Fortunately, that night she was there. Seeing the situation turn grim, she tore off a corner of her clothing to draw a Talisman and used a Spell of external incarnation on the Old Taoist Priest, managing to switch him out. Otherwise...The Old Taoist Priest wouldn't have had to wait for his enemies to come knocking; he would have been chopped into pieces that very night!
Afterward, the Zhang family's four sons somehow got wind that they were living up in the mountains and even gathered a bunch of people to come up and beat the adulterer, scaring the Old Taoist Priest so much that he hid in the mountains for a month, not daring to show his face!
However, the old rascal never changed his ways. As soon as the coast was clear, he still snuck down the mountain to meet with Widow Zhang. Once, he was discovered again, and this time without Shiyi present. But the Old Taoist Priest had a great fortune and managed to execute a "Golden Cicada Shedding its Shell," leaving his clothes behind to take a human form for the beating while he himself ran back bare-bottomed!
When he returned, Shiyi was in the courtyard chopping wood. Looking up and seeing the Old Taoist wobbling in, naked as the day he was born, he cried out and collapsed to the ground, afterward suffering from nightmares for several nights. It wasn't until he visited Landlord Wang's family several times and saw their muscle-bound and sinewy groundskeepers that he was finally able to conquer his inner demons!
But those sons of the Zhang family did plant a demon in the Old Taoist Priest's heart, especially Zhang Sanlang with that pig-slaughtering knife, nearly finishing the Old Taoist Priest once and for all. From then on, just thinking about it made the priest's legs shake and his loins turn cold, so whenever Shiyi mentioned the sons of the Zhang family, the Old Taoist Priest would instantly leap up, looking around in panic, his actions akin to a dog that had lost its home, as desperate as a pig heading to the slaughter.
Indeed...
As soon as the Old Taoist Priest heard it was the Zhang family's sons who had come, he sprang up instantly, and with a snap, turned his head so fast that Shiyi grimaced, fearing his slender neck would simply break. The Old Taoist Priest opened his slitted eyes and peered toward the main gate, muttering,
"Where... where are they?"
A strange gleam of cunning shone in Shiyi's eyes as he pointed outside,
"They're almost here, about a hundred paces away. I can hear them!"
The Old Taoist Priest was panic-stricken,
"Run! Run! If we don't run now, the Old Taoist Priest's life is in danger!"
What was most in danger was his little head, which even though not very useful these days, was still a family heirloom, barely good enough to last until his dying day!
While shouting, he turned,
"Pat"... with that sound,
In his panic and confusion, the priest tripped over his own feet and fell hard to the ground, his forehead slamming onto the broken stone slabs. He passed out without so much as a groan. Shiyi went over and kicked him,
"Get up, old man... If we don't run now, Zhang family's sons will be castrating you... They're here! They've entered!"
Shiyi yelled toward the gate,
The Old Taoist Priest on the ground didn't move. Shiyi was convinced he had truly passed out, so he bent down, hoisted the Old Taoist Priest by the waist, and lifted him up,
"Ugh... so stinky!"
The Old Taoist Priest, who never bathed all year round, naturally had a certain odor about him; it was a wonder how Widow Zhang could stand it!
Shiyi, with one arm around the Old Taoist and the other pinching his nose, managed to get the man inside the main hall and dumped him onto the makeshift bed in the corner. He then slapped his face a few times to check if he would wake up, and seeing that he would not, he finally felt at ease and went outside.
Once in the yard, he looked up and saw that it was indeed Mid-Autumn Festival, a time when moonlight was at its most glorious and the Yin energy prevailed. The desolate and ruined mountain retreat, with its broken walls and scattered bricks, bathed in the pallid moonlight, appeared profoundly melancholic. The occasional eerie hoot of night owls from the dense woods outside the retreat added an even more ominous feeling, enough to scare the pants off most people.
But Shiyi was well accustomed to it and didn't find it scary. In fact, he thought this was the perfect time for action!
He then knelt down on the spot, bowing respectfully several times to the moon above, murmuring,
"Grand Master above, bless your disciple that I may succeed tonight!"
Afterward, he sat cross-legged, fingers forming seals and resting atop his knees, eyes slightly narrowed, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth while guarding his spiritual platform internally. Within a few breaths, the platform was clear and bright, and soon a faint white light began to enter through his nostrils, a gathering of silken strands that merged into his being...
After an indeterminate amount of time, amidst the luminescent aura of her crossed legs, within the dantian qi resides, a faint light shined through, its radiance akin to that of the moon above. With her breathing, the white light slowly ascended during the expansion and contraction of her abdomen, moving from the Dantian to the chest, then from the chest to the throat, and after that, she vomited it all out with a "wa" sound,