Zong Tai stood at the entrance of the street, deep in thought with furrowed brows.
Had the criminal come here by accident, or was it intentional?
Could it be they knew that a Soul-Calming Stake was buried here?!
Zong Tai lifted his foot intending to go over and take a look, but after just two steps, he suddenly stopped.
“Forget it.”
“There can’t be any more mistakes,” Zong Tai thought, shaking his head.
Before the attack on Nanyang, he ran around busily, but when success was near, an error occurred. Chao Fang began to distance himself, and his brothers teased him; he had always been holding back a surge of frustration.
The most urgent task was to extract the Soul-Calming Stake and send it back to the Inner City.
“There can be no complications!”
With this thought, he turned his head and walked into an alley.
…
Standing in front of a residence with two yellow lanterns hanging at the gate.
Zong Tai leaped up and vaulted into the courtyard.
Reaching the main house’s entrance, he carefully examined the small mechanism on the copper lock, making sure no one had sneaked in, and breathed a sigh of relief. He unlocked the door and entered.
In the dim main house, by the faint light, Zong Tai looked at the familiar room with complexity.
Annoyance and unwillingness filled his heart again, and it took a long while before he sighed.
“One must look forward.”
“If I don’t have soldiers under my command, then I’ll just lead without an army.”
“As long as I do what big brother has assigned me to do and continue to receive the cultivation of the hall’s red, there will come a day when I rise.”
He took out a porcelain bottle from his bosom and pulled out the stopper to pour into his palm.
The sticky, bright red of the hall’s red flowed out.
Its shape resembled jelly, yet it had good fluidity. Poured into the palm, it automatically shrank into a quail egg-sized translucent sphere.
“First, extract the Soul-Calming Stake.”
Holding the hall’s red in one hand, Zong Tai uttered a string of convoluted and obscure characters.
The words seemed disjointed and incomprehensible, a jumble of three to four hundred characters with no apparent meaning.
Zong Tai paid no attention and continued the incantation.
Once.
Ten times.
A hundred times…
This continued for a quarter of an hour until there was a change.
The surface of the sphere of hall’s red in his hand started to bulge with small lumps before they disappeared and retracted.
Zong Tai felt a sense of relief inside: “Finally…”
As he continued to recite, his voice began to sound strange.
At first, it was a single voice, but slowly it seemed like two voices overlapping, and after a while, as if countless people were chanting at the same time.
Zong Tai endured the dryness in his mouth and throat, continuing the incantation non-stop.
Reciting for nearly three-quarters of an hour, the sky had turned completely dark.
The small sphere of hall’s red suddenly emitted a bright red glow and with a swoosh dispersed, quickly seeping through the gaps between his fingers and down to the ground.
Falling to the floor, it spread out mottled red dots, moving like living creatures, wriggling and squirming through the crevices of the green brick floor and disappearing underground.
The ground suddenly shook.
The green brick floor was pushed up, and the soil beneath it bubbled and spilled out rapidly, piling into a half-meter-tall mound of dirt in just a few breaths.
A stick, dark and glossy with cloud-like patterns etched on it, buzzed as it drilled out from the center of the mound.
“Soul-Calming Stake!”
Zong Tai grabbed and yanked it out in one motion.
The cold touch made him shiver involuntarily.
The Soul-Calming Stake was as tall as a man, as thick as a child’s arm.
Its surface was as enigmatic as the night sky, deeply black.
The material was neither metal nor glass, looking weighty yet surprisingly light.
“Success!”
…
Lin Heng Fang, Chen Residence.
After dinner, a black smoke engulfed and covered everything.
Dishes and cups on the square table disappeared amidst the chaos.
When they reappeared, they were as clean as new.
Even stubborn oil stains and grime were thoroughly cleansed by the Five Ghosts Black Smoke.
Jie Jia couldn’t help but lift his eyelids slightly, his amber eyes filled with an odd expression.
“Your usage of the magic artifact is truly… unique?”
Ordinary people who get a magic artifact would treat it like an ancestor and worship it, wouldn’t they?
But Chen Mu, he used the precious Five Ghosts Bag to scrub dishes and bowls?!
What a waste of a magic artifact! A flagrant abuse of heavenly gifts!
If those who struggled to accumulate magic artifacts knew this, they would definitely hack Chen Mu to pieces.
Yet Chen Mu raised his eyebrows, full of pride.
“`
Following the vacuum cleaner and range hood versions of the Five Ghosts Bag, Chen Mu gradually devised the Five Ghosts Bag version of the dishwasher.
Wasteful?
“This is all about improving the quality of life within an affordable range. It’s the wisdom of living—you wouldn’t understand!” Chen Mu said with a superior smile, shaking his head.
Jie Jia: “…”
“Are you sure it’s not just because you’re lazy?”
The more Jie Jia questioned, the prouder Chen Mu’s smile became: “Laziness drives human progress.”
Jie Jia was utterly puzzled.
Chen Mu grinned smugly.
Heh…savages!
After tidying up, Chen Mu handed Jie Jia a porcelain bottle the size of a fist.
“As per your request, double the Blue Medicine Pills.”
Inside, there were sixty Blue Medicine Pills crammed together.
As Nanyang Prefecture closed its gates, chaos intensified but the entertainment business in Chunfeng Tower flourished more than ever.
Consequently, the business of counterfeit pills also improved greatly.
After seeing off Jie Jia, Chen Mu boiled water for a foot bath. Next to him, a bright oil lamp lit the long study desk.
He casually pulled out “Bone Reading for Physiognomy” and continued to read. His breathing also slowly adjusted, becoming rapid yet rhythmic.
Having completed the Marrow Transformation with the Heavenly Serpent Shape Cultivation Technique, Chen Mu had created a new Breathing Method.
Now, he was integrating it into his daily routine. His Proficiency in the fourth rank of the Heavenly Serpent Shape Cultivation Technique continued to advance.
With his feet warmed and after washing up, Chen Mu blew out the light and went to bed.
“Tsk… missing some entertainment here.”
“Sleep, sleep, I’ll just find what I need in my dreams.”
Feeling the forty-one Zuming Talismans in his pocket, Chen Mu fell asleep peacefully.
…
Whoosh!
A gentle breeze whispered.
A stocky man dressed in black, carrying a long black staff, crept over the wall with his back bent, resembling a thief.
After Zong Tai landed, just as he was about to move, he couldn’t help but smile bitterly.
“I must be crazy.”
He was just a fugitive hiding and evading the law.
How could he possibly be that man from the past?
Shaking his head, he prepared to leave. With the Soul-Calming Stake on him, he couldn’t afford any mishaps.
But… since he was already here.
Zong Tai landed silently like a ghost, glided to the window on the west side of the main house in two steps.
The window had a single openwork shutter, pasted with ochre oil paper and could be flipped open by rolling it up on the upper wooden axis.
It was currently propped open slightly by a horizontal stick.
Zong Tai took out a porcelain bottle from his chest, placed it below the half-open window, and slowly waved his hand.
A wisp of green smoke entered the room through the open window.
With the help of faint moonlight filtering through the window gaps, one could vaguely see the bed not far from the window.
At that moment, a figure was lying on the bed, sound asleep.
Zong Tai paused and waited. A quarter of an hour later, he suddenly flung the window open and darted into the room.
The instant he landed, he lunged toward the bed.
His Shell Soul shifted, and his right fist turned pitch black as ink.
Like a massive sledgehammer, it brought a whistling wind and ferociously smashed down!
Zong Tai’s expression was cold: “With the Soul-Calming Stake, there must be no accidents…”
Bang!
The solid walnut bed shattered in an instant.
Something wasn’t right!
The next moment, his scalp prickled with sudden pain. Your next read awaits at M V L
Without thinking, Zong Tai instinctively crouched, raising his left hand clutching the Soul-Calming Stake.
The dark Soul-Calming Stake pierced the air, thrusting up towards the space above his head.
Clang!
It was like a hammer smashing down on an anvil. A thunderous roar erupted beside his ear.
A powerful force transmitted from the tip of the Soul-Calming Stake.
His left hand, covered with Soul Strength, felt like it was grasping a slick, massive serpent.
Sss!
It sounded like a knife scraping glass.
The Soul-Calming Stake, gripped by a hand as tight as an iron hoop, suddenly slipped downwards.
With a soft thud, it effortlessly penetrated the green brick floor.
Zong Tai’s heart pounded ruthlessly, his pupils sharply contracting.
“`