Chapter 600: The Fading Old Soldier (Second Update!)
The scriptures of the Great Nurturing Demon Sutra still transformed into a ball of thread. Granny Si handed the thread ball to Qin Mu, but Qin Mu shook his head and said, "Granny, you keep the scriptures for now. Luofu Heaven is full of dangers, and keeping them with me would be of no use."
Granny Si took out a small bamboo basket, a little flower basket that was round on top and square on the bottom. She placed the thread ball inside the basket, which also contained some scraps of cloth, scissors, silver needles, and other such things—likely her own spiritual weapons.
The two of them looked toward the blood river churning in the air. The blood river had trapped the divine being holding a war halberd on the altar in its center. The purpose of this sacrifice didn't seem to be a simple summoning of a god or demon to descend.
The blood river hadn't transformed into the blood light that summons gods and demons. Instead, it split into streams of plasma that formed mysterious patterns in the air. Those runes were quite profound, likely the sacrificial arts of the demon race.
Sacrifice actually originated from the demon race. Qin Mu had also learned some sacrificial techniques—the Talisman Command for Summoning Ghosts and Deities was one such sacrificial method, originating from Dutian Demon King. Dutian Demon King had passed this sacrificial art down to Yankang with the purpose of summoning himself to descend and invade Yankang. But after encountering Qin Mu, he had abandoned that notion.
—The demon race also had many heavens. Both Dutian and Luofu Heaven were among the demon race's heavens. Both worlds had fallen into destruction, and both were seeking ways to prolong their people's lives and ensure their propagation.
In fact, most sacrificial techniques came from the demon race. The demon race had created countless sacrificial methods and established a unique civilization system, vastly different from both Yankang and Taihuang Heaven.
The human race had also learned some sacrificial techniques from the demon race. For instance, the Great Nurturing Demon Sutra contained many sacrificial methods, which were also cultivation techniques of the demonic path.
What the human race learned from the demon race wasn't limited to sacrificial techniques. There were also many demonic arts. For example, the shamanic arts of the Loulan Golden Palace were passed down from the Kuiwu War God, who was a demon god sent down to Youdu by the Heavenly Court.
"Something's not right!"
Granny Si studied the blood river encircling the altar. The blood-colored runes were appearing more and more. Under the blood river's encirclement, the halberd-wielding divine being from the Great Ruins seemed trapped in a predicament. He kept charging and ramming, trying to break through this sacrifice, but he could never break free.
He even tried to rush out of the altar but couldn't escape.
The demon god presiding over the sacrifice wasn't very powerful—otherwise, he wouldn't have died to Granny Si's sneak attack. His strength should have been far inferior to the halberd-wielding divine being's. Yet his sacrificial technique was truly unfathomable.
Even though he died at Granny Si's hands, his blood and flesh sacrifice could still trap the halberd-wielding divine being in the center, preventing his opponent from escaping!
"He's planning to sacrifice this halberd-wielding divine being along with everything else!"
Granny Si shuddered and murmured, "He's using the halberd-wielding divine being as an offering, together with the blood river, sacrificing them to some ancient existence, summoning that existence to descend..."
Qin Mu's research on sacrifice wasn't deep. His mastery was actually inferior to Granny Si's, but even so, he could see that the halberd-wielding divine being's situation was extremely dire.
This halberd-wielding divine being wore armor, and beneath the armor, drops of blood were slowly floating out, rising into the air and merging with the blood river!
Not only that, but his war halberd and his armor were both beginning to lose their essence!
That demon god's sacrificial technique was truly too powerful!
The halberd-wielding divine being had already become much weaker than before. As his own strength waned, his blood and qi drained even faster, making it even harder to resist this sacrifice.
"Granny, the demon god you just killed was probably one of the most elite sacrificial masters among the demon race! You killed an extremely important demon god!" Qin Mu exclaimed when he saw the halberd-wielding divine being's plight.
Granny Si said gloomily, "But I can't save that deity on the altar. If we rush into the altar, we'd only be throwing our lives away. We can't even stop this sacrifice, can't stop the ancient existence from descending..."
On the altar, the halberd-wielding divine being charged east and west, but his losses grew greater and greater. Finally, he gave up resisting. He stood at the top of the altar, gazing up at something in the sky.
This was the final road of a divine being. He was about to dissolve into an offering, becoming nourishment for another ancient existence to descend.
"I should have died long ago..."
The halberd-wielding divine being's voice came through, sounding lonely and desolate. He stood on the altar and spoke loudly, his voice carrying far and wide, murmuring, "I should have died long ago, died in the great calamity twenty thousand years ago. I should have died on the battlefield alongside my comrades. I shouldn't have gone into slumber, shouldn't have become a stone statue in the Great Ruins, shouldn't have dragged out my existence until now, guarding some damn hope, some damn future..."
Qin Mu and Granny Si stood stunned, looking at the divine being on the altar. Though they wished to save him, they were helpless.
That deity knelt down on one knee, leaning on his war halberd to resist this blood sacrifice, his voice growing low: "Hope, future, Wuyou Village... We've been dormant for too long, Kaihuang! Dormant to the point where we've lost our will to fight, dormant to the point where our stone statues have gone cold, dormant to the point where the common people we swore to protect have all died, where we can no longer see familiar faces, dormant to the point where this land has changed beyond recognition! And you..."
His voice suddenly rose, hurling a deafening accusation at the heavens: "Kaihuang! Where are you?"
"Is the ideal world in your heart that Wuyou Village where you've been hiding?"
"Can you bear to watch your subordinates, the old soldiers who followed you, wither away one by one?"
"Can you bear to watch the land change hands, watch the people you protected grow old one by one?"
"Why haven't you appeared?"
"It's been twenty thousand years! Haven't you yet emerged from your failure? Haven't you regained your confidence? Are you still unwilling to leave Wuyou Village? We're waiting for you, waiting for you to summon your old troops and charge that Heavenly Court once more! Where are you?"
...
Qin Mu and Granny Si heard his voice echo between heaven and earth. In this dying Luofu Heaven, no one could answer his accusations.
"My Yanling, dissolve with me!"
On the high altar, amidst the thick blood light, that divine being stood up, pouring every ounce of his strength into his divine weapon. At that moment, an incomparably brilliant light erupted from the top of the altar—so dazzling that it was hard to keep one's eyes open. All they could hear was his voice rumbling through the air like thunder.
"Kaihuang is absent, but our guardianship remains!"
"I, a veteran of Kaihuang, star of the Heavenly Emperor, Luo Yu, soldier of the Yaoguang Division, use this broken body to protect our people and prevent your descent!"
"Body Dissolution—"
"Spirit Dissolution—"
Light exploded. A heaven-shaking, earth-shattering roar came forth. A terrifying tremor surged outward from the top of the altar in all directions. Granny Si immediately spread her Daluotian Star Force Field to protect herself and Qin Mu as the surging waves of air engulfed them!
A dense halo swept across the Daluotian Star Force Field with a hum. The ground flipped up like scorched, brittle crackers, shattering with the halo. In the sky, a broken planet drifted to this location, kicking up towering waves. But even the towering waves standing between heaven and earth were held back by this eruption. Then the waves retreated backward as floodwaters spread everywhere!
This eruption was extremely brief. Before long, the area around the altar returned to calm. The blood river that had shrouded the altar was completely gone. The divine being on the altar and his war halberd had dissolved into nothing. The altar was broken and stained with blood.
That divine being had already dissolved his own body, his primordial spirit dissipating. With the power of self-sacrifice, he had interrupted this sacrifice, preventing the ancient existence that demon god had tried to summon from descending.
Qin Mu stared blankly at the blood-stained altar, not moving for a long time. Granny Si couldn't help but say, "Mu'er, let's go. He chose to free himself—that's a good thing for him too. After all, he fulfilled his promise and completed his wish. Let's head to the next altar. Hopefully we'll run into the Woodcutter Sage..."
Qin Mu followed her, silent the whole way. Granny Si was a bit unaccustomed to this. She turned back and smiled, "Mu'er, what are you thinking about? This isn't like you."
"I was thinking that perhaps my ancestor, that Kaihuang, might not be the great hero I imagined him to be."
Qin Mu stared blankly into space and said, "When I learned I came from Wuyou Village, that I was a descendant of Kaihuang, I always had this thought in my heart—imagining Kaihuang as a towering great hero, a grand champion with supreme ideals, followed by countless heroic figures. He must have been kind and admirable. But..."
He shook his head and paused for a moment before saying, "Perhaps he isn't that kind of person. Perhaps he's just a cowardly old man, without that courage, without that breadth of vision. Perhaps he's just hiding in Wuyou Village, continuing his days of drunken oblivion. Perhaps he's let down the countless heroes who followed him..."
Granny Si blinked, then burst out laughing: "Mu'er, you're still a child! Why think about all this? When I was your age... hmm, Li Tianxing had already set his sights on me, and I was figuring out how to take him down... When the Village Chief was your age, he was still playing in the mud!"
Qin Mu laughed and said, "The Village Chief had probably already taken a master by then, being groomed as the next Human Sovereign. How could he be playing in the mud? Granny, you're joking again."
Seeing him smile, Granny Si laughed and said, "You're a child I raised myself. Though I wasn't too kind to you when you wet the bed and I didn't want to raise you, now that you've grown up, I'm always worried about you leaving me, leaving the village. I'm always thinking about whether you're doing well, always worried about you being taken advantage of. Maybe this is what parents feel. I don't want you to grow up so fast, to have so many worries. You should be carefree... It's all that damned Village Chief's fault, making you the Human Sovereign! When we get back, I'm going to splash black dog blood all over his stone statue!"
They arrived near the second altar. Looking from afar, they saw a demon god attacking this altar, trying to seize control of it.
The battle between the two gods and demons was an astonishing sight.
"Isn't Fu Riluo afraid that the Woodcutter Sage might harden his heart and blood-sacrifice all of Luofu Heaven?" Qin Mu shook his head.
Granny Si set down her little flower basket, pulled out her scissors from the basket, took out some torn cloth strips, and her ten fingers flew as she threaded the needle and stitched together a ragged garment. She laughed, "Fu Riluo is preparing bargaining chips! The more altars he captures, the more advantage he gains in negotiations! Rise—"
The tattered garment she had just sewn flew up, flying toward the battlefield. The garment swooped in and automatically draped itself over that demon god.
—Xuzhou is over thirty degrees now, and just a few days ago it was below zero. This weather is unbearable. Hehe, today marks the tenth anniversary of Zhai Zhu's creation on Qidian. Thank you all for your support, and thank you to the Jun Alliance's Golden Grand Alliance for the generous tip. I'm deeply grateful! It's the end of the month, and the monthly ticket rankings are in danger. Please vote for monthly tickets!
Ten Years of Wind and Rain
Ten years ago today, I applied for an author account on Qidian Chinese, took the name Zhai Zhu, applied for my first book, Rebirth: Journey to the West, and uploaded the first chapter.
Now, it just so happens to be the tenth anniversary, and The Annals of the Shepherd God has reached chapter six hundred, "The Fading Old Soldier."
Ten years ago, readers who read Rebirth: Journey to the West—are you still here? Are you like the old soldiers of Kaihuang's Heavenly Court? Are you still reading Zhai Zhu's new book?
Over these ten years, through wind and rain, Zhai Zhu still remembers the slump after finishing Rebirth: Journey to the West—selling scrap and blankets to get through the hardest period. (That's right, it was Water Margin: Immortal Journey, which earned a few hundred yuan and lasted half a year. I almost starved to death because of that book.)
During Barbarian Throne, Zhai Zhu began trying to change, writing Western fantasy. But at the root, it was still Eastern classical consciousness. Writing on, Zhai Zhu felt that he absolutely had to return to the East, return to Chinese culture.
I'm a native-born Chinese person. What I'm best at is speaking Chinese and writing Chinese characters, absorbing nourishment from China's classical culture, and writing China's own stories.
So Unrivaled Under Heaven was the beginning of returning to myself. From Rebirth: Journey to the West to Unrivaled Under Heaven was a journey of stumbling and groping before finally returning.
Unrivaled Under Heaven is an interesting story, a purely satisfying read.
However, the spiritual core of Unrivaled Under Heaven is actually a modern story.
In Unrivaled Under Heaven, I wanted to tell a story of an old era coming to an end and a new era just beginning.
Primordial Heavenly King represents the old era, representing the old society of the past. Ye Xu represents the new era, representing the era of shamans. They meet in the transition between old and new. The old era doesn't want to give up the past, while the newcomer is already looking toward the future. So Primordial Heavenly King wants to destroy the new era and bring back the old society.
This was referencing a certain period in China's history.
After that came The Sovereign.
The spiritual core of The Sovereign is also about the transition between old and new, but it's more mature than Unrivaled Under Heaven. The scholar Jiangnan rescued a little fox from a hunter. The little fox told him that the greater your ambition, the greater your achievement. A fragment of a damaged scroll brought Jiangnan onto a journey of vigorous advancement.
As the last deity, Jiangnan buried the era of gods and built a new era on the ruins of the divine age.
He was another Primordial Heavenly King, but his choice differed from the Primordial Heavenly King in Unrivaled Under Heaven.
The spiritual core of The Paragon of Humanity is the spirit of Fuxi, the spirit of humanity.
In this book, Zhai Zhu tried to write something new, referencing the international situation after the founding of New China. A five-thousand-year civilization, the most glorious race in history, suddenly collapsed when technological change arrived, becoming the lowest class of people, becoming the weakest nation.
The Fuxi divine race in The Paragon of Humanity is exactly the same.
Zhong Yue rose from obscurity. As a member of the lowest human race, he obtained a small flame called Kindling. He realized that the human race was once the most noble Fuxi divine race, and so he conceived a wish—to restore the glory of the Fuxi divine race and make humanity the foremost of all races!
This path was incomparably difficult. He didn't receive recognition from his ancestors. Even the little flame Kindling didn't recognize him, didn't believe he was Fuxi, didn't believe he could bear such a heavy burden.
The first recognition Zhong Yue received was from a broken sword with only its hilt remaining. At that moment, he shed tears, and Zhai Zhu also cried like a child, feeling both gratified and happy, as if I myself had received recognition.
The Paragon of Humanity received recognition—recognition from countless readers.
Thank you.
You are the most tolerant readers, the most lovable book friends.
Over these ten years, having you by my side, having your comments, having you silently supporting Zhai Zhu from behind your phones and computers, watching Zhai Zhu grow—Zhai Zhu is very grateful, very thankful.
The Annals of the Shepherd God I'm writing now also has a spiritual core. This core is reform and transformation, just like China's reforms.
Reform always touches the old powers, always brings disputes and struggles.
This is a story about seeking change!
Today is the tenth anniversary of Zhai Zhu's creative work. Both Qidian and QQ Reading have celebration activities. I've picked a few of my more mature books and discounted them as a thank-you to everyone.
The Paragon of Humanity and The Sovereign—these two books are very weighty in Zhai Zhu's heart. Both books are around five million characters. Subscribing to a five-million-character book would cost several hundred yuan even for a premium VIP.
During the event period, it only costs thirty yuan!
The Annals of the Shepherd God is currently approaching two million characters. Subscribing to previous chapters also costs a fair amount, but now you can read it all for just forty-five yuan!
Please help spread the word to more readers so they don't have to spend unnecessary money!
Jun Mowen..Grand Alliance tipped a hundred thousand yuan last night. Here, I must thank them no matter what!
Thank you, Jun Mowen Grand Alliance. To be honest, this is the first time I've seen a reader tip this much. A thousand thanks!
Thank you to the many, many readers who support Zhai Zhu!
You are readers, and you are book friends—friends who have accompanied Zhai Zhu along the way!
I love you all—
Zhai Zhu's public account is "ling ling bu shi o o" (零零不是哦哦), or you can directly search for the two characters "Zhai Zhu" and select the public account to follow Zhai Zhu.
(If you've read this far, don't forget to vote your monthly tickets! It's the end of the month—they'll expire if you keep them! Vote, vote, vote!)