Chapter 54: Borrowing Dharma Power

Xu Jia carefully observed the shrine on the altar and discovered a strip of red paper in the left corner of the shrine, on which was written "Qingtian Xiang Fox Immortal Hall."

Isn't this Hu Jinhua's hall? So this temple system is indeed connected to the temple system of my previous life, and it is even a superior-subordinate relationship.

Xu Jia touched it with his consciousness and immediately appeared within the Dharma Realm of the Fox Immortal Hall, seeing the scene inside.

Immediately after, his consciousness exited, and the perspective of the Fox Immortal Hall Dharma Realm dissipated.

Xu Jia looked around the paper strip of the Fox Immortal Hall genealogy again, and sure enough, there were two copper coins... they were just very small.

Xu Jia went to pick them up, and this time he was able to pick them up; what reached his ears were the wishes made by Zhao Shendian and the spirit-medium, and what they wished for was that the matter of the Fox Immortal was true.

Once Niu Congcong opened a branch hall for them, their wish came true, so they offered sacrifices piously to fulfill their vows, thus generating these two copper coins.

It's just that... these are much worse than the copper coins in front of the shrine; they are likely inferior money, the first time I've seen such.

Xu Jia tried to toss the two pieces of Dharma Money into the Merit Box, but there was not a sound.

Suddenly, within his physical body, there was an extra bit of Foot Heat Essence Qi, which surged into his five viscera, filling the emptiness of this physical body of Xu Jia.

At the same time, a tiny bit of golden Dharma Power, less than one-fifth of what Hu Jinhua had when she worshipped him before, hovered in his Qi Sea. The good thing is that it would not leak out like before.

Xu Jia estimated that this was the function of tossing coins into the Merit Box, or perhaps it was the effect of the Dharma Money itself.

This bit of Dharma Power was enough to use; it was sufficient to use the "Avoid Weaponry Curse" on the soles of his feet several times, or to draw two or three "Diamond Indestructible Talismans."

Xu Jia still wanted to study it further, but the next moment, the time for Xu Jia's consciousness to enter this place had arrived.

The time to enter the Heavenly Gate is only the duration of one stick of incense.

His consciousness was pulled back to his physical body, returning to the Nine-Layer Dharma Altar.

"Brother Xu, you've been up there for a stick of incense; when are you coming down!" Xiaopangdun saw Xu Jia's body swaying slightly and was terrified he would fall.

Xu Jia, however, was extremely happy and laughed, "I'm coming down right now!"

Xu Jia immediately flipped down table by table like Sun Houzi doing somersaults; by the time he landed, it had only taken the time of a cup of tea.

This made those people in the courtyard outside exclaim repeatedly.

Niu Congcong looked at Xu Jia, then looked at his own chubby build, and muttered, "It seems this skill cannot be learned; if you learn it, you'll be going to eat at a funeral feast."

Xu Jia landed on the ground and said to Niu Congcong, "Now they all know there is a Fox Immortal Hall here; does this count as becoming famous?"

Hu Jinhua had urinated outside to set up a barrier so that people wouldn't notice this place, but she couldn't stop Xu Jia from performing a set of high-altitude acrobatics, so the barrier became useless.

"Brother Xu, you should be famous; not only did you come back to life, but you are also practicing acrobatics here." Xiaopangdun scratched his head.

Xu Jia just smiled and pushed open the door. Outside, quite a few villagers and commoners were already standing there. They had different expressions, and upon seeing Xu Jia, they exclaimed, "You young man, you have such great ability; just now you were flipping up and flipping down, you scared us all to death."

Someone else recognized Niu Congcong: "This is the young master of the Niu landlord's family!"

"Eh? This is Er Zhu, he's grown so big!"

"Whoa! You are the Xu scholar from landlord Xu's family who died and came back to life? I remember, at the time you were being helped home by an old woman..." The villagers gathered around affectionately, curious about the Dharma Altar and the Knife Mountain Ladder set up in the courtyard, talking all at once and recognizing people.

There was no help for it; Qingtian Xiang was so small, and Xu Jia was so bizarre, that he had long since become a topic of conversation for the villagers after tea and meals.

Rural folk customs, strange tales and ghost stories.

"I am indeed the Xu scholar!" Xu Jia nodded and said, "And it is indeed true that I died and came back to life."

"Ah?" An elder of the clan asked curiously, "Did the Xu scholar take a trip inside the Ghost Gate?"

Xu Jia nodded, and immediately began his own: "Divine Fantasy Legend."

"I was harmed to death by someone using a spell; my soul drifted until I reached the Underworld and saw the King of Hell. This King of Hell, with a face as black as charcoal and a crescent moon on his forehead, asked me how I had come down to the Underworld."

"I then wept and told him of my bizarre death. The King of Hell then ordered someone to bring the Life and Death Book, opened it, and discovered that my Yang Lifespan was not yet exhausted and that I had died a wrongful death; he had originally intended to send me to the Wrongful Death City."

"I refused and pleaded with the King of Hell, saying that I had the grace of my parents yet to repay, and furthermore, a villain had taken my life; if he were to also take my parents' lives, what then? Would that not mean good people don't live long and bad people live for a thousand years? I also asked how there would be retribution in the future?"

"The King of Hell saw that my filial piety was deep, so he let me return, saying: If you repay kindness with kindness, how do you repay virtue?"

And so I came back to life.

"Ah? Did someone harm the little scholar? Why did I hear people say it was a weasel that crawled into the little scholar's belly and impersonated the little scholar, and that one must cut open the belly to see if there is a weasel?" A village woman looked suspiciously at Xu Jia's belly.

Xu Jia felt cold upon hearing these words.

He only said, "The King of Hell also told me that the person who harmed me was someone who practiced evil arts. Seeing that my family still had some assets and that our family line was thin, he wanted to swallow it up. Fearing that I would not be able to defeat that Evil Master after returning to life, he passed on to me some Underworld Great Dharma, which can allow me to climb the Mountain of Knives without injury and enter the sea of fire without harm. Just now, I was testing this method so that the fellow villagers would know that this is not some acrobatics or juggling, but a secret transmission from the Underworld."

None of the commoners had ever heard what the Underworld was actually like, and just like Xiaopangdun before, they were all in great awe of it, and secretly thought to themselves: "If even the King of Hell could let him return, the King of Hell must also be reasonable. The Xu scholar's filial piety moved the gods; it seems we should also be filial to our parents, so that when we go to the King of Hell in the future, we won't be afraid of being in the wrong..."

Xu Jia saw that the commoners already believed most of it, and that the public sentiment was ready to be used, so he added, "It is just that that evil Daoist does not dare to come out in the open, but secretly releases knives. As the saying goes, it is easy to dodge an open spear, but hard to guard against a hidden arrow. Such a villain is friendly on the surface, but waits for you to lower your guard before stabbing you; it is truly detestable!"

"He saw that I had returned to life, so he has been hiding. Last time he drove ghosts to my house to harm people, and now he has spread rumors saying that I am a weasel transformed... I will definitely not spare him in the future!"

At this moment, a voice rang out, and a Daoist was seen bringing two Yamen Runners: "I heard there is a licentious offering and wild sacrifice here, and that someone is deluding the villagers?"

Hu Jinhua said in a panic, "Master Xu, this is bad, that person is a Daoist Official from the Daoist Office of Yushan County, specifically in charge of the affairs of monks and Daoists in this county!"

Xu Jia, however, was calm and composed, and instructed her, "That evil Daoist indeed has subordinates here; I fear they are also believers of the Longevity Sect, monitoring us. Don't be afraid, just go to the Back Mountain."

Hu Jinhua slipped to the backyard and took a litter of foxes to run to the Back Mountain together.

Those two Yamen Runners were not Fierce Gods, but if you got involved with them, they were like dog-skin plasters.

To put it bluntly, if they were to catch thieves, they had no ability, but if it came to extorting money, they had many methods.

The villagers were afraid of the Yamen Runners and dispersed one after another. Only a few stood in the distance to watch the excitement.

(End of chapter)