Tianjin, starting with unorthodox methods to achieve immortality

"What's that noise?" Chen Mo glanced around but didn't find anything wrong.

"It's hard to say." Chen Dachuan shook his head, his face somewhat solemn. "Sometimes it feels like someone is walking lightly in the yard, there's a rustling sound on the blue brick ground, but when you open the window, there's nothing there."

"Sometimes it sounds like muffled thuds coming from underground, or sighs coming from the corner of the wall."

"It's not just the wind; I can tell, and it's happening more and more frequently."

He glanced at Chen Mo's face and continued, "I've checked inside and out several times, but I didn't find any hidden doors or tunnels, nor did I smell any evil spirits."

"I happened to run into those two kids, and I thought that having two more people and more energy might help to keep things in check."

Chen Mo listened quietly, his gaze sweeping over the floor, walls, and beams of the main room.

He secretly channeled a wisp of Yin energy into his eyes, while simultaneously sensing the surrounding atmosphere.

The courtyard was just beginning to fill with people. Aunt Liu and Yuanyuan were ordinary people, while the two young men in the east wing were full of vigor but weak. Chen Dachuan carried a faint, mixed aura from years of contact with yin objects.

Apart from that, no obvious evil spirits or abnormal fluctuations of yin energy have been detected so far.

But Chen Dachuan is not one to make baseless accusations; if he says there's a problem, then there's a good chance there is.

"I'll take another look tonight," Chen Mo said, not taking it to heart.

Dinner was a simple meal of green vegetables and tofu, a little salted fish, and brown rice.

Aunt Liu's cooking skills are excellent; the food was piping hot.

The two boys from the east wing were also called to eat together. They were very reserved, keeping their heads down and not daring to say much. One was called Aqing and the other was called Xiaowu. They were indeed pale and thin.

During the meal, Chen Mo casually asked them a few questions about their backgrounds and observed their behavior, but found nothing unusual at the time.

The two children were very grateful to Chen Dachuan and Aunt Liu, and ate very carefully.

After the meal, Aunt Liu and Yuanyuan cleared the dishes, and Aqing and Xiaowu also rushed to help.

Chen Mo had Chen Dachuan lead him to carefully inspect the courtyard again, inside and out.

From the main house to the side rooms, from the well to the corner of the wall, and even the alley outside the courtyard wall.

The flow of Yin energy circulated throughout the body, and it was most sensitive to Yin-related energies, but no abnormalities were detected.

Only when you get close to the well platform can you feel a faint, extremely weak, icy tremor inside, which flashes by so quickly that you think it's an illusion.

"Strange." Chen Mo stood by the well platform, his fingers brushing against the cool wooden lid.

The well was pitch black, and by the pale red moonlight, the water surface appeared calm and the bottom unseen.

"Right? I also think this well is a bit...too quiet," Chen Dachuan said from the side. "Normally, at this time of year, there should be some steam rising or an echo."

As the two were talking, the hushed laughter of Aqing and Xiaowu came from the east wing, and the soft humming of Aunt Liu coaxing Yuanyuan to sleep could also be faintly heard from the west room.

The courtyard was filled with lively people, which temporarily dispelled the vague sense of eeriness.

"I'll keep watch tonight," Chen Mo said to Chen Dachuan. "You and Aunt Liu can rest as usual, and make sure the door is closed."

Chen Dachuan knew he had some skills he didn't know about, so he nodded and said, "Be careful, I'll take over for you in the second half of the night."

"it is good."

.......

Late at night.

Renshou Lane fell into a deep sleep, with only the occasional bark of a dog or the sound of a night watchman's clapper coming from afar.

Chen Mo sat alone in the shadows behind the window of the main room. There was no lamp lit, only the faint moonlight shining through the window paper, casting blurry spots of light on the ground.

He closed his eyes and concentrated, the Yin energy slowly flowing through him, his senses amplified to the extreme. At the same time, the three paper puppets of swords and weapons in his hands, which had undergone preliminary enhancement, were in a semi-activated state and could be deployed at any time.

Time passed little by little, from Hai Shi (9-11 PM) to Zi Shi (11 PM-1 AM)...

Just when Chen Mo thought nothing might happen tonight.

Tap...tap...tap...

An extremely faint sound came from the blue brick floor of the courtyard.

It looked like someone was walking step by step in soft-soled cloth shoes.

The sound was very soft, yet it was jarringly clear in the quiet night.

The direction was precisely around that well platform.

Chen Mo suddenly opened his eyes, a cold glint flashing in them. He silently got up and went to the window, looking out through the gap in the window paper.

The cool moonlight spilled onto the clean and tidy courtyard.

There was no one around the well.

But the sound of footsteps, tapping and clapping, continued, slowly circling the well platform, round and round.

It's as if there's an unseen person wandering there alone.

The sound of the midnight watchman's clapper echoed from afar, and the footsteps in the courtyard stopped abruptly on the third round, as Chen Mo watched intently from behind the window.

The courtyard returned to silence, with only the moonlight flowing silently, illuminating the empty well platform and the blue brick floor.

The clear footsteps just now seemed like a cold joke played by the night.

Chen Mo did not move, maintaining his concealed posture. The Yin energy flowed quietly within his body, and his senses spread out like an invisible spider web.

The problem is probably in that well.

But the voice was neither like an ordinary evil spirit nor a common vengeful spirit.

He frowned and thought hard, but still couldn't come up with a solution.

"I suspect there's something wrong with that well. Has it been cleaned?"

In the middle of the night, when Chen Dachuan quietly came out to relieve him, Chen Mo whispered what he had observed to him.

"The well? Before we moved in, I had someone take a quick look at it. The water was fairly clear, so we didn't make any major changes."

Chen Dachuan's face looked somewhat pale in the moonlight: "I heard from the broker Old Sun that this well is quite old. It was used in the early years, but after the tap water was installed, it was sealed off and only used occasionally to water the flowers."

"Sealed off?" Chen Mo caught the word. "How was it sealed off?"

"It's just that this wooden lid was put on top of a stone," Chen Dachuan pointed to the inconspicuous bluestone on the well platform. "I moved it when I brought it in, and since the wooden lid seemed fine, I didn't replace it. What, does it need dredging?"

Chen Mo pondered for a moment: "Tomorrow morning, have someone thoroughly clean the inside and outside of this well to see what's down there."

Chen Dachuan nodded in agreement, his eyes filled with even deeper worry: "You suspect..."

"It's too early to say." He looked at the well that stood silently in the moonlight. "Wells are connected to the earth's energy, and they are also the easiest places to accumulate dirt and filth, gathering gloom and darkness. Let's clean it first and then see."

After exchanging a few more words in hushed tones, Chen Mo returned to his quiet room in the east wing.

The room was simple, with a bed, a table, and a chair. On the table were his simple luggage and a few commonly used tools.

He didn't light a lamp. After releasing two paper figures as a warning, he simply splashed cold water on his face with the moonlight filtering through the window, then sat cross-legged on the bed and closed his eyes.

My mind sank into the sea of ​​consciousness.

A moon-like mirror, neither real nor illusory, floated silently in the air.

The mirror shone with a clear, flowing light, its surface as smooth as water, clearly reflecting the contents of the first half of the "Paper Making Techniques of the Underworld" that he had already included.

Having already mastered the basic methods of the first three levels, he now focused his attention on the subsequent chapters that were slowly emerging from the treasure mirror.