The morning mist had not yet fully dispersed, lingering thinly around the mountainside like a grayish-white gauze scarf.
The people traveling from Xindu to Yecheng had been walking all night.
At this moment, they were sitting in groups of twos and threes, holding white jade bowls filled with steaming hot porridge.
Shen Yu and Lu Sui sat leaning against an old tree, each holding a bowl of thick white porridge.
Feeling the warmth radiating from the bowls and looking at the translucent grains of rice, both felt a complex mix of emotions.
When they had set out from Xindu, they had prepared themselves to survive on dry rations along the way.
To their surprise, whenever it was time to eat, a bowl of white porridge would appear out of thin air in everyone's hands.
“The Divine Lady truly loves her people like her own children.” Lu Sui took the last sip of porridge from his bowl. “Fuyan, when you wrote to me saying you met a true deity who saves people from suffering, I didn't actually believe you. I even thought you'd been possessed.”
Shen Yu paused mid-sip. “Since you didn't believe what I wrote, why did you still come to Xindu?”
Watching the white jade bowl vanish into thin air as soon as the porridge was finished, Lu Sui was still amazed by how wondrous the power of a deity was, even though it wasn't his first time witnessing it.
Gradually snapping out of his daze,
he said, “I originally came to mock you. I wanted to see how someone as clever as you could actually be scammed.”
Shen Yu: “...”
I truly chose my friends poorly!
Lu Sui's expression suddenly turned solemn. “Fuyan, I must thank you. Thank you for writing that letter to me. Otherwise, I probably would have gone my whole life without ever seeing a true deity, let alone becoming one of Her followers.”
Remembering his original purpose for writing that letter, Shen Yu fell silent for a long moment before saying, “There's no need to be too grateful.”
Lu Sui did not notice Shen Yu's unusual demeanor at all. He looked at the road ahead leading to Yecheng and said with emotion, “When the Divine Lady swung Her sword to sever the Dragon Vein back then, who could have thought that a single strike would, by a twist of fate, carve out a new path?”
“Originally, traveling from Xindu to Yecheng meant taking a detour around the mountains, which took at least three to four days. Now, we can pass directly through the heart of the mountain, taking at most two days to arrive.”
Hearing this, Shen Yu set down his white jade bowl.
His gaze slowly drifted past the crowd, landing on the celestial carriage parked quietly not far away.
The carriage was entirely translucent white, made of an unknown material that shimmered with a gentle, warm luster in the morning light.
Two snow-white mythical beasts lowered their heads obediently.
Pale green beaded tassels hung from the roof of the carriage, and silver wind chimes dangled from its four corners. As a gentle breeze swept past, the chimes chimed softly like light rain, their crisp, clear sounds drifting through the air.
The carriage curtains were tightly drawn; looking in from the outside, one could not even see a faint outline of a figure.
Yet, he knew the Divine Lady was inside.
Shen Yu gazed at the celestial carriage, his thoughts drifting far away.
Before leaving Xindu,
he had gone to see Luo Daoqing once.
In the dungeon of Xindu City, a ragged man huddled in a cell, his hands bound in shackles.
Shen Yu stood outside the iron bars. Looking at his miserable state, he felt not a shred of pity.
Luo Daoqing had committed countless evil deeds and was steeped in sin; falling to such a state was entirely his own doing.
He might look pitiful now, but the innocent people who had died because of him were a thousand, ten thousand times more pitiful.
The moment Luo Daoqing saw Shen Yu appear, his entire body shuddered violently.
He scrambled to shrink into the corner, his chains clattering loudly. Pressing his back tightly against the damp stone wall, he looked as if he wanted nothing more than to merge into the wall itself.
His once cunning and sinister eyes were now bloodshot, his pupils filled with terror.
“I don't want to go out...”
He let out a wheezing, raspy sound from his throat. “I... I don't want to go out and see them... I'm not going to reclaim the wasteland... I'm not going... Please, don't take me out... I'm not going...”
Shen Yu stepped closer and looked down at him.
He knew what Luo Daoqing was afraid of.
A few days ago, when the guards had dragged him out to reclaim wasteland, the commoners had shown their deep hatred for him.
Every time they saw him, they would beat him.
“Luo Daoqing, if you answer a few questions for me, I won't have them take you out to reclaim wasteland anymore.”
Luo Daoqing stiffened.
His lips trembled. “Really?”
Shen Yu replied, “A gentleman's word is his bond.”
“I will ask, and you will answer. No need for unnecessary words.”
“What do you want to ask?” Luo Daoqing raised his head, looking at the man before him who, in history, was renowned as the most resourceful and brilliant chancellor.
In the future history he knew, Shen Yu's fame was on par with his elder brother Shen Jue. In fact, compared to the overly ruthless Shen Jue, Shen Yu enjoyed an even better reputation.
Shen Yu went straight to the point. “The Divine Lady said you are a person from the future. Tell me, what is the future like?”
A trace of nostalgia appeared in Luo Daoqing's eyes.
“The future... the future is wonderful. There are no emperors, and no one has to kneel. Ordinary people can eat whatever they want and wear whatever they want. There's also something called a 'smartphone'—even if you're separated by thousands of mountains and rivers, you can still see each other's faces...”
Shen Yu listened to these descriptions.
Though he remained calm on the outside, his heart was in turmoil.
The people of the future lived in such a beautiful world; it was probably not much different from the Heavenly Palace itself.
They had not let down the Divine Lady's expectations!
Ever since the Divine Lady descended to the mortal realm, a heavy stone had been weighing on his heart. He had feared that even if the Divine Lady abandoned the splendor of the Heavenly Palace to stay in the mortal world, mortals would prove unworthy of Her guidance.
Now, his heart was finally at ease.
Only after Luo Daoqing finished speaking did he manage to suppress the surging emotions in his heart to ask his second question.
“Do the people of the future still worship the Divine Lady?”
Luo Daoqing remained silent for a long moment.
“No,” he said in a raspy voice. “There are no gods in the future. No one has seen a god, no one has heard a god's voice, and there is no person or evidence to prove that gods ever existed.”
Shen Yu's pupils contracted slightly.
“No one in the future remembers the Divine Lady?” He suddenly grabbed Luo Daoqing, pressing him further. “How could that be?! The Divine Lady has shown such immense grace to the mortal realm. Mortals must firmly remember Her achievements! How could they be so ungrateful?!”
Terrified by Shen Yu's fierce, wild-eyed look, Luo Daoqing trembled and shrank back. “The history of the future has a gap. Many things weren't preserved.”
“It's like a book with its most crucial pages torn out, making the beginning and end completely disconnected.”
“This Divine Lady you worship has no records in my era. Not in the official histories, not in the unofficial records, not even in folklore.”
At this point, a hint of regret crept into his voice. “Everything I'm saying is true. After all, I'm not an idiot. If I had known there was a real deity in this world, why on earth would I have traveled all the way to Xindu to test Her divine power?”
Shen Yu naturally believed Luo Daoqing was telling the truth. He simply could not believe that everyone in the future had forgotten the Divine Lady.
“Is there truly no record of deities whatsoever?”
He asked, unwilling to give up.
“Nüwa Mending the Heavens,” Luo Daoqing recalled carefully. “Among the stories passed down to the future, there is only Nüwa Mending the Heavens.”
“Legend has it that long ago, a great hole suddenly broke in the sky, and the waters of the heavenly river poured down. The earth was flooded, ferocious beasts ran rampant, and all living things suffered. Unable to bear seeing the people suffer, Lady Nüwa smelted five-colored stones to mend the heavens.”
“In the end, the sky was mended, the floods receded, and all living beings were saved. But Lady Nüwa exhausted Her divine power and transformed into the mountains and rivers, never to wake again.”
As his voice fell, a dead silence enveloped the dungeon.
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