I was a god in the 18th century

Early in the morning, Ah Huang, an old hunter from Dagu Village, met with bad luck. He was captured by several yamen runners who broke into the village and forced to act as a guide to find the legendary Taoist temple in the deep mountains and forests.

Even if it is a place where monks stay, it is registered with the court, and people outside the monks are also subject to the jurisdiction of the court.

However, the Taoist temple in their mountain area was struck by lightning on a rainy day a long time ago, and it was almost ruined at that time. People thought it was unlucky, so they stopped burning incense and worshipping. Over time, it became more and more desolate.

As the incense business dwindled, the Taoist priests on the mountain could no longer make ends meet and simply closed their doors and went on a pilgrimage. The Taoist temple, which was left unattended, became increasingly dilapidated.

The villagers at the foot of the mountain had long forgotten about the Taoist temple here. If the people from the government office had not come with a booklet today, insisting that there was a registered Taoist temple in the mountain, they would not have remembered it at all.

Old Huang thought about how he was caught by the yamen runners and made a guide just because he spoke too much and heard an old man talk about the Taoist temple on the mountain when he was a child.

Ah Huang felt extremely annoyed when he thought that it was all his fault for talking too much and causing him to waste a day's work, and serving as a guide for the yamen runners in vain.

"There are no Taoist priests in this shabby place. They are long gone. They all left. I heard that even the Taoist temple was destroyed by thunder." Ah Huang muttered as he led the group to walk blindly, "Officials, if you are looking for wanted criminals here, you have come to the wrong place."

According to Ah Huang's idea, if you encounter such a thing, you should just deal with it casually. Why do you have to be so serious and go looking for it?

"Stop talking nonsense and just lead the way." The bailiff A urged Ah Huang impatiently, feeling resentful in his heart.

Who wants to run around like a tough guy? It's just a matter of following orders from above and making you run yourself ragged.

Everyone is saying that yesterday on the red-haired foreign envoy's ship, an unshaved young assassin chopped off the head of an official, so there was a strict investigation of all Taoist temples in the jurisdiction.

The yamen runners assigned to this area were also feeling miserable. Not only was there no big temple nearby and they couldn't make any money, but the villages below were also so poor that they couldn't squeeze any money out of them.

But they had to go because the higher-ups had issued a strict order that all Taoists must be registered again. It was related to their jobs, so they had to go no matter how tired they were.

The group followed the old hunter Ah Huang and finally crossed mountains and ridges and arrived at a mountaintop plain.

"Look, there's the Taoist temple ahead! We found it!" Ah Huang shouted excitedly, then shook his head and sighed, "I told you not to come, this is just a small, dilapidated temple. Look, the roof has collapsed, there's no sign of a ghost here!"

The bailiffs wiped their sweat, cursed a few times, and were about to go forward to take a closer look when the marble statue in the center of the Taoist temple ruins suddenly soared into the sky and flew into the clouds.

"Oh my god!!!"

"The statue flew away?!"

Everyone was so frightened by this sudden change that they lost their voices, and some even fell to their knees in front of the ruined temple with a plop.

Out of curiosity, Xia Qingdai reached out and took out the statue in the center of the Taoist temple.

But just as she took it in her hand and had not had time to take a closer look, something unexpected happened and the small piece of the new map suddenly disappeared from her sight.

She frowned, thought for a second, grabbed the statue and put it back in its original position in the glass tank.

As the statue fell to the ground, the disappeared wild map reappeared. She picked it up again, it disappeared again, she put it down, and it reappeared. After repeating this several times, Xia Qingdai was sure.

Her action completely frightened the yamen runners below who had been comforting themselves that it might be an illusion, and they kowtowed repeatedly.

At this time, Xia Qingdai noticed that there were people here again. Just as she was about to inject the power of faith and speak, the old hunter who reacted the fastest had already turned around and ran away. The other yamen runners hurriedly followed him. The old hunter had encountered many different things in this mountain, and he had never left everything to fate. When he encountered danger, he would run, run quickly, and run immediately. Hesitating for a second would be disrespectful to his life.

"you--"

Xia Qingdai had just said two words when the little man in the wild map ran away. The main reason was that the wild map was too small, only ten meters in radius, and he was out of the circle after running two steps.

"How come it's like a rabbit, jumping away and disappearing." Xia Qingdai complained to herself, and simply picked up the statue again to take a closer look. This statue can open a wild map just like Little Owen, so she definitely can't let it stay here casually.

It's a palm-sized marble statue, and it feels quite heavy in the hand.

Upon closer inspection, Xia Qingdai was startled and let go of the statue as if her hand was burned.

With a loud bang, a bolt of lightning struck through the clouds and the statue fell from the sky.

The young man who was sitting cross-legged at the bottom of the lake in the canyon practicing breath-holding suddenly opened his eyes, grabbed the stone under him with both hands, and shot out like a spring.

"Wow!"

A huge shadow fell into the water in the next second. Fortunately, the lake was five meters deep. The resistance of the water blocked the speed of the falling object, and it finally only collided lightly with the rocks on the bottom of the water.

The young man looked back with a cold expression and pointed his sword at the uninvited guest in the water. Only then did he realize that it was the ancestral statue that he had just abandoned today.

A hint of blood floated out of the lake water, and the boy suddenly felt a sharp pain in his back.

Even though he reacted so quickly, his back was still scratched by the falling statue.

Just as the boy was about to swim forward to take a closer look, there was movement near the statue again, and he dived back more than ten meters.

At the same time, a huge red hand fell into the water, grabbed the statue in the young man's solemn gaze, and broke out of the water.

The young man followed closely behind, his head emerging from the water, and only saw the afterimage of a giant red hand and the statue breaking through the air and leaving.

"What on earth is this..." The young man muttered to himself, his handsome brows furrowed.

For some reason, an absurd guess came to his mind. He felt as if the world had become a toy of giants—even the ancestral statue.

Xia Qingdai put on plastic gloves and fished out the statue from the lake below. This time she was mentally prepared and did not react as strongly as when she first saw it.

The reason why she was so shocked just now was because the face of this palm-sized marble statue looked very much like her! Caught off guard, she fell into the uncanny valley effect and felt extremely uncomfortable.

"Why does he look like me? This is the Qing Dynasty in the 18th century." Xia Qingdai frowned, unable to understand.

After a moment, she remembered the young man who had appeared next to the statue when she was fishing it out just now. She thought to herself that things never happen more than three times, and there must be a reason why she had met the young man three times inexplicably.

Xia Qingdai no longer hesitated and put the statue back to its original location. The wind and clouds surged, and the canyon appeared before her eyes again.

The marble statue, which looked very much like her, was placed by her on a raised stone platform at the edge of the canyon. (End of this chapter)