Chapter 73
Chapter 73
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 8
Chapter Title: The Moon by Day
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“Little Ten, you have the talent of a top scholar!” Under the old willow tree, Scholar Zhu praised.
The county exam was approaching, so Chen Shi began preparing, coming to him every day to study.
Scholar Zhu held nothing back, explaining the Analects, Book of Songs, Book of Documents, Doctrine of the Mean, and others in full detail. Chen Shi committed it all to memory with focus, feeling immense gratitude. He said,
“If I pass the exam in the future, I’ll set up a spirit tablet for you, Teacher, and worship it every day.”
Scholar Zhu was also delighted. He said,
“I’ve passed all my knowledge on to you. The exam hall will be your stage to shine—you’re sure to pass.”
“It’s also because Teacher has taught so well!”
“Oh, it’s mainly because you have such aptitude. You’re smart and perseverant!”
One man and one ghost flattered each other, both thoroughly pleased.
Chen Shi returned home and continued copying the Water-Fire Tempering Art. The original he was copying from was the one Grandpa had snatched from the Tomb of the True King—an ancient book with aged and brittle pages.
He had already finished copying one copy and given it to Young Master Xiao.
This copy was for Granny Sha.
The Water-Fire Tempering Art described how to cultivate into a Corpse Liberation Immortal.
This technique was extraordinarily peculiar. It required dying once first—whether by drowning, burning, or being slain by a weapon.
No matter the cause of death, after burial, the corpse would remain incorrupt for seven hundred years.
Once those seven hundred years passed and the corpse began to decay, that was when the wonder of the Water-Fire Tempering Art came into play.
Heaven would send down True Water to flood it. If the bones held firm after the washing, then forty years later, True Fire would come to burn it.
If the bones remained intact even amid the True Fire, a true body would emerge from the flames, growing flesh, sinews, meridians, organs, and viscera to forge an immortal physique. This was known as a Corpse Liberation Immortal.
The Water-Fire Tempering Art allowed one to cultivate True Water and True Fire in advance, tempering the fleshly body so that, when the great tribulation arrived after the seven hundred years, they could face it calmly without their form and spirit being utterly annihilated.
“Grandpa used this method to refine my body and keep my corpse from decaying?”
Chen Shi set down his brush and drifted into thought.
Back then, after his Divine Embryo had been cut away, he must have died. Chen Tang had buried him.
Grandpa had rushed home, dug up the corpse, and found that the first seven days had already passed. There was no way to summon his soul back, so he had immediately raided the Tomb of the True King, seized the Water-Fire Tempering Art, and used its water-and-fire tempering to preserve the corpse.
After that, Grandpa had searched for other ways to revive Chen Shi.
“Until two years ago, when Grandpa finally retrieved my soul and let it reenter my body. But since I’d been dead for eight years by then, all my memories from before were gone—most likely because of that!”
Chen Shi let out a long breath, pulled the book toward himself, and took out a stone box and a jade seal from within, setting them aside. He then pulled out a stack of silver notes and counted them.
There were still five notes—five hundred taels of silver.
It was only after Grandpa was gone that he realized how expensive his medicines were. The herbs for his daily decoctions alone cost five or six taels.
That came to one hundred sixty taels a month.
The money he’d earned before was nowhere near enough for his medicine.
“No wonder Grandpa never saved any money.”
Chen Shi put the silver notes away and toyed with the jade seal and stone box.
He had gotten these two items from one place—the Mountain Lord Temple for one, and from Young Master Xiao, who had hung it from a tree branch, with Scholar Zhu passing it on to him.
It was strange, but that day when Chen Shi got home and placed the jade seal next to the stone box, the box suddenly emitted a faint blue glow.
When Chen Shi brought the jade seal closer to the stone box, the box glowed blue once more, brightening and dimming like it was breathing.
When he moved the jade seal away, the blue light gradually faded.
He placed the jade seal right beside it and tried to open the stone box while it was glowing.
But the stone box remained perfectly sealed, showing no sign of opening.
Chen Shi raised his fist and pounded it a few times, but the box didn’t budge.
Instead, his fist ached from the impact.
He rubbed his fist and muttered,
“What the heck is this stone box? If it’s some scam, why is it so tough—and why does it glow? Is there really something inside?” He shook the box hard, but no sound came from within.
Just then, Blackie Pot’s barking came from outside. Chen Shi looked toward the window.
The sun had closed its eyes at some point, and moonlight was spilling down.
Night had fallen.
He lit a fire and boiled his medicine, then prepared another pot of herbs. He fed Blackie Pot some meat, drank his medicine, and soaked in the bath.
Blackie Pot added fuel by the pot.
Over the time Grandpa had been gone, he had gradually grown accustomed to this one-man-and-one-dog life.
The next day, Chen Shi went to Gangzi Village and knocked on Granny Sha’s door.
“How come Little Ten’s here?”
Granny Sha was astonished and ushered him inside. She said,
“I haven’t seen you the last couple of days. Business here has been booming. With the devil transformation a while back, so many died—lots of folks coming to summon souls and see their loved ones. Has Little Ten come to summon your grandpa?”
Chen Shi hesitated.
“Can it be done?”
“No!”
Granny Sha shook her head.
“Old Chen went down to the underworld in the flesh. If you summon his soul, you’d pull the whole person back to the mortal world. Without Xuanshan’s suppression, he’d probably demonize on the spot.”
Chen Shi’s face fell, but he soon smiled.
“I’ve come to deliver a book to you, Granny.”
With that, he took out the Water-Fire Tempering Art.
When Granny Sha saw the book, her body trembled with excitement. She snatched it up, flipped through a few pages rapidly, then quickly closed it again, her expression shifting uncertainly.
“Did your grandpa tell you to give this to me?”
Chen Shi nodded.
“That scheming old Chen! Even in death, he’s still plotting against me!”
Granny Sha flew into a rage.
“He knew that once you brought the book, I’d have no choice but to accept it—and then I’d be in your debt. If you ran into danger, I couldn’t just stand by. Humph.”
She huffed twice and moved to hand the book back to Chen Shi. But halfway, she pulled it back, hesitating.
Chen Shi smiled.
“Granny, even without this book, if I were in danger, you wouldn’t save me?”
Granny Sha replied without a second thought,
“Of course I would. You risked your life to steal the Sheep-Horn Heavenly Spirit Lamp from the River of Forgetfulness. Even if you asked this old body to die for you, I wouldn’t hesitate.”
Chen Shi laughed.
“Then why hesitate, Granny? Just take the book.”
“Taking it means falling right into old Chen’s trap… Bah, whatever. I’ll take it. Why quibble with a dead man?”
Granny Sha accepted the Water-Fire Tempering Art matter-of-factly and smiled.
“You’re looking much better lately—not as skinny as you were a few days ago. Eat more. You’re at that age where you need to grow. If you run short of money at home, just come to Granny. I may not have much skill, but fattening you up is no problem at all!”
Chen Shi said,
“I’m preparing to take the scholar exam. I’ve been studying these days.”
Granny Sha was about to speak when Blackie Pot suddenly barked in the courtyard, its cries growing louder and louder.
Chen Shi’s heart stirred.
“Blackie Pot says something’s wrong. It’s so scared it’s stammering—this must be big.”
He hurried outside, with Granny Sha following. She said in surprise,
“You can tell when a dog’s barking is stammering? What kind of skill is that? Teach me.”
The two reached the courtyard, where Blackie Pot was barking nonstop at the sky.
They looked up to see the twin suns hanging in the sky. But at some point, a small crescent moon had appeared right in front of the two suns.
The moon had appeared—in broad daylight.
Chen Shi and Granny Sha were both stunned.
Since ancient times, sun and moon had clear divisions: sun by day, moon by night.
When the bright moon rose, it was time for evils and spirits to stir.
And now, the moon had appeared in the daytime.
The moonlight was faint—especially with the suns present, it was barely perceptible.
But the moonlight was real, mingled amid the sunlight, invisibly influencing the world.
“Grandpa always said evils and spirits are swayed by the moon. Now that the moon’s out, what about the evils?”
Chen Shi’s heart suddenly raced.
“Will evils and spirits appear in the daytime?”
Granny Sha’s face changed drastically. She stamped her foot and said,
“This is a disaster—a real disaster. A moon in the daytime… Has the True God beyond the heavens gone mad too?”
High atop the mountain, the great snake Xuanshan coiled around the peak, its gaze distant as it watched the changes unfolding in the world of Qianyang Mountain.
The True God beyond the heavens—the True God of Shi Xi Niu New Continent—was eternally unchanging, its Dao heart unwavering.
The great snake Xuanshan was like the god of Qianyang Mountain.
He yearned for the state of mind of the True God beyond the heavens.
Ever since achieving his great Dao, he had emulated the True God, gazing down upon the mundane world near Qianyang Mountain like this, experiencing its shifts and turns, sensing the joys and sorrows of humanity.
In this tempering, his Dao heart grew stronger day by day.
Today, however, he was somewhat distracted.
He had originally cultivated an eternally unchanging state of mind like the True God’s, sitting back as the world changed.
But two months ago, night had fallen a quarter-hour early.
He had assumed it was merely a minor slip by the True God—or perhaps the True God’s changes were simply too gradual, unfolding only once every few million or even tens of millions of years.
So he paid it no mind.
That shift had rippled his Dao heart, leading him to eat a leg of roast sealed hog offered by Chen Shi.
He hadn’t expected that, in the clear blue sky of daytime, the moon would open its eyes early too.
Once could be dismissed as the True God’s gradual change.
But in just over a month, it had happened twice.
The great snake Xuanshan’s eye twitched, ripples stirring in its eternally steadfast heart.
Even the devil transformation—which had killed so many and nearly doomed the land for a hundred li around, even threatening Qianyang Mountain itself—had failed to unsettle his Dao heart.
Now, those ripples were like waves stirred by wind, the wind growing stronger, the waves ever larger.
It left him restless, uneasy.
“Could something have happened to the True God?”
He wondered inwardly.
A crescent moon by day might be a mere trifle for the eternally unchanging True God beyond the heavens.
But for the countless beings of Shi Xi Niu New Continent, it was a colossal anomaly.
This anomaly would sweep over everyone, affect everyone—no one could stay apart from it.
At the onset of the anomaly, all was serene and peaceful. Most people’s lives went on unchanged.
Only the incense before the godmothers in every village burned ever more prosperously.
Incense smoke curled upward, prayers everywhere—people beseeching peace, good harvests, favorable weather.
With the Moon Festival upon them, Chen Shi followed Grandpa’s example, driving his wooden cart from village to village to set up his stall, mainly selling Peach Talismans and Evil-Exorcising Talismans.
This was right at the start of the anomaly—even ordinary folk sensed something was off.
His talismans sold like hotcakes.
He had only just set up his stall when the talismans he’d drawn were snapped up.
Chen Shi bought Blackie Pot a heap of spirit beast meat for it to enjoy.
Then he drew more blood from Blackie Pot to draw even more talismans.
“Good thing it’s just a crescent. The moon hasn’t fully opened its eyes. If it did, evils and spirits would probably roam in the daytime.”
He mused to himself,
“In these days, he’d heard tales of evils and spirits stirring by day—most unsettling. So even when venturing out in daylight, he hung Peach Talismans and Evil-Exorcising Talismans on his cart.”
So far, though, he hadn’t encountered any.
“Talisman Master Chen! Talisman Master Chen!”
Someone rushed up to his stall—a woman in her forties, burly-built, dressed in coarse homespun for farm labor.
An apron was tied around her waist, dusted with flour; she must have been kneading dough moments ago. Frantic, she cried,
“Talisman Master Chen, my husband was working the fields when he suddenly got possessed! Talisman Master, save him!”
The crowd around instantly gathered, faces panicked as they asked what had happened.
Chen Shi had never handled an evil or spirit on his own. The incident in Huangyang Village hadn’t truly involved one—the Zhao family talisman master had been secretly killing a child to refine lamp oil.
When he’d dealt with the Wire-Pulling Worm, Li Tianqing had been with him. His heart couldn’t help but feel a bit panicked.
But he quickly calmed himself.
He was a talisman master. Even without a Divine Embryo, he could draw talismans and incantations to battle evils and spirits.
If worst came to worst, he could mix black powder and blast the thing away.
“Five taels of silver!”
Chen Shi said.
The woman looked troubled. Chen Shi’s price wasn’t high—other talisman masters dealing with possessions or exorcisms often demanded exorbitant sums.
But five taels was a fortune for her household.
“We’ll cover the five taels from the village!”
An elder from the clan spoke up suddenly.
When an evil or spirit stirred in a village, it wasn’t just one person’s problem—it could doom the whole place.
They went door-to-door pooling money and soon gathered five taels in fragments, handing them to Chen Shi.
Chen Shi followed the woman swiftly to the fields outside the village. There, a crowd had gathered around someone in the field, shouting and yelling. They tried to approach but were scared back, cries filling the air.
“Make way—the talisman master’s here!” someone shouted.
The crowd parted, and Chen Shi hurried forward. In the field stood a man with eyes closed, fast asleep, his arm raised high. His fingers had been gnawed down to the bone, the five white bones splayed like a fork. Something had hold of his hand—it had eaten the fingers and palm and was now devouring his forearm.
Over half the flesh on the forearm was gone, exposing the stark white bone beneath.
Chen Shi winced just looking at it, yet the man stood there snoring deeply, sleeping soundly.
Suddenly, the man jolted awake in pain. His face twisted, eyes wide with terror as he clutched his right arm and let out a heart-wrenching scream.
“Save me—hurry, save me!”
Then a smile crept over his face, as if drowsiness had overtaken him again. He tilted his head and dozed off standing, snoring away sweetly like he was having the most pleasant dream.
His right arm remained raised, as if something were relishing its meal of his flesh, gnawing bit by bit. It chewed vigorously with each chunk, even smacking its lips as though it tasted divine.
The man snapped awake in agony again, shrieking miserably,
“Help!”
But the next instant, his face broke into a grin, eyes half-closed in blissful slumber.
The villagers were horrified and backed away hurriedly, not daring to draw near.
They couldn’t see what was eating the man, nor understand how he could sleep through it. Fear gripped their hearts.
Chen Shi, however, saw it clearly. Standing beside the man was a tall, emaciated figure in gray robes, with furry ears. One hand gripped the man’s arm—long fingers covered in gray fur, pink and tender where the fur was absent.
Its back was to Chen Shi as it munched contentedly on the man’s arm.
Whenever the man woke in pain, a pink, fleshy tail would extend from behind the gray figure, arching high. The tip would rub at the man’s head like a massage.
The man would then smile in comfort, forgetting the evil devouring his hand, and drift back to sleep standing up.
The gray figure resumed eating the hand—one savoring its meal, the other lost in sweet slumber.
Chen Shi could see it all plainly.
But no one else around could see the gray figure.
At that moment, the gray figure stopped eating and slowly turned its head, revealing a rat-like face. Beady black eyes fixed on Chen Shi.
It was a rat—dressed in human clothes, standing upright like a human, and taller than one.
“You can see me?”
The gray-clad rat said in surprise.
End of chapter.