Chapter 21: The Third Stroke
294 Words
For the next three months, Shen Moyan practiced charms day and night.
Repairing books during the day, practicing charms at night, weekends at the Taoist temple consulting Zhang Shouyi, occasionally taking small jobs to make ends meet. Lu Jiuyuan didn't come looking for him again, Liu Hanyan didn't contact him, the woman in red disappeared—only the three ancients in his head urging him on every day.
The third stroke was the hardest.
Zhu Quan said the third stroke was called the "Soul-Subduing Stroke," specifically for suppressing evil entities. Once mastered, a single charm could subdue a century-old fierce ghost. But the price was that the charm-drawer had to bear all the resentment on that charm.
Shen Moyan drew it three hundred times. Failed three hundred times.
Every failure, he felt something explode in his head—the resentment flooding back from the charm, crashing into his consciousness, making him see things he shouldn't see.
He saw Sun Shi standing by the well, pushed down.
He saw Sun Yunniang's despair as she jumped.
He saw those forty-seven people, one by one, fall into the well, swallowed by darkness.
He saw a massive shadow coiled at the bottom, mouth open, waiting for them to fall.
On the three hundred and first try, he succeeded.
The moment the charm completed, he felt something break inside his head. The resentment stopped flooding back—instead, it flowed out along the charm, dissipating into the air.
He looked at his hands. The black on his fingertips had reached the third knuckle.
"Congratulations." Zhu Quan said. "Third stroke complete. Third obstacle is here."
"What's the third obstacle?"
"What you just saw." Zhu Quan's voice was heavy. "That resentment is just the beginning. The real obstacle is still ahead."
- Writer
