Tianjin, starting with unorthodox methods to achieve immortality

Chapter 289 Unexpected Gains

Inside the clothing shop, it took Chen Mohua half an hour to clean up all the traces in the room.

Just as I was about to sit down and catch my breath, I heard several footsteps at the door again.

The curtain was suddenly lifted, and three figures filed in.

The leader was a burly man with a layer of grayish-white stuff smeared on his fat face.

The thickness is uneven, and there are several cracks where you can see the bone, revealing the true skin color underneath.

A man and a woman followed behind, both wearing the same makeup.

As soon as the three people entered the room, their eyes all fell on Chen Mo.

"Are you the shopkeeper?"

Chen Mo leaned against the counter, a rag still in his hand, slowly wiping away the black ash remaining between his fingers.

He glanced at the three people's faces, then lowered his head to continue wiping his hands.

"Yes."

The three faces, covered in lime, were cleaner than blank sheets of paper in his eyes.

Beneath that disguise lies the life force of a living person, with spiritual energy flowing through their meridians.

Although he deliberately concealed his aura, he could clearly sense the cultivation levels of the three people.

The leader is in the late stage of Qi Refining, while the other two are still in the early stage and are not a threat.

I'd seen this fat guy at the all-knowing guy's place before; I never expected to run into him here again.

Chen Mo's divine sense swept over him, pausing for a few seconds when it reached his waist.

After asking the question, the fat man didn't rush to speak. Instead, he walked around the shop for a moment, then turned his head and exchanged a glance with the woman behind him.

The woman nodded slightly.

He then turned to Chen Mo, pointed to the short jackets hanging on the wall, and asked, "How much are these clothes?"

"Buying clothes?"

Chen Mo glanced at the long robes worn by the three people and understood that they probably had the same plan as him: to pretend to be locals in the Ghost Realm.

He put down the rag, casually took a blue short jacket from the wall, and placed it on the counter.

"Our store policy is that we don't charge for clothes, we only exchange items."

His gaze swept over the group with a sinister intensity, his expression and tone exactly the same as that of the dead shopkeeper from before.

The fat man frowned: "Change what?"

Chen Mo's gaze swept across their faces, and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly.

"Heart, or liver."

"Or you can give me half at once."

The three of them froze.

Heart?

肝？

As expected of the realm of ghosts.

The woman behind the fat man instinctively took a half step back and put her hand on her waist.

"What, scared?"

Chen Mo leaned against the counter, his tone nonchalant, "Give me your heart, or your liver? Or you can give me half now, as long as you pay some interest, and I'll pay the other half later?"

The fat man froze, then exchanged glances with the two men behind him.

The woman narrowed her eyes slightly, sizing up Chen Mo as if assessing something.

Chen Mo remained calm and composed, simply watching them with a faint smile on his face.

The baby-faced young man leaned close to the fat man's ear and whispered, "Senior brother, something's off about this guy."

"When I came in, I felt something was off about this shop. Did you see those black ash on the floor? It looks like something was burned."

"Shut up."

The fat man hissed in a low voice, his gaze never leaving Chen Mo.

The three of them stood frozen in front of the counter for a few moments.

The woman withdrew her hand from her waist first, and put on a smiling face: "Shopkeeper, we understand the rules."

"But we're new here, and we don't have any readily available resources."

"Could you do me a favor and offer something else as collateral?"

Chen Mo shook his head, his smile unchanged: "Our shop only accepts this kind of product. Don't you have some fresh ones on you?"

'

The fat man clenched his jaw so hard it cracked, staring intently into his eyes.

"Senior brother," the woman spoke up this time, "I don't think this person's cultivation is anything special; he's just good at pretending to be a ghost. Perhaps..."

""

Her meaning was quite clear.

The fat man didn't immediately respond, but quickly scanned the shop with his eyes.

The shop wasn't big; the front area was just this small, and a curtain hung at the back, leading nowhere.

Chen Mo was all alone, sitting behind the counter without a single shop assistant by his side.

Three against one.

Although their cultivation levels were not high, they were still Qi Refining stage cultivators, and their hands were stained with blood.

The fat man slowly clenched his right hand into a fist, glanced at the woman, and she nodded slightly.

The baby-faced young man also noticed the change in atmosphere and subtly moved half a step to the side, blocking Chen Mo's possible escape route.

"Shopkeeper."

The fat man suddenly laughed, his grin widening considerably. "I'll ask you one more time, can you exchange these clothes for something else?"

"cannot."

Chen Mo's answer remained brief.

The smile on the other person's face vanished instantly.

"Then I'll take it myself!"

Before he finished speaking, he had already lunged forward.

At this moment, the enormous body burst forth with a speed completely disproportionate to its size, and its fan-like hand gripped Chen Mo's throat.

At the same instant, the woman drew a soft sword from her waist. The sword hummed as it trembled, and a half-foot-long black light shot out from the tip, stabbing towards Chen Mo's ribs from the side.

The baby-faced young man then flicked three yellow paper talismans from his sleeve. The talismans spontaneously combusted in mid-air without wind, turning into three eerie green ghost flames that blocked Chen Mo's escape route in a triangular formation.

The three worked together seamlessly, clearly indicating this wasn't their first time doing this kind of thing.

But before the fat man's feet even touched the ground, he crashed into an invisible wall and froze in mid-air.

The outstretched right hand stopped less than a foot from Chen Mo's throat, its knuckles unable to move forward even half an inch.

The woman and the baby-faced young man were in no better shape.

The soft sword hovered in mid-air, the half-foot-long black light on its blade seemingly frozen, motionless.

The three eerie green will-o'-the-wisps fared even worse, shattering into dust in mid-air and falling to the ground in a flurry.

The temperature inside the shop plummeted in an instant.

A chill emanated from Chen Mo, and his immense aura enveloped the entire small shop.

The fat man immediately knelt down.

When that imposing aura came down, he had only one thought in his mind.

It’s over.

This person is not a local resident at all.

Condensing Evil Realm.

The moment those two words were uttered, the fat man's back was instantly soaked with cold sweat.

Qi Refining, Qi Condensation, Foundation Building – each major realm is separated by an insurmountable chasm.

If someone wanted to kill those three, they could do it with a flick of their finger.

Clang.

The soft sword in the woman's hand fell to the ground, and she collapsed, her face as white as the layer of lime plastered on her face.

The baby-faced young man was in even worse shape, lying face down on the ground, too weak to even lift his head.

Chen Mo stood up from behind the counter, walked up to the fat man, and looked down at him.

The fat man knelt, his head just reaching his waist, his whole body curled up in a ball, his burly frame shrinking in fear like a child who had made a mistake.

"You're quite clever; you were the first to kneel down."

The fat man gurgled in his throat, not daring to look up, only staring at the tips of Chen Mo's boots.

"This junior was blind and offended you, senior. Please spare my life..."

17

"Spare me?"

Chen Mo tilted his head, as if seriously considering the question, "Say that again."

He trembled, immediately realizing what had happened, and slammed his forehead heavily against the blue brick. "This junior was blinded by greed and dared to lay a hand on a senior! I beg for your mercy!"

"If you spare my life, senior, I'm willing to serve you like a slave, without hesitation!"

The woman and the baby-faced man realized what was happening and began kowtowing repeatedly, filling the shop with the dull thuds of foreheads hitting bricks.

Chen Mo waited until they kowtowed about ten times before he reduced his oppressive aura somewhat.

The three of them breathed a sigh of relief at the same time. None of them dared to stand up; they just knelt on the ground, panting heavily.

"Raise your head," Chen Mo said.

All three faces turned upwards at the same time.

Sweat washed away the lime on his face, leaving patches that revealed his original skin tone.

"Which sect in the spirit world do you belong to?"

The fat man knelt on the ground, his forehead pressed against the cold blue bricks, and his shoulders visibly trembled when he heard these words.

Unexpectedly, the other party immediately asked about my background.

This means that the person in front of us has a concept of the power distribution in the spirit world, and is not the kind of unorthodox cultivator who has mistakenly entered the strange realm.

"Reporting to Senior," the fat man said in a muffled voice, not daring to hide anything, "the three of us are disciples of the Yinshan Sect."

"The Yinshan Sect?"

Chen Mo frowned slightly, thought carefully for a moment, and confirmed that he had no recollection of the name.

"Never heard of it."

The fat man's lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to introduce his sect, but after glancing carefully at Chen Mo's expression, he swallowed his words back.

In this situation, the more you say, the more mistakes you make.

Chen Mo didn't intend to delve into the sect's affairs, and instead asked, "What are you doing in this strange realm?"

This time, the fat man didn't hesitate and honestly replied, "Reporting to you, senior, it's for the Corpse Dissection Technique."

"The corpse dissection method?" Chen Mo became interested.

"yes,"

The fat man lowered his head and explained in detail, "Our Yinshan Sect has a technique called the Profound Yin Technique. When you reach a high level of cultivation, you need to use the method of the Corpse-Dissolving Immortal to reshape your meridians."

"However, the corpse dissection method passed down in the sect is incomplete, missing the most crucial part."

"The sect leader learned that the Xuan Yin Zhai seems to possess a complete cultivation method, so he sent us in to search for it."

The woman beside her breathed a sigh of relief.

Although the fat man's words revealed the whole story, they were all true, without embellishment or deliberate concealment.

When facing a cultivator at the Condensation Realm, telling the truth is always safer than trying to be clever.

"Um."

After listening, Chen Mo gave a nonchalant reply and did not pursue the matter further, his gaze returning to the fat man's waist.

There was a small cloth bag, about the size of a palm, tied there. It was a dull gray color and the material looked ordinary.

When he scanned the area with his divine sense just now, it was as if he had encountered a layer of fog, making it blurry and unclear.

Anything that can block divine sense must either be made of special materials or have been placed under a restriction.

Regardless of which one, they are worth taking a second look at.

"Take off that bag on your waist," Chen Mo pointed to it.

The fat man's expression changed several times in an instant, becoming even more unsightly than when he was forced to kneel and beg for mercy.

He wanted to say something, but in the end, he didn't say anything. His fingers trembled as he untied the bag and held it above his head with both hands.

Chen Mo reached out and beckoned, and the cloth bag flew into his palm.

It's very light, so light that it doesn't feel like it's carrying anything.

The rope at the opening of the bag was ordinary hemp rope, without any spiritual energy fluctuations.

He opened the bag and glanced inside; there lay three spirit stones lying quietly.

Each piece is the size of a pigeon egg, pure white, with a faint glow flowing across its surface.

It was much purer than the three spirit stones he had obtained before.

Chen Mo poured the spirit stones onto the counter, picked one up, and played with it between his fingertips.

The spirit stone has clear internal veins, and its spiritual energy does not leak out at all; its quality is quite good.

The fat man watched him play with the spirit stone, his expression even more unpleasant than if his own father had died.

The three of them brought only five spirit stones with them when they left the mountain this time.

It looks like there's not a single piece left.

Chen Mo put away the three spirit stones, then brought the bag close to his eyes to carefully examine the texture of the inner layer.

The inner wall of the bag is etched with extremely fine runes, the lines of which are extremely intricate. However, due to its age, many of the runes have been severely worn down, and the spiritual energy is now only a thin layer.

This is not a modern weapon-refining technique.

The structure of the runes leans more towards some ancient method, somewhat similar to several ancient small formations in his memory.

If these runes are intact, this bag could probably isolate more than just the divine sense of a Condensing Fiend Realm cultivator.

"Where did this bag come from?"

The fat man swallowed hard and answered honestly, "I found it five years ago in a collapsed cave outside Qingmu City."

"The cave had already been searched several times by then, but this bag was stuck in a crevice in the rock, and no one noticed it."

"I tried for a long time before I discovered that it can block divine sense detection, making it perfect for hiding spirit stones. I don't have to worry about anyone seeing through my entire fortune at a glance."

His voice trailed off as he spoke, because this thing was now in someone else's hands.

Chen Mo turned the bag over and over in his hand twice, and then tried to inject a wisp of spiritual energy into it.

The spiritual energy was completely swallowed up by the broken runes as soon as it entered, like a mud ox sinking into the sea, without any reaction.

The runes were so badly damaged that it was impossible to determine their function when they were intact.

A defective product is not worth repairing.

He looked through it a few times, then casually tossed the bag back in front of the other person.

The fat man paused for a moment, then quickly picked up the bag, feeling a mix of emotions.

The spirit stones were gone, but at least the bag was returned; it's hard to say whether it was lucky or unlucky.

"Thank you, senior."

Chen Mo ignored him, raised his right hand, and casually tapped the air three times with his index finger.

Three extremely thin streams of black magic shot out from their fingertips and went straight into the three people's foreheads.

The fat man felt a chill between his brows, and a black dot of light appeared deep within his consciousness, radiating a cold and sinister aura.

The woman let out a muffled groan, and the baby-faced young man shuddered.

"This is my restriction."

Chen Mo withdrew his hand, his tone calm, "Only I know the way to break it. You can try to break it, but you should consider the consequences of touching a restriction at the Condensation Realm."

None of the three spoke.

The restrictions imposed on high-level cultivators are like a noose around their necks, which can be tightened at any time.

But from another perspective, the fact that the other party went to the trouble of imposing restrictions instead of directly killing people shows that they are still useful.

If you're useful, you can survive.

"What do you want us to do?"

The fat man's voice was a few decibels deeper than before, less fearful and more resigned.

Chen Mo gave him an approving look.

Although this fat man looked rough and burly, he wasn't stupid; he was much better than the two next to him who were so scared they couldn't even speak properly.

"Let's go to the city lord's mansion and see what's hidden inside."

The three people froze simultaneously.

"senior."

The fat man swallowed hard. "We peeked at the city lord's mansion from afar when we passed by earlier, and the atmosphere there was strange."

"A layer of gray fog enveloped the outside of the wall, and something was moving inside the fog."

"It doesn't look like a living person, nor does it look like a dead person. I can't quite put my finger on what it is."

"There must be a high-level cultivator in that mansion, who might even be the master of this strange realm."

"Huh? What does this have to do with me?"

Chen Mo interrupted him, a flash of murderous intent in his eyes, "I'm not asking for your opinion. There are some things I don't want to say a second time."