Chapter 200.1: The Toilet God has Manifested!
How could a wolf demon—one that even the Day Patrol God could not defeat—end up dying in a tiny village like Xiaoluo Village?
Clan Head Luo was still trembling. But when his daughter mentioned the wolf demon’s corpse, the fear in his heart over the death of the Day Patrol God was immediately replaced by another thought. His eyes lit up.
He hurriedly grabbed his daughter by the arm.
“Yinzi! Listen to me! An Earth God has appeared in our Xiaoluo Village!”
“That wolf demon just grabbed several of us and was about to eat us when the Earth God manifested!”
As he spoke, he even bowed respectfully in the direction of the shrine to the Earth God.
“My lord descended with heavenly fire and burned that wolf demon to death on the spot!”
Luo Yin’s pupils trembled.
She had grown up here, so of course she knew where the shrine to the Earth God was. She immediately turned her gaze precisely toward it, where a pile of offerings had already been laid out.
No matter how minor an Earth God might be, they were still a deity responsible for protecting their territory. Their strength was certainly greater than that of ordinary people.
But had a minor Earth God who had only just “come into being” really killed this wolf demon, one that even the Day Patrol God couldn’t defeat?
Luo Yin’s mind was in turmoil. However, as a constable, she would never show disrespect toward the gods. Besides, this particular Earth God had saved her family and the other villagers.
She suppressed her countless doubts and skillfully unscrewed the bamboo tube fastened at her waist. After removing the lid, she took out three sticks of cypress incense.
Constables of the dynasty received their salaries from the imperial court, yet their work involved crossing between two worlds.
Although they all possessed the [Invulnerability] constitution, and constables who diligently practiced martial arts could indeed kill demons and monsters, when they encountered particularly troublesome ones, they ultimately still had to turn to the divine path for help.
Therefore, almost every constable of the dynasty carried incense sticks and yellow ritual paper with them. Some also brought along a few pastries, a flask of wine, or some tea leaves. When they needed to ask a deity for help, presenting offerings first generally increased their chances of success.
Luo Yin was one of those who came thoroughly prepared.
She knelt before the shrine to the Earth God. With utmost reverence, she first took two pieces of pastry from her robes, then pulled out a water flask and poured all the clear wine inside into a wine pot, setting it neatly in place.
Only after completing this smooth, practiced sequence did she finally light the incense sticks.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!!!”
Wu Mingfeng had initially been watching with a curious expression, wondering, ‘What on earth is she doing?’ But as he watched Luo Yin carry out each step with effortless precision, something astonishing happened the moment she lit the incense.
In his spiritual state, two pieces of pastry and a pot of wine actually appeared before him!
“My God! You can do that?!”
Old Eighth, who had never seen much of the world, was utterly stunned.
To him, this was practically the same as watching a magic trick.
He picked up one of the pastries floating in front of him and tentatively took a bite.
It really had flavor!!
It was sweet, and surprisingly delicious.
Moreover, as the incense burned, wisps of smoke slowly rose and drifted straight into Wu Mingfeng’s body. He could clearly feel that his still somewhat insubstantial form had become just a tiny bit more solid than before.
It was only a tiny bit, but it was still an improvement in strength!
As the recipient of the worship, Wu Mingfeng’s eyes widened.
Blue Sea had no such procedure!
His first thought was whether he could use this method to offer sacrifices to Our God as well.
‘Oh, my God! As soon as I get back, I’ll take the very best batch of smoked meat I’ve made and offer it to Our God using the same ritual the people of Fallen Heaven Star use!’
‘Oh, right! In the previous world, I also gathered a whole bunch of incredibly delicious mushrooms. I was originally planning to dry them and eat them little by little, but I’ll burn those as offerings to Our God too!’
—Cheng Qisheng hurriedly issued a divine oracle to stop her believer from carrying out this idea.
Fallen Heaven Star could produce this effect because it had its own conversion field. Outside this planet, the same method simply wouldn’t work.
At the moment, she was multitasking on several fronts. It wasn’t just Wu Mingfeng, even the first group to descend upon Fallen Heaven Star had reacted the same way after learning about the local ritual of making offerings and burning incense. Their first thought had been that they would have to put on the same sort of ceremony when they returned.
This was definitely not something they should be burning as offerings!
The main problem was that Old Eighth’s straightforward way of thinking made them far too easy to read. Normally, these people could think calmly and rationally, but whenever the subject involved Blue Sea’s Creator God, Old Eighth would offer up absolutely anything they had.
If she didn’t make things clear to them, Cheng Qisheng was genuinely afraid that once they returned, they would arrive back at Blue Sea in the morning and happily burn down a temple for her by the afternoon.
She issued a divine oracle to all of them at once, finally putting an end to Old Eighths’ idea of offering the very best of everything to Her.
Among the first batch of Blue Sea residents to descend upon Fallen Heaven Star, everyone except Wu Mingfeng—who had nearly been killed the moment he arrived—was carrying out their duties as gods in a fairly conventional manner.
The requirement was that they had to use divine statues as their bodies, and those statues had to be completely unclaimed. As a result, most of these residents had become minor local deities worshipped privately by ordinary people.
Some were Earth Gods protecting a single village, others were Young Crop Gods who safeguarded the harvest, or Righteous Spirit Gods regarded as the guardians of their villages. There were also Bridgehead Gods perched on bridges, Kitchen Gods residing in kitchens, and even Field-End Gods whose “divine statues” were nothing more than large rocks.
The unluckiest of them all was a Blue Sea resident named Qin Sannian.
The moment she opened her eyes, she discovered that she had become a Toilet God. And not even the Toilet God of an entire village—she was the personal Toilet God of a single household!
A Toilet God’s duty was to guard places of filth and impurity. Her divine statue was a tiny clay figurine, placed in a corner outside the wall of an outhouse. Since descending, Qin Sannian had seen only two people in total, and all she had caught sight of were the trouser legs of people hurriedly rushing into the latrine.
Fortunately, Blue Sea’s residents were all pretty easygoing. No matter what happened to them, they could always find a way to look on the bright side.
For instance, Cheng Qisheng could sense that when Qin Sannian watched those trouser legs rush past her, her immediate reaction was to feel relieved that she hadn’t been placed inside the outhouse.
Our God above! When circumstances allow, Blue Sea’s residents are all very particular about cleanliness!
One noteworthy detail was that the titles of these divine statues all seemed to have some connection, however tenuous, to the names of the Blue Sea residents who had descended into them.
For example, Wu Mingfeng had descended into the body of an Earth God known as “Lord Ming.”
The reason Qin Sannian had descended into the body of a Toilet God was probably that the household in question addressed their Toilet God as Lady Sannian.
It didn’t have to be a proper name, either. A nickname would do just fine. The Blue Sea resident whose nickname was “Shitou/Stone,” for instance, had become a Field-End God whose divine statue was literally a stone.
At present, everyone was busy adapting to their new identities.
Wu Mingfeng had made the fastest progress. The moment he descended, he had invited a god to possess his body and unleashed an astonishing display of divine power. Although only two people had been stamped as believers by Cheng Qisheng so far—she still hadn’t figured out why only those two could become believers—the faith power of the entire village was contributing to him.
After overhearing the conversation between Clan Head Luo and Luo Yin, Cheng Qisheng had more or less figured out why she had attacked that wolf demon unconsciously.
Judging from what she had heard, the wolf demon was clearly no ordinary minor monster. Wu Mingfeng, who had only just descended into the Earth God’s statue, probably wouldn’t have stood a chance against it.
The situation at the time had probably gone something like this:
Wu Mingfeng, facing the wolf demon: I think I can take it!
Then the Creator God’s evil eye above his head: No, you can’t.
And then she had simply pushed down her eager-to-prove-himself believer and stepped in to fight in his place.
That had been a close call.
This world really was dangerous. It was just a tiny village, yet a demon of that caliber had appeared there.
The good news was that if her believers ever found themselves outmatched, she could still be summoned in to fight on their behalf. Although doing so consumed mental power, she just had to make sure to use it where it mattered. In a way, this gave Blue Sea a reliable fallback mechanism.
Cheng Qisheng was in the middle of relaying this information to the Blue Sea government when she suddenly sensed something. She raised her head and looked to the side.
Beside the sofa, a tiny wisp of blue-gray smoke was gradually materializing out of thin air.
Cheng Qisheng reached out and caught it, watching as the wisp transformed into a tiny strand of mental power and burrowed into her mental sea.
This strand of mental power was incredibly, incredibly weak. To use the same analogy as before, if Cheng Qisheng’s mental sea could hold one hundred million units of mental power, this tiny strand would amount to only about 0.00000001 units.
But the important thing was that it was free.
She didn’t need to spend nuclear crystals to increase her mental power, nor did she have to spend every day wandering around like some street loafer, manipulating her mental power to roam here and there. Now, it was almost as if she were consuming “rules.” Once she had “eaten” this strand of mental power, it belonged to her.
Cheng Qisheng: !
There are more surprises?!
No wonder the divine beings on Fallen Heaven Star could gain power from faith. It turned out that faith power could also be converted into mental power.
So not only could she directly receive the faith power of her believers, but now she could also collect a little commission from the incense offerings her believers received?
If that was the case…
Cheng Qisheng let her imagination run wild for a moment.
With several hundred million believers generating faith power, even if she collected just a tiny “commission” from each person, wouldn’t her mental power skyrocket in no time? She could reach the pinnacle of life and unlock a life of pure, unadulterated lag!
And if things really became too laggy, she could simply have her believers invite her to possess them, burning through a chunk of her mental power in the process.
If she accumulated too much, she could release some. If she used too much, she could just save up again for a while.
Cheng Qisheng’s gaze toward Fallen Heaven Star changed completely.
There was plenty of land where her believers could expand their network and recruit more followers. And now, she could even directly absorb faith power to increase her mental power.
Cheng Qisheng: I love this world!
She surveyed the situation among her believers, focusing most of her attention on Wu Mingfeng.
The constables who had arrived alongside Luo Yin had now reached the village as well. Upon hearing that the wolf demon had been eliminated—and that the one responsible was the newly emerged Earth God of Xiaoluo Village—they immediately took out their incense sticks with the same reverence and began bowing toward the shrine.
Wu Mingfeng accepted every offering that came his way—or rather, he didn’t exactly have the option to refuse. He was feasting to his heart’s content when he suddenly noticed a group of people appearing out of thin air in an open area in the distance.
At the very front, ghostly officials with grayish-blue faces and black official robes led the way. They held up wooden placards bearing the large black characters “Silence!”
One of the ghostly officials struck a gong and shouted, “The City God is making his rounds! All demons and spirits, stand aside—!”
Behind them, eight ghostly attendants dressed in gray carried a shadowy sedan chair. Their feet barely touched the ground as they bounced along, each light leap carrying them a great distance.
Bringing up the rear was a formation of armored Yin soldiers, more than thirty in total. Every one of them wore a stern expression and carried a weapon.
White mist swirled around the entire procession. Having used Lord Ming’s divine statue to obtain what was essentially a green card for this world, Wu Mingfeng could easily recognize that the white mist was actually the so-called yin energy.
The sedan chair came to a halt, and a middle-aged man stepped out. He wore an official’s hat and a scarlet official robe, had a long beard, and possessed a purplish-red complexion.
This should be the County City God.
Before descending into this world, Wu Mingfeng had undergone standardized training. He knew that a City God was roughly equivalent to a local prefect. So he immediately drifted forward and imitated the gesture Clan Head Luo had just used to greet the constables, clasping his hands in a formal salute to the City God.
“Earth God of Xiaoluo Village, greetings to Your Excellency, the City God.”
‘Heh heh. Speaking in such an old-fashioned, formal way is actually pretty fun. It feels like acting in a period drama!’
People generally imagined City Gods as stern and imposing, but this County City God seemed quite amiable. He even had a smile on his face as he returned Wu Mingfeng’s salute with an equally respectful one.
After all, he had been officially appointed by the imperial court. In theory, he belonged to a different system from naturally occurring deities like Earth Gods, who came into being through the workings of Heaven and Earth. Even if another deity held a lower divine rank, it wouldn’t be appropriate to put on airs.
And besides, this particular Earth God had managed to slay a formidable demon practically the moment he came into existence.
While the City God was on his way, he had already heard about the incident from the ghostly official who delivered the report. Before arriving, however, he had assumed that some powerful demon or monster seeking to enter the divine path had occupied the shrine to the Earth God, which was why it had been able to slay the wolf demon.
But now that he was actually at the scene, he could tell from the golden-yellow faith power radiating from the other party that this was genuinely a proper Earth God, one born naturally of Heaven and Earth.
“I never would have expected such a small village to give rise to a figure like Lord Ming. Thank you for intervening and protecting the people of the entire county.”
Wu Mingfeng waved a hand. “As the Earth God of Xiaoluo Village, this is my duty. There’s no need for Your Excellency to thank me.”
He still remembered his mission: to serve as Blue Sea’s vanguard and learn as much as possible about this world. So after exchanging a few pleasantries, he immediately turned to the main topic.
“You mentioned earlier that the wolf demon was a formidable demon. Is there a particular reason for that? I would be grateful if Your Excellency could enlighten me.”
Cheng Qisheng was curious too. She perked up her ears—or rather, turned her eyes toward them.
For some inexplicable reason, the County City God suddenly felt a little nervous. He instinctively glanced upward, but found nothing there. Puzzled, he withdrew his gaze and replied,
“Lord Ming has only just come into being, and this place is quite remote. I’m afraid you may not yet be familiar with the state of demons and monsters in this world. Demons are classified into spirits and monsters, lesser demons, and greater demons. Beneath the greater demons, there are also spiritual demons, who devote themselves to cultivation without taking human lives, as well as formidable demons and wicked demons, who increase their cultivation through bloodshed.”
“That formidable demon had probably devoured no fewer than two thousand people. Its cultivation had already reached the Dharma-Manifestation Realm. If Lord Ming hadn’t intervened, Xiaoluo Village might well have been doomed.”
The County City God explained everything to Wu Mingfeng with considerable thoughtfulness.
Whether one practiced human cultivation, followed the divine path, or belonged to the world of demons, monsters, ghosts, and spirits, each had its own terminology for cultivation. However, there was also a common system for classifying cultivation realms.
