"We can't stay by this river anymore!"
Chen Mu squatted on the roof all night without sleeping.
The next day as soon as the sun rose, he rushed to the tooth trader's.
Near the Inner City, he rented a two-entry courtyard house.
The Prefectural Government Office was in the Inner City, and so were the evil-warding treasures; living closer meant more safety.
Then, he spent another day moving furniture and belongings from the old house into the new one.
He didn't ask for help but instead used the Five Ghosts Bag, moving everything himself trip by trip.
His four Shape Cultivation Techniques were highly advanced, giving him frightening endurance, and with the help of the Five Ghosts Bag, such tasks hardly tired him at all.
...
In the evening, Chen Mu cooked a large table of dishes.
It wasn't until dusk that Jie Jia walked into his new home with an expressionless face.
"What have you encountered this time?" Jie Jia was exasperated. "You're more vigilant than a rabbit. Any little disturbance and you move house."
"Nothing much, just been living in one place for too long, so I wanted a change of environment," Chen Mu chuckled. "Besides, I haven't given up the old residence; cunning rabbits have three burrows, right?"
"Aren't you afraid of being suspected by the neighbors with such secretive movements?" Jie Jia countered.
Chen Mu calmly replied, "I don't have any neighbors."
Jie Jia looked at Chen Mu speechlessly, "You... rented the surrounding properties, too?"
Chen Mu just smiled and didn't speak.
Jie Jia: "..."
...
After dinner, the two sat in the new home's pavilion.
The courtyard had been neglected for some time and was strewn with dry yellow leaves.
Under the octagonal pavilion, green bricks showed cracks through which tender grass shoots even emerged.
Next to the stone table, Chen Mu handed two porcelain vials to Jie Jia.
"How much are these worth?" asked Chen Mu.
"Dragon Transformation Pills?" Jie Jia opened a vial to take a glance, "There's been a recent price drop, around one thousand taels each."
"Exchange them all for Zuming Talismans for me," said Chen Mu decisively.
Jie Jia looked at Chen Mu in surprise, then paused, "You haven't encountered ghosts again, have you?"
Chen Mu nodded reluctantly.
"Could it be some kind of special constitution?" Jie Jia eyed Chen Mu up and down.
Chen Mu rolled his eyes, "I'm just an ordinary person, what special constitution could I have?"
But Jie Jia shook his head, "It's hard to say; ghosts don't always go after the same person."
"What do you mean?" Chen Mu couldn't help frowning.
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"Some special constitutions are suitable for possession, so..." Jie Jia glanced at Chen Mu with his pale yellow eyes.
Chen Mu suddenly felt his scalp tingle. He thought of his own 'borrowing a corpse to resurrect'.
"It shouldn't be the case, otherwise you wouldn't have survived until now," Jie Jia reassured after some thought.
Chen Mu breathed a sigh of relief.
The last thing he wanted was to be constantly troubled by ghosts.
...
The next day.
Chen Mu woke up early; he actually hadn't slept well the night before.
It wasn't a big deal, but Jie Jia's words kept him tossing and turning, unable to stop imagining ghosts popping out from under the bed.
He practiced the White Jade Toad Shape Cultivation Technique three times to warm up his body.
Chen Mu glanced at the courtyard, littered with dead leaves.
Three syllables were uttered, and five big clumps of black smoke appeared beside him, swirling around him continuously.
The black smoke brushed over the ground, making the dry leaves, sprinkled pebbles, and dirt rapidly vanish.
The temperature in Nanyang Prefecture, which hadn't been cool for a few days, began to rise rapidly.
The White Jade Toad Shape Cultivation Technique also smoothly completed the Bone Transformation over the past month, and even the Marrow Transformation had progressed by more than half.
"As expected, the more overlays there are, the faster the three transformations are completed."
His leg bones had become more resilient, and the hip, knee, and ankle joints had become more flexible.
"It's probably designed to enhance the explosive power of the lower limbs," Chen Mu speculated.
With more experience in the Shape Cultivation Technique, he gradually gained insights.
Once a technique was mastered, he could roughly discern its orientation.
"Soul Strength will probably manifest in the legs."
...
Shape Cultivation was progressing smoothly, and the business of imitation pharmaceuticals was becoming well established.
With an income of over three hundred silver a month, as long as he didn't buy expensive items like Zuming Talismans in large quantities,
even if he visited Chunfeng Tower three to five times a month to gather information, it was still more than enough to indulge himself. After all... he was only eating, and he wasn't even scrounging for meals.
And as time went by, more and more people came to Nanyang Prefecture seeking refuge.
Chen Mu went out once and noticed the world was becoming increasingly chaotic, so he stopped going out.
He also heard that the bizarre Red Ship seemed to have appeared on the Luo River again.
Chen Mu tensed up but then breathed a sigh of relief.
"It seems like it wasn't targeting me."
He just happened to live by the river and had stumbled upon it.
"Emerging at intervals to snatch a batch of people, these ghosts are using humans as food," Chen Mu recalled the memories of the haunting.
Possession, dried corpses, horrific deaths. Random selection without cause, sudden attacks. It all seemed like a hunt to him.
"When you think about it, aren't evil-warding artifacts just another kind of fence or wall?"
"They block the attacks of wild beast-ghosts from beyond."
...
Chen Mu thought he would live this peaceful life until he had gone through all the Shape Cultivation Techniques he had.
But things did not go as he wished.
In the year 641 of Da Liang, on the fifth day of April.
Late at night, as Chen Mu lay in bed sound asleep, he suddenly felt a warmth on his chest.
Half-asleep, he opened his eyes and noticed that his chest and back were getting hotter and hotter.
He reached in and saw a Zuming Talisman emitting a faint red light.
Chen Mu was startled awake at once.
He looked up.
The Zuming Talismans on the walls and beams were glowing continuously.
Creak creak creak...
Cringing scraping sounds came from the wooden door.
Chen Mu's pupils suddenly contracted.
Whoosh!
The Zuming Talismans on the walls almost simultaneously emitted white smoke, and the room was filled with the stench of something burning.
Chen Mu dared not move and stiffly watched the figure in front of the bed.
Long hair, a naked body, a rotten back.
It was the first ghost he had encountered, the long-haired woman by the river.
A great fear instantly filled his spirit, enveloping him as if he were slowly being encased by the crushing depths of the sea.
His body became progressively rigid, and his thoughts grew increasingly sluggish.
Borrowing the last bit of clarity from the warmth of the Zuming Talisman on his chest, Chen Mu struggled to utter three bizarre syllables.
Five little paper figures, whirring, covered his face and head, and a sudden cold sensation struck him.
As his thoughts, nearly frozen by fear, began to slowly churn,
"I'm truly being targeted!"