I was in a state of confusion, unaware of how much time had passed or how many places I had visited. Lu Chengshan had sought out many people, including reclusive Taoist priests, high monks, renowned Chinese medicine masters, and foreign experts, but none of them could cure me.
From their conversations, I learned that when Lu Chengshan dispersed the fox spirit's soul with his magic, he inadvertently scattered my soul as well. Although he stopped in time and didn't kill me on the spot, my soul was no longer intact, mixed with the fox spirit's soul, intertwined and unable to separate.
The human body has three souls and seven spirits. The three souls are hidden in the mind, and the seven spirits are hidden in the body. The human soul in the three souls controls thoughts and wisdom through the Heavenly Impact Spirit and the Spirit of Wisdom, and controls the body's movements through the Qi Spirit, Power Spirit, and Central Spirit. It controls the essence and blood, and the physical state through the Essence Spirit and Hero Spirit. This is a very complex process, where a single strand affects the whole body. If one soul or one spirit fails, it can cause serious consequences.
I lost two souls and four spirits, and the remaining one soul and two spirits were suppressed by the fox spirit, so I couldn't move at all. If not for my strong will to see my mother again, I might even lose the last bit of hearing and thinking ability.
The fox spirit's soul was much stronger than mine, but it was the first to be dispersed by Lu Chengshan, losing two souls and four spirits, severely wounded and also paralyzed. It was still struggling for control over me, so it couldn't move my body either, and we were stuck like this. In simple terms, I became a vegetative person, only able to survive on nutrient drips.
It's easy to destroy and hard to build. Dispersing a person's soul is not difficult, but gathering the soul back is extremely difficult. Separating and reassembling the souls of a person and a demon, which have been dispersed and mixed together, is even more difficult. It's like mixing black ink and red ink in a cup and then trying to separate them without any damage is very difficult, and separating souls is a thousand times harder than separating ink.
The crux of the matter is that metaphysical studies have fallen into disrepute, and there are very few individuals with genuine abilities. Today, those who call themselves skilled are not even as proficient as the Taoist apprentices of centuries past, thus making it impossible for anyone to address complex medical conditions. Regarding modern science, it is unable to even ascertain the existence of souls, let alone provide treatment for them.
After numerous treatments proved ineffective, Lu Chengshan finally lost his patience. Taking advantage of an urgent task in his department on the payroll, he managed to extricate himself and arranged for me to be sent back to my hometown through the relevant departments.
On that day, a sizable delegation of over a dozen leaders from the Civil Affairs Ministry and the Education Bureau accompanied me home, showcasing a grand and respectful display. They claimed that I had suffered a stroke during a teaching session, which was deemed an incurable medical condition. In a gesture of humanitarianism and as a testament to the state's care for distinguished educators, the Civil Affairs Ministry and the Education Bureau provided a subsidy of 50,000 yuan. Moreover, being recognized as "having retired honorably due to a work-related injury," I received certificates and a monthly pension.
Regardless, I can no longer speak, so let them weave whatever tale they please.
My mother fainted before the story was finished, overwhelmed by the news. Life is hard for a single mother and her child, and she has endured so much to raise me and send me to school, finally seeing a glimmer of hope for our future. But now, her lively son, who went out standing, has returned lying down, with no hope of recovery. Her heart is shattered, falling into an abyss of despair. What else can an uneducated rural woman do but weep in her agony?
Neighbors and compassionate villagers came to visit, but all they could do was shake their heads in sorrow, offer words of comfort, and bring small gifts. They couldn't provide more substantial help.
In the end, it was just my mother, grandmother, uncle, and auntie left in the family. My grandfather had passed away, and my grandmother, a local, now lived with my uncle. My uncle and auntie were both honest folk, and their child was in high school. They weren't well-off and couldn't offer much help, so they could only accompany my mother in tears and sighs.
My mother was originally the daughter of a landlord in Zhenghe County. However, by the time she was born, her maternal grandfather, labeled as a "feudal exploiter," had already become a target of struggle sessions and had his property confiscated, leading to a hard life. Later, during the Great Famine of 1960, with seven or eight children in the family, they were on the brink of starvation and had to sell my mother.
My mother endured great hardships later in life, carrying deep resentment. Among her many siblings, why was she the one sold? Due to parental favoritism, her coldness towards her family is understandable. Even though she reconnected with her relatives later, she chose not to associate with them. When I was accepted into the normal school, I approached several uncles for financial assistance, but through much pleading, I managed to borrow only 500 yuan. This humiliation wounded our pride, leading to even fewer interactions with these relatives.
In essence, among my immediate family, there were no officials or wealthy individuals who could aid me in my time of need. Faced with such a dire situation, no one was able to assist me, let alone investigate the truth and seek justice from Lu Chengshan.
I was drowsy for a while, not knowing how long it had been until I regained my clear mind. I heard my grandmother accompany someone in, and the person coughed all the way, with short, rapid breaths. Just from the sound of the cough, I knew who had come. This person was about fifty or sixty years old, with sparse and oily hair sticking to his head, a yellowish complexion, thin eyebrows, small eyes, a sharp nose, and wind-swept ears. He had a vulgar appearance and was even more disgusting in character. His clothes were always covered in a thick layer of grease, emitting a foul odor that even gods and ghosts feared.
This old man was not only dirty but also sick, suffering from a contagious form of tuberculosis that caused him to cough uncontrollably and spit phlegm everywhere. Despite having such a disease, he was still smoking constantly, and his fingers were tanned yellow from the smoke. What was even more repulsive was his love for laziness and gluttony. He always liked to stay in other people's homes to freeload on food, saying polite words but acting without mercy. Sometimes, he would even use his long, dirty fingernails, which he called "black chicken claws," to directly grab food. Ever since I read Lu Xun's "Kong Yiji," I've referred to this man as Kong Yiji.
I had heard that Kong Yiji was known as a yin-yang master, often seen with some of the village's more superstitious elderly folk, but I had never heard of him successfully dealing with any ghosts or demons. There was no doubt in my mind that he was a charlatan, perhaps one that my grandmother had invited out of desperation.
I heard my grandmother and mother addressing him with respect, asking him to sit and offering him tea and cigarettes. Kong Yiji, while claiming modesty, seemed to relish the attention and readily accepted their hospitality. He then inquired about why I was in such a state and what had transpired, but neither my mother nor grandmother could provide any answers. They had no idea what had happened to me.
Kong Yiji started by scrutinizing my eyes, then held my pulse points for an extended period, followed by feeling around my skull. Finally, his yellow, tobacco-stained fingers rested on my forehead, and an unpleasant odor seemed to permeate my mind.
I could actually feel his touch!
I suddenly felt a surge of excitement. For so long, I had no other senses except hearing, but just now, I distinctly felt him pressing on my pulse points, and now I could sense his breath entering my head. Was my body finally beginning to recover, or did he possess a unique skill?
"Is there any hope, sir?" my grandmother asked with a tone of anxiety and fear.
Kong Yiji started coughing non-stop, then sighed deeply. After a long pause, he finally said, "It's very serious. Please show me his birth date and time."
My mother hurriedly recited my birth date and time, and Kong Yiji began to count on his fingers, muttering to himself for an extended period without any visible action. I strongly suspected he was just stalling, trying to figure out how to deceive my family. My illness was caused by Lu Chengshan, so what does my birth date have to do with it? Despite having encountered the hanging ghost and the fox spirit, I still held a strong prejudice against charlatans, especially someone as repulsive as him.
"If it were a few years ago, when I wasn't as sick, there might have been a way," Kong Yiji finally spoke, but his words were like a death sentence to me.
My mother and grandmother, however, were like drowning people clutching at a straw, begging desperately, promising a generous reward. As expected, the old charlatan changed his tune: "From the birth date, facial features, and bone structure, there is still hope. I can give it a try, but there is a hard-to-find ingredient needed."
Granny quickly asked what the medicine ingredient was, even if it meant sacrificing her own life.
Kong Yiji hesitated and said, "If I haven't mistaken, his soul is not in its rightful place, and a demon has attached itself to him. If we save him, the demon will also gather his soul. Whether he can survive or not is not up to me, but up to its mood."
My mother and grandmother were speechless, how could they know what to do in such a situation? I was a bit shocked, however. Kong Yiji could actually roughly describe my illness and symptoms, he was no ordinary charlatan! It was like seeing a glimmer of starlight in the darkness, a sliver of hope amidst despair.
Kong Yiji, no, I should call him by his real name, Zhou Tan, Mr. Zhou.
Zhou Tan seemed to be muttering to himself, "Even though the sky soul and earth soul are not in the body, as long as the person is still alive, they won't truly disperse. The soul returning to its original place should still be able to be called back; seven spirits lost four, but they are all in the body, and there is still a possibility of gathering again."
"Other herbs are easy to find, but one of them, the Nine-turn Reviving Herb, is hard to find."
"My mother hurriedly asked, 'What is the Nine-turn Reviving Herb?'"
"The Reviving Herb is also known as the Reviving Soul Herb, the Immortality Herb, and the Water-reviving Herb. It is immortal; dried and soaked in water can be revived. Common Reviving Herbs are easy to find, but what I need is the Reviving Herb that grows on extremely high cliffs, having died nine times and been reborn nine times. Within several hundred miles of here, only the cliffs on the top of Fairy Rock might have it."
My mother and grandmother stood there, dumbfounded.
I knew what Fairy Rock was. It was still part of the primeval forest, with dangerous mountainous terrain, especially the top of the mountain, which was surrounded by cliffs. There was only one place to climb up. It was said that a female Taoist ascetic had become an immortal on the peak a long time ago, showing many miracles, so people built a small temple on the peak to worship the deity, called Fairy Lady, and the mountain was thus named Fairy Rock.
On the cliffs of Fairy Rock's summit, a species of sandalwood grew, slowly maturing over centuries. It took a century for a sandalwood tree to grow into a sapling, and even after a millennium, only the innermost part of its heartwood was true sandalwood, making it extremely valuable. Who in the hundreds of miles surrounding Fairy Rock didn't know the worth of this sandalwood? To this day, no one dared to touch it. The first reason was the cliff's sheer difficulty to scale, and the second was the mysterious falls of greedy thieves and herbalists from the cliff. Several falls from a hundred-meter cliff resulted in serious injuries but no deaths, leading to ever more mystical tales and deterring anyone from attempting the climb.
Now, Zhou Tan needed the Nine-turn Reviving Herb from the summit of Fairy Rock as a medicine ingredient, which naturally caused great worry for my entire family.
Zhou Tan smiled slightly and said, "There is one person who can definitely retrieve it. This person is the only one your aunt, Zhang, can persuade to go. As long as he is willing, he should first burn incense and pray in the temple, explaining that it is for the purpose of saving lives, not to be greedy and dig up other things, and should not have any accidents."
Granny hurriedly asked, "You mean calling Old Lin to go?"
"Yes, it's him!"