Borrowing a Corpse to Seek the Dao

Xuan Zhen was nailed to death by his junior fellow disciple Li Chengze at Qingyun Temple. He returned to life in the corpse of Li San, a laborer. Starting out as a worthless beggar, he gathered ghost servants, formed alliances with the five great families, and built an intelligence network. Along the way, he defeated Jingxu, the Dao Registry Bureau, Li Chengze, and his senior uncle Xuanji, only to discover that he was the reincarnation of Li Chunfeng, who had sealed the Ghost Emperor Changsheng Tian a thousand years ago. Every time he took a step in the Seven Stars Formation, he summoned his past self. The divine beings called forth by his summoning art were not gods from the Celestial Court, but the Dao soul Li Chunfeng had left behind in the world. With the first summons, he called forth a fragment of Li Chunfeng’s lingering consciousness and glimpsed the battle to seal Changsheng Tian a thousand years earlier. With the second, he summoned thirty percent of Li Chunfeng’s Dao soul and stood against Changsheng Tian with the power of the Four Duty Officers. With the third, he summoned all of Li Chunfeng’s Dao soul, channeled the Big Dipper’s seven stars into his body, and perished alongside Changsheng Tian. The seal was complete. Merit flooded into him, and he became a god in a single step. After ascending to godhood, he returned his body to Li San and used divine power to give him a new life. Li San’s lingering consciousness entered the cycle of reincarnation. In a mortal body, Xuan Zhen walked into the seal and joined Changsheng Tian in guarding the depths beneath the earth. In the Eight Trigrams Mirror, Yongjia’s lingering soul glimmered faintly. A thousand years later, a fortune-telling stall appeared in a dark alley west of Chang’an. A young Daoist sat behind it, his left eye normal and his right eye covered with black cloth. Someone asked him, “Master, are your predictions accurate?” “Accurate. I’ve already settled my own account. I owe this world a debt of karma, and I haven’t repaid it yet.” With that, he packed up and left. An empty ledger of karma remained on the stall. The wind turned to the last page, where a line of writing appeared: “The debt is settled. The man has returned. The god is made.”