All Heavens: Dual Cultivation of Magic and Martial Arts Starting from the Republic of China

Chapter 56 The Source of the Impure Earth

After eating the clumps of dark red, wet mud, Crazy He leaned against the shrine and fell asleep.

He was sleeping soundly.

There was still a little red mud on the corner of his mouth, as if he had just eaten something rare and delicious.

The black aura inside the earth god temple gradually receded.

The clay statue of the Earth God regained its benevolent appearance, its eyes dimmed, and its mouth closed. The cracked clay shell gradually closed up, as if the flesh, whiskers, and red clay from before were just a nightmare.

On the table, there were still a few dark red wet stains.

The dampness didn't dry; instead, it moved slowly like a living thing, eventually seeping into the mud beneath the altar through the cracks in the wooden planks.

Liao Xibai stood in his memory, quietly watching this scene.

He knew that what he was seeing was not the present, but the past that remained in He Fengzi's consciousness.

He Fengzi doesn't understand anything.

Therefore, in this memory, there is no judgment, no fear, and no reasoning, only very simple feelings.

Hungry, cold, and sleepy. The red clay tastes good. The local earth god gave him something delicious.

The screen started shaking.

In Liao Xibai's perception, time was like pages of paper scattered by the wind; he instantly read the words and quickly turned the pages...

After He Fengzi woke up, he returned to his original life.

During the day, he wandered around Hewan Village.

When hungry, they beg for food; when tired, they sleep.

When I get bored, I squat down by the edge of the field and watch the ants.

But after that day, he became somewhat different.

He began to enjoy the smell of soil.

Ordinary soil tastes bland to his nose.

The mud in the fields was a little damp after the rain.

The ash around the stove has a slightly bitter taste.

The mud along the riverbank had a slightly fishy smell.

But none of these taste good.

Only the red clay in the local earth god temple smells good.

Sweet, like meat, like a sweet dream!

So, Crazy He started going to the local temple more often.

Sometimes I would go in during the day and lie under the altar, sniffing around. Sometimes I would go in at night and curl up next to the shrine, waiting.

The clay statue of the Earth God usually doesn't react.

It simply sat there, with a kind and benevolent expression, like the ordinary earth god that the villagers worshipped on a daily basis.

He Fengzi was so anxious that he scratched his head and cheeks when he couldn't wait for the red mud.

He would lie on the altar and whisper.

"Lord Earth God".

"Hungry."

"I want to eat it."

no respond.

Disappointed, he lay down and fell asleep beside the shrine.

Until some nights.

The incense smoke in the earth god temple suddenly turned cold, and the eyes of the statue glowed blood red again. The clay shell cracked, black mist surged, and tentacles emerged from the cracks.

The Earth God awakens every so often.

Once, twice, three times...

Each time I wake up, I look even less like the Earth God than the last time.

The first time, the clay figure only had red eyes and tentacles growing from its mouth.

The second time, its chest also split open, and the black and red flesh inside churned like mud.

The third time, even the shrine behind it was covered with fine red lines, like veins, that burrowed into the ground along the altar.

But He Fengzi wasn't afraid; he just clapped his hands and laughed.

"The Earth God is awake again! Give me something delicious!"

The clay statue then expelled red clay.

Crazy He always ate everything clean.

The clay statue of the Earth God watches him eat, and a look of satisfaction appears in its blood-red eyes.

Eat. Eat more.

"Whoever eats the soil of God becomes one of God."

"Go far away for me and take the divine land with you."

He Fengzi couldn't understand.

He just chuckled.

"tasty."

The clay statue of the Earth God seemed unable to understand his words.

Or rather, it simply doesn't care whether Crazy He can understand it or not!

It was just talking to itself, speaking in fits and starts.

"The divine realm... will grow larger and larger."

"The entire earth... belongs to me."

"Incense...flesh and blood...innate energy..."

"They all need to come back."

These words are fragmented in He Fengzi's memory.

Some words even sounded like they had been soaked in water and were now just indistinct sounds.

Liao Xibai stood amidst these fragments of memory, yet he could hear them clearly.

The more he listened, the more serious his expression became.

The so-called local deity in Hewan Village has long been completely abnormal!

The "divine soil" it mentioned should be the "filthy soil" that Fu Ze referred to.

It wanted He Fengzi to take the filth out.

But Crazy He had no idea what he was doing.

He just ate. After he finished eating, he went out for a stroll.

The screen flips again...

He Fengzi left Hewan Village.

He walked along the ridges of the fields, along the paths. Sometimes he went east, sometimes west, without any particular destination.

When they got hungry, they would go to the village to beg for food.

Unable to get any, he slept under the tree.

Sometimes, he would squat down by the roadside to relieve himself.

What comes out is no longer ordinary feces.

Instead, it was a dark red, sticky, wet mud.

The wet mud fell into the grass, beside the tree roots, and at the corners of the walls, and quickly seeped into the ground.

It's like it has its own consciousness!

This is filth—it's ingested and then expelled, polluting area after area.

Liao Xibai saw Shuangjing Village.

It was late winter.

The wind was cold by the river, and a thin layer of frost still clung to the stone bridge at the village entrance.

Crazy He huddled outside the local temple, sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest all night.

As dawn approached, he staggered to the back of the temple wall.

A clump of dark red, wet mud fell into the muddy ground.

The rainwater and frost water mixed together and did not wash it away.

Instead, the red clay slowly dissolved and seeped into the ground beneath the temple courtyard.

The screen suddenly flickered.

Liugou Village.

In spring, the peach blossoms bloomed along the ditch.

Crazy He squatted under the peach tree, watching ants carry a petal.

He squatted there for a long time.

Then, he left a clump of dark red mud next to the tree roots.

The clump of mud quickly disappeared into the soil.

Then came Huai Shu Village.

Summer night.

The cicadas are making a lot of noise.

Under the old locust tree outside the village, Crazy He was sleeping, leaning against the trunk.

When he woke up in the middle of the night, he groggily got up and squatted behind a tree.

Dark red soil seeped into the roots of the old locust tree.

The shadows of the trees swayed slightly in the moonlight, as if they were shivering.

Another flash.

Shiqiao Village, Baitian Village...

The memories are fragmented and not connected.

Some are just a few breaths in the scene, and some are even just smells and sounds.

Damp earth, cold food, barking dogs, villagers' disapproving curses, pebbles thrown by children...

Liao Xibai walked among these fragments.

He gradually came to understand.

He the Madman spreads filth without a clear plan.

At least in He Fengzi's mind, there was no plan.

He wasn't sent to a village on orders, nor did he know where to pollute.

He just wanders around. He walks randomly, sleeps randomly, and excretes waste randomly.

This also explains why the timing of the incidents varied between different villages.

This wasn't a meticulously planned game. It was more like some kind of madness that planted the seeds of evil inside a madman and then let him roam freely!

Wherever it goes, the seeds fall.

This method is slow and covert.

Ordinary people won't pay attention to a madman, much less a puddle of filth.

By the time the village's land, incense offerings, and earth veins have all been eroded, it will be too late.

Liao Xibai wanted to continue chasing after them.

He wanted to know what exactly had increased in He Fengzi's body after he ate the red clay for the first time.

So he stopped looking only at He Fengzi's memories.

Instead, he let his divine thoughts sink deeper into the depths.

Immerse yourself in He Fengzi's physical sensations.

He sank into the remnants of the red mud he had swallowed.

next moment.

Liao Xibai felt as if he had entered a dark red tide.

All around, there was sticky, warm mud with a sweet, fishy smell.

Those muds are not inanimate objects.

They were flowing, breathing, and gently wriggling. Like countless tiny insects, or like some kind of invisible water flow, hidden deep within He Fengzi's flesh and spirit!

The reason why Crazy He could always find Red Mud at certain times was not because he remembered the way.

It was because of these impure lands that he was being called upon.

Or rather, they are calling out to each other.

There is a very faint yet real connection between them.

Liao Xibai suddenly understood.

You can't ask Crazy He, "Where is the Earth God?"

He Fengzi didn't know.

In He Fengzi's mind, the Earth God is the clay statue in the Earth God Temple.

You can't ask He Fengzi "what his true form is".

He couldn't possibly know.

But the defiled earth knows.

They all come from the same source.

Even if they are eaten by Crazy He, taken to different villages, and excreted out, polluting different lands, they still maintain some connection with their original source.

Liao Xibai closed his eyes.

Deep in He Fengzi's consciousness, he didn't need eyes.

He began to feel that pull.

It's very faint, but it exists.

A dark red line slowly emerged from the depths of chaotic memory.

The thread extended out from He Fengzi's body.

Passing through countless fragmented scenes, passing through the ridges of the river bend village, passing through the threshold of the land temple.

Passing through the altar, passing through the shrine...

Liao Xibai continued looking down along that line.

Then he discovered that the line did not stop on the clay statue of the Earth God.

It didn't stop on the offering table either.

It passed through the soil behind the earthen temple, through the soil beneath the dilapidated shack, and continued to extend deeper.

It was very deep and dark.

Like a source leading to some living thing underground.

The thing was both asleep and wriggling.

It doesn't even have a clear shape!

At least in He Fengzi's mind, it had no clear shape.

There was only one feeling: vast, hungry, frantic, and chaotic.

Around that feeling, countless tiny dark red veins spread out in all directions.

Some were already quite pale, while others remained moist and fresh.

Liao Xibai vaguely understood that those veins might be the remaining connections between the places polluted by the filth and the source.

Everything was unclear, like looking at something through a thick layer of mud and water.

But the direction is clear.

The further down you go, the closer you get to the back of the temple, and the closer you get to the hillside behind Hewan Village, the darker the red color becomes.

Liao Xibai was slightly shaken.

"Found it!"

It's not a statue of a deity, nor is it inside a temple. It's deep underground behind the local earth god temple in Hewan Village!

He wanted to see it more clearly.

I want to know where that dark red line ultimately leads.

But at this very moment...

The dark red tide suddenly stopped.

It wasn't that He Fengzi's consciousness stopped.

Rather, it was something hidden deep within the filthy earth, as if it had sensed being spied on.

Liao Xibai's heart sank.

The next instant, an indescribable malice surged forth from the depths of the dark red tide.

Hunger, rage, greed, chaos, madness!

Like something that is sleeping, having its eyelids gently touched from a great distance.

It didn't really wake up.

But instinctively, he rolled over.

boom!

He Fengzi's world of consciousness trembled violently.

One by one, the clusters of memory light around them exploded.

Countless fragments flew around.

The land temple in Hewan Village, with its red clay and bloodshot eyes on the statue; the bridge in Shuangjing Village; the old locust tree in Huaishu Village; the peach blossoms in Liugou Village; the rice paddies in Baitian Village…

All the images blended together, becoming a dark red torrent that pressed down on Liao Xibai.

In reality.

Liao Xibai's brows furrowed suddenly, and his face turned pale instantly.

Fu Ze's expression changed.

"Mr. Liao!"

Feng Xuan immediately shouted in a low voice.

"Don't move!"

He tapped the ground with his peach wood sword, and several protective talismans simultaneously lit up with a faint light.

He Fengzi, lying on the bed, also began to convulse.

He kept his eyes closed and mumbled incoherently.

"Lord Earth God..."

"woke up……"

"They're coming back..."

Li Junfeng's face was ashen, and his hand was already outstretched.

If Liao Xibai does anything wrong again, he will do everything he can to bring him back.

But deep down, Liao Xibai did not back down.

A dark red torrent rushed towards him, as if trying to engulf his consciousness and drag it into the deepest part of the earth.

He knew he couldn't watch anymore.

If I keep watching, I might really get entangled by that evil power!

But he must remember the location before he leaves.

Liao Xibai forced himself to calm down.

The innate divine thought, like a lamp, shone for a moment in the dark red tide.

It was in that very moment.

He saw it clearly!

"Behind the land temple in Hewan Village, beneath the shack where He Fangzi lived. Further back, towards the hillside behind the village, about twenty feet underground between two crooked trees, dark red lines all converge there!"

The next moment, the dark red tide completely subsided.

Liao Xibai stopped trying to hold on and abruptly withdrew his divine sense!

inside the house.

His hand, which was pressed on He Fengzi's skull, suddenly trembled.

It was as if I had floated up from the bottom of extremely deep water, and suddenly opened my eyes.

His face was frighteningly pale.

A little blood seeped from the corner of his lips.

Li Junfeng stepped forward and helped him up.

"teacher!"

Feng Xuan immediately reached out and pressed Liao Xibai's shoulder, chanting a spell in a low voice to help him calm down.

Fu Ze glanced at He Fengzi.

He Fengzi had stopped convulsing and was just lying unconscious on the bed, occasionally muttering "red mud" and "delicious".