Chapter 75
Chapter 75
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: Ambush by Black Mountain Granny's Rats
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Chen Shi let out a sigh of relief and walked into the room. He asked,
“The babies didn’t cry?”
The midwife shook her head. “No.”
Chen Shi’s expression turned grave. “Spank them. Hit them hard—until they cry!”
The midwife picked up the two infants one by one and spanked their bottoms. After a moment, both babies wailed loudly.
Chen Shi finally relaxed.
Two lives had been saved.
“Congratulations! Your family now has two promising seedlings for studying. Be sure to send them to a private school in the future. At the very least, they’ll become successful scholars.”
Chen Shi smiled at Cui E’s husband.
The man was puzzled but too overjoyed by the double blessing to ask questions.
It was already late, so Chen Shi couldn’t make it back home. He decided to stay the night in Deer Tail Town, settling in the bell tower.
Staying at an inn or someone’s home wouldn’t be convenient for brewing medicine at night.
The bell tower had doors and windows on all four sides, making it quite comfortable to stay in. Plus, with the town’s Godmother guarding it, it was absolutely safe.
Chen Shi brewed and drank his medicine, fed Blackie Pot until full, cleaned up, then took out his bedding from the wooden cart and spread it on the ground.
The Moon Sacrifice Festival lasted three days, and he needed to earn as much money as possible during that time.
It was still early for sleep. Blackie Pot barked twice, seemingly puzzled by his earlier actions.
Chen Shi wasn’t sleepy either. He smiled and said, “Grandpa said that if a cultivator’s nascent soul accidentally enters a womb, you can’t force it out. If you do, the baby will be stillborn. That’s because the nascent soul has entered the infant’s body and become its soul. If it leaves, the baby has no soul and will die. The infant isn’t at fault—the cultivator is. We can’t make the baby or the pregnant woman suffer for it. So we have to keep the cultivator calm and get the woman to give birth quickly.”
Blackie Pot whined in confusion.
Chen Shi shook his head. “No, we have to trick them. Cultivators have iron wills. If they realize what’s happening, they’ll kill the pregnant woman to escape. So we deceive them to prevent that.”
Blackie Pot suddenly understood. That was why Chen Shi had told those two Divine Embryo Realm experts to rush toward the light.
But it was still confused. If a cultivator ended up in that situation, could they really escape by killing the pregnant woman?
“No!”
Chen Shi shook his head. “Both mother and child would die. Once the cultivator’s nascent soul enters the mother’s body, it’s equivalent to reincarnation. Killing the mother would kill the nascent soul too. The bond between mother and child overrides all laws. No matter how heaven-defying your powers, you can’t kill the mother.”
He explained everything step by step, recounting what he’d done. “First, I used stabilizing talismans to calm the restless fetuses. Then, birth-inducing talismans to make the mother deliver quickly. Once the babies were born, if they didn’t cry, they had to be spanked until they did!”
He spoke unhurriedly. “An infant’s first cry is like a peal of spring thunder. It shatters the memories in the nascent soul’s foundation, making the cultivator forget their past and become a normal baby. Those two cultivators’ physical bodies will probably die as a result. But as cultivators, the moment they entered the womb, their deaths were fated. I’m not to blame.”
At that point, he suddenly froze.
Ever since Grandpa had gone to the underworld, he’d unknowingly become a proper talisman master.
In this incident, he—a mere Divine Embryo Realm talisman master—had stripped two great Divine Embryo Realm cultivators of their lifelong cultivation and memories, turning them into ordinary babies.
This was exactly the kind of bearing Grandpa had described for a true talisman master.
Chen Shi was overjoyed. In a low voice, he said, “I can become a talisman master like Grandpa now.”
This belly-talking incident wasn’t caused by evil, but talisman masters didn’t just deal with evils—they solved all sorts of tricky problems like this one.
The little Daoist under the bell watched him curiously. Chen Shi gave the little Daoist’s divine image a slight smile.
The little Daoist smiled back.
“Daoist priest, you’re clearly Deer Tail Town’s Godmother. Why do you look like a man?”
Chen Shi asked.
The little Daoist replied, “I’m an image. Images have no gender.”
Chen Shi was momentarily stunned. The little Daoist continued, “I was forged from the incense and faith of Deer Tail Town’s people, shaped by collective thoughts and extraordinary power. I have no gender.”
Chen Shi didn’t believe it. He got up, walked over, and reached to check the little Daoist’s privates.
The little Daoist slapped his hand away. “Don’t be rude!”
Chen Shi laughed. “You don’t have one—how do you pee?”
The little Daoist said, “I’m a divine image. I don’t need that!”
“I see!”
Chen Shi asked doubtfully, “Then why do you look like a little Daoist?”
The question puzzled the little Daoist too.
He had been born from the people’s faith and devotion, appearing like this from the start. But why this form?
“Then Chen Shi, why do you look the way you do?”
The little Daoist turned the question around. “Did you choose your own appearance, or did someone else?”
Chen Shi was baffled. He shook his head, sat beside him, and laughed. “My looks came from my parents—I had no say. Who gave you yours?”
The little Daoist was dumbfounded, racking his brains.
Chen Shi draped an arm over his shoulder and grinned. “See? I think you guardian spirits of villages and towns must have other secrets.”
“What secrets?”
The little Daoist was even more confused.
Chen Shi got up and paced around the great bell hanging in the tower, chin in hand. “I think we should start with your true form. Maybe your original master was a little Daoist, and when the people’s incense shaped you, you took his appearance... You really don’t have one? Let me check...”
He tried to pull down the little Daoist’s pants and got beaten black and blue by the furious little Daoist.
Only then did he obediently go to sleep.
The next day, another evil incident came his way.
This time, it wasn’t an evil devouring people—it was a possession.
The incident happened in Stone Roller Village. A butcher there looked fierce and villainous but was actually easygoing.
He made his living slaughtering pigs.
For some reason that day, he ran afoul of an evil.
At dinner, he suddenly flew into a rage, tied up his wife and kids, hung them from the rafters, and prepared to bleed them like pigs.
The family wailed, alerting the villagers who came to their rescue.
But then the butcher turned on the other villagers.
Chen Shi arrived, slapped a exorcism talisman on the butcher, and drove out the evil. He found a dead pig, burned it, and the possession ended.
Since it was straightforward, Chen Shi only charged two taels of silver.
This evil was weak. After slaughtering the pig, the butcher hadn’t stored it indoors promptly. Exposed to moonlight during the day, the carcass turned into an evil that possessed him to take revenge on his family.
“There’s moonlight during the day too. No dead human or animal should see it—handle them quickly!”
Chen Shi instructed the villagers. “Bury corpses or coffin them as soon as possible.”
He felt a faint unease.
The evils appearing so far were all minor ones, nothing serious. But it wouldn’t be long before powerful ones showed up.
Before Chen Shi could rest, someone else arrived. “Talisman Master Chen, our village has an evil problem.”
Chen Shi followed and found another man-eating case.
Someone had been standing by the roadside and was devoured alive by a gray-clothed rat. By the time Chen Shi arrived, the man was beyond saving.
Chen Shi flew into a rage and beat the gray-clothed rat to death.
That day, he handled two more possession cases.
The first involved a little girl playing by the road. An ox cart passed with four or five kids on it still playing. They called her to join.
She climbed aboard, and they played happily.
But her parents saw her floating a foot off the ground, gesturing at thin air.
The evil wanted to drag her off to reincarnate. Chen Shi chased it down and saved her.
The other was another gray-clothed rat devouring someone.
“What exactly is this Black Mountain Granny?”
Chen Shi was furious. Half the evils were local to Qianyang Mountain.
The other half were rat evils from Black Mountain Granny—clearly not giving the Mountain Lord any face.
There really was a Black Mountain Granny in that area.
That night, Chen Shi returned to the bell tower in Deer Tail Town to rest.
Mentioning it, the little Daoist told Chen Shi, “This Black Mountain Granny is enshrined in a temple with thriving incense. She often shows miracles and is very efficacious. Villages nearby send many people to worship her during festivals. Some of my worshippers visit her too. Her temple does have a lot of big rats...”
“Wait, you’re saying Black Mountain Granny isn’t an evil—she’s a divine image enshrined in a temple?”
Chen Shi was baffled.
The little Daoist hesitated. “Probably? I don’t know much about it. You’re the talisman master—don’t you know?”
Chen Shi shook his head, intensely curious.
“Does being a temple god worshipped by people not conflict with being an evil?”
“The rats in Black Mountain Granny’s temple are this fierce, so she must be extraordinary!”
Chen Shi’s eyes gleamed. “She’s sending these rats to scout and establish a base in Qianyang Mountain. Little Daoist, she’s coming to steal your territory, your godchildren and goddaughters—and letting rats eat people. Don’t you have anything to say about that?”
The little Daoist thought it over. “Tomorrow, I’ll go meet her.”
At dawn, Chen Shi set up his talisman stall again, but this time he added thunder talismans.
These could slay weaker evils. They were cheap and fair-priced.
Worn on the body or hung behind the door, they guaranteed a month of safety.
If a thunder talisman suddenly burned or boomed with thunder, it meant an evil was near and had been struck down.
Then you’d need a new one.
At fifty coppers each, the thunder talismans sold like hotcakes.
Blackie Pot wilted, listless from too much blood-drinking.
The money from thunder talismans wasn’t even enough to buy spirit beast meat to replenish Blackie Pot.
But they did save lives, so Chen Shi sold them cheaply.
By noon, Chen Shi saw the little Daoist again—face bruised and swollen, one leg lame, resting under the bell.
“Black Mountain Granny is very strong. Far stronger than me.”
The little Daoist said gloomily, worried. “I couldn’t beat her. She said she’ll take over Deer Tail Town soon and told me to go be an evil.”
Chen Shi was shocked. Black Mountain Granny really planned to seize territory in Qianyang Mountain.
He stayed busy until night, when the Moon Sacrifice Festival ended. Then he headed back to Huangpo Village.
The mountain roads were rugged; the wooden cart had to travel over seventy li to reach the village.
Chen Shi held his compass, checking directions.
Blackie Pot ran ahead, carrying the lantern in its mouth.
Deep in the mountains, Blackie Pot suddenly stopped.
Chen Shi’s heart stirred. He set down the compass and peered into the darkness ahead.
Moonlight dimmed. On the mountain road ahead, pairs of glowing red eyes appeared, refusing to scatter even under Blackie Pot’s lantern light.
“Are you Talisman Master Chen Shi?”
A shrill voice said, “By Black Mountain Granny’s order, I inform you: live and let live. You killed Granny’s dear grandson, so Granny wants your life. Her revenge starts now. Wash your neck and wait!”
Chen Shi leaped down from the cart. “Who’s playing tricks?”
He snatched the lantern from Blackie Pot’s mouth and shone it ahead. On the road stood gray-clothed figures over six feet tall, all rat-headed and human-bodied, glaring at him.
Chen Shi’s heart chilled. “So many evils under Black Mountain Granny? Did I poke a rat nest?”
He grew uneasy. If these gray-clothed rats swarmed him...
Their strength wasn’t high, but they knew spells.
Especially that tail-tip head massage, which induced instant sleep—impossible to guard against.
Chen Shi had experienced it once and had no confidence blocking all those tails.
If caught, he’d fall asleep, and the rats would swarm and gnaw him to a skeleton.
Just as he thought that, the gray-clothed rats leaped into the darkness and vanished.
Chen Shi frowned.
These evil rats were elusive. If they ambushed him...
“Once I’m back, I’ll buy an iron hat in town to wear. No— I still need to visit the Tomb of the True King, get the complete Three Lights Righteous Qi Art. Otherwise, I can’t beat Black Mountain Granny.”
End of chapter.