Chapter 129
Chapter 129
Master Quede swept his gaze over his disciples. Seeing how obedient and well-behaved they all looked, he nodded in satisfaction before turning to Xia Sheng and saying with utmost respect, “Fellow Daoist Xia, we’re all ready. Please begin.”
Xia Sheng nodded, picked up the brush, dipped it in cinnabar, and began drawing a Talisman on yellow paper.
Her brush moved like a dragon and snake in flight. In barely a dozen seconds, one of the Talismans was complete.
Master Quede had originally wanted to study the order of Xia Sheng’s strokes, but before he could even finish watching, she was already done.
The disciples were stunned too.
That was it?
Then what were they supposed to learn?
They’d learned absolutely nothing!
The youngest disciple Master Quede often kept by his side asked, “Master, did you catch how Master Xia made her strokes just now?”
Master Quede snapped out of his daze and met the disciples’ eager, thirsty-for-knowledge eyes.
As their master, he naturally couldn’t admit that he hadn’t kept up with Xia Sheng’s speed either, so he said, “Of course I understood it. But since it looks like none of you saw it clearly, let’s ask Fellow Daoist Xia to draw it one more time.”
The other disciples were all a little surprised to hear Master Quede say he’d already learned it, and they immediately began praising him.
“Master really is Master. You learn so much faster than we do.”
“Exactly. Master Xia’s hand was so fast just now, my eyes were still stuck on the first stroke, but Master had already memorized the full sequence.”
“Otherwise how could he be our master? He must be exceptionally gifted and brilliantly learned!”
Xia Sheng shot Master Quede a look of disdain.
This old Daoist clearly hadn’t understood it either, yet here he was putting on an act in front of his disciples.
Master Quede noticed her look, and his old face flushed red. Even so, he forced himself to stay composed and gave a dry cough. “Little Fellow Daoist, my disciples didn’t see your technique clearly just now. Could I trouble you to slow down a little so they can observe more carefully?”
Xia Sheng set down the brush. “Didn’t you say you already learned it? You can just teach them yourself later. Let’s move on to the next one.”
Master Quede: “…”
When they’d first met, he’d thought Xia Sheng was pretty aloof. Why did it now feel like she had a sneaky mean streak underneath?
Still, although Master Quede couldn’t keep up with Xia Sheng’s speed, he did have other high-tech solutions.
He pulled a cellphone out of his Daoist robe, utterly at odds with his antique-style attire, turned on the video recorder, and shamelessly began filming Xia Sheng.
When one of the disciples asked if he hadn’t said he’d learned it after one viewing, Master Quede replied without the slightest blush or hesitation, “I naturally can learn it in one viewing, but for your sake, it’s better to record it so you can go back and study it over and over.”
The disciples: Master is so good to us!
Xia Sheng: “…”
Damn.
That’s insane.
Why did this place feel less like a Daoist temple and more like a pyramid scheme organization?
After teaching everyone how to draw the Protective Talisman and the Misfortune-Dispelling Talisman, Xia Sheng told them to find their own tools and give it a try.
The moment she finished speaking, all the disciples filed out.
Xia Sheng looked at Master Quede in confusion. “What are they doing?”
She then saw that Master Quede also seemed to be preparing to leave. “Before drawing Talismans, one must bathe and burn incense. We need to go make preparations. Little Fellow Daoist, please wait a moment.”
Xia Sheng: “…”
Were modern Daoists really this refined now?
She waited for about half an hour before Master Quede and the others finally returned to the room.
By then, neat writing desks had already been set up in rows. Each disciple sat before a desk, expression grave, and began drawing Talismans.
Master Quede drew ten more in a row, but not a single one was usable.
He was a little discouraged.
He had originally thought that as long as he followed Xia Sheng’s stroke order, he’d definitely be able to draw high-quality Talismans too.
In the end, all he learned was the form. He still couldn’t grasp the essence.
Seeing him fail so many times in succession, one of the disciples couldn’t help asking, “Master, didn’t you already get it?”
His eyes had learned it, but his hands hadn’t.
Naturally, he couldn’t say that out loud. Otherwise, as the Master, he’d lose quite a bit of face.
“Little Friend Xia is the number one person in the Mystic Sect. The Talismans she draws naturally aren’t something ordinary people can easily replicate.
“Before this, President Lan also tried to copy Little Friend Xia’s Talismans, but failed many times.
“If we want to master them, we’ll still need a lot more practice.”
The disciple nodded. “Master, I understand now!”
After putting on airs in front of his disciples, Master Quede leaned close to Xia Sheng’s ear and asked in a low voice, “Little Fellow Daoist, can you tell why I keep failing? Is there some trick to drawing Talismans?”
Xia Sheng gave him a look of disdain before explaining, “While drawing, you have to channel Spiritual Power evenly into the Talisman Paper. The more Spiritual Power you pour in, the higher the Talisman’s grade will naturally be.”
Master Quede understood and asked again, “Then how do you control the input of Spiritual Power evenly?”
Xia Sheng said, “Why don’t you just ask me how I eat my meals while you’re at it?”
Master Quede: “…”
Forget it, forget it.
Don’t get mad. Don’t get mad.
Geniuses and ordinary people like them simply couldn’t communicate.
With a troubled expression, Master Quede picked up his brush and continued drawing Talismans.
He understood all the theory, but actually putting it into practice the way Xia Sheng did was still extremely difficult.
After fumbling around for an entire afternoon, he only managed to produce one or two Talismans that were barely usable.
Seeing that it was getting late, Xia Sheng prepared to leave.
Master Quede had wanted to personally see her to the door, but Xia Sheng simply used a Teleportation Talisman and left.
Master Quede had previously given every disciple in the sect a Teleportation Talisman as well, but those were meant to save lives.
Yet Xia Sheng used one so extravagantly in everyday life.
Comparison really was infuriating.
Master Quede sighed, then went back inside to continue studying how to draw Talismans.
After Xia Sheng returned home and finished dinner, she went to Shen Yanchen’s place to draw Talismans.
Unlike before, Fang Rong didn’t lecture Xia Sheng. She only reminded her to come back early.
At the Shen Family villa, Shen Yanchen stood on the second-floor terrace beside the flower bed, watching Shen Shen dig up all the ginseng rootlets from the soil again.
Jiang Shaobai had already smoothed things over on his end, and the virility medicine could now enter mass production.
Before official production began, they had to prepare a large supply of ginseng rootlets.
Ever since Xia Sheng cast a spell on this patch of land last time, all they needed to do was stick one of Shen Shen’s rootlets into the soil, and it would produce hundreds more.
Yet even with a one-becomes-a-hundred method like this, the supply of ginseng rootlets was still far from enough.
To get enough of them, Shen Yanchen had been making Shen Shen dig up the newly grown ginseng rootlets every night, then pull out another one and plant it back in the soil.
As Shen Shen dug the rootlets out of the dirt, shook the soil off, and put them into the small basket beside him, he secretly wiped away tears.
Those were all his hairs!
Even if they all came from a single hair, he still couldn’t take pulling out one hair every single day.
And the most hateful part was that Mr. Shen not only made him pull out his own ginseng rootlets to plant more, but once they grew out, he even had to harvest them himself.
This was the very definition of an evil capitalist!