"Mom, what's wrong?" Dou Dou stepped forward and asked obediently.
"Nothing... nothing, mom is fine."
Dou Dou seemed to give Jiang Wenxin enough courage; she straightened up, embraced her in her arms, and sat down on the sofa with her.
She took out her cellphone, wanting to call her husband and ask him to come home early, but she hesitated.
Because that old man was lingering outside their house, she feared if Dou Dou's father came back, it might not be safe for him.
Thinking of the evil spirits mentioned in movies, she couldn't help but shiver.
She looked down at Dou Dou in her arms and asked, "Dou Dou, can you tell mommy, after becoming a ghost, can you... do bad things?"
Dou Dou heard this, scratched her little head, and then said, "Mommy, I'm a good baby, I don't do bad things."
It seemed that asking her would yield no useful information, so she thought for a moment and then asked again, "Do you often encounter Grandpa Lu?"
Dou Dou nodded her head innocently and said, "Yes, Grandpa Lu doesn't want to leave Zixu brother, he circles around here every day."
Hearing this, Jiang Wenxin pondered for a moment and thought that if Old Man Lu really had the ability to harm people, he would have probably harmed someone already, and it seemed like no family in this building had faced any incidents.
With that thought, she finally dialed her husband Tao Guangsha's phone number. As a woman alone at home, she felt genuinely frightened; without a man, it felt like lacking a backbone.
"Hubby, where are you now?"
"On the way, I'll be home soon."
Tao Guangsha's voice came through the phone, and Dou Dou immediately went over and called out 'Daddy', but it seemed that Tao Guangsha didn't hear her.
"Be careful on the road then."
Jiang Wenxin advised before hanging up the phone, but she didn't put down the cell phone, instead, she opened the company's WeChat.
As an outsourced financial officer, her position wasn't high, but she held significant power. In the company group, from the top executives to ordinary employees, she could see everyone's information at a glance.
Although she was not clear about Shen Siyuan's name, she knew he was an employee in the operations department.
Clicking on the operations department group, she started searching. There were only a dozen employees in total, so she soon located Shen Siyuan, naturally, because his profile picture was his personal photo.
Guanghui Animation, as the biggest gaming company in Bin Hai City, kept everything very regulatory.
With the name obtained, Jiang Wenxin directly found Shen Siyuan's contact details and address in the company directory.
After finding Shen Siyuan's contact information, Jiang Wenxin didn't hesitate and immediately dialed.
Meanwhile, Shen Siyuan was having dinner and studying the Ten Thousand Soul Banner.
Dinner was brought up from downstairs, a simple meal consisting of beef and egg fried rice and a bottle of iced tea.
With one hand shuffling food in his bowl, and the other flipping through the tattered Ten Thousand Soul Banner.
Because he had absorbed the Jiuyou Demon Lord, the Ten Thousand Soul Banner didn't require re-cultivating from scratch. Using it was like an extension of his body, utterly unimpeded, and it could change size at will according to his thoughts.
The purple flag surface had large and small holes with burnt marks around them. Even the pole subtly had cracks, looking quite miserable.
Shen Siyuan used his Divine Sense to explore, attempting to open the Ten Thousand Soul Banner's inherent space, but it was like touching a dark abyss, totally empty, seemingly wanting to swallow him whole, which scared him and made him quickly withdraw his Divine Sense.
Shen Siyuan possessed Divine Sense because he had absorbed the residual soul of Jiu You Netherworld Lord, a power akin to mental or psychic force, though not very strong, maxing out at rolling a pen on the table.
But it was not without its uses; with Divine Sense, he could look all around him within a three-foot radius, 360 degrees without any blind spot.
With Divine Sense, he could internally observe his own organs, meridians, and various parts of his body, which would greatly benefit his future body refining and the path of Outer Cultivation.
Of course, Shen Siyuan had also tried the Inner Cultivation Method, having the cultivation experience of the Jiuyou Demon Lord, made it quite familiar to him.
He could meditate and absorb Qi very quickly, but when he took a deep breath, what he inhaled was polluted air, like swallowing shit, almost making him vomit out his organs, so he completely abandoned such naive ideas.
As for Outer Cultivation, Shen Siyuan found a method called "Great Arhat Eighteen Forms" from the memory of the Jiu You Netherworld Lord.
It was a cultivation method acquired from destroying a Buddhist Dao Sect called Little Nalanda Temple by the Jiuyou Demon Lord.
This cultivation method, somewhat similar to modern yoga, consisting of eighteen sets of movements. With sufficient food and diligent practice, one could transcend physically.
In modern society, food is the least of our shortages, especially high-energy foods. Therefore, this cultivation technique is currently most suitable for Shen Siyuan.
However, this technique can only be cultivated up to the Marrow Cleansing Realm, which is already more than sufficient for modern society.
These realms are also divided according to the Great Wilderness Cultivation Realm: Outer Cultivation includes Whole Strength, Muscle Building, Refining Muscles, Bone Forging, Marrow Cleansing, Blood Exchange, Tong Qiao, and becoming an Immortal.
However, according to the Great Wilderness Realm, it's basically impossible to achieve the last three stages with modern world resources, so whether or not there are subsequent techniques, it doesn't matter for Shen Siyuan.
Shen Siyuan tried the first movement, then he was sweating like rain, his whole body shaking, hardly able to breathe. His body was too weak, he couldn't even do the first movement.
There are two methods now, one is to persist in exercising to enhance his physical fitness—a very lengthy process with possibly poor results.
Another method is to repair the Ten Thousand Soul Banner, open its inner space, and obtain the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures plundered by the Jiuyou Demon Lord.
As Shen Siyuan pondered this, his phone rang. Looking, it was a call from his mom.
"Si Yuan, have you had dinner?"
As soon as the call connected, his mom Huang Huijuan's loud voice came through.
This was a habit of his mom, to speak very loudly on the phone, as if afraid she wouldn't be heard on the other end.
"I'm eating right now, what's up?"
Shen Siyuan knew, if there wasn't something important, his mom definitely wouldn't call him.
"Do you have time this weekend to come home?" Huang Huijuan asked.
"Is there something wrong?" Shen Siyuan asked in surprise.
His hometown was not far from Bin Hai City, just over an hour by car, so he often went back home, there was no way Huang Huijuan was asking him to come just because she missed him.
"I pickled some string beans, come and take some back with you," Huang Huijuan said.
"Don't lie, mom, tell me the truth."
Knowing his mom's thrifty nature, how could it be just for some pickled veggies? It wouldn't even cover the travel expenses.
"How do you talk to your mom? Would I lie to you?"
Huang Huijuan sounded flustered over the phone, her voice reaching an octave higher which buzzed in Shen Siyuan's ears, profoundly strong.
"Ts~ Last time I went home, you tricked me saying the milk in the fridge was just bought. I drank it and got diarrhea, only to find out later that it had expired."
"I didn't want to waste it, it had expired just a day ago, I didn't know it would spoil, you can't blame me."
"Why didn't you let dad drink it?"
"I was afraid it would upset his stomach."
"You really are... am I even your biological son?" Shen Siyuan was speechless.
"I don't know, you should ask your grandma."
"You don't know if I'm your son and you want me to ask grandma?"
"It's because your grandma delivered you when I gave birth, I always suspected I had a girl, but your grandma wanted a boy to carry on the family name for the Shen family, I suspect she might have switched..."
"Why do you think you had a girl?"
"Because of 'sour for boys and spicy for girls', I always craved spicy food when I was pregnant."
"That's because you always loved spicy food normally, don't tell me these things, just be honest with me..."
Before Shen Siyuan could finish speaking, the phone went "click" and was hung up.
Clearly, Huang Huijuan didn't want to say and couldn't be bothered to make up another reason, so she chose to just hang up.
Looking at the disconnected phone, Shen Siyuan was speechless.
His mom Huang Huijuan is a primary school teacher, which contributes to her somewhat childish nature. In her fifties, she can still be quite unreasonable at times, always pampered by father and son at home.
Just then the phone rang again. Shen Siyuan thought it was his mom calling back in "repentance", but he thought too much; it was an unfamiliar number.