After Yuan Ming took back the soul crow, he rushed all the way and quickly arrived outside the village.
After he dismounted, he held the reins and walked into the village. He met several children playing in the open space in front of an old poplar tree near the entrance of the village.
These children were only seven or eight years old and still had pigtails on their heads. When they saw outsiders entering the village, their first reaction was not curiosity, but fear, and they scattered in droves and ran towards their homes.
The scattered villagers who were outside disappeared in the blink of an eye. Every household in the village was hurriedly closed and bolted, and apart from the barking of dogs, no other sound could be heard.
Yuan Ming was a little stunned when he saw this scene, and led his horse through the village.
When I walked to the center of the village, I saw an old woman with gray hair sitting next to a well. She seemed to have fallen because she was running so fast that she couldn't stand up.
Yuan Ming led the horse and walked over. The old woman was so frightened that she backed away repeatedly, her face turned ashen.
"Old man, don't be afraid. I'm just passing by. I don't mean any harm." Yuan Ming quickly explained in southern Xinjiang dialect.
Seeing that Yuan Mingsheng had a clean appearance and a gentle tone, and did not look like a villain, the old woman felt relieved.
"Except for bandits and human traffickers, almost no one comes to this hellish place like ours. How did you end up here?" She brushed away the messy hair from her forehead and said.
Yuan Ming stepped forward to help the old woman sit up, and found that her ankle was twisted and already somewhat swollen.
He grabbed the old woman's ankle with one hand and pressed her calf with the other. With a little force, he moved downwards and smoothed out the old woman's twisted tendons in an instant.
The old woman who was in excruciating pain a moment ago immediately felt that her ankle no longer hurt at all.
"Are you a doctor?" The old woman looked at Yuan Ming again and exclaimed.
"No, I'm not a doctor. I just passed by here and wanted to ask if there is anywhere in this village where I can buy incense. Well... it's the kind of incense that is used to offer sacrifices." Yuan Ming explained.
"That incense... There is no temple to worship the gods in our village, and everyone is very poor. We have no money to buy incense. If you want to buy incense, go south out of our Heishan'ao and go to Baiji Town.
You can buy incense in the laundry shop." The old woman thought for a while and said.
"Thank you very much." After hearing this, Yuan Ming thanked him and led his horse away.
The old woman waited until he was far away before she dared to stand up and move her legs. She was pleasantly surprised when she found that he had fully recovered.
At this time, people came out of the house one after another. Most of them were old and weak women and children, with few young and strong men. At this moment, they all gathered around to ask.
The old woman changed her previous timid attitude and recounted what had just happened. Finally, she concluded: "It's just a wandering barefoot doctor looking for incense ash to be used as medicine. You don't need to make a fuss about it."
…
Yuan Ming followed his words and soon arrived at Baiji Town, which the old woman mentioned.
It is said to be a town, but it looks like a village built on relatively flat land. It is not much bigger than the old woman's village. It is also sparsely populated and looks depressed.
When Yuan Ming entered the town, he did not encounter any closed doors this time. However, the people he encountered sporadically looked very wary and fearful.
Yuan Ming finally found out the location of Baishi's shop and rushed there immediately.
It was a small courtyard located at the end of the town. There was no serious signboard inside or outside the door. If no one pointed it out, it would be difficult for Yuan Ming to tell that this was a white shop.
However, as soon as he entered the courtyard, Yuan Ming saw several longevity carvings parked in the courtyard. The style was different from the ones in the Central Plains in his memory. They were much smaller and rougher.
A thin old man in a gray cloth robe was immersed in polishing one of the longevity materials.
"Young man, how can I help you?" Seeing a strange young man coming in, the old man stopped what he was doing and raised his head and asked.
"Oh, I want to buy some incense candles." Yuan Ming said.
Seeing that he was just buying some incense and candles, the old man led Yuan Ming into the house.
In the dark wooden house, miscellaneous objects were arranged in a very messy manner. The old man lifted a wooden box from the ground, placed it on the table, and removed the wooden board covering it.
Inside the box were neatly stacked pairs of white candles as thick as thumbs and handfuls of slender incense sticks.
There are not many types of incense, one is red and the other is black, but the thickness is different. The thinnest one is like a willow branch, and the thickest one is only as thick as a child's tail finger.
"Give me a handful of all these." Yuan Ming looked through them, pointed at the handful of incense, and said.
"I just want incense, not candles?" the old man asked doubtfully.
"No need." Yuan Ming nodded.
The old man looked puzzled, but he didn't ask any more questions. He took out four sticks of incense from the box, two red and two black, each with different thickness.
After Yuan Ming paid the money, he left the town.
He found a hidden cave in the mountains, set a trap outside, and then moved rocks to block the entrance of the cave.
Then, he sat quietly in the cave, called out the incense burner, and placed the incense he had just bought on the ground.
At present, he still doesn't know whether the key to his spiritual possession is the incense burner, or whether the incense burner and the incense are equally important.
In short, this first attempt must be conducted in a relatively safe environment.
Yuan Ming was the first to take out a stick of fine black incense and inserted it squarely in the middle of the incense burner, about a finger's distance away from the last stick of black incense on the original burner.
He looked back and forth between the two black incense sticks several times, and found that although both were dark in color, the incense stick that came with the incense burner was far superior in terms of texture, workmanship and surface delicacy.
The one I bought new.
"It's a pity that this is the only one left."
Yuan Ming smiled bitterly, took out the fire stick, blew out the flame, and sent it towards the black incense in the middle.
The fire quickly lit up the incense head, and a wisp of white smoke rose slowly, accompanied by a familiar scent of incense.
There was no difference between this smell and what Yuan Ming had smelled outside the City God's Temple before when he possessed Wang Shun. In fact, there was no obvious difference from the smell when he lit the two black incense sticks before.
However, as the incense was lit, he was still very awake and did not feel drowsy at all.
"Sure enough, it won't be that easy..." Yuan Ming sighed.
When the black incense was half burnt, Yuan Ming pulled it out of the incense burner, but without giving up, he took out another black slender incense and lit it.
However, the situation is not any different.
The incense burned only a small amount, and Yuan Ming pulled it out and threw it aside.
Then, he took out a slender red incense stick, put it in the incense burner and lit it.
A bright red fire lit up on the incense head, and a wisp of smoke rose.
Yuan Ming waited for a moment and found nothing unusual, so he pulled out the red incense and threw it aside.
The third incense stick is a slightly rough and short red incense stick with a bamboo stick embedded at the root.
Yuan Ming inserted it into the incense burner and lit it.
Compared with the previous two incense, the only change in this incense is that the smoke emitted is thicker. Other than that, it is the same. Naturally, it cannot possess Yuan Ming's spirit.
After burning for a while, Yuan Ming pulled it out.
In the end, all that was left in front of him was a handful of slightly shorter and thicker black incense.
He placed the most hope on this kind of incense, because it looked the closest to the black incense that came with the incense burner.
Just after Yuan Ming solemnly inserted it into the incense burner and lit it, Yuan Ming's vision became a little blurry under the cover of smoke.
But he himself didn't feel anything strange, and the incense burner didn't show the slightest change.
Not surprisingly, he failed.
"Sure enough, it can't be found so easily!" Yuan Ming shook his head. Although he was a little depressed, he was mentally prepared.
After saying this, he stood up and moved the stone from the entrance of the cave, came outside, and took a few breaths of fresh air.
Looking at the sun that was gradually setting in the west, Yuan Ming did not intend to continue on his way. He walked to an ancient tree and sat cross-legged, started to run the Nine Elements Technique, and continued to practice.
It is important to search for black incense, but practice cannot be abandoned in one day.
…
Half a month later.
In a market town where people were coming and going, Yuan Ming, wearing a green and gray robe, walked into an incense and candle shop.
The shopkeeper was an old man with gray hair. When he saw a young man coming in, he greeted him with a smile.
"Boss, show me any incense in the store." Yuan Ming said before the old man could speak.
"Okay, sir, please wait a minute." It seemed like this was the first time that the old man had seen such a direct person. He was slightly startled, and without asking any questions, he walked back to the counter, took out all the incense in the store, spread it out, and asked
Yuan Ming selected.
"I don't know what you want to use it for? Although my shop is not big, it has quite a complete range of incense. If necessary, I can introduce you to the guests." The old man asked.
Yuan Ming glanced at the counter and knew that the old man was not boasting. There were almost a dozen different types of incense on the table, with different thicknesses and textures.
Some are as thick as a thumb, with cloud patterns outlined by gold and silver lines, and some, although slender, are mixed with highlights of gold and silver, making them look very exquisite.
Yuan Ming has almost bought and tried most of them in the past half month.
Yuan Ming hesitated for a moment and took out his black incense stick.
"Shopkeeper, have you ever seen such incense?"
Seeing this, the shopkeeper hurriedly rubbed his hands, carefully took the black incense stick from Yuan Ming's hand, and looked at it carefully.
After looking at it for a while, I didn't seem to see anything strange. I was a little confused: "Forgive me for my poor eyesight. Just from the appearance, I can't see anything special about your black fragrance. I don't know where you are from."
Where did you buy it?”
Yuan Ming was speechless. If he could buy this, or knew where to get it, he wouldn't come to him to ask.
"To tell you the truth, I just couldn't buy it anymore, so I came here to try my luck." Yuan Ming said.
"If you can tell me the place of origin, I can help you think about what kind of fragrance it is?" After thinking about it, the old man smiled.
"Oh, what's the difference?" Yuan Ming asked doubtfully.