Chapter 4: Land of Xian Divine

  My head feels heavy and dizzy, with a bit of daze.

  This is the feeling of Tie Jun waking up from his slumber once again, as if his brain has been turned upside down like a soy sauce shop, with white, black and yellow all mixed together in his mind, and he doesn't know what will be mixed out in the end.

  Suddenly, a scene flashed in his mind and memories of the chaotic burial ground flooded his brain.

  Evil spirit!! Wicked person!!!

  He let out a loud cry and suddenly sat up straight.

  "Junzi, Junzi, you're awake!"

  "Dad, what are you doing here? Where is this place?" Tie Jian was suddenly approached by a familiar face, first startled, then relieved, and a wave of fatigue swept over his entire body with a hint of coolness. Only then did he realize that his whole body had been soaked in cold sweat.

  Tie Jun woke up, and Tie Dan finally calmed down. He gently helped Tie Jun lie back down and said, "Foolish kid, this is your room! You guys encountered an evil cultivator at the chaotic burial ground, and Hu Zi's group was poisoned. You were rescued by Ming Gong of the Six Doors, but you had already fainted and have been out for a whole day!"

  "Ah!" Tiejun's mind was still dizzy, but after hearing that he had been rescued, his mood completely relaxed and he fell asleep again. This sleep lasted for two days and two nights, and when he woke up again, it was already the third day's late night hours. He slightly propped himself up and saw Tiexiong lying on the eight immortals table in the room, making a soft snoring sound. The candles on the table were almost burned out.

  Hearing some noise from this side, Tie Dan Meng suddenly woke up with a start.

  "Junzi, how are you feeling now? Are you feeling better? Do you want to drink some water?" As she spoke, she hastily picked up the jug on the table and poured water into the bowl, only to find that it had already gone cold. She then hurriedly lifted the jug again to go boil some water.

  "It's all right, Father, I'm just thirsty. A cool drink will do!" Tie Jian looked at Tie Dan's appearance and felt a slight pang in his heart. He forced a smile on his face, got out of bed, and felt that his legs were still a bit weak. Thinking about it, it was no wonder - he hadn't eaten for three whole days!

  "Go get some food!" The iron gallbladder, with a keen sense of observation, took one look at the iron ladle and knew that this little guy was probably starving. Without waiting for the iron ladle to react, he turned around and left the house. Before long, he walked back in carrying a small pot.

  "This is the porridge that was cooked just tonight, it's still hot, eat slowly!" Tieda said as he placed the slightly warm porridge in front of Tiejian, "You've just woken up, don't eat too much."

  There was a slight emotional stirring in his heart, and Tie Juan smiled as he took over the bowl of porridge. He said to Tie Dan, "Dad, you go sleep first, I'll keep watch here. I won't be able to eat if you're watching me, and it seems like you haven't slept for a long time. If you don't go sleep soon, I won't be able to sleep either!!"

  Tie Dan's face had two very noticeable frown lines that twitched slightly as he stood up and said to Tie Jian, "Alright, I know. You eat slowly, I'm going to sleep now!!"

  The father and son were both not good at expressing their emotions, but they could hear each other's intentions from each other's words.

  After Tieda left, Tieguan rubbed his somewhat swollen head and slumped into the chair. The normalcy he had shown earlier was completely forced, not wanting to worry Tieda. In fact, he now had a splitting headache, an ancient residual consciousness rampaging in his mind. Although this residual consciousness had lost its autonomy, its memories, experiences, desires, hatreds, and everything else were impacting Tieguan's spirit and consciousness.

  Shattered memory fragments swirled in his consciousness like shards of broken glass, eventually being absorbed one by one, but when it all ended, he was drenched in sweat.

  "Chen Jiu, the land of Jiapu County, Dengzhou Prefecture, the city god Xiaojiuqian, the battle to seal the gods, Chen Qi, the Western Tour to transmit the Dharma, am I crazy or has my brain been flooded with water, or is it really just a dream?"

  After digesting a series of unbelievable information, Tie Jian's body leaned against the chair, and he was actually a little dazed.

  What he got was a memory of a person named Chen Jiu's consciousness, or to say, it was the divine consciousness of a god named Chen Jiu, only this god was just one of the smallest gods in this world, land.

  Jiā Mù County land, of course, Jiā Mù County is also an ancient name, so ancient that this name only existed 18,000 years ago. 18,000 years ago, a shocking war broke out on this land, this war was called the Investiture of the Gods War.

  The most bizarre thing is that this battle of sealing the gods, is almost identical to the content of a legendary book in that strange technological world he dreamed of before. The only difference is that in that technological world, the battle of sealing the gods was just a legend, whereas in this world, it actually happened. Apart from the battle of sealing the gods, there's another thing - Tang Monk's Journey to the West also really took place, although the time of the journey was not long ago, only about 800 years ago.

  The world 18,000 years after the Investiture of the Gods and 800 years after Journey to the West.

  He took a few deep breaths and pressed his heart back down into his chest.

  Chen Jiu's memories contained too many secrets, so many that he felt his previous sixteen years were a complete waste, like a frog at the bottom of a well, seeing only the patch of sky above his head, unaware of the vast world outside, unable to understand it. But today, he climbed up the well rim, feeling the infinite sky, and also stirring up his desire to explore this infinite sky. Now, it's just the first step.

  In his dream memory, in the legend of the war of sealing gods, a total of 365 orthodox gods were sealed in the end. However, apart from these 365 orthodox gods, there are countless small gods and minor gods. Chen Ji was one of them. Before he died, his identity was that of a soldier of Shang Zhou, but not an ordinary soldier, rather a great general of Shang Zhou, one of the two generals Hummer and Ha, General Chen Qi's personal soldier. It was precisely because of this personal soldier's identity that he had the opportunity to be sealed as the land god of Jia Mu. At that time, Jia Mu County was not such a chaotic burial ground, but a densely populated place with many people.

  At that time, during the war of sealing the gods, there were said to be eight hundred vassals. The battle was so fierce that it caused the sky and earth to lose their color, and the sun and moon to lose their light. Apart from those dead Jie teaching cultivators and famous generals of the Yin and Shang dynasties, countless soldiers on both sides died. Those who were written in the Sealing Gods List with names and surnames were all sealed as gods. A small soldier like Chen Qi who died on the battlefield did not have such good luck. If he was unlucky, his soul would scatter on the spot. If he was lucky, he would only get a small god position, trapped in one place. He was Chen Qi's personal soldier and died with his soul intact, so he received Chen Qi's care and obtained a position as a lord of a piece of land, which was already not bad.

  "The god of this world is actually such an existence, and there's also the Heavenly Court, haha, it's quite interesting!"

  Having fully digested Chen Qi's memories, Tie Jian finally had a general understanding of this world. This was a world where immortals and gods filled the sky, and the true rulers were not humans or anything else, but the Heavenly Court. The Heavenly Court governed all heavens and realms, but precisely because it governed too many, its management became lax, equivalent to governing nothing at all. In the period following the War of the Gods, governance was stricter, but after several thousand years passed, governance relaxed, and could even be said to have completely lost control.

  Here, humans are not the main characters, but just a part of all things in the world. The immortals in heaven won't look at you differently because you're human; in fact, to them, there's no difference between humans and pigs or dogs.

  Above is the Heavenly Court, below is the Underground Prison, and in between is the world of humans.

  And as for the word "human world", it is merely a definition of this world by humans, and to the gods in heaven, this place is Yangjian.

  Heaven governs Hell, and Hell governs the world of men.

  The underworld governs only the yang world, not humans.

  For all living beings, the underworld is impartial. This life you are human, next life you may become a pig or dog or cow or sheep, unless you can jump out of reincarnation.

  Beings who have escaped from reincarnation are called immortals. Humans can become immortals and other living beings can also become immortals.

  Apart from Xian, there is another creature that can jump out of reincarnation, which is Shen (God).

  Gods and immortals are different. Except for the 365 orthodox gods, gods have no physical bodies.

  Most gods are actually a kind of spiritual existence, which is why they contend for the power of incense, because the power of incense can enhance the power of the gods. These gods who have lost their physical bodies further cultivate the Great Way. Once they lose the incense, the gods lose their greatest support and ultimately fall, not even as good as ghosts.

  Because ghosts can still cultivate, but gods cannot.

  The so-called incense, also known as incense wish power, is actually a spiritual power of living beings. Because it has no physical form, it is similar to the gods of land and city walls that need incense wish power to maintain their own strength.

  The only exception is the 365 orthodox gods sealed by the Divine Sealing List back then. These 365 orthodox gods are known as Yang Gods because, after being refined by the power of the Divine Sealing List, their spiritual bodies have become almost indistinguishable from physical bodies. Their spiritual body is their true self and can cultivate and advance just like a physical body. Although they cannot advance as quickly as immortals since they do not possess a true physical body, they can still seize incense offerings to boost their cultivation speed, which isn't slower than that of immortals when truly cultivating.

  But small plots of land like Chen Jiu's did not have such good luck.

  Apart from the 365 orthodox gods of the Seal of the Gods, all other deities are referred to as yīn shén (陰神).

  All the evil spirits are under the jurisdiction of the underworld, and for the evil spirits or the evil spirits, the underworld is actually the netherworld that is most suitable for their survival. If the evil spirits want to survive in the yang world, they must have a carrier, which is made of various mud sculptures and wooden puppets. The evil spirits must extract enough incense and wishes from these images to survive in the yang world. These mud sculptures and wooden puppets are also their carriers in the yang world, because the yang energy in the yang world is too strong, so most of the evil spirits can only come out at night to extract incense and wishes. The more incense and wishes extracted, the stronger the evil spirits become.

  Incense and candlelight not only allow the yin spirits to survive in the yang realm, but also serve as a foundation for their cultivation of various divine powers. Especially in the yang realm, yin spirits can only rely on these divine powers to contend with humans, so for them, what they are contending for is just one incense stick.