Three Lights Righteous Qi

"Xinxiang people came looking for treasure, so why did they always want to kill everyone involved?"

The porcelain doll Chen Shi had become escaped this Ghost and God Domain, running and hopping through the mountains with remarkable agility.

The villagers of Huangpo Village had never cared about any True King's Tomb, nor did Chen Shi care about the treasures within it. If those people had come merely to seek treasure without harboring thoughts of murder and silencing witnesses, he would even have been willing to guide them to the real True King's Tomb.

Unfortunately, every group that came seeking treasure wanted to kill him.

He crossed dense stretches of forest, swam through rivers, and arrived at another strange place.

There were roads and stone steps paved with bluestone here. Thick pines and cypresses had been planted along both sides, their bark rugged and gnarled, their branches strong and twisting. Before the trees stood stone men and stone beasts two or three zhang tall.

This was the True King's Tomb that the woman in purple and the others had searched for so bitterly without finding.

The True King's Tomb was only two or three li from the kiln, but the mountain terrain was strange. Without someone to lead the way, it was truly difficult to find this place.

Yet Chen Shi knew the way like the back of his hand. This was Ganyang Mountain. He and Grandpa had entered these mountains countless times. He would not dare claim to know every blade of grass, but he knew exactly where every tree stood.

Chen Shi jumped down from a rock and landed. The tops of his feet struck the mountain stone beneath them with a crisp sound.

The boy jumped in fright and hurriedly lifted his foot to inspect it. Only after finding that the stone had not chipped off his toes or broken the top of his foot did he relax.

After all, he was porcelain now—fragile as could be. One careless move, and he would be smashed to pieces.

He walked forward along the tomb path. As he moved, the trees and stone statues around him began to tremble as well!

The trees swayed, their branches twisting like flood dragons and giant pythons, thick and ferocious.

Stone dust cascaded from the statues' surfaces. The stone statues seemed to grow flesh and blood, while those towering divine beasts seemed to be coming back to life, gradually radiating savage auras!

Chen Shi pressed onward beneath the mounting pressure. His small body grew taller and larger, no longer porcelain as it gradually transformed into flesh and blood.

This True King's Tomb was actually shrouded within an even more powerful Ghost and God Domain!

This Ghost and God Domain suppressed the effects that the kiln's Ghost and God Domain had inflicted upon Chen Shi, restoring him from porcelain to his normal body!

Chen Shi continued forward. Heaven and earth around him began to twist, mountain ridges trembling like waves. One by one, the enormous divine beasts pulled their claws from the mountainside, radiating sky-soaring ferocity!

Chen Shi had already returned to normal, the side effects of the kiln's Ghost and God Domain completely removed, but he still gritted his teeth and walked forward.

A stone stele appeared before him. The writing on it blazed with life, glowing golden, and the words were barely legible.

As Chen Shi struggled to make out the writing, he took out the spiritual jerky he had obtained from Second Miss Zhao, the woman in purple, and stuffed it into his mouth to chew.

The spiritual jerky went down his throat, and boundless spiritual power instantly filled his limbs and bones. It stirred his true qi and formed a shrine behind his head!

Chen Shi felt his body fill with immense power. Clenching his teeth, he pushed onward against the growing pressure.

When he had read over half the contents on the stele, a voice suddenly rang out with a laugh. "Little fellow, if you go any farther, the Ghost and God Domain will be fully activated. Even if your Grandpa came in person, he would not be able to save you. Do not be greedy beyond measure. Go back."

The speaker was not human, but the nearest tomb-guarding beast to Chen Shi. It had a human body and ram horns, the horns straight, its nose enormous and taking up nearly half its face. Its smile looked fake, and its eyes gleamed with viciousness, sending chills down one's spine.

"I have had some karmic ties with your Grandpa. I do not wish to see you die here."

The ram-horned, human-bodied tomb-guarding beast smiled, while the other tomb-guarding beasts roared loudly enough to shake the heavens. Their powerful blood qi formed crimson clouds that stank of blood, as though they might pounce and tear Chen Shi apart at any moment!

"Besides, it is almost dark now."

The ram-horned, human-bodied tomb-guarding beast wore a gentle expression as it advised, "Darkness is dangerous. By then, even if you want to leave, you will not be able to."

Chen Shi bowed and said brightly, "Thank you, Ram-Horned Uncle!"

The ram-horned, human-bodied tomb-guarding beast smiled and waved. "Go on, go on!"

Chen Shi looked back reluctantly, unable to stop studying the stone stele as he left dejectedly.

Once he left that Ghost and God Domain, the medicinal power of the spiritual jerky was exhausted, and the shrine behind his head dispersed as well.

Chen Shi sighed, his expression somewhat dim.

He did not want to become a cripple.

He wanted to be like the other children—to study, to cultivate, to take the County Examination and Provincial Examination, to become a scholar or a juren.

He wanted Grandpa to be proud of him, rather than having Grandpa care for him for the rest of his life!

"It is almost dark!"

Chen Shi pulled himself together, raised his head to look at the sky, and his expression changed slightly. He hurriedly quickened his pace.

Two blazing suns hung high in the sky, one to the left and one to the right. Their scorching heat remained fierce, yet strangely, they were slowly becoming narrow and long, like a pair of eyes gradually closing their lids.

If one's eyesight were sharp enough, one could see an enormous face floating beyond the sky behind the two suns. The two suns were precisely that face's eyes.

At that moment, the eyes slowly closed. Endless firelight surged from beneath their lids, pouring into the upper atmosphere eighty li above the ground and forming a boundless sea of fire stretching for tens of thousands of li, brilliant as the evening glow!

Behind that face, there seemed vaguely to be an incomparably massive body sitting cross-legged, hidden in immense darkness.

This supreme being was the only true god of the Western Ox Continent!

The True God sat in the void, vast and boundless. When he opened his eyes, it was day; fire streamed from his pupils, illuminating nature.

When he closed his eyes, it was night. At such times, the vertical eye between his brows would slowly open, casting its dim light in every direction and seeing through everything beneath the night curtain.

As heaven and earth gradually darkened, strange and bizarre things would awaken beneath the moonlight. Going outside became extremely dangerous.

At such times, people outdoors needed to find a safe place to hide before dark, or their lives would be in danger.

The sky gradually turned redder and more vivid. This was the sign that "the sun was setting"!

True King's Tomb, Ghost and God Domain.

The ram-horned, human-bodied tomb-guarding beast raised its head and watched the increasingly red sky, narrowing its eyes as it wondered about something.

"Big Brother, why did you let that human boy go?" A massive tomb-guarding beast awoke and let out an angry growl.

It was over two zhang tall, wreathed in blazing flames. It resembled a lion, with a single horn on its head and wings on its back, exceptionally fierce and valiant.

The other tomb-guarding beasts also began speaking, venting their indignation.

Only after letting them vent did the ram-horned, human-bodied tomb-guarding beast sneer. "Do you think I did not want to crush him to death? That little thing causes trouble, then runs here time and again, borrowing the True King's might to shield himself from disaster. In the past, he would have died a thousand times over! But he has a formidable Grandpa."

It sighed, then changed the subject. "His Grandpa is truly formidable. It is not as though you have never seen him. Back then, he forced his way into the True King's Tomb. We trapped him for nine days and nine nights, yet what happened? He still took a scroll of burial scripture from the tomb and left at ease."

The other tomb-guarding beasts fell silent.

The ram-horned, human-bodied tomb-guarding beast looked puzzled. "What he took was the Water-Fire Tempering secret art, a method for cultivating into a Corpse-Liberated Immortal. I do not know what he wanted it for."

Someone said, "But that fellow should be old by now. He should be about to die, shouldn't he?"

The ram-horned, human-bodied tomb-guarding beast looked in the direction Chen Shi had left and said calmly, "Perhaps he is already dead. The last time I saw him from afar, he no longer looked like a living person. Did he take Water-Fire Tempering because he wanted to cultivate into a Corpse-Liberated Immortal?"

One tomb-guarding beast said, "That little fellow just now did not look human either. He had no human scent..."

Before it could finish, a strange force swept over them, and the tomb-guarding beasts all turned to stone against their will.

Meanwhile, Chen Shi rushed out of the forest and headed straight for Huangpo Village.

The two blazing suns in the sky gradually sank into darkness. The True God from Beyond the Heavens had already closed his eyes, and the flowing fire in the sky gradually went out.

Gradually, cold and beautiful moonlight shone from the True God's brow.

The moonlight was silver, spilling over the earth.

At the same time, mysterious forces throughout the Western Ox Continent rapidly revived beneath the moonlight. Every household shut its doors tight and hung Peachwood Talismans.

Strange sounds came from the mountains and forests, like the weeping of ghosts.

In the woods, an enormous head rose slowly like a shriveled balloon. Its facial features were twisted. The head was fully half a mu in size, slowly swelling as if inflated, its features becoming three-dimensional as it gazed at Chen Shi beneath the moonlight.

A peculiar smile appeared on that giant face as it drifted toward the boy.

Grandpa called such giant heads "evils."

Evils were not all giant heads. They were strange things that emerged at night, wandering everywhere before disappearing prior to sunrise.

To encounter one was to die.

They were profoundly sinister.

At the brink of life and death, Chen Shi swallowed the last piece of spiritual jerky and activated his cultivation art. Specks of starlight flowed toward him from the sky, gathering into a tiny shrine behind his head.

Divine power coiled within the shrine, greatly increasing his speed as Huangpo Village drew closer and closer!

The cultivation art he activated was not the method taught by the village school.

The village school cultivated the Heavenly Heart Righteous Qi Art. After Chen Shi's Divine Embryo had been cut out, he had also tried cultivating the Heavenly Heart Righteous Qi Art, only to discover that without the Divine Embryo, the true qi he cultivated became a tree without roots, constantly dissipating and impossible to retain.

The cultivation art he activated was the art inscribed upon the stone stele in the True King's Tomb, called Three Lights Righteous Qi!

The so-called Three Lights referred to sunlight, moonlight, and starlight.

"Gather the Sun, Moon, and Star Lights, cultivate one's own righteous qi," the stone stele said.

Among these Three Lights, sunlight and moonlight were the fiercest, while starlight was the faintest.

Yet Chen Shi had never been able to draw in sunlight or moonlight, and could only cultivate Starlight Righteous Qi.

Chen Shi had repeatedly gone to the True King's Tomb not only to use its power to break the effects of the kiln's Ghost and God Domain, but also to obtain the complete Three Lights Righteous Qi Art!

Though he had failed again this time, he had memorized most of the Three Lights Righteous Qi Art and could already activate this cultivation art smoothly!

"The cultivation art of the True King's Tomb truly is extraordinary, far beyond anything the village school's Heavenly Heart Righteous Qi Art can compare with!"

Chen Shi activated Starlight Righteous Qi. With one step, he crossed more than a zhang, moving with incredible speed as Huangpo Village came into view ahead.

The village had one or two hundred households. At its center stood an ancient tree that soared into the sky, lush and verdant, as enormous as a small mountain.

The villagers of Huangpo Village had built their homes around the ancient tree. The houses formed layer after layer of concentric circles, five layers in all.

Moonlight now spilled over the earth. The ancient tree's branches and leaves swayed as they absorbed the moonlight, its limbs dancing like spirit snakes in an enchanting display.

A tall figure stood at the village entrance, its face shrouded in darkness, seemingly awaiting Chen Shi's return.

"Grandpa!"

Joy surged through Chen Shi's heart, and he sped up. Yet when he reached the tall old man, he suddenly felt the air temperature around him plummet as a chill swept over him.

Then the spiritual power of the last piece of jerky ran out. The shrine behind his head began to sway precariously. Even activating Three Lights Righteous Qi could not stop the shrine from breaking apart.

In the end, the shrine collapsed, and his true qi scattered into nothingness.

Chen Shi felt his strength rapidly slipping away, and could not help feeling despondent.

Even the cultivation art of the True King's Tomb could not let him cultivate normally.

"It is time to go home and drink your medicine." Grandpa looked toward the drifting giant human head.

"I know."

Chen Shi raised his head, wanting to see Grandpa's face, but moonlight cast shadows across the old man's features, making them impossible to discern.

He had not clearly seen Grandpa's face for many days now.

Strangely, he could smell a faint stench around Grandpa. It was a peculiar smell, like the odor of meat, yet unlike the scent of spoiled meat Chen Shi usually smelled.

He wanted to find the source of the smell, but Grandpa also carried the scent of medicine, which diluted the stench considerably.

Grandpa and grandson walked into Huangpo Village. Along the way, whenever households saw them, they hurriedly pulled the children playing in the street back indoors and tightly shut their doors.

Chen Shi examined the houses on both sides. Every household had lit oil lamps, and the shadows of the homeowners fell across the window lattice. The people indoors were clearly peeking at them in secret.

"Good people do not live long, but that scourge has come back again," someone whispered in the darkness.

"Have they noticed that something is wrong with Grandpa too?"

Hearing the villagers' discussion, Chen Shi felt somewhat uneasy. They would not hurt Grandpa, would they?

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