Chapter 17: Skinning to Make Talismans, Listening to Yi Ming's Reasoning

However, at the moment a stray thought flickered in her mind, the tip of her knife drifted slightly, leaving a white scratch on the tree trunk.

Once again, the bark stripping had failed.

Jiang Youling had long since grown accustomed to this. She merely tightened her grip on the hilt, moved the blade down a few inches, and continued her work.

For an entire day, Jiang Youling had been attempting to multitask, yet she failed to successfully strip a single complete piece of bark.

But she could clearly feel an invisible wind passing through her palms, making her fingers steady and powerful.

With such daily practice, by the fifth day, half a month had passed since Jiang Youling entered the sect.

And the only piece of green elm bark she had managed to strip was just one.

This was far from the ten sheets of talisman paper required for the end-of-month submission.

Though her progress was slow, Jiang Youling showed no sign of panic.

On this day, she went to the green elm forest as usual, selected a vigorous trunk, and struck the blade with steady precision.

She no longer attempted to multitask; instead, she calmed her mind and focused entirely on the stripping process.

With a flick of her wrist, the blade wedged precisely into the trunk, gliding along the natural grain of the green elm without the slightest resistance.

The bark peeled away from the trunk in layers, like a silk robe being unwrapped, revealing the silver-white, ointment-like inner cortex.

As the blade reached the end, she gave a slight upward flick with her fingertip. The entire piece of bark rose with the motion and fell into her palm, complete and flawless—thin as a cicada's wing, yet resilient and unbroken.

As the morning light filtered through the leaves, the veins within the bark became faintly visible.

Jiang Youling stowed the piece of green elm bark away and, using the same technique, stripped eight more pieces in one continuous motion.

With this, the ten talisman paper blanks were complete.

However... the talisman-making process would involve loss; ten blanks might not be quite enough.

Unsure of the exact consumption rate, Jiang Youling stripped twenty more pieces, failing only once during the process.

Thirty blanks should be enough, right?

After stowing the blanks, Jiang Youling leaped down from the tree and headed to the courtyard behind the forest.

From bark to talisman paper, the process required eight steps: "three soakings and three sun-dryings," followed by paper setting and consecration, taking approximately nine days.

The so-called "three soakings and three sun-dryings" began with the first soaking: three *qian* of cinnabar powder and one *liang* of green salt were mixed with rootless water in a celadon urn and soaked for twelve hours.

The next day, the bark was removed at sunrise, spread flat on a bluestone slab, held down at the four corners by jade weights, and exposed to the sun until sunset.

During this time, it had to be flipped three times to ensure even heating; this was called the "first drying."

Next came the second soaking, using half a cup of Polygonatum juice, ten drops of pine needle dew, and a certain amount of spiritual spring water.

The second drying employed a method of gathering Yang energy, making the bark translucent and causing it to emit a clear, metallic ring when tapped.

The third soaking required a small amount of talisman ash and one *qian* of mica powder, combined with bamboo dew, to remove the woody scent and infuse it with spirituality.

As for the third drying, the bark was hung in a ventilated cellar and smoked with agarwood for a quarter of an hour at the hour of the Rooster, making the bark as thin as a cicada's wing yet more resilient than cowhide.

Once the three soakings and three sun-dryings were complete, the steps of paper setting and consecration were not difficult, merely somewhat time-consuming.

After spending three days familiarizing herself with the entire process from start to finish, Jiang Youling finally began the actual production of the talisman paper.

The first soaking was the simplest: one only needed to prepare the liquid solution and time the soaking correctly.

To ensure stability, Jiang Youling prepared three batches of solution, placing ten pieces of bark into each.

—This way, if one batch of solution failed, she wouldn't lose everything.

Twelve hours later, Jiang Youling opened the celadon urn as scheduled, hurriedly removed all the bark at sunrise, and spread it out to dry.

Tending to thirty pieces of bark at once was no easy task.

Even though Jiang Youling remained constantly attentive to the state of the bark, never daring to relax for a moment, six pieces still cracked due to uneven heating.

After painfully discarding those six wasted pieces, Jiang Youling became even more meticulous with the subsequent steps.

By the time the "three soakings and three sun-dryings" reached its final step and Jiang Youling hung the bark in the cellar, it happened to be the first day of the lunar month.

After hanging all the bark, she rushed to the Hall of Hearing the Dao. She narrowly avoided being late, but all the seats were already taken.

She found an empty spot and had just sat down cross-legged when she saw a woman approaching on the wind.

Upon seeing the newcomer's face, many disciples showed expressions of excitement.

"The one coming today is the Jade Bone Superior! This senior is most skilled in divination; one hexagram can predict fortune or calamity, and one word can determine fate!"

"I have been stuck at the early stage of Qi Refinement for eight years. I truly hope the Jade Bone Superior can see when I might break through!"

"I entered the mountains at nineteen, and it has been forty years. If I do not obtain a Foundation Establishment method, I must leave the mountain next year. I wish to seek guidance from the Jade Bone Superior!"

"I don't want to stay in the Demon Suppressing Tower anymore. Facing those demonic beasts every day is truly nerve-wracking..."

These voices only vanished once the Jade Bone Superior stepped into the Hall of Hearing the Dao.

However, the disciples' gazes toward the front remained fervent.

Receiving the enthusiastic stares of the crowd, the Jade Bone Superior gave a faint smile.

She reached out her hand toward the air, and an ancient book titled *The Basic Interpretation of Yi Principles* suddenly appeared in her grasp.

She casually flipped to a page—the seventeenth hexagram, Sui—and spoke.

"Today, we shall discuss the Sui Hexagram. The Sui Hexagram consists of Zhen below and Dui above. Zhen represents thunder and signifies movement; Dui represents the lake and signifies joy.

Thunder rumbles beneath the lake; the Yang energy is latent, and the Yin energy is descending, hence it is called 'Sui' (Following). It is profoundly auspicious, beneficial to persist in righteousness, and without error.

As for the changes in these six lines, listen as I analyze them one by one..."

By the end of the lecture, the disciples felt that while they understood every single word coming from the Jade Bone Superior's mouth, when those words were combined, it was like listening to a heavenly script—vague, misty, and utterly sleep-inducing.

The Grandmaster only lectured once every half month.

Thus, even though the disciples found it difficult to listen, they remained highly focused, struggling to forcibly memorize the Yi principles analyzed by the Jade Bone Superior.

When they finally endured until the end of the hexagram and reached the demonstration phase, the disciples breathed a collective sigh of relief, their eyes bright with anticipation, hoping the Superior would point them out.

The Jade Bone Superior scanned the room and casually pointed to one person. "You, do you have a request or a doubt?"

The person pointed at showed a look of joy and hurriedly stood up, bowing deeply.

"In response to the Superior, this disciple, Zhang Boqi, joined the Taixuan Sect at twenty-one. It has been thirty-three years, yet my cultivation remains at the middle stage of Qi Refinement. I am disgracefully serving as a supervisor in the Spirit Beast Courtyard.

This disciple wishes to know when I might achieve another breakthrough in my cultivation!"

Hearing this, the Jade Bone Superior took three copper coins to begin the divination.

She pressed the three coins together in her palm, and with a crisp metallic clatter, the coins spun seven times across the green jade table.

The disciples watched with bated breath, only to see the final coin spin upright for three breaths before falling, casting a shifting shadow upon the hexagram.

"Kan is Water, with the changing line at the fourth position."

The Jade Bone Superior's slender fingers traced the hexagram, her knuckles striking the jade table with a chime like a stone bell. "Water comes in succession; the practice of Kan. The gentleman, through constant virtue, practices teaching and affairs."

As Zhang Boqi was still puzzled, the Superior's tone suddenly shifted.

"On the seventh day of every month, do you feed the Iron-Clawed Mountain Macaque the Jade Spirit Grass on time?"