Unusual Fate Records

Chapter 237, Section 028: The Ancestral Home in Sanshui
The faint glow of fluorescent lights flickered among the grass, and the sweltering heat of late July faded with the sunlight. The chirping of insects brought the coolness of the summer night, and the rustling sound brought back childhood memories of sitting in the cool room with a hand fan.

Jin Ziyue accompanied Sanshui to the clan's ancestral home.

Today she was wearing newly bought clothes. Her long black hair was not tied into a ponytail, but casually draped over her shoulders. Her white shirt and pleated skirt gave off a student vibe, and her canvas shoes had blue cartoon cat stickers on them.

The girl was carrying a large bag of sacrificial offerings, as she needed to make offerings to her ancestors during her trip back home to express her filial piety.

Jin Ziyue looked at the half-abandoned wooden building. The wooden planks on the outer edge were in disrepair over the years, and wild animals could freely pass through the cracks. Spider webs hung from the beams, and the whole room was covered in dust. Stepping on the wooden floor made a tooth-grinding creaking sound, as if it might collapse at any moment.

Sanshui took a broom from the small room that could barely be called a gatehouse and simply swept the hall.

The hall is adorned with spirit tablets, the faded wooden altar shows signs of cracking, the aged wax has solidified into black lumps, and there is incense ash that has accumulated for who knows how long, which has condensed into a paste in the incense burner.

Jin Ziyue gained a deeper understanding of the extent to which his family had fallen on hard times.

It's likely that no one has come since Sanshui's parents passed away.

He glanced at the girl who was carefully arranging the table and thought to himself that the once-renowned spiritual family probably only had one descendant left.

Sanshui replaced the incense and candles, and silently wiped the utensils and shrine. It was a lot of work, and soon she was covered in sweat.

She wouldn't let Jin Ziyue interfere. After all, this was her ancestral hall, and the ancestors would test the sincerity of their descendants.

Jin Ziyue applied some mosquito repellent to her.

The girl took out a brazier covered with lime from behind the door of the hall, patted it clean, and prepared paper money and offerings.

"Fathers and ancestors above, I, the great-granddaughter of the Tenth Family, Sanshui Linxin, am unfilial for failing to continue the ancestral line..."

The girl held three incense sticks in her hands, lowered her head, and murmured softly, her expression respectful.

"Lin Xin has come here today to ask the ancestors for something..."

Both psychics and fate controllers belong to clans that are nostalgic and are more respectful to their ancestors than people in most modern urban areas. This is partly because their ability to communicate with their ancestors is inseparable from their blessings and protection, and partly because their education preserves the concepts of loyalty and filial piety, which are deeply imprinted in their bloodline culture from birth.

"Therefore, tonight I dare to borrow the power of my ancestors and activate the Spirit Ascension Array to help my granddaughter regain her spiritual power and assist my friend in controlling the Jin family and finding her lost soul. I hope my ancestors will grant my request."

The girl bowed and carefully rekindled the incense.

She muttered to herself for a while longer before straightening up devoutly, bowing three times to the paper money and silver items, raising them, and finally placing them in the ceramic brazier outside the house to light them.

After everything was done, the candlelight in the mourning hall was dim, finally adding a touch of warmth and life.

Jin Ziyue stepped forward and used a wet wipe to wipe the sweat from her forehead: "Have you been bitten by mosquitoes? The mosquitoes by the fields are more venomous."

Sanshui shook his head and said, "Let's rekindle the incense before midnight, it's almost time."

She looked up and saw the full moon hanging high in the sky, with a few wisps of dark clouds like egg whites at the bottom of soup, light and fleeting.

Upon arriving at the outer courtyard, the entire old house faces south, with an opening on the south side and a backyard on the north side. There is a dry well, an abandoned millstone, and many farming tools standing in the corner, although the iron blocks on them have long been rusted.

Even now, over a hundred years old, the vibrant atmosphere of the mansion can still be faintly sensed.

"Next, we need to activate the Spirit Ascension Array," Sanshui Linxin said with a sigh of relief. "You can come and help now."

Jin Ziyue's heart tightened.

Even before he entered the mansion and began to wander around, he had already subtly placed red lines around the ancient house, stained with the blood of his destiny master, and tied them with tongueless copper wind chimes. The wind could not move them; only when the words of destiny passed by would they resonate with their sounds.

This is a commandment to guard against the omnipresent evil spirit, also known as "San Shui".

Whether the previous "Three Waters Approaching the Heart" or the current "Three Waters Approaching the Heart" is real or fake is not important to him. As long as he can see Fu Qin, it doesn't matter who it is.

In the early days, those who controlled destiny relied on tools and favorable timing and location to acquire destiny words. They had to calculate the exact time, consider yin and yang and feng shui, and supplement it with the pure yang blood of the person who controlled destiny to achieve the effect of storing the words as a container. This led to the development of various destiny-controlling spells that imprisoned the destiny words in the body's bloodline.

However, in modern times, younger generations mostly learn incantations, rarely gaining a deep understanding of the most fundamental concepts like Yin and Yang, and the Ten Gods. After all, as long as they can grasp the destiny text and use it for their own purposes, anything goes.

This has led to a new generation of destiny masters placing more emphasis on cultivating existing destiny phrases and stimulating their abilities, rather than on the earlier, less informed approach of the old era where everyone frantically collected destiny phrases, and the most popular practice was even exchanging lives for lives.

Jin Ziyue's knowledge of the original methods of controlling life was not deep, so he could only cram at the last minute, using the simplest detection methods, which were in some ways not as good as his sense of smell.

He walked to Sanshui's side, and Sanshui placed the items he had prepared in advance, along with the temporary life-altering incantation that Jin Ziyue had hastily gathered, onto the array's core. Sanshui affixed the contract talisman and incantation seal, chanting obscure spells, and faintly, the weeds on the ground swayed without wind.

The array's core and eight bases began to emit a soft light, like mountain spring water seeping from a crack in the rock. The white light began to condense, like some kind of reviving magic. As the energy of the array's core and bases began to overflow, it slowly seeped into the engraved patterns.

The eight points of the array moved clockwise together, and a faint light emerged from under the grass, making the weeds appear to glow with a green light. Soon, a circular array with an octagonal interior and special runes engraved on the exterior appeared before the two.

San Shui Lin Xin's face lit up with joy; the Spirit Ascension Array had been activated and was now in standby mode.

She had also described the function of the Spirit Ascension Array in detail to Jin Ziyue. By decomposing the life-destiny words, the dissipated energy was transformed into the array, and then the Spirit Ascension Array was used to purify the energy into soul power, which was then gathered into the hands of the array master.

However, this rendered the Hidden Spirit Talisman that Sanshui Linxin obtained from Abbot Longyi useless.

It doesn't matter.

Initially, the reason why Sanshui used the Concealing Spirit Talisman even though he knew that the Spirit Ascension Array needed to be triggered was because he was still testing Jin Ziyue at that time. The Concealing Spirit Talisman was just a means of self-protection after the negotiations between the two parties failed.

She stood at the eye of the Spirit Ascension Array, where a soft white light shone, brighter than moonlight, like a converging stream that intersected and reflected from the eight bases of the array.

It's time to start.

She felt the ground beneath her feet, and the ethereal power of her soul, like wisps of smoke, surrounded her.

"Success." Sanshui Linxin turned around and smiled brightly at Jin Ziyue.

Jin Ziyue nodded and was about to speak when suddenly his expression changed.

The noisy ringing of bells rose and fell, and the candlelight in front of the memorial tablet suddenly turned from orange-red to ghostly blue. Paper money and silver items suddenly sprayed out from the burning brazier, and the ashes in the sky were stained with blue flames, fluttering and not yet completely burned.

Sanshui's face darkened.

I recommend a really good novel, "I Just Don't Play by the Rules," although the title might not appeal to casual readers, it's a very good read.

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(End of this chapter)