Chapter 1291: Fate Arts

Chapter 1290: Fate Arts

Tie Shù-Gu, right in front of Mo Hua, wove a straw dog.

He used a rare ritual herb called “Human-Cloth Grass.” Its leaves were lush green with a faint golden sheen, and each blade resembled a tiny robe—as if it were a person dressed splendidly, “draped in gold and adorned with jade.”

With his thin, bony fingers, Tie Shù-Gu sliced the herb into delicate strands, then used an extremely ancient, primitive weaving technique to braid them together, strand by strand.

The entire process looked simple, but every single grass-thread had a precise position where it had to stop.

At certain points, another strand had to be joined in.

The order of the strands, their orientation, the knots to be tied, how they were woven together… not a single detail could be wrong.

All the strands looked identical.

But in Tie Shù-Gu’s hands, every one of them was different. Each similar-looking thread had a distinct role and placement.

The Great Dao was simple—yet infinitely complex.

Thus, the Golden Core–realm Tie Shù-Gu—no, the ancestor of the Shugu Tribe—spent a full two hours weaving what looked like a simple “straw dog.”

But inside that simple dog were tens of thousands of lines formed by the Human-Cloth Grass threads.

Tie Shù-Gu presented the dog to Mo Hua.

Mo Hua took it, examined it briefly, then placed it on the table.

Then he, too, followed Tie Shù-Gu’s example—taking Human-Cloth Grass, extracting the threads, and weaving them one by one.

He was a formation master who drew formation diagrams every day. His pale, slender fingers were exceptionally nimble and flexible, making the weaving quite easy for him.

Thread after thread twisted and wrapped beneath Mo Hua’s fingertips.

At first, his speed was slow, every motion careful. But as he grew familiar with the method, he wove faster and faster.

His eyes flowed with Heavenly Secret Derivative Algorithm, “copying” the technique Tie Shù-Gu had demonstrated.

At the same time, a dim gray aura stirred—Heavenly Secret Deceptive Algorithm running in parallel, reconstructing the weaving process.

Mo Hua’s hands grew faster and faster, almost leaving afterimages.

And before his fingers, another straw dog took shape with astonishing speed and precision…

Tie Shù-Gu stared in shock, forgetting even to breathe.

Mo Hua finished the dog in just over an hour.

Staring at the two nearly identical straw dogs, Tie Shù-Gu froze for a long moment before shaking his head with a bitter smile.

“I… spent most of my life learning this, and it still can’t compare to Lord Divine-Shaman’s moment of insight. Truly shameful…”

Mo Hua remained calm.

With Heavenly Secret Derivative Algorithm plus Heavenly Secret Deceptive Algorithm, Dao-Transformed Divine-Sense, and his now-pure divinity, learning a basic “art-level” technique like this wasn’t difficult.

Mo Hua asked, “And then?”

Tie Shù-Gu shook his head. “Nothing else. That’s all.”

Mo Hua’s gaze dimmed slightly.

Tie Shù-Gu continued, “All this old man knows is how to weave straw dogs. These dogs are used to offer sacrifices to Heaven and Earth. As for whether they carry other karmic functions… I never inherited the ancestor’s full legacy, so I do not know.”

Mo Hua pondered, then asked, “The grass you use to weave them—is it called Human-Cloth Grass?”

“Yes,” Tie Shù-Gu said. “Its blades resemble human clothing. When woven into a straw dog, it can serve as a substitute offering for a person. Of course… there’s another saying.”

Tie Shù-Gu’s gaze sharpened slightly.

“Humans… are nothing more than straw dogs wrapped in human skin.”

Humans… nothing more than straw dogs wrapped in human skin…

Mo Hua’s heart trembled.

He was silent for a moment, then nodded. “I understand. You may go.”

Tie Shù-Gu hesitated, but seeing Mo Hua’s cold expression, he dared not ask further. He bowed.

“This old man will take his leave. If Lord Divine-Shaman commands, I shall obey without hesitation.”

He departed.

Mo Hua stared at the two straw dogs on the table, dazed.

After a moment of thought, he took out the straw dog Mister Tu had given him and compared them. Their appearances were more or less the same.

But the ones made by the Shugu ancestor and by himself were clearly much thinner—far inferior to the one Mister Tu had given him, the one containing the mysteries of Fate Arts.

They lacked the deep sense of age… and the heavy weight of Causality.

This meant the weaving technique itself was correct, but something deeper—some profound causal-karmic-shaping method—was missing.

And that Causal method was the true core of the straw dog, the key to Causal Transference.

“Causality Transference…”

Mo Hua frowned slightly and replayed the weaving method in his mind.

Again and again he recalled it, searching to see whether some hidden clue lay within.

After playing it through nearly a hundred times forward, he began reviewing it backward.

As he thought and thought, a strange sense of familiarity suddenly arose—as if he had subconsciously seen something similar before…

Mo Hua focused—and suddenly his pupils contracted.

Weaving forward was “shaping” the straw-dog’s “flesh.”

Reversing it was “dissecting” the straw-dog’s “root and bones.”

The straw-dog’s flesh and bone-root were all simulated with threads of Human-Cloth Grass.

This was another form of “creation.” But unlike creation through formations, it resembled causal creation.

Using plants as the medium to grant them a form of causal life.

And this reverse “dissection” of the straw-dog’s bone-root was something Mo Hua knew very well.

When he carved the Taotie Twelve-Meridian-Spiritual-Skeleton Absolute Formation into his own body, he had also opened his flesh and bone-root.

Such similarity could not be a coincidence.

“Causal Transference… if it transfers, then that means…”

Mo Hua’s eyes sharpened. He immediately took action, reversing the straw-dog he had woven moments ago and “dissecting” it open.

Once opened, several special grass-thread nodes inside the straw-dog were revealed.

Earlier, he had simply followed the Shugu ancestors’ method, copying it without much thought. Only now, after dissecting it, did he realize that these internal nodes held special meaning.

These dense nodes were actually acupoints—linked together, they formed a complete network of the Twelve Principal Meridians.

A human meridian network.

In other words, the interior of the straw-dog was woven with a human’s Twelve Principal Meridians.

This was why, in the Great Wilderness’ sacrificial rites, straw-dogs could replace “people.” In a certain sense, people themselves were also “straw-dogs.”

Mo Hua took a deep breath, both shocked and suddenly enlightened.

Everything he had seen and learned in the Great Wilderness—Taotie, formations, bone-carving, the Twelve Meridians, straw-dogs, Divine Dao rituals, karma, life, Fate Arts…

All these intertwined Daoist systems seemed connected by countless invisible threads, almost as though… they came from the same root.

“Taotie is linked to famine, to laws, to formations, to the human Twelve-Spirit-Skeleton Meridians…”

“And the human Twelve Meridians are linked to straw-dogs, to karma, to Fate Arts…”

The myriad phenomena of the Dao surged together. Mo Hua’s thoughts spiraled into chaos—innumerable karmic details intertwined, threads weaving together until he could no longer form clear logic.

He vaguely felt as if he had grasped something…

But those insights were all tangled, swirling in chaos, impossible to shape into coherent logic.

As his thoughts grew increasingly chaotic, his Divine-Sense conflicted, and even his Sea of Consciousness throbbed with pain. Mo Hua knew he was pushing beyond his limits and forced himself to calm down, setting aside these overwhelming mysteries.

He pulled his mind back to the straw-dog Fate Art.

“Causal Transference means transferring my karma onto this straw-dog—letting it bear calamities for me.”

“If the straw-dog can bear calamity in my stead, then it means the straw-dog is ‘me.’”

“How can the straw-dog become ‘me’?”

Mo Hua looked again at the straw-dog’s interior. “The Twelve Principal Meridians…”

“Inside the straw-dog, I must imprint my own Twelve Meridians, exactly.”

“Only then can the straw-dog and I share the same fate.”

“But how do I draw these meridian pathways?”

Mo Hua pondered, then examined the ancient straw-dog Mister Tu had given him. After studying it and sending his Divine-Sense inside, he found several reddish-brown nodes.

These showed traces of blood—and this was no ordinary blood. It was cultivator’s essence blood.

Using essence blood, following the nodal pathways, one would draw out the Twelve Meridians—thus binding the straw-dog’s life with one’s own, allowing causality to substitute.

Mo Hua’s gaze deepened. With Divine-Sense calculations, he simulated the method dozens of times until a plan formed.

He took out the Human-Cloth Grass once more and, following the Shugu ancestor’s method, wove a new straw-dog.

But this time, as he wove, he followed the calculated routes and infused drops of his own essence blood into each grass-thread node—thus simulating his own Twelve Principal Meridians.

Mo Hua’s Twelve Meridians had fused with the Taotie Spiritual-Skeleton.

So the meridians inside this straw-dog also faintly resembled Taotie meridians.

After finishing everything, Mo Hua sealed the straw-dog completely, fusing its plant fibers with his essence blood.

Once fused, Mo Hua indeed felt a faint sense of bloodline connection to this “straw dog.”

But he did not feel overly elated, because the connection was not very strong.

This meant that the causal bond between him and this straw dog might not be very deep.

This straw dog might not be able to shield him from calamities.

Mo Hua frowned and summoned Tie Shù-Gu, asking him to perform some minor spells to strike him causally.

Tie Shù-Gu’s face paled, and he hurriedly said he dared not.

Mo Hua considered for a moment and realized it might indeed be unsafe.

He knew his Fate-thread was unusual, containing some “impurities.”

If Tie Shù-Gu cast a causal strike and triggered the malignant forces in his fate thread, the backlash could be fatal.

Mo Hua said, “Use some ‘minor spells,’ ones that don’t touch my fate thread, that don’t affect life or death—only small, superficial techniques to harm me.”

Tie Shù-Gu was still hesitant, but seeing Mo Hua’s determination, he finally dared to use minor superficial techniques, causing Mo Hua to lose a single hair.

During the spell, Mo Hua sensed a faint trace of malicious causality.

He neither blocked it nor defended with causal arts but accepted this “malice” calmly, enduring the hair-loss curse.

The spell’s damage was minimal—he lost only one hair.

But the straw dog remained completely unharmed, not a single grass fiber lost.

This meant the cause-and-effect transference had failed.

He still could not comprehend the true secret of the Great Wilderness straw dog fate art.

“There’s still a major problem…”

Mo Hua frowned.

In the following days, he secluded himself in the Divine-Shaman Hall, studying the Great Wilderness straw dog fate art day and night without rest.

He dissected the straw dog strand by strand, calculating and projecting the causal transformations within.

At the same time, he repeatedly expended his essence blood to weave straw dogs of the Great Wilderness, attempting to understand its hidden mysteries.

Throughout the process, countless causal errors were eliminated one by one.

Yet no matter how hard he tried, or how many methods he attempted, Mo Hua ultimately failed.

The straw dogs he painstakingly wove could not shield him from a single calamity—not even a trivial curse like losing a single hair.

Moreover, he realized a crucial issue:

The consumption of divine sense during his weaving was minuscule.

This contradicted the usual laws of causality.

Drawing formations requires enormous divine sense expenditure.

Causal arts, being a form of divine-sense technique, also demand great amounts of divine sense when cast.

The higher the level of causal arts, the more divine sense is required.

The Great Wilderness Straw-Dog Fate Art involves shifting and transferring causality itself. It is a forbidden art of the Shù-Gu Tribe ancestors, a method Mister Tu painstakingly sought, and a path that could allow one to “escape death” under Martial Uncle’s hands. Its profundity and complexity naturally need no elaboration.

Under normal circumstances, practicing such a high-level fate art should consume tremendous amounts of Divine-Sense.

But in reality, it did not.

This indicated that his method of practice was flawed.

There was a crucial element of this Straw-Dog Fate Art that he had yet to comprehend.

It was like drawing an “Absolute Formation”: if one only captured its shape but not its spirit, the result would merely be superficial patterns lacking substantial Divine-Sense, incapable of forming a true Absolute Formation.

The same principle applied to this fate art.

However…

Mo Hua had studied the straw dog fate art over and over, yet he still could not discern what tricks or secrets in this causal art he had failed to understand.

What exactly was he supposed to comprehend?

Frowning in deep thought, Mo Hua sat in the hall. The atmosphere was heavy, deathly silent.

Even Big Tiger didn’t dare disturb him, lying quietly in the corner, sensing the air was wrong and holding its breath to avoid making a sound.

In front of Mo Hua lay a pile of “straw dogs.”

One, the oldest and most peculiar, was the one Mister Tu had given him.

Another was the one woven by Tie Shù-Gu.

The rest—nearly a hundred in total—were ones he had woven himself over these days for study: some complete, some with meridians “opened,” and some dissected into pieces.

Mo Hua’s complexion was pale.

He simply stared silently at the straw dogs before him.

As he gazed, a flash of insight struck his mind. Thinking of the four words—“Dao, Law, Technique, and Vessel”—he suddenly realized a layer he had long overlooked:

“Vessel.”

For so long, he had shaped his “Dao-Heart,” understood the “laws,” and cultivated various formations, spells, and techniques of causal arts.

The vessel was merely the medium carrying formations and spells.

Mo Hua had been poor in his youth and lacked wealth or resources, so he had never had access to precious material vessels.

Thus, he had never attached much importance to the concept of a vessel, usually making do with whatever he could.

But the Great Wilderness Straw-Dog Fate Art was a profoundly advanced causal technique, using the “straw dog” as the medium—and even naming it so—indicating that on the level of “vessels,” there were extraordinary secrets.

“Vessel… Human-cloth grass…”

After a moment of thought, Mo Hua said to Big Tiger: “Go fetch Tie Shù-Gu.”

His words finally shattered the silence within the hall.

Big Tiger perked up, seeing that Mo Hua—who had been secluded in study for so many days, almost withdrawn into himself—finally spoke. Feeling relieved, it wagged its tail and went to fetch Tie Shù-Gu.