Azure Ghost Claw

Chen Shi had noticed Grandpa's abnormality too. He smelled bad, and like the Scholar Ghost at the village entrance, he loved sniffing the scent of incense offerings.

Moreover, Chen Shi had not seen Grandpa eat these past few days. He had only seen him secretly eating candles, one after another, like carrots!

He even suspected that the chickens and ducks that had died for no apparent reason had very likely been secretly bitten to death and drained dry by Grandpa!

But to Chen Shi, no matter what Grandpa became, he was still his closest family.

"Black Pot, take him to drink his medicine," Grandpa said flatly.

Outside the Chen family courtyard, a large black dog wagged its tail obediently. It opened its mouth, caught Chen Shi's sleeve between its teeth, and tugged him home.

Behind them, that giant human head floated over.

The ancient tree at the center of the village stirred without wind. A branch lashed out like a long whip, striking the giant head with a crack and batting it away.

Waves of pungent medicinal scent drifted through the air. After drinking a basin of medicine, Chen Shi sat in the medicine vat with his belly swollen round.

That basin of medicine was his dinner.

A fire burned beneath the medicine vat. A large black dog sat before it. Though it was a dog, it had kindly features. When it saw the fire dwindling, it picked up a log in its mouth and shoved it into the flames.

The medicine vat bubbled away. Chen Shi grimaced from the scalding heat and shouted, "Black Pot, stop burning it! Keep going and I'll be cooked!"

Black Pot was the large black dog's name.

As the name implied, whenever the grandfather and grandson did something wrong, they often made this dog take the blame.

Black Pot had been picked up by Grandpa and raised on the family's leftovers. It could understand human speech, was remarkably intelligent, and had a kind heart. Hearing this, it added several more sticks beneath the vat.

The black dog blinked, seemingly eager to find out whether Chen Shi could really be cooked.

Chen Shi cried out about the heat for a while, then gradually fell silent.

He seemed to have gotten used to this temperature.

The boy sat comfortably in the medicine vat, leaning against its rim. He raised a hand to touch the back of his head and felt that long scar.

He had little memory of the injury on the back of his head.

He remembered many things no longer. He did not remember his parents, did not remember whether he had gone to school before, and did not remember someone prying open his skull.

When he had awakened back then, his head had felt as though it were splitting apart. All around him had been darkness and cold. From within the darkness came bursts of strange, heavy, ancient voices, as though they came from beyond the heavens, guiding him onward.

He followed the voices' guidance, walking for an unknown length of time until he saw a thread of light.

When he stepped into that light, the darkness around him receded like a tide, and everything gradually brightened.

Once he had adjusted to the light, he discovered that he was sitting in a great medicine vat. Steam bubbled from it, the medicinal smell was pungent, and beside the vat stood a tall, burly old man with white hair. At his feet was a black dog feeding wood into the fire.

When the white-haired old man saw him awaken, he hugged him tightly in excitement.

Later, Chen Shi learned that this old man was his Grandpa. He had been unconscious for a very long time, and Grandpa had never abandoned him, using all kinds of spiritual medicines to treat his illness and prolong his life.

Chen Shi remembered nothing from before he was nine years old. His memories began only when he awakened, so strictly speaking, he was merely a two-year-old child.

"So I became like this because someone dug out my Divine Embryo."

Remembering the conversation he had overheard between the woman in purple and the others, Chen Shi silently thought, I wasn't born a cripple. I can cultivate too. I can become a favored child of the gods, a proud son of heaven! Li Xiaoding, son of Magistrate Li of Shuinui County... What grudge, what enmity was there between us?

A bellyful of fury surged through his chest. For the past two years, he had kept company with the medicine vat, entering that great vat every day to be boiled for a time. The medicines in it changed frequently, filled with all kinds of herbs whose names he did not know, even venomous snakes, scorpions, and the like!

Chen Shi had only known that his body was ill, but he had never known what illness he actually suffered from!

Now he finally knew. The hardship he had endured over these years had all originated from this—from the noble Young Master Li Xiaoding!

"But..."

Chen Shi was deeply puzzled. "The back of my head has already healed, so why does Grandpa still make me soak in the medicine vat every day?"

At that moment, the temperature in the air dropped again. Even the flames beneath the medicine vat shrank considerably. They had originally been bright yellow, but now they turned an oily green.

Grandpa had entered the room.

Chen Shi secretly glanced over and saw Grandpa standing in the shadowed corner by the wall. His face could not be seen, and Chen Shi did not know what he was doing there. Yet he always felt that Grandpa was watching him. Sometimes his gaze was gentle; other times, it brimmed with killing intent.

Chen Shi had once seen such killing intent in a badly wounded leopard.

At the time, he had planned to approach the leopard and bandage its wounds, but the leopard's eyes had sent chills through him. It was the killing intent emitted by a beast facing the threat of death!

After a while, Grandpa walked back out. The fire grew vigorous once more, and the air gradually warmed.

Chen Shi secretly let out a breath of relief.

The black dog also let out a long breath. Thoughtfully, it added several sticks to the fire, though it trembled slightly as it carried the wood in its mouth. Clearly, Gouzi had felt the killing intent coming from Grandpa as well.

Both boy and dog had noticed that although Grandpa was still Grandpa, he was no longer the same person he had been before.

The old Grandpa had a human air about him.

The current Grandpa did not.

The medicinal broth in the vat gradually became clear. Chen Shi felt a strange current seeping out from the liquid and drilling into his skin, like countless tiny bugs crawling through his pores, beneath his skin, into his flesh, into his organs, into his bones. The discomfort was indescribable.

Though he was clearly soaking in water, he felt as if he were inside a raging inferno. From the inside out, his entire body was continuously scorched and refined by blazing flames!

Though Chen Shi had long grown accustomed to this pain, his body still could not help trembling faintly.

When the medicinal power was exhausted and the broth became as clear as water, Chen Shi finally stood up from the vat.

On the left side of his chest was an azure claw mark. Its five fingers were splayed wide, as if an invisible ghost hand were clutching his heart. After undergoing Water-Fire Tempering in the medicine vat, the Azure Ghost Hand mark had faded considerably.

Ever since Chen Shi could remember, this Azure Ghost Hand mark had been there. Even now, it had never vanished.

The Azure Ghost Hand mark was exceedingly strange. It would fade after a medicinal bath, only to become clear again after some time.

Chen Shi changed into his clothes and entered the courtyard.

Grandpa's voice came from the neighboring room. "...A Tang, when are you coming back... I know you're busy, but no matter how busy you are, you should come home, shouldn't you... I'm old. I don't have much time left. Little Ten is still young and needs someone to care for him. Take him into the city with you... I know life in the city is hard, but he is your son after all. Even if you refuse to acknowledge him, he is still your son..."

Chen Shi stood silently in the courtyard without moving.

Grandpa was also a cultivator. Chen Shi did not know Grandpa's cultivation realm; he only knew that whenever he followed him into the mountains, they had never encountered danger.

At this moment, Grandpa should have been inside, using a Thousand Mile Sound Talisman to contact Chen Shi's father, Chen Tang.

Chen Shi had never met his father, Chen Tang.

Not once.

Perhaps he had met him before someone took his Divine Embryo, but since awakening, his father had never returned even once.

He had never met Mother either.

Not once.

Chen Shi cast aside his stray thoughts and silently circulated the Three Lights Righteous Qi Art. Starlight descended continuously from the sky, nourishing his body and strengthening his true qi.

Yet before long, the true qi dissipated again. Not a trace remained within him.

He persisted, cultivating on his own.

Late at night, he finished cultivating and returned to his room to lie down.

Not long after, Grandpa came to Chen Shi's bedside as though sleepwalking, silent and soundless. He stood there without taking another step, his shadow covering Chen Shi's face.

His body sometimes leaned forward and sometimes tilted back, but he made no sound.

That bone-piercing killing intent spread through the tiny room once again.

Silent.

Yet suffocating.

After an unknown amount of time, Chen Shi's window suddenly moved without wind. It creaked as it swung open by itself. Grandpa straightened up and flew out through the window.

"Watching made me hungry..."

A dreamlike murmur came from his mouth. His body suddenly sprang up and vanished from the courtyard.

Black Pot raised its head alertly and looked around. Then it tucked its head back down and continued sleeping.

Inside the room, Chen Shi quietly opened his eyes as well and secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Grandpa must be sick. He doesn't want to kill me, he silently told himself.

Just then, a wrenching pain erupted in his chest. The violent agony instantly curled his body up like a boiled shrimp. His skin turned red, and veins bulged one after another!

He bit down hard on the blanket, his body trembling. The pain was so intense that he could not make a sound or breathe. Soon, sweat the size of beans covered his entire body!

Chen Shi's body shook uncontrollably. Looking down, he saw the Azure Ghost Claw making a gripping motion around his heart, squeezing tighter and tighter!

Chen Shi's heart clenched. This was not the first time it had happened.

Every few days, he would suffer similar agony. Time and again, the pain had made him faint. In those unconscious dreams, he had even seen countless enormous, towering, terrifying black shadows surrounding him, stretching out black, scale-covered palms toward him.

Whenever the ghost claw had acted up before, Grandpa had saved him and pulled him back from Ghost Gate Pass. But now, Grandpa was gone!

Chen Shi forced himself to struggle upright. His legs gave way, and he rolled off the bed, so weak from pain that he had no strength left.

He suddenly clenched his teeth and struggled to his feet. His feet performed Yu Steps, treading the pattern of the Big Dipper Seven Stars. The thumbs and little fingers of his hands pinched together, his right hand inserted into his left. Within the tiny, shabby room, he performed the Heavenly Dipper-Stepping Rite and silently recited the Three Lights Righteous Qi Art.

"Imperial Heaven was born in the beginning; only gods were supreme. Evil and chaos swarmed everywhere. No True God could be seen; only ghosts brought disorder to mankind! Observe The Way of Heaven, seize Heaven's course, cultivate Dipper-fiery righteous qi, refine the Sacred Embryo Dharma Body!"

He activated the art. Specks of starlight, like fireflies in the night, flew in through the open window, landing on the surface of his skin and seeping into his flesh and blood.

As the Three Lights Righteous Qi Art circulated, he felt the pain gradually lessen until it became bearable.

Chen Shi continued circulating the Three Lights Righteous Qi Art. The pain grew weaker and weaker, and the azure joints of the ghost hand clutching his heart gradually relaxed, no longer gripping it so tightly.

"What exactly is this ghost claw on my chest? Why do I have this ghost hand on my body?"

After a long while, the searing pain vanished. Still shaken, Chen Shi looked out the window. The moonlight was silver-white, casting mottled shadows across the courtyard.

"The Three Lights Righteous Qi Art can suppress the pain. If this art can draw down moonlight and sunlight to refine Sun-Moon Righteous Qi, perhaps the pain of the ghost claw clutching my heart will never come again. Unfortunately, every time I activate it, I cannot draw down sunlight or moonlight."

Suddenly, a thought arose in the boy's heart, bringing many new doubts with it. "The sun is clearly the pair of eyes of the one and only True God from Beyond the Heavens, while the moon is clearly His vertical eye. So why are there sayings like the sun rises, the sun sets, and the moon waxes and wanes? How strange. Could it be, could it be..."

A bold idea abruptly sprang into his mind. "Could there be other suns and moons? Is the Three Lights Righteous Qi actually gathering other moonlight and sunlight?"

He poked his head out the window and curiously looked toward the moon beyond the heavens, radiant and filled with mystery.

That was the vertical eye of the True God from Beyond the Heavens.

"But if such suns and moons truly exist, why can't they be seen in the sky?"

Chen Shi lay on his bed with curiosity in his heart, countless fancies arising in his mind.

In the sky, the divine eye hung like the moon, watching over all living beings.

Above the mountain forest, that inflated-looking human head was struck by a cold flash of light. It plummeted heavily and smashed into the mountains.

Before long, a tall figure arrived beside it and began gnawing on flesh and blood.

"Delicious, delicious! Evil tastes even better than people!"

----Thank you, boss Zhai Cai, for the massive golden reward! Thanks to A Alliance and Zhuo Yao, the two great silver alliance leaders, for supporting the new book!

Tomorrow's update will be around 11 a.m.!