Chapter 499: Unparalleled Insight
He felt genuinely pleased, unable to hide his excitement.
The people of the Great Shang each had specific divine duties: those responsible for farming were farmers for generations, their bloodlines stamped with the shamanic ritual markings of agricultural officers; those in charge of fishing were fishermen for generations, their bloodlines stamped with the fishermen’s shamanic ritual markings.
Those who oversaw life and death were the Life Officers, those who controlled rain were the Rain Masters, those who governed flame were Zhurong, and those who managed rivers were Gonggong.
People’s roles were decided before they were even born and could not be changed.
“All the villagers in this settlement should share the same divine duty. They possess the same bloodline, which means their shamanic ritual markings are identical.”
Chen Shi’s eyes flashed. “The Celestial Venerable’s Primordial Spirit disintegrated and, before his soul was completely lost, he possessed one of the Shang commoners. That means the shamanic ritual markings in the Celestial Venerable’s bloodline match the markings in this corpse’s bloodline.”
He exhaled deeply.
The Celestial Venerable’s cultivation and strength were unfathomable. Having ruled Despair Slope for so many years, he had likely practiced every immortal technique the slope contained. His immortal arts and divine powers probably had no flaws. Even if there were flaws, they were far beyond Chen Shi’s ability to crack.
Effectively, there were no flaws at all.
But now, Chen Shi had found a fatal flaw.
He could not break the Celestial Venerable’s Dao techniques or divine powers, but he could break the shamanic ritual markings within his bloodline.
Those ritual markings had to have a weak point!
An invincible Celestial Venerable might very well die because of this single weakness!
These past days, Chen Shi’s outer body had stayed in the Heavenly Pool Kingdom, helping various tribes decipher the cultivation methods left by their ancestors and organizing their shamanic ritual markings. His understanding of those markings had deepened greatly. Finding a way to crack the Celestial Venerable’s physical body from the ritual markings on this corpse would be far from difficult!
Chen Shi reverently placed the corpse into his little temple. Previously the shrine had housed a deity statue, but now it held a corpse.
“The shamanic ritual markings on the corpse are the same ones collected by the temple official Jin Zhengru. In other words, the Celestial Venerable’s physical body belonged to a descendant of someone Jin Zhengru collected. Jin Zheng’s method is the Autumn Officer’s Heavenly Punishment Art. To crack this technique most quickly, we must find Little Duan Immortal and have her work with me.”
Chen Shi pondered. “There’s another matter that must be dealt with quickly. Black Pot is now the ruler of this demonic domain, so Tianqing coming here won’t be in danger.”
He scanned the surroundings. The demonic miasma and Yin energy in this domain skewed seventy-three to twenty-seven; he would need Li Tianqing’s vision to pinpoint the underlying problems.
Chen Shi immediately returned to the mortal world, came back to Huangpo Village, raised the Celestial Court token and entered the Minor Heaven, but Li Tianqing wasn’t there.
He went to Qingzhou and saw the townspeople of Qingzhou holding a festival to welcome the God of Wealth. They carried deity statues of Lord Guan the Sage Emperor, Zhao the God of Wealth, Bi Gan the God of Wealth, the Salary God, and Fan the God of Wealth, beating drums and gongs, praying for abundant harvests, overflowing fortunes, steady promotions, and daily gains in gold.
Chen Shi saw Lord Guan’s thousand-zhang Primordial Spirit towering above Qingzhou, eyes closed while stroking his beard, holding a blade reversed in his other hand.
In front of Lord Guan stood Li Tianqing, breathing steadily, tempering his Primordial Spirit.
He had already entered the Refining Spirit Realm, but only at its initial stage. He had likely been busy in the Minor Heaven these days, which delayed his cultivation progress; thus he returned to Qingzhou to focus on his training.
Li Tianqing was one year older than Chen Shi; now eighteen, he had matured considerably after the catastrophe. He had an elegant bearing, calm composure, and a Dao heart that was steady, giving the impression of unshakable confidence.
He was handsome in a refined way, with slightly thick brows. Where his brow curved there was a stray, upward-sweeping hair that formed a crossed pattern like the character for ‘obstruct’—a distinctive mark.
His breath was long and measured, and a sun-and-moon aura circled and refined him. In the path of Yin and Yang, his attainments rivaled those of figures like Chen Yindu, progressing at tremendous speed.
Chen Shi waited quietly until Li Tianqing awoke and noticed him, then smiled and approached.
Li Tianqing descended from the air and chuckled, “Little Ten, what brings you here?”
Chen Shi grinned, “I came to ask for your discerning eye, to help me make an assessment.”
Li Tianqing was astonished. “There’s something you can’t see through? If you can’t, then I probably can’t either.”
Chen Shi laughed, “If you humbly claim that on this point, that would be false modesty.”
Li Tianqing smiled, “When it comes to observation, King Chen truly isn’t as good as I am.”
Chen Shi burst into loud laughter and extended his hand in invitation.
A few days later the two of them entered the demonic domain.
Li Tianqing surveyed the area, nodded slightly and said, “Indeed, the demonic miasma has replaced the Yin energy at a ratio of seventy-three to twenty-seven. I need to walk around a bit.”
Chen Shi accompanied him. A few Huo Dogs lurked nearby to protect them in the shadows.
Li Tianqing glanced at those Huo Dogs in surprise.
He walked through the demonic domain in fits and starts, always pausing to examine something. Chen Shi tried to see what he was observing, but detected nothing unusual.
Li Tianqing’s stopping points numbered in the hundreds. At each point he would take out a seed shaped like a bean, plant it in the soil, and not water it.
Chen Shi followed him, and after more than ten days they had nearly traversed the entire demonic domain. Li Tianqing returned to the starting point and retrieved the germinated beans one by one.
All the sprouts were gathered together, varying in length.
“These beans are a kind of pod bean from the underworld,” Li Tianqing explained as he produced one sprout for Chen Shi. “They feed on the Yin energy of the underworld.”
He continued, “The ratio of Yin energy to demonic miasma within a bean is always the same as the ratio of Yin to demonic miasma in that place. Elsewhere the ratio is seventy-three to twenty-seven.”
He extracted the demonic miasma and the evil energy from the bean and it immediately withered into ash.
Li Tianqing supported a clump of demonic miasma in one hand and a clump of evil energy in the other. “Here, the Yin energy has been replaced by demonic miasma. Using the pod beans to test the demonic miasma to evil energy ratio in the demonic domain yields sixty-six to thirty-four. The sampling points are where the Celestial Venerable’s Primordial Spirit exploded and the spirit fragments scattered. Those spots are where demonic miasma and Yin energy clash most violently, and where they begin to mingle first, so measurements taken there are most accurate.”
Chen Shi smiled, “Sixty-six to thirty-four. That means the Celestial Venerable’s Primordial Spirit contained demonic miasma as well as some evil energy. It seems the flesh that devours sun and moon was part of the Celestial Venerable.”
Li Tianqing shook his head. “Wrong.”
Chen Shi was slightly taken aback. “Wrong how?”
Li Tianqing looked toward a demonic dog Huo Dog in the distance. “Wrong because those Huo Dogs know how to cultivate. They are immensely powerful and absorb the demonic miasma in the domain, making themselves stronger while unknowingly lowering the domain’s demonic miasma. Besides them there are other demonic creatures here. I observed them all and roughly calculated their numbers. Based on the evil energy proportions inside them, I can deduce that the actual demonic miasma to evil energy ratio in the domain is seventy-three to twenty-seven.”
Chen Shi was shaken to his core. “You mean to say…”
Li Tianqing said, “The Celestial Venerable and the flesh that devours sun and moon are not the same thing.”
Chen Shi steadied himself and thought, “If the Celestial Venerable is not the devouring flesh, then who is he? He can mobilize that flesh to slaughter all the Great Shang Celestial Court’s deities. He can use that flesh to hunt me, Yang Bi, Er Niu and the others. He can bind the flesh to corpses, killing the Celestial Way Immortals on Despair Slope.”
He furrowed his brow. What exactly was the relationship between the Celestial Venerable and the flesh that devoured sun and moon?
The Celestial Venerable controlled Despair Slope and had ravaged the Western Ox New Continent—what benefit did that bring him?
After seeing Li Tianqing off, Chen Shi remained lost in thought without an answer.
Black Pot had already become the lord of the demonic domain and stayed there to cultivate. Chen Shi, carrying many unresolved questions, returned to Huangpo Village.
Little Duan Immortal and Wu Qingyu were not at home. Chen Shi asked Chen Tang, who replied, “Mother and she went to Empress of Earth’s palace to keep Her Ladyship company and chat to pass the time.”
Chen Shi was surprised. He thought, Little Duan seldom speaks much—why would she go to Her Ladyship’s palace to chat?
He went to the Yellow Earth Slope. Reaching its height, he saw the tall ridge rise into the clouds, half in the underworld and half in the mortal realm, magnificent and imposing. Radiant light drifted around like butterfly wings. The gods had built Empress of Earth a Hall of Vast Virtues behind the temple.
Chen Shi entered the palace and immediately heard Little Duan Immortal’s clear, tinkling laughter.
He looked and saw his mother, Little Duan Immortal, and Empress of Earth chatting and laughing. Surprisingly, Little Duan spoke the most, constantly teasing his mother and the Empress until they laughed uproariously.
“Has Little Duan come out?” Chen Shi blinked.
Empress of Earth smiled, “Little Ten is here.”
Chen Shi stepped forward and bowed, smiling, “Your Ladyship, have you been comfortable these days?”
Empress of Earth chuckled, “Comfortable or not, divine duties cannot be neglected. However, in the present Western Ox New Continent, people know only the Celestial True God and do not recognize Empress of Earth. The order of the underworld is chaotic and not yet established. Underworld ghost gods occasionally invade the mortal world, and mortal experts sometimes sneak into the underworld to refine souls into treasures. This world remains in turmoil.”
She stared at Chen Shi intently. “When will the True King be able to unify the Western Ox New Continent and bring order to the Yin and Yang realms?”
Her words were laden with meaning.
Without sufficient faith her strength would remain stagnant at its present level—perhaps even lower than during the True King’s era.
Only when Chen Shi unified the Western Ox New Continent, eliminated the influence of the Twelve Great Clans in both Yin and Yang realms, and, in his capacity as True King, had the underworld ghosts, mortals, and deities worship Empress of Earth, could her cultivation grow dramatically.
She still could not surpass the Celestial Venerable, but at least she would have a fighting chance.
Chen Shi smiled, “Sharpening the axe takes no time away from chopping wood. Godmother, rest assured. Unifying the Western Ox New Continent is no great feat.”
Empress of Earth beamed, “Then I can rest assured.”
Chen Shi recounted Li Tianqing’s findings. “According to Li Tianqing’s deduction, the Celestial Venerable and the flesh that devours sun and moon are not the same being. Has the Empress ever heard of anything like this in the Earth Immortal Realm or other worlds?”
Empress of Earth thought carefully and shook her head, “I have not.”
Chen Shi found it hard to believe. “The devouring that swallowed the sun and moon and left no stars over the Western Ox New Continent—surely the Earth Immortal Realm would know of such a vast event?”
Empress of Earth shook her head. “The Earth Immortal Realm has no information on this matter. The Western Ox New Continent is remote and a place of exile; who would pay attention to it? If the previous True King hadn’t requested one of my statues from the Divine Continent, I wouldn’t have come to a place like this either.”
She said that traveling from the Earth Immortal Realm even with a partial manifestation was arduous, costing more power than the manifestation yielded—hardly worth the exchange.
Yet for the sake of these people, even at a loss, she still sent a manifestation.
“But the devouring of sun and moon is indeed a major matter.”
Empress of Earth’s eyes flickered. “If the flesh isn’t the Celestial Venerable, then its owner is someone else. It’s possible this person is preparing for a catastrophe. The Western Ox New Continent very likely isn’t the first world he destroyed.”