A debt-ridden tycoon inherits a luxury mansion, but the tenants are not human.

The 13th day of the seventh lunar month, in the afternoon.

There are less than 36 hours left until the third quarter of midnight on the fifteenth of July, as set by the Bronze Gate.

The atmosphere in the old house was tense; every breath carried a premonition of danger.

Zhao Shouyi and Wu Tieshou eventually left. The warning from the Bronze Gate that if they left a moment earlier, they would all become sacrifices had taken effect. However, Chen Mo could see that the madness in Zhao Shouyi's eyes had not subsided when he left; on the contrary, it had intensified. It was a look of recklessness, a look that suggested he would drag everyone down with him in order to save lives.

After Grandma Wang and the other two left, she whispered to Chen Mo.

"He won't make it through the night. If the cracks in the coffin at the Jade Balance position are really as serious as he says, Zhao Xiaolian's soul will leak out faster and faster. At that point, Zhao Shouyi will only be able to watch helplessly as his granddaughter's soul dissipates, or..."

"Or take the risk and forcibly extract the yin energy from the old house," Chen Mo replied.

Grandma Wang shook her head.

"Not only that, I'm worried he'll go to the Longevity Society."

Chen Mo's heart skipped a beat.

"Wasn't his granddaughter supposed to be killed by the Immortal Cultivation Society?"

"Yes, but the Longevity Society possesses a forbidden technique for resurrecting souls—although the cost is extremely high and the success rate is very low."

Grandma Wang's expression was complicated.

"Ten years ago, when Zhao Xiaolian had just died, Zhao Shouyi went to the Longevity Society for help, but their demands were too high. They wanted not only the Panlong Jade Pendant, but also Zhao Shouyi to hand over control of the Kaiyang Position. Zhao Shouyi did not agree because the Kaiyang Position did not belong to him alone; it also belonged to Wu Tieshou's lineage. But now..."

Zhao Shouyi is now at his wit's end, and a desperate person is capable of anything.

Chen Mo stood up.

"I have to go to the cultural and creative park. Zhou Wenyuan is going to find Su Wenjuan to get his heart's blood. We can't let him succeed."

"You can't stop Zhou Wenyuan."

Grandma Wang was very direct.

"He is the guardian of the Yao Guang position, and he has a black jade thumb ring. He can manipulate the remaining array power of the Yao Guang position. Although you have Liu Fengchun's mark and the old house's blessing, your chances of winning in a head-on confrontation are not high."

"We still have to give it a try."

Chen Mo looked at Liu Xiaoyu.

"Xiaoyu, you stay here and watch over the old house with Grandma Wang. The place is auspicious, so notify me immediately if anything unusual happens."

The earth spirit responded; the cracks on its little blue stone figure's body had mostly healed, but its luster was still dim.

Liu Xiaoyu shook her head.

"I'll go with you to Su Wenjuan's shop... I sensed something very sad, and maybe my abilities can help."

Chen Mo hesitated for a moment, but still nodded in agreement.

The two hurriedly left, and before leaving, Grandma Wang handed Chen Mo a small cloth bag.

"There are three substitute talismans inside. Throw them out when you encounter fatal danger, and they can ward off one disaster. Also, if you see Zhou Wenyuan... tell him that his master Zhou Huaiyuan owes me a favor from back then, and it's time to repay it."

The cloth bag was very light, but Chen Mo felt it was heavy in his hand.

3 PM, Cultural and Creative Park.

The door to Yunxiang Clothing Studio was closed, and the wooden sign hanging at the entrance was turned up to indicate that it was in a rest period.

Chen Mo pushed the door, but it was locked. He then went around to the side, and found the back door was the same, but the window wasn't closed properly, leaving a crack.

Through the gap, you can see that the studio on the first floor is in a mess. The dressing table is overturned, jewelry boxes are scattered all over the floor, and several sets of Hanfu are torn and thrown on the ground.

On the wall, written in some dark red liquid, was a large character: Sacrifice.

After exchanging a glance with Liu Xiaoyu, Chen Mo pried open the window, and the two of them climbed inside one after the other.

The sound of footsteps crunching on broken glass filled the air, carrying a faint, pungent smell of blood mixed with the scent of cosmetics, creating a strange and nauseatingly sweet odor.

"Su Wenjuan?" Chen Mo called out in a low voice.

No one answered.

He scanned the entire first floor with his spiritual vision. There was no sign of living people or any remaining spirits. But in the center of the floor, he saw a pool of fresh blood—dark red, not yet fully congealed. There were drag marks along the edges of the blood, which extended all the way to the stairs leading to the second floor.

Beside the bloodstains lay a silver hairpin.

Chen Mo picked up the silver hairpin. The hairpin was very thin, and the head of the hairpin was a small plum blossom. It was the same hairpin that Su Wenjuan had worn in her hair yesterday. There was blood on the hairpin and a few strands of hair that had been torn off.

"She resisted."

Liu Xiaoyu spoke softly, her fingers gently touching the pool of blood, before closing her eyes.

A few seconds later, her face turned pale and her body trembled slightly.

"It hurts so much... like my heart has been pierced... and... a deep sense of helplessness."

"Can you see who it is?"

Liu Xiaoyu shook her head.

"The image was too blurry; all I could see was a man in dark clothes holding a jade bowl. He was drawing blood... blood from her heart."

Zhou Wenyuan.

Chen Mo gripped the silver hairpin tightly, the tip piercing his palm, the pain keeping him conscious.

He followed the trail of blood up to the second floor, which was even more chaotic than the first floor.

The camphor wood box containing Su Jingwan's belongings was violently pried open, and its contents were scattered all over the ground. The photos were torn to shreds, the theater tickets were burned to ashes, and the half-embroidered purse was trampled into the mud.

The most eye-catching item is a bronze mirror hanging on the wall. A complex array of runes has been drawn on the mirror surface with blood. At the center of the array, a drop of dark red blood floats, slowly rotating and shimmering with light.

"Is this...heart's blood?" Liu Xiaoyu asked.

Chen Mo approached the bronze mirror, and under his spiritual vision, he saw countless fine golden runes flowing inside the drop of blood, exactly the same as the aura left on Su Jingwan's diary.

It was indeed Su Wenjuan's blood, and it was her heart's essence extracted using special methods, containing the obsession passed down through generations in the Su family bloodline.

But why didn't Zhou Wenyuan take it with him?

Chen Mo looked around.

"What is he waiting for? He took the blood but didn't take it away. Instead, he sealed it here with an array... Unless the blood wasn't finished yet, or..."

Before he finished speaking, the blood droplets on the bronze mirror suddenly began to tremble violently.

Ripples spread across the mirror, and a scene emerges from the ripples—not the current cultural and creative park, but a dark alley.

At the end of the alley, Su Wenjuan was tied to a chair, her face pale. Her clothes were torn open, revealing a bleeding wound. In front of her stood a man in a dark gray Zhongshan suit, his back to the mirror, holding a jade bowl in his hand, half-filled with dark red blood.

It was Zhou Wenyuan.

But instead of looking at Su Wenjuan, he looked up at the sky above the alley. The pattern of the Big Dipper was faintly visible in the sky, with the Yao Guang star facing the alley.

Zhou Wenyuan's deep and clear voice came through the screen.

"...The bloodline obsession of the Su family needs to be tempered by the moonlight for three quarters of an hour to be fully activated. If the time is not right, it will be useless to take the blood too early."

He turned around and looked in the direction of the camera, as if he knew Chen Mo was watching.

"Chen Mo, I knew you would come."

Zhou Wenyuan spoke to the void.

"I can give you this drop of my heart's blood, but you have to promise me one thing."

Chen Mo stared at the image in the mirror without saying a word.

"On the night of the fifteenth of July, when you completed the ritual, you included me in the array pillars."

Zhou Wenyuan continued.

"It's not about replacing you, it's about sharing the burden. I need the primordial Yin energy that surges out when the formation restarts to break a curse left by my master."

"What curse?"

"The Curse of the Jade Ring".

Zhou Wenyuan raised his left hand. He wore a black jade thumb ring on his index finger. At this moment, black patterns appeared on the surface of the thumb ring, spreading along his finger to his wrist.

"Every guardian of the Yao Guang position will gradually be eroded by the resentment in the ring. My master, Zhou Huaiyuan, went insane in his later years and eventually died by self-immolation. I don't want to follow in his footsteps."

"So you want to use the power of the array's reactivation to purify the ring?"

"right."

Zhou Wenyuan nodded.

"But I can't do it alone. Someone needs to share the backlash. You are the landlord of Tianquan, and you have Liu Fengchun's mark and the blessing of the old house. You are the most suitable candidate."

Chen Mo remained silent for a moment.

"What if I don't agree?"

"I will destroy this drop of my heart's blood immediately after it has been tempered by the moonlight."

Zhou Wenyuan's voice was calm.

"Without a substitute for tears, the ritual cannot be completed. When the formation collapses, everything from the seven anchor points will escape. The first to suffer will be your old house and everyone inside."

This is a threat, but it is also the truth.

Chen Mo glanced at Liu Xiaoyu beside him, and then thought of Grandma Wang and Di Ling in the old house. He really didn't have many choices.

"How can I trust you?" he asked.

"I can give you half of my sincerity first."

Zhou Wenyuan reached out and made a stroke on the jade bowl, and a small drop of blood in the bowl flew into the bronze mirror.

Ripples spread across the mirror's surface, and the drop of blood pierced through space, appearing in the air in front of Chen Mo, hovering and emitting a faint light.

"This is the essence of my heart's blood. Take it first. The remaining half drop, meet me at midnight on the fifteenth of July at the old site of Qingyun Theater."

Zhou Wenyuan paused.

"Also, here's another piece of news for you~ Zhao Shouyi has already contacted the Longevity Society. The conditions they discussed are: the Longevity Society will help Zhao Shouyi stabilize his Jade Balance position, and on the night of the 15th of July, Zhao Shouyi will help you share the pressure on the array pillars~ In fact, he will use forbidden techniques to extract your life force and transfer it to Zhao Xiaolian."

Chen Mo's face darkened.

"When did this happen?"

"An hour ago, at the former site of the North City Waterworks."

After Zhou Wenyuan finished speaking, the image began to blur.

"Remember, at midnight on the fifteenth of July, come and we'll cooperate; if you don't, we'll all die together."

The bronze mirror returned to calm, the blood droplets disappeared, leaving only the blood-drawn rune array on the wall still faintly glowing.

Chen Mo reached out and caught the floating drop of blood. The drop was icy cold to the touch, and the golden runes inside flowed faster. He could feel the obsession contained within it—not just Su Wenjuan's, but also Su Jingwan's, and even earlier, a kind of sorrow passed down through generations in the Su family bloodline.

"Landlord, what do we do now?" Liu Xiaoyu asked.

"Find Su Wenjuan first."

Chen Mo carefully put the blood beads into his Yin-Yang bag.

"Zhou Wenyuan said she was tied up in an alley, but didn't say which alley. Can you sense it?"

Liu Xiaoyu closed her eyes and pressed her hands on the bloodstains left by Su Wenjuan.

A few seconds later, her body trembled slightly.

"It's cold...very damp...there's the sound of flowing water...and...the scent of lotus flowers."

"The former site of the North City Waterworks".

Chen Mo immediately realized what was happening.

"The place where Zhao Shouyi and the Changsheng Society were discussing matters was also the location of the Yuheng anchor point. Zhou Wenyuan deliberately tied Su Wenjuan up there, hoping that we would run into Zhao Shouyi and the Changsheng Society head-on."

"Should we still go?"

"go."

Chen Mo took a deep breath.

"But we need to do some preparation."