Chapter 600: The Fading Veteran (Second Update!)
The scriptures of the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Sutra once again transformed into a ball of thread. Granny Si handed the thread ball to Qin Mu, but he 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 useless."
Granny Si took out a small bamboo basket, a little flower basket round on top and square on the bottom, and placed the thread ball inside. The basket also contained some scraps of cloth, scissors, silver needles, and other items—likely her own spirit weapons.
The two of them looked toward the blood river churning in the air. The river had trapped the divine being holding the war halberd on the altar at its center. The purpose of this sacrifice did not seem to be a simple summoning of a god or demon.
The blood river had not transformed into the blood light used to summon gods and demons. Instead, it split into streams of plasma, forming profound patterns in the air. Those runes were very esoteric and should be a sacrificial technique 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 Dispatching Gods was one such method, originating from the Heavenly Capital Demon King. The Heavenly Capital Demon King had spread this sacrificial technique to Yancheng, his goal being to summon himself to descend and invade Yancheng. Later, after meeting Qin Mu, he abandoned that idea.
—The demon race also had many heavens. Both the Heavenly Capital and Luofu Heaven were among the demon race's heavens. Both worlds were falling into destruction, both seeking ways to prolong their people's lives and ensure their reproduction.
In fact, most sacrificial techniques came from the demon race. The demons had created many sacrificial methods, establishing a unique civilization system vastly different from Yancheng and the Grand Emperor Heaven.
The human race had also learned some sacrificial techniques from the demons. For example, the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Sutra contained many sacrificial methods, which were also cultivation techniques of the demonic path.
What the human race learned from the demons was not limited to sacrificial techniques. There were also many demonic arts. For instance, the sorcery of the Loulan Golden Palace was passed down from the Ghost Witch Wei, who was a demon god sent down from the Heavenly Court to the Netherworld.
"Something's not right!"
Granny Si studied the blood river encircling the altar. More and more blood-colored runes emerged. Under the blood river's encirclement, the divine being with the halberd from the Great Ruins seemed trapped in a predicament. He kept charging and ramming, trying to break the sacrifice, but he could never break through.
He even tried to rush out of the altar but couldn't escape.
The demon god presiding over the sacrifice was not very powerful—otherwise, he wouldn't have died from Granny Si's ambush. His strength should have been far inferior to the halberd-wielding divine being. Yet his sacrificial method was unfathomably profound.
Even though he died at Granny Si's hands, his flesh and blood sacrifice still managed to trap the halberd-wielding divine being at the center, preventing the opponent from escaping!
"He intends to sacrifice this halberd-wielding divine being along with everything!"
Granny Si shuddered and murmured, "He's using the halberd-wielding divine being as an offering, together with the blood river, to sacrifice to some ancient existence, summoning that existence to descend..."
Qin Mu's research into sacrifice was not deep; his expertise 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 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 the essence of his war halberd and his armor was also draining away!
The sacrificial technique of that demon god was truly too powerful!
The halberd-wielding divine being had already become much weaker than before. As he grew weaker, his blood and energy drained even more, making it harder for him to resist the sacrifice.
"The demon god Granny just killed was probably one of the top sacrificial experts among the demons! You killed an extremely important demon god!" Qin Mu exclaimed, seeing the halberd-wielding divine being's plight.
Granny Si said gloomily, "But I can't save the deity on the altar. If we rush into the altar, we'll only die. We can't even stop this sacrifice, nor can we prevent 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, looking up at something.
This was the end of a divine being's road. He was about to be broken down 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, sounding lonely and desolate. He stood on the altar and spoke loudly, his voice carrying far. He murmured, "I should have died long ago, died in the calamity twenty thousand years ago. I should have died on the battlefield alongside those comrades. I shouldn't have gone dormant, shouldn't have turned into 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 were stunned, watching the divine being on the altar. Though they wished to save him, they were helpless.
That deity knelt on one knee, leaning on his war halberd to resist the blood sacrifice. His voice grew low: "Hope, future, Carefree Village... We've been dormant for too long, Emperor Kaihuang! Dormant until we lost our will to fight, dormant until our stone statues turned cold, dormant until the common people we were supposed to protect all died, until we no longer see familiar faces, until this land itself has changed! And you..."
His voice suddenly rose, hurling a deafening accusation at the sky: "Emperor Kaihuang, what about you? Where are you?"
"Is the ideal world in your heart that Carefree Village where you've holed up?"
"Can you bear to watch your subordinates, the veterans who followed you, wither away one by one?"
"Can you bear to watch the land change, watch the people you protected grow old one by one?"
"Why haven't you appeared?"
"Twenty thousand years! Haven't you yet emerged from your failure? Haven't you regained your confidence? Are you still unwilling to leave Carefree Village? We're waiting for you, waiting for you to summon your old troops and fight against 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 all his strength into his divine weapon. At that moment, an incredibly intense light burst forth from the top of the altar, so dazzling that it was impossible to open one's eyes and look directly. All they could hear was his voice like thunder, reverberating back and forth in the sky.
"Emperor Kaihuang is not here, but the guardianship remains!"
"I, a former subordinate of Emperor Kaihuang, a star of the Heavenly Emperor, Luo Yu, a soldier of the Yaoguang Division, use this broken body to protect the people and prevent your descent!"
"Body Dissolution!"
"Spirit Dissolution!"
The light erupted, and a earth-shattering roar came. A terrifying tremor instantly surged from the top of the altar in all directions. Granny Si immediately opened the Great Luo Heavenly Star Force Field, protecting herself and Qin Mu. The surging air waves engulfed them!
An intense halo swept over the Great Luo Heavenly Star Force Field with a *whoosh*. The earth, like a scorched and brittle pancake, kept flipping up, shattering along with the halo. In the sky, a broken planet moved to this location, stirring up towering waves. But the waves standing between heaven and earth were also held back by this explosion, then the waves moved backward, and floodwaters spread everywhere!
This eruption was very 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 both turned to nothing. The altar was broken and stained with blood.
That divine being had dissolved his own body and spirit, using the power of self-sacrifice to interrupt the sacrifice, preventing the ancient existence that the demon god wanted 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; it's a good thing for him too. After all, he kept his promise and fulfilled his wish. Let's go to the next altar. Hopefully, we'll meet the Woodcutter Saint..."
Qin Mu followed her, silent the whole way. Granny Si found it a bit unusual and turned back with a smile: "Mu'er, what are you thinking? This isn't like you."
"I'm thinking that perhaps my ancestor, that Emperor Kaihuang, might not be the great hero I imagined him to be."
Qin Mu was lost in thought and said, "Ever since I learned that I came from Carefree Village and that I am a descendant of Emperor Kaihuang, I've always had a thought in my heart, imagining Emperor Kaihuang as a towering great hero, a grand champion, with supreme ideals and countless heroic figures following him. He must have been kind and respectable. However..."
He shook his head and was silent for a moment before saying, "Maybe he's not that kind of person. Maybe he's just a cowardly old man who fears death, without that kind of courage, without that kind of vision. Maybe he's just hiding in Carefree Village, continuing his days of drunken stupor. Maybe he has let down the countless heroes who followed him..."
Granny Si blinked and chuckled, "Mu'er, you're still a child! Why think so much? When I was your age... hmm, that was when Li Tianxing had taken a liking to me, and I was figuring out how to kill him... When the Village Chief was your age, he was still playing in the mud!"
Qin Mu laughed and said, "The Village Chief was probably already apprenticed by then, being groomed as the next Human Sovereign. How could he be playing in the mud? Granny, you're joking again."
Granny Si saw him smile and said with a smile, "You're a child I raised. Even though I wasn't very nice to you when you wet the bed and 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 that you'll suffer. This is probably a parent's mindset. 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 on his stone statue!"
They arrived near the second altar. Looking from a distance, they saw a demon god attacking this altar, trying to seize control of it.
The battle between the two gods and demons was extremely spectacular.
"Doesn't Fu Riluo fear that the Woodcutter Saint will harden his heart and blood sacrifice Luofu Heaven?" Qin Mu shook his head.
Granny Si put down her small flower basket, took out scissors and a few strips of cloth, and her fingers flew, threading a needle and sewing together a tattered garment. She laughed, "Fu Riluo is preparing bargaining chips! The more altars he captures, the more advantage he'll have in negotiations! Rise—"
The tattered garment she had just sewn flew up, heading toward the battlefield. The garment pounced and automatically slipped onto the body of that demon god.
—It's over thirty degrees in Xuzhou now. A few days ago it was zero degrees. 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 for the Golden Grand Alliance reward. I'm deeply grateful! It's the end of the month, and the monthly ticket rankings are precarious. Please vote for monthly tickets!
Ten Years of Wind and Rain
Ten years ago today, I applied for an author account on Qidian Chinese website, took the pen name Zhai Zhu, applied for my first book, *Rebirth of Journey to the West*, and uploaded the first chapter.
Now, coincidentally on the tenth anniversary, *The Shepherd's Tale* has reached its six hundredth chapter, "The Fading Veteran."
Ten years ago, readers of *Rebirth of Journey to the West*, are you still here? Like the veterans of Emperor Kaihuang's Heavenly Court, are you still reading Zhai Zhu's new book?
Over the past ten years, through wind and rain, Zhai Zhu still remembers the slump after finishing *Rebirth of Journey to the West*, selling rags and blankets to get through the hardest time (yes, that was *Water Margin Immortal Path*, which earned a few hundred yuan and nearly starved me for half a year).
During *Barbarian Throne*, Zhai Zhu began to try to change, writing Western fantasy, but at its core, it was still Eastern classical consciousness. Writing to the end, Zhai Zhu felt he had to return to the East, return to Chinese culture.
I am a native Chinese person. What I am 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 of Journey to the West* to *Unrivaled Under Heaven* was a journey of struggle and eventual return.
*Unrivaled Under Heaven* is an interesting story, pure entertainment.
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 ending and a new era emerging.
The Primordial Heavenly King represents the old era, the representative of the past old society. Ye Xu represents the new era, the representative of the shamanic age. 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 to the future. So the Primordial Heavenly King wants to destroy the new era and bring back the old society.
This references a certain period in China.
Then came *The Emperor's Domination*.
The spiritual core of *The Emperor's Domination* is also about the transition between old and new, but it's more mature than *Unrivaled Under Heaven*. The scholar Jiang Nan saved a little fox from a hunter. The little fox told him that ambition determines achievement. A fragmentary scroll brought Jiang Nan onto a journey of striving and progress.
As the last god, Jiang Nan buried the era of gods and built a new era on the ruins of the godly age.
He is another Primordial Heavenly King, but his choice differs from the Primordial Heavenly King in *Unrivaled Under Heaven*.
The spiritual core of *Humanity's Supreme* 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, the weakest nation.
The Fuxi divine race in *Humanity's Supreme* is the same.
Zhong Yue rose from obscurity. As the lowest of the low human race, he obtained a small flame called Ember. Realizing that the human race was once the most noble Fuxi divine race, he conceived a wish to restore the glory of the Fuxi divine race and make humanity the primate of all races!
This path was incredibly difficult. He didn't receive the approval of his ancestors. Even the little flame Ember didn't recognize him, didn't think he was a Fuxi, didn't think he could bear the burden.
The first recognition Zhong Yue received was from a broken sword with only a hilt left. At that moment, he cried, and Zhai Zhu also cried like a child, feeling both comforted and happy, as if he himself had been recognized.
*Humanity's Supreme* gained recognition, gaining the recognition of many, many readers.
Thank you.
You are the most tolerant readers, the most lovely book friends.
Over the past ten years, having you by my side, with your book reviews, with you silently supporting Zhai Zhu behind your phones and computers, watching Zhai Zhu grow, I am very grateful, very thankful.
The *Shepherd's Tale* I am writing now also has a spiritual core. This core is reform and change, just like China's reforms.
Reform always touches old forces, always brings disputes and struggles.
This is a story about seeking change!
Today is the tenth anniversary of Zhai Zhu's creation. Qidian and QQ Reading both have celebration events. Zhai Zhu has selected a few more mature books, offering discounts to give back to everyone.
*Humanity's Supreme* and *The Emperor's Domination* are very weighty in Zhai Zhu's heart. Both books are around five million words. Subscribing to a five-million-word book, even for a high-level VIP, costs several hundred yuan.
Now, during the event, it only costs thirty yuan!
*The Shepherd's Tale* is currently close to two million words. Subscribing to previous chapters also costs a lot. Now it only costs forty-five yuan to read the whole thing!
Please help spread the word to more readers, so they don't have to spend unnecessary money!
Lord Jun Mowen.. donated one hundred thousand yuan last night. Here, I must thank him no matter what!
Thank you, Lord Jun Mowen! To be honest, this is the first time I've seen a reader donate so much. A thousand thanks!
Thank you to the countless readers who support Zhai Zhu!
You are readers, and you are book friends, friends who have accompanied Zhai Zhu all the way!
I love you all—
Zhai Zhu's public account is "linglingbushi o o", or you can directly search for "Zhai Zhu" and choose the public account to follow Zhai Zhu.
(Seeing this, don't forget to vote for monthly tickets! It's the end of the month! They'll expire if you keep them! Vote, vote, vote!)