After Yuan Ming retrieved the soul crow, he didn't stop all the way and quickly arrived outside the village.

After dismounting, he walked into the village with the reins, and met several children playing in the open space in front of an old poplar tree near the entrance of the village.

The children, who were only seven or eight years old and wore pigtails on their heads, were not curious but frightened when they saw outsiders entering the village, and they scattered and ran to their homes.

The scattered villagers also disappeared in the blink of an eye, and every household in the village hurriedly closed the door and bolted it, and no other sound could be heard except for the barking of dogs.

Yuan Ming was also a little stunned when he saw this scene, and led the horses through the village.

When I walked to the middle of the village, I saw an old woman with gray hair sitting next to a well, who seemed to have fallen because she was in a hurry, and some of her could not stand up.

Yuan Ming led the horse over, and the old woman was so frightened that she retreated again and again, her face was like earth.

"Old man, don't be afraid, I'm just passing by, and there is no malice." Yuan Ming hurriedly explained in southern Xinjiang.

Seeing that Yuan Ming was born with a clean appearance and a gentle tone, not like a villain, the old woman was a little relieved.

"How did you come here in our hellish place, except for robbers and human traffickers, almost no one comes?" She brushed away the loose hair on her forehead and said.

Yuan Ming stepped forward to help the old woman sit up, and found that her ankles were twisted and were already a little swollen.

He grabbed the old woman's ankle with one hand, pressed her calf with the other, and used a little mana to smooth downward, and instantly smoothed the tendons and veins that the old woman twisted.

The old woman, who was still in pain a moment ago, immediately felt that her ankle didn't hurt at all.

"You're a doctor?" The old woman looked at Yuan Ming again and exclaimed.

"No, I'm not a doctor, I'm just passing by here and want to ask if there's any place in this village where I can buy incense, huh...... It's the kind of incense that is offered to the sacrificial point. Yuan Ming explained.

"That incense...... There is no temple to worship the gods in our village, and everyone is so poor that they have no money to buy incense. If you want to buy incense, you can buy incense from our black mountain and walk south, and you will arrive at Baiji Town, where you can buy incense in the white shops. The old woman thought for a moment and said.

"Thank you." When Yuan Ming heard this, he thanked him and led the horse away.

The old woman waited for him to go far before she dared to get up, moved her feet, and was pleasantly surprised to find 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, and few young and strong men, all of whom gathered around to inquire at this moment.

The old woman changed her previous trembling, foamed at the mouth and said what had just happened, and finally closed the coffin and concluded: "It's just a barefoot doctor from Youfang, looking for the incense ash of the medicine, you don't have to make a fuss." ”

……

Yuan Ming followed his words and soon came to Baiji Town in the mouth of the old woman.

It is said to be a town, but it seems to be a village built on relatively flat land, not much bigger than the village of the old woman, and it is also sparsely populated and depressed.

Yuan Ming entered the town, but this time he didn't encounter the situation where every household was closed, but the people he met sporadically were all very wary and afraid.

Yuan Ming finally found out the location of the white shop, so he immediately rushed over.

It was a small courtyard at the end of the town, and there were no serious signboards inside and outside the door, if there was no one to guide him, it would be difficult for Yuan Ming to see that this was a white shop.

However, as soon as he entered the courtyard gate, Yuan Ming saw a few longevity materials parked in the courtyard, the style was not the same as the one in the Central Plains in his memory, much smaller and rougher.

An old man in a thin gray cloth robe was polishing one of the longevity materials.

"What can I do to help, young man?" Seeing that it was a strange young man who came in, the old man stopped what he was doing and looked up and asked.

"Oh, I want to buy some incense sticks." Yuan Ming said.

The old man saw that he was just buying some incense and candles, so he led Yuan Ming to the house.

In the dimly lit wooden house, the miscellaneous objects were very messy, and the old man took a wooden box from the ground, put it on the table, and removed the wooden plank that covered it.

Inside the box were neatly stacked a pair of thumb-sized white candles and a handful of slender incense.

There are not many types of incense, one is red and the other is black, but the thickness is different, the thinnest is like a willow branch, and the thickest is only like a child's tail finger.

"Give me a handful of these." After Yuan Ming looked at it, he pointed to the handful of incense and said.

"As long as incense, no candles?" The old man wondered.

"No, you don't." Yuan Ming nodded.

The old man looked puzzled, but he didn't ask much, and took out four handfuls of incense from the box, two red and two black, with different thicknesses.

After Yuan Ming paid the money, he left the town.

In the middle of the mountain, he found a hidden cave, laid a trap outside, and then brought stones to block the entrance.

Then he sat down in the cave, summoned the incense burner, and placed the incense he had just bought on the ground.

It is unclear whether the key to his possession is on the incense burner, or whether the incense burner and incense are equally important.

In short, this first attempt must be made in a relatively safe environment.

Yuan Ming took the lead in taking out a black incense stick from it and inserted it in the middle of the incense burner, separating it from the last black incense stick on the original incense burner by about a finger.

He looked back and forth between the two black incense sticks several times, and found that although both were black in color, the incense stick that came with the incense burner was far better than the new one in terms of texture, workmanship and surface delicacy.

"It's a pity that there is only one single seedling left."

Yuan Ming smiled bitterly, took out the fire fold, blew the flames, and sent it towards the black incense in the middle.

The firelight soon lit up the incense stick, and a wisp of white smoke slowly rose up, accompanied by the familiar smell of incense.

This smell was no different from what Yuan Ming had smelled outside the City God Temple when he had possessed Wang Shun before, and in fact, there was no obvious difference from the smell when he lit the two black incense sticks before.

It's just that with the lighting of the incense, he is still very awake and does not feel the slightest drowsiness.

"Sure enough, it won't be so easy to ......," Yuan Ming sighed.

When the black incense was halfway burned, Yuan Ming pulled it out of the incense burner, but he didn't give up and took out another black slender incense stick and lit it.

However, the situation is no different.

This incense only burned a small part, and Yuan Ming pulled it out and threw it aside.

Then, he took out a slender red incense stick, inserted it in the incense burner and lit it.

The bright red flame lit up on the incense head, and a wisp of smoke rose.

Yuan Ming waited for a while, but didn't see anything abnormal, so he pulled out the red incense and threw it aside.

The third handful of incense is a slightly shorter red incense with a bamboo skewer embedded in the root.

Yuan Ming inserted it into the incense burner and then lit it.

Compared with the previous two incense sticks, the only change in this incense is that the smoke coming out is thicker, other than that, it is the same, naturally it can't make Yuan Ming's soul possess.

After burning it for a while, Yuan Ming pulled it out.

In the end, in front of him, there was only a handful of slightly shorter and thicker black incense.

He placed the most hope on this incense, because it looked the closest to the black incense that the incense burner contains.

Just after Yuan Ming solemnly inserted it into the incense burner and lit it, Yuan Ming's vision in front of him became a little blurred under the cover of smoke.

But he himself did not feel anything unusual, and the incense burner did not change in the slightest.

Not surprisingly, he failed.

"It's really impossible to find it so easily!" Yuan Ming shook his head, although he was a little depressed, he was mentally prepared.

With that, he got up and removed the stone at the entrance of the cave, went outside, and took a few breaths of fresh air.

Looking at the sun that was already gradually setting westward, Yuan Ming didn't plan to continue his journey, walked to an ancient tree and sat cross-legged, began to run the Nine Yuan Jue, and continued to cultivate.

Finding black incense is important, but practice should not be stopped overnight.

……

Half a month later.

In a crowded market town, Yuan Ming wore a blue and gray robe and walked into an incense and candle shop.

The shopkeeper was an old man with gray hair, and when he saw a young man coming in, he greeted him with a smile.

"Boss, show me any incense in the store." Without waiting for the old man to speak, Yuan Ming said first.

"Okay, wait a minute, officer." The old man seemed to see it for the first time so directly, he was slightly stunned, and he didn't ask much, so he walked back to the counter, took out all the incense in the store, and put it out one by one, letting Yuan Ming choose.

"I don't know what you're going to do? Although my small shop is not big, the types of incense are quite complete, and if you need it, you can introduce one or two to the guest officer. The old man asked.

Yuan Ming's eyes swept over the counter, and he knew that the old man did not boast, the thickness and texture of the table were different, and there were almost more than a dozen different styles of incense on the table.

Some are as thick as thumbs, with moire patterns outlined by gold and silver lines, and some are slender, but they are mixed with the highlights of sprinkling gold and silver, which is very exquisite.

Most of them, Yuan Ming has almost bought them and tried them in the past half a month.

Yuan Ming hesitated for a moment and took out his black incense.

"Shopkeeper, have you ever seen such an incense?"

Seeing this, the shopkeeper hurriedly rubbed his hands, carefully took the black incense from Yuan Ming's hand, and looked at it carefully.

After looking at it for a while, I didn't seem to see anything peculiar, and I was a little embarrassed: "Forgive my clumsiness, just from the appearance, I can't see anything special about your black incense, I don't know where you bought it from?" ”

Yuan Ming was speechless, if he could buy it, or knew where to get it, he wouldn't come to him to ask.

"To tell you the truth, I just can't buy it, so I'm here to try my luck." Yuan Ming said.

"If you can tell me where it comes from, I can help you think about what kind of incense it is." The old man thought about it and said with a smile.

"Oh, what's the difference?" Yuan Ming wondered.

(End of chapter)