Tianjin, starting with unorthodox methods to achieve immortality

After confirming that there were no problems with the contract, Chen Mo placed the wooden box containing the horizontal sword flat on the table and opened it.

The knife is four feet and three inches long.

This is the standard size of a Tang-style horizontal sword, which is longer than the common single-handed sword and falls somewhere between one-handed and two-handed.

The blade is straight, tapering from the base to the tip, with clean and crisp lines, without a single unnecessary curve.

He took the knife out of the box, and it felt heavy in his hand, at least twenty pounds.

This weight is ridiculously heavy for a four-foot-long knife.

An ordinary Tang sword weighs no more than three or four pounds, and even a heavy two-handed sword used on the battlefield weighs no more than seven or eight pounds.

Twenty pounds, which is close to the weight of a warhammer and a battle axe.

However, this knife is a standard horizontal blade, not the kind with a thick back and heavy weight.

Chen Mo held the blade with his left hand and gripped the hilt with his right, raising the knife horizontally in front of him.

The handle is eight inches long, enough for both hands to grip.

The handle is wrapped in black sharkskin, which feels rough but surprisingly fits the palm of your hand.

But what truly shook him to his core was the sensation emanating from the blade.

cold.

The chill emanated from the blade; upon contact, it immediately crept up the arm through the palm.

He frowned, and the Yin energy flowed to his shoulder, colliding with the chill.

Wherever it goes, the chill melts away like ice and snow meeting the sun, offering no resistance whatsoever.

Finally, the Yin energy poured fiercely into the blade through the palm of his hand.

The blade trembled slightly.

In that instant, he suddenly felt the desire emanating from the knife—bloodlust, slaughter.

"A fine knife!"

Chen Mo flicked the blade lightly with his left index finger.

"Buzz—"

The clear, melodious sound of the sword echoed in the backstage room, drawing the attention of the others.

The voice no longer contained the previous hostility and resentment, only a pure metallic vibrato remained.

He looked down at the knife in his hand and suddenly chuckled.

"Alright, I'll take you to drink blood now."

The blade moved slightly, not with a tremor, but with a soft hum, as if in response.

There was even a hint of obedience in that voice.

Sun Tong watched from the side for a while before coming over, his smile perfectly timed.

"This brother is quite skilled; he subdued this weapon right from the start. I wonder who this expert is?"

Chen Mo didn't reply, but simply held the knife horizontally in front of him, his gaze slowly moving from the base of the blade to its tip.

The blade was dark and dull, without any reflection, as if it had absorbed all the light.

"A weapon?" he said calmly. "Whether it's dangerous or not depends on who holds it."

Sun Tong's smile remained unchanged, but her gaze lingered on Chen Mo's face for a moment longer.

This person spoke with perfect discretion, neither accepting his flattery nor revealing any trace of his background.

But that demeanor, and the way he suppressed the ferocity in the blade, were things that ordinary martial artists could not possess.

"Brother is right." He nodded, took out a name card from his pocket and handed it over. "If you have time in the future, feel free to come and visit often. Showing this card will save you from all other formalities."

Chen Mo took it with one hand, glanced at it, and put it into the pocket on his chest. There was also a teacup inside, which was the one he had just used.

Put the knife back into the case, close the lid, and lift it with one hand.

The weight of twenty pounds seemed to disappear for him. "The money and goods are settled, Boss Sun, take your leave."

Take care.

Sun Tong stood there, watching his figure disappear through the back door, her smile slowly fading.

"Does Boss Sun recognize this person?" A burly man who had been watching the commotion asked, leaning over.

Sun Tong shook his head.

"Don't recognize him." He clapped his hands, a slight smile playing on his lips. "But I reckon this time, Boss Qian might have run into a tough nut to crack."

"Alright, enough chit-chat. Let's get rid of that piece of ancient god's flesh right now. That thing is too malevolent..."

. . . . . .

Chen Mo pushed open the back door of the auction house, and in front of him was a courtyard of moderate size.

It's already the hour of Yin (3-5 AM), and there's not a breath of wind in the courtyard. It's so quiet you can hear your own heartbeat.

Presumably for the protection of customers, the courtyard has five exits, each leading in a different direction.

He stood on the stone steps, looked around, and randomly chose an exit.

Just like when we came, the way out was still through winding alleys.

The high walls on both sides are mottled, and the roof tiles are broken, revealing a corner of the red moon.

The alley is sometimes wide and sometimes narrow. Sometimes you have to squeeze through sideways, and sometimes it opens up into a wide space, but the alley still seems to have no end in sight.

After driving around for half an hour, Chen Mo finally realized that he had arrived at an abandoned courtyard on the outskirts of the ghost market after turning a corner.

After observing from the shadows for a few minutes and finding nothing unusual, he retrieved the paper figure he had used to scout ahead and stepped into the wider alley outside.

But after taking only a few steps, Chen Mo immediately sensed that something was wrong.

The alley is still the same alley, the walls are still the same walls, but the moonlight has changed color.

The moonlight, which was originally dark red, now had a faint bluish-gray tinge, seeping into the texture of the bluestone slabs and gleaming softly.

"An array? Or a ghostly realm?"

Chen Mo felt a chill run down his spine. His right hand was already on the hilt of the sword on his back, but he didn't move his feet. Instead, he slowly turned his gaze to survey his surroundings.

He tried taking a step back.

Behind me should have been the courtyard I had just come from, but as I took this step, I felt a stiff sensation on my back.

Looking back, there was no courtyard at all; it was clearly just a high wall covered in moss.

Chen Mo frowned slightly, loosened his grip on the knife hilt with his right hand, and took out four paper figures from his pocket.

The Yin energy flowed slowly through his fingertips, and the paper figure, imbued with his energy, trembled gently in his palm.

With a flick of his finger, four paper figures slid out from his palm, scattered in the wind, and silently disappeared into the shadows at the corner of the wall.

Just then, a muffled groan came from around the corner ahead, followed by the sound of something falling to the ground.

Chen Mo looked in the direction of the sound and saw a chubby figure stumbling out from the corner at the end of the alley.

He's a fat man.

He was in his thirties, wearing a dark blue satin mandarin jacket, his round face full of panic, clutching a black banner in his hand, with distorted runes faintly visible on its surface.

It was the same person who just spent 30,000 silver dollars to buy that Ghost Banner at the auction.

The fat man took a few steps back, plopped down on the ground, and waved the Ghost Banner wildly in his hand: "I paid for it, why should I give it to you!"

His response was a cold laugh.

The laughter came from all directions, making it impossible to tell where it came from. It sounded like someone was laughing right next to your ear, or like it was seeping out from a crack in the wall.

Immediately afterwards, there was movement at the base of the walls at both ends of the alley.

It's a shadow.

The moonlight stretched the shadows at the base of the wall long, and those shadows suddenly came to life, crawling out from under the wall as if they were living things.

At first, it was a blurry mass, which gradually coalesced into a human shape and slid forward along the ground.

There are six in total.

Three in front, three behind.

They crawled out of the shadows, slowly stood up, and stood in the moonlight.

It is neither human nor ghost.

It's a paper figure.

It was entirely gray and white, covered with paper, but its eyebrows and eyes were drawn with exceptional detail.

It wasn't painted on, it was burned on, like a character in a shadow puppet show, with scorch marks from a branding iron on the edges.