While everyone was still recovering from their shock, the sky suddenly changed.
The sky, which had been baked by the scorching sun, was dyed by layers of drifting clouds, gradually fading from a golden red to a magnificent purplish-brown.
A gentle breeze blew past, and the commoners throughout the city caught a scent of a crisp, exotic fragrance. It was like sandalwood and orchid, refreshing their minds and hearts.
Immediately afterward,
an incredibly clear and resonant bird call echoed through the clouds.
From deep within the clouds, thousands of glowing feathers began to drift down.
Each teal-colored feather trailed a long tail of light, silently dissolving the moment it touched the ground.
Amidst this sky full of glowing feathers, an ethereal and incomparably beautiful figure slowly stepped out of the dark-gold carriage.
Her toes lightly tapped the air as she stepped onto emerald light that materialized out of nothingness. She slowly ascended into the sky, standing at the highest point of the ritual altar.
Everyone looked up, their breath catching in their throats.
Her silver hair was piled high, cascading down like moonlight. A gilded peacock-feather hair ornament was pinned at an angle near her temple, its dangling fine beads swaying gently with the Divine Lady's steps, refracting tiny rainbows of light.
A single silver forehead ornament sat at the center of her brow, shimmering with a cold light.
She wore a teal-colored long gown subtly embroidered with peacock-feather patterns, which shimmered alternately between emerald green and royal blue as she walked.
In her hand, she held a Peacock Fan. The fan was adorned with thousands of peacock feathers in interwoven shades of teal, gold, and green, its handle set with translucent moonstones that shimmered with radiant light.
Seeing the figure from the heavens slowly land on the ritual altar, the old shamaness hurriedly knelt at her feet with the little girl. Her face was filled with dread and unease, and her voice trembled uncontrollably.
“W-Welcome, Dragon God...”
She had never expected that the method of taking an oath to invite a deity recorded by her ancestors would actually work, bringing forth a true god.
It was just that this invited deity seemed to have a rather bad temper.
In the eyes of these commoners, the Governor was the highest official they had ever seen, the one who held their lives in his hands.
Yet such a powerful official had just been shot dead with a single arrow by a golden-armored heavenly soldier, leaving not even a corpse behind.
This was the consequence of offending a deity.
“I beg the Dragon God for mercy, please grant us rain...” She forced down the terror in her heart, kneeling and pleading with the deity before her.
“Yu Miao, for many years, you have practiced medicine to save lives, studied the celestial patterns, and helped them without any complaints. Yet now, they have repaid your kindness with ingratitude and wished to put you to death.”
She said, “Do you still wish to pray for rain on their behalf?”
The surrounding commoners exchanged uneasy glances. Some quickly looked away, while even more of them silently lowered their heads.
Among those whose lives had been saved by Granny Yu and who had received her kindness, not a single one dared to look up and meet her eyes.
Granny Yu remained silent for a long time.
Only then did she raise her head to look at the radiant figure standing beside the ritual altar, a complex look flashing in her eyes.
“I can confidently say that I have never wronged anyone, yet in the end, I could not even protect my little granddaughter. If they were the only ones suffering, I would never ask the Lord Dragon God to send rain.” Her voice was not loud, but in the dead silence of the surroundings, it was clearly audible. “However, I know a little of reading the weather. The ones suffering from this severe drought are far more than just the people of Longyou. If I do not ask for this rain, the ones who suffer will be the people of the entire world. They will contract heat sickness under the scorching sun and die in agony...”
“Granny Yu, we have wronged you.” The commoners who had previously blamed Granny Yu for failing to bring rain now showed looks of deep guilt.
“We were also misled by Governor Sun! He was the one who said that if you failed to pray for rain, we should incite the people and direct everyone's anger toward you!”
Several others who had shouted the loudest also fell to their knees in tears, knocking their heads against the ground repeatedly. “Granny Yu, it is all our fault for being ungrateful beasts! We are the ones who deserve to die most!”
Those who had spoken up for Granny Yu looked at them with utter disgust. “Stop acting so hypocritical!”
The crowd grew even more ashamed. “Granny Yu, we will surely remember your kindness and be grateful to you in the future.”
“I have practiced medicine to save lives and read the stars to pray for rain, but never to gain your gratitude.”
Granny Yu said, “I simply cannot bear to see people suffer.”
She prostrated herself once more, her forehead touching the ground. “I beg the Lord Dragon God to have mercy on us and grant rain to the mortal realm.”
The Divine Lady looked down at her and said in a calm tone, “Though I am not the Dragon God, I can still grant you rain.”
She lightly raised the feather fan in her hand.
The tip of the fan pointed toward the empty ground directly in front of the ritual altar. Speckles of emerald light fell onto the ground, rapidly spreading in all directions.
The ground vibrated violently, and the bluestone slabs cracked and flipped over, turning into translucent white jade the moment they upturned.
Bricks and tiles coalesced out of thin air.
In an instant, they formed a thousand-foot-high divine platform.
The divine platform was constructed entirely of mutton-fat white jade, with magnificent gold thread patterns carved along the edge of every single step.
With a light tap of her toes, the Divine Lady flew toward the divine platform before the crowd, her teal gown billowing in the wind.
As her wide sleeves fluttered, a dazzling illusion of a peacock materialized behind her, its feathers unfurling one by one and trailing long tails of light in midair.
The moment her toes touched the center of the platform, the entire divine platform suddenly lit up, and countless light shadows in the shape of peacock tail feathers drifted down from it, beautiful beyond words.
Before anyone could recover from their shock, the Divine Lady suddenly folded her Peacock Fan and tossed it casually into the air.
The feather fan actually transformed into a dome.
The Divine Lady moved, her sleeves spreading like a peacock's wings unfurling for the first time.
She spun, her silver hair and the gilded peacock feathers on her hair ornament flying together as gold-dust-like particles of light drifted down from her hair.
The light of the dome brightened and dimmed in rhythm with her dance steps. With every spin she made, new feather shadows drifted down, growing brighter and more brilliant until they gradually covered the entire divine platform.
Below the divine platform, tens of thousands of people stared up, not a single one of them blinking.
Outside Longyou City, Shen Yu had been settling the refugees who had followed the Divine Lady to Longyou, but with such a massive disturbance occurring inside the city, it was impossible to ignore.
He looked up at the high platform that had appeared out of thin air. Even though he could not clearly see the figure upon it, he knew without a doubt that it was the Divine Lady he believed in.
How incredibly fortunate he was to witness a deity's stunning dance!
Yun Shu, who was currently idle and watching her own body dance, could not help but sigh. Thank goodness the dance component of the Rainbow and Feather Garment Set, the Rain Prayer Dance skill, comes with its own stage and auto-follow. Otherwise, someone like me with absolutely zero talent for dancing would probably only be able to perform radio calisthenics.
“Host, you don't get it, do you? Max-level outfits don't just have maxed-out special effects, their functions are maxed out too.”
The little fox squatted on the railing, its tail wagging back and forth.
“Just wait until you put on that max-level Peerless National Beauty Set. Its special effects are even more exaggerated than this max-level Rainbow and Feather Garment Set...”
The human and the fox chatted casually.
The Rain Prayer Dance gradually neared its end.
Above the sky, the purple clouds suddenly surged like boiling water.
A clap of thunder rumbled from deep within the clouds.
A torrential downpour cascaded down.
The rain was as thick as cattle hair and as dense as brocade, pouring down from tens of thousands of feet in the sky, splashing onto the parched, cracked earth.
The crowd stared up blankly, the rainwater mixing with the warm tears that had streamed down their faces at some point.
The Divine Lady stood atop the divine platform. The moment the rainwater touched the platform, it instantly transformed into a fine mist, swirling like smoke, making her appear all the more like someone who did not belong to the mortal world.
Rate on N.U.
