Chapter 168 - 101: New Dynasty Daqian
Chapter 168: Chapter 101: New Dynasty Daqian
However,
They did not know.
The "Imperial Physician Xuu" in the small courtyard had not the slightest interest in this power, just as he never had.
Facing this New Emperor, he was trimming flowers and branches, a hint of impatience showing.
"Your Majesty."
"I am merely an Imperial Physician."
"Not a Governor. You should not be asking me about this."
If there was anyone in the world whose depths Su Chen could not fathom, it was this mysterious youth before him, Kong.
He called him a stranger, yet Kong gave him a feeling of profound familiarity, so much like Jie, and yet, not Jie.
But he couldn’t quite call it familiarity, either.
At the very least, although Jie had walked the Heaven-Reaching Immortal Path, possessed peerless talent, and was deep and calculating, Su Chen could see right through him.
Simply put, while Jie was extraordinary, Su Chen could see through him.
This person,
He could not.
Not even the Three Immortals of Great Yu he had met, nor Great Yu Yue, nor even that Mr. Sword who cultivated the number one Sword Dao Innate had ever given him such an unfathomable feeling.
"How about we just call it Daqian."
Kong answered his own question.
BOOM!
At that moment, the New Dynasty was named. A mysterious fortune rose from all the people of the world, gathering in the Imperial Capital from all directions.
This fortune, called the All Living Beings’ Fortune, was different from the profoundness of the Mountain River Fortune and the ethereal nature of the Celestial Will’s Fortune.
This All Living Beings’ Fortune seemed plain and unremarkable, yet it was also dazzling, at times a vibrant rainbow, at others a simple, dull gray.
At this very moment,
Throughout the Imperial City, Ancient Grandmasters and Ancient Immortals stood watching this All Living Beings’ Fortune, which they too were seeing for the first time.
They had all seen the Mountain River Fortune. During the Great Yu Era, when the world was unified, the Mountain River Fortune had gushed forth continuously, giving birth to countless Mortal Grandmasters.
The Celestial Will’s Fortune had existed since the Heavenly Fall. It was profound and mysterious, impossible to gaze upon, and without form.
The Heaven and Earth’s Will that First Grades comprehended, the Heaven and Earth Formation that Grandmasters commanded, and the Immortal Skills of the Qi Cultivation Immortal Path—aside from the Ten Extremes—all came from the Celestial Will’s Fortune.
But this All Living Beings’ Fortune...
"What in the world is this?"
Great Yu Yue asked.
No one answered.
The All Living Beings’ Fortune existed only in legends. Even those among them who were born in the Early Days of Great Yu, with lifespans approaching nine hundred years, had never seen it with their own eyes.
With the birth of the All Living Beings’ Fortune, the rate at which the Mountain River Fortune gushed forth suddenly increased severalfold.
It would have originally taken another ten years.
Now,
it would be five years.
Or perhaps even three, before the Immortal Arrival.
The Three Fortunes of Heaven, Earth, and Man had gathered, seemingly accelerating everything.
Spiritual Qi was gushing forth.
Cultivation was starting to become easier.
Even prodigious cultivators were beginning to emerge one after another.
Before long,
in the era of Daqian, Grandmasters would replace First Grades, the Innate Realm would emerge, and there would even be Innate Peak Climbers who could snatch life from the heavens.
But what was the price?
’This should be a good thing, right?’
Great Yu Yue felt a faint unease in his heart.
Because the Celestial Will, born from the Celestial Will’s Fortune, still hadn’t moved against Su Chen, which made him very uneasy.
"This is not a good thing."
Su Chen looked up at the sky.
The Three Fortunes were gathering, their momentum accelerating, and the Spiritual Qi was growing denser.
But this Human World was incomplete.
Heaven was broken, and the earth was flawed.
It was as if the world was being squeezed dry, wringing out the last trace of its Essence Qi.
In his eyes, the Longevity Fire of the Imperial City’s inhabitants, and indeed everyone in the world, seemed unchanged, but in reality, everything had changed. Their lifespans were all being halved in time with the acceleration of the Three Fortunes.
Someone who could have lived for ten years could now only live for five.
Even a newborn infant, who should have had a full lifespan of one hundred years, now only had fifty.
’So it’s being exchanged for human lifespans.’
Su Chen lowered his gaze and continued trimming his flowers and branches.
He could feel it.
The Wish of All Living Beings for his First-Grade Ceremony, once nearly impossible to fulfill, was gradually being completed.
The deaths of the Purple-robed Thousand Years and the vermilion-robed Seal Master, along with the resentment accumulated during the time of Zhou and Liang, had been cut away.
Kong was truly a powerful and ambitious young ruler.
He had used the Killing Fisherman to cause a great stir in the Imperial City and used Huzi’s injustice to lure him out.
Using the pretext that more than half the court’s dignitaries were selling people to the Demon Mountain, he had unleashed his blade, slaughtering indiscriminately and wiping out most of the Decaying officials in the Imperial City.
Furthermore, he had slaughtered the deeply entrenched and overly powerful Noble Clans and Noble Families of the world.
Many of these Noble Clans and Noble Families had lineages stretching back five hundred years, even longer than the Zhou and Liang Dynasty itself.
’The three-hundred-year dynastic cycle. When the cake is all eaten, they start eating the people’s share. Or rather, they eat the people directly, for the people are part of the cake...’
’Now, by getting rid of the old and welcoming the new, he’s redistributing the wealth and starting a new dynastic cycle...’
Also, yesterday, Old Liang’s Three Sects and the Great Zhou Seven Religions had sent representatives one after another to congratulate the New Dynasty and declare their submission.
The old guard of Great Yu in Heaven-Ascension Tower remained silent.
ASEAN remained in seclusion.
The powers of the world all tacitly acknowledged this powerful ruler.
He sent troops north, drove out the Demon Fiends, and forced them back to the Demon Monster Mountain Range.
Those from Old Zhou who had colluded with the Demon Mountain were slaughtered until heads rolled and blood flowed like a river, their severed heads piled into a gruesome tower.
The people of Zhou and Liang were all now citizens of the New Dynasty. He distributed porridge across the land, provided work for disaster relief, and settled the refugees, letting them build their own homes.
In the fallen Three Commanderies, city after city rose from the ground.
「In just a few months.」
Not only had he taken control of the Imperial City and secured his position as Emperor, but he had also won the hearts of the people. Countless citizens wept with joy, setting up Longevity Tablets for this Emperor, praying for him to live a long life and continue to rule the world.
With such a powerful ruler for the New Dynasty, peace and prosperity for the people seemed all but guaranteed.
To the point that Su Chen had a feeling.
’Has this person, perhaps, made some great vow?’
Su Chen stopped trimming the branches. He looked at the young emperor in the Black Dragon Emperor Robe and voiced the question in his heart.
"Who exactly are you?"
Su Chen had once gone to Cyan Mountain Peak to see. For Jie, the Nine-leaf Lotus had withered. In the end, he had failed to break through the Fetal Confusion. Even his remains had vanished into thin air.
’It shouldn’t have been like this.’
’Since Jie was using the Ten Lives Body, he must have had some assurance.’
’Besides, something isn’t right.’
’These ten lives passed far too quickly.’
"Who am I? You’ve had the answer in your heart all along, haven’t you?"
Kong was smiling.
For some unknown reason, he always liked to smile when facing Su Chen.
"You are not Jie!"
"Your ages don’t match."
Kong no longer looked at Su Chen. He looked out at the mountains and rivers of the world, at the converging Three Fortunes, and at the Mountain River Fortune that was slowly turning like a vortex in the Imperial City.
"Perhaps."
"I might deceive the world, but I would not deceive you."
"I am Kong!"
"But I am also Jie..."
"What makes you think that Kong is one of Jie’s ten lives, and not that Jie is one of Kong’s?"
"Breaking through the Fetal Confusion... it’s just too late! To think I actually walked the Royal Race’s dead-end path of cultivation and now have to die again. What a bother."
At that moment, the young emperor turned his head to look at Su Chen, still smiling.
"You cut me down with one sword strike, granting me release."
"Now."
"It’s my turn to repay you."
"Your First-Grade Ceremony, the Wish of All Living Beings—I have helped you! Next, for the wrath of the heavens, or perhaps the world’s destruction by an Immortal... are you ready?"
BOOM!
The sheer amount of information was overwhelming.
So much so that even after Kong had left, Su Chen hadn’t come back to his senses.
Jie wasn’t the one using the Ten Lives Body!
Instead, he was one of the ten lives of a body undergoing the tribulations of Reincarnation, a single life trying to break through the Fetal Confusion?
’How is that possible?!’
One life lasts a hundred years.
Ten lives would be a thousand years at most.
’Is this Kong from the Great Yu Era? Or perhaps from before Great Yu, during the Heavenly Fall Era...’
’No. From the Heavenly Fall Era, aside from the Great Yu Library and Mr. Shu, I’ve never heard of a second person from that time.’
’It seems there is also the Black Abyss, which was passed down from the Heavenly Fall.’
’The wrath of the heavens is one thing.’
’But this world’s destruction by an Immortal...’
’It’s not the Immortal Arrival.’
’Isn’t it supposed to be a peerless Immortal Fate descending upon the world?’
Su Chen did not understand.
Unfortunately, the young emperor, Kong, had already departed in his Black Dragon Emperor’s Chariot. Even if Su Chen wanted to ask, the opportunity was lost.
"Time to go brew some medicine."
Su Chen picked up his medicine box, sauntered out the door, and went to continue brewing medicine for that Little Cyan Sparrow.
The Xuanyuan Treasure Tree, after all these years of nurturing, was also about to mature.
Something to look forward to.
Xueluo.
「Twelfth Year of Xuanlong.」
It was also the first year of the Daqian New Dynasty.
Kong formally ascended the throne.
He sat high on the imperial throne, looking down upon the world, upon the Ancient Immortals and the Grandmasters, and he asked:
"I am the Emperor. Who approves? Who objects!"
On that day, the world was silent.
「From that day forward.」
There was no more Zhou and Liang.
Only the New Dynasty Daqian, which dominated the world, bordered the Demon Mountain and the Endless Sea, and unified the lands of the Human Race.
His name was Kong, and he was the master of the world!