Tianjin, starting with unorthodox methods to achieve immortality

Chapter 300 Testing

"Is that skin still there?"

Chen Mo asked casually, somewhat curious about the cultivation level of the person from beyond the Great Wall.

It wouldn't be surprising if an ordinary martial artist were slapped to death by Gu Ruzhang.

But Hong Gu also said that this person knocked down several guards with just a few punches and kicks.

Those guards aren't just sitting around doing nothing.

The Green Gang was able to gain a foothold in Tianjin because the thugs they employed were at least trained.

Ordinary people can't even get close to them.

"Burn it."

Hong Gu replied, "Zhou Sandao burned it himself; not even ashes were left."

"That guy from beyond the Great Wall, do you know what kind of martial arts he uses? What kind of kung fu does he practice?"

Undeterred, Chen Mo pressed for an answer.

She thought about it carefully and shook her head: "I asked Zhou Sandao, and he said that the person didn't have any magical artifacts or talisman marks on him."

"His palms have thick calluses, and his knuckles are large, like someone who practices external martial arts."

"That's all?"

"Um."

After thinking for a moment, Hong Gu added, "When he knocked down those guards, he used real fist and foot skills; I didn't see any strange techniques."

Chen Mo frowned slightly.

It's real, unadulterated martial arts; there are no magical weapons or talismans.

That rules out the possibility of a rogue cultivator; he is most likely a pure Qi and Blood Martial Arts practitioner.

After asking a few more questions, he stood up and pushed the stool back to the dressing table.

"Keep an eye on things. If Gu Ruzhang makes any moves, get back to me immediately."

Hong Gu quickly stood up from the embroidered stool and bowed deeply: "Don't worry, Master Chen."

Chen Mo opened the window, glanced at Hong Gu, and said nothing more.

With a flicker, it transformed into a wisp of black smoke and disappeared into the night.

Hong Gu stood by the window, watching the plume of black smoke drift past the alley entrance and disappear completely into the darkness before letting out a long sigh of relief.

After leaving Hong Gu's house, Chen Mo did not fly directly back to Willow Leaf Lane.

Instead, they walked along the wall of the Japanese concession for a while and emerged in the shadow of an old locust tree.

After confirming that no one was around, he took out an iron ball with a diameter of more than 60 centimeters from his storage space with a thought.

It felt heavy in my hand, with a black cast iron outer shell and various fragments of iron nails mixed inside.

This is a gunpowder ball he specially made before his last trip to the Ghost Realm.

It is much more powerful than ordinary gunpowder.

Three were made initially, two were used at the City Lord's Mansion, and this one is left.

He couldn't guess Gu Ruzhang's true abilities based solely on Hong Gu's few words.

I have to try it myself.

Chen Mo held the gunpowder ball in his palm, weighed it in his hand, and then rapidly injected his magic power, mixed with baleful energy, into the ball.

The patterns on the cast iron shell lit up one by one, with a purplish-black light flowing between the patterns.

Ten breaths later, the entire iron ball became slightly hot and pulsated in his palm.

enough.

When this thing explodes, not a blade of grass grows within a radius of several dozen feet.

Even if the bomb doesn't kill Gu Ruzhang, it can at least force him to reveal some of his true abilities.

"Consider it a New Year's greeting to that guy surnamed Gu."

He took out the kite with a cold smile, hung the gunpowder ball under the kite's belly, and looked up at the night sky.

The crimson moon was setting in the west, the cloud cover was light, and visibility was acceptable.

Gu Ruzhang's house is in the southeast direction, less than three hundred steps from here.

At this distance, a kite can fly across in just a moment.

But it can't be placed here standing up.

We need to find a high vantage point with a wide view, so that we can see what's going on in Gu Ruzhang's house without being noticed by the other party.

Chen Mo put away the kite, walked a few steps along the shadow of the wall, and stopped in front of a three-story building.

This building was probably a warehouse in the Japanese concession, used for loading and unloading goods during the day and deserted at night.

There is a parapet wall on the roof that is about half a person high, which is just enough to cover one's figure.

With a leap, he nimbly flipped onto the rooftop.

The rooftop is much higher than the surrounding buildings, offering a complete view of Gu Ruzhang's residence.

The kite glided silently into the night sky, its body glowing faintly red in the moonlight.

One hundred meters.

150 meters.

In the blink of an eye, the kite had flown directly above Gu Ruzhang's residence.

From the ground, it would just look like a night bird flying by; no one would notice that it had something hanging from its belly.

Below, Gu Ruzhang sat cross-legged on the bed, his eyes closed, with faint green smoke swirling around him.

Beneath the facial skin, it seemed as if countless thin snakes were moving between the fascia, causing the skin to bulge slightly and then flatten out wherever they passed.

In the next room, the female Onmyoji protecting him sat facing the wall in meditation.

Her shadow was projected on the wall, a full circle larger than a normal person's shadow, and occasionally it twisted slightly, as if hiding something alive.

In the darkness, Gu Ruzhang suddenly opened his eyes and glanced out the window.

The pupils glowed with a dark green light as they opened and closed, and the vertical pupils contracted.

At the same time, the female Onmyoji next door opened her eyes, and her shadow rose up from the wall and passed through it in the blink of an eye.

"Gu Sang, someone is watching us from outside."

Gu Ruzhang raised his right hand, his five fingers slightly spread out towards the window.

Black lines began to appear on the surface of the skin.

At the joints of the five fingers, the skin cracked one by one, and dark green blood seeped out.

"Gu Sang..."

'

The female Onmyoji's voice carried a hint of warning.

Gu Ruzhang ignored him, and with a flick of his left hand, his entire right hand was severed cleanly at the wrist.

There was no bone or flesh at the break, only a clump of wriggling, dark green tentacles.

As soon as the detached hand landed on the ground, its five fingers immediately flipped over.

The fingertips inserted into the brickwork resembled a large spider propping up its body.

A vertical crack appeared quietly in the palm of his hand, revealing a bloodshot eye.

His eyes darted around a few times, quickly locking onto the direction where Chen Mo was hiding, and he darted out at high speed, skimming along the ground.

They quickly disappeared into the night.

The female Onmyoji pushed open the door and lightly pressed the switch on the wall with her fingertip.

She didn't go inside; she simply stood at the boundary between light and darkness, her gaze coldly fixed on the direction where the severed hand had disappeared.

"Gu Sang, it's best to use this kind of evil magic sparingly."

"I don't need you to teach me."

Gu Ruzhang snorted coldly and looked down at his bare right wrist.

The tentacles at the cut surface slowly retracted, and skin began to grow.

A few breaths later, the wound on his wrist had healed.

However, the hand did not regenerate, leaving only a round, blunt ball of flesh.

He gripped that fleshy hand, a sinister glint in his eyes.

"Use less?"

He sneered inwardly.

This woman named Miura was, on the surface, sent by the Japanese to protect him.

In reality, they came to monitor him.

They were afraid he would slip out of their control.

"Once I master this Demonic Palm Technique, the first thing I'll kill is this Japanese bitch."

Gu Ruzhang secretly hardened his heart. Just as he was about to close his eyes, a strange palpitation suddenly surged up.

He jumped to his feet, his pupils shrinking sharply.

What...?

'

Before he could finish speaking...

boom!!!

The iron ball smashed through the blue brick ground of the courtyard and exploded with a loud bang the moment it hit the ground.

Neither of them could have imagined that someone would throw a bomb covered in concealment techniques from a hundred meters in the air into their yard.

A huge fireball rose from the center of the courtyard, its purplish-black malevolent energy mingling with the flames and sweeping in all directions.

The shrapnel shattered into countless deadly fragments in the explosion, riddling the walls of the main house with holes.

Tiles flew into the air and then fell like raindrops, and the doors and windows of the entire house were blown away by the blast wave at the same moment.

Inside the room, Gu Ruzhang had just stood up, before he could finish speaking.

The blast of air threw him off the bed, his back slamming against the opposite wall with a dull thud.

At the same time, the roof of the entire house arched upwards, and large pieces of tiles flew into the air.

The rafters broke, and wood chips and dust poured down from above.

The wall directly opposite the courtyard was hit first; the blue bricks were pushed out of the mortar joints by the shock wave, and the entire wall collapsed into the room as if it were made of paper.

The bricks tumbled in the air, and several blue bricks hit Gu Ruzhang and shattered into three pieces.

Gu Ruzhang had just covered his head when the second wave of impact hit.

Most of the air in the room was sucked away in an instant, followed by a backflow of hot air.

The temperature suddenly rose to a level high enough to ignite clothing.

At the doorway, Miura's situation was even worse.

The shockwave struck her directly, pushing her back into the room from the doorway. She flew through the side room and smashed the innermost wardrobe.

The wooden plank broke, and clothes were scattered all over the ground.

Her shadow twisted violently in the explosion, rising up from the wall to block her way, and was torn open with more than a dozen holes by the shrapnel and nails.

There was no blood in the shadow, but with each crack, a trickle of blood seeped from the corner of Miura's mouth.

Large sections of plaster have fallen off the ceiling, revealing the wooden frame underneath.

In the courtyard, a three-foot-deep crater was blasted into the ground at the center of the explosion, with fragments of blue bricks scattered within a radius of several dozen feet.

The entire alley was shaking.

Amidst the thick smoke, Gu Ruzhang crawled out from the rubble.

Half of his face was shaved off by the fragments, exposing the underlying fascia and bones.

Along the edges of the removed skin and flesh, tiny granulation tissues are wriggling frantically, attempting to regenerate.

The severed, fleshy wrist twitched twice on the ground, and several tentacles grew from the broken end, slowly crawling towards him.

Gu Ruzhang looked down at his right wrist, grabbed the fleshy mass with his left hand, and pressed it against the broken surface of his right wrist.

The tentacles immediately burrowed into the wound and became entangled with the tissue at the cut surface.

A few breaths later, the fleshy mass reattached to the wrist, but its shape was even uglier than before, resembling a crumpled piece of leather.

He raised his head, his gaze passing through the house with half a wall collapsed, and looking towards the outside of the courtyard wall.

Thick smoke obscured most of the sky, and the light of the red moon was scattered by the smoke and dust.

Miura crawled out from under the broken wooden planks of the side room.

Her kimono was torn in several places, and a piece of fabric on her left shoulder was charred, revealing the skin underneath.

There were large bruises on his skin, extending from his left shoulder all the way to his collarbone.

The shadow followed behind, much smaller than usual, with thin edges, clearly severely damaged.

As the thick smoke gradually dissipated, the red moon once again revealed its pale light.

Exclamations of surprise came from the surrounding Green Gang guards.

Gu Ruzhang stood in the ruins, half of his face slowly healing, the new skin a pale pink, a stark contrast to his original bluish-gray skin.

"Gu Sang".

Miura emerged from the ruins of the side room, his steps unsteady. "Someone is testing you."

Gu Ruzhang did not answer; his gaze pierced through the collapsed courtyard wall, fixed intently on the rooftop of the three-story warehouse in the southeast direction.

Just now, his Eye of Mora caught a blurry figure in that direction.

But it's gone now.

Meanwhile, high in the sky.

Chen Mo lay motionless on the back of the kite.

This kite was smaller than the one used for bombing, with a wingspan of only ten feet, and three concealing runes were engraved on its belly.

The back is concave, just enough to accommodate a person lying face down.

He tilted his head slightly, his gaze piercing through the thick smoke and lingering mist, landing on the ruins of Gu Ruzhang's residence.

From the time of the explosion until now, less than the time it takes to brew a cup of tea has passed.

Despite the magnitude of the explosion, Gu Ruzhang managed to crawl out of the rubble on his own, and even the wounds on his face had mostly healed.

"Such a fast recovery speed."

Chen Mo silently noted it down in his mind, "And that strange severed hand."

He was originally hiding on the roof of the warehouse, but he was discovered even from a distance of more than 300 meters.

The severed hand somehow managed to pinpoint his location.

In just over ten breaths, they had already climbed from the yard to the vicinity of the warehouse.

He hesitated for only a moment before decisively abandoning his plan to hide on the rooftop.

"That was close."

Even now, when Chen Mo thinks back on it, a chill still runs down his spine.

It wasn't that I was afraid of how powerful the severed hand was, but rather that this tracking method was too bizarre.

If he had been a step slower, it wouldn't be his hiding place that's been locked on now, but the person himself.

Chen Mo took a deep breath and turned his attention back to the ruins below.

On the ground, Gu Ruzhang had completely recovered from the explosion.

He stood on the edge of the deep pit in the center of the yard, his right hand hanging by his side, the reattached hand looking even uglier than before.

His five fingers were slightly curled, like the claws of some kind of bird of prey.

The vertical pupils in his palms were half-open and half-closed, and the blood vessels on the surface of his eyes were denser than before, as if the previous tracking had consumed a lot of energy.

"Gu Sang, that person isn't on the ground."

Miura walked to Gu Ruzhang's side, his shadow stretching long on the ground, still thin at the edges, but much denser than when he had just climbed out.

"I know," Gu Ruzhang's voice was cold. "He's gone to heaven."

"Go to heaven?"

"The last aura detected by the Demon Eye was directly overhead." Gu Ruzhang raised his head, his gaze sweeping across the night sky. "It must have flown up there, but unfortunately we don't have any magical artifacts for flying."

Miura frowned slightly.

"There aren't many cultivators who can fly."

That's why I said it was interesting.

He withdrew his gaze, looked down at his right hand, and the vertical pupil in his palm slowly closed, leaving only a thin slit.

"It's either a flying magical artifact or the keeping of strange creatures that can carry people. Either way, it's not something an ordinary rogue cultivator could pull off."

Miura paused for a moment, then asked, "Should we expand the search area?"

"Need not."

Gu Ruzhang shook his head. "Since he dared to test us, he won't just try once. If we didn't catch him today, we'll wait for him to come to us on his own."

He turned and walked toward the collapsed main house, rummaged through the ruins for a while, and pulled out a tin box from under the broken planks and mortar.

The box was deformed by the shockwave, but the locks remained intact.

Gu Ruzhang slapped open the box lid and took out a palm-sized wooden box.

The wooden box was entirely black, with three yellow talismans pasted on the opening. The cinnabar on the talismans gleamed a dark red under the red moonlight.

When Miura saw the wooden box, his pupils contracted slightly.

"You're planning to use this?"

"Keep it in hand."

Gu Ruzhang tucked the wooden box into his sleeve. "In case that person comes knocking again, we should at least prepare a generous gift for him."

A sinister smile played on his lips, but his eyes were icy cold.

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