After saying goodbye to Lei Peng, Chen Mo put away the booklet, left the inner courtyard, and headed for the entrance to Lei Family Martial Arts School.
Along the way, he still saw the pawnbroker's runners hauling goods.
At the gate, someone bumped into him. Chen Mo was about to lose his temper when he saw that it was a little girl carrying candied hawthorn. She apologized again and again for bumping into him.
The girl looked genuinely sorry, so Chen Mo smiled and let it go. When he reached the carriage, he hopped right in.
"Qiulan, let's go home."
After giving the order, Chen Mo settled into the carriage and took out the booklet to look through it.
At the same time, he opened the panel. A box immediately appeared over the booklet, along with a black rod.
[Current Original Understanding Essence: 0]
[Current Recognition Count: 1]
[Recognizable item detected. Recognize it?]
A few days earlier, Chen Mo had checked the panel. At last, he'd gotten a recognition attempt. Only then had he dared to spend a fortune on Blazing Palm. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been willing to spend so much silver.
The Chen Family wasn't short of money, but no family's fortune fell from the sky.
His parents worked hard outside to earn a living... It wasn't easy for them.
What puzzled Chen Mo was that the recognition attempts appeared without any pattern.
Sometimes he got one the very next day; other times, more than half a month passed without another.
It seemed to depend entirely on luck.
All in all, it was a good thing.
Chen Mo cleared his mind and thought:
Recognize.
His head spun. By the time he came to, the text had changed.
[Name: Blazing Palm]
[Type: Yang Type External Skill]
[Function: Strengthens qi and blood, creates Blazing Sun Toxin, and delivers brutal, lethal strikes.]
[Introduction: Specializes in Blazing Sun Toxin. Can only be practiced in the Muscle Refining Realm. It has four forms (Inch Force, Subduing Pressure, Palm Heart Fire, and Blazing Sun Toxin). When fully mastered, the palm burns like fire, transforming one's own yang qi and blood into fire poison. Its power is unfathomable.]
[Note: This palm technique is as fierce as fire. It turns qi and blood into poison, harming the practitioner before it harms the enemy. Pair it with a Yin-type technique and Cold Night Grass, and practice will be twice as effective with half the effort, while also offsetting the side effects.]
Reading the note, Chen Mo let out a long breath. He couldn't help thinking that the Golden Finger really came through.
For one thing, its recognition confirmed that this technique was genuine and hadn't been secretly altered.
For another, he already had a Yin-type technique. All he needed was Cold Night Grass to offset Blazing Palm's side effects and make his training twice as effective with half the effort.
Lei Peng had said it took him years just to get started.
Drawing on his experience with Fuyang Saber Technique, Chen Mo estimated that it would take him no more than a month or two.
That was excellent news.
Chen Mo put the booklet away and called out to the driver, "Qiulan, stop by the family pharmacy first."
Qiulan acknowledged him, turned the carriage, and headed straight for Chen Family Pharmacy.
Meanwhile, Chen Mo read through Blazing Palm, memorizing every detail. Once he knew it by heart, he began moving his hands and practicing the forms.
With Mysterious Yin Hand as his foundation, he grasped the basics of Blazing Palm with ease.
Just then, Chen Mo suddenly felt something twitching faintly at the back of his collar. It felt like a caterpillar...
Huh?
Chen Mo reached back and felt around his collar, but found nothing. The twitching stopped.
He didn't think much of it and continued practicing Blazing Palm.
A little while later, the twitching sensation returned. It was as if a tiny bug had crept into his clothes and was slowly crawling across his stomach.
The intense discomfort made Chen Mo sit upright at once. He pulled up his clothes, trying to catch the bug.
Before he could grab the "bug," he felt it crawl to his back. Then a solid, needle-like spike suddenly pierced straight through his chest.
"Ah!!!"
Chen Mo let out a bloodcurdling scream and crashed to the floor of the carriage, writhing wildly.
Thwack!
Another solid, needle-like spike stabbed viciously through his chest.
The pain pierced his heart!
He couldn't fight it at all. It nearly swallowed what little consciousness he had left. He bit through his lower lip, clinging to his last shred of awareness and forcing himself not to pass out.
What was happening?
Nobody had stabbed him in the chest with a knife, so why did it feel as if someone were driving one through him again and again?
And why did his body feel pinned to the floor of the carriage, unable to move?
An inexplicable sense of danger made every hair on Chen Mo's body stand on end.
Was he possessed by evil again?
But this all felt too real to be possession.
Just then, Chen Mo felt the carriage stop. Qiulan rushed inside, frantic, and cried, "Young Master, what's wrong?"
Before Chen Mo could answer, he saw through the lifted curtain two fierce-looking masked men in black riding toward him from far away. They were obviously coming for him.
In broad daylight, they dared attack the Second Young Master of the Chen Family, one of the county's prominent clans?
In an instant, Chen Mo felt death closing in, even through the pain.
He'd been in this world for several months now. He wasn't a novice anymore. He immediately worked out a plan.
Something had pinned his hands and feet in place.
And needle-like spikes kept stabbing through his chest.
The only thing he could move... was his head.
At this critical moment, Chen Mo spotted the Jade Hairpin in Qiulan's hair and said, "Qiulan, bring the back of your head over here. Quickly!"
Seeing him grimacing in agony, his face twisted, Qiulan knew it was serious. She turned her head and bent down, bringing the back of it close to Chen Mo's mouth. He clamped his teeth on the Jade Hairpin and jerked his head, pulling it free.
Crack!
Chen Mo bit the hairpin in half, keeping one piece in his mouth. Then, speaking indistinctly, he said, "Run! Go get help. Go!!!"
Chen Mo's shout made Qiulan tremble all over. Without hesitation, she leaped from the carriage and ran.
Before long, the two men in black reached the carriage and dismounted.
The shorter one said, "A maid got away. I'll go after her."
The taller one replied, "Let her go. Our target is the Second Young Master of the Chen Family. Don't make trouble for ourselves."
The shorter man said, "You're right, big brother. I'll haul the Second Young Master of the Chen Family out."
The taller man warned him, "The last time the Chen family's young master bought Qi and Blood Pills, it showed he was practicing martial arts. Be careful."
The shorter man chuckled. "He's under the Nightmare Suppression Technique and can't move. He's no different from a corpse right now. Why are you being so cautious, big brother?"
Hearing their conversation, Chen Mo was deeply perplexed.
Nightmare Suppression Technique?
Wasn't that the evil trick where someone stabbed a doll?
In his previous life, Chen Mo had seen plenty of shows and movies where a helpless woman, nursing a grudge against some man she couldn't take revenge on, would have someone make a doll in his likeness. She'd stash it in a cupboard and prick it with needles every day, praying he'd get what was coming to him.
He hadn't expected such an evil technique to actually exist in this world!
Thinking back to what he'd just felt, Chen Mo was sure.
It was exactly like being pricked with needles.
The problem was... to perform the Nightmare Suppression Technique, they needed the target's blood or clothing. At the very least, they needed his Eight Characters of Birth. Then they had to get close to him.
But... from the moment he'd left home that morning, he hadn't come into contact with anyone.
Wait...
It was the little girl eating candied hawthorn.
She'd bumped into him.
And just now, something had been wriggling on his body. She must have slipped something onto him in the moment of the collision.
Chen Mo had thought he was being cautious enough. He hadn't expected the dangers of this world to far exceed his estimates.
There was no guarding against it.
And... the taller man in black knew he'd bought Qi and Blood Pills.
Could these two men in black... have been sent by Granny Li!?
At the thought, Chen Mo felt as if he'd fallen into an ice cellar.
Rustle!
The shorter man lifted the curtain and climbed into the carriage. Seeing Chen Mo lying there, trembling in pain, he gave a sinister smile. "Granny's Nightmare Suppression Technique really is powerful..."
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