Above the Great Dao
Chapter 140 - 82 I Am But a Commoner

Chapter 140: Chapter 82 I Am But a Commoner

"This beam is truly a treasure!"

Chen Shi tipped his toes under the vermilion-red beam, exerted force in his leg, and one end of the beam flew up.

He gently caressed the horizontal beam of the temple, smooth beyond compare, the gilded Golden Dragon on it lifelike, as if the illusion of the True Dragon that just occurred had been but a dream within a dream.

Yet, it was a reality that had unfolded.

The reason Chen Shi had shouldered this vermilion-red pillar to cut through the mountain and break through the temple was precisely because it had absorbed who knows how many years of the Incense Fire Qi from the Mountain Lord Temple and could suppress the mana of the Black Mountain Granny.

At the last moment, he infused his True Qi into it, aiming to stimulate the extraordinary power within the beam.

What he hadn’t expected was that the effects were astonishingly good; the extraordinary power actually manifested a Golden Dragon that tore the Black Mountain Granny to shreds, pulverized her, and even destroyed the temple!

"Such a precious treasure..."

Chen Shi couldn’t let go of it, wanting to keep it for himself, but remembering the promise he made at the Mountain Lord’s Divine Shrine, where he offered incense, he reluctantly let the idea go.

"When I get back, I’ll hire craftsmen to go to the Mountain Lord Temple and repair the front hall, putting this beam back in its place! What’s borrowed should be returned; that way it won’t be hard to borrow it again. Who knows, there might even come a time when I need to borrow this treasure again. If I keep borrowing it a few more times, won’t it be akin to owning it?"

Thinking thus, he felt at ease and stood atop the ruins of the Black Mountain Granny’s temple, looking down below.

He saw chaos had already erupted below the mountain, people scattering in all directions, panicked, and some cultivators from nearby were hurrying towards this place, likely sensing the battle that had taken place here.

It was just unclear whether they were coming to aid the Black Mountain Granny’s temple or Chen Shi himself.

Black Pot meanwhile stood guard at the bottom of the mountain, darting back and forth along the roads between fields, biting to death any escaping rats.

There were as many rats on Black Mountain as there were hairs on an ox, countless offspring, and now, with Black Mountain Granny dead, the monkeys scatter when the tree falls.

Most of the skilled demon cultivators on Black Mountain had died at the hands of Chen Shi, the rest mostly fell prey to Black Pot’s mouth, leaving a ground full of dead rats, the smaller ones weighing over ten pounds, the larger ones weighing a hundred or so pounds.

"Black Pot is agile, not like a normal dog."

Chen Shi looked around, growing even more suspicious in his heart.

Although the creature was doing a dog’s job of catching rats, it was truly ferocious; the common village dogs, upon encountering such big rats, would probably lack even the courage to fight and would just get bitten to death. What’s more, some of these rats had digested moonlight, acquired intelligence, could talk, cultivate, and even use spells, yet they were still killed by Black Pot!

"Grandpa said Black Pot was picked up, but he didn’t specify where it was picked up from."

Chen Shi mused, "Sadly, grandpa has now gone to the underworld, and now no one knows the dog’s origin... It’s becoming less and less discreet about itself."

He lifted the vermilion-red beam and headed down the mountain. While descending, his foot suddenly slipped, and he quickly steadied himself.

He saw the stone steps of the mountain path were smeared with blood, requiring one to tighten their leg muscles when walking, lest one might fall.

Chen Shi carefully descended the mountain, where the bodies of rats lay haphazardly. With every step, he moved slightly the Sword technique in his left hand, and from the Divine Shrine behind his head, a fine Sword Qi would fly out, nailing into the skulls of the rat corpses.

Then another Sword Qi would shoot out, slicing off the tip of the rats’ tails.

The Meridian Evil Slayer Sword did not have such delicate control over the sword, but with Chen Shi’s strong spirit, executing such fine sword moves felt natural.

Although he didn’t have the Meridian Evil Slayer Sword, it didn’t mean there couldn’t be one.

This Swordsmanship only had six basic moves, leaving a lot of room for imagination, like a water ink landscape with its broad blank spaces, offering a sense of imagination.

Many who practiced the Meridian Evil Slayer Sword merely learned its superficial aspects, without ever contemplating the blank spaces and the spirit within it.

Chen Shi walked and repaired his way down. Upon reaching mid-mountain, he saw cultivators, old and young, male and female, most of them scholars of a private school with delicate features and naive expressions. They were also walking up the mountain.

As the two parties met, the cultivators promptly stood to the side of the mountain path, turning sideways, with the leader of the private school teachers bringing forth a Divine Embryo from the Shrine, preparing spells, but did not act rashly.

Without exchanging a word, Chen Shi just nodded slightly, carrying the thousand-pound beam past them.

After he passed, the private school teacher then hurriedly led the others up the mountain.

Chen Shi continued his Sword Qi repairs, gathering rat tail tips, and before he knew it, arrived at the foot of the mountain. Black Pot had already killed all the rats it could find, dragging them together; they lay in rows, covering two or three acres of the ground.

Chen Shi set down the vermilion-red beam, stepped forward to cut off the rats’ tail tips, and then, along with Black Pot, went back up the mountain to collect the tail tips he had sliced off earlier.

The finest among these were the tail tips of the five white-bearded elders, truly like fine jade, both flexible and hard, top quality among top quality.

The private school teacher and his students, along with the cultivators, searched the mountain as if looking for someone, passing by several times, hesitating to speak.

Chen Shi and Black Pot gathered the rat tail tips and walked down the mountain, feeling somewhat delighted, "This trip wasn’t in vain! These rat tail tips can be sold for good money!"

Chen Shi lifted the vermilion-red beam once more, dragging his somewhat weary body towards the river De.

The evening was drawing near, and they needed to cross the bridge before nightfall, otherwise, some terrible Evil Spirits might come out from the river De and drag people under to devour them. Some said the Evil Spirits in the river were water monkeys, others said they were the lingering regrets of the drowned, and some said they were white-clad female ghosts, especially abducting young scholars to drain their yang energy.

Particularly young males were often most favored by female ghosts.

Were he on land, Chen Shi would not fear those water Evil Spirits, but in the water, unable to exert his strength, he would likely not match for water monkeys or female ghosts.

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