“Nushen City…” Elder Hei looked at the dilapidated flying boats filled with the people of Nushen City, the expression on his face a mixture of mockery and amusement. “This city is still standing?”
Jiu Hui turned her head to look at him. “Elder Hei has also heard of Nushen City?”
“Haven’t you heard the legend of the Divine Lord’s tribulation?” Elder Hei laughed with an ambiguous meaning. “The place where the Divine Lord transformed into a mortal and met his beloved was called Nushen Mountain, and Nushen City was located at the foot of this mountain. After his beloved died, the Divine Lord wept incessantly, and his tears turned into a flood that drowned the entire city.”
Jiu Hui shook her head. “The story I heard is different from what the Elder said. It is said that long ago, there was a beautiful and kind woman who fell in love with a man. Later, the man left without saying goodbye. The woman cried every day and never waited for her beloved lover to return. Later, her body turned into Nushen Mountain, and her heart turned into Nushen City. Since then, the story of them has been passed down in Nushen City.”
Elder Hei: “To commemorate their sorrowful love?”
“No,” Jiu Hui retorted, “it’s to warn future women not to lose themselves in love.”
“Jiu Hui, Nushen City is just… that small city?” Nan Feng recalled the small city’s ancient and dilapidated appearance, as well as the mottled and illegible characters above the city gate. He had never imagined that this inconspicuous and remote small city would have such a name.
“The City Annals recorded it this way, but everyone has gotten used to calling it the Small City.” Jiu Hui sighed softly. “No matter how beautiful a name is, if people gradually forget it, then it loses its meaning. Don’t you agree, Elder Hei?”
Jiu Hui looked back at Elder Hei in the formation.
“Being forgotten and abandoned is what all living beings do best, and the human race is the best at it,” Elder Hei sneered, “fickle and hypocritical.”
“That’s not fair,” Jiu Hui retorted. “It’s true that there are plenty of humans who are greedy and selfish, but there are also plenty who are righteous and just. That’s why scholars write books about people who do good deeds, and why people build temples and shrines to honor those who are kind and compassionate.”
“Why don’t you, Elder, go to the mortal world and see how many people worship the gods in the temples?”
“Most people are ordinary. They may not do great good, but they also do not do great evil. If the heavens have eyes, they should not use the evil of some to judge all living beings. Whoever does evil should be punished. If all beings are punished because of some, it is unfair to the good. Under the heavens, there should be justice.”
“Five hundred years ago, if someone had stood up like you, there wouldn’t be such a great calamity today.” Elder Hei was silent for a long time, and he slowly walked out of the Immortal Cauldron Formation step by step.
The Immortal Cauldron Formation, which had lost its spiritual power to sustain it, began to tremble violently, and the entire earth let out a mournful wail.
In the face of the wrath of the earth, ordinary people on the flying boats were as insignificant as dust between heaven and earth. They huddled together, trembling in fear.
“This day came too late.” Elder Hei watched the crying and terrified people on the flying boats. “Five hundred years ago, fate gave you your last chance.”
“What do you mean?” The sect masters’ faces were pale. “Could it be…”
Could it be that everything they did five hundred years ago was wrong?
“Fate gave you two chances to choose.” Elder Hei looked towards a flying boat outside the wind and snow formation. “The first time, the Jiufang Clan saved an innocent woman from the Demon Clan, and was exterminated by the Demon Clan. That night, the Jiufang Clan’s cries and screams echoed for an entire night, but no one went to their rescue.”
“The nearby clans were worried about retaliation from the demons, so the corpses were left in the mansion for more than ten hours until the Jiutian Sect, who had rushed over, allowed them to be buried in peace.”
“The Jiufang family had a total of two hundred and ninety-nine people, but only one survived.”
“The legendary Divine Lord who descended to the mortal realm to undergo trials and tribulations was also one of the victims of the Jiufang clan’s massacre?” Jiu Hui suddenly understood. No wonder the demon realm couldn’t find any information about it. The evil demon who died ten thousand years ago had never been heard of before, simply because all living beings subconsciously assumed that when immortals descended to the mortal realm to undergo trials and tribulations, they should be born noble and superior to others.
Elder Hei did not answer Jiu Hui’s question but continued speaking. “Although the Divine Lord who returned to heaven after the tribulation hated the indifference of human hearts, he was still willing to give the world a chance to choose.”
“The Immortal Tree saved countless lives, but you forced her to her death.” Elder Hei clapped his hands gently, and the Immortal Cauldron Formation vanished. “You used the greater good as an excuse to drain her of her blood and crush her bones.”
“The night Mu Qi died… if she had lived instead, as long as she could have made it past the hour of Zi, the plague would have stopped spreading, and the floodwaters would have receded.” Elder Hei laughed with extreme mockery. “You all chose your own path to death.”
Elder Hei did not speak loudly, but his voice clearly reached everyone’s ears.
“Someone come quick, someone’s vomiting blood here!”
The girl who was controlling the flying boat walked over to Bu Ting, who was vomiting blood. She looked at him indifferently, and after a long while, she slowly said, “Flowers can bloom again, but people cannot turn back time.”
As a yao, she had shown great restraint by not killing the person who had harmed the Gan tree spirit.
She walked to the boat’s side and looked towards Jiu Hui in Fuguang Mountain, hoping that it was not too late.
Bu Ting looked down at the blood on his palm, his hands trembling uncontrollably.
Was it his fault?carpreads.pages.dev
Was it his fault?!
Qiu Hua staggered two steps and almost fell. Jiu Hui reached out to steady her.
“I’m fine.” Qiu Hua seemed to be both crying and laughing. She looked at the turbulent sky, her eyes filled with tears. “So Mu Qi could have lived a good life, right?”
No one answered her question, and the sect masters present did not even dare to meet her gaze.
“Testing people’s hearts with the lives of countless living beings, what lofty gods.” Jiu Hui, however, did not show the slightest emotion because of Elder Hei’s words: “Those who forced Mu Qi to die five hundred years ago did indeed make a mistake, but how many lives did the gods’ casual opportunity cost?”
“Those ordinary people who died in the flood and plague, did they ever have a choice?” Jiu Hui pointed at the people on the flying boats. “They were born ordinary, grew up ordinary, and all they wanted was to live and work in peace. What heinous crime did they commit?”
“The gods’ frivolous test caused them to die in plague and flood. Countless humans, yaos, and demons died. Did the gods ever lower their noble heads for them, even once?”
“Five hundred years ago, the endless graves, the unburied skeletons, the desperate cries of mothers mourning their sons and sons mourning their mothers, did the heavens hear them?” Jiu Hui was puzzled. “You all say you pity all living beings and blame human nature, but aren’t they part of all living beings? Isn’t their kindness part of human nature?”
The ordinary people who were still in fear heard this and looked around in confusion. Yes, were they not considered humans?
“Now that they’ve made their choice, unwilling to sacrifice Immortal Lord Fuguang as a material to repair the Immortal Cauldrons, you’re saying that their choice came too late.” Jiu Hui stood her ground. “If the heavens are unjust, viewing the lives of the world as playthings, then don’t use the righteous Dao to bring down heavenly tribulations.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, nine bolts of heavenly lightning struck down from the sky, their ferocity seemingly a response to Jiu Hui’s defiant words.
“Be careful!” The sect masters reacted and took out their natal magic treasures, intending to block the heavenly thunder for Jiu Hui, but one person’s action was faster than theirs.
Fuguang held a sharp sword in his hand, forcibly splitting and intercepting the nine heavenly thunders. Lightning flashed on the blade. He stood between the heavenly thunders and Jiu Hui, showing no fear.
“Immortal Lord…”
The sect masters all looked up at Fuguang in the lightning, stunned, and stopped in their tracks.
Elder Hei looked up at all this, sighing and feeling regretful as he softly said, “He should have been the one to wield his sword and level Fuguang Mountain today, burying all of this with the heavens and earth. You were the one who changed his destiny.”
His voice was very soft, so soft that only Jiu Hui, as well as Qiu Hua and Nan Feng who were closest to them, heard these few words.
“You’re wrong. No one can change the fate of others. There’s no such thing as something that should happen in this world. Everything stems from one’s own choices.” Jiu Hui spread open her five fingers, and a divine whip that flickered with an emerald fluorescence appeared in her hand.
This was the first time she had taken out her natal magic weapon in the mortal world: “It’s as unreasonable as asking someone who has never had warmth or love to give the world the most selfless love, or asking a poor person to take out the world’s most valuable gem.”
“For the sake of the world, Fuguang endured the pain of being separated from his loved ones and suffered from the pain that gnawed at his bones every day. He never did anything wrong, and he owes nothing to anyone.” Jiu Hui pointed her whip at Elder Hei. “I don’t care who you are or what your ultimate intentions are, but you shouldn’t treat him like an object that people can make choices about.”
The whip moved, as graceful as a swimming dragon, as fierce as a ferocious tiger, as agile as a spirit snake. No one could see how Jiu Hui and Elder Hei started fighting. By the time they reacted and wanted to step forward to help, they couldn’t find an opening.
“Elder Hei’s identity is unknown, but Little Friend Jiu Hui fought him without losing any ground.” The Sect Master of the Wanhuo Sect grew more and more puzzled. “Since when did the Wangshu Pavilion become so adept at teaching its disciples?”
In the blink of an eye, Jiu Hui and Elder Hei were already fighting in mid-air. Elder Hei looked at the divine whip in her hand, his expression hard to decipher. “This whip, does it have a name?”
“It’s nameless, it is a natural treasure nurtured by Nushen Mountain.”
The Nushen Whip extended several feet, protecting Jiu Hui tightly. “The night I was born, this whip appeared on Nushen Mountain at the same time, so I just call it the Nushen Whip.”
“Elder, you care so much about Nushen Mountain. Could it be that you are the heartless lover who made the young lady cry?” Jiu Hui’s fingertips still glowed with spiritual light. “If that’s the case, the place where the goddess would rather die than leave behind is going to be destroyed at Zi hour. How can you bear it, Elder?”
“You don’t have to test me. I’m just an incompetent person who can’t defy the will of heaven, but I am also not willing to accept it.” Elder Hei looked up at the sky, his expression suddenly changing. He abandoned Jiu Hui and used his physical body to block a bolt of lightning that was striking a flying boat full of ordinary people.
That bolt of lightning seemed to be the beginning of a massacre against the common people, as countless thunderbolts hurtled towards the ordinary folk.
In that instant, whether they were cultivators, yaos, or demons, they all rose into the air, drew their weapons, and blocked the flying boats from above.
In the sky, colorful spiritual lights flickered, and magic treasures were as dense as stars, blocking the flying boats tightly.
One after another, bolts of heavenly lightning struck. Cultivators with insufficient cultivation gradually fell from the clouds, plummeting straight into the abyss.
Some were caught by flying beasts, some were saved by cultivators, and some were lifted up by ordinary people on the flying boats who spread out their arms, not letting them fall directly onto the hard deck of the flying boats.
“Hemostatic medicine!” The disciples of Changshou Palace ran back and forth, and ordinary human doctors helped the cultivators of Changshou Palace.
The crying stopped, and the numb people who had fallen into panic gradually regained their senses.
Everyone seemed to be holding their breath. Seeing the protective formation being split open by bolts of heavenly lightning, they hid their children and pregnant women in the flying boats or the flying building’s rooms, using their bodies to tightly block the doors and windows.
“Mother, Mother, where are you?”
A child fell from the crack of a window. He looked up in horror, watching as a huge bolt of lightning struck him on the head.
Someone rushed over and shielded him in their arms. The thunder exploded, and the child was stuffed into the window. The hand that had been charred black by the lightning trembled as it pasted a protective talisman over the hole in the window.
After finishing this task, he staggered towards the stern.
“Where are you going? There’s a huge gap in the protective formation over there. It’s dangerous!”
“Come back quickly!”
He didn’t look back. Stepping on the dripping blood, enduring the bone-gnawing pain, he summoned his natal sword… the Cosmos Sword.
So this was what it feels like to be in excruciating pain. This was what Fuguang endures every day.
He finally reached the stern and stood in front of the gaping hole in the massive formation.
Unable to use the spiritual energy in his spiritual platform, every time he swung the Cosmos Sword, the pain made his face whiter, and a river of blood had already meandered out from beneath him.
“You’re about to die, Bu Ting.” Jiu Hui flew up and used her whip to block two bolts of heavenly lightning, standing in front of the increasingly large hole.
Bu Ting used his sword to brace against the deck, barely keeping himself upright. He looked at Jiu Hui, who was standing in front of him, and asked, “Why did you save me?”
Before the heavenly thunder arrived, Jiu Hui crawled into the hole and slapped Bu Ting’s spiritual platform. “Hold your sword steady and protect the people on this boat. You owe them this.”
Bu Ting discovered that his spiritual energy had returned.
“I’ll only unseal you for twelve hours.” Jiu Hui flicked the whip in her hand. “After twelve hours, you still won’t be able to use your spiritual energy.”
“Who exactly are you, and how are you able to break the seal of Immortal Lord Fuguang?”
The seal of Immortal Lord Fuguang couldn’t have been broken so easily.
“Me?” Jiu Hui used her spiritual power to split open several thunderbolts, and turned her head to give Bu Ting a provocative smile. “I’m the female yao who made Immortal Lord Fuguang fall in love.”
Author Note:
Little Garlic Chive: I’m just telling the truth~~~