Chapter 1: Three Self-Reflections a Day |
[In the 165th year of the New Calendar, in the third month, the Grand Councilor of the Left, Gu Zhizhong, petitioned the Emperor, saying: "The commoners within the lands retire at sunset, for the darkening of the heavens renders labor impossible. To ensure the subjects exhaust their strength in service, I pray Your Majesty decree a delay to the hour of sunset." The Emperor granted it. Thus, Xihe drove the sun without the whip, and the Golden Crow hung suspended without falling; the celestial light was greatly extended, not vanishing until the hour of Hai, and the midnight was thereby shortened.]
[In the 165th year of the New Calendar, in the fourth month, the Grand Councilor of the Right, Jiang Ta'e, petitioned the Emperor, saying: "The cycle of the twenty-four solar terms should correspond to twenty-four hours. As the commoners are dull-witted and cannot endure the complexity of Zi and Chou(Traditional Chinese system used to measure time), I request we record time simply by numbers, from one to twenty-four." The Emperor granted it. Thus, the ancient terms of 'Cock-crow' and 'Human-rest' vanished, and throughout the land, only the sound of numerical counting was heard.]
...
Li Shun was rubbing a sheet of white paper with a playful expression when he suddenly heard a burst of chaotic and hurried footsteps from outside the window. With a flicker of his intent, the white paper instantly vanished into thin air from his palm.
"Cripple, something big has happened!" Accompanied by a violent bang of the door being pushed open, a white-haired old man crashed into the room in a frantic rush.
"More bandits are attacking! The commotion this time is unnervingly large; even the garrisoned Black Armor Army has mobilized in full force..."
The old man panted heavily, swallowed hard, paused, and then suddenly lowered his voice: "How about we take the chance to run away in the chaos?"
Run?
Li Shun lowered his eyelids, his gaze momentarily freezing in the dim room.
Great Qian had ended a thousand-year era of dark chaos. That emperor, who had trampled the Seven Kingdoms and stabilized the world, possessed a mighty power unimaginable to mortals—with a single word, he could grant life to all things; with a single phrase, he could delay the setting sun. Before this absolute strength, all things were suppressed, and none within the heavens dared defy him.
A suffocating era of peace had stretched for over four hundred years until a century ago, when the Emperor of Qian suddenly went into seclusion deep within the palace, ignoring court affairs and the ways of the world.
Though the Left and Right Grand Councilors managed the government in his stead, the Emperor’s absence meant the rising storms of the world could no longer be quelled.
For instance, an act of high treason like attacking the County Magistrate’s office was simply unimaginable ten years ago. Yet in the last three years, such occurrences had become increasingly frequent.
"Old Feng, do not lose your composure. What is the origin of these bandits?" Li Shun gathered his thoughts, his brow furrowed as he asked in a heavy voice.
Feng Guan seemed extremely nervous, staring fixedly at the movements outside the window like a bird startled by a bowstring. He replied with a trembling voice: "They should be... the remnants of the former Xiang Kingdom..."
Before his voice could fade, a deafening roar suddenly erupted from the end of the long street in the distance! The sound was like the explosion of heavenly thunder, causing the earth beneath their feet to shudder violently.
Looking in the direction of the surging sound waves, Li Shun’s expression shifted slightly.
In mid-air, a pillar of turbid qi, mingled with crimson and ash, rose abruptly from the ground. At its zenith, it crashed open, transforming into a heavy shroud of dust that blotted out the sun, spreading madly in all directions with a crushing pressure of destruction.
The celestial light gradually dimmed.
A fierce, scorching wind howled as it poured back into the long street, making the already dilapidated doors and windows creak and groan.
Then, a piercing shriek like the tearing of silk rode the gale, echoing continuously over Lengshan Town: "Destroy Qian and restore Xiang! Today is the day!"
"Destroy Qian and restore Xiang! Today is the day!"
In an instant, like a stone stirring a thousand ripples, hysterical responses erupted one after another from every corner of the county town.
"Surrounded on all sides, there is no escape. Hide first to weather the storm," Li Shun decided decisively. Grabbing Feng Guan, he retreated into the inner room in a few steps.
He bent down and lifted a heavy bedboard, revealing a dark, downward-sloping passage.
"A tunnel? Cripple, when did you dig this?" Feng Guan was struck with shock at the sight.
Though his mouth was shocked, his feet were not slow at all; he dived straight into the dark opening.
Li Shun followed close behind, his hand moving with extreme familiarity as he pulled the bedboard shut, sealing it seamlessly.
The two felt their way down the cramped and slanting earthen path in the darkness, reaching the end before long. It was an underground earthen chamber, half a zhang in width and length, and about six feet high. Though slightly confined and oppressive, it was more than enough to shelter two people.
The chamber was not a place of deathly silence and darkness. Upon the rough walls, more than a dozen small blades of grass were rooted in an orderly fashion, emitting a faint, ghostly cold light. The chilly blue glow flickered like breathing, not only dispelling the gloom of this tiny space but also bringing wisps of fresh air into the sealed underground.
"This is... Lengshan Grass? Cripple, you actually hid so many!" Feng Guan clicked his tongue in wonder.
Li Shun, however, leaned against the earthen wall like an old monk in meditation, remaining silent as if rapidly calculating something.
The tremors from the ground above grew more intense. Yet, it seemed the tangled roots of the Lengshan Grass had caused the originally loose soil to bind together firmly. Despite the violent shaking outside that felt as if the heavens were collapsing and the earth rending, this small earthen chamber remained as steady as a rock, without even a grain of dust falling.
Sensing that this refuge was unexpectedly sturdy, the deathly pale color on Feng Guan’s face finally eased. However, his murky eyes couldn't help but dart back and forth across Li Shun’s body.
Lengshan Grass was a death sentence for them, the laborers of Lengshan County. It required daily irrigation with one's own essence and blood, taking a full year just to produce a single stalk. Feng Guan had exhausted his bones and squeezed his marrow day and night, barely managing to fulfill the annual tribute.
Yet Li Shun, without ever delaying his labor duties, had secretly amassed such a terrifying surplus of Lengshan Grass...
Feng Guan turned his gaze toward Li Shun, a flicker of thoughtful, deep light quietly rising in the depths of his eyes.
"Old Feng, stop your idle wandering thoughts. Tell me more about those Xiang Kingdom remnants." Li Shun seemed not to notice the change in Feng Guan’s gaze at all; he suddenly opened his eyes, breaking the silence.
Feng Guan’s expression hurriedly returned to normal. As he recalled, he swallowed hard with lingering fear: "In truth, I did not see them clearly. The most prominent was the leader of those remnants... eight feet tall, extraordinarily burly, with strength that is clearly no small matter. I only peeked from a great distance, yet he seemed to sense it, casting a gaze as sharp as a blade directly toward me! It was fortunate his target was the Magistrate’s office, otherwise these old bones of mine might not have returned."
In the cold, deathly silence underground, Feng Guan’s voice trembled as he described the terrifying scenes he had witnessed from afar.
"It is said that the people of the Xiang Kingdom mostly practice the arts of Shamanic sorcery, and that brute was no exception. He manifested an eight-armed demon-god, his entire body wreathed in crimson flames of slaughter; his baleful aura almost pierced the clouds."
"Though the Black Armor Army are the elites of our Great Qian, before him, they were not the match of a single exchange!"
As Feng Guan spoke, the commotion from the surface gradually weakened.
"Have the bandits left?" Feng Guan, sensing the change outside, raised his head in joy.
"Likely not so soon. To be safe, wait a while longer." Li Shun shook his head, his expression remaining cold and grim.
The underground refuge fell once more into a silence so deep a needle drop could be heard.
"By the way, Old Feng, don't you have some methods of the Xiaoshuo school? Send something up to see what the situation is now." Suddenly, Li Shun pinched a pitch-black ant from some crack in the earth and, holding it between his fingertips, held it out to Feng Guan.
Feng Guan’s withered cheek twitched violently, a flash of hesitant struggle appearing in his eyes, but in the end, he nodded and accepted.
"Listen to the wind, seize the shadow..."
Feng Guan sat cross-legged on the cold earthen floor. Accompanied by a low, ghostly murmur, his murky pupils suddenly dissolved, his eye sockets filled with an eerie, deathly white.
The ant at Li Shun’s fingertips began to twitch and sway as if it had drunk strong liquor. A moment later, it returned to normal and climbed with extreme speed toward the surface along the dark fissures in the soil.
This scout took nearly half a day.
When the pupils reconvened in Feng Guan’s eyes and he woke, he seemed to have exerted himself greatly, appearing as if he were about to collapse: "Fortunate... fortunate we did not rush up. The reason the noise outside lessened is that the Magistrate’s office has been completely breached, and the garrisoned Black Armor Army has been wiped out."
Feng Guan paused, taking large, greedy gulps of air, his chest heaving violently: "Now those bandits are still gathered around the Magistrate’s office, showing no sign of leaving. They seem... they seem to be digging three feet into the earth to find some 'Lengshan Vessel'..."
Hearing this, Li Shun casually plucked a stalk of blue-glowing Lengshan Grass from the wall and handed it over: "Do not worry, speak slowly. Chew some of this first; it can replenish the spirit."
Feng Guan stared at the glowing little grass handed to him, momentarily stunned.
He had spent half his life nurturing this item with his essence and blood, yet he had never tasted what it was like.
After struggling for a moment in extreme bitterness, Feng Guan gritted his teeth, resolutely stuffed it into his mouth, and swallowed it raw.
As he chewed, he couldn't help but burst into tears, his voice desolate: "A lifetime of hard labor... so, this is the taste of Lengshan Grass..."
Li Shun was about to speak.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Without any omen, it was as if thunder from the nine heavens exploded overhead. This hiding place, buried several zhang deep, was forcibly decapitated by a power so overbearing it defied logic.
Dazzling sunlight poured down like a waterfall, but in the next instant, all light was blotted out by a majestic figure, mountain-like, spanning the edge of the crater. In the backlight, it was none other than the leader of the Xiang remnants who controlled the eight-armed demon-god!
As if being stared down by a beast from the primeval wilderness, Li Shun felt his body instantly stiffen. His limbs felt as if they had fallen into an ice cellar, completely unable to move. Even the strength to open his jaw to speak was stripped away by that terrifying pressure.
The leader looked down as if viewing ants, his cold gaze sweeping over the trembling Feng Guan and the frozen Li Shun. He said coldly: "Hiding your heads and showing your tails, treacherous rats."
"Die!"
A clear, resonant cry of a phoenix suddenly erupted from his person. Accompanied by blazing flames that burst forth like heavenly punishment, they transformed into a sea of crimson fire, instantly swallowing the frozen Li Shun and Feng Guan without mercy.
After a mere moment, not even ash remained of the two; they had completely vanished from this world.
Treating it as a trivial matter, the leader leaped away, transforming into a streak of fire.
Long after, the thick smoke dissipated and the bandits retreated. The survivors of Lengshan County, who had luckily escaped with their lives, began to emerge one after another from their broken hiding places like startled birds. The reinforcements from the Lengya Prefecture of Great Qian also arrived late.
For a time, the piercing cries of women and children, the coarse shouting of the official army, and the clamor of rescuing the wounded spread throughout the ravaged city. In this chaotic asura field, Li Shun and Feng Guan were but two ordinary laborers of Lengshan County; their deaths did not even attract anyone’s notice.
Until night fell and the day approached its end, the clamor of Lengshan County finally returned to silence.
And within the deep pit that was the site of Li Shun’s demise.
The surrounding soil, having endured the baking of the scorching flames, had long since turned into hard, black-glowing crystals. Above this black, deathly ruin, the air suddenly distorted violently without warning, and a blurred, semi-transparent phantom silently condensed into form.
The phantom wore a towering high crown and broad, flowing robes. Though its face was shrouded in misty fog and difficult to discern, its features and skeletal structure bore a seventy or eighty percent resemblance to the Li Shun who had turned to ash that day.
The phantom stood proud upon the scorched earth, slightly bowing its head. A grand booming sound, part chant and part song, suddenly erupted from its mouth, echoing through the void:
"Three times a day, I reflect upon myself!"
As soon as these words were spoken, they were like a heavenly decree. The rushing flow of all things in the world was, at this moment, severed by an invisible giant hand, falling into absolute stillness.
And then...
Time reversed!
Inside the wooden house, upon the bed.
Li Shun snapped his eyes open.
...
TL/N; Hello readers, long time no see! Since I finally have some leisure from work and saw that there was a new novel from Angry Squid, I thought to give it a go. Hoping it'll be as exciting as Longevity Simulator :))) really hyped
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