Chapter 29: There Was A Reason
Chapter 29: There Was A Reason
Su Chunfeng did not immediately become excited and agree, let alone kowtow and accept Wang Qimin as his master as Wang Qimin had hoped and wished. Instead, he showed a face full of suspicion. “Teacher Wang, what did you say?”
“Esoteric Technique!”
“What’s Esoteric Technique?”
“Esoteric Technique is…” Wang Qimin thought for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “Actually, it’s some mysterious and great metaphysical cultural essence passed down through our country’s thousands of years of history. In simple terms, it’s based on Yin-Yang, the Five Elements, and the Eight Trigrams. It borrows the power of nature to accomplish many supernatural events that ordinary people simply cannot understand and science cannot explain. For example, divining fortunes and predicting good or bad luck through astrology and hexagrams, reading a person’s appearance to deduce their fate, fortune, and misfortune. There’s also observing the lay of mountains, rivers, and geography, the secret arts of altering Feng Shui and the Five Elements. It can also cure illnesses, ward off evil, dispel Yin energy, drive away ghosts and monsters, and so on and so forth…”
Su Chunfeng’s face was full of pleasant surprise. “Is it like becoming an immortal and attaining the Dao? I’ve seen ‘The Eight Immortals Cross the Sea’ and ‘Investiture of the Gods’. Are they that kind of immortal?”
“Ahem.” Wang Qimin hurriedly explained. “Those are myths and legends, too exaggerated. Although Esoteric Technique cannot achieve flying in the sky, diving into the earth, overturning rivers and seas like in the legends, once one’s cultivation reaches a certain level, one can also possess powerful abilities unfathomable as ghosts and gods, accomplishing extraordinary things.”
“Teacher, are you that amazing?”
Wang Qimin’s old face reddened, but he still nodded, speaking with the detached air of a lofty master. “Do you want to see it for yourself?”
“Of course I do,” Su Chunfeng said excitedly. But then he tilted his head, full of curiosity, and asked, “Teacher, can you also tell fortunes, cure illnesses, and read Feng Shui?”
“No.” Wang Qimin shook his head honestly, then quickly added, “Although your master does not know Esoteric Techniques like fortune-telling or reading Feng Shui, nor does he know medicine, treating some Yin-evil illnesses, minor problems like ghost possession, ghost riding people, and the like, can be done with ease.”
Su Chunfeng asked hopefully, “Then what else can you do?”
“Well… it’s hard to explain in detail in such a short time.” Wang Qimin said kindly. “If you are willing to accept me as your master, I will naturally teach you to cultivate various mysterious Esoteric Techniques. If you don’t believe me, find a suitable time and place, and I can perform some Esoteric Techniques for you alone. I guarantee it will broaden your horizons.”
Su Chunfeng blinked and asked, “Is cultivating Esoteric Techniques difficult?”
“Very difficult. It requires great perseverance and absolute talent.” Wang Qimin’s expression was serious and earnest—this time he wasn’t pretending, and of course, he also genuinely wanted to motivate Su Chunfeng with such words.
“Could you roughly tell me what one can learn?”
Wang Qimin nodded. “Mm, in simple terms, things like drawing Talismans, Art Casting, incantations, hand seals, setting up formations, seated meditation cultivation, and so on…”
Su Chunfeng immediately showed disdain, snorted coldly, and said, “So it’s just the same kind of superstitious nonsense as what those village Yin-Yang ‘immortals’ and spirit mediums do. I don’t want to learn it, and I don’t have the time or energy to learn it.” Having said that, he stood up with a swish. As if a student reporting his dream to a teacher, he lifted his head, straightened his chest, radiating majestic spirit and lofty ambition, his face beaming. “I want to study hard, strive to get into high school, get into university in the future, and even become a doctor. My ideal is to become a great scientist! To be one of the nation’s pillars, to contribute to the realization of the great goal of the Four Modernizations of our great socialist motherland and of the whole people striving for a moderately prosperous society!”
“This, well…” Wang Qimin was momentarily at a loss for words.
As the head of the teaching department of Dongwangzhuang Township Middle School, a key middle school in Jinzhou County, an excellent People’s Teacher, and moreover an old teacher of politics, how could he possibly dampen a student’s such pure and lofty ideal?
After passionately expressing his great ideal and goal, Su Chunfeng then became somewhat shy, his face reddening as he whispered, “Teacher, if there’s nothing else, I’ll be going.” His expression seemed to indicate he felt his earlier exposition of his ideal was indeed somewhat too ambitious and presumptuous.
“Ah, alright, alright.” Wang Qimin nodded awkwardly.
“Goodbye, teacher.” Su Chunfeng immediately turned around, strode to the door, and was about to open it and leave.
Wang Qimin snapped out of it and hurriedly said, “Hey, wait.”
“What is it?” Su Chunfeng stopped and turned his head, asking curiously.
“That…” Wang Qimin hesitated, then said somewhat awkwardly and kindly, “Today’s matter, and what I told you, absolutely must not be told to anyone else.”
“I know.” Su Chunfeng grinned a mischievous smile, his expression full of disdain and contempt. “To say something not very pleasant, this kind of thing, Teacher Wang, even if you aren’t ashamed, I’d be ashamed if it got out.” With that, as if afraid Wang Qimin would get angry, he dashed off in a quick trot.
Wang Qimin sat dumbfounded in his office, speechless for a while.
…
Although he had successfully tactfully refused and somewhat ungratefully and treacherously dealt a heavy blow to his former master Wang Qimin, Su Chunfeng knew this matter was not over. Moreover, the appearance of “Evil-Resistant” Gong Hu was truly beyond Su Chunfeng’s expectations, forcing him to be even more careful and cautious.
After returning to the village on the weekend, Su Chunfeng unusually did not stay home to review his lessons. Instead, he went out to hang out and play with Li Zhichao and their friends.
Of course, he wasn’t doing it just for fun.
While chatting with a group of friends he had grown up with, Su Chunfeng made indirect inquiries about any recent unusual happenings in the village, especially matters involving Liu Jinming’s family.
Thus, he learned some information very useful to himself.
On Monday, Liu Jinming couldn’t withstand his bedridden old mother’s pressure by threatening to go on a hunger strike, and had no choice but to agree to her request. He borrowed an agricultural diesel three-wheeler, loaded his paralyzed old mother, and drove thirty li to the Sanhuang Temple on the Chenhuang Mountain in Heyi Town to burn incense and pray for blessings.
Originally, this wasn’t news. Many devout men and women in Jinzhou County and even the Pingyang City area would go to the Sanhuang Temple to burn incense and pray.
Old Madam Liu from Hetang Village and her group of old ladies and young wives would also go frequently.
Now that the Liu family’s circumstances were worrisome, and the reason for the old lady’s illness involved mysterious and bizarre incidents of Folk Sorcery, it was completely understandable that the old lady wanted to go to the Sanhuang Temple to burn incense and pray.
But what was newsworthy was…
The true purpose of the Liu family old lady’s trip to the Sanhuang Temple was not to burn incense and pray for blessings!
After making her son painstakingly carry her up Chenhuang Mountain and arriving at the Sanhuang Temple, she immediately found the middle-aged man who often peddled protective Talismans at the temple square entrance.
Old Madam Liu, who could raise a son of Liu Jinming’s character, was truly a rare powerhouse of her generation—paralyzed yet strong-willed, physically weak yet fiercely bold, having survived a great calamity and been bedridden with illness for months, still sickly to this day. But upon reaching the Sanhuang Temple square, her long-suppressed angry little universe exploded instantaneously. Sitting right on the ground, she cursed and berated that middle-aged man selling Talismans until he was utterly humiliated and fled begging for mercy. In the end, he returned all the eleven yuan and eight mao he had originally taken from the old lady, and even paid an extra four yuan and five mao to appease Old Madam Liu’s burning hatred.
Besides Liu Jinming and his wife, several other old ladies and women from the village had also gone along.
So naturally, after they returned, this incident quickly spread throughout the village.
The villagers were all shocked. So Old Madam Liu really had spent money to learn a curse Folk Sorcery to use against the Su Cheng family, only to end up being harmed by the sorcery herself!
Ai, she truly reaped what she sowed, who could she blame?
Unexpectedly, on Wednesday morning, that middle-aged man who sold Talismans at the Sanhuang Temple square actually brought an old man to the village, inquired around, and went to Liu Jinming’s house. What they said and did inside Liu Jinming’s house, no one knew. Even Hu Ling, Liu Jinming’s wife who was usually a big mouth incapable of keeping secrets, was tight-lipped about it and absolutely refused to say more.
However, curious villagers noticed that the old man who came with the Talisman seller was being very mysterious. He wandered around the front, back, and sides of Su Cheng’s house for quite a while, sometimes gesturing this way and that. Then he wandered around inside and outside Hetang Village for half a day, as if looking for something…
They didn’t leave the village until evening.
“I guess that old man was a Great Master the Talisman seller found to perform expulsion rites for the Liu family.”
In Li Zhichao’s house, Zhong Hua was talking animatedly, adding dramatic details.
Zhong Hua was one of Su Chunfeng and Li Zhichao’s childhood playmates. He now studied at Guanmiao Township Middle School.
His nickname was “News Broadcast” because he had an impressive specialty—there was hardly any big or small matter in the village he didn’t know about. Usually, when Zhong Hua met his friends, his first sentence was always: “Hey, did you know? Did you hear about… that thing…”
Moreover, Zhong Hua’s mother had been one of the eyewitnesses present when Old Madam Liu went to the Sanhuang Temple on Chenhuang Mountain on Monday.
So the credibility of what Zhong Hua said was quite high.
Especially the part where Zhong Hua described Old Madam Liu’s little universe exploding at the Sanhuang Temple, which left Su Chunfeng and his friends utterly stunned.
Chen Binbin whispered, “Ah, do you think the Great Master Old Madam Liu brought might cast another curse on Chunfeng’s family?”
“Nonsense, you still believe that stuff?” Li Zhichao said dismissively.
“Exactly!” Zhong Hua shot Chen Binbin a disdainful look. “What era is this? All feudal superstitions, monsters and demons, must be overthrown!”
Chen Binbin scoffed. “You overthrow your mother first!”
“Damn!” Zhong Hua said angrily. “We’re joking, don’t bring family into it!”
“Okay, okay, I was wrong.” Chen Binbin quickly apologized.
Su Chunfeng chuckled on the side. “As the old saying goes, if you believe it, it exists; if you don’t, it doesn’t. Besides, if you don’t do anything wrong, you won’t be afraid of ghosts knocking at your door at midnight… Our family lives uprightly and honestly. Why should we be afraid of these messy, baseless Evil Spirits and Demons?”
Li Zhichao laughed. “See, Chunfeng knows how to talk properly!”
“Of course, his academic results have been good since he was little!”