This Damned Thirst for Survival
chapter-10

Jiang Luo asked curiously, “You want to buy my talisman?”

He actually wanted to ask, “Can I sell this charm?” .

Ge Zhu couldn’t look away, “I, I want to buy it, but I don’t have the money ……”

Jiang Luo : “……”

Ge Zhu’s words sounded very much like he was playing a trick on Jiang Luo, but the expression on his face suggested otherwise. Jiang Luo does not let go of the subtle look on his face as he gently puts down his pen and picks up the talisman.

Ge Zhu’s gaze moved with the talisman, and Jiang Luo, after ascertaining the authenticity of his expression, simply handed it over to him, “It’s yours.”

Ge Zhu was flattered, “For me?”

Jiang Luo shrugged, “Well, here you go.”

Jiang Luo didn’t even have to put in much effort to draw this charm, which was so easy to make that it was worth giving away for a favour.

Ge Zhu was at a loss for words, holding the talisman paper and moved to say, ” Jiang Luo , I can run errands for you, I don’t have money but I can do your laundry and scrub the dishes, I’m very experienced at doing this.”

Jiang Luo looked at him in all his immortal glory, and then at Lu Youyi not far away who was oozing with money, and sighed at how colourful the world was, “No, it’s enough that you teach me more about my studies.”

Ge Zhu’s eyes were tearing up: “Fu Sheng, there are still many good people in the world. Jiang Luo, from now on you can come to me and ask me, I will tell you whatever I know.”

After saying that, Ge Zhu could not help but examine the paper carefully again, “The runes are dynamic, the air body is flowing, and the force is evenly distributed everywhere, so it is definitely a rare Fu Lu of the highest quality.”

Jiang Luo silently took his words to heart.

This had not happened when the original body wrote the talisman, and in light of the black aura he had seen earlier in Hotel 129, Jiang Luo felt that these changes were closely related to his own soul.

He may indeed be a little genius.

Ge Zhu looked at Jiang Luo with joy, ” Jiang Luo , how come you can suddenly write such talisman paper?”

Jiang Luo’s face was unchanged and he was just about to be fooled when Ge Zhu’s expression became one of realization, “You must be trying to avenge Chi You, so you’re getting stronger, right?”

As he spoke, he confirmed his suspicions and couldn’t help but exclaim, “So love can really inspire people.”

Jiang Luo’s eyes curved into crescent moons and one could feel his happiness just by looking at them, “Yes, he has transformed me.”

Eighteen times the tire has been shed and eighteen times the bones have been replaced.

Heh.

The movement of the two of them attracted the old gentleman, who approached with a frown and said solemnly, “What are you doing here if you’re not writing charms?”

Ge Zhu : “Old man, we ……”

The old gentleman suddenly interrupted him and stared in surprise at the Fu Lu he was holding in his hands, saying with joy, “Ge Zhu, your skill in writing charms has improved again!”

Ge Zhu said apologetically, “Old man, I didn’t write this charm, Jiang Luo did.”

The old man froze and looked sluggishly at Jiang Luo, who could clearly see the heavy suspicion in his eyes.

Jiang Luo didn’t even break a sweat on his head, he had just started and was already finished?

It’s like telling an old man that “a sow will grow on a tree”, isn’t that a joke?

“Is that so?” The old gentleman didn’t say anything, but his demeanor already indicated disbelief, and he said lightly, “Not bad, not bad, Jiang Luo , could you write another one for me to see?”

Ge Zhu said hesitantly, “It takes a lot of energy to write this one talisman, sir, so don’t let Jiang Luo write it.”

Jiang Luo smiled and said, “Can you write another one just like this one?”

The old man looked straight at him, his gaze oppressive: “Right.”

Jiang Luo smiled, “Of course I can do such a simple thing.”

When the old gentleman heard these loud words, disappointment once again permeated his eyes, “Then write.”

Jiang Luo really drew out a yellow talisman and put down his brush easily and casually.

The talisman took place before the old man’s eyes from its beginning to its completion. His eyes slowly widened as he glanced at the paper and then at Jiang Luo in shock.

Jiang Luo didn’t even break a drop of sweat, he even thought that it was much easier to draw the talisman than to draw a drawing, the drawing could not be wrong in any way, while drawing the talisman was more casual, “Is this okay?”

Ge Zhu stunned, ” Fu Sheng Wu Liang Tian Zun ……”

The old gentleman was awakened by this sound, and his eyes suddenly glowed as he took the talisman paper Jiang Luo had just drawn and looked at it for a moment, smiling broadly as he turned and ran out of the room.

The group gathered around Jiang Luo, who had to draw another one in front of them.

Lu Youyi looked at the talisman he had drawn, and his eyes almost burst into tears as he choked back tears, “You actually worked on it secretly behind my back, this time you’re no longer at the bottom, the bottom is about to become me.”

Jiang Luo : “……”

Lu Youyi was so sad that he took his watch off his hand and handed it to Jiang Luo , “Come on, exchange your charm with me and mend my broken heart.”

Jiang Luo glanced at the six-figure watch and turned back to Ge Zhu at once.

Ge Zhu alertly tucked the talisman paper into his shirt and gave him a saccharine grin.

Carelessness.

It turns out that just this one charm can be worth six figures.

Jiang Luo immediately slipped the talisman to Lu Youyi, stuffing his watch into his pocket, “Anyone else want it? Sell it cheap, sell it cheap, it’s just this one chance.”

Zhuo Zhongqiu asks, “How many more can you paint?”

Jiang Luo said, “I don’t know.”

He rested his chin, looked at the stack of yellow paper and mused, “I’ll draw one and you take one?”

“Yes,” Zhuo Zhongqiu reminds, “but first, you have to stop in time when you reach your limit.”

Jiang Luo : “Good.”

As he drew, he listened to Zhuo Zhongqiu and Ge Zhu explaining the difficulties of Fu Lu.

With the decline of the arcane world, not only are there few smiths, there are also very few Fu Lu masters. The Fu Lu masters are now in their senior years and inevitably have no desire to make Fu Lu. The younger generation has no one to stand up for them, and there is a succession gap.

These days you need more than money to buy a good talisman, you need connections. The market was short of demand, so most of the charms that people used were drawn by themselves and were of mediocre quality, barely passable. For those who were really struggling with Fu Lu, they bought some worse quality ones from their classmates for everyday use.

Jiang Luo listened as he drew the talisman, and knowing that things are rare, he put down his brush after seven talismans, “No more, I can’t draw anymore.”

But to paint seven Fu Lu’s in a row is a miracle, and maybe the teacher of their Fu Lu class couldn’t have done it either.

Zhuo Zhongqiu murmured, “Just how long have you wasted your own talent before ……”

Of the seven charms, five were taken by the rest of the group, except for Ge Zhu and Lu Youyi, who had already had one. Zhuo Zhongqiu was the most straightforward, transferring the money to Jiang Luo by WeChat, while the others tried their best to exchange one for the other.

Ye Xun : “I’ll give you a tutorial.”

This is fine, Jiang Luo nods in agreement and looks to the next person.

Kuang Zheng said constrainedly, “I can make you a weapon.”

This is a very good one, he’s been eyeing Ye Xun’s grudge dolls for a while.

Wen Renlian smiled and said, “I can take you to places where you can buy smithing materials and spend very little money to get the best stuff.”

Jiang Luo : “Deal.”

Sai Liaoer said enthusiastically, “I can teach you, dance, drumming and singing.”

Jiang Luo : “……” What the hell?

“Sai Liaoer is a shaman who invites the gods to come to him,” Wen Renlian explains, “He invites the gods to come to him by dancing, beating drums and singing as an invitation to the gods for the purpose of getting out of the body.”

Sai Liaoer nodded repeatedly, “Yes, I can teach you, I’m very good at it.”

Lu Youyi moved over to Jiang Luo and whispered, ” Sai Liaoer can’t sing in tune, probably because it’s too difficult to hear, so he has never succeeded in invoking the gods, don’t learn to sing from him. Do you know the music classroom in our school? It’s specially built for Sai Liaoer and is very soundproof, just in case he scares us when he opens his mouth.”

Jiang Luo was silent for a while and asked Sai Liaoer , “You are the third from the bottom of the class?”

Sai Liaoer showed a goofy smile, “Yeah, yeah, Jiang, I’m third, Lu is second, you’re first, you’re the best!”

Jiang Luo’s expression twisted for a moment and he shoved the talisman paper into the silly child’s hand, “Take it away.”

For the sake of his impending bottom two status, Jiang Luo is done with him.

Jiang Luo kept the remaining two talismans to himself, wanting to try to see if he could deal with Chi You.

All morning, Fu Lu’s teacher did not return. Jiang Luo thought that there was no follow-up to this matter, and then, after an unpleasant canteen lunch with his classmates at noon, the school suddenly gave the news during the afternoon feng shui class.

Jiang Luo, Lu Youyi and Ye Xun’s points for completing the commission came down, as the difficulty was beyond expectation and they brought back a severed ghost kept in a flower pot, so their points were doubled and the original four points became eight points, making Ye Xun and Lu Youyi’s credits fully sufficient for the Yun Nan competition.

Jiang Luo was the only one in the class who did not have enough credits, and even with these eight credits, his credits were still a miserable eleven. However, the school gave Jiang Luo ten extra credits for writing a top Fu Lu as an initial reward for his work.

Students with 20 credits will be registered for the Yun Nan competition, which means that Jiang Luo will have to participate in the National Student Natural Science Competition in a month’s time.

That night Jiang Luo moved back to his dormitory, checked the doors and windows, and put a knife under his pillow, along with the two suppression charms he had drawn during the day.

I don’t know if it was thanks to the two charms that Jiang Luo slept until dawn.

Jiang Luo opened his eyes early the next morning, stretched out and lazily drew back the curtains.

Jiang Luo stops moving slowly when he is halfway through his slouch.

On the balcony, the corpses of more than twenty birds lay messily on the floor, and the glass windows were littered with bloodstains from the birds, which, at first glance, looked like the scene of a horror film.

Jiang Luo crouches down and looks coldly at the carcasses of these little birds.

What kind of situation would cause these little birds to crash into his room without even bothering to live?

Jiang Luo reached over the slightly cracked glass window and took out two suppression charms from under the pillow.

One of them has melted to dust and the other is faintly scorched.

I didn’t expect that the talisman he drew would be able to withstand a bird manipulated by the puppet’s soul-refining technique.

Jiang Luo hooked his lips and stood by the window again, looking down at the bird carcasses, and suddenly said with a smile, “Chi You, so you love me so much.”

The tone was fake, “You’re so anxious after just not seeing me all night?”

Jiang Luo’s own face is reflected in the glass in a blur.

Long hair, sarcastic eyebrows, and pajamas.

He said slowly, “You’re going to give me trouble for liking me so much. A crush has to have the rules of a crush, you know?”

Jiang Luo turned around pleasantly and had just taken two steps when there was a sudden loud crash against the glass behind him.

He instantly turned back to look.

One of the dead birds on the ground stood up again, dragging their broken wings and flesh-cracked heads along with them, hitting the glass cracks one after another as if they didn’t know the pain.

The image, like a zombie bird that only appears in movie novels, is chilling and eerie.

Jiang Luo’s expression sank as the suppression talisman in his hand suddenly burned, turning into ash and slipping through his fingers. At the same time, the dead birds on the balcony fell lifelessly to the ground as if the thread that controlled them had been cut off.

Chi You has become stronger.

Why?

Jiang Luo suddenly remembered something.

Tonight, it seems, is the seventh day of Chi You’s life.