Chapter 29
Chapter 29
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 29
Chapter Title: Chapter 29 The sunshine of Shanjun Temple
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Chen Shi gazed at the sculpture-like giant black snake, his heart filled with awe.
The giant snake's state of mind had long surpassed that of ordinary mortals, attaining a level even the finest cultivators could scarcely reach.
Granny Sha led him deeper into Qianyang Mountain.
"Granny Sha, does Qianyang Mountain have a spirit too?"
Chen Shi asked. "If it does, then how big would this mountain's spirit be? What would it look like?"
Granny Sha thought it over and shook her head. "Maybe it does, but I've never laid eyes on it."
They passed through a mountain gully, where a girl was washing her hair by the water's edge—that was the gully's spirit, beautiful and lively, waving a greeting to Chen Shi and Granny Sha.
Granny Sha gave the girl a comb. The girl beamed with joy, thanked them warmly, and the gully's waters grew much gentler.
They moved past a woodland thick with countless spirit herbs, grown for ages untold. Bare-bottomed toddlers no taller than a foot scampered beneath the trees. Spotting them, the little ones darted behind trunks, peeking out slyly.
Granny Sha pulled back the floral cloth on her basket and scooped out a handful of candies. The toddlers came scampering with delighted squeals, heads bumping as they jostled forward, chubby white palms outstretched, begging for treats.
This was the great mountain.
Chen Shi knew Qianyang Mountain near Huangpo Village—ghost god domains one after another, eerie and unpredictable.
But this Qianyang Mountain showed him another face.
Mountains and rivers in splendor, broadening the chest.
After this outing, he found the world so wondrously beautiful. Only a vast heart could hold these mountains, these things.
At long last, they reached their goal.
An ancient, weathered temple loomed into Chen Shi's view, its front mountain gate half crumbled.
They approached the gate amid scattered broken bricks and tiles. The lintel lay snapped to one side. Chen Shi cleared the stones and shoveled the dirt, faintly making out the words "Mountain Lord."
"This is... the Mountain Lord Temple!"
Chen Shi scanned about. The temple had a main hall flanked by two side halls, the latter long collapsed into ruin, while the main hall endured.
Towering trees twisted through the dilapidated yard, their vast crowns blotting the temple entirely, admitting no light, no sun.
Sunless though it was, the air held no chill—comfortably temperate.
Under the tree sat a one-legged censer, ten feet long, five feet high, three feet wide—like a rectangular cauldron—choked with old incense ash. Clearly, worship had once flourished here.
A peculiar power seemed to drift in the air. Chen Shi probed it keenly, but it slipped away.
"Extraordinary power!"
He grasped it at once: this elusive force was extraordinary power born of incense aura, the stuff that forged divine images, endowing village gods like his Godmother with miraculous might!
Oddly, the temple's extraordinary power floated free, uncondensed.
Chen Shi sensed deeper, tracing it to the censer's depths.
"Once, incense burned so hot here the censer brimmed with extraordinary power. Even ages after the temple's fall, remnants linger. Why hasn't it all dispersed?" he pondered silently.
Granny Sha stepped up and lit three sticks in the censer.
Yet their extraordinary power soon wafted away into the air.
"Such potent extraordinary power here!" Granny Sha marveled, glancing about.
Chen Shi entered the main hall. Extraordinary power hung thicker still.
Far denser than in that barren-mountain ruin he'd once braved.
A censer stood within too, grand in scale, heaped with ash.
Chen Shi took it in: stone dragons coiled the pillars, faint door-god traces lingered on the portals.
Eaves bore qingci tiles painted with mythic tales, their stories lost to wear.
The front hall's beam stretched twenty feet, vermilion and gold-dragoned.
In the great hall proper, the ceiling gleamed golden—a gilded dome, its central caisson swirling with Eight Trigrams amid cloud motifs.
Opposite loomed a divine shrine two or three zhang tall, majestic, hinting at the god statue once enthroned there: immense.
Empty now, bereft of any idol.
The temple stood forsaken.
"Extraordinary power this rich—the Mountain Lord who dwelt here was mighty indeed. Why then its downfall?" Chen Shi puzzled.
Granny Sha replied, "This temple, this mountain—they weren't here before. They burst from the earth overnight. Qianyang Mountain quaked terribly once: homes toppled, trees splintered, lives lost. Next day, a new peak appeared. I was off in the wilds aiding folk, couldn't come then. Later visits turned up nothing."
Chen Shi stirred inside. The Mountain Lord Temple, too, had erupted from below?
Outside the hall, he craned skyward. The courtyard tree's boughs sealed out every ray.
From within, no sun; from without, no sight of temple!
Wondrous beyond words.
As if the place hid deliberately from true gods beyond the sky!
"Does it suit for cultivation?" Granny Sha asked.
Chen Shi tested the Three Lights Righteous Qi Art. Starlight surged, joined by sun and moon from another realm. Yes—it worked!
Granny Sha grinned in relief. "Good. Yesterday's peril demanded recompense, or I'd hang my head. Cultivate here; I'll tidy."
Chen Shi shook his head. "Granny, head home. I'll cultivate and clean together."
He ran the art while sweeping the hall.
Granny Sha laughed. "Then I'm off. Lunch at noon."
Chen Shi's conscience pricked—he meant to refuse—but she was gone. He sighed it off.
A morning's toil cleaned the main hall. Noon brought Granny Sha's meal: three dishes, one soup, aromas shaming old Chen's fare.
Granny Sha beamed as he wolfed it down, like a mother her boy.
Afternoon saw Chen Shi mend the hall's breaches. Habitable now, barely. The tree canopy spared the roof—no mason needed, just plastering.
"No overnight here tonight. Home first, lime tomorrow for the walls."
He surveyed. "Doors and windows want thick paper seals. Sunlight leaking in might doom the place. Clear the side-hall rubble, yard too."
He departed the Mountain Lord Temple, retracing steps.
He met the woodland toddlers again, playful till dusk's lethargy rooted them treeward, heads alone peering curiously.
By the gully, the girl shyly stole glances.
Over a great ridge: the black snake coiled statue-still.
By the big tree, Chen Shi hailed Zhuang Granny, slipped past.
Soon home safe. Grandpa's dinner steamed; night deepened, moon blinking awake over the land.
Next day, Chen Shi bought incense, candles, snacks—book-basket bound, off anew.
Gangzi Village first: Granny Sha greeted. Then mountainside, incense for treefoot Zhuang Granny; sticks for body-barring black snake; copper mirror for gully girl; pinwheels, sweets from basket for woodland tots.
So he befriended the mountain's odd spirits, entering the Mountain Lord Temple.
Five days he toiled, scrubbing every corner.
The tots hauled bricks and tiles to aid; the girl fetched waters to scour floors.
Lost in labor past dusk, the colossal black snake slithered sentinel-front, warding evils from him.
Harmony reigned.
The yard held a release pond, scoured clean—yielding a boat-sized turtle shell.
"How many years did this turtle endure? Time claimed it last."
Chen Shi rinsed it, rapped: solid thunk. Fist struck, light flared, force shed.
"Not bad, this."
Dragged to main hall. "Sell well, maybe. Stash for Grandpa's old age—no more talisman hawking."
Side-hall sift unearthed a stone casket: square, seamed yet sealed fast.
What stone? Smashes left no scar.
"What's inside? Treasure? Or fool's rock tricked to chest-shape?"
Set aside, forgotten.
All pristine now—peace for practice.
Incense lit in censer: extraordinary power swirled freer. Days of offerings thickened it.
His presence livened it.
Puzzler: why no fade? Ownerless power should scatter swift—yet here it swelled.
This session plunged him trance-deep: days blurred, light and dark forgot.
Time lost, he roused. Days' Northern Dipper forge hardened viscera steelward, breaths endless.
Blood coursed lead-mercury in veins, power-packed.
Blood as lead-mercury, frame as iron!
True blood exchange sign, per Three Lights Righteous Qi Art!
First stride to Divine Embryo Law Body!
Daysfew in Mountain Lord Temple: gains shocking swift!
"Eh?"
Eyes widened shock-wide: hall sprung sunwarm, goldsoft glow!
That otherworld sun, as in prior ruin!
Traced rays: alien sun east-risen, horizon-leapt.
True dawn grasped!
He drank the climbing orb, heart pounding wild.
A thought struck: "Could I cross this glow... to that other world?"