Chapter 29: The Sunshine of the Mountain Lord’s Temple
Chen Shi gazed in awe at the immense black serpent, its posture like a living sculpture, radiating an air of tranquility and reverence.
"This serpent’s state of mind surpasses that of any mortal," he thought, "reaching a level even the greatest cultivators would struggle to attain."
Madam Sha led him deeper into the Qianyang Mountains.
"Madam, you mentioned that Qianyang Mountain has its own spirit. If that’s true, how big would it be? What might it look like?" Chen Shi asked.
After some thought, Madam Sha shook her head. "Perhaps there is one, but I’ve never seen it."
As they crossed a ravine, a spirit of the mountain stream appeared—a radiant, graceful maiden who greeted them cheerfully. Madam Sha gifted her a comb, and the delighted maiden slowed the flow of the stream as a gesture of thanks.
Further along, they entered a forest teeming with ancient herbs. Tiny children, no taller than a foot, with cherubic faces and bare bodies, darted among the trees. At the sight of the visitors, they hid behind trunks, peeking out with curiosity.
Madam Sha opened her basket, pulled out a handful of candies, and scattered them. The children squealed with delight, gathering around with pudgy little hands outstretched for sweets.
"This is the mountain," Chen Shi thought.
Unlike the eerie and ominous domains of ghosts and gods near Huangpo Village, this side of Qianyang Mountain revealed a vibrant and harmonious world of spirits. "The mountain is beautiful and vast—it fills me with awe and wonder," Chen Shi mused. "To hold such majesty in one’s heart, one must first embrace its immensity."
Eventually, they arrived at their destination: an ancient, weathered temple.
The temple gate was half-collapsed, with broken bricks and scattered rubble surrounding it. Chen Shi brushed away the dirt from a fallen lintel and managed to make out the characters for Mountain Lord.
"This is… the Mountain Lord’s Temple!"
The temple consisted of a main hall and two side halls, the latter reduced to ruins. The main hall, though battered, still stood strong.
Towering trees enveloped the temple courtyard, their dense canopies blocking all sunlight. Despite the lack of sunlight, the air was warm and welcoming rather than cold and foreboding.
In the courtyard stood a large incense burner, rectangular like a great cauldron, its three legs weathered down to two. Filled with ash, it hinted at the temple’s once-thriving worship.
As Chen Shi stepped closer, he felt a faint, indescribable energy emanating from the incense burner—fleeting and elusive.
"An extraordinary power!" he realized.
This was the essence of incense offerings, the energy that nourished divine spirits and granted them miraculous abilities. Strangely, in this temple, the power lingered in a diffuse state rather than coalescing.
"It must have been preserved by the incense burner itself," Chen Shi speculated, noticing how the energy resisted dispersal.
Madam Sha lit three sticks of incense and placed them in the burner, their smoke quickly blending into the ambient energy.
"The incense energy here is overwhelming," she remarked, glancing around in amazement.
Chen Shi entered the main hall, where the energy felt even denser. Unlike the ruined temple he had encountered earlier, this hall teemed with vitality.
The hall’s columns were wrapped with carved stone dragons, and traces of guardian deities adorned the doorframes, though time had rendered them faint.
The roof was tiled with green ceramics, depicting myths whose stories had long since faded. In the front hall, a red-gold beam adorned with gilded dragons spanned across the ceiling.
In the main hall, the roof glittered with golden tiles. At its center was a coffered ceiling painted with eight trigrams, bordered by swirling clouds. Opposite it stood a grand shrine, two to three zhang tall, empty but still imposing.
"Such potent energy… The Mountain Lord who once resided here must have been incredibly powerful. Why did this place fall into ruin?" Chen Shi wondered aloud.
Madam Sha replied, "This temple, and perhaps even this mountain, weren’t always here. They appeared overnight during a great earthquake in Qianyang. The next day, a new peak had risen, and the temple stood atop it.
"I was too busy helping villagers recover to investigate immediately. Later, I visited but found nothing unusual."
Chen Shi was intrigued. "The Mountain Lord’s Temple emerged suddenly from the earth, just like the ruined temple I encountered before…"
He stepped outside and looked up. The towering trees seemed intentionally positioned to shield the temple from sunlight, just as the temple itself seemed to shy away from divine scrutiny.
"Madam, can I cultivate here?"
Chen Shi activated the Three Radiance Righteous Qi Method, drawing in starlight, sunlight, and moonlight. Even through the dense canopy, energy from another realm flowed freely.
"It works!" he exclaimed.
Madam Sha smiled in relief. "Good. After yesterday’s ordeal, I couldn’t bear to let you down."
As Chen Shi began tidying the hall while cultivating, she nodded approvingly. "I’ll leave you to it. I’ll bring lunch later."
Chen Shi tried to dissuade her, but she had already left.
By midday, Chen Shi had cleaned the main hall thoroughly. True to her word, Madam Sha returned with a hot meal—three dishes and a soup, far better than Grandpa’s cooking.
In the following days, Chen Shi dedicated himself to repairing the temple, patching walls, reinforcing beams, and clearing rubble. The forest children brought him bricks, the stream maiden fetched water to wash the floors, and even the enormous black serpent patrolled at night, guarding against intruding evils.
While cleaning the courtyard’s pool, Chen Shi found an enormous turtle shell, its surface as hard as steel and shimmering with faint light when struck.
"This could fetch a good price," he thought, setting it aside as a potential retirement fund for Grandpa.
In the rubble of the collapsed halls, he discovered a sealed stone box, impervious to all attempts at opening.
"Who knows what’s inside? It might be treasure, or just a prank to fool someone like me," he muttered, leaving it for later.
Finally, the temple was ready. Incense burned steadily, its fragrant smoke mingling with the ambient energy, which grew livelier with each offering.
One day, as Chen Shi meditated, he slipped into a trance. When he emerged, his body felt transformed—his organs as resilient as steel, his blood thick and potent, flowing like mercury.
"This is the sign of changing blood—the first step toward cultivating a Sacred Embryo!"
Overwhelmed by the temple’s blessings, he opened his eyes to find the hall bathed in radiant light. Golden yet soft, it seemed to belong to another world entirely.
Tracing the light to its source, he saw the sun of another realm rising gently above a foreign horizon.
"This is… a gateway to another world," he realized, his heart racing.
A bold thought struck him: Could I cross this light and step into that world?