In the realm of spirits, there are often unpredictable powers, but they can vary in strength. Some spirit realms can only transform cultivators at the Golden Core Stage, while those who have reached the Nascent Soul Stage remain unaffected. However, there are spirit realms where even the most powerful at the Integration Stage would be transformed!
Li Jindou, already at the Transformation Stage and a master with a Primordial Spirit, unexpectedly fell victim to such a realm in what seemed like an ordinary kiln factory. It was truly a case of being caught off guard!
He was extremely anxious, trying to communicate with the others through gestures and sounds. But after being transformed into porcelain, his vocal cords were no longer flesh but ceramic, making his voice sound like bird chirps, which others couldn't understand.
Seeing this, Chen Shi had an idea. He took out paper and pen from his book box and handed them to Li Jindou.
The porcelain doll that Li Jindou had become was only slightly taller than the pen. Holding the pen, he scribbled on the paper, and only then did the others understand his message.
Li Tianqing quickly said, "Little Shi, my grandpa has been transformed by the spirit realm and needs time to suppress the transformation and return to his true form. The longer it takes, the deeper the transformation, making it harder to recover. We must hurry back to the village!"
Chen Shi's eyes sparkled as he suggested, "If you're willing to pay a bit, I can help your grandpa return to his true form."
Li Tianqing hesitated and consulted Li Jindou.
Li Jindou wrote on the ground again, and Li Tianqing said awkwardly, "My grandpa doesn't trust you."
Li Jindou thought to himself, "Tianqing is smart, but he tends to speak too freely."
Chen Shi could only let them be and led the two out of the mountains.
"What happened to Senior Li at the kiln factory?" Chen Shi asked.
The porcelain doll that was Li Jindou peeked out from the book box and wrote inside it. After a moment, he held up a piece of paper.
The paper had words like kiln worker, kiln cave, and source.
Chen Shi realized that Li Jindou must have gone to the kiln factory to find the source of the spirit realm, only to be chased by the kiln workers.
From his writing, it seemed he was captured by the kiln workers and thrown into the kiln cave but managed to escape.
"Did Senior Li find the source of the kiln factory?" Chen Shi asked further.
Li Jindou nodded.
"What is the source of the kiln factory?"
Li Jindou hesitated, then started drawing on the paper. After a while, he finished the drawing.
Chen Shi and Li Tianqing leaned in to look. The paper showed a statue with eight arms and four faces, sitting cross-legged, each hand holding a weapon.
The statue's face looked compassionate, with a sense of empathy, yet to the two, it seemed eerie, lacking compassion and instead giving a creepy feeling.
"What is this statue?" Chen Shi asked, puzzled.
Li Tianqing replied, "The Eight-Armed Bodhisattva."
Chen Shi knew nothing about this and was about to ask when Li Jindou raised another paper with the word porcelain.
They realized that the Eight-Armed Bodhisattva statue was not a sculpture but made of porcelain.
Li Jindou took back the paper and raised another one, which said "very tall and large."
"A very large porcelain Bodhisattva statue is the source of this spirit realm?"
As they pondered, Li Jindou raised another paper with the words "can move."
Chen Shi and Li Tianqing were both taken aback. What does "can move" mean?
Is it the Bodhisattva statue that can move, or the spirit realm?
"Both can." Li Jindou raised the paper.
Chen Shi and Li Tianqing exchanged a serious look.
"This spirit realm and the Bodhisattva statue are a huge evil spirit," Li Tianqing murmured. "If it starts moving, wouldn't everything it passes turn into porcelain?"
Chen Shi shivered at the thought. If that evil Bodhisattva moved, Yellow Slope Village would be the first to suffer!
"Luckily, this evil Bodhisattva has never moved," he said with a forced smile, feeling uncertain.
Just because it hasn't moved doesn't mean it never will.
Just like many thought the Heavenly True God never changes, but didn't the sky turn dark a quarter of an hour earlier recently?
Li Jindou originally intended to search the kiln factory for clues about the True King’s Tomb. Although he didn't find the tomb's location, discovering the kiln factory's spirit realm source was a significant gain for Chen Shi.
He wanted to ask if Li Jindou had seen other porcelain dolls, but Li Jindou was sparing with words, so he didn't press further.
He guessed those porcelain dolls were captured by the kiln workers and thrown into the kiln cave to be fired.
Back in Yellow Slope Village, Li Jindou hid in the west wing, using his Primordial Spirit to suppress the porcelain transformation, trying to restore his true form. Li Tianqing went to care for him but found he couldn't help and had to leave.
Li Jindou's transformation time was short, and his cultivation was powerful. By dinner, he had already returned his head to flesh, becoming the Six Suns Leader again.
With his head restored, reversing the porcelain transformation was much easier, though his small porcelain body with a normal-sized head looked quite funny.
But it was also dangerous; a slight misstep could break his porcelain neck, causing his head to roll off.
He dared not turn his head or lower it.
At midnight, when the night was quiet and Li Tianqing had fallen asleep, only Li Jindou was still working hard.
Then, he heard whispers in the courtyard, sounding like Chen Yindu's voice.
"Tonight's moonlight is so nice, I really want to eat someone!"
"Heiguo, you smell so good! I should eat Heiguo first."
"Raising a grandson to prevent hunger, I should start with Little Shi!"
"No, I can't bask in the moonlight... but they smell so good, my neighbors smell so good too! There's a guest today, it's not good to go out... the guest smells so good too."
...
Li Jindou shivered in fear, almost breaking his neck.
Distracted, his head quickly turned to porcelain again. He hurriedly calmed his mind to suppress the transformation. But this time, returning to his true form would take even longer.
The next day, when Li Tianqing checked on him, he saw Li Jindou no longer sitting cross-legged but lying on the bed. His upper body had returned to flesh, but below the chest was still porcelain.
His upper body was that of an adult, while his lower body was like a small porcelain doll, looking bizarre.
Suddenly, Li Tianqing seemed to remember something and rushed outside, shouting, "Little Shi, Little Shi! I think I found a clue to the True King’s Tomb!"
He grabbed Chen Shi and ran outside, laughing, "If I find the True King’s Tomb, I won't need to catch you, and I can report back!"
Chen Shi followed him, and they arrived near the kiln factory.
Li Tianqing carefully observed the surroundings and suddenly his eyes lit up, "Found it!"
He quickly walked forward to an open area outside the kiln factory, where only sparse weeds grew, with no trees.
Li Tianqing walked along the open area, very excited, "This is a road, a road leading out of the kiln factory!"
Chen Shi didn't quite understand.
Li Tianqing explained as he walked along the rugged mountain path, "Back then, when they built the road, they used large stones to pave it, smashing the mountain rocks and pouring rice soup over it. Frequent trampling made it hard for plants to grow even after thousands of years. You see, other places have dense forests, but only here grows sparse weeds, indicating this is an ancient road!"
Chen Shi looked around and indeed noticed the differences.
However, the road was narrow, flanked by low shrubs, making it hard to tell it was a mountain path without close observation.
Chen Shi asked, puzzled, "Why are you looking for this road?"
Li Tianqing replied, "When the True King was buried, the fired porcelain and pottery were sent to the True King’s Tomb. So, if we clear the road, we can follow it to find the True King’s Tomb!"
Chen Shi was full of admiration and praised, "Tianqing, you know so much."
Li Tianqing laughed, "I read a lot whenever I have free time at the Li family. The more books I read, the more I know."
Chen Shi observed the surroundings and said, "But this road doesn't lead to the True King’s Tomb. I've been to the True King’s Tomb many times and know it well."
"Not the road to the True King’s Tomb?"
Li Tianqing was puzzled, "Then where does this road lead?"
Chen Shi looked around, also showing confusion.
He had traveled almost all over Heavenly Yang Mountain with his grandfather but had never been here.
The two, feeling adventurous, followed the road. It was not a smooth path, with some sections broken into cliffs, likely due to an earthquake.
Chen Shi climbed down using vines, and Li Tianqing bravely followed. Before long, they reached the bottom of the cliff and continued along the broken path, finding the road getting wider.
Suddenly, a dry riverbed appeared in the valley ahead.
The riverbed had been dry for an unknown number of years, but on it lay a large ship.
A huge ship.
A petrified tower ship!
Chen Shi was amazed. It was his first time in this strange place, unaware that there was such a large river in Heavenly Yang Mountain.
Though dry, the width of the riverbed showed the river's grand scale in the past.
Such a massive ship was also a first for him.
Before long, they entered the dry riverbed, following it upstream.
The riverbed's outline was still visible, with a width of several dozen meters. The river seemed to have dried up quickly, as there were still some large fish skeletons at the bottom, also petrified.
The fish were enormous, with fierce teeth. They could even walk through the fish's mouth and out its throat.
Chen Shi looked at these strange giant fish fossils and suddenly realized, "This river is the Virtue River!"
Li Tianqing was puzzled, "How do you know this river is the Virtue River? The Virtue River should be on the other side of the mountain."
"Because these fish are unique to the Virtue River, called Gun Fish, and they like to eat people. Something must have happened back then to cause the Virtue River to change course."
He recounted how Granny Sha used him as bait to fish, leaving Li Tianqing wide-eyed and excited, "That's fun! Little Shi, borrow Granny's fishhook and try it on me!"
Chen Shi thought for a moment and shook his head, "No, it's too dangerous, you might die."
Li Tianqing had to give up.
They continued along the riverbed, finding not only petrified giant fish bones but also other various aquatic fossils, all strange and unique.
They reached the massive tower ship, which was 44 meters long and 18 meters wide. The ship was petrified, but the wood grain was still visible.
"A petrified wooden ship? How can there be a petrified wooden ship? It's not logical."
Li Tianqing walked around the ship, muttering, "This ship was petrified by some unique magic. If the petrification is undone, it could still sail the seas and ride the waves. Wait, this ship's style is like the legendary Great Ming Treasure Ship..."
He was stunned, muttering, "The Great Ming Treasure Ship, so there really is a Great Ming Treasure Ship! Did the True King leave this ship? Does it still have a way to return to the Ancestral Land?"
Chen Shi was puzzled and asked, "What is the Ancestral Land?"
"The Ancestral Land is the Great Ming, the Divine Continent!"
Li Tianqing excitedly said, "It's the place our ancestors came from! Do you know where our ancestral home is? Do you know why this place is called New Township, called Western New Bull Continent? My family's ancient books record this history!"
He calmed his excitement and began to tell the story.
It was many years ago when a eunuch named Three Treasures, under the orders of Emperor Chengzu of the Great Ming, led a fleet of Great Ming Treasure Ships with 27,000 people into the stormy Dark Sea.
The fleet drifted for seventeen years, finally finding a new continent in the dark, a land no one had ever set foot on.
A vast, sparsely populated land with countless exotic beasts.
The 27,000 Great Ming soldiers cut down trees and cleared forests on this new continent's coast, building a city and port named New Township.
Meaning, a new hometown.
New Township became the first foothold for the Great Ming in this land.
Three Treasures returned to report to Emperor Chengzu, who was delighted and named the new continent Western New Bull Continent.
Since then, people from China continuously immigrated to the new continent, expanding territories, and the Great Ming unified Western New Bull Continent.
Everyone now is a descendant of those immigrants.
"We've lost contact with the Ancestral Land for a long time. Since the True King's fall, Emperor Jiajing, no new king has been sent to govern Western New Bull Continent for over six thousand years."
--- The new book is launching at midnight tonight, and it needs your support on its first day! The first VIP chapter might have a slight delay in approval.