Unorthodox methods, cultivating immortality relies on rich women

"What's wrong? What happened?" Ding Xiangkui asked.

"Oh, it's nothing. The incense is burning too fast, so we might not have enough," Shen Qingzhou said.

"You..."

Ding Xiangkui suppressed his anger, wanting to say that his sudden outbursts were making people nervous, but before he could finish speaking, countless figures suddenly appeared.

It didn't float out; it "squeezed" out from the cracks in the bricks, "seeped" out from the shadows of the walls, and "drilled" out from under the pillars...

They even "emerged" from the cracks in the blue bricks beneath everyone's feet. Each of them had a pale, ashen face, sunken eyes, and purplish lips. They were surrounded by a faint white mist, but their faces were adorned with an almost distorted, intoxicated look as they stretched their necks to greedily inhale the incense smoke in the air.

"Give it to me... give it to me..."

No one opened their mouth, but the dense, cacophony of sounds surged into the eardrums like a tidal wave, chilling and piercing, making it impossible to distinguish whether they were men or women, old or young.

The three of them were so frightened that they quickly took two steps forward and stuck close to Shen Qingzhou, because only he had fewer ghosts around him.

"What's going on?" Ding Xiangkui asked in a deep voice, surprisingly without much panic, which surprised Shen Qingzhou.

"I was looking for some help, but I didn't expect so many to come, and... I don't think I have enough people to help me."

The three of them immediately looked at the altar, and saw that the incense sticks seemed to have been sucked in, the flames suddenly shot up and burned rapidly, burning up more than half in an instant, with the remaining small piece teetering on the verge of burning out.

"What will happen after it's burned?" the burly man Ma Chenggang asked, clenching his fists.

"I'll get angry. These guys seem a bit difficult to talk to, haha..." Shen Qingzhou said.

Upon hearing this, Ding Xiangkui took a deep breath and said in a deep voice, "Mr. Shen, I'm here to ask for your help, not to cause you trouble. From what you've said, you have a way to deal with it, so please take action immediately. I can offer you more money."

"That makes it sound like I'm doing this for money. I'm not that kind of person..."

He said that, but his hand was already making a hand gesture.

"Soul Capture".

He said that this time he didn't recite any fancy spells.

Dozens of paper figures flew out of his pocket, like swallows returning to their nests, and flew towards the ghosts.

The ghosts, absorbed in the incense's glow, were oblivious to the paper figures and were directly struck by them.

The next instant, the ghost turned into wisps of green smoke and dissipated. The moment the paper figure landed, several real people appeared on the spot. Their bodies were solid and no longer illusory, but their faces were blank and their eyes were empty. They were the villagers of Dingjia Village.

At this moment, the incense on the altar finally burned out, and the sparks died out in a flash.

Without the incense to feed them, the remaining ghosts instantly regained consciousness. Their ashen faces twisted into ferocious expressions, black energy surged in their eyes, and they all emitted piercing screams.

The piercing wails and venomous curses were like a viscous liquid, sending a chill down one's spine.

Shen Qingzhou changed the hand seals.

"make!"

This time it was even shorter. As soon as he finished speaking, the villagers who were made of paper figures suddenly narrowed their eyes and became swift. They turned around and pounced on the ghosts around them, entangled with them, and temporarily helped them resist the ghosts that wanted to pounce on them.

"Walk."

Shen Qingzhou took the lead and headed towards the back chambers behind the hall. The three people and the dog quickly followed, but before leaving, they couldn't help but take a few more glances at the villagers that the paper figures had conjured.

Is this even possible? They even said there were no immortals. This reminded them of the story "The Taoist Priest of Maoshan" from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. This method was comparable to that of an immortal, which put their minds at ease.

The rear ancestral hall is where the ancestral tablets and clan records are placed; it is even colder and more so than the main hall.

The wooden cabinets against the wall are neatly arranged, their doors tightly closed, yet a faint rustling sound can be heard coming from inside, like pages turning or fingernails scratching a wooden board.

Dark red water seeped from the cracks in the blue bricks paving the ground, meandering like blood, flowing along the cracks to an ancient well in the center of the hall. The wellhead was sealed with blue stone, engraved with intricate runes. Occasionally, wisps of white mist would emerge from the cracks in the seal. The mist would not dissipate upon landing, but would transform into blurry human figures, which would then vanish without a trace.

Shen Qingzhou circled the manhole cover and said to the three people who had followed him, "I guess what you're looking for is down in the well."

"That's what we thought too, but when we tried to open the manhole cover, it didn't work at all," Ding Xiangkui said.

Before Shen Qingzhou arrived, they had already tried, not because the manhole cover was too heavy to lift, but because everything in front of them seemed to exist in another time and space, and they could not touch it at all.

Shen Qingzhou didn't care about any of that. He simply reached out and gently tapped the manhole cover, leaving the three of them dumbfounded.

"Big sister, are you home?"

Everyone: ...

Does this make us seem useless and so casual?

He always managed to turn the tense atmosphere into the feeling of visiting relatives and friends.

Shen Qingzhou received no response, so she knocked again. "Big sister, can we talk? You can tell me what's bothering you, don't make things like this. I'm not surnamed Ding, and I haven't offended anyone..."

As Shen Qingzhou said this, she suddenly felt a little less confident.

"Anyway, let's go out and talk, okay? I'll treat you to some incense," Shen Qingzhou continued.

But still no response was received. Shen Qingzhou sighed and said, "What's wrong? It's been so long, why are you still so resentful? Is it because the Ding family isn't all dead yet?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the surrounding air suddenly turned cold, and a chilling coldness seeped into people's skin, making their hair stand on end.

With each breath, white mist gathered in front of my mouth and nose, chilling me to the bone.

Ding Xiangkui, a member of the Ding family, felt it even more intensely. She felt as if a pair of eyes were staring intently at her from behind, making her body stiff and her blood freeze.

Immediately afterwards, something cold and slippery wrapped around her neck.

This girl was quite bold; she didn't lose her courage even after that. She turned around and delivered a flying kick to her back, with two daggers gleaming with a sharp, cold light appearing in her hands.

She naturally kicked at empty air, but the suffocating feeling on her neck did not disappear.

However, in the instant she turned around, she called out to Shen Qingzhou.

"oh?"

Shen Qingzhou, who was staring at the manhole cover and waiting for the "beauty" to emerge from the well, finally came to her senses.

"It's okay, it's okay..."

Shen Qingzhou quickly stepped forward and hooked her finger around Ding Xiangkui's neck.

In that brief moment, Ding Xiangkui began scratching her neck, and she ripped off her mask, revealing a pained and suffocating expression on her face.

Just as Shen Qingzhou extended his finger, Ding Xiangkui suddenly disappeared before his eyes, and at the same time, he also vanished from Ding Xiangkui's sight.

"Young Miss".

Although Ding Xiangkui was in crisis, he had Shen Qingzhou's help, so Ma Chenggang and Zhao Changming were not too panicked.

But Shen Qingzhou suddenly disappeared, and the two of them panicked.

P.S.: There's one more chapter today. Why do you say I'm padding the story? I've been pushing the plot forward.