Yuan Ming retracted his soul crow and, without stopping, quickly arrived outside the village.
After dismounting his horse, he walked into the village, leading it by the reins. Near the entrance, he encountered several children playing in the open space in front of an old poplar tree.
The children, only seven or eight years old with their hair tied in small braids, scattered in panic, running toward their homes instead of reacting with curiosity upon seeing a stranger enter the village.
The few villagers outside disappeared in the blink of an eye as every household hurriedly shut and bolted their doors, leaving nothing but the sound of dogs barking.
Yuan Ming paused, taken aback by this scene, and led his horse through the village.
In the village center, he saw an elderly woman with graying hair sitting by a well, apparently having fallen in her haste and unable to stand up.
As Yuan Ming approached, the old woman retreated in fear, her face ashen.
"No need to be afraid, old lady. I'm just passing through and mean no harm," Yuan Ming quickly explained in the Southern Border dialect.
Seeing that Yuan Ming appeared neat and spoke gently, unlike a wrongdoer, the old woman felt somewhat reassured.
"In this forsaken place, we only see bandits and traffickers; almost no one else visits. How did you come to be here?" she asked, pushing her disheveled hair from her forehead.
Yuan Ming helped the old woman to sit up and noticed her ankle was twisted and somewhat swollen.
He grabbed her ankle with one hand and her calf with the other, gently applied mana, and smoothly realigned the twisted muscles and veins.
The old woman, who had been in significant pain just moments before, immediately felt no pain at all in her ankle.
"Are you a doctor?" the old woman reassessed Yuan Ming in surprise.
"No, I am not any sort of doctor. I'm just passing through and wanted to inquire if there is somewhere in the village where I could buy incense, um… the kind used for offerings and rituals," Yuan Ming explained.
"That incense… Our village doesn't have a temple for worship, and everyone is too poor to buy incense. If you wish to purchase incense, you should head south from here, out of Black Mountain, to Baiji Town. You can find incense at the Funeral Shop there," the old woman thought for a moment and then added.
"Thank you," Yuan Ming said, thanking her before leading his horse away.
Only after he had gone some distance did the old woman dare to stand up. She moved her foot and found it fully healed, which delighted her.
Gradually, people began to emerge from their homes, mostly the elderly, women, and children, with few able-bodied men. They all gathered around, inquiring about what had happened.
The old woman, no longer trembling with fear, excitedly recounted the incident, concluding, "He's just a wandering barefoot doctor, looking for medicinal incense ashes. There's no need for everyone to make a fuss."
Following the old woman's directions, Yuan Ming soon arrived at Baiji Town.
Though called a town, it seemed more like a village built on relatively flat land, only slightly larger than the woman's village and equally sparse and dilapidated.
Upon entering the town, Yuan Ming did not encounter the sight of every household shutting their doors, though the few people he did see appeared very cautious and fearful.
After some difficulty, Yuan Ming located the Funeral Shop and quickly made his way there.
The shop was a small courtyard at the end of the town, without any proper sign inside or out, which made it difficult for Yuan Ming to recognize as a Funeral Shop without guidance. * is the home of this chapter
However, as soon as he entered the courtyard, he saw several coffins, different in style and much cruder and smaller than those he remembered from the Central Plains.
An emaciated old man in a gray Cloth Robe was busy sanding one of the coffins.
"Young man, is there something I can help you with?" the old man stopped his work and looked up as he saw a stranger enter.
"Oh, I'd like to buy some incense and candles," Yuan Ming said.
The old man, seeing that Yuan Ming only wanted incense and candles, led him inside the house.
In the dimly lit wooden house cluttered with various items, the old man lifted a wooden box from the floor, placed it on the table, and removed the wooden board that covered it.
Inside the box were neatly stacked pairs of white candles thick as thumbs and bundles of long incense.
There were not many types of incense, one kind was red, and another was black, varying only in thickness — the thinnest like willow twigs, the thickest only as thick as a child's pinky finger.
"I'll take one of each of these," Yuan Ming said after inspecting them and pointing to the bundles of incense.
"Only the incense, no candles?" the old man asked, puzzled.
"No need," Yuan Ming nodded.
Although the old man was puzzled, he did not question further and took out four bundles of incense from the box, two red and two black, each a different thickness.
After paying, Yuan Ming left the small town.
He found a concealed cave in the mountains, set up traps outside, and then blocked the entrance with rocks.
Only then did he sit down inside the cave, called forth the incense burner, and placed the newly bought incense on the ground.
He was still unsure whether the key to enabling his Divine Soul Possession lay with the incense burner, or if both the incense burner and the incense were equally important.
Nevertheless, this first attempt had to be made in a relatively safe environment.
Yuan Ming first pulled out a thin black stick of incense and precisely inserted it into the center of the incense burner, about an index finger's width away from the last stick of black incense that was already there.
His gaze shifted back and forth between the two sticks of Black Incense a few times, and he noticed that although both were dark in color, the one that came with the incense burner was far superior in terms of material, craftsmanship, and the delicateness of its surface than the newly purchased one.
"It's a pity that this is the only one left."
Yuan Ming gave a wry smile, took out the Fire Stick, blew a flame to life, and extended it toward the middle stick of Black Incense.
The flame quickly lit the incense head, and a wisp of white smoke slowly started to rise, accompanied by a familiar scent of incense.
This scent, Yuan Ming had earlier smelled outside the City God Temple while possessing Wang Shun, showed no difference from when he had lit the previous two sticks of Black Incense.
However, as the incense began to burn, he remained perfectly alert, without the slightest hint of drowsiness or lethargy.
"As expected, it won't be that easy..." Yuan Ming sighed.
When the Black Incense had burned halfway, Yuan Ming finally pulled it out of the incense burner and reluctantly lit another slender black incense stick.
However, the situation didn't change at all.
This incense had only burned a little before Yuan Ming pulled it out and tossed it aside.
Afterward, he took out a slender red incense stick, placed it in the incense burner, and lit it.
Bright red light flared up at the tip of the incense, and smoke began to rise.
After waiting for a while and seeing no anomaly, Yuan Ming pulled out the red incense and threw it aside.
The third stick of incense was a slightly thicker and shorter red incense, with a piece of bamboo embedded at the base.
Yuan Ming placed it in the incense burner and then ignited it.
Compared to the previous two sticks, the only change with this incense was that the smoke was thicker; beyond that, like the others, it naturally did not enable Divine Soul Possession for Yuan Ming.
After burning for a while, Yuan Ming pulled it out.
Finally, the only one left before him was a slightly shorter and thicker stick of black incense.
He held the most hope for this kind of incense as it appeared most similar to the black incense that came with the burner.
Just after Yuan Ming solemnly inserted it into the incense burner and lit it, his vision became slightly blurred from the smoke.
But he himself felt no unusual sensations, and the incense burner showed no changes.
Unsurprisingly, he failed.
"Indeed, it wouldn't be so easy to find," Yuan Ming shook his head. Although somewhat disheartened, he had been mentally prepared for this.
Having said that, he got up, moved the stone at the entrance aside, and stepped outside to breathe some fresh air.
Seeing the sun gradually setting in the west, Yuan Ming decided not to continue his journey. Instead, he walked to an ancient tree and sat down cross-legged beneath it to commence the cultivation of the Nine Elements Technique.
Finding Black Incense was important, but cultivation should not be neglected for a single day.
In a bustling market town, Yuan Ming, dressed in a cyan-gray long robe, entered an incense and candles shop.
The store was manned by a white-haired old man, who, seeing a young man enter, hurriedly greeted him with a smile.
"Boss, show me all the incenses you have," Yuan Ming said before the old man could speak.
"Alright, please wait a moment," the old man, seemingly startled by this directness, didn't ask further but walked back to the counter and took out all the incenses to display them for Yuan Ming to choose from.
"May I know what you need them for? Although my shop is small, we have a complete assortment of incenses. If needed, I can introduce a few types to you," the old man asked.
With a sweep of his eyes over the counter, Yuan Ming could tell that the old man wasn't exaggerating; the table offered incenses of various thicknesses and composition, roughly displaying more than a dozen kinds, each different in style.
Some were as thick as thumbs with patterns of clouds outlined in gold and silver, while others were slender yet mixed with flickering gold and silver, looking quite exquisite.
Most of them Yuan Ming had already purchased and tried over the past half month.
After some hesitation, Yuan Ming took out his stick of black incense.
"Shopkeeper, have you ever seen an incense ?"
Upon seeing it, the shopkeeper busily rubbed his hands, cautiously took the black incense from Yuan Ming's hand, and examined it closely.
After looking for a moment and seemingly unable to spot anything special, he said somewhat awkwardly, "Forgive my poor eyesight, but judging only by its appearance, I can't discern anything unusual about this Black Incense. Where did you buy it?"
Yuan Ming felt speechless; if he could have bought it somewhere or knew where to get it, he wouldn't be asking here.
"I'm telling you, I came here because I can't find it anywhere else," Yuan Ming stated.
"If you could provide a place of origin, I might be able to think of what kind of incense it might be," the old man suggested with a smile after some thought.
"Oh, is there a difference?" Yuan Ming asked, puzzled.