Tianjin, starting with unorthodox methods to achieve immortality

Chapter 262 The Senior Brother of the Zhengyi Sect

Chen Mo counted the things he was carrying; they were all miscellaneous small materials, not worth much money.

That's simply not enough to replace this lightning-struck piece of wood.

The only valuable thing might be the heart possessed by the vengeful spirit, but he wasn't prepared to exchange it.

Just then, the round-faced Zhengyi Sect disciple next to him squatted down and took out a small box from his cloth bag.

Inside the box was a piece of golden-yellow jade, warm and translucent, with a faint glow.

"Top-grade yellow dragon jade." The round-faced man raised his chin, his tone carrying a hint of pride. "The carving is also excellent. It's presentable as a gift or for personal use. It's more than enough to replace your piece of wood."

The old man didn't even lift his eyelids. He gently patted the lightning-struck wood twice with his claw-like hand. "No."

The round-faced man's expression froze.

The little-eyed person next to him leaned over and pulled a yellow paper talisman out of his sleeve.

A faint golden light flowed over the talisman.

"This is a Five Thunder True One Talisman hand-drawn by our master. You know its power. Use it to subdue demons and monsters; it's worth much more than that piece of wood of yours."

This time, the old man raised his eyelids slightly, glanced at the talisman, and said, "No."

The man with small eyes couldn't hold back anymore. He moved his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but the thin man raised his hand to stop him.

"What about this one?"

The thin man took a copper coin from his sleeve and placed it on the stall.

The coin was a full size larger than ordinary coins, with a purplish-black sheen. It had no words on it, only fine, dense lines.

The copper coin landed on the cloth with a dull thud, as if it were much heavier than it looked.

The old man finally raised his head, staring at the copper coin with his green eyes for a few moments, his lips twitching slightly as if he were hesitating.

The thin man didn't speak, he just looked at him quietly.

After a moment, the old man slowly shook his head: "Not enough."

not enough.

The senior disciple frowned slightly, then quickly relaxed, reaching out to put the copper coin back into his sleeve. "Then so be it."

He didn't argue, but simply stood up, called out to his two junior brothers behind him, and then turned and left the stall.

The three people walked through the crowd of onlookers and gradually disappeared into the distance.

Chen Mo watched their figures disappear into the depths of the ghost market before turning his gaze away.

Several onlookers who had been watching immediately crowded around when the Zhengyi sect members left.

A middle-aged man in a silk shirt squeezed to the front, took out a white jade pendant from his pocket, and slapped it on the stall.

"Sir, this jade pendant is an artifact unearthed from the Tang Dynasty. The jade is warm and lustrous, with natural patina. How about we exchange it for your wood?"

The old man didn't even look at it, saying, "No, no."

The middle-aged man looked embarrassed and took out several items from his pocket: a piece of agate, a string of copper coins, and even a gilded incense burner.

They were laid out one by one on the stall, forming a small pile.

The old man didn't even glance at him. "Don't take these things out."

Another person squeezed up next to him; it was an old man with a hunched back, leaning on a black cane.

He pulled a small celadon bowl from his sleeve. The bowl was half-filled with dark powder that emitted a strong medicinal aroma.

"Five-hundred-year-old blood ginseng powder, ground to an extremely fine fine, is a top-grade medicine for both healing wounds and preserving life."

"I'll trade this bowl of powder for your whole piece of wood. You won't lose out."

The stall owner, who was squatting on the ground, raised his head, his nostrils twitched a few times, and slowly shook his head. "Not enough."

Someone nearby grew impatient and shouted, "You don't want this, you don't want that, what exactly do you want?"

"You can't possibly want the moon in the sky, can you?"

The others nodded in agreement.

The stall owner remained silent for a moment before looking up and glancing at the crowd gathered around his stall.

...of the Yin attribute.

"What?"

"Things with a yin attribute."

The stall owner raised his voice slightly, "Magic artifacts, materials, crystals, talismans... anything is fine, I just want to exchange them for Yin attributes."

The people around looked at each other in bewilderment.

Things with a yin attribute.

Lightning-struck wood is a pure yang substance. After being tempered by lightning, it contains extremely strong and yang energy, which is specifically designed to overcome yin and evil.

But this stall owner insisted on using it to exchange for something of the Yin attribute.

Yang replacing Yin, righteous replacing evil—it just doesn't make sense.

Chen Mo stood at the back of the crowd, frowning as he checked his storage space.

Yin attribute.

There are plenty of evil energy crystals, but I wonder if the old man will replace them?

Just as I was about to take it out, I suddenly heard a voice behind me.

"Something of the Yin attribute? I do have one here, but I don't know if you'd be interested, sir."

Chen Mo turned around and saw a man in a black robe standing behind him at some point.

The man was pale, his lips were bluish, and he smelled damp and musty.

He had one hand behind his back, and with the other hand he pulled a small black cloth bag from his sleeve and poured out a bead about the size of a finger joint.

The bead was entirely black, with a thin layer of mist swirling on its surface—a dense, almost solidified yin energy.

The expressions on the faces of those around them changed.

As soon as the bead appeared, the temperature around it dropped several degrees, and many people silently took a half step back.

"Yin evil bead, top grade."

The black-robed man's voice was calm, "It is formed from the resentment of a hundred people. Its yin energy is so dense that it would take an ordinary ghost three years to cultivate."

He placed the beads on the stall, and the jet-black beads rolled half a circle on the cloth.

The stall owner stared at the bead, a glint of light flashing in his cloudy eyes, and his hand involuntarily reached out.

"Change."

Decisive and efficient, as if afraid the other party would change their mind.

The man in the black robe smiled and reached out to pick up the lightning-struck wood from the stall, weighing it in his hand.

"make a deal."

He nodded in satisfaction, then turned and disappeared into the depths of the ghost market.

The few people who had been watching exchanged glances and then quietly followed.

Chen Mo stood still.

His gaze swept over the backs of those people, lingered for a moment in the direction where the man in black robes had disappeared, then he turned his head slightly, glancing out of the corner of his eye at the other side of the long street.

The three people from the Zhengyi Sect didn't go far; they stopped in front of a general store a few dozen steps away.

The man in the lead was looking down at the items on the stall, while his two junior brothers stood behind him, seemingly strolling around.

Chen Mo glanced in the direction they left, then turned and walked towards another exit.

I had only walked a dozen steps when I heard the voices of the Zhengyi Sect disciples behind me.

"Senior brother, wasn't that Yin Sha Pearl an evil object? It would take killing many people to create such a strong Yin energy."

The senior brother did not answer immediately; after a few breaths, his voice finally rang out.

"In the ghost market, all sorts of people come and go, each taking what they need; there's no need to interfere."

The round-faced disciple wanted to say something, but the small-eyed disciple tugged at his sleeve and swallowed his words.

Chen Mo's lips curled slightly, but he didn't turn around or stop walking.

Before saying that there was no need to worry about it, the senior disciple paused for less than half a second.

His expression probably didn't change, but he was definitely tempted.

"Hehe, interesting."

Chen Mo walked along the main street for about a hundred steps, turned into a side alley, and soon exited the ghost market through the dead end to the south.

The night breeze of Ganzhou City swept over me, carrying the unique chill of late autumn.

The crimson moon still hung overhead, slightly further west than when it arrived, its heavy, dark red hue undiminished.

Instead of rushing back to his lodgings, he looked up at the rooftops around him, chose the roof of a three-story arcade building, and easily jumped up.

This is an old-style commercial and residential building with a small terrace on the top floor, surrounded by old earthenware jars and miscellaneous items.

Chen Mo sat cross-legged in the shade of the terrace, hiding himself behind several earthenware jars.

From here, you can overlook the exit of that dead-end alley and also see the activity on several nearby streets.

He had already marked the man in black.

That trace of magical power was extremely faint and subtle, but he could immediately sense it as long as the other party appeared within a ten-mile radius.

Time passed little by little.

The hour of Zi (11 PM - 1 AM) has passed, and half of the hour of Chou (1 AM - 3 AM

The street below was always deserted, with only stray cats occasionally passing by, their eyes gleaming with a ghostly green light in the moonlight.

A few barks came from somewhere in the distance, then stopped after a while, as if something was choking them.

Chen Mo closed his eyes, his breathing was very light and slow, as if he were asleep.

Suddenly, his eyelid twitched.

The magical fluctuations emanating from the mark were coming from the southeast, about one kilometer away.

That person left the ghost market.

Chen Mo did not move.

He kept his eyes closed, sensing its direction of movement.

The man in the black robe was walking southeast at a moderate pace, like an ordinary person traveling at night.

A few breaths later, another set of fluctuations appeared.

Several auras mingled together, closely following the man in the black robe.

It was the same group of people who had been surrounding the stall earlier.

Chen Mo remained motionless.

After a while...

A new fluctuation appeared in his divine sense; three restrained auras followed the group at a leisurely pace.

Zhengyi Sect.

Chen Mo's lips curved slightly in the darkness.

The mantis catches the cicada, and the oriole is behind.

Now the cicada, the mantis, and the oriole have all arrived.

He stood up from his cross-legged position, took out a kite, sat on it, and quickly rose into the night sky.

The red moon hung in the sky, and the shadow of a kite glided across the rooftops, looking like a real night bird from the ground.

Chen Mo did not follow too closely, maintaining a distance of at least three hundred paces.

Neither the man in black robes nor the Zhengyi sect members were benevolent; getting too close would make them easily noticeable.

The kite flew over several streets, past a cluster of low-rise houses, and finally landed near an abandoned ancestral hall.

He lay on the kite, looking down from a high place.

The crimson light of the red moon spilled onto the overgrown wasteland, casting an ominous hue over everything.

The man in black robes stood in the center of the open space, holding the lightning-struck wood in his hand.

Five people stood in a fan shape in front of him, blocking his way.

"Brother, leave the wood here, let's go our separate ways and not make things difficult for each other."

The man in the black robe curled his lips slightly and a bell flew out from his robes.

"Destroy".

The bell was initially only the size of a fist, and its entire body was dark blue.

Once it flew into the air, it grew longer in the wind, becoming the size of a straw hat in the blink of an eye.

On the dark blue bell, countless distorted human faces floated up, squeezed together, with misaligned features and wide-open mouths.

"The Soul-Stirring Bell!"

"Oh no, it's the Soul-Stealing Demon!"

"run!"

The middle-aged man in the silk shirt who was leading the group suddenly changed his expression and turned to run away.

The others then realized what was happening and scattered in all directions.

The smile on the black-robed man's lips never faded.

He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers lightly.

"Thump~~~!"

The bells rang out under the red moon.

The five people, who had only run about ten meters, suddenly froze and fell straight to the ground, bleeding from their seven orifices, their eyes bulging out and their pupils dilated.

From the moment the Soul-Swallowing Bell ascended into the air until all five people were killed, only a few breaths had passed.

The open space fell silent again.

Five corpses lay sprawled out, their deaths gruesome and their faces contorted in agony.

The man in black robes walked leisurely to each corpse, stuffing the valuables into his robes and casually tossing the worthless ones on the ground.

After doing all this, he turned around, his gaze passing over the patch of weeds and landing in one direction.

"My friends, you've followed me all this way, shouldn't you show yourselves and meet me?"

The night wind blew across the wasteland, rustling the withered yellow grass. A few broken tiles, shaken off, rolled down from the eaves of the ancestral hall and shattered on the steps with a "thud".

No one answered.

The man in black robes wasn't in a hurry; he just stood there, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on the shadow.

After a few breaths, there was finally movement in the shadows.

The weeds were parted, and three figures dressed in dark blue Taoist robes emerged from the darkness.

Leading the way was the senior disciple of the Zhengyi Sect.

His whisk was still resting casually in his arm, and his face remained calm and composed, as if he had just watched a play that had nothing to do with him.

The round-faced man and the small-eyed man followed behind, their expressions no longer showing the ease and curiosity they had displayed in the ghost market, but rather a hint of tension.

"The Zhengyi Sect?"

The man in black robes glanced up and down at the five-petaled lotus flower on Zhang Jingxu's chest, his smile fading.

"Even reputable sects are getting involved in stalking and treasure-hunting?"

Zhang Jingxu remained expressionless and slightly cupped his hands: "I am Zhang Jingxu, an outer disciple of the Zhengyi Sect. I have not come here tonight to seize treasures."

The man in black robes scoffed, "Then what is it for?"

Zhang Jingxu's gaze fell on the Soul-Sweeping Bell in mid-air, and his tone became colder: "With such a demonic artifact as the Soul-Sweeping Bell in your hands, fellow Daoist, you must have stained your hands with the blood of countless innocent people."

"Having witnessed this today, I cannot stand idly by."

The man in black robes threw his head back and laughed, the sound echoing in front of the empty ancestral hall. "You? You dare to meddle in my affairs?"

Zhang Jingxu didn't reply, but simply took the whisk from her arm and held it in her hand.

In that instant, his aura changed.

If what was just a gentle mountain stream was now a waterfall about to cascade down a cliff.

A faint golden light began to emanate from his body; it was the authentic Taoist energy of the Zhengyi Sect, extremely strong and yang, specifically designed to overcome yin and evil.

Within the golden light, there was also a pure, sharp metallic aura.

Zhang Jingxu made a hand seal with his left hand, and the layer of pale golden light suddenly contracted inward, condensing into a thin film of light that clung tightly to his skin.

Beneath the light membrane, faint, fine golden patterns emerged. The black-robed man narrowed his eyes, his expression becoming more serious.

He could sense that the aura emanating from Zhang Jingxu's body was golden evil.

Pure metal's malevolent energy is extremely strong and sharp, and indestructible.

Above the sky, Chen Mo felt a chill run down his spine. "A master from a major sect at least in the mid-stage of the Condensing Fiend Realm, and he's just the senior disciple?"

What's the point of robbing this!