On the Path to the Great Dao-Chapter 4: The Righteous Aura of Three Lights

“Why do people from Xinxiang always think about killing to cover their tracks when they come treasure hunting?”
The porcelain doll that Chen Shi had become dashed out of the ghostly domain, hopping nimbly through the mountains.
The villagers of Huangpo Village had never cared about the so-called True King’s Tomb, and neither did Chen Shi. If the treasure seekers weren’t harboring murderous intentions, he would have happily guided them to the real tomb.
Unfortunately, every group that arrived seemed to want him dead.
Weaving through dense forest, crossing streams, Chen Shi eventually reached another mysterious place.
The path here was paved with green stone slabs, flanked by towering pines and cypresses with gnarled trunks and rugged branches. In front of the trees stood two-to-three-zhang-high stone statues of humans and beasts.
This was none other than the True King’s Tomb that the purple-clad woman and her group had been searching for in vain.
The tomb was merely two or three li from the kiln site. However, the mountain's peculiar terrain made it nearly impossible to find without a guide.
Chen Shi, however, moved with practiced ease. This was Qianyang Mountain, where he and his grandfather had roamed countless times. He couldn’t claim to know every blade of grass, but he could confidently say he knew the location of every tree.
Jumping off a stone, Chen Shi landed with a sharp
clink
as his ceramic foot struck the rocky ground.
Startled, he quickly inspected his foot, relieved to find it intact. Being porcelain, he was all too aware of his fragility—any mishap could shatter him into countless pieces.
Walking along the tomb path, Chen Shi noticed that as he moved forward, the surrounding trees and stone statues began to tremble.
The trees swayed violently, their branches twisting like dragons and serpents.
Stone dust fell from the statues as they seemed to sprout flesh. The towering beasts appeared to come alive, exuding a savage aura.
As Chen Shi pressed on, the pressure around him grew stronger. His small porcelain body gradually returned to its human form, transforming back into flesh and blood.
This ghostly domain, enveloping the True King’s Tomb, suppressed the effects of the kiln site’s ghostly domain, restoring Chen Shi to his original self.
Still, Chen Shi gritted his teeth and continued forward. The terrain distorted as mountains shook like waves. Gigantic guardian beasts uprooted their claws from the earth, releasing a terrifying aura into the air.
Fully restored, Chen Shi had rid himself of the porcelain form, yet the pressure of the domain compelled him to keep pushing onward.
Ahead, a stone stele caught his eye. Its surface glowed with golden characters, radiating divine brilliance.
Straining under the increasing pressure, Chen Shi attempted to decipher the inscription. At the same time, he retrieved the spiritual jerky he had taken from the purple-clad woman, Zhao Er, and began to chew.
As the jerky slid down his throat, a surge of boundless energy filled his limbs. True Qi coursed through him, forming a divine shrine behind his head.
Reinvigorated, Chen Shi gritted his teeth and pressed on.
As he approached the stele, reading most of its inscription, a voice suddenly rang out:
“Little one, any further, and you’ll fully activate this ghostly domain. Even if your grandfather came, he couldn’t save you. Don’t be greedy—turn back now.”
The voice came not from a person but from the nearest tomb guardian—a humanoid figure with ram horns and a massive nose that took up half its face.
Its smile seemed warm, but its gleaming eyes betrayed a menacing aura.
“I once had a good encounter with your grandfather, so I’d rather not see you perish here,” the ram-horned guardian said.
As it spoke, the other tomb guardians let out deafening roars. Their overwhelming Qi transformed into a blood-red mist, reeking of iron and decay. The scene was poised to erupt into violence at any moment.
“Besides,” the ram-horned guardian continued gently, “it’s almost nightfall. That’s when things turn truly dangerous. If you linger, you won’t make it out alive.”
Chen Shi bowed deeply and replied in his childlike voice, “Thank you, Uncle Ram Horn!”
The guardian smiled and waved him away. “Off you go, now!”
Reluctantly, Chen Shi cast a longing glance at the stele before retreating.
Exiting the ghostly domain, he felt the spiritual jerky’s energy dissipate. The divine shrine behind his head vanished as well.
Chen Shi sighed, his expression tinged with melancholy.
He didn’t want to become useless.
He wanted to be like the other children—able to study, cultivate, and participate in county and provincial exams to become a scholar or even a distinguished graduate.
He wanted to make his grandfather proud, not burden him for a lifetime.
“The sun is setting!”
Chen Shi steeled himself, glanced skyward, and his expression shifted. He quickened his pace.
Two blazing suns hung high in the sky, one to the left and one to the right, radiating searing heat. Yet, strangely, they began to elongate, resembling a pair of eyes slowly closing.
For those with keen enough sight, a massive face could be faintly seen floating beyond the suns. The suns themselves served as its eyes.
As the eyelids closed, torrents of fire gushed from beneath them, cascading down through the atmosphere to a height of eighty li above the earth, forming a fiery sea that painted the sky like an endless twilight.
Behind this face loomed the vague silhouette of an immense being, seated in a meditative posture, veiled in boundless darkness.
This supreme entity was none other than the sole True God of Xiniu New Continent.
The True God sat within the heavens, towering and infinite. When his eyes opened, it was day; the flames in his gaze illuminated the world.
When his eyes closed, night descended, and a third vertical eye on his brow opened, its eerie light piercing the darkness to observe all under the night sky.
As darkness encroached, strange beings awakened under the moonlight, making venturing out perilous.
People caught outdoors at dusk scrambled to find safe shelter lest they risk their lives.
The increasingly crimson sky signaled the setting sun.
True King’s Tomb, Ghostly Domain
The ram-horned tomb guardian looked up at the reddening sky, squinting contemplatively.
“Elder Brother, why did you let that human boy go?” growled another awakened tomb guardian, a towering two-zhang figure wreathed in flames, with a lion-like body, a single horn, and twin wings.
Other guardians voiced their dissatisfaction as well.
The ram-horned guardian let them vent before sneering. “You think I didn’t want to crush him? That brat stirs up trouble and repeatedly runs here, using the True King’s power as his shield. In the past, he’d have died a thousand times over. But...”
He sighed and shifted his tone. “He has a formidable grandfather. You’ve all seen him. When he stormed the tomb, we trapped him for nine days and nine nights. And yet? He still escaped, taking one of the tomb’s funerary scriptures with him.”
The other guardians fell silent.
“That scripture contained the Water and Fire Purification Method,” the ram-horned guardian mused. “It’s a technique for cultivating as a Corpse Immortal. But why he took it remains a mystery.”
A voice speculated, “But that old man... he must be dying by now, right?”
The ram-horned guardian gazed toward the direction Chen Shi had fled. “Maybe he’s already dead. The last time I saw him, he didn’t look alive. Could he have sought the Water and Fire Purification to become a Corpse Immortal?”
Another tomb guardian chimed in, “That boy doesn’t seem human either. He doesn’t even emit human vitality...”
Before the sentence could finish, an unseen force washed over them, turning the guardians back into stone.
Elsewhere, Chen Shi sprinted out of the forest, heading straight for Huangpo Village.
Overhead, the twin suns sank into darkness as the True God’s eyes closed. The blazing sky gradually dimmed.
A cold silver moonlight poured from the True God’s brow, illuminating the earth.
Beneath the moonlight, mysterious forces across Xiniu New Continent began to awaken. Every household shuttered their doors and hung peachwood charms for protection.
Strange noises echoed from the forest, resembling ghostly wails.
Within the woods, a massive, shriveled head floated upward like a deflating balloon. Its twisted features slowly inflated, becoming lifelike under the moonlight as it locked its gaze on Chen Shi, smiling eerily.
This grotesque entity drifted toward him.
Chen Shi’s grandfather called such beings “Evils.”
Evils didn’t always take the form of large heads, but they emerged at night, roaming until they vanished at sunrise. Encountering one was a death sentence.
Faced with this life-or-death moment, Chen Shi swallowed the last piece of spiritual jerky. Activating his technique, he drew starlight from the heavens.
The starlight converged behind him into a small divine shrine, radiating power that boosted his speed. He dashed toward Huangpo Village.
This technique wasn’t the Heavenly Heart Righteous Energy Technique taught at the village school.
After his divine embryo had been severed, Chen Shi had attempted to practice Heavenly Heart Righteous Energy but found that without his embryo, the generated Qi was rootless and quickly dissipated.
Instead, he activated the
Three Lights Righteous Energy
technique inscribed on the True King’s tomb stele.
The “Three Lights” referred to sunlight, moonlight, and starlight.
The stele described the process of cultivating oneself by absorbing these lights to build one’s righteous energy.
Among them, sunlight and moonlight were the most potent, while starlight was the weakest.
Chen Shi had only managed to harness starlight, unable to draw sunlight or moonlight.
He frequently returned to the tomb not only to counteract the kiln site’s ghostly influence but also to acquire the complete Three Lights Righteous Energy technique.
Although incomplete, what he had learned allowed him to fluently channel the technique.
“The True King’s tomb’s methods are far superior to the Heavenly Heart Righteous Energy,” he thought, leaping a full zhang with each step as he raced toward the village.
Huangpo Village came into view, its 100-200 homes centered around a massive, ancient tree. The tree towered like a small mountain, its lush canopy swaying seductively in the moonlight.
At the village entrance stood a tall figure, shrouded in darkness, seemingly awaiting Chen Shi’s return.
“Grandpa!” Chen Shi’s spirits lifted, and he quickened his pace.
As he neared the elder, he felt the air grow icy, a chilling aura enveloping him.
The spiritual jerky’s power dissipated, and the shrine behind him wavered before collapsing.
Feeling his strength rapidly fade, Chen Shi’s heart sank. “Even the tomb’s techniques can’t restore me to normal...”
“It’s time to take your medicine,” his grandfather said, his gaze fixed on the approaching floating head.
“I understand.”
Chen Shi looked up, trying to see his grandfather’s face, but the moonlight cast it in shadow.
He realized he hadn’t seen his grandfather’s face clearly for some time.
Strangely, he detected a faint stench near his grandfather—a smell reminiscent of rotting meat, though different from ordinary decay.
Before he could investigate, the medicinal aroma emanating from his grandfather overpowered it.
The two walked into the village, passing homes where parents hastily pulled their children inside and barred their doors.
From behind shuttered windows, villagers peered at them warily.
In hushed voices, they muttered, “Good people don’t live long, but the troublemakers always return.”
“Have they noticed something off about Grandpa?” Chen Shi wondered, unease creeping into his heart. “Will they hurt him?”