Tianjin, starting with unorthodox methods to achieve immortality

The old Taoist seemed to sense his gaze and slowly opened his eyes.

His eyes were bright, clear and distinct, without the murky look characteristic of those things in the ghost market.

"A living person?" The old Taoist's voice was clear, like a mountain spring hitting a rock.

"Yes." Chen Mo nodded.

"rare."

The old Taoist priest said the same thing as Zhao Bancheng, then stopped asking questions and simply held out his hand, indicating that he should see for himself.

Chen Mo pointed to the first brocade box: "What's the price of this Heavenly Thunder Talisman?"

The old Taoist priest glanced at the talisman and said calmly, "Two thousand magic coins."

two thousand.

Chen Mo's heart skipped a beat.

This price is two hundred cheaper than the knife he sold.

The only tool a knife seller can use to make a living is a one-time-use talisman like this.

"Can I take a look?" Chen Mo asked.

The old Taoist priest nodded.

Chen Mo carefully picked up the brocade box and brought it closer to examine it.

The talisman paper is not actually paper, but rather made of high-quality jade, as thin as a cicada's wing yet exceptionally tough.

He flicked it lightly with his fingernail, and the talisman made a crisp sound.

The runes on the surface are layered upon each other, each stroke flowing smoothly and naturally, without the slightest hesitation or pause, clearly the work of a master.

He put down the brocade box and pointed to the calming pill.

"What about this one?"

"One thousand and five."

Chen Mo almost lost his balance.

One thousand and five.

With the addition of the Heavenly Thunder Talisman, three thousand five hundred are gone.

He just received 4,300, spent 350 on talismans and cinnabar, and has 3,950 left.

Buying these two items will cost three thousand five hundred, leaving only four hundred coins.

too expensive.

but.....

Chen Mo gritted his teeth.

The Heavenly Thunder Talisman is a trump card for survival.

Although he is currently in the late stage of Qi Refining, he doesn't have many truly effective attack methods.

Having a Heavenly Thunder Talisman in hand can sometimes save your life.

Even a master of unorthodox methods like Old Lady Black Cat couldn't withstand a single strike from that low-level Heavenly Thunder Talisman.

This demonstrates the power of the talisman.

The calming pill is also a must-have.

If I don't have it, that's fine, but if I do come across it, I'll definitely buy it.

When the inner demons are concentrated, they are no joke.

The moment the malevolent energy enters the body, all the fears and desires buried deep in the heart will surge forth. If one's will falters even slightly, at best the meridians will become disordered and one's cultivation will be completely ruined.

In severe cases, the soul and spirit are destroyed, and the body and mind are scattered.

A thousand five hundred for a life isn't expensive.

"Can you make it cheaper?" Chen Mo asked again.

The old Taoist shook his head, his tone leaving no room for negotiation: "Two thousand Heavenly Thunder Talismans, one thousand five hundred Mind-Stabilizing Pills, not a penny less."

"I have been running a stall in this ghost market for twenty years. I have never cheated anyone, young or old, and I never haggle."

Chen Mo hesitated for a moment, then counted out three thousand five hundred coins from his package and stacked them on the table.

"I bought it."

The old Taoist priest glanced at the pile of magic money on the table, but instead of collecting it, he pushed the brocade boxes containing the Heavenly Thunder Talisman and the Mind-Stabilizing Pill in front of Chen Mo.

"I have written down the instructions for using the Heavenly Thunder Talisman and the Mind-Stabilizing Pill on these two sheets of paper."

He pulled two neatly folded yellow papers from his sleeve and handed them over together. "Take a close look when you get back, and follow the instructions exactly when you use them. You can't make a single mistake."

Chen Mo took the yellow paper and unfolded it in front of the old Taoist priest.

The Heavenly Thunder Talisman has the activation incantation and precautions written on it.

The prescription for the Mind-Stabilizing Pill details the timing of taking the medicine, the method of regulating breathing, and the key to focusing the mind.

He memorized the contents, folded the two pieces of paper, and put them into his package.

"Thank you, Taoist priest."

The old Taoist priest then reached out and gathered the coins in front of him, counting them one by one.

Counting to three thousand five, that's perfect.

The old Taoist priest put the money into the wooden box, locked the box, and looked up at Chen Mo.

"The money is just right, please keep the things safe."

Chen Mo put the two brocade boxes into the package, and then stuffed the two pieces of yellow paper into each of the brocade boxes.

The package now contains one hundred sheets of Nether Bamboo Talisman Paper, five bottles of Blood Cinnabar, one Heavenly Thunder Talisman, and one Mind-Stabilizing Pill—all his spoils from tonight's visit to the Ghost Market.

Of the four thousand three hundred coins, only four hundred remained.

It's painful to think about, but each of these items is useful, so they're worth the money.

...

Chen Mo continued walking along the stalls on this side of the ditch, but this time he only looked and didn't buy anything.

With little money left, and having bought almost everything I needed, I could only broaden my horizons.

A bronze mirror, its surface subtly shimmering with light, is priced at 1,800.

A string of prayer beads made from the bones of an unknown animal, each bead engraved with intricate runes, is priced at three thousand.

.....

The more Chen Mo looked at it, the more he felt that his four hundred-odd coins were really not presentable.

After taking a few more steps, he suddenly stopped.

At the next stall, there was something that caught his eye.

Flying sword.

Something that looks like a flying sword.

It lay in a long, narrow brocade box, completely black, with a blade about two feet long and two fingers wide, and its surface lacked the luster of ordinary metal.

Most notably, the sword had no hilt.

The hilt and blade are one piece, the whole sword is perfectly formed, as if it was carved from a single piece of material.

The blade tapers slightly at the end, just the right size to hold, but the grip area has no cord or anti-slip texture; it's as smooth as a mirror.

Chen Mo had seen descriptions of flying swords in the Bureau of Investigation's files, but this was the first time he had ever seen one in person.

What made him most uneasy was the aura emanating from the flying sword.

His breath was extremely restrained, so restrained that it was almost imperceptible.

But Chen Mo could sense that beneath that calm exterior lay a sharpness compressed to the extreme.

He instinctively reached out, wanting to touch the sword.

"Don't move."

The stall owner spoke, his voice carrying a chill.

Chen Mo's hand froze in mid-air before he withdrew it and turned his gaze to the stall.

The stall owner was a man who looked to be in his forties, with messy hair hanging over his shoulders and a thin face.

What's most eye-catching is the copper coin hanging on his left earlobe. It's round on the outside and square on the inside, worn so badly that the inscription is almost illegible. It sways gently with the slight movement of his head.

"How much?" Chen Mo suppressed the urge to probe out with his divine sense and asked calmly.

The stall owner looked him up and down, his gaze shifting from his face to his package, and the corners of his mouth turned down slightly.

"You can't afford it."

The tone was calm, not sarcastic, but stating a fact.

Chen Mo was taken aback, but he wasn't angry.

He knew he only had a little over four hundred magic coins in his bag, which was indeed not enough to buy a flying sword.

"If you can't afford it, can't you at least ask?" he asked again.

The stall owner looked at him for a couple of breaths, then stretched out his hands and flipped his ten fingers over twice.

One hundred thousand.

Chen Mo gasped inwardly.

Click to begin the wondrous journey of "Tianjin: The Path to Immortality from Unorthodox Methods".

He spent 100,000 coins, but those four items he just sold only fetched 4,300.

One hundred thousand is equivalent to him selling forty or fifty knives to people who sell knives on credit, or more than one hundred Ghost Tokens.

Just then, a sneer came from the side.

"Old Wu, are you still selling this piece of junk?"

The speaker was the stall owner next door, a middle-aged man wearing a worn blue cloth long gown with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing a slender wrist.

His stall had rows of ceramic jars, their mouths sealed with yellow paper printed with cinnabar, like items he was selling elixirs or soul-nourishing jars.

Old Wu ignored him, his expression remaining unchanged.

The gaunt middle-aged man didn't seem to care. "It's been on the market for three years, the price has gone from 80,000 to 100,000. Do you think this thing is an antique? That it gets more valuable the longer it's stored?"

"Shut up."

Old Wu uttered two words.

The gaunt middle-aged man laughed heartily, placed a pottery jar he was wiping on the table, pointed at the flying sword and said to Chen Mo, "Young brother, don't listen to his nonsense."

"This broken sword has been sitting here for three years, and not a single person has even asked about its price."

"I think it's just a piece of scrap metal, dug out of some grave, but he insists it's a flying sword."

"What if a flying sword didn't even have any edge?"

Old Wu turned his head and glanced at the thin, middle-aged man.

The smile on the other person's face froze for a moment, he coughed twice, picked up the pottery jar again and continued wiping it, and stopped talking.

Chen Mo ignored the gaunt middle-aged man's sarcasm and focused his gaze back on the flying sword.

"Ten thousand coins is indeed not cheap," he said softly.

Old Wu didn't say anything, closed his eyes again, and didn't even bother to look at him.

"Trying to show off, huh...."

Chen Mo cursed under his breath. With a thought, a wisp of Yin energy flowed out from his toes and quietly attached itself to the rainproof cloth that the other party had spread out.

After doing all this, he stood up and took one last look at the flying sword.

"Keep it for now, we'll deal with it after the evil spirits have solidified."

.....

After walking through all the stalls on this side of Duantougou, I didn't find anything else that I absolutely had to buy.

With very little money left, continuing to wander around would only result in envy.

He turned and walked towards the exit, quickly crossing the narrow stone bridge, and made his way to the entrance of the ghost market.

The old man was still squatting in the same spot, squinting his eyes as if he were dozing off.

Hearing footsteps, he slowly opened his eyes and glanced at the package in Chen Mo's arms.

"You're back? Did you sell the stuff?"

"Sold." Chen Mo nodded, his expression indifferent.

"What did you buy?" the old man asked casually, his tone nonchalant.

Chen Mo tightened the pack on his back and casually glanced at the other person. "I just bought some talismans and cinnabar, nothing much."

The old man's cloudy eyes darted around, and he clicked the end of his pipe.

"It's getting late, let's go up. It's not good to stay in the underworld for too long."

"Yes, farewell, senior."

Chen Mo cupped his hands in greeting to the old man, then turned and walked back towards the narrow alley he had come from.

He neither quickened his pace nor slowed it down.

However, the Yin energy within his body had already quietly begun to circulate, spreading throughout his limbs and bones, ready to be activated at any time.

The lid of the Heavenly Thunder Talisman box inside the package was slightly ajar; with just a thought, the talisman could fly out.

Behind me came the old man's low cough and the sound of his pipe clattering against the stone.

The old man remained motionless until his figure disappeared around the corner of the alley.

"Am I just overthinking it?"

Chen Mo frowned as he walked to the wall, stuck the Tianxi Tongbao coin on the wall, and drew a line along the wall seam from top to bottom.

"open."

Ripples spread across the wall, revealing a gap more than a meter high.

He didn't look back, and took a step forward.

Chen Mo stood in a small alley in Ganzhou City. The wall behind him had been restored to its original state, with gray bricks and black seams, covered with a few clumps of moss, no different from an ordinary old wall.

The fragrance of osmanthus blossoms in the air eased his tense mood a little.

He didn't linger. He quickly walked out of the alley and, after confirming that no one was around, immediately took out the repaired large paper kite from his storage space.

Injecting a wisp of Yin energy, the kite immediately swelled up, growing to about three meters long and hovering half a foot above the ground.

Chen Mo flipped himself onto the kite, and with a sudden flap of its wings, it carried him into the air and sped off towards the outskirts of the city.

The night wind howled past my ears, and the lights of Ganzhou city rushed past beneath me.

He glanced back.

The alleyway led to the location of the wall, but it was pitch black and nothing could be seen.

"I hope I'm just overthinking it..."

Chen Mo muttered to himself and increased the output of the Yin energy.

The kite flew extremely fast, crossing most of the city in just a few breaths, and soaring higher and higher.

About ten breaths after he flew away, a crack silently appeared in the wall deep in the alley.

The old man strode out from inside.

He stood in the alley, looked up at the night sky, and a glint of light flashed in his cloudy old eyes.

He held the pipe in his mouth, the ash long since cooled, but he was completely unaware. He merely squinted slightly and his nose twitched gently, as if he were sniffing something.

After a moment, the old man frowned.

"Um?"

He let out a surprised gasp, and the nonchalant look on his face instantly turned serious.

I walked quickly to the alley entrance, glanced left and right, and saw that the streets of Ganzhou were deserted, without a single person in sight.

"This kid, can he fly?"

He muttered to himself, took the pipe from his lips, tapped it in his palm, and the ash fell in a flurry.

After refilling the cigarette and lighting it, the old man made a hand gesture with his left hand, and a faint green light appeared at his fingertips as he slowly drew a circle in front of him.

The circle of light remained condensed and did not dissipate, like a small mirror suspended in mid-air, with a blurry shadow faintly reflected on its surface.

Chen Mo was riding on a kite, flying towards the outskirts of the city at an astonishing speed...

He stared at the shadow for a couple of moments, his lips twitching slightly.

"Well, I underestimated you, kid."

The old man flipped his hand, and the green light vanished. He stood at the alley entrance in silence for a moment, then suddenly chuckled softly.

"What a pity, what a pity."

No matter how fast you run, you can't escape my grasp.

Before he could finish speaking, the old man's body suddenly began to blur.

A thin layer of black mist rose from the soles of his feet, spreading upwards along the hem of his robes and quickly enveloping his entire body.

The black mist surged violently, then suddenly rose into the air. After hovering above the rooftops for a moment, seemingly to confirm its direction, it flew off towards the outskirts of the city.

Its speed was even faster than Chen Mo's kite.

Under the moonlight, two figures, one in front of the other, swept across the sky above Ganzhou City.

Ahead was a kite, pure white, its wings flapping with a subtle fluctuation of spiritual energy, leaving a faint trace in the night sky.

Behind it was a cloud of black mist, silent and still, like an ominous dark cloud, clinging tightly to the kite, the distance between them gradually closing.