On the Path to the Great Dao

"Mazu also came from the Huaxia Continent as a traveling deity?"

Chen Shi stood at the entrance to her temple, gazing outward. The sea was blocked by the split Divine Embryo Peak—he could only hear the crashing waves, unable to see the surface.

Upon closer inspection, the opposing Divine Embryo Peak appeared to have split open only in recent years. Numerous reefs dotted its face, as if they had just drilled up from the ocean depths.

Mazu's own Divine Embryo Peak seemed fused with the one across from it at first glance. Yet the cliff walls bore clear scars of relentless wind and waves.

"These two peaks aren't actually a single body. Mazu's peak faces the open sea."

Chen Shi speculated. "One day, another peak must have risen from the sea, blocking her Divine Embryo Peak and merging them into one.

Mazu sank into obscurity along with it. Only when an earthquake later split the peaks apart did she reemerge."

Her temple's decay was far more severe than the Divine Embryo Lord's had been. That one merely had scattered broken bricks and tiles, with its front and rear halls mostly intact, shielded from sunlight by an ancient apricot tree that made it hard for outsiders to peer inside.

Mazu's, by contrast, looked as if it had endured a brutal battle. Half the structure had collapsed. Chen Shi recalled the melted and solidified earth he'd spotted from the cliff top—Mazu must have been a combatant in that final showdown!

"I climbed up from below." The Red Embryo approached the cliff edge and peered downward.

Chen Shi joined him at the brink and looked down. Even after many years, massive crawler marks left by some colossal entity remained visible on the peak's stones.

"Do you remember anything about Mazu?" Chen Shi asked.

The Red Embryo shook his head.

"The great peak split open, and I awoke. My mind was a total blank—no memories at all.

After I crawled out, moonlight bathed me, and I turned into an evil spirit."

Chen Shi grew even more puzzled.

"How do you know how to refine moonlight essence?"

The Red Embryo's moonlight refinement followed peculiar meridian routes—a profoundly advanced technique.

The Red Embryo shook his head.

"I don't know.

When the Little Honest One made me the Red Embryo Lord and offered incense, the knowledge of how to cultivate simply appeared in my mind."

Chen Shi also wondered if Blackie was connected to Mazu. He stepped into her temple. It lay in ruins, yet intensely pure mortal power still lingered throughout—around the temple gates, bell tower, incense burners, fish pond, altars, and even the collapsed great hall, all veiled in clouds and mists of that power.

The incense offerings here must have once burned extraordinarily prosperously.

Yet like the Divine Embryo Lord's temple before it, this one stood empty. No idol remained, nor any divine manifestation condensed from mortal power.

Chen Shi searched for anything of value but found nothing.

He located Mazu's Divine Shrine and paused in surprise.

The shrine faced the sea—so the idol that once stood there must have faced the sea as well!

That meant the Huaxia deity enshrined here had warded off assaults from sea demons, safeguarding ocean-going ships and fleets.

In other words, Mazu was a guardian deity of the seas.

Chen Shi suddenly realized that when the Three Treasures Eunuch had led the Ming Dynasty's fleet into the Dark Sea on the emperor's orders, how could they have sailed safely for seventeen years without a Huaxia deity to command the ocean?

Later, endless waves of Ming immigrants had arrived on this West Ox New Continent. They too needed a deity to quell the sea's raging storms and monstrous denizens!

That was why the Three Treasures Eunuch had built her temple right on the coast—allowing her divine power to shelter passing ships and migrating folk.

No wonder the temple's incense had burned so prosperously.

They had erected Mazu's temple along the West Ox New Continent's coast, and her avatar had manifested on this new land. Logically, her divine power should only have grown stronger. Why, then, had the great peak later sealed her temple away?

Chen Shi puzzled over it endlessly.

He glanced at the Red Embryo beside him. The Three Treasures Eunuch should have enshrined the Mazu idol from his ship here. That idol would have been of flesh and blood, yet the Red Embryo was clearly a mass of flesh-formed blood agaric—not an idol at all.

No matter. Since we're here, let's light some incense before we go.

Chen Shi took out incense sticks, lit them, and inserted them into the long-extinguished burner. He bowed toward the empty Divine Shrine.

Seeing this, the Red Embryo also bowed to the vacant shrine.

The two departed.

The three incense sticks burned, their fragrant smoke curling upward into the temple.

The Red Embryo sensed something and turned back toward Mazu's temple. Chen Shi asked, puzzled,

"What's wrong?"

The Red Embryo said, "I feel like there's movement inside."

Chen Shi detected nothing unusual. The pair climbed steadily back to the cliff top.

The sun was setting—they prepared to head back.

Down in the temple suspended below the peak's cliff face, Chen Shi's three incense sticks were like pebbles tossed into a still lake. The smoke stirred the pervasive mortal power around them, drawing it bit by bit toward the empty Divine Shrine.

Divine power quietly coalesced and transformed within the shrine, without a sound.

The Red Embryo grew weary and slipped into Chen Shi's portable shrine, climbing atop its Divine Shrine to sit.

True qi silently swelled within Chen Shi's body. His golden core breathed in and out, expanding and contracting, tempering his flesh.

Seated in the cart, he unknowingly ceased breathing. His heart stopped pulsing. Essence congealed like precious nectar, bones gleamed like red jade, marrow turned to white frost. Fairy music seemed to drift to his ears, as if he dwelt in a cave heaven paradise.

Much later, a dog's bark roused him. Chen Shi opened his eyes. His heart resumed beating, breath returned—and he saw they had already reached Gongzhou City.

This meditative trance let me grasp the subtleties of the Seven Returns, Eight Transformations, and Nine Restorations. Having the Red Embryo as my portable mountain is truly extraordinary!

Chen Shi focused his mind and entered his portable shrine. There sat the Red Embryo atop the Divine Shrine, eyes on nose and nose on heart, immersed in a wondrous state, impossible to rouse for the moment.

Moonlight surged like tides within the shrine. Silken strands drifted down from the golden core in his ancestral land's dantian, scattering into the Red Embryo's body.

Evidently, the Red Embryo's realm was higher. His seated cultivation had pulled Chen Shi unknowingly into golden core ninefold cycle great perfection, plunging him into profound trance.

Such benefits were beyond anything he'd imagined before!

Did other cultivators' portable mountains offer effects like this?

Chen Shi was intrigued. He had no true portable mountain of his own and could only regard the Red Embryo and similar spiritual entities as such. He had no idea what genuine ones could do.

Better not disturb the Red Embryo while he's cultivating.

Chen Shi withdrew from the portable shrine and said to Blackie, "No need for the inn—we're heading straight to Red Embryo Hall."

He sank back into the Seven Returns, Eight Transformations, and Nine Restorations state. Vital blood steamed within him, cultivation steadily advancing. Meanwhile, fragrant mists overflowed from the Orchid Terrace Palace in his dantian. The pill-forging golden core gleamed like cast platinum, radiating searing white light.

White radiance faintly shone from his lower abdomen. When Chen Shi awoke, it slowly dimmed and vanished.

After returning to the inn, Chen Shi ate a casual dinner and resumed meditative sitting. By midnight, the white light roused the other scholars in the room. It blazed like daylight, blindingly bright.

Once their eyes adjusted, they saw the glow emanating from Chen Shi's dantian. Amazement turned to certainty.

The group approached and touched him. No breath, no pulse—just an odd fragrance wafting from his body.

They examined him closely. The light illuminated his five viscera and six bowels crystal-clear—even his bones were visible.

Chen Shi's skeleton glowed red, like flawless jade.

His blood vessels pulsed with immense spiritual power, the blood itself milky white.

"Has Scholar Chen turned evil?"

They stared in shock and uncertainty.

Their voices woke Chen Shi. The bodily marvels faded. Heart thumping, he said, "Staying at the inn isn't suited for cultivation. I wonder if I can borrow lodging at Red Embryo Hall?"

He opened his eyes and scanned the room. Four scholars shared it with him. One whose calf had been gnawed by the Golden Granny Society woman's evil transformation had likely gone for treatment; the inn had assigned a stranger in his place.

Zhao Kaiyun's bed lay empty—he wasn't in the room.

Chen Shi wasted no more time. He penned a note, slipped it under Zhao Kaiyun's pillow explaining his move to Red Embryo Hall for lodging, packed his things, called for Blackie and the cart, and hurried off.

Midnight in Gongzhou City was deathly still—only distant dog barks and the watchman's clacking bamboo clapper broke the silence.

The city had a garrison commander and should have had troops patrolling the night. Yet Chen Shi encountered not a single one.

The night air chilled. Exhaled breath glowed white under the moonlight.

West Ox New Continent's climate was like this everywhere—no spring, summer, fall, or winter. The seasons never shifted. The platinum sun at dawn mimicked the books' spring days; by noon, it scorched like summer.

At night, temperatures plunged to early autumn or winter chill, though it seldom snowed.

Chen Shi had lived this long without ever seeing snow.

Lost in such thoughts as he walked the empty streets, a voice suddenly called from around the corner. "Are you Chen Shi, Scholar Chen? I hear you're the new instructor at Red Embryo Hall.

I was headed to the inn to find you, but here you are."

Chen Shi halted and turned toward the sound. A man in scholar's robes leaned against the wall in the shadows, his face indistinct—though he appeared in his thirties.

"I'm Chen Shi.

And you are?"

The robed scholar's voice carried grief and fury. "Instructor of the Golden Granny Society, Han Mingyu. Scholar Chen, what could my disciple have done to deserve your personal hand in killing him?"

Chen Shi paused, then said,

"Instructor Han, what do you mean? I'm new to Gongzhou,

here for the autumn provincial exams. I've always been on good terms with everyone."

The robed scholar cut him off with a cold laugh.

"You're here for the autumn exams. So was my disciple Qiu Yingying—we could call you classmates.

Yet you struck her down without mercy."

Chen Shi realized at once and blurted, "Your disciple—the girl who cultivated the Beast-Making Art?"

Han Mingyu sneered.

"You remember? She was a scholar too, set to take the provincial exam for juren status. Years of hard cultivation finally bore fruit; her success was all but assured. Yet she died by your hand! If the Granny spares you, I won't!"

Chen Shi hurriedly explained.

"Your disciple rushed her Beast-Making Art cultivation, greedily absorbed moonlight essence, and was corrupted into an evil spirit.

She devoured people at the inn—I had no choice but to act."

Han Mingyu replied coldly, "Even if my disciple became an evil spirit, it was for me to deal with—not for Red Embryo Hall. As their instructor, you've already broken the rules."

Chen Shi always respected rules and knew their weight around Qianyang Peak. He said,

"I only became Red Embryo Hall's instructor afterward—not before killing your disciple. Don't misunderstand, Instructor Han."

Han Mingyu shook his head.

"It doesn't matter anymore.

Today, I avenge her."

He clapped lightly. Hurried footsteps echoed from another street.

Under the moonlight, in the dimly lit corner, over a dozen figures rushed toward them. They halted dozens of feet ahead, set down earthen jars each, and fled.

The jars stood about a foot and three or four inches tall, a foot wide—slightly larger than wine jars.

Chen Shi didn't understand.

Suddenly, with a pop, a head emerged from one—a seven- or eight-year-old child poking out, topped with a Qing-style braid, peering about curiously.

A boy, deathly pale, red powder circles daubed on his cheeks. Spotting Chen Shi, he giggled.

"Evil spirits!"

Chen Shi's heart jolted. The jar-boy exuded thick evil qi—clearly an evil-born thing!

Yet he immediately dismissed the thought. The boy still breathed—he was alive!

Pops followed in succession. Heads emerged from the other eleven jars too—boys and girls, only heads protruding.

One jar rolled lightly, nimble as could be, vanishing into shadow.

Giggles echoed from the darkness, drifting uncertainly.

The other jars rolled into motion. Legless, yet more agile than any legged man, they circled Chen Shi—clattering faster and faster.

"Little Black!"

The Red Embryo's voice rang suddenly in Chen Shi's mind. "These are the Golden Granny Society's harvested dolls—also called outer core dolls. Incredibly yin and evil!"

The Red Embryo had been cultivating atop Chen Shi's portable shrine. The evil qi roused him; he'd come to the entrance and seen the scene outside, prompting the warning.

"Harvested dolls? What are they?" Chen Shi asked.

The Red Embryo thought for a moment.

"I heard Red Embryo Hall's incense master say: they select children born in a specific hour, aged seven or eight, sever their limbs, and raise them forty-nine days.

If one dies, they seal its three souls and seven poises, slit the belly, gut it, stuff it with drugs and spices, and plant it in a jar via secret arts.

The child hovers betwixt life and death—perfect for refining human pills.

The finished product is a harvested doll, or outer core doll."

He added,

"Normally, Golden Granny Society folk use them to busk on streets, juggling and such, for coins.

But in battle, they sacrifice them. Sharpest teeth around—nothing they can't bite through. Deadly!"

Rage boiled in Chen Shi. "These jar-dolls are made from living people?"

"Yeah."

The Red Embryo said, "Golden Granny Society Beast-Makers go to villages disguised as peddlers or lost travelers asking directions from village women, then turn targeted kids into lambs to lead away or geese in cages. Bring 'em to town to make harvested dolls.

They say three kids yielding one doll counts as a failure."

Chen Shi cut him off. "If I kill another Golden Granny Society instructor, will you help me fight them?"

The Red Embryo hesitated.

"It's... possible. But I have pacts with the Canal Gang and Salt Gang—can't go overboard."

"Tomorrow I'll take you out to play!" Chen Shi declared.

"Deal!" the Red Embryo agreed readily.

"Good! I'll go kill!"