He Lingchuan smiled faintly as a faint red glow gradually emanated around his body.
"Origin power?" Zhu Erniang was even more astonished. "How can you possess origin power now?!"
She knew this fellow was actually a native of the Yuan Kingdom, but even if he held an official post back home, he was far away from Yuan territory now. How could he muster such potent origin power?
"Yeah, I was surprised too. I don't understand why either."
Ever since he reclaimed the divine relic from Mount Xu, he had discovered he could actually use origin power—and the most familiar kind at that: the Gale Army's origin power!
However much he could wield in Panlong City, he could wield in reality.
The shock and ecstasy of that moment had been truly beyond words.
It seemed a few puzzles had resolved themselves, yet even more mysteries had arisen in their wake.
For example, the real Panlong City had fallen long ago. What he experienced inside the world of the Dafang Pot was supposed to be merely Panlong City's past history.
Yet how could intangible history grant him real, tangible origin power?
He Lingchuan couldn't figure it out.
Regardless, the ability to bring Panlong City's origin power into the real world had to be a new feature unlocked by making the Dafang Pot whole again.
To him, this meant a massive leap in combat strength and an expansion of his combat threshold. In Beijia and Lingxu City, he had suffered more than enough from having no origin power to call upon.
High risk brought high reward. In winning back the lid for the Dafang Pot, he had indeed earned a handsome return.
Naturally, he couldn't share any of this with Zhu Erniang.
Fortunately, the giant demon didn't pry. A being that had lived as long as she had knew that everyone harbored secrets they couldn't speak of.
He Lingchuan asked again, "What about King Siwen?"
That wild boar demon had left a deep impression on him as well; had he been in Beijia, he could easily have been commissioned as an assistant regional commander at the very least.
Zhu Erniang had nothing good to say about King Siwen. She sneered, "That foolish pig refused to budge an inch no matter what. Let him wait for death in the Demon Nest, then."
***
Xunyang Sandbar lay at the confluence of the Xunyang River and another great river.
During the dry season, it was a vast expanse of open sandbars and flats; once the flood season set in, the water level rose swiftly, submerging the shoals beneath the river's surface and turning the area into a scattering of small islands. Residents had to pole boats to travel between them.
Right now, the sandbars were blanketed in ice and snow, and the water was at its lowest. One could walk from island to island without needing a boat.
He Lingchuan and Dong Rui traversed one islet after another.
Just the two of them; Zhu Erniang and her sister had stayed behind in the nest to treat the molted spider shell and hadn't accompanied them.
"Here's Leigong Island. Let's head ashore!"
Leigong Island was one of Xunyang Sandbar's principal islands. It wasn't fundamentally different from the other islets they had passed earlier, only larger in area and more populous.
Heading inland from the docks, the paths did not adhere to neat grids, winding instead like pythons through a jungle. The roadside buildings were bizarre in both material and form—stone, wood, brick, clamshells, calamus, broadleaf palms, and even hides stripped from unknown beasts were all repurposed to build houses.
Dong Rui even mentioned to He Lingchuan that the region produced a kind of tree sap that made an exceptional building adhesive. Xunyang Sandbar also produced lacquer and lacquerware, which were exported to neighboring countries.
Passing through two markets in succession opened He Lingchuan's eyes. Everything was sold here, from insects as tiny as gnats to humans, food, sundries, amusements, and things whose purpose was entirely baffling, all crammed together in tight marketplaces. It was a dizzying sight.
He Lingchuan handed Dong Rui a mask. It was a gift from Fang Canran, capable of shielding against others' divine sense.
Once both had put on their masks, Dong Rui took him through a shortcut, slipping down an alley behind the market.
The alleys here wound through endless twists and turns, occasionally even cutting straight through people's courtyards or homes. A family might be sitting around a low table eating a meal, yet they paid no heed whatever to the two strangers passing right beside them.
Finally, Dong Rui led him into a large building of red brick and black tiles.
It was the largest structure in the vicinity.
"Here we are."
He Lingchuan was still a bit baffled. "This is it?"
"Yep, this is the place." Dong Rui gave a rare grin. "We came through the back door. If you went in through the main entrance, you'd see the plaque for Leigong Temple."
Temples stood in abundance across Leigong Island—at least a dozen or so—and among them, Leigong Temple was the largest on the island, spanning two qing.
Before even reaching the front hall, He Lingchuan caught the heavy scent of incense and heard at least seven or eight devotees muttering prayers.
The temple attendants here all wore orange robes and had their heads shaved almost completely bald, saving only a single tuft right down the center of their foreheads like a cockscomb, which made them remarkably conspicuous from a distance.
Which was precisely the intended effect.
Dong Rui found an elderly temple attendant whose eyes were half-open, half-closed, exchanged a few hushed words, and slipped him a silver ingot.
The old attendant looked over the two of them, nodded, and led them to a quiet room in the back.
In the quiet room sat only an altar shrine, an offering table, and two kneeling stools.
"Where is the offering?"
He Lingchuan handed a wooden tube to the old attendant, who turned it over and inspected it closely for quite a while before shutting the door behind him.
Then he held out his hand a second time.
Dong Rui nudged He Lingchuan with an elbow, and the latter produced two large ingots of silver and handed them to the old man.
The wooden tube was for the deity; the silver was for the temple attendant.
Waiting until the candlelight on the offering table burned straight up, the attendant took out seven sticks of incense, lit them, and stuck them into the censer, telling He Lingchuan and Dong Rui, "The incense must not go out."
Then he knelt down and began to murmur prayers in an attitude of devout reverence, as if offering tribute.
At first, the old man's chanting was barely audible, sounding out of breath. Before long, however, his voice grew louder and smoother, until He Lingchuan could even hear an echo inside this tiny quiet room.
Or rather, lingering reverberations made it sound as though several or even a dozen people were chanting in unison.
At the same time, the smoke from the incense gathered above the shrine without dispersing, coalescing into a dark gray mass.
Under the watchful eyes of the two onlookers, the ball of gray mist drifted toward the old attendant.
The two watched without blinking, only to see the mist suddenly veer halfway across and head straight for He Lingchuan!
Dong Rui started slightly. In He Lingchuan's grip, the Fusheng saber materialized, a point of saber light flickering at its edge.
Perhaps checked by Fusheng's sharpness, or perhaps sensing the saber's lethal power to cut incorporeal entities, the ball of mist halted, hovering motionless in midair for several moments.
Only then did it resume its original course toward the old attendant. In that motion, He Lingchuan could discern its reluctance.
As the mist snaked into the attendant's nose and mouth, a candle on the offering table sputtered with a soft pop.
The old attendant awoke as if from a dream.
The old man's eyelids had originally drooped so low that his eyes looked barely open, but now a sharp gleam shone from them, bright and piercing.
His facial features hadn't changed, nor had his decrepit age, but his demeanor and presence were as though he had become a completely different person.
Or rather, become... a god?
The wooden tube was already back in He Lingchuan's hand, and he gave it a slight wave in front of him.
The old man examined the wooden tube closely, somewhat surprised. "How does the Dragon-Torture Pillar look like this?"
Chapter 722