Chapter 1748: The Excellent White-Feathered Chicken

Fire was burning, flames and thick smoke rising.

The Zhou family had their mouths gagged, struggling and writhing in terror, but it was useless; they could only watch helplessly as the flames crept upward.

Their hair curled, oil seeped from their skin, the pain beyond words, but they could do nothing, only watch.

The only one whose mouth wasn't gagged, Zhou Xiaocui, pressed her lips together, silent.

Her body trembled, her beautiful large eyes full of fear, yet she stayed silent, staring defiantly at the surrounding flames.

"To live one day clear-eyed,"

"is better than living a lifetime like swine or sheep!"

Zhou Xiaocui looked at the frenzied villagers around her with scorn.

This scene convinced everyone beyond doubt that she had been bewitched by demons.

A person who doesn't care about the life or death of her whole family, who doesn't even care about herself — could such a person possibly be normal?

This person is already a demon's servant ghost!

"Burn her!"

"Burn her!"

"……"

Countless villagers roared in frenzy.

They didn't know why, but they shouted with an unusual fury, a strange thrill rising in their hearts.

"……Command all things, subdue demons and pacify mountains……"

The temple priest's savage expression vanished, and he chanted the prayer with compassion.

"……The Seven Treasures for Subduing Demons, shining with spiritual light to pierce all darkness;"

"……Exquisite and wondrous dharma, wielding the sword of wisdom to sever all evils, commanding all thunder, summoning the armored hosts of the three realms, sweeping away demonic miasms; celestial troops blazing in majesty, terrifying the ghosts and wraiths of the nine underworlds, purifying the world to manifest power so that evil spirits flee, pacifying mountains so that the earth's veins rest in peace……"

The villagers fell silent at once, and so did Tu Ying San Yi.

They chanted in unison the hymn of prayer to the god; the majestic, blazing righteous sound spread to the four directions, radiating sacred light, driving away all darkness and all frenzy, every heart filled with utter peace and tranquility, finding brief peace in prayer to the god.

In this suffering world, this was a rare happiness for them, a momentary forgetting of the hardships of mortal life.

In the god, they found a measure of peace and happiness.

Every villager wore a look of serenity, forming a stark contrast with the crackling oil and flames on the pyre.

The entire Zhou family had been bound and arranged in a circle from inside to outside; by now the outermost layer — Old Zhou and Zhou Xiaocui's parents — had been reached by the flames and were being consumed by them.

The fire melted the ropes binding them and the rags in their mouths; they twisted and writhed, screaming hideously, their voices piercing through the chanting and ringing out together with it.

This scene was so eerie it made one's hair stand on end.

"The cult of an evil god……"

Jiang Ding watched with reluctance, sighing, gazing on with sorrow.

At the death of fellow clansmen who had not violated the immortal sect's laws, he felt grief — sharing in the sorrow of all beings — and did not dare to stand lofty and look down upon the mortal world.

But he would not intervene.

Because in the future he must save the entire great thousand world of gods and buddhas; to affect that grand plan for the sake of one person was not what he wished.

It had nothing to do with being noble or base, hypocritical or sincere — he was simply that kind of person, answerable only to his own Dao-heart, never living for the sake of others' opinions.

"Moreover,"

"who can say for certain whether there is hope or not?"

Jiang Ding murmured.

Earlier, he had wondered — if fast-raised white-feathered chicken farms were everywhere, then where were the higher-grade farms?

Now he knew: the higher-grade farm was here, with the temple priest.

This temple priest possessed a Foundation Establishment-grade divine soul.

Of course, his divine soul, through years of prayer and god-worship, had become a single solid mass of crystal — a complete whole — but in terms of material it was still a Foundation Establishment divine soul, unable to manifest any miraculous power or grant him any enhancement to body or magic power.

So-called self-severed cultivation was precisely this kind of situation.

He was still a mortal, still able to live only fifty years; how long a higher-grade white-feathered chicken could live was unknown — probably longer, since without enough time one couldn't grow a Jin Dan-grade divine soul.

Why speak of hope or not?

Why say that hope existed in this temple priest?

Because this temple priest was not entirely devout.

He became temple priest because his professional ability was outstanding enough — under his governance more incense-power was born, earning the praise of the divine being — and moreover because his aptitude was higher; he was a white-feathered chicken that grew more meat, and with the same spiritual energy invested he grew bigger, taller, and meatier.

How could such an excellent white-feathered chicken be treated poorly by the divine being?

Besides, although this temple priest was greedy for money and lecherous, with all sorts of petty schemes, and was not absolutely devout toward the divine being, he was still above average.

"No,"

"even so, being so close to the passing line of devoutness is still too much of a coincidence."

A thought arose in Jiang Ding's mind.

"This cleverly designed system of the great thousand world should set a minimum standard — at least a good degree of devoutness should be required to become a temple priest, so that the divine soul grows stronger, which would greatly reduce the risk to humanity; that would be more reasonable."

"The only drawback is that the quality of the white-feathered chickens drops somewhat, but the divine beings can accept that — they have ample time and don't care about such a temporary decline."

"Now, the facts are not so."

"So, is there some powerful pressure from outside forcing this divine being to demand more high-quality divine souls, thus lowering the temple priest standard?"

Jiang Ding guessed

and reasoned.

The outside pressure — is it war?

Is the divine faction of this great thousand world facing war?

All sorts of thoughts surfaced in his mind, to be explored and verified in the future.

However, right now one thing was certain: since this divine-statue faction had lowered the standard of devotion for its temple warden, it would surely give the human side more leverage.

Through Tu Ying San Yi's eyes, Jiang Ding looked at one of the villagers.

Yu Yong.

He was a destitute family in the village, even poorer than Tu Ying San Yi had been before his parents passed away. He had always been timid and cowardly, mocked by many.

But in the past few months, he had grown very close to Zhou Xiaocui, won over by the beauty.

Yu Yong's face now showed pain and struggle.

He hesitated, he wavered, but finally could bear it no longer. A savage look crossed his face, a brutal light appeared in his pupils, his reason left him, and he could no longer control himself.

"You—!"

"All of—"

Yu Yong spoke word by word, each word booming like a great bell, easily shattering the prayers of several hundred villagers, and roared: "All of you deserve to die!"

"Roar!"

"All deserve to die!"

A wave of incomparably brutal and cruel killing intent spread out in all directions.

"De-demon…"

All the villagers woke from their brief peace, looking at Yu Yong in terror.

That thin, small youth was swelling and expanding without stop, tearing through his human skin. From beneath the torn human skin, dense scales were revealed, sharp claws and fangs, a gaping maw dripping with slaver.

This—was unmistakably a raging dragon-beast some ten feet tall!

"Demon!"

"He's really a demon!"

All the villagers screamed in terror, fleeing madly in every direction, scattering in an instant.

"You—!"

"All deserve to die!"

The raging dragon-beast bellowed savagely, its eyes filled with madness.

It even forgot to rescue Zhou Xiaocui, finding the people fleeing all around far too annoying. Its sharp claws swung out, piercing through four of them in one stroke, stringing them together like blood-gourd skewers, and stuffing them into its mouth to chew in great bites, blood splattering everywhere.