Chapter Ninety-Two: An Unexplained Harmony

Yan Bo told Qi Yan not to glare at Li Ruoke, because this truly was not her doing.

He then took several sketches from his bag, the ones Ding Lingzi had drawn in Bangkok at Xuanyuan’s home, like careless doodles, and laid them before Qi Yan for him to see.

That one glance was enough to stun him. The composition was not especially refined, yet the scenes were rendered with startling vividness, and in an instant they stirred the memories of that time in Qi Yan’s heart.

His mother lying in pain, and himself pressed against the bedside... Qi Yan drew several sharp breaths, then looked toward Yan Bo.

“You... you already knew everything back then?”

Yan Bo nodded.

“Don’t get worked up. I mean no harm. I only wanted to understand your situation. Now you believe me, yes? These pictures were all completed by Ding at the time. She saw the events of your childhood directly, but only that much... She chose selectively, looking only at the most painful memory buried in your heart. As for anything else, we knew nothing, and we did not pry.”

Qi Yan very much wanted to curse them as perverts... He was angry too. If everyone was being frank now, then if they wanted to understand his situation, why not just ask him directly?

It was not some unspeakable secret, merely an old pain he did not wish to revisit. But having one’s past forcibly spied upon like that felt terrible.

“From now on... don’t ever do this kind of thing again. If you have questions, just ask me directly!”

Qi Yan restrained his anger with difficulty and, in the end, still chose not to flare up. After all, this was only the beginning of their cooperation; it would be best not to make things awkward. Besides, they had taken the initiative to offer him protection. For a chance meeting, that was already rare and precious.

The reason Qi Yan trusted Yan Bo and the others was also because, after he had fought the Japanese fiend and fainted, it had truly been they who saved him. Otherwise, he might already have ascended to immortality by now.

If they were the same as those others and bore ill intent, why would they have bothered telling him about the taboos surrounding that dark amulet? Right and wrong were plain enough in moments like this.

Yan Bo laughed heartily.

“All right, all right. That was not proper of me. I swear, I will not hide things from you again.”

He then added, “Actually, you needn’t worry. Just from seeing that brief image alone, Ding’s own burden was already very heavy...”

As he spoke, he turned his gaze toward Ding Lingzi.

Most of the time, the girl was like a wooden doll. Unless she absolutely had to speak, she would not open her mouth no matter how animated the conversation beside her became. She seemed detached from everything, cold as frost, impossible to approach.

The abilities of the Blind Spirit are indeed astonishing, but the price is not small. Every time even a little of the amulet’s power is used, the strain on her mind is immense, like overworking one’s brain... This is no joke. You have suffered backlash from an amulet yourself, so you can understand, yes?”

Qi Yan looked at Ding Lingzi, thought for a moment, and then asked hesitantly, “I feel... at least in her case and mine, it seems we form some kind of bond with our own amulets. Like... there is some inexplicable correspondence?”

Yan Bo slapped his hands together.

“Exactly! You’ve hit the nail on the head! You’ve noticed that connection too, haven’t you?”

Li Ruoke, standing nearby, had not understood much of it. She interjected, “What kind of connection are you talking about?”

“You always say that the amulet chooses the person, not the person the amulet... but why would the amulet choose us? At first I thought I was just unlucky and happened to be chosen by a dark amulet. But now, looking at Ding Lingzi’s case, I think... there really is some vague correspondence at work.”

As Qi Yan pondered, he reminded her of it.

Li Ruoke looked at Qi Yan and Ding Lingzi, dazed for a long while, and then it suddenly dawned on her.

“Oh! I think I get it... Ding, unable to see, was chosen by the dark amulet Blind Spirit. The two formed a bond of cause and effect, and the amulet granted her another, different kind of vision...”

“And you, Qi Yan... you lost your mother when you were little—well... your mother passed away. The absence of maternal love is the greatest shadow in your heart. This amulet of yours is called Mother, and it is like a mother who spoils her child without limit. It protects you carefully, and if anyone dares harm a single hair on your head, it will fight them to the death. Is that the instinct a mother has toward her child?”

Qi Yan coughed awkwardly twice and frowned.

“Could you not say it so... pointedly? It makes me sound like I have a mother complex or something...”

Yan Bo was very satisfied with Li Ruoke’s explanation, and he also emphasized to Qi Yan,

“But the blow of losing your mother truly did leave a vast emptiness in your spirit. Though you normally conceal it as best you can, the more you try to bury it deep within, the more it proves that you have never truly let it go...”

“The Seven Ghosts of the Nether Palace all had miserable pasts in life, and you chosen bearers likewise have experiences that correspond to theirs. Only then can this ‘cause and effect’ come into being. It is a mutual choice.”

He had his reasons, of course. The facts were right before their eyes, and Qi Yan accepted them. There must indeed be something in him that had caused the dark amulet to choose him. That could be counted as a kind of fated connection, though it gave him a splitting headache.

But the key issue was that this power could not be used at will. Its drawbacks were considerable; otherwise, why would there still be such a thing as backlash? Nothing can be taken to excess. Once it is, the result will be the opposite of what was intended. Just because the amulet’s effects were so remarkable did not mean it could be relied upon without limit...

Fortunately, Qi Yan had met Li Ruoke, and later someone knowledgeable like Yan Bo. Otherwise, he would never have realized so quickly what was going on, and by the time he knew it, he might not even have understood how he died.

Yan Bo felt he had explained nearly everything, and so he began to speak of practical matters.

“It is certainly unrealistic to expect an ordinary person to master this kind of self-control in a short time, because human beings are ruled by the seven emotions and six desires. Even a slight shift in your state of mind will affect the dark amulet. You and it are already one. For example, if you grow angry at someone, or even feel the urge to kill, the amulet will definitely sense it, and then it will start acting out...”

“Before you are able to control your amulet well, I suggest using a more conservative method to suppress its power first.”

Qi Yan did not understand what he meant, and then saw Yan Bo reach into the breast pocket of his jacket and fish out a small cloth pouch, greasy with oil. When he opened it, there were layer upon layer of wrappings inside. At last, he placed the object within before Qi Yan’s eyes.

It was a very slender metal tube, barely a centimeter long, inconspicuous and impossible to tell what it was at a glance. Very small.

“This is a special charm tube I made myself by hand. Put it inside your dark amulet, and it will serve to suppress it,” Yan Bo explained.

Qi Yan did know what a charm tube was. It was a kind of protective talisman. Some amulets, besides the amulet itself, also had similar charm tubes as accompanying items for empowerment and the like.

The method of making them was relatively simple: inscriptions were carved onto a soft metal plate, then, after a series of rituals by a master, it was rolled into the tube shape seen now. There were also larger ones, but a charm tube meant to accompany an amulet was naturally much smaller.

At first glance, this object did not seem particularly special, but since Yan Bo could suppress the dark amulet’s power with it, it was surely of some use, or else he would not have brought it out.

“This charm tube can suppress the power of ‘Mother’?”

“Not permanently. Only temporarily... At the very least, it can keep it quiet for a while. Think of it as a safety measure.”

That was, at best, a way of treating the symptoms rather than the root cause. Still, for the present, Qi Yan needed it greatly, because in the battle at Exhibition City last time, he had indeed overdrawn himself far too much. He did not doubt that if he continued to use the dark amulet’s power without restraint, then... he would likely not be able to hold out much longer.