On the Path to the Great Dao

Chen Shi was worried about the mental state of the spirit he had captured. It neither communicated with him nor went berserk causing trouble; it simply sat on the Divine Shrine, assisting him in his cultivation.

Previously captured evils and spirits—even the Three Ghost Kings—had struggled and resisted for a long time before finally resigning themselves to fate and obediently sitting on the Divine Shrine. Even after being trained to be very obedient, they wouldn't proactively help him regulate his qi.

Yet this fat doll ate incense when given it and didn't cry or fuss when it wasn't. In its idle moments, it helped him refine his qi.

When it came time to activate it as a sacrifice, it didn't resist in the slightest.

It even helped Chen Shi control his sword qi. With its assistance, Chen Shi felt the power of his sword qi surge dramatically, and he could wield it with even greater ease.

"From now on, you'll be called Little Date."

Chen Shi named the fat doll. The Jujube Tree Godmother didn't resist, as if it had already resigned itself to its fate.

Chen Shi circulated his true qi, treating Little Date as a Divine Embryo, and tried activating it.

His Divine Embryo wasn't a Divine Embryo in the normal sense. Normal Divine Embryos typically only had the function of regulating qi and balancing yin and yang, but Chen Shi's Divine Embryos often retained the abilities of the evils and spirits after being sacrificed and refined.

Little Date had once been a Godmother and was still in a spirit state. As he activated it, a towering jujube tree suddenly materialized behind Chen Shi. Its branches twisted like coiling dragons, laden with dates as big as human heads that emitted hee-hee-ha-ha laughter. The sight startled even Chen Shi.

Ding Ding was so frightened she hurriedly hid behind Blackie Pot. Only after seeing there was no danger did she cautiously emerge.

She had nearly been killed by the Jujube Tree Godmother and knew full well how terrifying Little Date was.

Little Date's evil qi was profoundly deep; it had even polluted her golden core, leaving her vitality greatly damaged to this day.

Chen Shi circulated his true qi and found refining Little Date to be incredibly smooth and effortless. He pointed with one hand, and the ground cracked open. From below, incomparably thick root tendrils emerged like dark-hued venomous dragons, wriggling and twisting, propping up the earth and creating crisscrossing fissures.

The corpses in the village tumbled into the cracks. The jujube tree of human heads retracted its roots, and the fissures slowly closed again.

Chen Shi went door to door, burying the corpses in the village. Those that hadn't fallen into the cracks required his personal touch to push them in.

If these corpses weren't buried promptly and moonlight shone upon them, they would likely mutate.

At that point, there would be hundreds or thousands of evil corpses and corpse evils, which would undoubtedly cause endless headaches.

Ding Ding came to help as well. There were simply too many dead in Sanhe Village. If Chen Shi handled it alone, it would take him a full day and night to bury them all. Even with her help, they were busy until late into the night.

The two were utterly exhausted, especially Ding Ding. Though she was Lady Hua Li's personal maidservant and shared in her lady's meals and daily life, she had never done heavy labor—let alone something as horrifying as burying so many corpses.

Her first trip out with Chen Shi had been this stimulating.

Chen Shi had originally planned to make do and stay the night in Sanhe Village, but Ding Ding refused flatly. Chen Shi had no choice but to hang Peach Talismans at the four corners of the wooden cart, light the lantern, have Blackie Pot carry it in its mouth, and travel through the night.

They arrived at Yanfeng Village. Chen Shi stood outside the village and first offered incense to the Godmothers in the village, praying a bit. Only after the village Godmothers had received the incense did he enter.

The villagers of Yanfeng Village were astonished. For someone to travel at night and arrive alive was truly a marvel.

The villagers hadn't originally planned to take them in, but upon hearing Chen Shi call himself a talisman master and seeing him produce some talismans, they relaxed.

However, the villagers misunderstood and thought they were a young couple, so they arranged a single room for them. This left Ding Ding's cheeks flushed red with embarrassment as she kept glancing at Chen Shi.

Chen Shi caught on and whispered, "Don't worry, I'll sort it out."

He asked another household for a guest room.

That night, both were quite tired. Chen Shi brewed and decocted medicine, then practiced his cultivation, so he went to sleep a bit late.

The next morning, they rose somewhat late.

Chen Shi dressed neatly and went to fetch water to wash up. Before he even reached the well, he heard several women washing clothes there gossiping with Ding Ding about whether a little rooster crowed or not.

"A little rooster that doesn't crow either doesn't like you anymore or has taken a liking to another little hen."

One woman said.

Another woman lifted her hand and wiped her forehead with the back of it.

"Or maybe it likes little roosters."

The village women were all experienced. One asked, "Could it be that the rooster is still too young and will crow once it grows a bit more?"

Ding Ding's face was beet red. Spotting Chen Shi approaching, she hurriedly said, "Young Master Chen Rooster is here—hush!"

The women looked at Chen Shi and burst into laughter. Chen Shi had no idea what was going on. He fetched water and washed his face, then noticed a child in the well. He immediately scooped with the bucket, getting the child to sit in it.

The child in the well looked up at him in surprise and puzzlement.

"Big brother, can you see me?"

Chen Shi nodded and pulled him out of the well. He whispered, "What are you doing in the well?"

"I was playing hide-and-seek with my friends. There was nowhere to hide, so I thought of hiding in the well. I grabbed the edge, but my hands slipped, and I fell in."

The child was drenched from head to toe.

"My parents came here looking for me. I kept calling to them, but they couldn't hear.

No one else could see me either. I couldn't climb out, so I stayed in the well."

Chen Shi understood and asked, "Do you remember where your home is? I'll take you there."

"I do!"

The child eagerly walked ahead, with Chen Shi walking beside him, worried that door god talismans or the like might block him outside.

Ding Ding and the women by the well watched in astonishment as Chen Shi muttered to thin air, then reached out as if pulling along a clump of nothing. Everyone felt a chill creep up their spines.

Chen Shi arrived in front of an old house. The brushwood gate was dilapidated, with no door god talismans or the like.

The child rushed inside in a panic, calling out, "Dad! Mom! I'm back!"

The courtyard of the old house was overgrown with weeds and thoroughly dilapidated. But the door creaked open, and out came two white-haired elders, one man and one woman. They trembled as they gazed at the child rushing toward them.

"Little Jun is back!"

The old woman hurriedly squatted down and hugged the oncoming child. Tears streamed down her face as she choked out, "Little Jun, you're finally back! Mom has waited for you for thirty years!"

The old man was also weeping freely. He embraced the mother and son, muttering nonstop, "I knew you'd come back! I knew you wouldn't forget the way home. I even left the door open for you."

"Dad, Mom, why do you look so much older?"

The child stared at their faces, puzzled.

"Mom, why is your hair white? Dad, why do you have so many wrinkles?"

The old woman fondly stroked his face.

"Silly child, you've been gone for over thirty years. Of course your mom and dad have grown old."

The old man pulled the mother and son along and bowed repeatedly to Chen Shi, kowtowing as he kept saying, "Thank you, benefactor! Thank you for saving us!"

Chen Shi said, "Since you've reunited, you should leave soon.

The village Godmothers won't be able to protect you forever. If you absorb moonlight, you'll turn into spirits.

I'll use a Rebirth Talisman to send you on your way."

The old man and his family of three were dazed and didn't fully understand, but they nodded anyway.

Chen Shi activated the Three Lights Righteous Qi Art, circulating his qi and blood. In the small shrine, Little Date sat on the Divine Shrine, helping him regulate his qi and blood.

Blood qi flowed from Chen Shi's fingertip. Using it as ink, he drew a Rebirth Talisman in midair.

Swift—

Chen Shi's sword finger tapped, and the Rebirth Talisman flickered with light, growing brighter and brighter. It pierced through the boundary between yin and yang, opening a path to another world. The couple took the child's hand and stepped onto the grand avenue formed by the light. They felt a wondrous force from the other world drawing them, calling to them, so they walked along the path.

As they went farther, they turned back and waved to Chen Shi at the road's end.

As the light gradually faded, the family of three vanished without a trace.

Chen Shi watched the burned-out Rebirth Talisman, lingering a moment in the dilapidated courtyard before turning and leaving the abandoned house.

At the well, the women watched him emerge in surprise, their whispering discussions drifting over.

"That's Old Tian Tou's place, isn't it? Old Tian Tou and his wife died four or five years ago."

"Their house has been abandoned for ages."

"A while back, someone drunk stumbled into their place and saw the old couple sitting at the door, saying they were waiting for their son."

"Their son went missing thirty-four or thirty-five years ago."

"Really pitiful. The old couple searched their whole lives."

During breakfast, Ding Ding kept sneaking glances at Chen Shi. The meal was prepared by the host villagers: pickled vegetables with sweet potato rice and corn窝窝头.

In Feixian County, they called corn "Da Shulai."

Ding Ding felt that Scholar Chen seemed preoccupied. Just as she mustered the courage to ask, Chen Shi suddenly looked annoyed and slapped his thigh hard.

"Oh no, I forgot to collect the money in Sanhe Village!"

Chen Shi was filled with regret.

"I knew I was forgetting something. That's it! That Green-Clothed Scholar still owes me twenty taels of silver!"

He slapped his thigh again, full of remorse.

Ding Ding had thought it was some major issue. She hadn't expected this and couldn't help laughing.

"He committed so many evils and nearly died at your hands, and you're still hung up on those twenty taels?"

Chen Shi looked at her with utmost seriousness, his expression stern.

"He hired me to exorcise the evil, and I did.

He committed evils, so I killed him.

Those are two separate matters.

Since I resolved the evils in Sanhe Village, he has to pay up!"

He bit hard into a tough窝窝头 and said thickly, "When he recovers and comes for revenge, before I kill him, I'll make sure he pays those twenty taels!"

Ding Ding secretly laughed at his money-grubbing ways and asked curiously, "Why not collect payment upfront in the future?"

Chen Shi shook his head.

"Grandpa said we can't start the precedent of collecting money first. That's the rule.

If you collect upfront, it seems like you're using the evil spirits to extort people. The clients will be anxious and doubt your skills as a talisman master.

Collect after resolving the spirits, and the clients are overjoyed. When they pay, they're grateful and will even treat you to a meal and toast you respectfully."

Ding Ding hadn't known that talisman masters had such peculiar rules.

She had followed Lady Hua Li traveling far and wide, seen plenty, and encountered many talisman masters roaming between cities and countryside, but she had never delved into their ways.

After breakfast, Chen Shi performed his morning routine, then packed up and bid farewell to the two host families.

Chen Shi gave half a tael of silver to each household. The men and women chased after him in a panic, saying repeatedly, "Too much! Too much! No need to pay for one night's stay!"

They tried shoving the silver back at him.

Chen Shi hurriedly refused, signaling Blackie Pot to move the wooden cart.

Blackie Pot grabbed the compass, and the cart gradually picked up speed, vanishing from Yanfeng Village like a puff of smoke.

The two couples chased to the village entrance but couldn't catch up and gave up.

Suddenly, one of the men seemed to remember something and cried out in shock, "That black dog just now—did it run on two legs or four?"

At his words, everyone snapped to attention and chimed in, "That dog stood on two legs and held something round in its paws!"

"That dog talked to me last night!"

"Dog spirit—"

The crowd scattered in panic, each rushing home to bolt their doors, trembling in fear.

Chen Shi and Ding Ding continued to a nearby town to sell talismans. Chen Shi drew them while Ding Ding sold them.

Drawing talismans still used black dog blood and cinnabar. Though Chen Shi could draw them bare-handed, it consumed a lot of his qi and blood, and the effect was far inferior to those drawn with black dog blood and cinnabar.

More crucially, these days, using Blackie Pot's dog blood yielded increasingly better results.

Chen Shi was even a bit worried that the effects were too good and might ruin his business.

For instance, with Peach Talismans, if they lasted a whole year without spoiling, that meant no business for a year.

But there were more important matters awaiting Chen Shi.

While Ding Ding managed the talisman stall, he focused intently on practicing bare-handed drawing, repeating it over and over to master drawing all types of talismans in one fluid stroke, his qi and blood surging nonstop.

Grandpa had taught him a vast number of talismans. With his exceptional memory, Chen Shi selected those for combat and protection and practiced them diligently.

His goal was to prepare for the Green-Clothed Scholar's revenge.

This time, the Green-Clothed Scholar had fallen to him due to a surprise attack when unprepared. However, the Southern school talismans were indeed formidable, so he had to guard against them.

Especially the Green-Clothed Scholar's drawing speed—it was insanely fast, using his own blood, completing them in an instant, far quicker than Chen Shi could manage now!

The Green-Clothed Scholar's wounds would heal eventually, so Chen Shi needed to prepare early to counter this talisman master's assault!

Has the Green-Clothed Scholar's injuries healed yet?

That evening at dinner, Chen Shi said to Ding Ding, "He still owes me twenty taels of silver."

On the third day, Chen Shi gazed wistfully into the distance, muttering to himself, "Twenty taels of silver..."

On the fourth day, Ding Ding noticed Chen Shi no longer mentioned the Green-Clothed Scholar or the twenty taels. He just looked much more haggard, practicing bare-handed talisman drawing while constantly looking around.

"Talisman Master Chen!"

Someone called out to him.

He lit up with joy, then looked disappointed.

It wasn't the Green-Clothed Scholar.

"The debtor is the grandmaster, indeed."

Ding Ding thought to herself.

On the fifth day, Chen Shi was thoroughly dejected when suddenly an evil wind blew, bone-chillingly cold.

Chen Shi perked up instantly, laughing heartily. He called out loudly, "Green-Clothed Scholar, what's your name?"

In the sky, the Wire-Pulling Worm that the Green-Clothed Scholar had transformed into hovered midair. Hearing this, its heart jolted: "He wants to kill me!—"