Chapter 12: Drawing Talismans and Business
Viggo awoke from his coma. Looking around, he saw only darkness, with a few strands of silvery-blue light filtering down from the ceiling.
Where was this? Viggo tried to struggle to his feet, but with a crash, he and the chair behind him tumbled directly onto the floor.
It was then he realized his hands and feet were bound tightly to the chair.
No, I have to escape quickly.
Viggo remembered that before he lost consciousness, a special forces team had stormed his villa, slaughtered his bodyguards, and he himself had been hit by a tranquilizer dart.
Viggo gritted his teeth, pushing hard against the ground with his knees, crawling forward like a bent shrimp.
The hundred-plus pounds of solid wood chair strapped to his back made it hard to breathe.
Viggo didn't dare stop. Even though his knees were burning with pain, he couldn't care less! He gasped for breath...
After crawling just over ten meters, Viggo suddenly froze. From directly above his head, he heard a heavy breathing sound.
Viggo struggled to lift his head. Using the dim light, he saw a vertical cabinet before him. The breathing came from the top of the cabinet.
What was in the cabinet? An enemy? Or someone as unlucky as himself?
Viggo didn't know, and he didn't want to know.
All he wanted now was to get out of this hellhole.
His knees scraped against the cold floor, leaving two long streaks of blood.
The smell of blood seemed to stimulate whatever was in the cabinet. The breathing Viggo heard grew heavier and heavier. He could even hear the scraping sound of fingernails clawing at steel plate near his ear.
Viggo struggled to crawl. Ahead of him, a green light rose, and a sliver of hope lifted in his heart.
When he finally managed to reach the green light, the scene before him completely terrified him.
In front of him was a large pit, a giant Sinkhole. The Sinkhole was densely packed with corpses.
Layer upon layer of white bone corpses. Greenish flames flickered in the empty eye sockets of the hollow skulls, staring straight at him.
The green light he had just seen was precisely the flames in the eye sockets of those white bones.
"Ah!..."
Viggo let out meaningless screams of terror, venting the panic in his heart.
Click, click, click...
Strange clicking sounds came one after another. The white bones in the Sinkhole twisted like marionettes. Viggo even saw one white bone detach its own skull and tuck it under its armpit.
Drip, drip, drip. Yellow urine flowed down Viggo's pants.
This gang boss had been scared stiff by the horrifying sight before him.
"God! Is this hell?"
Viggo slumped powerlessly to the ground, a bald old man in his fifties, crying like a three-year-old child.
"Mr. Viggo, this is not hell!"
A light voice came from behind Viggo. As the voice fell, several large spotlights on the ceiling simultaneously lit up.
Viggo's eyes were temporarily blinded by the bright white light. He blinked hard for a long time before his eyes adjusted to the dazzling illumination.
Before him was a huge circular platform paved with bluestone. Around the platform stood black, vertical coffins. The cabinet he had bumped into earlier was precisely this kind of Eastern coffin.
Thinking of the strange sounds that had come from the coffin just now, Viggo couldn't help but swallow.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
Viggo tilted his head back, looking at the man in front of him.
In the center of the bluestone sacrificial altar, a long zitan wood table was placed. On the table sat a small stone mill, about the size of a human head.
Viggo watched with wide eyes as the Asian man in the white Tang suit placed a still-beating heart into the stone mill, poured in red powder, a bag of pale fangs, and then began to turn the mill.
As the mill ground, blood-red liquid flowed into the stone inkstone at the bottom.
Seeing this bizarre scene, Viggo immediately felt his scalp tingle, and his teeth couldn't help but chatter.
"Mr. Viggo, I hear you run a firearms business in New York, and you're doing quite well?"
After grinding cinnabar, vampire heart blood, and fangs into a stone inkstone of blood ink.
Tang Song took a stack of yellow talisman paper from the side of the long table, picked up a white jade brush from the brush holder, dipped it in the blood ink, and held the brush. Tang Song didn't rush to write. He slightly raised his head and looked at Viggo.
"You're after the New York firearms market?!"
Viggo struggled to half-kneel, staring intently at the Asian youth before him.
Viggo feared devils, but a devil wouldn't be interested in the firearms market.
The courage of a gang boss returned to him. Viggo tried hard to maintain his dignity, but the wet feeling in his crotch made him very uncomfortable.
"Let me go, I'll withdraw from the New York firearms market. This business is yours!"
"I want the New York firearms market, and your smuggling routes and clients are mine too!"
With a white jade handle and a weasel bristle tip from a twenty-year-old weasel, the brush moved like a dragon and snake, splashing ink. Blood ink outlined spirit marks on the yellow talisman paper.
When Tang Song completed the final stroke, the talisman paper emitted streaks of green light.
"Pah!"
Viggo spat heavily on the ground, cursing fiercely at Tang Song in Russian.
"If you have the guts, kill me! Russians don't fear death!"
Viggo puffed out his neck, glaring at Tang Song with a red face.
"Death," Tang Song chuckled lightly, casually pointing around with his brush, "Do you think death is the end here?"
Viggo turned his head to examine the strange surroundings: the vertical coffins, and thinking of the mountains of white bones piled in the Sinkhole on the stone platform, Viggo felt the courage he had just mustered recede like a tide.
"Alright, I agree. As long as you let me go, the client list, the smuggling routes, they're all yours!"
"Mm, that's more like it. By doing this, Mr. Viggo, we are friends!"
Tang Song smiled. "Kane, take Mr. Viggo down to get cleaned up. You were too rough with our guest!"
From the shadows, Kane walked out, went to Viggo's side, untied the ropes binding him, and half-helped, half-escorted him towards a nearby elevator.
"Oh, right, arrange for two Ukrainian beauties for Mr. Viggo. My treat!"
As the elevator slowly ascended, Tang Song continued to focus on drawing talismans.
Drawing talismans is the process of attaching one's Essence, Qi, and Spirit to talisman paper, using the paper as a medium to cast magical techniques.
Drawing talismans without knowing the trick will make ghosts and gods laugh. Drawing talismans knowing the trick will make ghosts and gods scream.
In Tang Song's view, the essence of drawing talismans was quite similar to a computer's integrated circuits.
The spirit marks outlined by blood ink were like the circuits on an integrated board. The spells outlined by the spirit marks were also similar to computer programs.
The only difference was that drawing talismans required the human body's Essence and Qi, True Essence, and Magic Power.
Integrated circuits were driven by electricity.
In integrated circuits, gold wire had the best conductivity. After many experiments, Tang Song found that blood ink mixed with cinnabar and vampire heart blood worked very well for drawing talismans.
...
"Boss!"
Tang Song came out of the secret room. Lane, Kane, and Frank were all there.
The three of them sat around a table, each with a few playing cards in front of them. Judging by the hands, they were playing Blackjack. Seeing Tang Song step out of the elevator, Lane stood up to greet him.
Kane and Frank simply nodded at Tang Song as a greeting.
"These are the Little Vajra Talismans I drew. Each of you take a few and keep them on you. They can withstand general small-caliber gunfire!"
A stack of yellow talisman paper, looking like doodles, was placed on the table.
Frank picked one up and examined it carefully. It was just ordinary yellow talisman paper with some symbols drawn on it. Could this really block small-caliber bullets?
"Bang!"
Before Frank could voice his doubts, a gunshot rang out.
A golden light appeared on his body, spreading out from his surface, forming the shape of a Golden Bell Shield.
A shriveled bullet head slid down the surface of the Golden Bell Shield and dropped onto the carpet.
Kane nodded, casually putting away the military handgun in his hand as if nothing had happened.
Frank looked at Kane, about to get angry, when the yellow talisman in his hand suddenly ignited. In two or three breaths, it burned directly into a pile of ash.
"Alright," Tang Song waved his hand, signaling the two to sit down, "Kane, how much have you learned about Viggo's business?"
Kane nodded: "Viggo's uncle was a logistics major general in the former Soviet Union, responsible for weapon management in a war zone. When the Soviet Union collapsed, his uncle smuggled out a large batch of weapons. Currently, he and his cousin are selling this batch of weapons!"
Tang Song took a glass of red wine handed to him by Lane and scoffed:
"Selling from the collapse of the Soviet Union until now? It seems that major general stole quite a bit!"
When the Soviet Union collapsed, countless weapons were lost. According to rumors in the Underworld, during that period, even nuclear warheads were sold off.
"But now, all these things belong to us!"
"Oh, right, what's Viggo's cousin's name?" Tang Song tasted the slightly bitter red wine. "Don't let this cousin disturb our business!"
"Yuri Orlov. According to Viggo, this person is an international firearms dealer! He's currently in the Middle East!"
Yuri Orlov. Hearing this somewhat familiar name, Tang Song didn't think too much about it and said casually, "Kane, you and Frank take some men to Russia, retrieve the things in the warehouse. If anyone gets in the way, kill them!"
(End of Chapter)