“What the hell is this!?” Gyuu Park did not hide his surprise and concern at all when he opened the door: “I thought you went home!”

“Yeah, I wish I’d done that.” Gloria limped into the temple, panting: “Fucking Blood Rainbow man. Can’t believe I saw one of those. And - I fought a fucking ghost. Bitch almost scratched my leg off.”

“You did?” Gyuu Park couldn’t help but gasp lightly, then he pointed at the inner sanctum of the temple: “In there, now!”

“Thanks.” Gloria nodded, this would be her first time going inside, too bad it was under such undesirable circumstances.

The inner sanctum of the temple was a clean room, simple but tidy. There was a bronze chrysanthemum hanging on the ceiling above, and four pillars with chrysanthemum relief sculptures on them. In the middle there were a few hay mats, and at the back of the room there was a simple wooden altar.

Gyuu Park locked the gates outside, then lit up the short candles in the stone lamps in the outer yard. After all of this, he rushed into the inner sanctum, opened a wooden closet on the side and pulled out a large wooden bucket from the lowest shelf.

“What, is this a shower bucket?” Gloria asked as she wiped herself down and brought out the aqua weeds she collected just now and threw them onto the ground, with one eyebrow raised.

“Don’t worry, you can keep your clothes on. In the closet, you can find some dried leaves, and a box of talismans. Find the evil repelling ones, burn three of them and then drop the ashes in the bucket.” Gyuu Park shook his head, then ran to a faucet in the bathroom and started filling up a smaller plastic bucket: “Now, time is tight, so there’s no time to actually boil the water. Be ready to climb in, the water needs to be at least over your ankles. And you’ll need to dip your wrists in as well. ”

“Okay, done.” Gloria held the burning talismans in her hand, then let the last burning bits into the bucket, which floated in the air and completely turned into ash when they touched the bottom of the bucket.

“Make way. ” Gyu Park rushed over with the wooden bucket: “While you’re at it, grab an incense burner and three candles. The burner goes in front of the bucket facing South, and the three candles should be evenly placed. You know - cleansing ritual style. ”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“On it!” Gloria rushed to the closet.

Before long, the bucket was filled with enough water, the candles and the incense burners were in place. Gloria took off her shoes and climbed into the bucket, there was just enough water for her ankles and wrists to be submerged when she bent down.

“Okay. Time is of the essence. Let’s get started.” Gyuu Park lit up the candles and put three smoking incense sticks in the burner. He then brought out a big painting brush and a small bucket of red paint, and started drawing symbols on the ground around the wooden bucket. “Keep your wrists and ankles in the water.”

“Shouldn’t I try to drink something as well?” Gloria asked, while leaning her rear against the interior of the bucket. Possibly due to the way she was half-squatting, the sore in her calves had become worse: “And how long should I remain in here?”

“Since you came into contact with a spirit during the Blood Rainbow, and you are able to make it here, it’s safe to assume that whatever unclean energy you contracted was mostly superficial. So we need to deal with that first.” Gyuu Park continued to write the symbols: “And what’s more, if you are attacked by a spirit under the Blood Rainbow, there’s a high chance that you may be marked by something. So, let’s get you unmarked first, then we can worry about unclean energy later.”

“Marked? ” Gloria was surprised: “I - I think I checked myself already, I don’t see anything on me.”

“Yeah, but just to be safe. We may need to do a puke test or blood test later. But now, let’s take care of the mark first.”

“Speaking of which, when that ghost died, it exploded and got these weeds on me, I brought them back just so that we could take a look.” Gloria almost stood up due to the epiphany she had with it, but she squatted back down: “Now, when will this be done? I want to confirm something with you.”

“Just a minute. ” Gyuu Park finished drawing the symbol, then he grabbed a handful of high quality sticky rice in his right hand, dipped his right fist on the flames of all three candles, then loosened his grasp and let the grains of rice slip into the incense burner.

The grains of rice burst into flames while still in the air, turning into floating cinders and sparks sprinkled. Gyuu Park waved his hands across the floating and dancing cinders, two small fireballs formed on his palms and fell onto the symbols around the wooden bucket.

The red ink used to draw the symbols had a certain concentration of alcoholic content, and when touched by the fireballs, the symbols immediately lit up in bright orange flames, forming into a ring of fire. “Alright, Gloria.” Gyuu Park let out a long exhale: “Now, jump out of the bucket. Be careful, there’s fire.”

Gloria stood up and looked at the ring of fire around the bucket, then with a push on the edge of the bucket from both hands, she leapt out and landed just out the ring of fire.

Something cool, light and almost intangible was lifted off her, as if a very thin layer of plastic wrap was peeled off from her arms, her neck, her shoulders and her face. And when she looked back at the bucket, she could see a small cloud of dark mist spiraling in the bucket, while some invisible force was gradually condensing it into a small spinning ball.

“Okay, I stand corrected. Looks like my skill of using Qi still needs to be honed.” Gloria sat down at the foot of a wall and sighed: “So - what next? Burn it all down?”

“Eventually. But not yet.” Gyuu Park shook his head: “I don’t have any blessed water here. So I can’t really do the inner cleanse as effectively, but you know where the talismans are, so you could do it if you wanna. As long as the energy that has seeped into your body is less than what’s in the bucket.”

“What - what do you mean? ” Gloria took a moment sitting down, then decided she still wanted to stand: “What are you doing?”

“Your mentioning omens, your feeling targeted and your coming into contact with a Red Rainbow just made me very worried. ” Gyuu Park took out a talisman made of purple paper and threw it into the bucket: “Don’t worry. Either way, it’d be good.”