Cultivation Reconstruction in the End Times

Chapter 4 Forbidden Technique

In the evening, Zhang He went to a small supermarket downstairs and bought a pack of dried noodles. He took out half of the noodles and cooked a large bowl of noodles with soup, and also cracked two tender yellow poached eggs on top. He carried the bowl to the table and started eating.

He casually turned on the old TV, found a news channel, and watched while eating. The news was all about trivial and insignificant matters, such as a passer-by being hit by a car and demanding compensation, a woman accidentally falling into a sewer while walking, or two children falling from the third floor and miraculously remaining unharmed. Even more frustrating was a report about the glorious deed of the police spending five hours rescuing a cat from a pipeline.

Until he finished the whole bowl of noodles and drank up every bit of the soup, he still hadn't heard anything useful. Just as he was about to get up and clear the bowl, his gaze shifted to the screen. He picked up the remote control on the table and was about to turn off the TV. However, when he took a look, he immediately stopped his movement.

The screen was showing the police apprehending a group of drug users. One of them resisted with astonishing strength, knocking a criminal policeman to the ground. Finally, four or five people went up to subdue him. A policeman's arm was scratched on the spot, and the camera gave a close-up of his face when he was taken to the car.

When Zhang He saw this, his face immediately changed. The person in the close-up on the screen had a paper-white face, unfocused eyes, a bluish tint around his eyes, nose, and mouth, and purple lips. His movements getting into the car were stiff. In the eyes of others, it might seem like the symptoms of the late stage of drug use.

But he knew that this person wasn't a drug user at all; instead, he was a living dead person, or a zombie as they were called in foreign countries. Because he had seen too many such faces during the past ten years. Although the state might be somewhat similar to that of a person in the late stage of drug use, the strength was different. A drug user would be weak all over and couldn't possibly be so strong that it took four or five strong men to subdue him.

At this moment, the screen had switched to the anti-p*********y and anti-illegal activities column. He then turned off the TV, threw the remote control on the table, and sat back on the sofa without the intention of clearing the dishes and chopsticks. Seeing a living dead person on the TV suddenly made his mood, which had been somewhat relieved in the past few days, sink again. He had originally thought that he still had a year of easy time ahead, but it seemed that a year was already too long to wait.

The living dead had already appeared. It was just that because their numbers were small, they hadn't attracted the attention of others. Even if they were discovered, most people thought they were drug users and called the police, and then they were secretly controlled by the police. Although the surface seemed bustling and orderly, it was actually like an apple, looking fresh on the outside, but the cancerous tumor had already started to corrode from the inside.

No one knew better than him that it wasn't safe anymore. Perhaps there were already zombies in a nearby corner, eyeing the crowd hungrily and looking for suitable targets to attack.

Thinking of this, Zhang He quickly pushed the dishes and chopsticks on the table aside, then opened his laptop, searched for a few keywords on Baidu, and then aimlessly clicked on each piece of information among hundreds of them. Finally, a sentence in a certain forum caught his attention. A newbie who had just registered a few days ago said: Zombies are real, and they have already appeared!

After reading this, Zhang He felt a chill in his heart. It seemed that this person knew some inside information that others didn't. He immediately scrolled down. It seemed that many people were interested in the words "apocalypse" and "zombies", and many people left comments. Some agreed, while others refuted the claim. After flipping through several pages, this person appeared again. His second sentence was: "Those who bring disaster upon themselves will not be spared!"

Suddenly, the people below exploded with comments. Some also posted some unreliable remarks, and a chaotic stream of curses and swear words emerged. Zhang He felt annoyed for a moment and kept flipping through the pages, looking for useful information.

He found that this person had very few posts. There was only a reply every four or five pages. However, it seemed that he was angered by some remarks and typed out a passage: Several of my friends went to S place to dig for jade mines. They told me on the phone that they dug out something strange from the ground. When they came back, they became zombies and were taken away by the police. I heard it with my own ears and saw it with my own eyes!

The moment he finished reading, Zhang He knew that what this person said was probably true. Because in the later years of the apocalypse, someone had already found the origin of the virus on the zombies. The result was astonishing. It turned out to be a mutated plant. The toxin in the plant infected people, turning them into living dead people who were neither alive nor dead.

Apparently, some people on the forum saw that passage and were asking and speculating about what the strange creature he mentioned was. That person refused to say. Finally, unable to withstand the bombardment of many people, he finally revealed that the strange plant was said to be a blood-sucking vine.

Suddenly, some people said that he was talking nonsense, that he had read too many fantasy novels and his mind was messed up. After that, it was unclear whether that person went offline or didn't want to talk anymore. After flipping through more than ten pages, Zhang He didn't see him post any more remarks. Instead of reading the comments of other people, Zhang He directly closed the computer.

People who didn't know the truth probably regarded it as a joke and thought that this person was just talking nonsense. They thought that it was more believable to say that a vampire sucked blood than to say that a plant sucked blood. Only he knew that what that person said was the truth.

The apocalypse had already begun...

Although he still had a year to prepare, there were so many things for him to do. There was no time to waste anymore. Every minute and every second was extremely precious.

He immediately got up, cleared the dishes and chopsticks, returned to the table, and then seriously took out the piece of silk from the peach pit space, unfolded it, and started reading it carefully.

Most of the characters on this piece of silk were in ancient Chinese. Although he had some foundation, it was still very difficult for him to read. Finally, with the help of the books and even the handwritten notes left by his father, he translated all the characters on the silk onto a notebook.

It took him a full three days to finish organizing it. It turned out that the silk recorded a set of ancient talismans called the Seven Star Talismans. When he saw the words "Seven Star", he couldn't help but think of the seven small moles on his left hand and vaguely felt that there might be some connection between them.

Sure enough, this set of talismans was obviously different from ordinary talismans in terms of production. First, before drawing the talismans, one had to practice a set of skills. One needed to absorb the qi from the outside world into the dantian, and then let the essence qi in the dantian flow to the left hand. Use the left hand to draw the talismans and the right hand to hold down the paper. Then, with the essence qi of the Tao, spread it on the simple ink, gather the essence qi of things, to repel evil and falsehood, assist the true religion, summon all spirits, control life and death, maintain the fate of disasters, stabilize the five directions. Finally, the blood qi, the foundation qi, and the skill power had to be integrated into one, completed in one go, and the talisman would be effective.

Zhang He was a left-hander when he was a child. His left hand was more useful than his right hand. Later, although his family forced him to switch to using his right hand, his left hand was still flexible until now. He could even write simple characters without a problem. So, as long as he practiced more, drawing talismans should not be a problem.

He practiced that set of skills that night. Unfortunately, the result was meager. He practiced continuously without sleep or rest for three days before he finally felt a wisp of cool qi in his dantian. Although the speed was not ideal, there was still some achievement. When he tried to circulate that wisp of cool qi into his left hand.

Suddenly, a burning sensation rose in his palm again. He quickly opened his hand. As his mind moved, the sapling immediately appeared among the seven black moles in his palm. At this time, he clearly felt that the burning sensation in his palm was because that wisp of essence qi was forcibly absorbed into half of the peach shell by the sapling in his palm.

It probably took about five seconds. After the absorption, the burning sensation disappeared. Zhang He didn't care about that wisp of essence qi in his hand. Instead, he directly probed into the peach shell to check. He saw that that wisp of essence qi was wandering around in the space inside the peach pit. After a while, it was absorbed by the roots climbing on the shell. Every time a little was absorbed, the sapling grew a little taller. The edges of the leaves grew teeth at a visible speed. In a short while, the tender leaves turned into plump leaves, and the roots and stems also became thicker.

Zhang He was somewhat astonished for a moment. It turned out that the sapling in the peach pit didn't need soil and absorbed essence qi instead. No wonder he had tried all kinds of methods before but couldn't make it grow taller. Then he memorized that section of the skill method and prepared to practice it diligently every day in the future, because he was really curious about what this tender sapling that had saved his life countless times would look like when it grew up.

Five days later, Zhang He was sitting on the sofa, following the records on the silk, practicing the method of breathing, nourishing life, and cultivating qi with a mind as empty as the void. At this time, the soft sunlight shone on him through the window. An hour later, he finally opened his eyes. A flash of brilliance appeared in his eyes. Although the cultivation of essence qi was slow, there were still some achievements. The sapling in his palm had grown more than one meter tall, with dense branches and leaves. Its roots were faintly rooted in the peach pit the size of a thumb, looking as if it was growing on his palm.

He touched the lush and fresh green leaves with great affection. Probably due to the effect of the peach pit space, it had no weight at all when growing in his hand. He had tried to take the peach pit and the tree out of his left hand, but he found it was in vain. He couldn't move them and could only move them within the range of the seven small moles on his palm.

Thinking of when he opened the statue of the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning, by chance, he used the seven moles on his palm to match the seven black dots under the statue. Now that he saw that the peach pit could only grow in the palm of his left hand, he became even more convinced that the seven moles on his hand might really have some extraordinary function, or there might be some connection with the Seven Star Talismans recorded on the silk. However, after searching for a long time without any result, he gave up wasting time on this.

He picked up the silk on the table again. Due to rubbing it in his hands for many days, the silk no longer felt as stiff as when it was first taken out. After pulling the edges several times, it was somewhat deformed. After picking it up and putting it down countless times, Zhang He accidentally discovered that this piece of silk was actually double-layered.

After hesitating for a moment, he tentatively slowly tore off the other layer and was surprised to find that there were also characters on the other piece. He didn't know what material the silk was made of. It was thinner than paper and completely opaque. Probably because they had been stacked together for a long time and stuck together, he didn't notice it at first.

He immediately got up and placed the other piece on the empty space on the table, then carefully looked at the content on it. After reading only half of it, the expression on his face became very strange. After reading it all, he didn't move for a moment. His brows furrowed and then relaxed. Suddenly, the fierce cub of a leopard opposite his aunt's house flashed through his mind.

The reason why his brows relaxed was that he finally knew what that extremely stinky black thing was. His brows furrowed because the silk seemed to record a forbidden technique of Taoism. If he hadn't encountered too many inexplicable things recently, he would even say that this was pure nonsense. His brows relaxed again because this thing was very useful to him, especially in the apocalypse. He really needed it. He couldn't help but frown again because this forbidden technique, if it didn't backfire, was fine. Once it did, the result was unpredictable.

Such a thing that was both alluring and extremely uncertain made him a bit hesitant. After quickly reading it again, he finally slowly shook his head. Besides the uncertain factor of the backfire, the method was also too cruel. Although Zhang He came from the apocalypse and had stained his hands with a lot of blood, most of it was to save his life and was a last resort. He wasn't a cruel and evil person.

Then, after thinking for a while, he put the silk away.

About three days later, his aunt still hadn't received a call from her nephew. She originally wanted to put this matter aside for a couple of days and pretend that she didn't want to buy the building and wait for him to soften first. However, there was still no news from Zhang He. So, his aunt finally couldn't hold back and called early in the morning, saying that she wanted to discuss the matter of selling the building with him.

When the call came, Zhang He was sitting on the sofa practicing the method of breathing and nourishing qi. He had to stop halfway through. After saying a few words to his aunt, he got up, changed his clothes, and went downstairs.

I don't know if it was because of the skills he had practiced, but his complexion had been looking good these days. Not only was he light in body and strong in health, but his ears and eyes were also much more sensitive and intelligent.

He walked all the way to his aunt's downstairs. After going up to the third floor, thinking of that cub of a leopard last time, when he turned at the stairway, his gaze glanced towards the opposite side. Suddenly, he** smelled a very ominous smell of blood.

Just as he was looking at it suspiciously, his aunt saw him through the peephole. She had been waiting for him for a long time. When she saw him standing still, she opened the door and said somewhat unhappily, "Why didn't you come in when you arrived? Standing at the door and looking around. What's the matter? Do I have to come out and invite you in?"

When Zhang He heard this, he paused for a moment and immediately retracted his gaze. He knew that his aunt was a bit angry with him and was deliberately taking it out on him. But after all, she was his aunt, and he didn't want to argue with her. He explained a few words and then followed her into the house.

Not to mention scolding him a few times, even if she cursed at him, he wouldn't care, because nothing was more important to him now than dealing with the coming apocalypse. Besides, he had already seen the appearance of living dead people on the TV before, and time was already running out. So, it wasn't a wise move to offend her just for a moment of pleasure at this time.

And he hoped to get the 400,000 yuan from selling the building as soon as possible. He was in urgent need of money to buy supplies, and he was also worried that the longer this matter was delayed, the more likely something unexpected would happen.