Chapter 520: Chapter 185: The Way of Ghost Catching_2
She had seen Qi Yutai’s dical case records, and although the true circumstances were concealed, she could still tell that after the case involving Elder Yang of Mangming Township, Qi Yutai was bedridden for a long ti. And afterwards, the Grand Preceptor’s Mansion drove all the birds away.
The first ti he was startled by an external object, he could suppress it, but the second ti must have been much more severe.
And then, the great fire at Fengle Building continued to burn. The fire started from the top pavilion, and the Light-vented Bulbul Painting was completely consud by the flas, leaving no trace behind. Even if soone suspected later on, upon returning to the attic, nothing but ruins remained after the fire, and no clues were to be found.
They would only assu it was the nonsense of the Grand Preceptor’s son, who had consud too much Cold Food Powder and was delirious,
"Truly seamless," a voice of admiration sounded beside her, Pei Yunng tilted her head, "However, this thod is novel, where did you learn of it?"
Such thods of paint transformation are not taught in dical Classics and Pharmacology.
Lu Tong was taken aback.
She lowered her head, took a sip of the White Lotus Dew before her. The Dew was cool, making its sweetness seem faint and even a bit bitter.
"It was my father who told ."
Pei Yunng was slightly startled.
Perhaps for appeal, the street vendor selling Sweet Syrup had placed two broken lotus petals in the bamboo cup, the pink and white fragnts floating in the clear liquid, bobbing up and down, like little boats illuminated by the moonlight on a sumr night’s lotus pond.
Lu Tong was montarily in a trance.
It seed soone was calling from behind her: "Tongtong, little Tongtong, slow down!"
She hopped ahead, and turning around, she saw her mother pulling Lu Rou and calling out to her, with Lu Qian and father walking behind, each carrying a few bamboo tubes of Sweet Syrup.
"Hurry up!" she complained, "Or we’ll miss the water play—"
Every year around the sumr solstice, Changwu County would have people set up stages by the river in town to perform water plays.
At that ti, all the residents of the town would take boats to the riverbank to watch the plays.
The most famous plays of the acting troupes, which the children did not enjoy. Love and hatred, promotions and wealth, tales of loyalty, filial piety, righteousness, and empty big words—all sounded distant and uninteresting.
The most popular were the ghost plays, such as the Zhang Family’s house haunted by a vengeful Fierce Ghost of a wrongfully deceased child, the Wealth God statue in the Li Family Temple that would turn into an old woman at night to devour the hearts and livers of the rich, or the ghost bride in the new grave on the neighboring mountain who would pick a passing man every night to marry... The children, while screaming in fright, listened with rapt attention.
Lu Tong too was fond of the play "Headless Ghost Seeks Vengeance Beyond the Grave".
One year, the acting troupe put their hearts into it and tweaked the "Headless Ghost" play,
The lanterns on the stage were dim, but the actors’ costus painted with oil colors were vivid. The big red lanterns lit up faintly in front of the paper mansion gates, and suddenly, a large white face with bleeding orifices erged on the wall.
With a "wow—" cry,
Lu Tong’s loud sobbing sent a flock of egrets flying from the lotus pond.
That year, many children from Changwu County who ca to watch the play were frightened into tears, and Lu Tong developed a fever upon returning ho. The auntie from the neighboring house insisted she was haunted by sothing dirty and suggested fetching a shaman from the mountain to call back her soul.
Lu Rou and Lu Qian sat in front of her bed, looking at her with worried eyes.
Wrapped in a blanket huddled at the foot of the bed, she felt that at any mont a large white face like the one she had seen would erge from under the bed canopy, in front of the wardrobe, or beneath the table. She dared not close her eyes for even a second.
But after just two days, her originally plump little face had thinned down a bit.
Her father ca in from outside and told her to get dressed and leave her bed.
She refused.
"Get up," her father said, "I’ll teach you how to catch ghosts."
Catch ghosts?
Curiosity about catching ghosts ultimately surpassed her stubbornness to lie in bed, and after dragging her feet for a while, she got out of bed and walked over to her father’s side. He had her sit at a table covered with paper and handed her a brush dipped in paint.
The paint resembled cinnabar yet was different from the usual kind, as the texture was too thick.
Her father asked her to write a character.
Lu Tong, with a flourish, drew the character "ghost".
The vermilion characters were ssy as if written in haste, indistinguishable as characters or talismans, and her father sighed with his hand on his forehead.
Lu Tong was perplexed.
As she sat in confusion, about to ask where they would catch the ghost, she saw the character on the white paper gradually fade away, as if an invisible person beside her was silently wiping the characters away with a cloth.
Lu Tong leaped up in fright: "There’s a ghost!"
But her father pressed her shoulder, making her sit down again.
He took the oil lamp from the table and lightly swept it over the faded paper, and the writing that had disappeared earlier reappeared.
"This is..." Lu Tong was dumbstruck.
"I asked the leader of the acting troupe, using snake slough from a Stone Snake, mica, smoke resin, Dip Blue Water, Insect White Wax... various dicinal ingredients processed through special thods and mixed with cinnabar, painted into the picture, the color would vanish in half an hour. But upon exposure to a great fire, the cinnabar would reveal its color once again."
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