Above the Great Dao

Chen Shi could only sit down.

Strangely enough, he didn't eat many ginseng grass fruits, but he felt a sense of fullness. The ginseng grass fruits in his stomach began to digest, turning into waves of heat that spread throughout his body, indescribably comfortable.

"What is this ginseng grass fruit Granny gave me?" Chen Shi asked.

Granny Zhuang seemed to have rarely spoken to people before and wasn't good at small talk. It was only when Chen Shi asked that she said, "They're the fruits of the 'fruit fruit' plants."

Chen Shi's curiosity grew, "What are 'fruit fruit' plants?"

Granny Zhuang said, "The ginseng in the forests have lived for thousands of years. Ginseng grass fruit is their produce, one piece can save a person's life. You were very hungry, so I let you eat a few more."

Chen Shi was startled. Those chubby little ones are thousands of years old?

It didn't show at all.

"Granny Zhuang, do you know about the Mountain Lord Temple?" Chen Shi thought for a moment and then asked.

"I know. It's the place you went to these past few days. Not long ago, it rose from beneath the ground along with that mountain. Overnight, it grew so tall, much faster than me."

Saying this, Granny Zhuang revealed a look of envy.

She grew much slower.

Chen Shi's spirit was uplifted, and he said with a smile, "The Mountain Lord Temple emerged from underground, indicating it was originally here but later sank. Then, Granny, have you ever seen the Mountain Lord Temple before it sank?"

Granny Zhuang carefully reminisced, shaking her head, "Never. As long as I have had a memory, that place was always flat land, with mountains appearing only recently."

Chen Shi was startled again.

Granny Zhuang was the largest tree he had ever seen, probably thousands of years old.

However, Granny Zhuang was merely a new shoot grown from the side of her original body's stump!

Her original body was even more ancient!

Doesn't that mean the Mountain Lord Temple's descent underground happened before Granny Zhuang's birth?

How ancient was that?

"My original body must have been destroyed six thousand years ago."

Granny Zhuang pondered, "I must have grown a body six thousand years ago."

Chen Shi quickly followed up, "Granny, do you have any memories from before your original body was destroyed?"

Granny Zhuang faced such a question for the first time. She tried hard to recall, and suddenly her expression changed slightly, showing fear. She couldn't help but tremble. Her voice turned hoarse, "Fire! So many bolts of lightning! They chopped my body apart! It's burning over!"

She trembled and shrunk into a corner, helpless like a little girl.

Chen Shi hurried forward to comfort her.

"For Granny Zhuang to be so frightened, the catastrophe that happened six thousand years ago must have been extraordinary. Could it be related to the Mountain Lord Temple sinking underground?" Chen Shi pondered but soon cast the question aside, "I'm just a child in my teens, why worry about such adult matters?"

The healing power of the ginseng fruit was indeed strong, worthy of being a Divine Medicine that could revive the dead and mend bones, but after eating them, Chen Shi was hungry again half a day later.

"The ginseng fruit is stronger than grandfather's medicine, but only to a certain extent." Chen Shi thought to himself.

Two days later, the Chen family was eaten out of house and home, and so was Huangpo Village.

Even Granny Sha from Gangzi Village was left with nothing to cook because of Chen Shi.

Granny Sha's look at Chen Shi these past few days was not filled with the warmth for a well-behaved son but that of someone facing a persistent debt collector.

"If I continue to loaf about and scrounge for food, the villagers will starve to death with me."

Chen Shi reflected on himself. He couldn't just idle about; the crops needed time to grow so they could be reaped for the next harvest. So he decided to head into the mountains to hunt.

Great Snake Xuan Shan coiled around one of the peaks of Qianyang Mountain. Looking into the distance, a rain had just passed, and now the clouds had cleared, revealing good weather.

It exhaled into clouds, which the wind then scattered.

Suddenly, the valley quaked, and a huge beast the size of a small hill burst out of the mountain forest.

That was a Feng Xi.

When wild boars lived past fifty years, growing to 800 jin, they were called Feng Xi and could be considered mystic beasts.

Feng Xi had large heads, small bodies, and astonishing brute strength; even wild oxen would be sent flying upon impact.

A Feng Xi that has lived over a hundred years had its head occupying two-thirds of its body, with mane bristles like steel spikes, tusks like ivory, capable of carving through mountains and possessing boundless strength.

The Feng Xi that charged out of the mountain forest wasn't too large, standing nine feet at the shoulder, over two feet taller than an adult human, with tusks more than two feet long and as thick as an arm, effortlessly lifting and hurling giant rocks and knocking down several large trees.

However, in front of this Feng Xi was a tiny figure, grasping both tusks of the Feng Xi, shockingly wrestling with it!

That figure was none other than Chen Shi, skin and bones, but with incredible strength, though his stature was far too small compared to the Feng Xi.

A man and a boar wrestling, Chen Shi was pushed out of the forest by the Feng Xi, not because his strength was inadequate, but because he only had two legs, the ground unable to withstand the force from his legs, causing him to slide backward as if plowing the earth.

"In terms of strength, you're no match for me!"

Chen Shi roared, flexing his arms and gripping the thick tusks of the Feng Xi, engaging his core, and with a thunderous crash, he flung the massive beast to the ground!

The Feng Xi tried to flip back onto its feet, but Chen Shi unleashed his power, pinning down its head, and with a few punches smashed open the Feng Xi's skull!

After a few convulsions, the Feng Xi lay still.

Chen Shi hoisted the mountain of meat that was the Feng Xi and strode swiftly towards the nearby mountain stream, fearing that any slower and he would starve to death.

From a distance, Great Snake Xuan Shan watched Chen Shi busy at the stream.

It did not interfere.

Survival of the fittest; it too once had an epoch of bloodied feasts, preying on other mystic beasts.

It was observing Chen Shi.

By the stream, Chen Shi meticulously cleaned the Feng Xi and divided its parts: small ribs, large ribs, kidneys, offal, crunchy cartilage, ears, head meat, elbows, and trotters.

He chopped down a few large trees, roasting the suitable cuts, and stewing the rest in the big pot he had brought over from the Chen family's medicine concocting.

He roasted the Feng Xi's fat on pine wood until it turned golden yellow, sprinkling some coarse salt on the smoking ribs.

"He sure knows how to eat better than I did back in the day," thought Great Snake Xuan Shan.

Continuing to watch Chen Shi, he saw him basting the small ribs with oil; the first slab, the size of a table, was already cooked.

Although a mystic beast, the Feng Xi had a strong gamy taste, and the meat was tough to chew.

Luckily, Chen Shi's physical body had strengthened day by day, improving his bite so he could eat it effortlessly.

Especially the crispy and golden parts lacked the gamey smell, with a crackling sound on each bite, the roasted fat bursting with flavor in his mouth, saturating his tongue's eight thousand taste buds, each secreting saliva in a flash of satisfaction.

As the flesh rich with Spiritual Power entered his stomach, it burst into nourishment that rejuvenated Chen Shi's internal organs, significantly reducing his sensation of hunger.

Seeing this, Great Snake Xuan Shan, having dined on wind and dew for three thousand years, suddenly felt a bit hungry.

After a while, Great Snake Xuan Shan watched Chen Shi carrying the Feng Xi's hind leg towards him.

This hind leg was roasted to crispy tenderness. Chen Shi, fearing it was too large to properly cook through, had made deep cuts across the leg and massaged it with coarse salt; he also stuffed various aromatic plant leaves inside, thoroughly marinating it.

Great Snake Xuan Shan inhaled the fragrance wafting from the Feng Xi's hind leg; three thousand years of dining on wind and dew made him crave a taste.

— Thanks to Alliance Hierarch Huahuo Changge for the reward, looking very cool!

Let's see if anyone has some spare monthly tickets in their pockets, new book needs your care with the monthly tickets~