shamanic tradition.
It could temporarily refine Zhao Fei into a Beast-Soul General of the kind the ancestors of the divine land had once used to protect their tribes.
But that method was extremely complicated and required extensive preparation.
Given their present circumstances, there was clearly no time.
Seeing Deaf Granny’s dilemma, Hua Jiunan suddenly remembered an art recorded in the *Baopuzi Inner Chapters*.
“Grandma, I can use the Summoning Art to invite a yin deity into Zhao Fei’s body.”
“If the deity we summon is powerful enough, we won’t even need to act against the Eight Valiant Generals ourselves.”
The Summoning Art was one of Daoism’s secret transmitted arts.
It differed from the divine possession or Spirit Boxing seen in film and television.
Only an accomplished cultivator who had attained the Dao could use the Summoning Art.
It summoned righteous deities of Heaven and Earth who held official posts-nearly all of them yin deities-or deceased predecessors from one’s own lineage.
When Daoist masters taught disciples the Summoning Art, they always issued warning after warning.
Inviting a yin deity into the mortal world was an act of profound disrespect toward both the divine being and the predecessors of the tradition.
It must never be used unless one was cornered and forced to fight for their life!
If the summoned being was one’s own predecessor, the consequences were manageable.
At worst, the practitioner would receive a scolding and lose some netherworld merit.
But if the summoned being was an irascible mad god of the underworld bureaucracy, the trouble could become enormous!
There had once been a Maoshan Daoist who used the Summoning Art against a thousand-year-old evil ghost.
He summoned Xin Lianshan, the guardian yin deity of Dismemberment Hell, one of the Eighteen Levels of Hell.
Which great underworld god charged with guarding the Eighteen Levels of Hell could possibly have a mild temper?
After Lord Xin descended, he said nothing and swallowed both the Maoshan Daoist and the thousand-year-old evil ghost in one bite!
Hua Jiunan had taught himself every one of his abilities from the records in the *Baopuzi Inner Chapters*.
Yet Celestial Master Ge, the author of that supreme Daoist classic, held an incomparably exalted status.
When he used the Summoning Art to call yin deities, it was usually to have them perform small errands, such as carrying messages.
And what yin deity would dare behave presumptuously before the Celestial Master?
Thus, the *Baopuzi Inner Chapters* recorded the Summoning Art as nothing more than an ordinary art.
It did not mention the many prohibitions governing its use.
Such was the meaning of the saying, “At different heights, people regard the same thing with entirely different attitudes.”
The moment Zhao Fei heard that Hua Jiunan could help him, he hurriedly begged, “Hua Boss, use that Summoning Art right away!”
“I don’t care if it hurts, if I suffer, or even if it shortens my lifespan!”
At that moment, Zhao Fei showed the full courage of a man.
Others might not know the dangers of using the Summoning Art, but Master Kongchan, an accomplished Buddhist monk, understood something of them.
He wanted to object. Then he recalled Hua Jiunan’s many wonders and swallowed the words on his lips.
Namo Amitabha.
Young Benefactor Jiunan possesses boundless merit and support from every direction.
Surely the yin deity he summons will not make things too difficult for him!
This was Hua Jiunan’s first time using the Summoning Art, and he had no confidence in the outcome.
He deliberately donned his Daoist robe, bit through his middle finger, and smeared the blood across the Copper Coin Sword.
After steadying himself, Hua Jiunan stepped through the Seven-Star pattern and chanted.
“Seven Stars and Five Thunders guard both sides; Divine Generals of the Six Jia arrive before the palace.”
“Celestial Soldiers of the Six Ding defend the rear camp; the Heavenly Official grants a god to descend before me.”
“By decree of Celestial Master Ge Hong, swiftly, swiftly, by the law and command!”
What no one in the story yet understood was that Hua Jiunan had made two more mistakes.
First, he should not have used his own blood as the ritual catalyst, because his identity was far too unusual.
Second, he should not have issued the command using Celestial Master Ge’s personal name.
Taken together, those two mistakes guaranteed that the yin deity Hua Jiunan summoned would be no ordinary figure!