From a Zhengyi Taoist Child to a Master of All Laws

Chapter 596 Incense becomes a god
This so-called 'Quanzhen Hongjiao Jingying Jiangxiao Yuanjun' was none other than Yubao, who had driven back several human immortals and died in a battle in Qiongzhou.

Before his death, Yubao was just a Taoist priest, so logically he should not be given the suffix of 'Yuanjun'. However, the official and Taoist alliance fully considered the outstanding contribution of Taoist Yubao in the battle of Qiongzhou, and that he died fighting for his country, so they made an exception and conferred him the title of 'Jiangxiao Yuanjun'.

This should be a very incredible thing. This is not the ancient times. There are huge taboos about conferring gods and building temples. The government is very sensitive and keeps a distance from related matters.

For example, the "Li Zhenjun" that is widely circulated among the people today cannot actually be found in official documents. The taboo title "Li Zhenjun" was originally just a verbal title bestowed by the Taoist Alliance, and was completely invisible to the official.

But today's 'Jiangxiao Yuanjun' is different. Not only did the capital city personally issue written documents, but even the plaque of the Taoist temple was written by Mr. Xie himself.

In ancient times, this was called conferring a title to a god, which was completely different from the temples built spontaneously by the people. Many years later, it is very likely that he will be carried into the main hall of major Taoist temples in a serious manner, just like gods such as Zhenwu Emperor.

The official move was not simply to win people's hearts, nor was it just for nothing. A golden light flashed in the eyes of the pale young man in Jingying Temple. It was obvious that every time a pilgrim burned incense, a very faint mysterious aura would follow the lingering smoke and enter the body sealed in clay and gold foil in the statue.

The breath is very faint, but it carries the will of the people and has a mysterious feeling.

The young man lowered his brows with sadness. Among the hundreds of thin incense sticks in the incense burner, only the three incense sticks he inserted shot straight into the sky. The mysterious aura was a hundred times thicker than that of ordinary people around him. When it touched the statue, the statue began to shake violently, as if it could not bear the incense burning by this young man.

"Daoyou, you can take what I gave you."

He whispered softly, and a golden light shot from his fingertips into the center of the statue's eyebrows. The statue immediately stabilized, and the golden paint all over its body became more brilliant and magnificent.

This miraculous phenomenon immediately shocked hundreds of people who were burning incense in Jingying Temple. Seeing that the statue of 'Jiangxiao Yuanjun' became brighter and emitting golden light after the shock, they shouted that Yuanjun had appeared, and the incense became more frequent and prosperous for a while.

"Friend Li, after the Mohe incident three days ago, I guessed that you had finally shown up. After thinking about it, if you were active in the world, you would most likely come here. I didn't expect that I would finally have waited for you."

An old Taoist with red eyebrows and green eyes, riding a black tiger, floated down from the sky outside Jingying Temple. When he appeared, there were strange visions of dragons and tigers, which looked very scary. However, the hundreds of people in Jingying Temple did not sense the appearance of the old Taoist at all. They only felt a strange vision suddenly appearing at the tip of their nose.

The young man did not answer. He stood with his hands behind his back, staring silently at the statue. Suddenly his face flushed, and he tried to suppress it, with blood flowing from the corner of his mouth.

He was Li Yang, who had disappeared from Blue Star for a whole year. At this moment, he appeared in Jingying Temple in an extremely low-key manner to commemorate his fellow Taoist.

Zhang Daoling concealed the strange vision and stood beside Li Yang like an old Taoist priest ringing the bell in a Taoist temple.

"Where have you been this year?"

Facing Zhang Daoling's question, Li Yang clenched his fists, then loosened them after a moment, with deep and unremovable sadness in his eyes.

That day, Chi Yanhong died in the battle, and he was also seriously injured and on the verge of death. He held Chi Yanhong's body and vented his grief between heaven and earth. Finally, when he passed by the Western Desert Grassland, he accidentally opened the secret realm of Shangri-La again above Mount Kailash and entered the secret realm.

Because of the special difference in the flow of time in the secret realm, for Li Yang, a year of tremendous changes in the outside world is only half a month for him.

Half a month was a short time, so short that he could still remember the details of the battle at Futu as if it were yesterday.

Li Yang did not choose the Shangri-La secret realm at random, because there was a kind of colorful spirit stone in the secret realm. He had heard Xuehe and Li Wujiu say that this was an exotic spirit stone that could increase lifespan and repair injuries. He built a coffin with the spirit stones in the secret realm and placed Chi Yanhong's body in it. He used all his magical powers, but was unable to resurrect the other party.

In the process of contact with the five-colored spirit stone, his body also autonomously absorbed a lot of five-colored spiritual power, which was mixed with the essence of the ancient lotus that Chi Yanhong transmitted into his body before his death. It was able to barely maintain his collapsed body and Tao foundation, allowing Li Yang to live for another half a month.

But for Li Yang, this half month was also a period of time worse than death.

He changed the subject and did not respond to Zhang Daoling. He pointed at the statue and spoke softly with a hint of admiration.

"Using the power of incense and vows as the foundation, you can use it to cast the statue and condense the soul. I think you are the only one in the whole of China who has this method."

"It's just a risk." Knowing that Li Yang didn't want to reveal anything, Zhang Daoling shook his head, like a sad old man, and continued the topic, no longer asking about Li Yang's whereabouts in the past year.

"Yubao's sword was too ruthless, and the backlash was extremely tragic. All three souls and seven spirits were sacrificed, leaving only a little bit of true spirit... But fortunately, you used the earthly immortal fruit to nourish and preserve her body at that time, so I took the risk and tried to use the power of incense and vows to nourish the remaining trace of true spirit in her body, to see if a miracle can happen and bring her back to life."

After saying this, Zhang Daoling sighed: "This method is extremely risky. Even if it succeeds in nurturing a complete soul, I don't know how many years it will take..."

Li Yang spoke calmly, turned around and asked: "How long will this take?"

"Maintain this scale for at least two epochs."

Seeing Li Yang frowning, Zhang Daoling smiled bitterly and said, "This is already a very conservative estimate. The process of becoming a god through incense is extremely complicated. This is because most people now know that Yu Bao died for the country. With the help of the government and some monks, Jingying Temple has reached its current scale. As time goes by, it will take a long time for the belief of the people to fade away."

Li Yang naturally knew this. Even with official endorsement, it is difficult to ensure that faith will last forever. In the thousands of years of Chinese history, there are countless statues of gods and Taoist temples that have been destroyed and collapsed in various corners.

As for those monks who were said to be "adding fuel to the flames", the typical example was naturally Liu Ming from Jingying Temple, who tried his best to recruit believers.

"There is one more thing, I will also explain it in advance." Zhang Daoling's face straightened, and he said solemnly: "Even if he succeeds in gathering his spirit and soul and reviving in the future, I dare not say whether the one who wakes up is the 'Jiang Xiao Yuan Jun' worshipped by the people now, or the former Yu Bao Zhenren.

After these words were spoken, there was a moment of silence between the two.

After a moment, Li Yang said quietly, "You have turned decay into magic and given us a glimmer of hope. Master Zhang, you have already achieved great success."

Knowing that the Yubao who was once enlightened and ignorant of the ways of the world has completely disappeared between heaven and earth, and that even if he were to be resurrected in the future, he would just be a similar flower, Li Yang felt depressed, but he also knew that this was the best method he could think of at the moment.

"It's my fault that I'm not very good at what I've learned..." Zhang Daoling shook his head guiltily, then stroked his beard and smiled kindly at Li Yang, "But besides that, I have another gift for you, Taoist friend. Would you mind coming with me to take a look?"

In the past, Li Yang would have been happy to go, but this time, Li Yang did not respond. Only after Zhang Daoling insisted did he reluctantly nod. This time, Li Yang gave Zhang Daoling the feeling of... a piece of wood.

A piece of wood that has lost all emotional expression due to extreme sadness, its heart is as dead as despair. Only when it is looking at the flesh body of the jade treasure in the gold foil clay sculpture, does a hint of sadness flash in its eyes.

Knowing the heavy blow that the heavy casualties in the battle of Futu a year ago brought to Li Yang, Zhang Daoling sighed, took Li Yang's hand, and ascended to heaven.

The pilgrims in Jingying Temple only felt two gusts of cool wind swirling upwards. They were surprised for a moment, and then continued to burn incense in order.
-
At the junction of Shuchuan and the Western Desert, the mountains and ridges in the plateau area are all covered with a thick layer of snow.

It was the dead of winter in December, and the weather was so severe and cold that even the most experienced local residents did not dare to go out and engage in tourism business.

In the ice and snow, two meteors landed on the grasslands of western Sichuan.

Although it is a grassland, the altitude is over 4,000 meters. The grass buds are dormant under the snow, and all you can see is a vast expanse of white.

Li Yang looked at the sky full of ice and snow and frowned slightly, wondering what this Zhang Tianshi was up to.

"Friend Li, please look again!"

Zhang Daoling stroked his beard and smiled, then pointed his finger, and suddenly a copper lamp emitting a faint light appeared hundreds of meters in the sky above the western Sichuan grassland.

There were seven transparent silk threads connected under the copper lamp, with the other end extending to somewhere unknown in the void. A faint light was being transmitted to the copper lamp through the silk threads.

The bronze lamp was neither real nor imaginary, as if it did not exist in reality. Even Li Yang did not notice it for a moment.

He flew forward and looked at the bronze lamp. For some reason, the flickering light in the bronze lamp gave Li Yang a very familiar feeling.

Looking down, right below the copper lamp, there was an extremely abrupt bulge on the originally flat and wide grassland. Although it was covered with frost and snow, one could still vaguely see that under the ice there was a mountain top that seemed to be broken in the middle. There were also several solemn and ancient buildings on the top of the mountain, some of which were dilapidated and collapsed, and now they were all frozen together.

Seeing this, Li Yang, who had a blank expression on his face just now, gradually had tears in his eyes, and he instantly understood what was inside the bronze lamp.

"Junior Li Yang, I would like to express my gratitude to Master Zhang!"

Li Yang wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes and saluted Zhang Daoling very seriously, but was held by Zhang Daoling with one hand.

"Don't thank me, the world owes you this."

Zhang Daoling's eyes were also cloudy. "The situation of the girl named Zhu Ling is different from Yubao. Her blood and essence have been drained out, and her body is withered. She can't follow the path of Yubao's body to contain the soul. I can only find another way. I found this soul-gathering lamp as the center of the formation and set up the Seven-Star Soul Gathering Formation to see if I can gather the soul that escaped after Zhu Ling's death that day."

“But this method also has its drawbacks. When a person dies, it is like a light going out. The soul in the body will not stay in the world for long. It will be instantly crushed into soul particles by the power of heaven and earth, and all memories will be washed away, returning to a confused state. Only when a newborn is born, these disordered soul particles that have been baptized by heaven and earth will re-form a new soul.”

"When I set up this formation, it had been nearly a month since Zhu Ling's death. Her soul had basically dissipated. This formation only gathered those soul particles that belonged to Zhu Ling after being baptized."

"In other words, even if all of Zhu Ling's soul particles are collected one day, her memory will be severely damaged, almost equivalent to a brand new soul... Fellow Daoist Li, are you willing to accept it?"

Li Yang stroked the bronze lamp, but his fingers passed through it and he could not touch the real object at all. He couldn't help but burst into tears.

When he entered the secret realm of Shangri-La, he had already learned about Zhu Ling's death from Liu Ming and Wang Shuhuan.
He couldn't imagine how Zhu Ling, with such a frail body, could shed the last drop of blood to lead his fellow disciples on the top of the mountain out of danger and protect the inheritance on the mountain with his own strength.

"Master Zhang, just cast the spell with confidence. Even if she loses her mind and becomes stupid and dull, even if she loses all her memories, I will still save her, just like I did 20 years ago."

Li Yang shed tears and kowtowed to Zhang Daoling again.
"I'm sorry, this world owes you too much. This is the only thing I can do to make up for it."

Zhang Daoling held Li Yang back again, tears streaming down his face. He had clearly broken through to become an earthly immortal, but his aura was exceptionally weak, even weaker than that of a human immortal who had just emerged from the mountains.

Becoming a god through burning incense and binding the soul with the seven stars both involve the great cause and effect of the transformation of life and death. To resurrect two dead people is a serious violation of taboo, and therefore the backlash is severe.

"No, it was me...I failed to protect them."

Li Yang gritted his teeth and spoke word by word.

But then, Li Yang felt weak again.
He was about to die. The five-colored spiritual power and the essence of the ancient lotus could only slow down the collapse of his foundation and physical body, but could not solve the terrible consequences brought about by the Fuyao technique.

Even in the intervals between words, a slight shattering sound could be heard from within his body, like a piece of pure jade slowly cracking.

Can I really save Zhu Ling again as I am now?

And Chi Yanhong, who is still lying in the secret realm, is also unable to change the ending.

He had no regrets. Facing the supreme earthly immortal Futu, no one on Blue Star at that time could kill him except himself who used the Fuyao technique.

He just felt guilty for not protecting the people around him, Chi Yanhong, and his disciples...

Thinking of this, Li Yang's face suddenly showed bitterness, and then he began to cough violently, as if he wanted to cough out his entire body under the skin.

Zhang Daoling activated the defensive formation of the Soul Gathering Lamp again, looked at this contemporary True Lord, felt sad at heart, and sighed to the sky.

Is it true that this world cannot accommodate such an unreasonable and brilliant Li Zhenjun?
Is it possible that the final fate of this contemporary earthly immortal can only be gradual demise and ultimately become a mere legend in China?
(End of this chapter)