Who is Old Lin zi?
He is an old educated youth, surnamed Lin, and few people know his real name, so he is called Old Lin by both the old and the young. The character "zi" is a dialectal rhyme and a habit, not a title of respect, unlike the "zi" in Laozi, Mozi, Sunzi, Han Feizi.
Old Lin is the only educated youth who stayed here from the up-to-the-mountains and down-to-the-countryside movement. A native of Fuzhou, he is now in his forties, tall and strong, with a fierce appearance, and a scar on his face. This person has a quick temper and a capricious personality. To this day, he has not settled down or established a career, often flirting with other people's wives and often getting into fights and causing trouble. In addition, he is also a world-class gourmet, a super eater. Not only wild boars and rabbits, but even poisonous snakes, mountain mice, wasp nests, and cicada larvae have been ruthlessly destroyed by him.
When old Lin first moved to the countryside, he was clueless about farming and often went hungry due to his inability to earn work points. He ended up staying at my grandfather's house. My grandmother, a compassionate woman, took pity on the starving young man. Despite her own family's struggles, she made sure to share whatever food she could with him and always invited him to join their holiday meals. After all, she couldn't bear to see any child, let alone a guest in her home, suffer from hunger. Over time, old Lin established himself in the rural community and considered my grandmother his greatest benefactor, repaying her kindness many times over. She wouldn't have asked him to take on such a perilous task if it weren't crucial for my well-being.
Zhou Tan suggested old Lin for the task because of his martial arts training, making him agile and skilled in climbing, attributes he honed during his years of hunting in the remote mountains. Moreover, his fierce and intimidating demeanor kept supernatural threats at bay, qualifying him as the most suitable candidate for the job.
Zhou Tan then said a lot more to my grandmother, essentially stating that he would do his best, but whether he could successfully wake me up or if there would be any lasting effects was beyond his control. It all hinged on my own resilience. As expected of an old charlatan, he made sure to distance himself from any responsibility upfront.
Old Lin has been constantly on the move in recent years, sometimes disappearing for extended periods. Grandma decided to try a phone number he had left behind, and sure enough, he arrived in a rush the next day, assuring her with a pat on his chest that he would take care of it. Around the third day, he set off with my uncle. Being someone who never worships any deities, he asked my uncle to perform the ritual at the small temple before they went to gather herbs.
I was in and out of consciousness, with no sense of how much time had passed. All I could tell was that my family was frantically gathering a variety of medicinal herbs and some very specific items: a large bronze bell big enough to encase a person, camphor oil aged over a thousand years, a rooster that had been raised for more than ten years, and rice collected from forty-nine different households.
Next to the village stood a Phoenix Head Hall, which housed the large bronze bell my grandmother managed to borrow after pleading with several respected elders in the village, leveraging her senior status. At the village entrance grew three massive camphor trees, believed to have been around since the Tang Dynasty, each over a thousand years old. Chopping branches from these revered trees was normally taboo, but desperate times called for desperate measures. As for the ten-year-old rooster, it was indeed a rare find, but not entirely out of reach for those willing to pay the price.
Hope flared within me once more, but I hesitated to get my hopes up too high. Lu Chengshan had consulted numerous experts who were unable to cure me. Could a relatively unknown old man, known as a "charlatan," really succeed?
Several days later, in the morning, Zhou Tan began his ritual. He drew a complex array of talismans in our family's main hall, which he referred to as the "Soul-Gathering Formation." At the formation's core, an enormous bronze bell stood inverted. I was stripped down to my shorts and placed inside the bell, which was then filled with a potent herbal decoction. A fire was lit beneath the bell, creating a dramatic scene that anyone familiar with the "Journey to the West" would recognize.
Additionally, a friend of Zhou Tan's, Wu Zhangya, who was an expert in traditional Chinese medicine, was present. He inserted numerous silver needles into my body, explaining that this was to channel the power of the herbs and the heat into my body.
According to Zhou Tan, as a male and a virgin, I represented the supreme yang within yang. The fox spirit, being a female demon, embodied the supreme yin within yin. This allowed us to harness the power of timing, the formation, the herbal decoction, and magical spells to suppress the fox spirit. This technique was a secretive practice handed down from ancient shamanic tribes by the traditional Yin-Yang masters, which might be beyond the knowledge of ordinary Taoist priests. Zhou Tan explained much, but I neither heard it all nor fully understood it. My concern was solely on the effectiveness of his methods, not on their complexity or mystique.
Zhou Tan continuously chanted incantations, drew talismans, and walked in a precise pattern. He chanted, drew, and burned the talismans repeatedly, a process that lasted for half a day. The specifics of his actions were unclear to everyone present. Only my mother was beside me, constantly calling my name, urging my soul to return (a practice known as "summoning the soul"). The rest of the family and villagers stood outside, ensuring that no pedestrians or large animals came too close.
After some time, a warm sensation gradually spread through my body, my eyes opened, and I could move my limbs. Zhou Tan, however, was extremely tense, treating the situation as if we were facing a formidable enemy. He instructed me to remain still and continue steeping in the herbal solution. Dressed in a Taoist robe and wielding a peach wood sword, he looked somewhat comical, yet his expression was one of grave solemnity and reverence, a stark contrast to the previous likeness of Kong Yiji that I had known.
I realized I was being saved and felt immense gratitude and admiration for him. It truly is a case of not judging a person by their appearance or measuring the ocean's depth with a bushel.
But my relief was short-lived. Suddenly, I felt a chill and numbness spreading through my body, and my consciousness began to fog. Zhou Tan was startled and quickly pressed several talismans onto my head, but to no avail. In a panic, he grabbed his brush to draw more talismans, his effort akin to lifting a heavy load. After completing the drawings, as he pinched his fingers and chanted spells over the talisman paper, he unexpectedly spat out a mouthful of blood.
His blood spurted onto the ground, not onto the talisman paper, indicating that it wasn'tblood from the tip of the tongue meant to enhance the talisman's power, but rather a sign of injury from overextending himself in his spiritual exertions.
He placed the talisman on my head and held it there, continuously chanting incantations. A surge of energy flowed into me from the top of my head, restoring my consciousness, and the turbulent, cold Yin energy within me was once again subdued.
It seems that while my soul was reuniting, the fox spirit's soul within my body was also reassembling at the same time. This was an inevitable outcome, explaining why the many experts Lu Chengshan consulted were unable to help. Zhou Tan's initial plan was to gather a portion of the soul first and then negotiate with the fox spirit, asking it to leave me alone. However, the fox spirit's sanity was not fully restored, and it began to instinctively expel me, attempting to take over my body. At this critical moment, my soul was extremely vulnerable, and if expelled, it would be impossible to return to my body. Zhou Tan had to resort to forceful suppression, but given his level of spiritual cultivation, it was a tremendous challenge, forcing him to push himself to the limit.
I thought we had succeeded this time, but Zhou Tan's face remained grave and somber. His usually sallow complexion turned pale, occasionally flushed with a blush, indicating a worsening condition. Suddenly, a determined glint appeared in his eyes. The energy flowing into me from above intensified, and the turbulent forces within my body were all compressed and focused on a specific spot on my back.
I heard Zhou Tan's powerful shout of "Stabilize!" three times, each resonating through my ears like a thunderclap. Simultaneously, his left hand formed a mystical seal and jabbed my back three times in quick succession, followed by another spurt of blood.
"Sir, sir, are you all right?" My mother was alarmed. Despite not fully understanding the situation, she could sense the gravity of what was unfolding.
"It's fine," Zhou Tan managed to say, lifting his hand to signal my mother not to approach. His hand was still on my head, trembling slightly, but he had stopped channeling energy.
I felt completely rejuvenated, albeit weak. The herbal decoction inside the bronze bell was now scalding hot, as if it were about to boil me alive.
After about a minute, it seemed as if a new energy had surged within me, and I no longer felt as feeble. Zhou Tan finally exhaled a sigh of relief and removed his hand: "Okay, get someone in here, take him out, cough, cough."
Unable to endure the heat any longer, I promptly began to crawl out, but the moment my hand touched the surface of the bronze bell, I yelped in pain from the heat. The soup inside was too hot to step on, and in my haste, I mustered all my strength and somehow managed to leap out in one go.
I barely had a moment to revel in the wonder of my new lease on life before rushing to support Zhou Tan. He appeared utterly exhausted and frail, barely able to maintain his balance.
My family was a mix of shock and joy, continuously expressing their gratitude. They urged Zhou Tan to sit down, and my grandmother knelt before him, kowtowing in gratitude. My mother followed suit, and I, too, mimicked their actions. This was a savior, akin to a second set of parents, and kowtowing in thanks was more than appropriate.
Zhou Tan hastily helped my grandmother to her feet, repeatedly saying that he was unworthy of such respect. My grandmother was slightly older than him, and in the complex web of family relationships, he would technically address her as "aunt"!
The entire family was abuzz with joy, quickly bringing out the freshly brewed chicken soup to nourish me and Zhou Tan. Zhou Tan took only a small sip before retiring to my room for rest. I, too, should have sought rest, but after a month of lying low, I was itching to move, yearning to run circles around the globe. How could I willingly return to bed? In truth, I felt a bit hyper, energized after expelling a host of dark, malodorous substances. The only real discomfort was a slight light-headedness when walking, and otherwise, I felt fine. The most prominent sensation was hunger, yet I couldn't eat too much; I needed to give my stomach and intestines time to recover.
Amidst the affection and well-wishes of my loved ones and friends, the afternoon slipped by unnoticed. Zhou Tan, having sipped some ginseng chicken soup and rested for a while, saw a marked improvement in his health, regaining the ability to walk on his own. To express gratitude to Zhou Tan, old Lin, Wu Zhangya, my uncle, and all the friends and relatives who lent their support, my mother prepared an array of dishes and brought out a jar of ten-year-old rice wine she had meticulously brewed. Her homemade rice wine was renowned throughout the village.
The dinner table buzzed with cheerfulness, especially old Lin, who downed his drinks with a heroic flair, regaling everyone with tales of his past exploits: encountering a monstrous creature during a hunt, a legendary battle years ago with someone's wife that lasted three hundred rounds without defeat, and tales of monsters lurking in certain locales, preying on humans.
I noticed that Zhou Tan spoke little this evening, his brows slightly furrowed, his eyes darting, and he seemed weighed down by deep thoughts. He had cured me, so one would expect him to feel a sense of accomplishment and pride. Even if he sought greater rewards, he should have boasted about his achievements and the sacrifices he made. Why, then, did he seem so melancholy?
Suddenly, a chilling thought struck me: it seemed Zhou Tan hadn't killed the fox spirit, nor had he expelled it. So, was the fox spirit still lurking within me? The thought of a millennia-old fox still residing inside my body was like a centipede scurrying across my back, leaving me feeling profoundly uneasy.
Amidst the jubilant atmosphere, I didn't want to disrupt the joy, so I refrained from confronting Zhou Tan on the spot. I would wait until after dinner to ask him discreetly. As I excused myself from the table to use the restroom, I stumbled upon something that left me utterly astonished: I could see with remarkable clarity in the pitch-black darkness, albeit with a different color palette than daylight.
Could this be the fabled night vision?