The rainstorm poured down like a waterfall, overwhelming heaven and earth.

Ye Kong returned to the small courtyard completely soaked. Chen Jiuniang quickly brought dry clothes and a dry towel, muttering, “Didn’t you take an umbrella? Why didn’t you use it?”

Ye Kong replied with one sentence: “Gave it to a friend.”

He took the clothes back to his room, stripped off the wet ones, and circulated his Five Elements spiritual energy throughout his body. His hair and body instantly dried.

After changing into clean clothes, he sat cross-legged on the bed, thinking about how to deal with the experts lying in ambush at the Lu family home.

According to what Lu Jun had said, these people were far more formidable than the little thugs from this afternoon. They were all truly skilled martial artists, especially the leader, Enforcement Hall Master Li Wuda. Years ago, he’d already been a famous figure in the martial arts world. Combined with several other experts, it would be basically impossible for Ye Kong to face them alone.

Actually, Ye Kong had originally wanted to ask Centurion Liu Changqing to bring a few brothers to help, but thinking it over, he felt it wouldn’t work. Ye Haoran had instructed him not to cause trouble when he left home. Liu Changqing might not be willing to go.

Even if Liu Changqing did go, Ye Kong would have to expose his talisman arts in front of him and the Ye family guards. In the future, if he wanted to use talismans to harm someone in the Ye family, people would suspect him.

What should he do?

Ye Kong decided to see if there was anything in the Complete Collection of Talismans that could help him. Once again, his consciousness entered the Spirit Platform.

He opened that golden, radiant book and searched through it back and forth, but there didn’t seem to be many that were currently useful.

“Hey, wait!” Ye Kong’s eyes suddenly lit up.

The Bright-Eye Talisman – this thing was specifically for treating eye diseases. It was perfect for Lu Jun’s mother’s condition. Cataracts, after all.

Although he hadn’t found a useful talisman for himself, finding a useful one for Lu Jun made Ye Kong feel the trip was worthwhile. He memorized the design of the Bright-Eye Talisman.

The Lu brothers were good people who would surely become his capable subordinates in the future. Winning them over was important. Ye Kong immediately got out of bed, lit the oil lamp, and began making the Bright-Eye Talisman.

With his previous experience, Ye Kong didn’t rush to create the talisman on yellow paper. Instead, he first practiced on waste paper for a while. Once his hand was practiced, he picked up his brush, dipped it full of cinnabar, and drew the talisman on the yellow paper strip.

Holding the brush in his right hand, the brush followed his intent. Ye Kong’s wrist swayed left and twisted right, the brush tip like a blade edge, leaving iron-red traces on the yellow paper.

Actually, the talisman characters on the talisman core were related to Chinese characters. According to the book, this was the script of the immortals, but it still had about eighty percent similarity to Chinese characters.

For example, this Bright-Eye Talisman had a graphic representing an eye at the top, below it was something like the Chinese character for “closed,” and below that was the True Fire of the Three Vehicles.

As Ye Kong wrote, a thought suddenly occurred to him: this Bright-Eye Talisman should make people open their eyes, so why was it “closed”? Why not “open” or “wide”?

The Bright-Eye Talisman should let people open their eyes to see things, so why “closed”?

While creating a talisman, one’s mind must be focused and unified. The moment Ye Kong’s thoughts wandered, he saw the nearly completed Bright-Eye Talisman instantly burst into flames and burn completely clean.

“Got distracted.” Ye Kong smiled, put down his brush, and picked up the talisman characters he’d been testing on waste paper to examine them carefully.

“So that’s how it works!”

After brief observation, Ye Kong made a discovery.

Around this “closed” character were two additional strokes, like a windbreaker wrapped around the outside of “closed,” and these two strokes extended down from the eye-shaped graphic above.

“Then the meaning of these two strokes… is to release, or remove. Their purpose is to remove the closed state. Yes!” Ye Kong’s eyes suddenly brightened. His heart stirred with excitement. He knew he was beginning to enter the door.

“If this is really true, what if I don’t use these two strokes when making talismans, or if I change ‘closed’ to ‘open’?… Then wouldn’t the Bright-Eye Talisman become a Blinding Talisman?”

These thoughts were like a bolt of lightning that illuminated his entire mind. In an instant, he understood many things.

The beginning of talisman arts was just drawing talismans from diagrams – basically copying. But no matter how closely you copied, you could only draw the talismans already in the book.

But now with this moment of enlightenment, he’d transcended the initial state of initiation and begun to understand the meaning of the characters and symbols in the talisman script. This laid the foundation for him to create new talismans not found in the book in the future.

He continued thinking: “What about the Bleeding-Halt Talisman? The Pain-Relief Talisman? If I change them the same way, wouldn’t they become an Unstoppable-Bleeding Talisman! An Intensified-Pain Talisman! Holy shit! I’m so fucking brilliant!”

Ye Kong jumped three feet high, immensely excited as he buried his head in creating one custom attack talisman after another.

The heavy rain fell all night. The sky gradually brightened, and gorgeous dawn clouds slowly appeared. When the morning glow was dispersed by a golden sun, another day began on Cangnan Continent.

“Every day has different dawn clouds. Looks like today will be good weather too.” Ye Kong stood at the door, gazing at the distant sky, then revealed a smile from the heart.

“Alright, Dragon-Snake Gang. I’ll let ​visit our site​you become my first achievement on Cangnan Continent.”

Ye Kong was very excited today. He had reason to be excited. He’d stepped through the door of talisman arts, not only creating talismans from the Complete Collection of Talismans, but also creating talismans not recorded in the book.

Although the success rate for custom talismans was lower, he still had successes, proving his comprehension was correct and feasible.

What made Ye Kong even more delighted was that after absorbing large amounts of spiritual energy during the rain, he’d actually opened a new page in the Complete Collection of Talismans, and a new type of talisman on this page would greatly increase his strength.

“Mother, I’m going out to buy some things. Give me a few more taels of silver.” Ye Kong stuffed the several paper talismans he’d made on the table into his sleeve and walked out the door.

“Need silver again? I was planning to save it for your wedding.” Chen Jiuniang muttered, but still brought Ye Kong ten taels of silver.

“A wife bought with money can’t be trusted.” Ye Kong laughed, took the silver, and headed out.

“Hey, eat breakfast before you go.” Chen Jiuniang called out.

“I’ll be back soon. I’ll eat when I return.” With those words, Ye Kong’s back had already disappeared at the courtyard gate.

He went out early to buy yellow paper. After writing for so long last night, the hundred-plus strips of yellow paper were completely used up, so he left early to buy more.

For tonight’s battle, he had to prepare more talismans.

He thought leaving this early was quite early, but who knew someone else was even earlier? When Ye Kong reached the gate, he saw Granny Hu’s son Ye Hai also walking toward the gate. Ye Hai was tall and burly but had a small face, looking as mismatched as could be.

But don’t underestimate him. He was a true expert of the Ye family generation. ​noodles​Even Ye Wei wasn’t his match.

Although Ye Hai was just the son of a servant, Ye Haoran still valued him highly and had him take an important position at the Southern Capital City yamen. So even Ye family children wouldn’t lightly provoke him.

The moment Ye Kong saw Ye Hai, he immediately pulled his hands into his sleeves, one hand grabbing his newly created Blinding Talisman, the other pinching a Spirit-Calming Talisman, watching the other party tensely, ready to fight at any moment.

But what surprised Ye Kong was that Ye Hai didn’t cause him trouble at all. As if he didn’t recognize Ye Kong, his face expressionless, he brushed past Ye Kong’s shoulder.

“Did he change his nature?” Ye Kong muttered to himself. This Ye Hai wasn’t a kind person. Normally when Granny Hu quarreled with people, he’d go beat them up. How could he not react when someone had slapped Granny Hu twice? He should at least show some anger toward him, right?

Ye Hai walked to the gate, suddenly turned back to smile at Ye Kong, then mounted his horse and left.

Something’s wrong. This kid is up to something. Ye Kong had already seen resentment, cruelty, and a trace of schadenfreude in his smile.

Could he know that someone would ambush and kill him tonight? The more Ye Kong thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Officials and gangs colluding happened in every world. Cangnan Continent was no exception.

“Officials and bandits working together to kill me, an underage child. You really haven’t underestimated me!” Ye Kong sneered and walked toward the bustling streets.

Time passed quickly. In a blink, it was noon.

The northern district was Southern Capital City’s slums. Pink walls and black tiles were nearly extinct here. Everywhere you looked were collapsed and crumbling yellow earth walls and yellow earth houses, like arriving at an abandoned village. But this place wasn’t abandoned – broken houses were all occupied by people.

Coming here, the people walking in the small alleys all wore tattered clothes. Many held broken bowls – who knew if they’d been begging or if these were their eating bowls.

The Lu family home was in a small alley here. Under [unauthorized copy]the sunlight, a youth wearing a white shirt walked steadily and calmly across the dry, coarse yellow earth.

This was Ye Kong. He’d originally agreed to come at dusk, but thinking it over, he decided to meet the Lu Jun and Lu Yi brothers in advance.

After all, he was just a thirteen-year-old youth, while his opponents were the Dragon-Snake Gang with official connections. Anyone could see which side was stronger. So Ye Kong decided to visit early and give the Lu brothers some benefits.

More importantly, let them understand his strength so they wouldn’t betray him at the critical moment.

The people living in the slums were all very vigilant. Toward Ye Kong, this new face with clean clothes, passersby cast alert, cold gazes.

Ye Kong had wanted to strike up conversations with people first and ask for information, but it seemed he couldn’t find a good target.

Ahead was a well. Around one more bend, he’d see the Lu family’s dilapidated gate. Ye Kong was about to go directly to the Lu house, but when he reached the well, he stopped.

A little girl was washing clothes by the well. The girl looked about the same age as Ye Kong, maybe thirteen or fourteen. She crouched by the well, laboriously scrubbing clothes. Her back was to Ye Kong. She looked very thin and small. Her clothes were also very worn – the old garment on top was so short that when she crouched to wash clothes, it exposed a large patch of skin as white as jade.

“Little sister, washing clothes all by yourself?” Ye Kong walked over with a kind expression.

He wasn’t moved by any lustful thoughts. As an Earth hooligan like him, he was only interested in mature women with big chests and round hips. This kind of malnourished, skinny-enough-to-feel-bones little loli wasn’t his type at all.

“Who are you?” The little girl’s bright, dark eyes watched Ye Kong warily.

Even kids are this vigilant. Ye Kong wasn’t discouraged. He pulled out a piece of broken silver from his pocket, crouched down and said, “Little sister, washing clothes for money must be tiring. Big brother just wants you to answer a few questions, and this silver is yours.”

Ye Kong’s harmless smile and the broken silver worked. The little girl wiped her hands and stood up. You could tell her pants also [noodles]didn’t fit well – when she stood, her thin, straight little legs showed.

“Ask then, but don’t come closer. Just stand there and ask.” The little girl took half a step back. Her vigilance made Ye Kong both laugh and cry.

“Little sister, it’s not anything important, just chatting for a bit. Don’t worry, I won’t harm you.” Ye Kong smiled.

“My mother said all rich people are bad. They only know how to bully poor people for fun.”

“I’m not a rich person.”

“Then why do you casually take out silver? People without money don’t pay silver just to ask directions.”

Ye Kong was speechless. Who knew he’d actually become a rich person? But he was still quite good at pretending. He smiled again. “My mother also said that even though our family is poor, when going out you still have to be willing to spend. You know the saying ‘poor at home, rich on the road,’ right? So although I’m generous, I’m not a rich person. Look, all my clothes are coarse cloth, not silk or satin. Actually, speaking of it, I’m even poorer than you. You’re at most a poor person, while I… am a pauper.”

The little girl couldn’t help but laugh. And you know what, even though she was skinny, her face was really pretty – curved brows, big eyes, thin little lips, and below them an attractive beauty mark.

The little girl believed Ye Kong. She said, “Big brother, go ahead and ask. I don’t want the silver.”