Above the Great Dao
Chapter 62 - 39: Lightning Strike

Chapter 62: Chapter 39: Lightning Strike

Chen Shi blushed deeply, stammering, just about to reply when Xiao Wangsun coughed, reminding him, "Before you answer, pay attention to your surroundings. This is Wuwang City, be careful not to have your tongue plucked out."

Chen Shi’s heart chilled, and he glanced at the woman in red, categorizing her as a dangerous type.

"If I had restrained myself just now and replied ’no thanks,’ I would certainly have lost my tongue. You can’t say one thing and mean another here!" he thought to himself.

Xiao Wangsun said, "Jin Hongying, why must you be so hard on the younger generation?"

The woman in red gave him a glacial look, leaned her elbows on the tea table, and pressed her chest to the surface, chuckling, "Xiao Wangsun, you dared to steal from the Divine Mechanism Camp, must be quite bold. Hand over the item, and I might let bygones be bygones."

Chen Shi blinked, Divine Mechanism Camp?

He had heard of the Divine Mechanism Camp. A scholar had once come from Yandang Village, a man of great talent who later joined the Divine Mechanism Camp and became one of its warriors.

After that man returned to the village, matchmakers broke the threshold of his door.

The Divine Mechanism Camp served the Emperor, they had high salaries and high status; becoming a warrior of the Divine Mechanism Camp required ancestors that could billow smoke from their graves.

Xiao Wangsun appeared indifferent to the beauty of the woman in red, replying coolly, "I took it, so I took it. What, do you expect me to give it back to you?"

Jin Hongying, fiddling with some tea on the table, drew circles in it and smiled lightly, "Isn’t this meeting about negotiating the return? Otherwise, why meet at all? Xiao Wangsun, I offer you two choices. The first, you return it willingly, and the Divine Mechanism Camp will overlook the theft. The second, the Divine Mechanism Camp will kill you and take it back from your corpse."

She looked up with a smile, "The injuries you sustained last time should not yet have healed, this time it won’t be as simple as getting hurt. You might even be escorted on your final journey!"

"Xiao Wangsun was injured?"

Chen Shi’s mind stirred as he recalled his first encounter with Xiao Wangsun.

At that time, like himself, Xiao Wangsun had also gone to the coffins in the mountain manor for healing.

But, wasn’t that Corpse Nourishing Land a most yin place?

Xiao Wangsun wasn’t a corpse, so why did he need to heal there?

What puzzled him even more was, "I am not a corpse either, so why would my grandfather send me there to heal?"

Xiao Wangsun’s expression remained calm, "My injury has healed."

Jin Hongying took a step back, her chest quivering slightly, still smiling, "So there’s nothing to talk about then?"

Xiao Wangsun nodded lightly.

Jin Hongying’s face held a smile as she said leisurely, "I have heard that Xiao Wangsun has extraordinary talent and exceptional charm. I was born too late to see it with my own eyes. However, tonight, maybe I will get to see it. If you survive tonight, the issue of you stealing the Divine Mechanism Camp’s treasure, I too will let bygones be bygones."

She stood up, glanced at Chen Shi, and chuckled, "Little brother, don’t follow him. It could get you killed."

With that, she sashayed away.

Chen Shi’s gaze returned, and Xiao Wangsun asked, "Like what you see?"

Chen Shi was about to answer but quickly shut his mouth, thinking, "Xiao Wangsun is also very dangerous, nearly caused me to lose my tongue!"

Xiao Wangsun sipped his tea, watching Jin Hongying leave Wuwang City. After a short while, he stood up and said, "Stay here, I’ll return shortly. If I don’t come back, leave Wuwang City before dawn and do not linger."

Chen Shi hurriedly asked, "What if I don’t leave Wuwang City?"

"You’ll disappear along with Wuwang City."

Xiao Wangsun walked down the stairs, his voice arriving from afar, "Those who have disappeared with Wuwang City in the past have never reappeared. Whether they are dead or alive, no one knows."

Chen Shi shuddered.

Xiao Wangsun did not take a carriage but left the city on foot, quickly vanishing into the moonlight.

Chen Shi sipped his tea, nibbled on candied fruit and dried meat, quietly waiting.

Time passed, and he blinked, letting out a laugh.

"What’s funny?" a voice next to him asked.

"I’m laughing at the absurdity of my experiences this night. I went to the post road to seek revenge and kill, fell ill on my way home, encountered an Evil Spirit chasing after me, and then stumbled upon Xiao Wangsun."

Chen Shi laughed and continued, "Then I ran into this strange city and met people from the Divine Mechanism Camp. Now, I am sitting in Ghost City drinking tea, eating candied fruit, waiting for Xiao Wangsun to return from his clash with the Divine Mechanism Camp. This adventure is too outlandish! It’s absurd enough to make me laugh out loud..."

He was speaking when he suddenly realized, if Xiao Wangsun was not here, then who was speaking to him?

He turned his head in haste, only to see that the waiter with four arms was nowhere to be found, replaced by a bizarre fellow with a toad’s head, with a head about four or five times that of a normal person, sporting green and white stripes, and a vast mouth, from which dangled a pipe with three shortened thick incenses.

Its legs were incredibly thin, holding up an obese torso, and it carried an unreasonably large teapot in hand.

It must be the teahouse’s Doctor of Tea, coming to refill Chen Shi’s tea.

"What are you looking at?" the voice asked again.

Chen Shi then realized that it wasn’t the toad speaking, but the teapot it was carrying.

The lid of the teapot opened and closed as it inquired, underneath the lid were two eyes.

"Don’t talk."

The toad-like Doctor of Tea whispered to Chen Shi, "It likes to ask questions, don’t answer. This creature has caused several guests to have their tongues plucked out today."

Chen Shi was vigilant and immediately shut his mouth, saying nothing more.

The large teapot asked him a few questions, and upon receiving no reply, it lost interest.

The toad-like Doctor of Tea finished refilling Chen Shi’s tea and carried the large teapot to other tables.

The teapot asked another table of guests, "Troubles on your mind?"

"No... Ah—"

A scream pierced the air, Chen Shi saw a guest from that table with their tongue ripped out by a peculiar force, clutching their mouth and unable to speak a word.

"Were you just sneakily eyeing that red-clad woman’s chest?" the large teapot asked another guest.

"I didn’t... Ah—"

A streak of fresh blood flew through the air, followed by yet another tongue.

Chen Shi shivered and categorized the large teapot as dangerous.

"Right, this Wuwang City must also be a Ghost God Domain!"

Chen Shi suddenly realized that there are many types of Ghost God Domains: some could turn people into porcelain like kiln factories, some transformed tomb-guarding beasts into demons, some had time distortions, and there were those like Wuwang City where lying was forbidden.

Anyone who lied would suffer the calamity of the Wuwang, enduring the agony of having their tongues torn out, hence the name Wuwang City.

"Wuwang refers to truthfulness! The so-called Wuwang City is a city of truth, where lies are not tolerated."

Having understood this, Chen Shi felt joy in his heart, and his fear of Wuwang City dissipated.

He was someone who lived at the edge of the mountains and understood the importance of following rules.

Whether it was a Ghost God Domain or an Evil Spirit, as long as you followed certain rules, you could coexist peacefully.

Suddenly, the sky outside the city was illuminated by lightning flashes. Chen Shi hurriedly looked and saw bolts of lightning rising from the ground, forming red arcs in the air and striking a mountain under the moonlight!

Explosions of fire spread light all around, turning the mountain transparent as day!

Chen Shi quickly stood up and looked towards the mountains outside the city, witnessing successive fan-shaped lightning bolts rising from the ground to mid-air, striking the mountain peak. In just a short moment, several hundred bolts had hit the mountaintop.

Using the lightning as a guide, Chen Shi looked more closely and saw what seemed to be a small figure standing on the mountain, standing on the very top of the mountaintop.

A thin, hair-thin gleam of cold light rotated swiftly around the figure, at an extremely high speed!

Even from this great distance, the speed was so fast that it was difficult for the naked eye to capture!

"What is that?"

Chen Shi was stunned, unable to discern what the light was.

Although thin and subtle, the cold light would always appear in an instant, just before the lightning struck the mountain, piercing through it.

As the lightning was pierced, it would explode, scattering flames and electric light, followed moments later by deafening thunder.

The lightning had not actually struck the mountain!

What Chen Shi had thought were lightning strikes were just an optical illusion.

Watching in horror, Chen Shi saw lightning growing denser, and the cold light seemed to be struggling, gradually allowing some bolts to land on the mountaintop and explode violently.

Whenever this happened, the ground trembled!

More and more lightning broke through the cold light’s defense and bombarded the mountaintop. Shortly, the mountaintop seemed red-hot and increasingly dazzling.

Everyone in Wuwang City, both human and spectral, watched with bated breath.

If those bolts had fallen on Wuwang City, it might have turned the Ghost God Domain into a sea of fire in an instant, erasing all life!

People inside the city stretched their necks to look, some even lifting their heads off their necks to get a better view.

Chen Shi inadvertently noticed someone in the crowd whose neck suddenly elongated, thin as a bamboo pole, pushing their head two or three yards high, watching intently.

"Do you want to take a pair of scissors and snip at his neck?" the large teapot asked others again.

"No..."

"Pfft!"

Chen Shi was on alert, keeping his mouth shut, and decided that he couldn’t speak if anyone asked him anything.

The thunderstorm lasted for over an hour, and the mountaintop visibly decreased in height under the barrage of thunder and fire, probably due to the explosion and melting of rocks.

Suddenly, someone shouted, "Daybreak is near, move—, if we don’t leave now, it’ll be too late!"

The crowd inside the city began to sway and surge towards the exit.

Chen Shi also hurried downstairs, only to see a crush of bodies everywhere—humans, ghosts, and creatures all jumbled together.

"Sir, your carriage is ready." The four-armed inn clerk emerged from somewhere, reminding Chen Shi.

Following him to the backyard, Chen Shi saw that Xiao Wangsun’s carriage was indeed still there, and this time, without Xiao Wangsun, the coachman and four horses were surprisingly not petrified.

Chen Shi got on the carriage, and the coachman lightly whipped the horses, which immediately pulled the carriage towards the city exit!

The four horses ran faster and faster. As more people, ghosts, and creatures appeared ahead, it seemed they would trample and crash into many, but suddenly the horses generated clouds under their hooves, rode on the clouds, and pulled the carriage over the heads of the throngs, heading straight for the city gate.

Chen Shi was surprised to see the horses pulling the carriage through the city gate and racing past, landing outside the city, clattering hooves ringing clear, as they drove into the pre-dawn darkness.

"The carriage is headed for that mountain!"

Chen Shi was startled. He saw the coachman whipping on, the speed of the carriage increasing, and a scent of gunpowder beginning to permeate the air.

Doubtful, Chen Shi saw after traveling another two miles, several corpses appeared along the roadside, alongside a massive metal creation.

It was a giant cannon, over a yard long and weighing several thousand pounds.

"The legendary Divine Mechanism Camp’s Red Barbarian Cannon!" Chen Shi’s eyes widened.

He had heard of such firearms from the people of Yandang Village—said to have unmatched power, capable of unleashing the force of Heavenly Thunder, one shot could bring down celestial punishment!

However, the cannon’s massive barrel was severed, the cut incredibly sharp, even the talisman engravings inside the barrel were sliced through!

Chen Shi caught a glimpse of the barrel’s interior, glowing red, likely from grinding Black Dog Blood with cinnabar and soaking it, although how the Divine Mechanism Camp managed to engrave the talismans inside was unknown.

Next to the Red Barbarian Cannon lay a pile of bullets, each larger than a child’s head, cast from black iron, their surfaces etched with talismans, outlined with cinnabar and Black Dog Blood to enhance their power.

"Five Thunders Talisman!"

Chen Shi glanced quickly and recognized the inscriptions on one bullet, feeling shocked.

The Five Thunders Talisman was an extremely powerful Thunder Talisman, and combined with black gunpowder, its power was increased manyfold!

He suddenly realized that the thunder and lightning they saw last night were not Divine Skill but cannon bombardment!

The spectacle must have involved dozens or even hundreds of Red Barbarian Cannons firing simultaneously, under the enhancement of the Five Thunders Talisman, bombarding King Xiao.

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