Chapter 1231: The Perfect World (First Update)
A few months later, Bai Yuqiong returned to the Heavenly Court, concealed her appearance, and quietly entered the Southern Heaven's Spiritual Energy Transfer Bridge.
Leaving the Great Void and returning to the Heavenly Court was quite time-consuming, but traveling from the Heavenly Court to the Southern Heaven was much easier. Qin Mu had spread the Spiritual Energy Transfer Bridge across all realms, making transportation convenient. It didn't take much time for Bai Yuqiong to arrive at the Southern Heaven.
The Southern Heaven was nominally under the rule of Red Emperor Qi Xiayu, with numerous heavens standing side by side.
Bai Yuqiong first came to the Southern Heaven Continent where Qi Xiayu's celestial palace was located, transformed into a young maiden, and began to travel around. Having matched wits with the Netherworld Emperor, she had learned a great deal and acted cautiously.
"Fire Heavenly Venerable has governed the Southern Heaven quite well."
After her initial tour, Bai Yuqiong saw that the people lived and worked in peace, like a pastoral idyll. The populace had no desire for contention or superiority, and everywhere was a scene of harmony and joy. She couldn't help but feel pleased, and she somewhat disapproved of Qin Mu's actions.
"Pastoral Heavenly Venerable is indeed wrong. Fire Heavenly Venerable is right. The people here can live safely, cultivate, become practitioners, and even become divine beings of the human race. This is a pure land. Pastoral Heavenly Venerable is too extreme!"
She shook her head and was about to leave, but then, as if possessed, she stopped and continued her travels, observing the lives of the people.
"I've only been here a short time, just skimming the surface. It's hard to see the true life of this world. For Pastoral Heavenly Venerable to have reached his current level, he must have his exceptional qualities. I need to stay a few more days to see why he is so hostile toward Fire Heavenly Venerable."
She calmed her mind and examined the human civilization of the Southern Heaven from the perspective of an onlooker.
After a few days, her expression gradually grew serious.
She witnessed a funeral for a human in the Southern Heaven and found it absurd and bizarre.
"But Fire Heavenly Venerable must have his reasons for doing this. After all, the half-god races are now powerful. For humans to live to sixty years old is already commendable."
She comforted herself. In other heavens, such good fortune didn't exist. She had been to other heavens in the Primordial Realm, where people lived only forty or fifty years due to harsh living conditions, oppression, and enslavement.
In comparison, many people in the Southern Heaven could live to sixty, and sacrificing themselves to the half-gods at sixty could be considered a long life.
—Of course, Eternal Peace was an exception. The ordinary people of Eternal Peace now had longer lifespans because of better living conditions and the prevalence of martial arts in their youth. In any village, there were over a dozen eighty-year-old elders.
"Eternal Peace is precarious, on the verge of collapse at any moment. The Southern Heaven is clearly better!"
Bai Yuqiong also observed the education in the Southern Heaven. Although she felt that the "three obediences and four virtues" and "three bonds and five constants" were somewhat wrong, they ensured the people wouldn't rebel. Without rebellion, there would be less suffering. She thought this was understandable.
She then witnessed a funeral for a practitioner.
If a practitioner failed to become a god by the age of seven hundred, they had to voluntarily sacrifice themselves to the half-gods.
"That's also understandable."
Bai Yuqiong muttered to herself, "Compared to other places, this is already very good. After all, human practitioners here hold a high status. They can cultivate in peace without worrying about mundane affairs. If they can't become gods, they willingly offer themselves as sacrifices. At most, they have only a hundred years of life left..."
She also saw human divine beings. There were no wars between human gods and half-god gods here. Instead, everything was peaceful. The gods attended each other's banquets without racial strife. This was truly commendable.
This was unlike other heavens.
In other heavens, human gods would fight bloody battles with half-god deities because their people suffered unfair treatment and fell into misery.
"Fire Heavenly Venerable hasn't done anything wrong," Bai Yuqiong said softly.
She left the gathering of gods and returned to the mortal world of the Southern Heaven. Everything here was fine, and she could understand Fire Heavenly Venerable's good intentions. Yet, it all felt somewhat false to her.
But she couldn't pinpoint exactly where the falseness lay.
She entered a small town, planning to rest there for a while before leaving the Southern Heaven. However, in this town, she discovered a strange phenomenon: among the tens of thousands of human residents, there wasn't a single practitioner!
This was almost impossible.
Becoming a practitioner required talent, but after so many years of development, it wasn't that difficult.
Bai Yuqiong inquired carefully. An old man sitting on a ridge, scratching his lice with his shirt open, told her, "Our ancestors had no practitioners, so of course, our descendants don't have any either. Practitioners all come from the great noble families, lineages passed down from the Long Han era a million years ago. Which of them would be willing to marry commoners?"
Bai Yuqiong was stunned. She laughed and said, "But can't ordinary people become practitioners? They can open their divine treasures and establish their celestial palaces. It's possible to become not just a practitioner but even a god!"
The old man hurriedly said, "Don't say that! Miss, are you from out of town? Speaking like this is treasonous! The practitioner lords are born with divine rights. They are stars in the sky, destined to be exalted from birth!"
Bai Yuqiong was dumbfounded.
The old man continued, "We laborers are destined to be laborers for life, to farm the fields. Our ancestors and descendants are all fated to be farmers. How could we dare to hope to become practitioner lords?"
"But..."
Bai Yuqiong opened her mouth but couldn't find the words.
In the early Long Han era, the Seven Heavenly Venerables—Imperial Heavenly Venerable, Hao Heavenly Venerable, and the others—had pioneered the divine treasure cultivation system, allowing ordinary people to open their own divine treasures and become practitioners.
Yet, in the Southern Heaven, practitioners had somehow become hereditary nobles. They passed down the seven divine treasures to their descendants, who were born with divine rights and exalted status.
For families without practitioner ancestors, no matter how talented their descendants were, they could never become practitioners. They were forever bound to the fate of being stuck in the fields!
But the Seven Heavenly Venerables had created the divine treasures precisely to allow ordinary people to gain power and become practitioners!
Why were the people here fated to remain in their stations for generation after generation?
Why, if one's ancestors were commoners, could their descendants never rise?
"The Southern Heaven is stagnant water—water that can't stir a single ripple!"
Bai Yuqiong was filled with fear. Although she hadn't awakened her Vermilion Bird divine soul, she still remembered the Long Han era from over a hundred lifetimes ago. Back then, ordinary people could open their divine treasures and become practitioners, and the descendants of commoners could become gods!
If the ancestors were weak, the descendants could rise through intelligence!
But Fire Heavenly Venerable's Southern Heaven had no such possibility!
"Those practitioner noble families are no longer human! Those human gods are no longer human either! They are completely different species from humans because they live in entirely different worlds!"
Bai Yuqiong's mind was in turmoil. What Fire Heavenly Venerable did was clearly right: not teaching the methods to open divine treasures or celestial palaces, keeping ordinary people content with their lot. They accepted the three bonds and five constants, the three obediences and four virtues, and had neither the strength nor the will to resist.
Letting practitioners become the great noble families, controlling power, they became the rulers and had no desire to rebel.
The half-gods had enough "food" and didn't want to change anything!
Everything here was so perfect—perfect to the point of being horrifying!
Bai Yuqiong let out a cry and fled from the Southern Heaven, rushing back to the Heavenly Court in panic.
The Southern Heaven made it hard for her to breathe.
Although she knew she was the reincarnation of the Southern Emperor Vermilion Bird, after nearly two hundred lifetimes as a human, she had always considered herself human in her heart.
The current state of the Southern Heaven filled her, as a human, with fear.
At that moment, she wanted to go see Eternal Peace.
She arrived at Eternal Peace.