Chapter 1 Beginning

Ji Xiang’s mind had cleared, but his eyes could not see, his mouth could not speak, and his ears could not hear.

A flood of memories from within this small, frail body poured into Ji Xiang’s brain.

The year was Wanli 25.

The date was the 18th of June.

It was the Ming Dynasty, but this Ming Dynasty had tales of gods and ghosts.

The three mountains held orthodox methods, the common people had folk teachings, the Ming court possessed national authority, spirits hid in the mountains, and demons gathered and howled.

At this moment, the coordinates of this body were within the Forbidden City, specifically, the Longde Hall, which had been built during the Jiajing era.

The late Emperor Longqing had renamed this grand hall Longde Hall, moving away the Zhenwu and Ruizong statues that were originally enshrined here, and instead dedicated it to the Three Pure Ones and other deities.

Now, under the reign of Emperor Wanli, the incense in the treasure hall was dwindling day by day.

Ji Xiang gleaned from his memories that if no one had moved this body, then before him would be the statues of the Three Pure Ones, and he himself was collapsed before the Daoist Ancestors, with three burnt-out incense sticks in the censer.

Ji Xiang was now a Daoist from Wudang Mountain, but his body was not on Wudang, but within the Forbidden City. Moreover, this body was charred and burnt to death, with its clothes and other adornments completely incinerated, leaving behind only some jade ornaments.

Apart from this charred corpse, there were no signs of fire damage to any other objects in the hall.

Same name, same surname, this was the usual situation for time-traveling.

And when Ji Xiang crossed over, he carried with him the blank divine tablet he had obtained from Dafu Li Land, which was now within his Neijing.

Neijing referred to the inner vision of one's body during cultivation.

The Liang Qiuzi commentary on the *Yellow Court Inner Canon* said: Inner refers to the heart; Jing refers to the image.

Simply understood, it was a spiritual world, and everyone had their own individual spiritual world.

“I only took a little of your incense, was such revenge necessary?”

Ji Xiang was very uncomfortable at this moment. Could he be considered to have been "demoted to the mortal realm"?

Other information revealed that the young Daoist had been doing well in his daily studies on Wudang Mountain, and had recently been assigned to the task of sweeping the grand hall in the imperial palace, replacing the previous Longde Hall priest.

The young Daoist’s master was a remarkable person, but he himself was very lazy on Wudang Mountain, and this time sending the young Daoist to work in the imperial palace was actually an exception.

Because Wudang Mountain was different from other mountains, among the “Three Ancestral Temples, Nine Daoist Sects, and Twenty-Six Sub-Sects”, Wudang Mountain, generally speaking, did not belong to any particular level, and just did its own thing. Within the mountain, there were Zhengyi Daoists, Quanzhen Daoists, Wudang Five Dragon Sect, Wudang Xuanwu Sect, Wudang Qingwei Sect, Wudang Sanfeng Sect....

Besides those cultivating immortality, there were also those practicing martial arts and those living in seclusion.

However, although there were many sects, they all had one thing in common, and that was that no matter what sect you were from, they all uniformly worshipped the Great Emperor Zhenwu as their highest god.

This time, many sects hoped to participate in the palace shift change, because Emperor Wanli had not interacted with Wudang for many years, instead elevating the status of the Dragon and Tiger Mountain Daoist sect, while also boosting Buddhism, to the point that Wudang Mountain was very eager to show off a few skills in front of the emperor, regain trust, so every sect wanted to take this face-gaining job, causing chaos on the mountain.

There were several ancestral masters on the mountain, some of whom had lived in seclusion here since the end of the Yuan Dynasty, and many did not belong to any particular sect, but were simply scattered individuals, but of course, for some reason, there were no cultivators in the mountain from before the Yuan Dynasty.

The sects asked the ancestral masters to choose among them, and the ancestral masters were also very troubled.

Then, this young Daoist’s master appeared, waved his hand, and said that everyone should stop fighting and let his disciple go.

According to this young Daoist’s rotten-brained master, a bunch of old Daoists tried to fool others every day but couldn’t, and would just be freeloaders if they went, so it was better for none of them to go, and just send a child to muddle through for two years.

The ancestral masters could no longer tolerate these juniors’ infighting. In their view, cultivation and longevity were the important things, and it was shameful and wasteful to fight tooth and nail for a job sweeping the imperial palace.

In the past, when Wudang Mountain was the imperial family’s designated Daoist temple, its incense was very prosperous. Emperor Jiajing had gone to Wudang Mountain many times to carry out large-scale construction, but decades had passed, and now Emperor Wanli had only bestowed upon Wudang Mountain a single, Sanskrit-bound scripture commentary, and had not had any other interaction with Wudang Mountain, only leaving a Wudang Mountain Daoist in the Forbidden City as a mascot, responsible for cleaning the Longde Hall on weekdays.

Anyone would do, since everyone was fighting so much, then none of them should go!

Thus, one of the ancestral masters appointed this young Daoist, saying that there was no need to discuss it further, and since there were no strict regulations from above, then he would go, and sweeping the imperial palace for two years could be considered adding to his work experience.

In this way, the youngest imperial palace sweeper appeared.

After all, the so-called Great Emperor Zhenwu was actually Emperor Yongle, Zhu Di, and even the statue was modeled after Emperor Yongle himself. The statue of Zhenwu could be moved, but the Wudang specialist responsible for the sacrifices could not be abolished.

And normally no one would come here, not even the palace maids or eunuchs often came, because Daoists had the practice of *bigu* (abstaining from grains) and *shiqi* (eating qi), and in this world with strange powers and chaotic gods, Daoists really had this ability.

However, the peaceful days did not last long.

At that time, the young Daoist was performing his usual chanting and blessing rituals. After completing the evening prayer, suddenly three beams of fire flew out from the incense burner of the Three Pure Ones, and directly entered the young Daoist’s body. Then, the young Daoist’s whole body became hot, and his internal organs were all burned within a few short moments.

At that time, the young Daoist tried to use his own fire-stopping technique to control the self-combustion, but those fires were extremely strange, not normal flames, but a curse technique.

The young Daoist had only done well in his studies in the sect, and his magic power was not strong, so he was quickly burned to death, but before he was burned to death, he chanted a scripture that could bring the dead back to life, hoping that his soul could rely on the scripture to remain immortal, but unfortunately, his soul was too weak and did not manage to maintain itself until he finished chanting the scripture before it disappeared.

The life and death of a person is merely the gathering and dispersal of qi.

Reviewing the memories to this point, Ji Xiang pondered slightly, it seemed that this Forbidden City was not peaceful either.

"This young Daoist came to the Forbidden City not long ago, and did not have any deep communication with anyone. The Forbidden City is a forbidden land for all magic, except for the sorcerers approved by the emperor to stay, there are no other cultivators, only the Zhang Zhenren from Dragon and Tiger Mountain comes in for a stroll every two months.”

"No grievances with fellow Daoists, no involvement in official politics, and no grudges with any factory guards or Embroidered Uniform Guards, what is the purpose of the person who cast the curse?"

Ji Xiang thought for a moment, but no matter what, the first thing to do now was to "come back to life."

This charred body was no way for him to move about in the world.

Thus, Ji Xiang simply moved his mind slightly, and suddenly, the blank divine tablet in his soul shone with majestic brilliance.

Countless incense and yellow qi surged out from this blank divine tablet in an instant, and the blank divine tablet also filled with white jade-like light in the Neijing.

These incense offerings reached every corner of the charred body, and then connected together, causing the charred body to slowly move under the action of the yellow qi.

These smells, this feeling, and this scene, even if his eyes could not see, his mouth and nose could not smell, and his ears could not hear, he could also understand that he was no longer a pure human.

"If I'm not human, then I'm not human, let me get up first...."

At the same time, when Ji Xiang’s mind was spinning, some words also flashed on the blank divine tablet, seemingly in response to Ji Xiang's question:

[Ten Thousand People's Incense: Those who eat Qi, are divine and immortal.]

These were "incense offerings."

It was the incense of the ten thousand people gathered from prayers of all living beings throughout the ages!

After confirming that the incense filled the flesh, Ji Xiang searched out the resurrection spell from the young Daoist’s memory, and after knowing its words, he was very surprised.

This was exactly the chanting sound he had heard when he was sent down to the lower realm by the Primordial Heavenly Lord’s divine tablet.

Thus, using the incense of the ten thousand people as a guide, he began to silently recite this scripture in his heart.

"Once upon a time, in the Azure Heaven, in the Blue Abyss, in the Great Floating Li Land...."

That was the *Scripture of Salvation*.