Yang Su’s story
Yang Su said, “Dear Wuxia, I am very glad that I did not harm you and your friends, I knew we were going against all the values of Wulin, but we had no choice. This is our reasons; the Ding family of Huang Long City was the most respected family in this region, as this region was very far from the Imperial Court, the population in this region looked to us for leadership.
The Imperial Court was corrupted and in recent years they had been busy with their wars with the Liao in the northeast. So they had totally ignored us, we had petitioned again and again for a strong defense force to be sent here to help us, but we were ignored. Unknown to them, the west of the Empire is also facing a big threat, but to the Imperial War department, the threat did not exist.”
Yan Ching asked, “Who was the threat you are talking about?”
Yang Su replied, “Initially we did not have a definite idea, they attack our remote town and villages in the northwestern borders and they were a collection of various tribes. They do not represent any single tribe, they were small groups taken from many tribes and combined into a single army.
They did not have a single base that we could identify, after every attack; they just disappeared into the desert. Or maybe the small groups just go back to their respective tribes to wait for orders for the next raid. Therefore, the Imperial War department claimed that they did not exist, but the attacks were conducted by thousands of horsemen, our small defense force here simply could not deal with the numbers.”
Yang Su continued, “One years ago, the Ding family decided to take matters into our own hands, we started to organize our own defense force; we even paid for all the expenses. The General in charge of defending this region was the third son of the Ding family; he managed to incorporate these new resources into the small army provided by the Imperial Court.
We were beginning to score some successes against the enemy; we captured a few of the raiders and we were having clues as to who was behind all this attacks….we realized that it was the Kingdom of Xi Xia in the northwest who was paying for these tribesmen to attack us. They had even sent military experts to plan and organize the attacks, and they had paid spies to infiltrate our garrisons to provide them with information on our deployment. That was why their raids were always hitting us on our weakest points.”
Yan Ching said, “So with this information did you go back to the War department?”
Yang Su said, “It was no use, they accused us of fabricating this information, they told us that Xi Xia was a friendly Kingdom, they had no reason to do this.”
Yang Su shook his head sadly and continued, “The Grand lady of the Ding family was determine, she knew that if we did not step in, the people in the region will suffer badly. When the Imperial Court did not want to help the people, it was up to the strongest in the society to step in. These attacks not only concerned the people of this region, it will affect the integrity of the entire Empire. We could not detach ourselves from this.”
Yang Su continued, “We had convinced the other rich families in the region to contribute to the defense force, the Ding family had spent a lot of our wealth on this task, it was no secret that the entire clan was on the verge of bankrupt. But we did not mind at all, the Grand Lady said that we had gotten wealthy because of the people, now we are just giving it back to them.
The people of the region were also very supportive of us; all our creditors even though they knew we were bankrupt did not come and chase us for money. People were showing up every day at our doorstep offering us help, the farmer and merchants around the region had been providing us and the army food without collecting any money in return. We had the heart of the people.” Yang Su spoke with pride.
He continued, “As we were about to get the situation under control, my young master the General was inflicted with a strange disease, he fell asleep one night ten days ago and had not wakened up ever since, we engaged many doctors to treat him but it was no use. All the doctors had never seen such a case before; they had no clue how to go about healing him. Finally we resorted to the tribal doctors in the region. One tribal witchdoctor told us that our young master was bitten by a rare snake in the forest; the only cure was a rare flower that blooms once in a hundred years. The last time it bloomed was 60 years ago, and the only available specimen was kept by the Apologetic Priest!!!
We went to the Apologetic Priest seeking his help, but he was away in the mountains and his disciples told us that the rare flower was requested by the Imperial household a few days ago, and they had dispatched two priests to bring the flower to the Imperial capital.”
Yang Su looked at us and said, “Now you understand why we had to rob the two priests, we had no choice, if words get out that the General is dying, the entire defense force will fall apart. Already we had reliable information that many tribesmen had been gathering in the northern plains, they are getting ready for the next attack. The moment the General dies, the defense army would disintegrate, I believe this time the attack will not be limited to the border towns; they would go all the way Chang’an.”
Yan Ching who was always the sharper mind asked Yang Su, “Mister Yang, the witchdoctor said that the only cure was a rare flower kept by the Apologetic Priest and at the same time the flower was requested by the Imperial household just a few days before that.
That flower had been there for the past 60 years; nobody bothered about it, but just as your young master needed it to save his life the Emperor wanted it as well. Do you not realize that this was too much of a coincidence?”
Yan Ching added, “I believe that there was a plot to discredit the Ding family, the conspirators were forcing the Ding family to commit a crime against Imperial interest; you were doing exactly that last night when you tried to rob the two priests. Had you been successful with the robbery, the Emperor would be furious, the entire Ding household would be held accountable; there would not be any Ding family to defend the borders.”
Yang Su looked at Yan Ching in shock and said, “In our anxiety to save the young master we did not realize that point. I am sure the Grand Lady did not see that too. But how do we save the young master?”
Yan Ching replied, “Dear Mister Yang, this is a matter of great importance, as a citizen of the Song dynasty I will help you and the Ding family to fight this evil. I will discuss with my friends and see how we can help.”
The old doctor Liu Ching Feng who had been quiet all this while added, “If there is anything that I could do, I would help too. I would be happy to look at your young master, but I doubt I can be of any help. I suspect the one who could help would be one of your friends, the Miao boy…”
Right away Yan Ching understood what the old doctor meant; the young master General was not sick, he was attacked by black magic!!!
The Black Magic of Gu
The black magic that was practiced in the Miao region was known as Gu, it was a form of dark sorcery which had been around for a long time. Due to its evil nature, the practice was banned by Imperial decree, but it was still practiced by some of the hill tribes. Most of the time this sorcery was used as a form of medical care for the Miao tribe, few people actually used the darker aspect of it. But there were still a few witchdoctors who used the art for evil gains.
Gu had several forms, most of them involved some kind of poison that was distilled from various poisonous plants and insects; the essence of this distillate was then put into the food or drink of the victim. The victim would then experience a slow painful death, but the highest form of the art allowed the witchdoctor to introduce the poison from a vast distance away. Often casting the spell from the safety of his own home shrine, the victim would never know who had poisoned him.
This way of introducing the poison would involve two elements, the poison itself and the carrier of the poison, the carrier of the poison was said to be a spirit of a diseased witchdoctor. The reason was because the practice of Gu was deemed evil, therefore when a Gu practitioner dies, his spirit could ne
ver be accepted in the afterlife, and such wondering spirits would be easily captured and enslaved by a highly skilled witchdoctor. The captured spirit would be a slave to the witchdoctor forever. The witchdoctor would have to possess a piece of the victim’s body part; hair and nail clipping were usually used. With this item he would then direct the slaved spirit to the victim.
The other forms of Gu were milder in nature; they could be used to cure sickness or used to cast off bad luck. One form of Gu can make the victim fall in love with a certain person, thus many Miao women actually administered such concoction to their husband or husband to be….
Yan Ching Organize his Friends (Yan Ching Narrative)
There was no time to lose, I gathered my friends and told them what had happened, and told them the story of Yang Su. We all agreed that we should help the Ding family.
This plot had obviously involved the help of someone in the Imperial Court who had advised the Emperor to request for the flower, this person had somehow aroused the Emperor’s interest in this rare flower. At the same time the witchdoctor who had examined the General must have been bought as well, he had made the Ding family believe that the only way to save the General was the flower; these two events had been orchestrated to put the Ding family on the collision course with the Emperor. With the Ding family discredited, the western border would be opened for the attacking tribesmen.
Now the crucial task was to save the General’s life, and the person who would have some knowledge of Gu was Xiao Miao. We begged him to tell us everything he knew about this dark art of Gu.
Xiao Miao said, “Gu had been in the Miao culture for hundreds of years, this practice was initially intended as a medical discipline, but somehow through the years a dark branch of the science was developed. But ever since the Miao tribal land was conquered by the Han (Chinese) people, the practice was banned. In the beginning, this Gu technique was incorporated into warfare against the conquerors, but as the Han people hated this practice so much that the reprisal was extraordinarily harsh. Many Gu practitioners were exterminated, slowly the Miao people stop practicing it all together for fear of the harsh reprisal.
However, there were still a few villages up in the mountains that harbour witchdoctors who practice the Black art. They were very difficult to find, especially those that had the skill to cast the poison from a distance was not hear of in recent years. I can check with my village elders for you, but I have my dilemma as you can understand…”
I fully understand Xiao Miao’s predicament, he belonged to the Miao tribe whose land had been conquered by my Han ancestor hundreds of years ago. The Miao people had been slowly pushed to the less fertile land up in the mountains, while many of the hill tribes had been Sinicized into the cities there were still many starving tribesmen up in the cold mountains. Through the years there had been rebellions followed by harsh repression, hatred ran deep between the two cultures. For him to go to his elders and seek help for us might look rather ridiculous and unexplainable.
It was an unfortunate part of history; I had no answer to the question, there was only one thing I could say to him, “Xiao Miao, I understand your dilemma, I could only point out to you that if we allow the Xi Xia Kingdom to conquer this land; they would probably be worse than the Song dynasty. At least under the Song dynasty, you and your people knew what the devil looks like, with Xi Xia, you do not know.”
After some considerations, Xiao Miao agreed to approach some of his elders; these elders might have some knowledge on who was still practicing Gu. As Xiao Miao had mentioned there were not many witchdoctor had the power to cast the spell from a distance, that would narrow down the number of candidates for us. To show our sincerity, we offered to talk to any Miao tribe elders who were willing to talk to us. Xiao Miao set off on his mission.
The next thing I wanted to tackle was the two priests carrying the rare flower; they were still in the inn. I would like to find out from them more about this rare flower and hopefully we could find out who was involved in this plot to discredit the Ding family.
Meanwhile Liu Ching Feng had offered to escort Yang Su back to Huang Long City, he would take a look at the condition of the sleeping General and see if he could do anything about it. With his power, he should be able to at least keep the General alive for a while longer, while we wait for help from the Miao people. They set off immediately for Huang Long City; we agreed to meet there as soon as we hear from Xiao Miao.
The Hundred Years Bloom (Yan Ching’s account)
My friends and I went to knock on the door of the two priests who were escorting the rare flower. When they saw that it was us, they respectfully invited us into the room. The two priests introduced themselves as Qian Si and Qian Wei; they were disciples of Apologetic Priest, they did not dress as a priest last night as they did not want to attract attention on the road.
They had decided to stay in the inn for another day because they were worried that the Ding family would be waiting for them further down the road. We assured them that the issue had been resolved; the Ding family would not need the flower any more. We also explained the Ding family’s predicament to them; they were saddened by the news of the sleeping General.
Qian Si said, “We have heard of the General and the Ding family’s love of the people, which was why we were so surprise when they were trying to rob us. Now I wish I could give them the flower, but unfortunately this same flower was requested by the Emperor...”
I consoled them that the flower was used as a plot by evil people in the Imperial Court; it was not their fault that they could not hand the flower to the Dings. Then I asked them to help us by telling us all they knew about the Hundred Year Bloom.
Qian Si said, “The rare flower blooms once every hundred years, the plant grows only high up in the mountains in the Shu region. Even when it blooms, it only flowers for a day or two, so specimens of such flowers were very rare. After the last blooming that happened sixty years ago, there were about twenty collected by various people, but through the years they were either lost or used up as medicine, now there is only one left in the world. This is the one.”
He opened the box and showed me the dried up remains of what looked like a multi-petal flower.
Qian Si continued, “Even though many people claimed that this flower had special medicinal properties my teacher had never use it on anyone. It was because this flower is so rare that it was not available for proper studies and experiments so he doubted that anyone actually knew its characteristic. It is very dangerous to use it when it is not properly tested.
Initially he was very reluctant to send it to the Emperor, but after repeated requests from the Imperial Medical department he gave in. He sent them a letter warning of the potential danger of using this flower in any herbal combination; that was all he could do.”
Yan Ching asked, “So it was the Imperial physicians who had requested for this flower?”
Qian Si replied, “Yes, it was the Chief Physician who personally sent the request.”
Now I got a clearer picture of who might have been involved in the plot to discredit the Ding family, the Chief Physician might have been bought. If we want to pursue this link in the future, this physician would be a good starting point.
We thanked the two priests and told them that it would be safe to travel the Imperial Capital, and that they must not delay further. For additional safety, I asked River Ghost to escort them on the way; nothing must happen to the flower, otherwise it would be blamed on the Ding family.
Xiao Miao hooked us up (Yan Ching’s account)
Xiao Miao sent us a message to meet him at a mountain village; he informed us that he had established contact with a Gu expert. We set off immediately for the village, it was not far off.
The village was like most other Miao village, subsistent farming and some small scale tea trading was the main life line of the community. The entire village consisted of Miao people; it was a closed community, usually such communities usually kept to t
hemselves, outsiders were not welcomed.
There we met up with Xiao Miao who was with an middle age man who was his uncle, this uncle of his had left Xiao Miao’s village many years ago; he was married into this village.
That was a special arranged marriage because his father-in-law had only one daughter, therefore the marriage was on the condition that the groom would move in with the bride’s family. And his father-in-law was a powerful man in the community; he was the chief witchdoctor of the region. Traditionally, Xiao Miao’s uncle would eventually take over the position of the father-in-law; meanwhile he would have to learn the Gu skills from the old man.
When the uncle saw us, he did not display any welcome or hostility; as a Miao tribesman he had little reasons to be friendly towards us, but as friends of Xiao Miao he also had no grounds to be hostile. After centuries of suspicion and misunderstanding, the two cultures had settled into an uneasy compromise of generally ignoring each other.
I believe Xiao Miao had a hard time convincing the uncle and his father-in-law to meet us. I was very grateful to Xiao Miao.
We were brought to a wooden house at the end of the village; this house was bigger than the others in the village, this was a symbol of status. As we enter the house, we were told to be silent as the Grandmaster was meditating; the room was dark and crowded with many jars and boxes on one side, on the other side of the room was an altar filled with little clay figurines. We sat on the floor and waited patiently for the Grandmaster.
Before long the Grandmaster came out from the inner chamber, he was dressed in traditional Miao outfit, he worn a fur hat with a peacock feather sticking out in the back. He was about seventy years of age.
He sat down before us and stared; he did not return our greetings and bows, again there was the neutral expression which was neither hostility nor fondness. After some time, he suddenly refocused his eyes as though he was coming out from a trance. Some signs of recollection started to creep into his face and he smiled and said, “When I was a young man, I used to have many Han people friends, I used to hunt with the boys, we stole chicken from the farmers…we had much fun.” He looked at us and thought for a while.
Finally he continued, “Things had gotten tougher in recent years, much had changed. But that is not what you came for; I understand from Little Cricket (his name for Xiao Miao) that you needed to find out about a Gu master that can perform a dark spell from a distance.”
He took a sip of the tea beside him and continued, “I was initially reluctant to help; I did not see any reason why I should help the very same people who had oppressed my tribe. Little Cricket presented me with your argument about the advantage of knowing devil you are dealing with, I agreed. We are simple folks; we do not have fancy arguments to justify our ways, I like your argument.”
He continued, “The practice of Gu had evolved much since your ancestors arrived in our land, now, there are not many Gu practitioners in the community, for highly skilled ones, even less. Even those that practiced the medical aspects of the art had reduced in number, many of the Miao people had became Sinicized and they preferred the medicine from the Central Plains.
As far as I knew, there are only around a handful Gu masters that could fit into your description, these people had been secretly learning and practicing this art in their hideout up in the mountains. This was part of our culture, Gu could be used for good or evil, unfortunately the Han people did not understand the art; they had forced us to abandon this practice. It was very foolish of them. The Culture is in our blood.”
He said, “This group of secret practitioner of the art had gone through much hardship to keep up with the practice, every year, they leave the comfort of their home and family and they hide up in the mountains for months in order to practice Gu. Most of them had done it to keep the culture alive; to serve the community, but some had turned to the dark side.
Out of the group of highly skilled Gu master, I believe I know which one you are looking for; he was from a village ten miles from here, he had perfected his skills three years ago. After perfecting his skill, he had killed his teacher and he enslaved his teacher’s spirit. This man is evil. His name is Black Bear.”
He reflected for a moment and said, “In my trance, I could feel his power, I could detect his intense energy about ten to fifteen days ago, I believe he was conducting a dark ritual around these mountains. He was intensifying his power during the last full moon, which would be twelve days back. I believe that would the day your General was hit by the sleeping sickness.”
He was absolutely right on the date, now I need to find out how to counter this Gu attack.
I asked him, “Dear grandmaster, you had been right on the date, can you enlighten me on how to counteract this Gu attack?”
He replied, “Black Bear had for some unknown reason used a very mild attack on your General, the sleeping Gu poison was the mildest form of offensive. Had he used the other more potent poison, your General would have been dead the next day.
I guess he was worry that a blatant attack with a strong Gu poison would make it very obvious that a Miao Gu master was behind the attack. If the Imperial authorities became involved, the situation might be complicated for him. Therefore he had chosen a mild, slow attack on the General.
This sleeping Gu actually does not kill the victim, it just make them sleep and sleep, eventually starving to death. Very often this Gu attack would be diagnosed by the traditional Han doctor as a problem of the heart; nobody would think it was the work of black magic. I believe this was the way Black Bear wanted to disguise his attack.
But this sleeping Gu had one major setback; the Gu master who cast the spell must continuously casting the spell to keep the victim asleep. It is a very exhausting process. That was why this form of attack was seldom used for prolong period.”He paused for a while to collect his thoughts before he answer my question about the remedy.
He continued, “Young man, I cannot answer your question about remedies without explaining further about Gu. Please bear with me. In recent few hundred years, the practice of Gu had split into two branches; this was when the dark side was developed. The Imperial ban on the art had driven both branches underground; the two branches were the Enlightened Gu and the Dark Gu. The Enlightened branch of the art, which was the original form of the art, was mainly used for medical purposes; it was a form of medical care for the poor people in the tribal village up in the mountains where they had no access to the city facilities. There is another purpose for the Enlightened Gu, but I will come to it later.
The Dark branch of the art was for harming people; revenge, jealousy, murder and so on. The harming of other people was indiscriminate, as long as you have enough money to pay the Gu Master, he would harm anyone for you. These practices were in no way reflective of the Miao culture, but unfortunately the Imperial authorities do not understand the difference between the two, they had banned both branches of the art.
I am a Grandmaster of the Enlightened Gu, I had learned and practiced it since I was a little boy, and I am also in charge of educating the next generation of Gu masters of the Enlightened branch. In our training, we also have to learn the practices of the Dark Gu, because one of the most important aspects of our duty was to fight the Dark side. We had to know how they did it in order to protect my people from it.
The basic concept behind the practice of Gu was to make use of the energy of nature, we harmonized with nature and channel its energy to perform task for us. These energies could be used to heal a person, at times it could also use to harm a person. These energies that I talk about were not visible to the eyes, during our training we were taught how to detect them in the environment, it is in the trees, the rocks, the mountains and even the animals. But just like most powers in the world, it could be used for good and it could be used for evil purposes.
The Dark Gu masters had perfected the skill of tapping the dark energies that existed around us; we on the other hand were trained to avoid such energies
. Let me explain further; the energy from a healthy tall tree is good energy, but if the tree was deliberately damaged and the tree began to die, it would start emitting bad energy. The Dark Gu master would then capture such energy from the dying tree and store it and transmit it when they wanted to harm someone with it.”
He paused for a drink of tea from this long narrative, “Evil energy did not come about in nature, nature is the creator of goodness and pureness and serenity; bad energies were created by us when we did something bad to our environment. When we did not harmonize with nature; that was when the ugly side of nature appeared.
The Dark Gu Master is an expert in creating such negative forces; one of the ways was to pour poison onto a healthy tree and wait for it to wither, they would then perform a ritual to capture the pain, suffering and anguish emitting from the dying tree. Sometimes they when they needed an abundance of evil energy they would torture animals to make them generate the evil energy. Animals being a more conscious being than plants were capable of producing more intense and darker form of evilness. At the most extreme, human being could be used as well.”
I asked, “Does that mean when we cut down a tree to build a house we are creating evilness in our world?”
The Grandmaster replied, “Plants and animals accept their fate when they are killed for a good purpose, nature in its wisdom had catered for a balance. When a person cuts down a healthy tree for his family’s shelter, the goodness in him would emit a positive energy to balance off the negative energy emitted by the dying tree. In the Enlightened Miao tradition, we pay respect to the animal or tree before taking their life, and we do not take more than we need. On top of that, before we consume the slaughtered animal, we thank them for their existence. A dead tree used to build a warm shelter for a happy family would again emit more positive energy, but when the house is abandoned, the rotting house would start emitting negative energy.
Do you not notice the difference when you enter a happily occupied home and an abandoned house? A happily occupied home would give you warmth even in the coldest winter; on the other hand an abandoned house would give you the shivers even in the height of summer.”
I was very stirred by the wisdom of the Grandmaster; the differences between the two cultures had created many misunderstanding and misconception about the Miao people. The general perception from the Central Plain was that the Miao tribes were evil and uncivilized, but this conversation had showed that they had a clear and insightful philosophy of life. They had learned to live with the environment, with nature, they had encoded this concept in the form of energies and spirits. They had treated their environment with respect, to them nature was a partner in their survival, not a slave to be exploited.
But unfortunately a minority in the Miao community had also learned to harness the dark energies and made use of it for evil gains. This minority had discredited the entire community.
I asked the Grandmaster, “How about the carrier of the poison? How does Black Bear control the spirit and how do we counter it?”
The Grand Master said, “The spirit that Black Bear commanded was his teacher, his name was Green Snake. Green Snake was not an evil man, but he was weak in personality. He had been practicing the Enlightened Gu when Black Bear joined him as a student, after some time, the student; Black Bear managed to convince him to practice the dark side of the art. The entire village community was shocked that the student had converted the teacher to the dark side, the village threw the two out, they had been living in the mountains ever since.
I was aware when Green Snake died, his spirit came to me during my meditation, and he told me that he was murdered by his student Black Bear and he had regretted his stupidity. Soon after that, I could feel that his spirit was captured by his former student. And in order to energize the slave spirit Black Bear had been forcing dark energy onto the spirit of Green Snake.
Now, every time his spirit passes through our village on his way to perform an evil task for his master, I could feel his powerful dark energy, Green Snake was no longer Green Snake. The spirit of Green Snake had turned into a powerful spirit full of hatred and evilness and all this negativity was forced onto him by his former-student Black Bear. It saddens me to witness all this.”
He stroke his chin deep in thoughts as we sat there waiting for the Grand Master to come up with a strategy to counter the powerful evil. Finally he looked up and said, “I do not have the power to fight him right now, because he had gotten too strong, Black Bear and his slave spirit are unbeatable. I need something to weaken the dark energy surrounding him before we could enter his territory safely. I need a massive surge of good energy to neutralize his power.”
He continued, “The only way to do so quickly is to get the people of Huang Long city to refrain from killing animals and be vegetarian for the immediate future, and the entire population to be mobilized to plant trees in the surrounding hillside. I will conduct a ritual to harness this collective surge of goodness, and I will channel it into Black Bear’s territory, this should break the protective evil aura surrounding him. This might even give the spirit of Green Snake enough good energy to turn back to the Enlightened side. When his defense is broken, we will move in and destroy him.”
I was delighted at the solution, with the Ding family’s reputation; they should have no problem mobilizing the population to help them. I sent Night Owl ahead with this information to the Ding family, the Grand Master and the rest will travel to Huang Long city the following day.
Huang Long city (Yan Ching’s account)
When we reached Huang long city, we were immediately brought to the Ding family’s mansion. The Grand Lady of the family received us with warm fondness; she was grateful to us for helping her avert a disaster by preventing the robbery of the Hundred Years Bloom. She respectfully invited the Miao Grand Master to sit at the senior seat of the household. (In Chinese customs, the seat facing the main door of the house was reserved for the most senior person in the household, this seat was seldom offered to anybody outside the family. Anybody offered that seat would have to be very revered, it was equivalent to offering the service of the entire household to that person.)
The Grand Master humbly turned down the offer and he said, “Dear Madam Ding, I am very honoured to be offered such privilege position, the act itself was enough to convince me that I am helping the right people. The seat is not necessary; please let me have the humble seat by your side.”
The Grand Lady replied, “I shall not force it on you, please be comfortable. I had received your instructions and I had prepared everything, my sons and daughters had been going to all the households in Huang Long City to beg them to refrain from killing and they will not be eating meat for the next few days. We had also organized thousands of the people of Huang Long to plant trees on the mountain side.”
The Grand Master replied, “Yes I know, as I travelled here, I had detected a very intense stream of goodness coming from all around. This had been positive, the willingness of the people to help you shows that the Ding family are righteous people. My effort had not been misplaced.”
He continued, “I will start gathering the good energies immediately, with this huge number of people involved I believe we would be ready in no time at all. There was a saying that goes ‘Evilness can never win Righteousness’, I am confident that this point would be proven soon.”
We left the Ding mansion and went to a hillside nearby. The Grand Master set up his altar and went about gathering the good energy that was being generated by the goodness of the Huang Long residents. He continued doing it till night fall.