Chapter 1 Heaven Official’s Blessing
In the circle of G.o.ds, there is a famous laughing stock of the three realms.
According to legends, eight hundred years ago, there was an ancient nation in the central plains called Xian Le Nation.
Its people were well off. The nation was large and had a substantial amount of resources. It had four treasures: countless beauties, ma.s.sive gold coffers, art masterpieces, and a crown prince.
This crown prince…well, how do you say it…is a unique person.
The emperor and empress both considered him to be their precious pearl, spoiling him and often praising him, "My son will definitely be a ruler of the people and be known by everyone."
However, the prince completely had no interest towards power or wealth.
His interest, using his own words to explain in one sentence, is —
"I want to save the world!"
When the prince was young, he was devoted to cultivating. During his cultivation, there were two small well known stories.
The first story occurred when he was seventeen years old.
That year, the Xian Le Nation performed a large ceremony dedicating the G.o.ds.
Although this sort of practice already became abandoned for several hundreds of years, you can still look it up in ancient texts and hear it from older generations. Think about how important and influential this ceremony is.
Shangyuan Festival, Shen Wu Street
There is a sea of people on both sides of the street. The royals and the upper cla.s.s are sitting in high buildings chatting away. The royal guards are opening their way through the streets with their c.h.i.n.king armor. The girls are starting to dance. Snow white hands sprinkle down a rain of flowers, leaving one wondering which of the two, the woman or the flower, was more beautiful. The golden carriages leave behind sounds of laughter that resonate through the royal capital"s sky. In the last of the line of royal guards, sixteen gold bridled horses pull a pedestal.
On top of this high pedestal is the focus of everyone"s attention, the ritual master.
During the ceremony, the ritual master will wear a golden mask and ceremonial robes. He will hold a treasure sword in order to act as the one who subdues demons and destroys monsters, the number one martial G.o.d in a thousand years—Martial Emperor Jun Wu.
Once one is chosen as the ritual master, they will receive the highest glory, so the selection for the position is extremely strict. The one that has been chosen this year is the crown prince. The entire nation is sure that he will definitely complete an incredible ritual dance.
However, on that day, an accident occurred.
When the guards lapped around the city for the third time, they pa.s.sed a hundred feet or so high city wall.
At that time, the martial G.o.d on the pedestal was about to pierce the demon through with the sword.
This is the most sensational and heart racing moment of the entire ceremony. The people on both sides of the street started boiling with excitement. The people on top of the city walls were also stimulated, as people scrambled to see, pushing and pulling each other.
This time, a child fell from the city wall.
The people started screaming, and just when they thought the child would fall to the ground, the crown prince slightly raised his head, jumped, and caught the child.
The people only had time to see a bird like shadow fly into the sky before the prince already safely reached the ground with the child. The golden mask fell to the ground, revealing the young handsome face behind it.
In the next moment, the entire crowd started cheering.
The people are happy, but the all the royal state preceptors witnessing this moment started having headaches.
Never would they think there would be such a huge mistake!
Inauspicious! Too inauspicious!
Every time the pedestal circled the city was meant to pray for one year of peace, and now that it has been cut off, wouldn"t that bring the nation annihilation!
The royal state preceptors worried to the point where their hair fell like rain. They invited the crown prince and politely asked, "your highness, can you lock yourself in your room for a month? You don"t need to really do that, just pretend to?"
The crown prince slightly smiled and said, "No."
He said it like this: "Saving people is not a bad thing to do. Why would the heavens punish me for something I did right?"
Uh…What if the heavens really did punish you?
"Then the heavens are wrong. Why would the ones who are right apologize towards the ones who are wrong?"
The state preceptors had no words to reply.
This crown prince is just this type of person.
He never encountered something he could not do, and never encountered anyone who did not love him. He is the right path, the center of the universe.
And so, the hearts of the state preceptors were all very bitter: "You don"t understand sh**!"
But, it"s not easy to say too much, plus they did not dare to say too much. The crown prince would not listen anyway.
The second story also happened when the prince was seventeen years old.
According to the legends, south of the Yellow River there was a bridge called "One Thought Bridge." On that bridge was a ghost that wandered there for many years.
This ghost was very horrifying, wearing broken armor and its feet stepped on fire in the night. It"s entire body was covered with blood and pierced with swords and arrows. Every step left behind blood and the burnt markings of the fire. Every few years, he would suddenly appear in the night and wander towards the ends of the bridge, blocking travelers. He would ask three questions: "What is this place? Who am I? What should you do?"
If you answered wrong, you would be swallowed by the ghost. However, no one knew the correct answers, and so the ghost swallowed several people throughout the years.
The crown prince heard about this when he was traveling, found the bridge, and waited on the bridge every night. Finally, during one night, he met the ghost.
The ghost appeared, and true to its legends, was very sinister and horrifying. He opened his mouth and asked his first question. The prince responded, "This place is the mortal world."
The ghost replied, "This place is the void."
Good luck after opening the door*, just only the first question, and he is already wrong.
(*Means that you"re supposed to be lucky the first time around)
The crown prince thought, "I would answer all three questions wrongly anyway, why wait till you finish?" And so, he revealed his weapon and started fighting.
This battle was epic. The crown prince is highly skilled and the ghost became even more frightening. One man one ghost fought on the bridge to the point that it seemed like day and night would flip. In the end, the ghost was finally defeated.
After the ghost was defeated, the prince planted a flower tree on the bridge end. At this time a daoist pa.s.sed by just in time to see the prince sprinkle a layer of soil to see him off. The daoist asked, "What are you doing?"
The prince said eight strange words, "Body in the void, heart in the orchard."
The daoist listened, and slightly smiled. He transformed into G.o.d wearing white armor, stepped on a cloud, brought about some wind, and flew into the sky.
Only then did the prince know that he coincidentally just met the martial emperor that came down to subdue demons and destroy monsters.
The G.o.ds started noticing the prince when he performed as a very outstanding ritual master on the day of the ceremony. This time, after the situation with the One Thought Bridge, one G.o.d asked Jun Wu, "What do you think of this crown prince?"
He also replied with eight words, "The future of this child cannot be measured."
On the very night, the sky above the palace had many heavenly signs and there was large thunderstorm.
During the thunder and lightning, the crown prince soared into the heavens.
Once someone soared, the heavens would tremble a little. When this crown prince soared, the entire heavens shook three times.
To cultivate into the right path is too hard, too hard.
Requires talent.
Requires cultivation.
Requires luck.
The birth of G.o.d is often accompanied by a slow cultivation path of hundreds of years.
But, it doesn"t mean that there aren"t extremely talented young cultivators who soar or people who bitterly train for their entire lives and still fail. Even if they do wait until a heavenly tribulation occurs, if they do not pa.s.s, they will still die, and if not dead, at least crippled. Like the sands nearby the river, they become among the many, forever remaining as a mediocre person who cannot find their paths.
And this crown prince, without a doubt, is heaven"s spoiled child. There is nothing he cannot obtain. There is nothing he cannot do. He wanted to soar to the heavens, and truly, when he was seventeen years old, he did.
Since he was already the people"s center of attention, and plus the emperor and empress missed their child, they ordered for many temples built in his honor and sculptures made in his visage for people to pray. The more believers there were, the more temples there were. The longer their lives were, the more power the prince received. And so, in just a few years, the prince"s glory and fame reached a pinnacle
—until 3 years later, the Xian Le Nation fell into chaos.
The reason for this is due to the ruler"s tyranny, and the traitor army started rising. However, even if war started to arise, the G.o.ds could not interfere. Unless it"s due to the interference of demons or monsters, whatever is supposed happen will still happen. Just think, the mortal world is filled with wars and conflicts, and each side will have their reasons and believe they are right. One day you back up your country. Tomorrow, another G.o.d helps their country take revenge. Wouldn"t that result in a war of G.o.ds, causing this conflict to never end? As for the crown prince"s situation, it"s even more important for him avoid interfering.
But he doesn"t care about these rules, he spoke to Jun Wu, "I want to save the world."
The martial emperor has power acc.u.mulated from thousands of years, but would still not dare to speak these words. It is easy to think how he felt when he heard the prince say these words. He could only helplessly say, "You cannot save everyone."
The prince said, "I can."
So, without worrying about repercussions, He went down into the mortal world.
The people of the Xian Le Nation naturally celebrated his arrival. However, it has always been pa.s.sed down the saying that: G.o.ds unauthorized to go down to the mortal world will definitely not have good endings.
In the meanwhile, the flames of war had not lessened, but became even larger.
It"s not said that the crown prince did not work hard, but it would be better if he did not even try. The harder he worked the more confusion there was. The Xian Le people were badly beaten and suffered heavy casualties. In the end, a plague swept through the nation"s capital and the rebels entered the palace. The war ended.
If the Xian Le Nation could be said to be panting out of breath before he came, then this crown prince directly suffocated this nation after he did.
After the fall of their nation, the people realized something.
In the long run, their crown prince was not as great as they thought he was.
To say it more unpleasantly, isn"t he an incompetent waste!?
Lost in their pain of losing their family and their nation, covered with wounds, the people vengefully stormed into the crown prince"s temples, knocked over his sculptures, and burnt his temples to the ground.
8,000 temples burned for 7 days and 7 nights until nothing was left.
From that day on, a martial G.o.d who protected peace disappeared, and a pest G.o.d who brought about disasters and calamity was born.
When people say you are a G.o.d, then you"re a G.o.d. When people say you are s.h.i.t, then you"re s.h.i.t. You are whatever they say you are. It has always been so.
No matter what, the prince could not accept this reality. The thing he could not accept even more was his punishment: banishment.
Dissolve his powers, banish him into the mortal realm.
From when he was born, he was repeatedly spoiled; he had never suffered pain. Yet this punishment let him directly fall from the clouds into the mud. And in this mud, he experienced for the first time how it felt to go hungry, to live in poverty, and to be dirty. It was also the first time he did things he never thought he would ever do: stealing, robbing, cursing, and giving up. He lost all his face, every bit of his self-esteem. However ugly you wanted it to be, it was. Even his most loyal attendants could not accept his changes, and chose to leave.
"Body in the void, heart in the orchard." These eight words could be found everywhere in Xian Le Nation. If they weren"t pretty much all burned to crisps after the war, the crown prince would probably be the first to smash it into pieces.
The person who said this phrase had already proven that when he was in the void, his heart was not in the orchard.
He soared fast, and he plummeted even faster. He held a fleeting glance at the martial G.o.d road. The events that occurred on One Thought Bridge felt like yesterday, but the heavens shook a little in guilt and the things that pa.s.sed remain in the past.
until many years later, on one particular day, a sharp clap sounded through the heavens, and this crown prince rose to the heavens for the second time.
Traditionally, any banished G.o.ds would abandon any hope of climbing up, or if not, go down into the ghost realm. They pretty much have no chance of flipping their situations ever again. The second time he soared was truly deserved, gloriously loud and eye catching.
But, the most loud and eye catching part of it was that, after he soared, he stormed into the heavens and started fighting like a crazy maniac. And so, just after 15 minutes, he was kicked down from the heavens once more.
15 minutes. It can be said to be history"s most hectic and shortest lived soaring period of all time.
If you can say that the first time was a beautiful speech, then the second time is a farce.
After these two times, the G.o.ds are all irked by this crown prince, and in their annoyance, also contained a bit of cautiousness. After all, the crown prince already fought like crazy after the first time he got banished. For the second time, wouldn"t he want to murder everyone!?
Unexpectedly, after being banished for the second time, he did not become a demon. He lived peacefully and obediently. There were no problems at all. The only problem was…wasn"t he too earnest?
Sometimes, he would sell his skills; he could sing and play all sorts of instruments. He would even smash a huge rock against his chest as one of his performances. They already heard that the prince was talented and skillful, but they discovering it through this type of situation, really makes them feel complicated. At times he would even diligently collect sc.r.a.ps from the street.
The G.o.ds were all shocked.
It is incredible how things turned out. Now, if you say to someone that "your son is the Xian Le crown prince," it is even more vicious and effective than cursing them to forever have no heirs.
Even so, as a once n.o.ble and precious crown prince and a G.o.d, the fact that he stumbled to this point is impressive.
As for the laughing stock of the three realms, this is how he came to be.
After laughing, those with more sympathy maybe would sigh: that once glorified son of heaven is really gone.
His sculptures toppled down. His nation is overthrown, not even one believer is left. He has been forgotten by the people. And so, no one knew where he had gone.
Being banished once is already incredibly disgraceful. Being banished twice, no one can climb back up to their feet again.
Many years pa.s.sed until one day, a sound resounded through the heavens.
The earth and the heavens shook.
The lanterns shook too, its fire shaking within its confines. The G.o.ds were awakened from their palaces, walking fast and asking at the same time, "Who soared this time? This is such a large rattle!"
Who knows, in their first few steps, they were all sighing, "impressive, impressive," but in their last few steps, they were all hacked by the truth.
Are you finished or not!
That famous weirdo, that laughing stock of the three realms, that legendary crown prince, h-he — —he f**king soared to the heavens again!