Chapter 242
Chapter 242
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 242
Chapter Title: Kaizhang Holy King
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The cyan ghost hand—is it related to that supreme ghost god?
Chen Shi bid farewell to Uncle Azhuo and headed toward the cliff.
The owner of the ghost hand—is it that supreme ghost god?
He felt a bit melancholic. Back then, when Grandpa saw him standing atop that supreme ghost god's head, was it just his imagination, or did it really happen?
If it really happened, then why was he standing on the supreme ghost god's head?
Who was this supreme ghost god?
What was his relationship with Chen Shi? Was Chen Shi his prisoner, or his accomplice?
Grandpa had gone to the underworld seven more times afterward, all searching for Chen Shi's whereabouts. Could it be that he was actually searching for this supreme ghost god, waiting for a chance to snatch Chen Shi back from the ghost god's hands?
When Grandpa snatched Chen Shi back, why did the supreme ghost god, who held Chen Shi's heart in his grasp, not simply crush him to death from time to time?
Chen Shi clutched his chest. He had died many times, most of them because the ghost hand stopped his heart.
Though this affliction hadn't flared up in the past year, Chen Shi didn't dare lower his guard one bit. After all, with his heart in someone else's hand, the other party could kill him whenever they pleased.
"I spent eight years in the underworld. I must have been captured by the supreme ghost god and made his prisoner."
Chen Shi looked dejected and sorrowful. In a low voice, he said, "I've suffered too much. I have to make it up to myself properly. No more suffering, no more being schemed against!"
At that moment, Granny Sha's voice came drifting over. "Little Ten! Little Ten!"
Chen Shi stopped in his tracks, circulating his true qi as he stood on the lake surface. The water beneath his feet dipped into a smooth, concave arc.
The wooden cart came driving toward him. This time, it didn't use its six arms or tongue—instead, its four wheels spun through the water, making for a very steady ride.
Granny Sha and Blackie Pot were in the cart. The male Blackie Pot was thrilled to see him, mouth agape and tongue lolling as it wagged its tail vigorously.
Blackie Pot really looks like a dog.
Chen Shi thought to himself.
The wooden cart pulled up beside him, and Chen Shi climbed aboard. The cart headed toward the cliff on South Lake.
Granny Sha asked about his recent experiences. "Azhuo caught you. He didn't give you any trouble, did he?"
Chen Shi recounted how he had encountered Azhuo and clashed with the Moving Mountains Sect. He said,
"Granny, don't wrongly blame Uncle Azhuo. Those bee insects are yin soldiers. They've come hunting you time and again because you violated the laws of the underworld. They have to obey the underworld's laws. Every time they came for you, it was Uncle Azhuo who stopped them."
Granny Sha sneered. "That little bastard told you that? He might fool you, but he can't fool an old hand like me!"
Even as she said this, her expression softened considerably.
Chen Shi continued, "Uncle Azhuo became a yin marshal by a stroke of luck last time when you all teamed up to enter the underworld looking for me. These years, he's been worried about running into you all and has had no choice but to carry out his duties as a yin marshal. That's why he's grown distant from you."
"He's always cared about you all."
Granny Sha's expression softened even more. She sneered,
"He just says the words. Every time I come to Great South Lake, his bees chase me off, fierce as demons."
She laughed. "But I won't hold it against him. How's Azhuo doing?"
She couldn't help asking, "That time eight years ago when we went to the underworld, he carried us back out."
"He was badly hurt too. He used to just tag along with us, never doing anything that dangerous. Back then, we only had him stand watch..."
Chen Shi said, "Uncle Azhuo should be on the verge of reaching the Great Vehicle stage soon."
Granny Sha let out a breath of relief and laughed.
"That kid's talent is downright frightening. He picks up anything after one try and comprehends it on the spot."
"Breaking through to the Great Vehicle Realm is only natural for him."
"When Chen Yindu first brought him over back in the day, I was shocked. He looked like he wasn't too bright."
Chen Shi smiled as he listened to her reminisce about the old days.
That was thirty years ago. Granny Sha hadn't yet been abandoned by her husband Xiang Yunfei and was still a beautiful woman, already accomplished in soul arts.
Hu Xiaoliang hadn't died yet and spent his days worrying about his lifespan running out. Du Yiran was still wandering the streets, carving tombstones for people.
Back then, Qingyang liked following Du Yiran everywhere, munching on gravehead grass.
Back then, Little Five the Creation had been beaten up by the group and was disguising himself well as Chen Yindu's assistant.
Azhuo looked dumb as an ox, but everyone was startled by this ten-year-old kid. His talent was simply too high. Apart from being too honest, he had no other flaws.
Even Little Five the Creation tried several times to make a move on Azhuo to study the structure of his brain, only to be interrupted by the ever-suspicious Du Yiran and never succeed.
They were searching for the lost gods of Huaxia, trying to decipher the lost fu-lu scripts from the True King era and uncover the secrets hidden within them.
They faced great dangers, nearly losing their lives many times. It was through one perilous adventure after another that Azhuo gradually grew up, his cultivation and strength steadily increasing.
At first, they treated him like a little boy, but gradually, he became one of them.
Chen Shi blinked and said, "Granny, Uncle Azhuo said that among the Five Great Evildoers of the Five Lakes, he's not one of them. But you're one of the Five Great Evildoers, Granny."
Granny Sha sneered.
"He told you that? The Five Great Evildoers are all men. I'm a woman, so it definitely isn't me."
"Azhuo fooled you. Don't let his honest looks deceive you."
She sighed.
"It's a pity about Qingyang."
"He was young, with over a thousand years of life left... I told him not to eat gravehead grass, not to eat gravehead grass! He wouldn't listen and ate it anyway!"
She gnashed her teeth in frustration and sneered. "In the end, he got himself killed! Serves him right!"
As they spoke, they arrived beneath the cliff.
Chen Shi remembered Azhuo's instructions and climbed up the cliff along the black iron chain.
The wooden cart couldn't go up, so it stayed below with Blackie Pot.
Though Granny Sha was advanced in years, she was nimble as ever and followed him up to the cliff top.
The cliff was a floating island some eight or nine hundred mu in area, as if it had flown out of Great South Lake and been tethered by divine chains from gods and demons to keep it from drifting into the heavens.
The island was covered everywhere in moss—even the trees were blanketed in it—making everything quite damp.
Walking on the cliff, the air was fresh. Looking out, there were mountains and clear waters.
There were even some people here chopping firewood, though it was hard to carry the wood down. The chains were mossy and slippery; one careless step and you'd tumble off.
Chen Shi was puzzled. How did they transport their firewood down?
Granny Sha said,
"They're people who live here."
"It's not big, but there are six or seven villages."
Chen Shi said in surprise,
"They live here? How do they get down?"
"It's inconvenient to go down, so they just don't."
Granny Sha laughed.
"The officials' bailiffs have a hard time climbing up to collect taxes, so they can survive that way."
Chen Shi said earnestly,
"Officials might have a hard time coming up, but evils and spirits have an easy time."
"How do they deal with evils and spirits?"
"You'll know if you come with me."
Granny Sha led Chen Shi to a temple on the cliff. Astonishingly, all the villages on the cliff were built right up against this temple!
In front of the temple was an altar table with lit incense candles, the fragrant smoke wafting into the temple.
This temple was the godmother of all the villages on the cliff!
Chen Shi was greatly surprised. He had seen hundreds of godmothers before, but this was the first time he'd seen an entire temple treated as one!
The walls outside the temple doors were painted with fu-lu scripts. Chen Shi stepped forward to examine them for a moment and
immediately recognized them as Grandpa's handiwork.
These fu-lu were purification altar talismans that drove away spirits and ghosts. Even ordinary people couldn't approach without kneeling and retreating.
Of course, these talismans only worked against those without cultivation. Against someone with an indomitable will, they had little effect.
Granny Sha opened the temple doors and led him inside.
Chen Shi arrived in the courtyard and looked around. The temple complex was quite large, covering over ten mu.
In the courtyard grew a massive tree whose canopy shaded six or seven mu, with a few smaller trees in the corners.
These great trees perfectly shaded the temple, keeping the sunlight from reaching it.
Chen Shi looked up. Though he could see sunlight through the dense leaves, a true god's gaze probably couldn't penetrate here.
The temple was precisely at the center of the cliff, and the chains tethering the cliff were buried exactly at its four corners.
Chen Shi's heart stirred.
"It seems Uncle Azhuo was telling the truth."
"This place really does feel like it's suppressing something."
"And it's something from the True King era."
Granny Sha led him into the temple proper and said, "No need to guess blindly. Back then, your grandpa brought people from the Heavenly Court here and explored the place."
"We verified it: the temple dates to the True King era. Beneath it is a deep pit, bitterly cold and bottomless, leading straight into the heart of the cliff."
"The builders of the temple dug a well in this pit, and the well mouth is right in the temple."
Chen Shi saw the well. It was an iron well with black iron walls, about a zhang wide, surrounded by a well base laid out in an iron Eight Trigrams formation.
Besides the trigram symbols, there were ancient seal script characters like "Seek as lightning, stir wind and thunder."
"Benefiting the long-lived, uniting with the Dao to become immortal."
"Transform swamps into mountains, easy as turning the palm."
And the like (drawn from Hainan's Writing Peak, Bai Yuchan's ancestral court).
Chen Shi read them one by one and paused slightly, thinking, "These are incantations about the Eight Trigrams and the Uniting with the Dao Realm!"
Unfortunately, the iron Eight Trigrams had only eight faces, with too few snippets of the Uniting with the Dao incantations to deduce the full content of that realm.
At the well mouth, he peered inside: pitch black, no bottom in sight, only a bone-chilling wind blowing outward from within.
Outside the well was another iron Eight Trigrams—likely the well cover—but it had been cast aside by someone.
Whatever was suppressed in the well had long since escaped.
"We went down to the bottom of the well. Nothing there."
Granny Sha said, "We don't know who opened this well, or where the thing inside went."
Chen Shi guessed, "Could the cliff be suppressing some prehistoric demon god? Otherwise, why would the people of the True King era build a whole temple just to suppress it?"
Granny Sha laughed.
"Who knows."
"Though the thing in the well escaped, the world is still at peace, right? No major disasters have happened."
Chen Shi nodded lightly.
The thing in the well might have been refined to death long ago, or hunted down after escaping.
He came to a grand hall. Above the entrance hung a plaque reading "Kaizhang Holy King Hall."
Kaizhang Holy King? Was he one of the gods from Huaxia?
Chen Shi paused for a moment before entering the hall. The central shrine was empty, no idol present, only an extraordinary power drifting about.
"After the True King era ended, the incense here never stopped, but a divine form has never coalesced."
Granny Sha followed him inside and said, "It's a pity about this place's extraordinary power. Your grandpa left an heroic spirit fu-lu in the divine shrine, but even after all these years, it hasn't awakened the heroic spirit here."
Chen Shi carefully examined the divine shrine. Sure enough, there was a heroic spirit fu-lu on the walls, gathering the local extraordinary power.
But with no consciousness preserved, the extraordinary power in the shrine couldn't coalesce.
The extraordinary power here was too immense. The villages on the cliff sacrificed to their godmother, and all that incense smoke flowed into this divine shrine, causing divine power to pool at the bottom into a shimmering bowl of liquid radiating divine light!
Chen Shi had never seen anything like this in any other ancient temple!
"The god is dead."
Granny Sha leaned against the doorframe, muttering, "The gods from Huaxia are all dead."
"We've searched for so many years in the Heavenly Court. Heh, haven't found a single live one."
Her face dimmed, and she fell silent.
Chen Shi's heart stirred. He took out the West King Jade Seal, bowed deeply, and offered it up.
In the True King era, demons ran rampant and chaos abounded. The Holy King arose, clearing fields with slash-and-burn, suppressing demon lairs, guarding South Lake and opening Tong.
Now, the boy Chen Shi inherits the True King's legacy and awakens the Holy King.
By the false True King's decree, I enfeoff the Kaizhang Holy King as the god of Great South Lake, to protect the waters and lands within eight hundred li, ensuring the people's peace and bountiful weather.
He activated the West King Jade Seal. The seal flew up but had nowhere to land.
The scene in Kaizhang Holy King Hall differed from any ancient temple he'd encountered before. Those had divine forms, but here there was only divine intent and extraordinary power, no form.
Chen Shi hesitated, then pressed the West King Jade Seal onto the pool of water formed by the extraordinary power in the shrine.
That pool of divine water blazed with light, reflecting the seal's inscription.
"Imperial heavenly edict, eternally suppressing the Western Wastes."
The eight characters appeared in the shrine, lingering long after.
Chen Shi took out three incense sticks and lit them in offering.
The incense smoke drifted toward the shrine, where it gradually formed the silhouette of a vague figure, as if a gust of wind would scatter it.
Granny Sha had been leaning indifferently on the threshold, watching Chen Shi's actions. At this sight, she couldn't help but be moved.
The West King Jade Seal was only a seal of enthronement, a symbol of kingly authority—it couldn't gather a divine form! It was Little Ten's offering of incense and bow that gave the shrine its divine form!
She stared in shock and suspicion at Chen Shi.
"We offered worship too, and no divine form formed in the shrine! Why did a single bow from Little Ten start coalescing the Kaizhang Holy King's form? Could it be Little Ten's godmother... What exactly is the background of his godmother?"
Granny Sha composed herself, stepped forward to offer incense as well, and said, "There are several villages on the cliff that worship the Holy King as their godmother. With the temple's unending incense, the Holy King's divine form will definitely form quickly."
"Little Ten, we should head back."
Chen Shi nodded, and they left the cliff together.
They rode the wooden cart back to Qianyang Mountain.
They had just left the borders of Xuan Rock County when suddenly a paper crane flew over, flapping its wings and landing on Chen Shi's arm.
Chen Shi unfolded the crane. It was a letter from Li Tianqing.
He read it carefully. Li Tianqing wrote that his cultivation progress in the ancient temple these days had been rapid.
He also mentioned some amusing incidents. The ancient temple he'd found had spirit fields inside, growing spirit herbs that came out at midnight—yellow-robed little children only half a chi tall, fighting fiercely alongside black-hatted little children from another spirit field, with occasional casualties.
He'd mediated their battles and resolved their grudge, learning that the yellow-robed ones were called Yellow Essence Children and the black-hatted ones Blackhead Children. The two sides had long harbored resentment over the temple's spirit fields and often fought to the death.
Grateful for Li Tianqing's mediation, both sides gave him some essence fruits.
After consuming them, his cultivation surged, and his lifespan exceeded the five-hundred-year limit.
"Spirit herbs planted in temples may extend lifespan."
Li Tianqing wrote in the letter.
Chen Shi's heart stirred. He asked, "Granny, how many years of lifespan do you have left?"
Granny Sha burst out laughing, delighted, and held up two fingers. "I can live another twenty-four years!"
Chen Shi's heart pounded. If Li Tianqing's guess was right, he might have found a way to extend the lives of cultivators like Granny Sha!
I'll verify it once we're back at Qianyang Mountain!