One day, you and your party decided to depart from Guangshi Province to Xian-zhou Province...

One day, you and your party decided to depart from Guangshi Province to Xian-zhou Province, where there is a temple you know of. It was a rainy afternoon when you set out, and when you came to the bridge leading into Xian-zhou you found the path blocked by a strange figure. You were certain a dark spirit appeared before you. What did you do, Veeky Forums?

Seeing that this is based in ancient China, I laugh at the dark spirit and engage in honorable one on one fight against it. I will defeat the being and then laugh loudly while stroking my beard.

I shoot with my Portuguese gun like the barbarian fuck I am.

The first hero, full of bluster, chose to challenge the spirit. The hero charged it, landing one stroke and proudly touching his beard. But the spirit seemed unphased, and cut from the hero his beard.

Then the second hero, a visitor from a far away land, came up, and used his strange powder wand against the spirit. The wand had no effect, and the spirit grinned in silence.

Kindly ask if it would like some tea.

Request that he pass on the dark art of drawing cute girls to me.

Can I reload my magical wand?

>Xian-zhou Province
u wot m8?

The third hero came to the spirit, and offered it some tea. The spirit said to him "How can you make tea? The rain is too heavy to make a fire and what leaves you have must be soaked!"

The fourth hero came to the spirit, and asked of it the art of drawing fair maids. The spirit told him "I know not of this art, but ask of the priests at the temple and they may help."

Pay it some blessed coins.
See if it dies.

"Ho!" I say, regarding my manservant and stroking my beard, "Look at this terrible dark spirit before us. Certainly this is the most terrible and fearsome dark spirit I have seen in many years."

Directing my servant to begin brewing some tea, I sit down near the bridge and ponder aloud. "Certainly that scurrilous peddlar from Yiyang must have given us the wrong directions, for I had heard that the most terrible dark spirit of all now guards the bridge to Hunan province, and not to Xian-zhou. I have heard he is such a jealous spirit he will brook no rivals, and that he laughs at all others as weak pretenders to his own might."

Me and my tall friends say "ni!" repeatedly.

I walk across the bridge.

>"How can you make tea? The rain is too heavy to make a fire and what leaves you have must be soaked!"
It appears to be immobile. It also isn't very imaginative. Does it know it can move to shelter? Maybe I keep a small amount of pre-made tea on me.

Apply yourself, dark spirit.

The fifth hero approached the spirit and gave it a handful of sacred coins. The spirit gazed at them, and closed its hand around it. When it opened its hand the coins were gone.

The spirit then turned to the sixth hero. "Surely your peddler was shifty" the spirit told him. "For I am the mightiest and cleverest spirit to guard a bridge!"

I'm blind and I don't notice it.

four and two are part of the same Portuguese explorer party.

I preach to the strange spirit of the glory of the Lord of Heaven, and how He wards from from all evil that would befall me, as He will do to all His children who follow His will. I then attempt to cross the bridge, holding forth a staff that ends in a small piece of wood that forms a cross shape and speaking prayers in a foreign tongue.

Dona eis requiem.
(thwack)

>I know not of this art
You can't deceive me I know who you really are.

I, the third hero, have decided that this dark spirit is a punk-ass bitch that refuses to cooperate. I do the only reasonable thing left to do, and invoke the name of Zhōng Kuí so he might come and claim this ornery subject.

Case closed. I move on.

The seventh hero spoke his words, but the spirit seemed unphased. But when the hero set across the bridge, the spirit did not object.

I ignore him and attempt to walk past

I whip of 50 yarrow stalks and spend 30 minutes preparing to consult my copy of "I of the Zhou Dynasty"
Which hexagram do I get?

I whip out 50 yarrow stalks and spend 30 minutes preparing to consult my copy of "Classic of the Zhou Dynasty"

Give the customary polite greeting and say:

''Greetings milord, may we pass?''

Discourse is to be favoured over rash action.

Is this a quest thread

>OP tries to be creative with some weird bullshit
>must be a quest thread, when there's no attempt to set up some sort of story

Your copy says:
"A person who lives correctly,
When travelling on foot, will never meet a buffalo or tiger.

How so? Because "death" has no part of them"

The spirit remains motionless as you read your fortune.

Would it have killed you to pull a real excerpt from the I Ching?

couldn't find my copy anywhere, went with the first resource Google provided. I will commit sudoku

Having heard the sixth hero speak with the spirit, I ask of it, "Tell me, are you to guard this bridge by letting no man pass but a foreign preacher? Were you to guard a palace door, would you turn away an honoured guest in favour of his flautist?"

I leave to come back on the next day.

>sudoku
That's sunrise country. This thread is set in central country.

I engage is two-tongued speech with the spirit, I ask it what shape it believes the heavens to be, whether assurity does exist or not, and whether or not it can can move across the bridge through sideways-travel or in wheel spinning like I can.