…
"Little Taoist Master, this is it."
The old lady brought Xia Fan to her house.
Xia Fan used the light of the oil lamp in the house to glance at Ruqiu who was hiding behind Mrs. Tian. There was indeed a clear look of fear and weakness on his face.
"Don't go in until I tell you." He ordered, then walked into the house and bolted the door.
This house is the most common style of house in the county. The largest one is the hall, which is about ten square meters. There is a door on the left and right, with the kitchen on one side and the bedroom on the other. There is also a narrow door in the kitchen that leads directly to the toilet and the backyard.
Xia Fan took a minute to walk around the house briefly, and after confirming that there was no one else around, he opened the bedroom window.
Li, who was already in place, quietly rolled into the house.
At this time, she was like a martial artist. Although she was wearing ordinary cloth, with the blessing of a bamboo hat and a raincoat, she looked full of chivalry. If she had a long sword on her waist, she would be an authentic swordsman of the sect. The wind is blowing.
As for the characteristics of the fox demon, they are completely concealed by clothing, and its behavior is basically the same as that of humans.
"How is it? Does it still fit?"
"My chest is a little tight, but it doesn't affect my movement." Li replied.
Clothes that perfectly match your body shape... can indeed be difficult to find. Xia Fan cleared his throat, "What should we do next?"
"Wait." She walked to the bed and sat down. "Only when you see the vision with your own eyes can you make an accurate judgment."
"No need to turn off the lights?"
"No need," Li's eyes looked like he was looking at a fool, "How can you observe them if they are turned off?"
"I thought... ghosts are afraid of light." Xia Fan replied awkwardly, he is used to harming people...
"If they are afraid of light, then they don't need alchemists to deal with evil spirits." The fox demon sneered, "Even the evil spirits who are most affected by light will not run away at the sight of light, let alone others. Moreover, I don't I think the old lady encountered a ghost.”
"Why?"
"Ghosts are the most difficult type of evil spirits to deal with. They usually appear in the form of corpses. It is not their style to hide their heads and tails. And once they appear, they will probably cause a bloody storm, and it is unlikely that the two people in the house will be allowed to survive until now."
Xia Fan found that he vaguely understood the temper of the fox demon - although she did not miss every opportunity to laugh at humans, she would still do what she promised seriously. Even if she was explaining, she would take the trouble to start from the basics. Not in one word.
"How are these evil spirits classified?"
"According to my master, it should have been passed down orally for thousands of years. The Privy Council only made a further subdivision and added the four categories of demons and monsters before demons and monsters - the two correspond one to one, but the former is used to refer to more A weaker evil spirit. Of course, folk names are all kinds of weird, so any name is normal."
"That's why you said there is no essential difference between the charm and the demon in the evil night..." Xia Fan suddenly understood.
"But this classification is not without loopholes," Li snorted. "First of all, it makes no sense to classify monsters into evil spirits. It is purely human beings' selfish desires. If we really want to classify them by category, you should also belong to it. Secondly, it There is no way to include all abnormal things, such as some spirits... "
At this point, she suddenly stopped and looked up at the roof.
"What's wrong?"
"Shh-" She made a silencing gesture, "Listen."
Xia Fan couldn't help but hold his breath and looked upward - under the illumination of the oil lamp, only one side of the beam above his head gave off a dim reflection, and the rest was hidden in the darkness. Coupled with the large shadows on the tiled roof, The details he could see were extremely limited.
In the silence, he heard a slight "ta, da" sound.
At first, Xia Fan still had to concentrate to listen, but after hearing it, the sound gradually became clearer, as if it was far away and near at times, and sometimes it seemed as if it came from beside him.
He realized that what Mrs. Tian said was true. This was neither a psychological effect nor an illusion. There was indeed something extra in the room!
Sometimes it walks along the roof beams, and sometimes it passes by the wardrobe. The small and clear footsteps are proof.
Even after being baptized by the Great Wilderness, Xia Fan still felt a pimple rising on his back.
Because no matter how he looked, he couldn't find the source of the sound.
No wonder Tian's wife was kept awake all night - those who could sleep peacefully in the face of such a strange situation must have an unusually high psychological quality.
But if it's just invisible, he might not be able to deal with it!
Xia Fan took off the wooden sword from his back and held it firmly in his hand.
He was waiting for the moment when this evil thing was exposed.
Half a quarter of an hour later, the oil lamp suddenly started to shake, and a wooden cup on the low table beside the bed was knocked over with a "clang" and fell straight to the ground -
Almost at the same time, Xia Fan took action.
With concentration, the five senses strengthened by Qi clearly captured every detail of the cup pouring. It first tilted to the left, and then was pushed outward. If there was something there, it must be behind the wooden cup, and its traveling route was from right to left!
Xia Fan swung his sword and slashed towards the predicted position - according to the frequency of the clicking sound, it was impossible for it to escape this blow!
"Snapped!"
The strong impact made him almost lose his grip on the hilt of the sword. The wooden sword landed on the table with almost no obstacles, and its recoil made Xia Fan's palm numb. Apart from leaving a dent on the low table, there was no other gain from this shot.
The clicking and clicking sounds continued, sounding as if they were laughing at him.
"Hahahaha..." This time someone actually laughed.
Li held his stomach and laughed for a while, until his smile turned into a look of discomfort - it was obvious that this burst of laughter had involved wounds.
"Little Taoist Priest, are you, are you okay?" A confused inquiry came from outside the house.
"It's okay... I'm catching ghosts!" Xia Fan shook off his numb hand and glared at Li angrily, "Is it so funny to miss?"
Li nodded seriously, "It's really interesting to see you concentrating on cutting the air."
"Air? It obviously knocked over the cup -" Xia Fan suddenly frowned mid-sentence, "Wait, do you know the specific location of that thing?"
"Yes and no."
"what does that mean?"
"It means that as long as you don't see it, you'll never know where it is."
If you don't see it... you don't know. The problem is, if you don't even know the location, how can you start talking about it if you see it? Xia Fan looked puzzled.
"The trick is to find a way to see each other," Li raised his lips, "I already know what we are looking for."
"Okay, what is it?"
"Strange, or... a monster." The fox demon replied, "This is also the most branched category of evil spirits. As the saying goes, there are all kinds of strange things, and there are all kinds of strange ones. If I guessed correctly, it should be a virtual monster, belonging to Kan, and I belong to the same zodiac sign."
Xia Fan immediately remembered this knowledge in his heart, even if he could not understand its meaning for the time being, "Do I need to use magic to see this... virtual demon you are talking about?"
"I don't know. Some alchemy techniques may be possible, but Master has never taught me." Li paused, "But before there were alchemists, people also figured out ways to see the virtual demons."
"What kind of method?"
"You'll find out in a minute—but before that happens, I need a big stack of window paper, the more the merrier."
…
It was not easy to gather a lot of window paper at nine or ten o'clock in the evening. Xia Fan and Mrs. Tian spent a lot of effort to borrow or buy five or six rolls of oil paper from their neighbors.
Li quickly connected them end to end and glued them into three "paper tapes". These paper strips were pasted horizontally on both ends of the wall, dividing the room into several areas. Then she lit more than ten candles, which were all the reserves of Mrs. Tian's family, and placed them in various corners of the house.
"That's it... that's enough." After completing these preparations, Li clapped his hands and said.
"Are you sure?" Xia Fan asked doubtfully, "It feels like there are just a few extra banners made of window paper hanging in the house."
"For visions, the more complex it is, the more effective it is." The fox demon took off his bamboo hat and sat cross-legged in front of the paper. "The virtual ghost is the embodiment of Qi. The reason why you can't see it is because you focus too much on your eyes."
"But didn't you say earlier that it would be more difficult to observe when the lights are turned off?"
"Indeed, because the darkness will not make you give up using your eyes, but will increase your focus on vision, and the effect will naturally be worse."
Xia Fan thought for a moment and found that what the other party said made sense, "Then what is the purpose of these papers?"
"Things you see through the window paper will be blurry, which will weaken the scene in your eyes. This will force you to realize that the eyes are no longer reliable, but can instead perceive some things that are difficult to observe directly. The so-called This is the principle of making reality come from emptiness.”
The problem is that the only person you are deceiving is your own brain...could it also affect external objects? Just when he was doubtful about the letter, a black shadow suddenly jumped on the paper.
And besides him and the fox demon, there should be nothing else in this room!
Through the oil paper, Xia Fan could see the dim candlelight and the shadow of the bed frame reflected by the light, while the walls, windows and other things that were slightly farther away completely disappeared behind the paper, as if it were an infinite and vast space. Just at the top of the outline of the bed frame, the black shadow twisted its body and moved forward slowly - everything was like a rough shadow puppet show, with the shadow as its stage.
"I saw it." Xia Fan said softly.
"It's not really seen yet. Before being sensed, virtual sprites can appear in any possible location, and even the world they live in is different from ours. The moment it knocks over the cup, its body is not necessarily there. Near the cup, in the words of my master, we cannot understand the movements of the virtual demons because we are bound by the rules of heaven and earth."
Bound by rules? Xia Fan couldn't help but recited silently in his mind, "Can a sprite go beyond the rules?"
"The closer it is to chaos, the harder it is to use common sense to understand it. Isn't this the manifestation of visions?" Li spread his hands and said, "And as long as this virtual monster is perceived by others, it will be bound by heaven and earth again and become a creature that can be The entity of contact. It's time to see what it really looks like."
"How to do it?"
"Just walk over."
Xia Fan nodded, slowly walked around the oil paper banner, and looked towards Tian's wife's bed frame -
I saw an extra cat on top, an extremely ordinary civet cat. Perhaps it noticed something. It turned around and opened its mouth towards Xia Fan and barked softly.
"Meow-woo."