Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 165: Mutual Wariness

Seeing the Land God’s determined expression, which seemed to show some knowledge of the current circumstances, Ji Yuan’s suspicions grew heavier.

“What could be so extraordinary?”

The Land God lowered his voice.

“It possesses even those with no traces of wickedness within them. It looks like a human, but is actually an evil being. Its eyes are dark, and it has a long tongue that grows from its belly. It is neither ghost, nor human, nor god. I am not sure what it is, but it is really terrifying…”

As he spoke, the Land God subconsciously touched his left arm, as if he could still feel the pain of his statue being torn apart.

“When Huang Xingye came to my temple to ask for a divination that day, I actually didn’t see anything. But because the Huang family was kind to me in building the temple, I passed on spiritual energy to Huang Xingye to make his divination more accurate…”

There were two instances in which the gods would interfere with the jiaobei. The first was when the deity, such as the City God, was closely related to the person asking the question and knew a little bit about the situation. In this manner, some information could be conveyed directly.

Another instance was in the case of a “personal spirit in the human body.”¹ This method would also be used when foreigners came to the City God Temple, or when it related to other gods who did not care about the trivial matters of mortals.

The human body had its own spiritual attraction, even for ordinary people. It was recorded in both folk rumors and various immortal scriptures that the human body nurtured various spiritual consciousnesses, which were responsible for things like the functioning of the internal organs of the body. However, they were usually suppressed by the individual’s main consciousness and thus were not visible.

Helping Huang Xingye toss the jiaobei was essentially helping him test his own spiritual consciousness. The spirits in the body had their own responses, which were particularly clear when there were large changes in his life. The reading would be even more accurate for people with special destinies like Huang Xingye.

“In other words, the resulting divination wasn’t actually calculated by Huang Xingye, but rather arose from his own spiritual energy?”

“Just as the Immortal said, I don’t have the spiritual energy to see the future of that strange evil, but he threw the jiaobei nine times in a row, and it was powerful. I could see that something was wrong. I even noticed that there was some special aura around Huang Xingye that was already unstable. I saw that the situation was not good, so I broke the one of the jiaobei when he tossed them for the tenth time.”

The Land God sighed and continued.

“Then, after Huang Xingye left, I was uneasy. I didn’t see anything, but the divination and Huang Xingye’s own aura were so strange, I vaguely sensed that I might be in big trouble. Sure enough, that trouble came at midnight that very night…”

Ji Yuan narrowed his eyes.

“When the statue lost its arm?”

The Land God nodded.

“My temple had not yet been built, so the door was not closed at night. That night, a strange man wearing a bamboo hat came into the temple. I thought he was just a mortal who wanted to stay in the temple overnight. As soon as he entered the temple, he stared at my statue, and in his eyes, that originally looked normal, a dark color appeared….”

“There were also strange sounds coming from his stomach. Just hearing that sound made me feel like I was trapped in miasma. He then cursed me for being nosy and rushed towards my statue. I realized something was wrong and immediately fled. If I had been a step slower, it wouldn’t have just been the statue that would have been torn apart.”

“By the way, its voice was strange. Its tongue sounded heavy, in addition to the sounds from its belly. I once encountered a long-tongued ghost in the past, so I know that this was the sound of a being hiding its long tongue in its abdomen, but this individual was definitely not a ghost! “

The Land God told Ji Yuan everything he knew and experienced, frankly stating that this thing gave him an extremely dangerous and strange feeling. He instinctively felt that the City god of Dongle County would be powerless against it as well. Since he had been directly targeted, he simply hid himself. After all, it was difficult to find the Land God once he had gone into hiding.

A long tongue hidden in its stomach, and dark pupils… The Land God was present in the statue, but the individual was still completely invisible to his senses…

Judging from the Land God’s description, things were more tricky than he expected. This kind of thing that left almost no trace but did not seem to be afraid of ghosts and gods was quite unusual, and very dangerous.

Ji Yuan could now understand to some extent the feeling many gods and monsters had when looking at him. ²

“Lord Land God, is the being you mentioned still in Maoqian Town? Can you find him?”

At the immortal’s words, the Land God shook his head.

“It shouldn’t be in Maoqian Town now. While I was in hiding, I carefully thought about the previous events. What puzzled me was that this thing seemed to be trying every means to make Huang Xingye collapse, rather than outright killing or devouring him…”

Ji Yuan sneered.

“Hah, or maybe it wants to wait for Huang Xingye to collapse before devouring him. It’s not that it doesn’t want to cause trouble, but rather that it doesn’t want to let the Qi from Huang Xingye’s special destiny escape.”

The Land God’s words reminded Ji Yuan of Huang Xingye’s obscure and unusual Qi. He had never considered this aspect when reading auras before, but it now seemed that Huang Xingye’s “bodily spirit” was the “personal god” that was only ever mentioned in rumors in “A Historical Account from Outside the Tao.”

This kind of personal spirit was considered one of the wonders of heaven and earth. It was rumored to only appear in humans, the most intelligent creatures of the world, but there were few concrete examples. It was closely related to the human spirit, but differed from it it; it was the essence of the human spirit, not the whole.

To use a crude analogy, it was similar to the difference between ginseng and ginseng essence.³

This kind of inner deity was naturally different from the divinity of ordinary gods, who used the power of incense and faith. To some extent, it was more like an extremely rare deity that had been independently conceived in heaven and earth. As the saying went, there was a vast world outside the body, and a smaller but no less vast world inside the body as well; the individual’s god was a god conceived by this small world world within the body.

Within this world, due to the influence of the five essential internal organs, the five elements of Yin and Yang could be related to the mountains, rivers, and streams.

Gods in human bodies were extremely special. Although not many had been sighted, it was mentioned “A Historical Account from Outside the Tao” that personal gods were very alert. Once they sensed that something was wrong, they would either dissipate and vanish, or they would escape the body along with its soul and disappear into the universe.

At the same time, this divine spirit was closely related to the individual’s spiritual consciousness. Once a person’s spiritual consciousness was greatly affected and disoriented, this divine spirit would also be harmed.

“Huang Xingye appears to be simply a landlord and businessman, but he could actually nurture such a miraculous thing…”

Ji Yuan muttered to himself. Although there was no evidence that a “personal god” had been formed, it was still difficult to connect the idea with the Huang Xingye who had gone up the mountain to seek aid and had been scared half to death.

Although he had caught a glimpse of it on the mountain before, Ji Yuan couldn’t recognize it at the time. After all, he had never seen anything like it before, and the description in the book was vague. Only now did he realize what it was after pondering it.

“Did the Immortal notice anything?”

Hearing Ji Yuan’s mumbles, the Land God asked curiously and carefully.

“Well, I have some guesses. Lord Land God, I must ask you to please look after the area around Maoqian Town. If find that the individual has appeared again, please notify me immediately.”

“I will do as the Immortal says!”

The Land God, which was still far from cultivating a fully human form, cupped his hands and bowed respectfully to Ji Yuan. After Ji Yuan returned the bow, he turned into green smoke and plunged into the ground. Compared to Ji Yuan, who still felt a little uneasy, the Land God was quite confident at the moment.

Ji Yuan was a little troubled. This was no longer some ordinary monster playing a trick. The other party wanted to cause Huang Xingye to mentally collapse, then wait for an opportunity to seize the “personal spirit.” Regardless of whether it wanted to devour Huang Xingye or had some other uses for him, discovering and recognize Huang Xingye’s “personal god” was already quite a difficult task. The fact that it could do so was daunting.

It was possible that the other party was already aware of anything that could pose a threat to it in Maoqian Town and even Dongle County, except for Ji Yuan.

. . .

As they were affected by Huang Xingye, the Huang family had been relatively nervous recently.

However, after the arrival of Taoist Qingsong, Huang Xingye calmed down a lot. The master’s disposition greatly influenced his servants, and the Huang family gradually settled down. Those who went out to inspect the fields, collect rent, and transport goods all performed their tasks well.

Ji Yuan stayed with the Huang family for half a month, but nothing happened. The Huang family gradually stabilized.

During this period, the underworld of Dongle County sent several judges and gods of the Yin and Yang Division to inspect Maoqian Town. Even the Land God took the initiative to appear and describe his experiences to the messengers of the underworld.

But since then, the entirety of Dongle County, including Maoqian Town, had been peaceful, as if everything had passed.

However, Huang Xingye still abided by Ji Yuan’s instructions, leaving everything to his servants and not leaving the Huang residence.

On this day, a distinguished guest came to the Huang Mansion. He was the eldest son of a wealthy family from Changchuan Prefecture who had business dealings with Huang Xingye.

Everyone in the Huang residence was busy. Huang Xingye was drinking tea and chatting in the living room with a man named Chu Mingcai.

The warm atmosphere immediately froze when Ji Yuan walked into the living room.

The very moment Ji Yuan entered the room, the originally chatty Chu Mingcai abruptly stopped talking and turned his head to stare straight at Ji Yuan, who had just come in.

“Oh, ha, let me introduce you, nephew Chu, this is Taoist Qingsong. He, too, is a distinguished guest of our residence. A while ago, I provoked some evil spirits, so we asked the Taoist to come exorcise them.

“Master Qingsong, this is…”

Ji Yuan raised his hand to stop Huang Xingye from speaking. His eyes were opened to the widest they could be. Chu Mingcai abruptly stood up from his seat, still staring at Ji Yuan.

“Sir, are you using a human body as a flesh shell?”

Ji Yuan’s eyes had already pierced the being’s concealing veil of spiritual power. They were pale and still like a deep pool. With his supernatural eyes fully opened, the hidden demonic energy within Chu Mingcai’s shell combined with his body and soul to surge visibly, but it did not lead out of his body. Only his greedy desires were evident. This was definitely not just a wisp of demonic energy possessing him, but a true demon in human form.

In the world of cultivation, the word “true” was used with extreme caution; the same was true for True Demons.

Although the demon in human form was not obvious to spot, its desires were magnified. If Ji Yuan had not felt his waves of greed and killing intent, he would not even had noticed that the “real final boss” had arrived.

Chu Mingcai also looked at Ji Yuan with great fear. He had heard that the Huang Mansion had hired a lousy Taoist priest, and he didn’t feel anything special when the man arrived. If Ji Yuan hadn’t entered the room, he would not even have sensed any spiritual traces.

But the immortal sword hanging in the air behind him and that pair of eyes that seemed to nearly absorb his soul were nothing to scoff at.

Mutually wary of each other, Ji Yuan and Chu Mingcai had one though simultaneously flash through their minds: ‘Who is this person!?’

1. 人身 (rénshēn): person/human body, 自 (zì): oneself, 灵 (líng): spirit/alert. This could refer to people with special destinies or particular talent in cultivation, but I believe it refers to the god possessing the individual to give insight. The wording is a bit unclear.
2. T/n: three cheers for self awareness!
3. T/n: there’s a lot going on here. In short: Huang Xingye was born with a special divine spirit & special divine Qi in him. That’s all you really have to know