Chapter 1 Time Rewinds

Time rewinds to a moment before. Li Ang stood in front of the Nine Rank Crab Roe Bun restaurant, holding a narrow, elongated yellow paper in his hand. The paper was soft and thin, feeling as though it would tear if he used a little more force.

On the front of the yellow paper, archaic seal script characters, obscure and profound, were drawn in cinnabar. On either side and below the characters were strange patterns, nested and interconnected with each other.

Those patterns seemed to be surging clouds or churning sea waves. If stared at for too long, they would easily cause dizziness, tinnitus, and an intense urge to vomit.

This talisman was obtained by Li Ang from the Nine Rank Crab Roe Bun restaurant, found inserted in the paper brochures above the reception desk, with a corner deliberately exposed to be conspicuous.

After Liu Wu Dai turned off the fluorescent lights, Li Ang quickly found the talisman with the help of the cat eye night vision function, and used a cinnabar brush to make a copy under the Nine Rank Crab Roe Bun's signboard.

"Talismans, also called fu zi, mo lu, or dan, are a combination of fu and lu, originating from ancient shamanic arts, first appearing in the Eastern Han Dynasty. It is said that they have the power to summon gods, impeach ghosts, subdue demons, and eliminate disasters."

Li Ang looked at the talisman paper in his hand and silently recited, "The types of talismans created over thousands of years are countless, with strange and varied styles, mainly divided into four categories.

"One is a compound character formed by combining two or more small characters,

"The second is the cloud lu, imitating clouds or ancient seal script,

"The third is the spiritual talisman, composed of intricate circles, dots, and lines,

"The fourth is the fu diagram, which combines the image of a deity with runes.

"The talisman in Longheng Mall should be a traditional cloud lu. Among the ancient seal script characters, I can barely identify the words 'Shangshi wanghun, duan di dai yi, du shang nann gong.'

"This passage comes from the *Supreme Salvation Sutra*, created in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, known as the head of the Daoist canon and the source of all dharmas."

After learning about the existence of the Extraordinary Association, Li Ang searched for many Daoist classics to read, but even after flipping through them until they were worn out, he didn't sense the so-called "Qi"

(Pinyin: qì, third tone. An ancient philosophical concept, referring to the original substance that produces and constitutes all things in the universe, slightly different from "air")

Not to mention using "Qi" to reach the mystical and peaceful state described in the Daoist scriptures, possessing all kinds of incredible power.

"This thing is exactly the same as the nonsense drawn by scammers on the street, can it really seal ghosts...."

Li Ang put away the yellow paper, secretly complaining in his heart. Even he couldn't disassemble and analyze the talisman without more samples. He could only know what it was, but not why.

This feeling was like a primitive man groping for a smartphone, with curiosity about to itch to explosion.

Li Ang called out Chai Cuiqiao, pointed to the talisman on the ground, and asked, "Do you feel anything about this thing?"

Chai Cuiqiao, who popped out from his chest, looked confused, stared at the ground he was pointing at, and asked, "What thing? Is it a talisman?"

Sure enough, just like the system described, ghosts cannot detect copied talismans. This avoids the dead end where players leave and the ghosts come to destroy the talismans.

Li Ang's eyes lit up. Without much explanation, he reached out and stuffed her back into his chest despite Chai Cuiqiao's strong protests.

"I think I've come up with a very interesting operation."

He muttered to himself, found a few chopsticks from the Crab Roe Bun restaurant,

After attaching Ripple energy to them, he returned to the corridor and silently destroyed the surveillance cameras in the corridor, using the chopsticks as throwing knives.

Unmonitored by the cameras, Li Ang drew another identical pattern ten meters away from the first talisman copy.

Chai Cuiqiao couldn't help but stick her head out and asked curiously, "Why are you drawing another one?"

"Doing a simple little experiment,"

Li Ang finished drawing the second copy, went to other shops on the fifth floor, and searched unhurriedly.

Chai Cuiqiao blinked her eyes, "Haven't you already found the talisman on the fifth floor? Why are you still searching?"

"Are you the '100,000 Whys' baby?"

Li Ang curled his lips and explained, "The system said 'find six different paper talismans scattered in various locations,' but it didn't say that all the talismans were placed on different floors.

"According to the system's nature, it is very likely that we searched for a long time, only to find that there is only one talisman left that we haven't found, hidden under someone's shoe."

Of course, this was just an exaggeration. Since the system gave a three-hour time limit, it was impossible to really hide the talismans in places like floor cracks, wall gaps, or ventilation ducts.

They had to be conspicuous so that players could find them all within three hours.

Li Ang carefully searched the fifth floor and finally found another talisman on a window-side table in a Japanese restaurant.

"The second one is not much different from the first one, but I still don't understand it."

Li Ang lightly admitted the fact that he was not good at understanding talismans, greeted Liu Wu Dai and others in the WeChat group, went downstairs, and arrived at the fourth floor.

He was just about to find a hidden place to draw the talisman when he saw all the surveillance cameras above the ceiling stop working. At the same time, new messages came in the WeChat group.

Plague Doctor: "I turned off the backup power supply! There really is a ghost in the control room! The moment I destroyed the gasoline engine set, that ghost and the lost blimp, or rather, the body of the lost blimp occupied by the old man's ghost, rushed out of the control room together!"

Plague Doctor: "They're chasing me now!"

Plague Doctor: "I hid in a cabinet in the distribution room, here, there's a talisman hidden here."

Plague Doctor: "But they're coming in! They're knocking on doors one by one."

Plague Doctor: "They're about to find me!"

On the phone screen, monotonous and dull text clearly revealed the Plague Doctor's panic and despair.

The scene of him cowering in a narrow, dark cabinet compartment, listening to the banging on the door in horror, seemed to appear before his eyes.

Ao Yong: "Hold on! I'm coming over!"

Li Ang was just wondering whether to jump down from the fourth floor to support them when a loud noise came from the basement of Longheng Mall.

Flames soared into the sky, thick smoke billowed, and dust filled the air. Li Ang stuck his head out of the corridor railing and saw that the lower floors were covered by smoke.

However, the smoke was not pungent, but had a strange fragrance....

"Incense ash, made into a bomb?"

Li Ang was surprised and astonished, but saw two figures passing through the hall on the first basement floor.

After a while, the Plague Doctor typed in the group: "Ao Yong and I shook them off and escaped. We've drawn the talisman on the first basement floor and are ready to split up and go upstairs."

As expected of a veteran, even after just walking around the line between life and death, he can still stabilize his mind and continue to perform the task.

"Basement floor, fifth floor, plus the fourth floor, we've completed three of the six talismans."

Li Ang squatted on the ground on the fourth floor, silently took out his cinnabar brush, and prepared to start copying.

Glug, a small red and white rubber ball rolled along the beige limestone floor and finally stopped at his feet.

Li Ang looked up and saw a little girl in red children's clothes, with pigtails tied on both her face and the back of her head, standing in front of him, twisting her body cutely with her hands behind her back.

"Uncle, can you pick up the ball for me?"

The little girl said in a milky voice, her entire face completely covered by thick, dark pigtails, with dripping blood constantly falling from the black hair.

Uncle?

Li Ang's face changed under the mask. He slowly straightened up and gently threw the ball over.

The little girl caught the ball and let out a bell-like laugh, then threw the ball back again.

"Uncle, can you pick up the ball for me?"

Li Ang silently threw the ball back again, and the little girl caught it again and threw it back.

"Uncle, can you pick up the ball for me?"