The surrounding walls, like the living room, are covered with all kinds of talismans, and many places where things can be hung are hung with strings of strange talisman pendants.
"No way...am I still dreaming?" Ah Guan closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.
The current situation made him unbelievable, but compared with the previous dream, it didn't feel that light and airy. This made him feel very scared. If all this was true, how should he face it next?
Just as he was thinking about it, Yue'e walked in with a bowl. As soon as Aguan saw the bowl, he immediately had a bad feeling in his heart.
"Jiayou, this is Shunde's blessed water. Drink it quickly." Yue'e handed the bowl to Aguan.
Aguan saw a thick black liquid floating in the bowl, and a foul smell assaulted his nostrils.
"Mom...haven't I already recovered?" Aguan said in embarrassment.
"You just woke up and your body is still very weak. Drinking this talisman water can help you recover quickly." Yue'e explained.
Aguan looked at his mother's earnest eyes and didn't know how to refuse. He took the bowl, slowly brought it to his mouth and took a small sip.
At this time, the phone rang, and Yue'e walked out of the room to answer the phone.
Aguan quickly spit the talisman water in his mouth back into the bowl with a puff, and retched with laughter. He opened his mouth wide and kept squeezing out the saliva. The smell of the talisman water was even more fishy than rancid water.
Yue'e kept saying thank you to the phone. From the conversation, it seemed that the person on the other end of the phone was her mother's friend.
Aguan looked around hurriedly, retching while he hurriedly took out a plastic storage box from under the bed, which he usually used to store books. He opened the lid, threw the books in the box into the closet, and then poured the bowl of talisman water into the plastic box.
In the disgusting pool of liquid in the box, there were actually several finger-sized maggots twisting and struggling. Aguan was dumbfounded, feeling his stomach churning and uncomfortable, and the smell of rotten corpses reverberated in his nose and mouth. He closed the lid, pushed the box under the bed, and walked out of the room with the bowl.
Yue'e looked at Aguan while talking on the phone, her eyes full of suspicion.
Aguan showed the empty bowl in his hand to Yue'e, indicating that he not only drank it, but also drank it completely. Yue'e then smiled slightly and continued talking on the phone.
As soon as the toilet door was closed, Aguan immediately turned on the faucet and rinsed his mouth, picked up a large sliver of toothpaste and chewed it in his mouth, then rinsed his mouth several times, and the disgusting smell finally faded away.
Aguan went back to his room and lay down on the bed, unable to help but curse secretly. There was actually a portrait of Duke Shunde on the ceiling. In the portrait, Duke Shunde, who was wearing a large yellow robe and sitting on a dragon chair, was staring at me with a sly look, saying he was as disgusting as he was.
He curled up into a ball, covered his whole body with a quilt, closed his eyes tightly, and thought about what was going on. In the process of random thoughts, he thought that everything in front of him was probably a dream, and it would disappear as soon as he woke up.
After a long time, Aguan couldn't fall asleep no matter what. He poked his head out from under the quilt, but the room was still in that ghostly state. He pinched his face and arms so hard it hurt. Even so, he still hoped that this was a dream, after all, he had experienced very real dreams before.
Time passed minute by minute, and Aguan finally fell asleep, but not very well. Half asleep and half awake, I always felt something was wrong.
"Ayou, Ayou——"
Aguan heard his mother knocking on the door in his sleep and woke up instantly. Look at the clock, it's seven o'clock in the morning. He got out of bed in a daze, opened the door, and saw his mother holding a large bowl of black talisman water, and quickly took a few steps back.
I haven’t woken up from the nightmare yet.
"Ayou, mom is going to the temple now to ask Mr. Shunde to accept you as his wife. If Mr. Shunde agrees, mom will take you to the temple to meet Mr. Shunde tomorrow." Yue'e said while packing her purse.
Aguan noticed that his mother was pale and had heavy dark circles under her eyes. He couldn't help asking with concern: "Mom, have you had breakfast? Do you want to eat something? I'll buy breakfast."
Yue'e shook her head and replied with a smile: "No, I drink Shunde Gong's talisman water every day, with three meals. I feel very energetic and not hungry. By the way, I gave you the bowl of talisman water. Don't forget it." Let’s drink!”
Aguan watched Yue'e go out and stood there for a long time before pouring the disgusting bowl of talisman water into the toilet.
He began to look carefully at everything in the house. When I walked to Yue'e's room, I opened the door and saw, as expected, it was all portraits of Duke Shunde and a lot of talismans and pendants, and they were hung more densely.
Aguan made a call to the convenience store where he worked before. While he was in the hospital, the store manager had hired a new clerk.
Aguan put on a coat and went out. Firstly, he wanted to buy some food, but secondly, he didn't want to stay at home.
He was walking and eating on the street with the food, and suddenly he missed the old man in his dream. I always felt that the old man's eyes looked very wise, and it seemed that only the old man could answer everything in front of him.
He walked aimlessly like this for who knows how long. When he reached a street quite far from home, he suddenly found a small temple not far away in front of him. It was located in the alley. The first few red lanterns have big characters written on them - Shunde Imperial Palace.
"It can't be such a coincidence..." Aguan cursed a few times in his mind and was about to leave. But then I thought about it, why not go up and see who Emperor Shunde is, and also see if my mother is there.
Aguan pretended to walk by the temple casually and glanced into the temple a few times. He saw a bunch of people kneeling inside, mumbling something.
He caught a glimpse of a woman among the kneeling believers. Her clothes and back were very similar to his mother's. So he looked around, pretending to be waiting for someone, and wandered back and forth outside the temple, trying to get a better look.
Suddenly a loud shout came from the temple: "Disciple Lin Yue'e, Duke Shunde has agreed to accept your son as a deed, but your son is outside and you haven't asked him to come in yet!"
When Aguan heard this, he was so frightened that his body immediately stiffened. People in the temple also looked outside. Yue'e ran out in a panic, pulled Aguan and asked: "Jiayou, why did you come here?"
"I...I don't know. I'm a little bored at home alone. I wanted to go out for a walk. I don't know why I came here..." Aguan answered hesitantly, wondering who was in the temple. After seeing him, how do you know whose son he is?
"It must be that Duke Shunde has already healed it, it must be..." Yue'e said in surprise and joy, pulling Aguan towards the temple.
The Shunde Imperial Palace is old and dark, with a few dark candles burning inside. The candlelight flickered on and off, and rows of old black lanterns hung on the walls on both sides swayed, as if they were about to fall down at any time.
The altar in the middle of the temple was blackened by incense. The broken incense burner was filled with incense that was filled with strange smells. Even the fallen incense ashes were particularly black.
Aguan saw a statue of a god on the altar. The statue was dressed in yellow robes. His face and hands were brown and black. He had kind eyebrows and kind eyes, but his face had a slightly weird look. He thought he was the Lord Shunde who was described by his mother as the most merciful and compassionate. .
Yue'e couldn't hide her joy and said loudly to the believers and friends around her: "This is my son... I originally wanted to ask Duke Shunde what he meant before bringing him here, but I didn't expect him to come here on his own... ⋯This is all the result of Shunde Gong’s boundless magic power, who secretly guided my son here…”
When the brothers and sisters heard this, they all looked envious.
A woman said to Aguan: "Oh, young man, you are lucky. Lord Shunde is willing to accept you as a deed, and he also guides you to come over. My Zhihua worshiped for a month before Lord Shunde was willing to accept him."
"Uh... um." Aguan was confused and didn't know how to respond, so he could only nod with a smile on his face.
My mother took Aguan and came to an old woman in her sixties in front of the altar and said to Aguan: "Ayou, come and offer some incense to Mr. Shunde. Let Agu look at it and drink a little." Gu’s talisman water…”
"Fu Shui..." Aguan looked at the old woman named "Agu" in front of him. He saw that Agu's eyes were very small, and the whites of her eyes looked very small. Auntie's face was expressionless, and she was standing sideways in front of the small table, grabbing some strange things and putting them into a sea bowl.
I saw that some of the "ingredients" were powder, some were in lumps, long strips, and some were pulpy. Finally, some dark liquid was poured in.
