Chapter 438: Godmother Awakens |
Chen Shi's heart bloomed with joy. Peng Qiao, Peng Zhi, and Peng Ju in the Primordial Palace were beating gongs, striking drums, and blowing horns, celebrating riotously, encouraging Chen Shi and bolstering his courage.
Little Duan Immortal still kept her eyes tightly shut, shy and bashful, yet somewhat annoyed. She urged, "Have you seen enough? Can we stop now?"
Chen Shi's heart trembled, his hands trembled. He couldn't help wanting to get handsy.
But his hands were faster than his brain. While his mind was still thinking, his hands had already moved.
Little Duan Immortal suddenly felt a pair of hands touch her body. A strange, tingling numbness instantly surged through her, like an electric shock.
Her eyes flew open.
"Shwish—"
Two beams of frigid light shot from her pupils, piercing through the minor heaven like two sharp swords, stabbing straight through it.
Chen Shi's body went rigid. All lustful thoughts vanished. Cold sweat beaded uncontrollably on his forehead.
"Take your hands off!"
Chen Shi quickly withdrew.
Little Duan Immortal gathered her clothes, straightening her garments, her face icy cold.
Chen Shi seized the chance to turn and slip away.
A freezing voice came from behind him. "Don't leave just yet. I only kept my promise to let you look, not to let you touch. Since you touched, I can't be taken advantage of for nothing."
Chen Shi's heart clenched.
Scholar Zhu and Black Pot were guarding the Wooden Cart, bored out of their minds. Scholar Zhu blinked and suddenly said, "Black Pot, guess what they're doing inside?"
"Woof?" Black Pot was confused.
Only Chen Shi had entered the minor heaven. Where was the "they"?
Could the minor heaven connect to someone else?
Scholar Zhu sneered. "Stupid dog. When have you ever seen Little Ten so sneaky? He must have made a breakthrough in cultivation and met up with Little Duan Immortal in private. He has lecherous intentions, planning to do lecherous things to her!"
Black Pot's eyes went wide. "Woof woof?"
Scholar Zhu lamented his misfortune. "Serves you right for being single! That kid's cunning, good at seizing every opportunity. This peek was just an excuse, then he'll grope, then he'll kiss, then he'll consummate in the minor heaven..."
Just as he said that, a sudden alertness shot through him. He quickly sent his hanging rope flying to one side, yanking his body into the air.
"Shwish shwish!"
Two beams of cold light flew past, nearly piercing him!
The two beams of light flew for hundreds of li, slanted across the sky, and vanished.
Scholar Zhu's heart pounded. He muttered, "Seems like things didn't go that smoothly..."
After a moment, Chen Shi came out of the minor heaven alone, one eye swollen with a black-and-blue ring around it.
"Oh, got beaten up." Scholar Zhu chuckled.
Chen Shi said gloomily, "Teacher, don't mock me."
Scholar Zhu laughed. "After you left, someone came trying to trick us out of our Jade Seal and Huagai. They got handsy and got beaten up. Funny thing, the injury on their eye looks just like yours."
Chen Shi sighed.
Scholar Zhu said, "After hitting them, you have to ask if they'd dare again. Little Ten, do you think he'd dare?"
"I'd dare!" Chen Shi declared firmly.
Scholar Zhu burst into laughter. "Good! You've got guts! That's how us scholars do things—persistent, never giving up!"
Chen Shi, encouraged, steeled his spirits and continued the journey. He smiled. "Mencius said, 'Food and sex are part of human nature.' As scholars practicing Mencius's teachings, we should act accordingly. Hey, my Peng Qiao has grown a lot stronger!"
"This is the path of cultivation, Little Ten!"
Scholar Zhu said sincerely, "You practice what you learn, and your cultivation improves. You keep diligently training, and you surpass ordinary people."
"Teacher, I have received your teachings!" Chen Shi bowed in thanks.
Inside the small temple, Little Duan Immortal was both annoyed and embarrassed. She thought, "This teacher and disciple pair are a couple of degenerates. Then again, is that what Mencius actually taught?"
She hadn't read Mencius's books, so she didn't know if that was true.
This time, after refining Peng Qiao and turning the Three Corpses Gods into Three Yin Spirits, Chen Shi's cultivation speed had another astonishing leap. The Three Corpses Gods were also continuously growing. It could be said that he advanced a thousand li in a single day, progressing rapidly.
Little Duan Immortal also benefited, her cultivation gradually recovering. The injuries from the Nine Halls of the True King grew lighter. Little Duan Immortal's memories often mixed with her own, leaving her with a sense of confusion.
Once, in a daze, she came out of the small temple and called Chen Shi "husband." He took her for Little Duan again, and it took a long time for him to notice anything wrong.
She was the first to realize her mistake. Her heart pounded wildly, and she quickly ducked back into the small temple.
That day, Chen Shi revived another deity in a temple that had perished. Suddenly, his head trembled, and a third small temple appeared, one to the left and one to the right, while Little Duan Immortal's temple sat in the middle, forming a simple temple structure.
Chen Shi was stunned. Previously, small temples grew because of his powerful spirit entering the shrine, nourishing it like nutrients, causing a new shrine to grow and an extra room to appear. When the original temple was full with three shrines, a new temple would grow.
But this time, the deity he had revived was called Stone Dare to Defy, a Martial Saint Heavenly Venerable, with his Divine Manifestation still forming. Chen Shi hadn't even incorporated Stone Dare to Defy into his temple.
"Could it be that reviving the gods and their increasingly dense energy of incense offerings is causing the small temple behind my head to grow a new temple?"
Chen Shi pondered. He possessed the power to confer godhood, and it wasn't just the Western King's Jade Seal at work. The seal represented royal authority. Royal authority alone wasn't enough to confer godhood. The small temple represented divine authority.
Only when divine authority and royal authority were combined could he confer godhood to earthly spirits and gods.
The earthly spirits and gods of the Divine Continent were revived by the small temple behind his head. The energy of incense offerings they gathered was partly distributed to the small temple, causing it to grow gradually.
Moreover, Chen Shi also noticed that as he revived more and more earthly spirits and gods, the energy of incense offerings flowing to the small temple also increased. The growth speed of the third small temple was accelerating!
"It looks like Godmother is about to awaken!"
He was thrilled. Finally, he could see the true face of his stone tablet Godmother.
High Mound, Ten Thousand Great Mountains.
Chen Tang left the Qianyang Mountain Lord Temple and approached the High Mound area. Looking up, he saw streaks of radiant light and wisps of auspicious energy swirling around the old willow tree.
The stone tablet at the base of the tree had somehow risen from the soil and now stood upright before it.
Light shimmered on the tablet's surface as the characters gradually became clear.
At the same time, the High Mound shook continuously, as if some massive creature beneath the yellow earth was slowly shifting, about to break through the ground.
Chen Tang's mind quaked. He tried to climb the mound to see what was written on the stone tablet. But as soon as he set foot on it, his vision spun uncontrollably. It was as if the yellow earth had become the sky, pressing down on him!
Even with his cultivation level, he couldn't steady himself and had to retreat.
"What exactly is buried beneath the stone tablet?"
As he thought this, more energy of incense offerings turned into streaks of cyan light and drifted toward the area.
This had been going on for a while. Ever since Chen Shi left, the High Mound had gradually changed. Azure qi began to coil around the tree, growing denser and denser, like incense energy. As the incense energy increased, it gradually evolved into radiant light and auspicious energy.
Sometimes, faint whispers could be heard from the void, like gods chanting in a low voice—obscure and difficult to understand, praising the greatness and majesty of the High Mound deity in rhythmic tones.
Chen Tang had been watching the mound's changes since then, and he noticed that in the past few days, the transformation was accelerating.
"Little Ten's Godmother might be about to awaken," he murmured.
Just as he was about to leave, a voice came from above: "The Heaven's Listeners have recorded that the light here grows stronger by the day and the ground keeps shaking. Something's wrong here. Wujiu, stop the carriage."
Chen Tang looked up. A carriage was driving through the sky, drawn by a qilin. Its body was a vibrant cyan, its wheels cinnabar red, and its canopy made of glassy glaze—very luxurious.
There were two people in the carriage. One was Zhuang Wujiu, a disciple of Despair Slope whom Chen Tang had met once before.
The other was a young man. He had a dignified bearing, with finely embroidered brocade clothes that were quite loose, in an elegant style reminiscent of the Tang Dynasty.
He didn't seem much older than Zhuang Wujiu, but Chen Tang could keenly sense an oppressive pressure!
This pressure made him immediately take out his small wooden box, ready to open it at any moment!
His other hand gripped the scabbard of the sword at his waist. This sword was the Xuanwei Sword, but the blade's edge wasn't a real sword—it was his Realm of Emptiness.
He had nurtured his sword for years, cultivating sword energy that shattered the void and opened a great realm, hidden in the scabbard, capable of cutting through anything.
But even against this young man, he had no confidence!
The pressure this young man brought was unlike anything Chen Tang had ever felt!
"Is he an immortal?"
Chen Tang's expression remained unchanged, but he guessed in his heart. Someone who could bring him such terrifying pressure was probably only an immortal or a freak like Creation Little Five. But he quickly dismissed the idea of this man being an immortal.
Because he saw the halo behind the young man's head.
This faint cyan halo was the young man's Realm of Emptiness.
Having refined the Realm of Emptiness to the point of forming a halo behind the head meant that the Realm of Emptiness had reached its culmination. He could achieve Dao Unification and become an immortal at any time!
Chen Tang had never seen such a perfect Realm of Emptiness!
"A Despair Slope expert! Not an immortal, but better than an immortal!"
Chen Tang thought, "From the sound of his intentions, he seems to want to harm Little Ten's Godmother. Am I a match for him? I only have thirty-seven Tianjis. I wonder if I can use the Ghost and God Domain of the Talisman God Tianji to suppress him."
The young man also sensed someone below. He nodded to Chen Tang from a distance and smiled. "Fellow Daoist Chen Tang, no need to be nervous. I come with no ill intentions toward you. If you don't mind, why not come up and talk?"
Chen Tang hesitated for a moment, then flew up to the glassy carriage. He carried his box in one hand, stepped into the carriage, and sat down without putting the box down. He asked, "Sir, how do you know me?"
The young man was unconcerned by his caution. "The Heaven's Listeners have been monitoring the High Mound in the underworld closely. In recent days, they've noticed the changes here intensifying. While recording the High Mound, they also recorded you. Before I came, I reviewed your file, Fellow Daoist Chen, and I found you to be a man of great talent. Most of the information the Heaven's Listeners recorded about you is wrong."
Chen Tang bowed slightly. "Thank you for the compliment."
The young man smiled. "My surname is Yu, given name Changbai, from Despair Slope. This is my disciple, Zhuang Wujiu. He once suffered a loss at your hands."
Zhuang Wujiu's gaze was sharp, fixed on Chen Tang. "But this time we meet, I won't suffer again. I'd very much like to have another match with Lord Chen!"
Yu Changbai smiled. "No need to rush. Do you, Fellow Daoist Chen, know the origins of this High Mound?"
Chen Tang shook his head. "I heard that the True King's Tomb used Kaolin Clay from here to fire porcelain, and they piled the clay here."
Yu Changbai looked at the stone tablet and the old willow tree, shaking his head. "Kaolin Clay can't pile up into a High Mound. This mound is covered in yellow earth, and aside from the stone tablet, there's not a single stone. It is said that during the True King era, Emperor Chengzu, Zhu Di, enfeoffed a member of the Zhu clan as the True King of the Western Ox New Continent, forged the Western King's Jade Seal, and granted him royal authority. Royal authority governs the common people and affairs on the ground. But at the same time, Emperor Chengzu also invited a great deity to govern all the earthly spirits and gods on the surface, as well as the underworld official."
"His Majesty invited this Lady to send a clone to the Western Ox New Continent, refining the Fifty Provinces Map of State Affairs to exercise divine authority. All deities were to obey her commands."
His gaze fell on the stone tablet that stood tall between heaven and earth. "This Lady held power rivaling the Heavenly Emperor. She governed the Nine Earths and the Thirty-Six Earth Emperors, all the earthly gods of the realm, national altars, mountain gods, city gods, land gods, well gods, door gods, and the underground netherworld gods of the underworld. Her authority was boundless."
"She was called Houtu Huangdiqi, also known as the Earth Mother Ladyship, the Earth Mother Primordial Sovereign, and Lady Houtu."