As soon as Chen Shi said this, Blackie Pot, who was sitting in the wooden cart munching on a stead bun, jolted alert. He hurriedly stuffed the bun into his mouth and eyed Ying Rung warily.
A阴 wind quietly stirred around him, ready at any mont to co to Chen Shi's aid.
The wooden cart, looking utterly clueless, kept shoving food into its mouth, oblivious to the dire situation.
Ying Rung burst out laughing.
“Bun? Where’s a bun? There’s only hot, fluffy stead buns. Would you like one?”
Chen Shi stared into her eyes, as if trying to discern her true nature, but saw nothing there. He smiled and said, “I heard that the golden body Buddha of Gongzhou was hollowed out by mycelium, and the demon endangering Gongzhou has escaped.
I know that Zen Master Kuzhu and Brother Wuchen entered Gongzhou but never saw Uncle Ying.
I thought you might be that demon, so I was just testing you.
Please don’t take offense, Uncle Ying.”
Ying Rung gazed into his eyes, as if peering into his heart, but all she saw were demons far more powerful than herself.
After a mont, she chuckled. “Of course not.
As an ordained nun, I’m detached from all four elents—how could I get angry? I went to Gongzhou because I heard the news of Brother Kuzhu’s death and rushed there to handle his affairs.”
She raised her hand to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Her sleeve slipped down unwittingly, revealing a smooth, porcelain-white arm.
Chen Shi ignored the allure and fixed his gaze on the tavern entrance. “If you’re truly detached from the four elents, then once dead, one is dead. Why bother with funeral arrangents?”
Ying Rung’s chest rose slightly, her robes seeming to grow a bit thinner as a faint smile played on her lips. “The body is but a foul sack of skin, still mired in the mortal world, so it must be dealt with.”
Chen Shi glanced at the bustling tavern. “Read too much Buddhist scripture, and will a demon beco a Buddha?”
Ying Rung turned to him. Chen Shi laughed heartily.
“I was just testing you! Look how scared you got!”
Ying Rung giggled.
“What did your test reveal?”
Chen Shi shook his head. “Nothing at all.”
Blackie Pot heard a pop from the top of his head. He pawed at it and found a mushroom sprouting there, instantly on edge.
The wooden cart popped repeatedly, soon covered in little mushrooms.
Blackie Pot trembled in fear, praying his young master would stop testing.
Chen Shi asked,
“Does the Great Bao Guo Temple have female cultivators too?”
Seeing him unmoved by her charms, Ying Rung thought,
“His ntal fortitude is impressive...
Wait, could he be ignorant of matters between n and won? Then all my earlier efforts were wasted on a blind man?”
She smiled faintly. “Detached from the four elents, what distinction is there between man and woman?”
Chen Shi said earnestly,
“The body is a foul sack of skin, still in the mortal world, so naturally we must distinguish between n and won.”
Ying Rung stared into his eyes. She had used those very words against Chen Shi earlier, and now he threw them back at her!
Chen Shi t her gaze.
He stuffed food into the cart, while Blackie Pot anxiously watched it pluck mushrooms from itself.
Chen Shi suddenly burst into laughter. “I was just testing you again, Uncle Ying. No need to get worked up.”
Ying Rung’s earlier seriousness vanished as she giggled. “You really scared !”
Blackie Pot gritted his teeth, yanked the mushroom off his head, and shoved it into his mouth, glaring viciously at the two.
The wooden cart quietly sprouted arms, picked off its mushrooms, tasted them, found them decent, and harvested more to eat.
At that mont, Monk Wuchen hurried out of the tavern, laughing. “Uncle, Benefactor Chen, I begged another al! Let’s eat together!”
Chen Shi pulled a small round table from the cart and set it up under the street corner’s shade, then fetched a few stools. “Blackie Pot, co down and eat too.”
Blackie Pot shook his head like a rattle, his ears slapping against his face with sharp smacks.
Chen Shi didn’t press him. The three sat and ate the al Monk Wuchen had begged—plain vegetarian fare, but palatable enough.
Chen Shi said, “Monk, why are you still in Xinxiang instead of returning to the Great Bao Guo Temple?”
Monk Wuchen replied, “Uncle said I still harbor worldly attachnts and must temper myself more in the mortal world before my Buddhist arts and the Great Wheel Bright King Golden Light Mantra can advance further.”
Chen Shi glanced in surprise at Ying Rung. “Does Uncle Ying know the Buddhist arts and Great Wheel Bright King Golden Light Mantra too?”
Ying Rung smiled.
“After Brother Kuzhu’s death, my mastery of the Great Wheel Bright King Golden Light Mantra is unmatched in the world.”
Chen Shi raised an eyebrow. “I heard that demon in Gongzhou drained Zen Master Kuzhu’s golden body with its mycelium. Its golden body attainnt must rival yours, no?”
“Pfft!”
Monk Wuchen snorted rice from his nose and coughed violently, face flushed red.
Ying Rung t Chen Shi’s gaze with a half-smile.
Chen Shi ate on, then laughed. “Just kidding! Eat up, Uncle.”
Ying Rung ground her teeth but smiled. “Joke too much, and you might die. Last ti soone joked around and dropped dead mid-al.
Guess how?”
Chen Shi leaned in, eyes full of curiosity. “How?”
“Curiosity killed him!”
Ying Rung giggled. “Funny, right? Hahaha!”
Chen Shi laughed too, tears streaming from his eyes.
Monk Wuchen quickly changed the subject. “I stayed in Xinxiang also because I passed the provincial exam.
As a juren now, I can post my tablet anywhere and travel freely.
Benefactor Chen, on the results day, your na topped the list, above even the noble heirs.”
Chen Shi knew the monk was a social climber, impressed by his high rank, so he asked, “What are your plans now that you’re a juren, Monk?”
Monk Wuchen said, “Follow Uncle to wander the provinces, see the lands and peoples,
temper my resolve.”
He hesitated. He’d studied sutras diligently, not to live ascetically.
He’d planned to go to the capital and leverage the Great Bao Guo Temple’s na to befriend nobles for a good position, but Ying Rung mocked his worldliness and dragged him into a beggar-monk life on the road.
Unable to resist, he followed this demon in cultivation.
After the al, Monk Wuchen packed his begging bowl, pressed his palms together, and bowed to Chen Shi. “Benefactor Chen, Uncle and I must continue our journey. Farewell.”
Chen Shi returned the bow with a smile. “Will you take the capital exam for jinshi next year?”
Monk Wuchen said, “To advance in the temple as a lecturer, I’ll need to take it.
Farewell.”
Chen Shi nodded lightly and watched them leave. Once they were far off, his legs buckled, nearly collapsing him to the ground. He grabbed the cart to steady himself.
His body trembled, legs too shaky to stand. Ignoring the table and stools, he crawled into the cart and lay down, gasping for breath. Sweat poured from him like a flood.
The spark in Chen Shi’s eyes was gone, his gaze scattered—he was utterly terrified.
He’d been feigning calm all along, even bantering repeatedly with Ying Rung. Now the fear hit full force.
Blackie Pot watched without sympathy, a clear “you deserved it” look on his face.
After a long while, Chen Shi stopped shaking, exhaled heavily, and murmured,
“Read too much Buddhist scripture—can a demon really beco a Buddha? I don’t buy it.
What is this demon planning... Better not linger here. Blackie Pot, let’s go!”
Blackie Pot fetched the compass and drove the cart out of Fragrant River Town.
They’d planned to eat fragrant fish in town, but now scrapped that idea—
no telling when Ying Rung might sprout into a giant mushroom, turning the place into another demon realm.
Monk Wuchen and Ying Rung left Fragrant River Town, with Wuchen ahead. Suddenly, Ying Rung’s voice ca from behind. “Walk... walk slower...”
Monk Wuchen stopped and turned. Ying Rung leaned against a tree, legs shaking, unable to walk.
“Uncle still unfamiliar with a human body?”
Monk Wuchen hurried over. “Uncle could reveal your true form and hop along.”
“No.”
Ying Rung shook her head, eyes full of fear. “I thought I’d shaken him off, but he tracked down! He’s here to capture , seal away. Good thing I was clever and played it off without slipping.”
Monk Wuchen was stunned. Why did Uncle see Chen Shi as so terrifying?
He couldn’t fathom the horrors Ying Rung had glimpsed, so he couldn’t share her dread.
Ying Rung rested a mont, then recovered. “Let’s leave now and never cross paths with him again!”
Monk Wuchen assented, thinking, “Uncle wants to temper my heart, but she needs it more to face Chen Shi without fear.”
Just then, cart wheels sounded behind them. They turned—Ying Rung paled instantly and whispered,
“He won’t let go! Should I fight him?”
Chen Shi, in his cart, spotted them too and went ashen. “This demon’s waiting for ! Fine, thinks it’s got cornered, huh?”
Ying Rung’s eyes flashed murderously, steeling for the kill.
Chen Shi manifested the little shrine behind his head, ready to seal the demon inside without a word!
They drew closer. Then a woman’s laughter rang in Chen Shi’s ears. “What a long, sound sleep! Superior Envoy, I overexerted myself and grew exhausted, sleeping so long—not intentional neglect.
Did Her Ladyship send you to rescue ? Oh, there’s a demon here!”
“Lady Shiji?”
Chen Shi’s heart leaped with joy, relief flooding him. “Lady, you’re awake? To be honest, my godmother sent to rescue you!”
He recalled the stone boat: he’d stored Lady Shiji in the little shrine, and she’d hailed him as Superior Envoy. Since Godmother gave him the shrine, he borrowed her na.
“Godmother?”
In the main shrine of the little temple behind his head, Lady Shiji regarded Chen Shi with deep respect.
Others might not know his godmother’s origins, but she did—perfectly.
She was the foremost goddess of Huaxia, origins ancient beyond asure, divine power boundless, ruling all above and below ground.
Though Lady Shiji was a goddess too, she was earthly; compared to that lady, one was heaven, the other earth—subordinate.
“Her Ladyship took him as her foster son! No wonder he’s the Superior Envoy!”
Lady Shiji said joyfully, “Her Ladyship sent the Superior Envoy to rescue —does she an to remake my true body?”
Desperate to survive, Chen Shi played along. “Exactly.
She said you suffered injustice, hard by villains, and endured much after reaching West Ox New Continent, so she insisted I remake your true body.”
Before he finished, Lady Shiji sobbed bitterly.
Chen Shi froze, wondering, “Did she truly suffer in Huaxia Divine Continent?”
Lady Shiji cried a bit, then composed herself, choking back tears.
“The Superior Envoy mocks . I did suffer—bullied by a master-disciple pair without cause, my true body shattered.
No place for in the Divine Continent, my broken form used as building stones. I barely saved my head.
So I sailed the Dark Sea to this new continent, hoping to restore my lineage and remake my body.
But the True King found and imprisoned for thousands of years.”
She nearly cried again.
Chen Shi cut in. “Lady, how do you compare to this demon?”
Lady Shiji quelled her grief, looked from the shrine at Ying Rung, and said calmly, “Before the Superior Envoy, I am your servant; before her, I am the palace itself.”
Chen Shi’s courage surged. He ordered Blackie Pot to halt, laughing heartily. “We et again! Who’d have thought here of all places.
Since fate keeps throwing us together, allow to see Uncle Ying on her way!”
Lady Shiji said, “But my divine power was borrowed ten years ago by so old coot to suppress a fellow called Creation Little Five. What remains is scant—against this little demon, I may not prevail.”
Chen Shi’s heart sank; he wanted to retract his words, but they’d spilled out too fast.
Ying Rung sensed unfathomable divine power from the little shrine behind his head and tensed. “He’s striking first! Fine, mutual destruction it is!”
She prepared to attack!
Lady Shiji said,
“Superior Envoy, allow this impertinence!”
Suddenly, Chen Shi’s vision blurred. His awareness was in the shrine, while Lady Shiji occupied his body.
“This little shrine is fine in every way but can’t contain true experts!”
Chen Shi sighed inwardly. Creation Little Five, Qianyang Mountain Lord, and Lady Shiji could all co and go freely—imprisonnt impossible.
They could even possess his body at will, using it as a vessel!
“Girl!”
Chen Shi’s body erupted with terrifying demonic energy laced with immortal aura. In a chilling voice, it said, “Dare you defy your superior and strike at this palace?”
“A demon immortal!” Ying Rung shuddered, bowing gracefully.
“Predecessor, this junior dares not.”
Chen Shi’s body flicked its sleeve. “If you dare not, why stir murderous intent?”
Sweat beaded on Ying Rung’s forehead under the demon immortal’s crushing pressure.
“Considering it your first offense, you’re spared this once! Next ti you show disrespect, no rcy!”
Lady Shiji delivered the line, then returned to the shrine. Chen Shi regained his body and laughed. “Superior Envoy, I’ve scolded her. She won’t dare act rashly now.”
Chen Shi’s mind reeled. “Demon Lady Shiji too—a demon! And I promised a demon to remake her true body...”
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