Painting Spirit, born in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, originated from the fusion of Taoist charms and Chinese painting Danqing. The Northern Zhou Dynasty fell, Emperor Wen of Sui Emperor Yang Jian ascended the throne in the early days of the emperor, a monk who liked to paint, and the way of Danqing was quite accomplished middle-aged Taoist priest, on a whim, tried to dismantle the talisman that is usually used to dispel illness and repel evil, and integrated it into the ink painting together with the spell, and accidentally found that this would not cause the spell to fail, and because the image of the "god" can be drawn intuitively, the effect is even better than a simple charm, so he devoted himself to research, and after paying for decades of painstaking efforts, he finally achieved great success.

However, pouring his life's work to create the way of the integration of Fu Zheng Danqing, this Taoist priest harvested, but not "flowers and applause", but severe rejection and accusation, the literary and painting circles regarded it as a strange and obscene skill, thinking that this Taoist priest is blaspheming poetry, should not be in the painting of the Tao, add those cows, ghosts, snakes, gods and demagogic things, Taoist people are directly denounced as foreign evil arts, sternly require this Taoist priest to seal the evil arts, and later expelled him from the Taoist door, ordering him not to regard himself as a Taoist, otherwise he will be sanctioned.

This Taoist priest has done good deeds and cultivated virtue all his life, and he is naturally unwilling to admit that this is an evil art, and he does not want to shed his life's work in vain, so he was expelled from Taoism, and he set up his own mountain in anger, and named this technique "Painting Spirit", and created the Painting Spirit School to begin to recruit disciples and teach the art of painting spirits.

The result is obvious, under the heavy pressure of the Daomen, since the establishment of the Soul Painting School, the road ahead has been paved with thorns, has gone through ups and downs, has been suppressed by Taoism everywhere, and even the assassination of disciples has happened from time to time. But even so, this Taoist priest who completely lost his identity as a Taoist and became the "head" of the Painting Spirit School did not give up, and still under great pressure, he established the sect, accepted disciples to pass on his art, and did good deeds.

This Taoist priest is naturally the founder of the Painting Spirit School.

Coincidentally, the ancestor of the mountain just happened to have the same surname as me, Li, and his name was Changmeng.

However, everything is two-sided, even multi-faceted, just like a doctor's scalpel, which can both save and kill, and painting spirits is no exception. Although Li Changmeng, the founding patriarch of the mountain, was a good person, and the purpose of studying spiritual painting all his life was also to do good deeds, but while excavating the good side of painting spirituality, the evil side was also released.

The harsh rebuke of Taoism is actually not unreasonable, although the painting of the spirit also has many positive effects, but in comparison, the use of the painting spirit to do evil is far easier than the use of the spirit to do good. As he grew older, he gradually cooled down from the passion of "breaking the old and creating the new", and Li Changmeng also fully realized this, if it is not contained, the negative meaning of the painting spirit is far greater than the positive meaning, and its harm is not comparable to simple spells at all. Although when selecting disciples, we have done our best to select those who are of good moral character, upright, and gentle and kind-hearted, but it is still impossible to completely avoid it.

Just when the Painting Spirit School was under the pressure of the Daomen, it gradually got on the right track and began to take shape, and Li Changmeng was already in his prime, the long-accumulated problem finally broke out. Among the disciples, people with unhealthy minds began to appear, and they discovered the evil side of painting spirit art without telling their masters, and secretly studied them in private, and when they arrived at this time, Li Changmeng's eldest disciple who had taken over the sect, that is, the second generation of heads: Chen An found out the seriousness of the problem and asked the master to prepare for rectification, it was already too late, and a group of people with unrighteous minds led by the second disciple Wu Yue were quickly exposed, and when they were about to be punished, they betrayed the master.

Before this, a group of traitors led by Wu Yue had already grown in secret, corroded and eaten away at most of the disciples, and did a lot of evil deeds, using spiritual painting to demagoguery and control others. The most serious, it is said that there are even people lurking around the emperor of the current dynasty, causing his temperament to gradually change, moody and ambitious, resulting in chaos in the world, starvation everywhere, and the people are not living, so the current dynasty was overthrown, after the establishment of the new dynasty, the painting spirit school soon attracted unprecedented bloody suppression, and even the innocent disciples who had never done unrighteous deeds were also slaughtered, and the sect was completely destroyed overnight, and there was nothing left.

Fortunately, Li Changmeng's life was upright and his reputation spread far and wide, so after the destruction of the Painting Spirit School, the Daomen also had pity, and turned to the new dynasty to intercede, so that he could be pardoned, and at the same time allowed the painting of spiritual arts, which was passed down in a single way. In the end, except for Li Changmeng and Chen An, and the third-generation head of the sect who was the latter's disciple, the rest of the disciples were all imprisoned to ensure that the art of painting spirits would not be passed on to the outside world, and those related to Wu Yue were all executed.

In order to thank the new dynasty for the grace of amnesty, Li Changmeng, who was about to die at this time, took the initiative to ask to clean up the portal, chase down Wu Yue, who had escaped and was missing, and after successfully finding Wu Yue and cleaning it up with his own hands, he set the door rules when he was about to die: every generation of disciples since then has only taught painting spirit arts, and it is forbidden to practice Taoism.

In addition, the primary duty of each generation of painters is to search for traces of Wu Yue's group of traitors in the world, and once discovered, they must not be left behind.

Since then, the short-lived painting spirit school has basically completely withdrawn from the stage of history, and only continued from generation to generation in the form of a single transmission, and the faint light of the stars has never ignited any fire. Even if Taoism itself later became fragmented and diverse, and the dynasty underwent a new change, no one would notice this dim flame of the star, and each generation of painters in later generations also chose to continue to abide by the rules of the door, and no one ever moved the idea of re-carrying it forward.

And the vast majority of those spiritual maps that are used to harm people, in addition to the need to be burned, can never be passed down, and most of them have also been included in the "Forbidden Spirit", and they have been passed down along with the orthodox spiritual painting.

As for the "Wutong Joy God Map" that I used to deal with the two beasts that killed Xiao Qinghe, it was from the thick book "Forbidden Spirit".

"To learn the Tao is to betray the master and fall into the devil's way, and the previous generation of leaders needs to clean up the portal?"

Rao has long known that the disciples of the painting spirit are forbidden to learn the Tao and the door rules of learning talismans, but when I really heard the punishment for violating this article, I couldn't help but shake lightly in my heart, and felt a little cold in my neck.

Fortunately, I can be regarded as a "good boy", saying that it is forbidden to learn, I really haven't been curious at all, even if I am mixed with Yuan Jinzhu, a fake Taoist priest and a real hooligan, if I didn't hold back to learn from him a few times before, I'm afraid I have already touched the "line of life and death" now?

But looking at the old man like this, if I really learned, would he really kill me?

"Don't doubt it, boy. You are also a person who has read a lot of books, and there are still few new things in history and new school doctrines? But in the turbulent turmoil of the change of dynasties again and again, how many can be handed down? Especially like the painting spirit, which has been passed down in a single line from the beginning, and even has reason to believe that we may be the only ones who have achieved this kind of inheritance. To achieve this feat, what do you think the ancestors of the past generations relied on? It's not by abiding by the rules, not crossing the thunder pool, not fearing life and death, and even not being afraid of pain that these points can be passed down, so although you should do it, don't do what you shouldn't do, otherwise if you really cross the thunder pool, even if you are a teacher, you can't protect you. "So far, I have spent nearly half of my life with the old man, so he already knows me well, so he can't see what I'm thinking, so he said in a slow tone.

I shook slightly, and quickly retracted my thoughts and smiled.

The old man said that there is no fear of pain at the end, which shows that fear of pain is more important and more difficult than fear of life and death.

So, what kind of pain is more difficult than life and death?

Naturally, it's not hard to guess.

Therefore, the more subtle and soft the old man's tone, the more I was able to pay attention to him, and I knew that he was not joking.

If I dare to do something that the rules don't allow, what awaits me will never end well.

Fortunately, the chances of this kind of thing happening are very low, and I don't think I'd take the risk of touching minefields after knowing which minefields are untouchable. That's not something my personality can do.

Seeing that I fully understood the meaning of these words, and realized the seriousness of the door rules, the old man continued: "There are two primary missions of each generation of spirit painters, one is to discover Wu Yue's line, and clean it up when the people who use the spirit painting technique to do evil are infested, and the other is that it is inheritance, after the death of the previous generation, the successor who takes over the responsibility of the head of the sect needs to start looking for disciples and cultivate the next generation of heirs, this kid you need to remember. ”

"If he dies as a teacher, he must start preparing for this matter, don't delay too much time, after all, the fate of heaven is impermanent, and no one knows what will happen the next day, or even the next second, so this kind of thing, it will be good to be one day earlier. Of course, it is okay to start looking for candidates before this, and if you find it, you just need to tell the teacher, you don't need to bring it to the teacher, and at the same time, before the teacher dies, you can't formally accept apprentices, and you can't teach him the art of painting spirits. ”

"Why?" I couldn't help but be a little strange, "It stands to reason that wouldn't it be better to have a master to help select other candidates and teach them together?" ”

The old man shook his head and said: "On the surface, that is good, but it goes against the will of the founder of the mountain since him, and only two generations of painting spirits can exist in the world at the same time. In addition, the founding patriarch also believes that there should be no others to disturb the disciples, even if this person is a master, he should not interfere, so there is only two generations of orthodox painting spirits in the world at the same time. ”

"As the saying goes, if there are many people, they will be mixed, and if they are mixed, they will be chaotic, and the spirit of painting can be passed down to the present, which is actually not unrelated to this."

"Okay...... But in this way, to a certain extent, it can avoid the possibility of chaos, but it also increases the risk of breaking the inheritance, doesn't it? "I'm still a little incomprehensible and can't accept such stubbornness.

The old man was silent for a while, then looked at me and said, "Boy, haven't you understood yet?" Although inheritance is one of the two important missions of each generation of painters, don't ignore that cleaning up the traitor Wu Yue's family who may still be lurking is the primary mission before inheritance. So to a large extent, the purpose of inheritance is to find the traces of those people, or to clean up those people when they come out to make trouble, if there is a mess in the orthodox lineage, and it is no longer possible to uphold the purpose of the founding patriarch to create the spiritual art, then do you think it is necessary to carry out the inheritance? ”

I couldn't help but be stunned.

The old man sighed silently, and then said: "Most of the rules set by Patriarch Li Changmeng are not for better inheritance, although he has never mentioned it positively, but the later generations of patriarchs have also analyzed from the rules he set, the last words he left and some notes in his later years, since Wu Yue's family rebelled and the sect collapsed, he has actually been disheartened and no longer wants the painting spirit to continue to be passed on, just because he is really reluctant to be born in his own hands and buried in his own hands. The traitors who used what they learned to harm people still have remnants of their sins, so they left a way out for the art of painting spirits. If it weren't for this, when the disciples were slaughtered and the sect was destroyed, it was very likely that he would completely destroy all the techniques of painting spirits, so whether the sect's skills could be passed on was simply dispensable for him. ”

Signaling me not to speak, the old man paused for a moment and continued: "So this skill, which combines Taoist talismans and danqing, can be passed down in the historical trend to the present, it is really a miracle, and it is the result of each generation of soul painters abiding by the rules and paying their lives for it. So boy, you have to remember that when looking for your successor in the future, this person can be talented and dull, and do nothing, as long as he is kind-hearted and strong-willed, and is not easy to be influenced and bewitched by others, remember not to look at the eight-sided exquisite thoughts, you need to spend too much energy to guide the person, this kind of person may be smart and studious, and know how to please you, but when he grows up, he is also the most likely to give birth to two hearts, which is contrary to your expectations, and it is difficult to restrain him. ”

"The most important thing is to remember that you should never choose ambitious people to be your disciples. If a person is out of heart and behaves perversely, as long as he is good in nature, or even not too bad, he may still turn back even if he makes a mistake, but if he is an ambitious careerist, then there is absolutely no possibility of turning back, and he will only step wrong and go down step by step......"