Half a month later.

In the dead of night, within the deep mountains of East Ridge, somewhere upstream on the Gan River, a dark-covered small boat quietly floated in the middle of the river.

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Wearing light black armor, Dantai Zong sat helplessly kneeling in front of a square low table.

"The butchers, vegetable farmers, and grain store clerks in the market at the mouth of the valley all belong to us. But so much time has passed, and we haven’t seen that person show up even once."

"And the few spiritual fields closest to that hillside are also planted by our people, we haven’t seen that guy come down from the mountain at all."

"Young Master, could that person have died inside his house?"

"Go!" Lin Su, the middle-aged man in a gray robe, gave the other a displeased glance.

Dantai Zong’s face was full of helplessness: "Cooped up in the little wooden hut every day, how can he stand staying in there?"

"I’m beginning to admire those Qi Cultivation parasites, eating Fasting Pills all day long, doesn’t he ever get tired of it?"

"How can you be sure he hasn’t left the house?" Lin Su, clad in a wide gray robe, sat cross-legged, lightly tapping his pale fingers on the table top.

"Is Young Master suggesting that he might be using secret techniques like Shadow Concealment?" Dantai Zong was startled.

"He probably can even disguise himself; otherwise, our brothers in the market wouldn’t have discovered nothing." Lin Su was certain of this.

"No wonder," Dantai Zong suddenly realized.

He then showed a bitter expression, "With such caution, it’s difficult for us to ascertain his whereabouts. Should we capture Mo Wuzhou to lure him out?"

Lin Su shook his head indifferently, "Mo Wuzhou and him are merely acquaintances; it’s impossible to expect him to save someone."

"Then what should we..." Dantai Zong was at a loss.

Lin Su laughed, "He may not care about others, but he will surely care about himself."

"Send a few people to tail him, but don’t use our own brothers, hire some idle folks."

"The action cannot be too conspicuous, but also not too secretive; we have to let him see it."

Dantai Zong’s eyes lit up, "Such a cautious guy, if he notices someone tailing him, he will definitely react!"

"Exactly!" Lin Su’s eyes gleamed with a sharp light, "Once he detects tailing, he will either kill the follower directly or trace and eliminate the root."

"I guess he’ll most likely choose the latter."

"So we can lead him into the trap of the Dragon Well?" Dantai Zong laughed, "Young Master is wise!"

"It’s a pity that the Barbarian was so useless, losing his tail during pursuit," Lin Su shook his head, "If we had his help, the success rate of the plan could be increased by another twenty percent."

...

In the depths of Gan River Valley.

Chen Mu lay on a rocking chair on the long wooden porch of the hut, quietly brushing up experience with his eyes closed.

Within the Jade Seed, misty Mana gathered orderly, and tiny Talismans began to emerge. They quickly stacked and wove into delicate branches, extending and connecting in all directions.

Soon, the entire Divine Orifice Talisman network was connected, creating a sterling hollow sphere.

Chen Mu glanced at it indifferently and began to review the gains and losses of this operation, quietly waiting for the sphere of Talismans to disperse.

Each layer of the Divine Orifice Talisman during condensation would go through hundreds to thousands of dispersions, a process he had already become accustomed to.

Initially, he felt frustrated and complained, but he later realized it was inevitable.

The condensation of each Talisman was shaping and perfecting the whole person from inside out. The Talismans were easy to gather, but the transformation and leap of the body were very slow. Without complete shaping, the Talismans wouldn’t be stable, and their dispersion would become inevitable.

Just as he thought the Talisman would collapse again, the entire Jade Seed suddenly began to vibrate.

As the center of the Divine Orifice Talisman, an invisible fluctuation spread outwards. The Mana that was silently floating surged like a tidal wave, and the boundaries of the Jade Seed expanded outward with a thunderous roar under this Mana rush.

"This is… it’s a success!" Chen Mu couldn’t help but curl up the corner of his mouth.

After many days of attempts, the seventh layer of the Divine Orifice Talisman was finally condensed successfully.

At the same time, he felt a thrumming near the Mingmen on his lower back, and a brand-new Condensing Aperture slowly emerged from the void.

"The ninth Divine Orifice?"

"Double happiness! Haha!"

But before he could examine the new orifice, the other eight began to vibrate in unison. The originally independent Divine Orifices seemed to have some kind of connection.

This connection, like an invisible network, linked the nine Divine Orifices into one whole, and a strong surge of vitality was slowly brewing within.

"This feeling… it’s like having an extra body…" Chen Mu was greatly shocked, "Could it be the True Form of Heavenly Demon?!"

He had once researched the Heavenly Demon Path in the Scripture Pavilion and was not unfamiliar with its cultivation path.

The ultimate goal of its cultivation was to develop the True Form of Heavenly Demon to gain various Divine Skills.

"Although it’s just nurturing a fledgling form, this is obviously the True Form of Heavenly Demon," Chen Mu looked odd, "Should I start practicing the Heavenly Demon Reincarnation Technique?"

He had struggled night and day with the Condensing Aperture Technique, yet had not succeeded in mastering it.

Yet he had never taken the practice of the devilish Heavenly Demon Technique seriously, and now he already had the embryonic form of Heavenly Demon.

"Tsk..."

"It’s just a pity that the high-level techniques of Heavenly Demon Reincarnation are fraught with difficulties."

"After all, what I have is merely an embryonic form; without a detailed depiction of the True Form of Heavenly Demon, I can’t master it."

"Besides, since ancient times, Qi Cultivation has always been the orthodox path, and the Heavenly Demon Technique is ultimately just a heretical path."

"Moreover, most Heavenly Demon Techniques are brimming with demonic energy, and that’s not the style I want."

...

Gathering his emotions, he began to carefully feel the changes in his body.

The expansion of the Jade Seed, the doubling of Mana, the strengthening and thickening of the Body Protection Aura, and the threefold increase in speed of the Longitudinal Rainbow Light were all changes of Condensing Aperture he had expected.

What he paid more attention to was the connection of the nine orifices of the Heavenly Demon.

He discovered that the Primordial Energy began to circulate autonomously among the Divine Orifices, and it seemed to have a core, changing from scattered diffusion to orderly movement.

"Is it because of the True Form of Heavenly Demon?" Chen Mu’s heart skipped a beat, "With this kind of pull, will Primordial Energy still leak out?"

"Yuanbao!"

Chen Mu immediately got up and called out to the big toad squatting in the yard.

He activated secret techniques like Qi Forbidden Hundred Miles and Five Ghosts Possession one by one.

He soon found that the Primordial Energy was indeed locked within the nine orifices.

"Well done!"

"If I stop using the transportation Divine Skills of Five Ghosts Moving Mountain and don’t open the Five Ghosts Bag, then its internal Qi mechanism won’t leak. Wouldn’t the Primordial Energy issue be swept away?!"

"Haha! Now I won’t have to worry about being captured to serve as someone’s XP boost!"

And since the Five Ghosts Paper Man and the Five Ghosts Bag were two separate systems, not using the Five Ghosts for storage transportation didn’t affect his use of abilities like Five Ghosts Possession and other Divine Skills.

Chen Mu sat at the edge of the long corridor, chuckling and unable to resist prodding the Cold Moon Toad with his dangling right leg.

"Yuanbao, isn’t it time you fulfill your promise?"

The large toad looked at Chen Mu, confused.

"Go to the brothel!" Chen Mu quickly reminded.

"Qua?"

"I don’t like it? I truly don’t like it."

"It’s mainly for your face," Chen Mu said with a serious expression.

"Since you’ve said it out loud, how could you not go and honor it?"

"You’re a big monster now, you can’t break your word to people!"

Yuanbao: "..."

Truly shameless!

...

In the end, Chen Mu did not make it to the brothel.

Because the Ling Boat from the Heavenly River Water Mansion never came to the Lower Courtyard of Gan River.

"It’s all Mo Wuzhou’s fault!" Chen Mu said with indignation written all over his face.

"He’s been here for so long and still hasn’t developed the Lower Courtyard. If he had made it more prosperous, how could the Ling Boat not come to the Lower Courtyard?"

"And the master of the Heavenly River Water Mansion, too proud to make money? Even mosquitoes can be considered meat; one day you’ll lose it all and be ruined!" Chen Mu was filled with grudges.

Eventually, he had to resort to having lavish meals for three days straight.

As for going to the Heavenly River Water Mansion himself.

Chen Mu never even thought about it.

Leaving the house could lead to murder and robbery or becoming entangled in some conspiracy—weren’t those the stories in the novels from his past life? Staying at home without stepping out was safest!

...

Gan River Lower Courtyard.

At the mountaintop dojo on the north side of the valley entrance.

Mo Wuzhou, clasping his hands in greeting to an old man with white speckled hair in his fifties, said, "Elder Hu, long time no see."

Hu Quan looked at Mo Wuzhou with a cheery smile, "Sister Rong has a good successor, Little Mo’s cultivation has grown even deeper."

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, his expression turned serious, "You’ve been informed by my sister about why I’m here, right?"

Mo Wuzhou nodded solemnly, "Elder, rest assured, I have chosen a suitable site deep in the valley where we can start building the shipyard at any time."

"It’s a place rarely visited by people, secure enough to avoid detection."

"Once we tunnel through the mountain at the valley’s base, we will have direct access to the Gan River behind it, convenient for testing the ferries."

Hu Quan nodded in satisfaction, "I need to focus on shipbuilding, and I’m not good at spell battles. I’ll need you to exert some effort to ensure the secrecy and safety of the shipyard."

Mo Wuzhou clasped his hands firmly, "Elder, have no worries."

"I have crafted a sufficient number of Wood Spirit Boys. Once they are released later, the ground around the shipyard will be under our watch."

"With Elder Song’s Cold Moon Toad beneath the ground and my own arrangements in the sky,"

"any slight movement will be detected immediately."

"Little Mo’s considerations are thorough," Hu Quan immediately beamed with satisfaction.

...

That afternoon,

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Chen Mu was lying on a rocking chair, basking in the dappled sunlight filtering through the forest, when suddenly, the sound of churning mud reached his ears.

"Who’s using the Point Ground into Steel?"

He was all too familiar with that sound; it was the noise it made when turning stone to mud.

The Truthful Listening Technique unfolded, slowly bringing the images of everything within a twenty-mile radius into his mind.

"Mo Wuzhou?"

"He’s not cultivating and instead he’s leading people here to dig holes?" Curiosity got the better of Chen Mu.

But before he could discern the other party’s actions, a clattering noise suddenly emerged at the courtyard entrance.

A palm-sized, cleverly crafted wooden horse burrowed out of the ground and swiftly circled Chen Mu’s courtyard. It shook its head and looked around as if it found the place particularly appealing.

Chen Mu immediately got a bad feeling about this.

The next moment, the tiny wooden horse leaped high into the air above the courtyard.

And as expected, the little wooden horse fell into the yard, landing squarely on its back.

With a nimble roll, it sprung up and came face-to-face with Chen Mu.

Chen Mu: "..."

All those big rocks on the mountain and you had to choose the fakest one as a landing spot!

Chen Mu’s face stiffened as he forced a smile and waved at the expressionless face of the little wooden horse.

"Hey?"

More than ten miles away, Mo Wuzhou: "..."

Hey my ass!

He opened his eyes, speechlessly gazing at the distant hill.

Months had gone by, and he thought Chen Mu hadn’t come to Gan River Lower Courtyard, but it turned out he was hiding here, cultivating.

With so many places in the valley to choose from,

you just had to pick a spot close to my secret shipyard to fix up your little courtyard!

Damn!