Chapter 6 The Scarlet Letter Count

　　Four tall men put down the stretcher, hands and feet nimbly open the rope on top of the large tile cylinder, the large tile cylinder of talisman paper torn off, carefully collected, before the two talisman masters slightly bowed, quickly retreated from the round altar. 　　The two talisman masters both took out a folded yellow paper talisman from their own pockets, they slowly opened the talisman paper, the unusual talisman paper was only three fingers wide, but the talisman paper in their hands was six fingers wide and a foot long after they opened it. 　　They looked at each other, they all squatted down, the hand of the talisman paper slapped on the stone plate. 　　The paper talisman began to emit a faint yellow light, and a pinky-thick pale yellow line spread out from within the talisman paper, crawling and extending along the gray stone floor. 　　Zhou Fan's eye pupils contracted as he looked at the crawling of the talisman lines that could not be explained with the knowledge system of the modern society and felt that it was absurd to the extreme. 　　The yellowish runic lines from the two sheets of runic paper continued to extend in a fan shape, soon enveloping the entire round altar, and eventually converging in the center of the round altar to climb up the large tile cylinder, which was crawling with densely packed runic lines. 　　Ka ka ka! 　　A crack appeared on the tile surface of the large tile cylinder. 　　With a bang, the tile cylinder shattered open and crimson liquid flowed out, a pungent fishy odor permeated around the round altar. 　　Zhou Fan smelled the strong fishy odor and he quickly reacted that it was definitely the smell of blood! 　　The strange thing was that the blood didn't spread out irregularly after landing on the ground, but was quickly absorbed by the spreading runic threads. 　　The crisscrossing runic threads on the round altar were completely dyed red, emitting a regal blood light. 　　If one were to look down from the sky, one would be able to see that these blood lines looked crooked, but when viewed as a whole, they were a huge incantation. 　　The talisman paper in the hands of the two talisman masters had already burned out and dissipated into black soot, and a hint of fatigue appeared between their brows. 　　The rune master standing on the east side glanced at the bottom of the round altar and said, "Let all the children who can bind their hair come up." 　　When the talisman master gave the word, young men and women began to tremblingly walk up to the round altar. 　　Zhou Yi Mu turned to look at Zhou Fan and said, "Go up, and do whatever the Rune Master tells you to do." 　　Zhou Fan nodded his head and walked towards the round altar, in fact, he was a little uneasy in his heart because the scene in front of him was very much like the blood sacrifices mentioned in the book, and he was a little worried that he was being used as a sacrifice. 　　However, Zhou Fan then thought, it shouldn't be a sacrifice, otherwise these children's families would never behave like this. 　　After Zhou Fan's heart settled down quite a bit, he had already stepped onto the round altar, looking at the runic threads under his feet as if they would swim, a strange feeling gradually surfaced in Zhou Fan's mind. 　　"Ah Fan." The thin monkey also walked up, he stood beside Zhou Fan, his teeth chattering a little as he spoke. 　　Zhou Fan patted his shoulder and told the Thin Monkey not to be afraid, in fact, Zhou Fan still didn't understand why the Thin Monkey and the others were so worried, what exactly was hidden in this hair binding ceremony? 　　There were only twenty or so people attending the hair binding ceremony, they all stood in a row, many of them had uneasy expressions on their faces, their eyes turning bone-deep as they looked towards the two talisman masters. 　　Those two rune masters who looked to be in their eighties walked over, they just swept a glance at these young people, one of them said, "Are all the people here?" 　　Luo Cetian, the village headman standing at the bottom of the stage, hurriedly responded with a smile, "There are a total of twenty-eight people participating this year, all of them are here, there are no absentees." 　　Both rune masters nodded their heads, and the shorter rune master shouted in a thick voice, "Now listen to me, males take off your tops, females take off your right foot's shoe and roll up your pant legs." 　　The twenty-eight people of the same age who participated in the ceremony immediately acted, and Zhou Fan did the same, taking off his own top, revealing his still sturdy upper body, as for the skinny monkey beside him, he was all ribs. 　　Those girls similarly took off their right shoes and rolled up their pant legs high, revealing their white calves. 　　The villagers under the round altar were watching with bated breath, knowing that the moment that would affect the future of these twenty-eight people would come. 　　After everyone on the round altar did what the talisman master said, the tall talisman master put his hands together and formed a hand seal. 　　At the moment the hand seal was completed, the talismanic threads that were already emitting a faint blood light suddenly erupted with a dazzling red light. 　　The runic thread began to shrink towards the twenty-eight people, and a burning sensation came from Zhou Fan's and their paws, as if they had stepped on a branding iron. 　　There were quite a few people who even wanted to raise their feet to avoid this scalding heat. 　　It was only that the short Rune Master reprimanded, "Don't move." 　　The short Rune Master's serious voice came out, and everyone didn't dare to move any more, fortunately, this scorching heat wasn't really unbearable, and Zhou Fan and the others all forced themselves to endure it. 　　Zhou Fan could clearly feel the scorching heat spreading down his feet towards his upper body, his whole body seemed to be on fire, and what was especially special was that Zhou Fan's nose caught the increasingly thick odor of blood. 　　This feeling lasted for a short while, and the heat quickly receded from the limbs, only the heart socket still had a burning sensation. 　　Zhou Fan hurriedly looked down at his heart socket, he was horrified to find that his heart socket burned out a gray ring, in the center of this ring, blood red handwriting slowly emerged, the handwriting was blurry at first, but soon became clear. 　　"Nineteen." Zhou Fan looked at the blood red numbers on his heart socket, he froze and looked at the Thin Monkey beside him again. 　　The skinny monkey's face was very pale as he stared blankly at his own heart socket, the same on the skinny monkey's heart socket had blood-colored numbers, it was thirty-two! 　　Zhou Fan moved his eyes away and looked at the girls again, he noticed that those girls had gray rings on their right leg stomachs, the blood red numbers displayed within the rings varied in size. 　　After the initial shock, some of them had a disheveled look on their faces, and there were even some girls who were covering their faces and crying, while some were smiling with joyful faces. 　　Zhou Fan found that the ones showing sad expressions were the ones with small bloody numbers, such as twenty, thirty, thirty or forty, while the ones with smiling faces were the ones with large bloody numbers, some of which were seventy or eighty, and even some of them reached the hundredth digit, with the largest number being one hundred and ten! 　　Zhou Fan hadn't seen anyone with numbers smaller than his for the time being, and he felt bad up in his heart, that heart sinking straight down. 　　The parents of those bundled up children under the round altar also took a few steps closer to the round altar, staring wide-eyed at the blood-colored numbers on their children, their faces equally joyful and sad. 　　Zhou Yi Mu and Gui Feng under the stage also saw clearly the blood-colored numbers in Zhou Fan's heart, Zhou Yi Mu closed his eyes in dismay, while Gui Feng's eyes reddened and she was almost about to cry out. 　　All of this Zhou Fan saw in the eyes, his eyebrows knit, he knew that his heart socket that number nineteen must be very bad, the largest one hundred and ten, the smallest seems to be his number nineteen, could it be age? 　　But in this life he is obviously only fifteen years old, with nineteen and what is the relationship? 　　Or does it symbolize what will happen to him at nineteen? 　　"Village Chief, why don't you hurry up and come up to do the registration." The tall talisman master waited for the emotions of these teenagers to ease up a lot before he slowly called out Village Zheng. 　　Luo Cetian answered and walked up quickly, he took out a blue booklet and recorded quickly with the brush in his hand, completing the recording work in a short while.