Chapter 128 Genealogy "The God of Gods, his name is... Li Zhou."...
Wan Niang handed the broken bloodstained wooden sign back to Li Zhou, recalling how Yu Niang Niang bent her back under Li Zhou's influence and eventually broke into two pieces. Her already transparent body became even more ethereal and unreal.
She was terribly scared.
But then she remembered that after Xie Lingwei learned how to tell fortunes, he often locked himself in the room, constantly calculating something.
Wan Niang always heard the sound of copper coins shaking, and quietly looked in through the crack in the door. Her daughter kept shaking the divination sticks, writing furiously from time to time, and muttering to herself. As a result, the room was littered with a lot of rice paper covered with words and symbols, like snowflakes covered with coal.
Wan Niang only caught a glimpse of sporadic fragments of the text, but it was shocking enough.
"...Xue Jingkou, established the sect...sacrificed the seven emotions and six desires...the past...the future...memories...life..."
"...kou grandkou, sacrifice the sword...name...body..."
"... Koukou, sacrifice your soul... Transform it into a spring to seal death... This body will not enter the cycle of reincarnation..."
"... Kokoko, eternal doom... Mother and daughter will never see each other again after death..."
"... Koukou, a doctor of the Imperial Academy, who attained enlightenment after learning from ancient and modern times, went mad the same day he attained enlightenment. After that, he became illiterate for several years, and burned his books in anger, dying with them..."
"... Kou Kou Kou, he loved to travel around the world, but one day he went mad and ate his own eyes and died..."
"... Koukoukou, the master of body building, suddenly went mad, his body turned into an invisible object, begging for death but unable to do so..."
Every piece of paper was filled with ominous words such as "sacrifice", "death" and "madness".
The most terrifying thing was that on one of the papers, there were two lines of blood-red characters written in cinnabar:
"Xie Lingwei, physiognomist, understand the secrets of heaven!"
"Those who are enlightened, die!"
…
"Mom?" Li Zhou stretched out his hand and waved it in front of Wan Niang.
Wan Niang suddenly came back to her senses.
She saw how her daughter's body came back to life, and also saw the strange magical powers displayed by fortune teller Li Zhou.
Of course she knew that the girl in front of her was no longer her daughter.
But this face... this body... this name...
Wan Niang reached out and touched the face of fortune teller Li Zhou.
The transparent hand passed across Li Zhou's cheek.
Li Zhou lowered his head and took the initiative to touch her palm.
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, there were no more complicated emotions in her eyes, only pure kindness.
In order to take care of her, her daughter embarked on the path of enlightenment only after her death.
What reason did she have to be afraid of Him whom her daughter had invited?
She had no talent for spiritual practice and could not help her daughter in any way. The best thing she could do was to be a mother.
Wan Niang looked at the face of the physiognomist Li Zhou and said distressedly, "You have lost weight."
"Eat well even if you are alone."
Li Zhou, who had just finished a large pot of boiled fish, nodded and said, "We are preparing to go fishing to replenish our bodies. Mom, do you get seasick? If not, let's go together."
Wan Niang said, "I'll go with you. When do we leave? Go to sleep for a while. I'll wake you up when the time comes."
Li Zhou took Wan Niang to see the big ship on the beach. They had to wait until the ship was ready before they could set off.
Li Zhou said, "I pretended to leave, but I was actually observing from the temple to prevent them from having any bad intentions."
The clever Li Zhou had long discovered that the location of this temple offered a panoramic view of the entire beach.
Wan Niang smiled and nodded, praising her. She said that when traveling alone in the world, she had to be more alert.
This is what Li Zhou wanted to say. Seeing that Wan Niang completely understood, his body and mind were relaxed.
She didn't realize that when a normal person encounters a follower of an evil god in an ancient village, they would not run to the temple where the follower worships to be on guard against the people. This is no different than a sheep walking into a tiger's mouth.
Wan Niang naturally would not remind her of the small deviation in her imitation this time. She returned to the temple and looked around. She felt it was too deserted, so she walked out of the main hall, found some flowers and plants, and decorated the main hall.
Although it was just a temporary resting place, after she cleaned it up, it actually became a bit warmer and more like home.
Li Zhou's eyes widened. He threw himself into Wan Niang's arms, acted coquettishly for a long time, and then fell asleep sweetly with his head resting on Wan Niang's knees.
Wan Niang looked at her peaceful sleeping face, listened to her shallow breathing, and her mood also calmed down.
This is her daughter, Wan Niang thought, and bent down to kiss her daughter's cheek.
The husband is from Jiaocheng and Li Mansion.
Baby Li Zhou was awakened by the violent knocking on the door and looked up in confusion.
Yue Niang was studying an improved loom from Fengzhou. When she heard the sound, she was about to get up. Li Sheng took Da Lang and ran towards the gate: "Don't move. I'll go and take a look."
This movement clearly shows that the person here has ill intentions.
Yue Niang frowned, thought for a moment, walked into the inner room, and touched Li Zhou's head: "I don't know who is coming to the door, Zhou Er, don't be afraid, mother will be back soon."
Li Zhou was naturally not afraid: "Are there any bad guys? I'll go too." She wanted to protect her mother!
"Zhu'er, I'm here." Upon hearing the noise, Master Lechen hurried over. She knew better than anyone that Li Zhou was not a baby who needed careful care. However, her rationality was overwhelmed by stronger emotions, and she could not tolerate any possibility of Zhu'er being in danger.
Seeing her serious expression, Yue Niang felt relieved, hurried out of the house and rushed to the door.
When she was halfway there, she saw the door being pushed open by a huge force, and Li Sheng and Dalang, who were holding the door, were knocked out.
The father and son rolled on the ground for several times, and climbed up dazed, without a single scratch on their skin.
Yue Niang was furious. She looked up at the people who came and saw several familiar faces. They were all members of the Li family who had been at odds with her when the family split up in the past. These people were leading a group of servants, and their eyes were filled with red bloodshot from excitement.
"Li Erlang, you've really made it." The old man with white hair and beard rushed towards Li Sheng aggressively, "Your wife gave birth to a monster, why didn't you come to the clan to report it? Where is the evil? Why don't you burn it clean with fire!"
Yue Niang saw it clearly: as the old man walked, maggots fell from his sleeves and his body exuded a suffocating stench.
Her heart skipped a beat and she turned to look at the other Li clan members, those elders with solemn and dignified expressions. Upon closer inspection, she saw maggots infesting her hair, lapels and cuffs, but she herself did not notice anything.
They seemed to be alive, yet dead.
This group of living dead elders took out the family tree, surrounded Li Sheng, and questioned him loudly:
"As a descendant of the Li family, how could you do such a disgraceful thing?"
"You are protecting this evildoer. Are you worthy of our Li ancestors?"
"If you don't make a decision, you will suffer the consequences! For the sake of our family's reputation, we must make a decision today!"
Li was frightened by the maggots and turned pale. He almost fainted from the stench and stammered in reply:
"My daughter is not a monster."
"After my father died, I separated my property from you. You have no right to control me..."
"Go away... shut up..."
Dalang tried hard to help Li Sheng push away the elders who were pressing forward. Yue Niang shuddered and felt her wrist suddenly burned. She looked down and saw a handkerchief used by Li Zhou exposed at the cuff.
She was stunned for a moment, and suddenly she felt strong again. She looked at the family tree in the hands of the Li clan elder. A flash of enlightenment flashed through her mind, and she rushed forward and snatched the family tree away.
The elders howled miserably. Yue Niang's hands, which were holding the family tree, seemed to have sunk into a ball of mud crawling with maggots. In a trance, she seemed to see fat maggots twisting their bodies and crawling up her arms along the family tree.
She gritted her teeth and didn't throw it away. The next moment, the handkerchief in her sleeve emitted a blazing light that instantly pierced through all the maggots.
"Madam!" Li Sheng shouted worriedly and hugged the elder who wanted to take back the family tree.
Yue Niang came to her senses. There was no maggot in there. It was clearly just an ordinary book. She quickly opened the family tree and saw that on the pages filled with names, each name was twisted into two words in an instant:
【Li Zhou】
In this thick family tree, every row and every column contained the name "Li Zhou".
First generation ancestor: Li Zhou
Second Generation: Li Zhou
…
70th Ancestor: Li Zhou
71st Ancestor: Li Zhou
…
Yue Niang flipped through the pages and came to the row of the elders. As their names were replaced by the word "Li Zhou", the elders with raised brows and glared, their long gowns tore into rags, and their bodies exploded like fireworks.
The maggots fell to the ground like flowers scattered from heaven and died soon after.
They were still wailing before they died:
"I don't dare anymore!"
"It was He who chose 'Li', and it was He who gave the surname Li its glory!"
"We were wrong..."
The last maggot had the face of a clan elder. It looked towards the courtyard where Li Zhou was and died while muttering to itself.
The servants who came with the elders stared blankly at the disappearance of their masters, their faces devoid of all expression.
The mortal brain is completely incapable of comprehending what is happening at this moment. It can only vaguely perceive that the Li clan has offended the unmentionable superior being and attempted to claim to be the ancestor in front of that adult.
They paid an equal price and disappeared from this world forever.
The servants slumped on the ground, their memories of the Li clan being forcibly erased. As a result, their heads continued to swell and shrink. Another thought was mercifully imprinted in their brains like a branding iron:
"The constant of impermanence, the nameless name, the mysterious and the mysterious, the wonder of all wonders!"
"The god of gods, his name is... Li Zhou."
God had never chosen the Li clan. Even if it was just an accidental coincidence, even if the Li clan elders were only bewitched by the Heavenly Venerable to offend Him, this offense still brought terrible disasters to the clan's supporters.
As a result, the concept of clan also collapsed.
…
Capital city.
Wei Mingda, the new head of the Wei family, is rebuilding the family tree in front of the Wei family ancestral hall.
She wrote her own name under her grandmother's branch and called her grandmother instead.
The surviving members of the Wei clan watched her write in silence. Under the gaze of the monks holding magical instruments, no one dared to express an opinion.
At the beginning, it was not that no one wanted to follow the old rules and choose a child with the surname Wei from the side branch to inherit the Wei family's legacy.
As for Wei Mingda, the Wei family can support her, but she is already a person of a different surname, so there is no reason for her to change back to the Wei surname to fight for the family business.
The elders naturally had some reasons to explain, but before they could finish their speeches, the independent cultivators that Wei Mingda had recruited in advance arrived.
The independent cultivators not only brought overwhelming military force, but also brought shocking news.
The emperor began to purge the royal family again.
She had killed all the direct descendants of Taizu, leaving only herself, and now she even spared no effort to kill the few remaining side branches.
Her reasons were very sufficient: three days ago was the anniversary of the death of Emperor Xianheng's eldest daughter Gao Congxu, but these clan members held a grand banquet, enjoying wine and meat. Wasn't this a great disrespect to the ancestors?
How could the royal family have imagined that even after Gao Congxu had passed away for so many years, the emperor still missed her.
What's even more terrible is that Gao Congxu's prestige in the army has not yet disappeared. When the soldiers heard that the emperor was attacking them because of their eldest sister, they became more and more excited.
The royal family and nobles suffered great misfortune. Some committed suicide, some were stripped of their titles, and some were dismissed from their positions.
The royal family was already declining in population, and even the side branches were left with only a few kittens.
When the Wei clan members heard this, they dared not have any objection to Wei Mingda's succession as the head of the family.
The emperor could even kill his own uncle at will. If Wei Mingda went to file a complaint, the emperor might sympathize with them and think that they were also disrespectful to their ancestors, and would kill them all together.
The Wei clan members, who had long been in decline, had not expected that their concession would cause heated discussions among the entire Zhou aristocratic families.
Do those married daughters have the right to let their children take their surnames and return to their own families to inherit the family business?
The wife's family is richer than the husband's, so there is no reason for her to give up this family business.
The more people who are eligible to inherit, the less the property originally concentrated in the hands of a few people will be divided up.
The inheritance rights of a married woman are like a sharp blade stabbing at the clan and the Lord of Heaven.
The emperor sitting on the throne looked over the reports sent in by spies from various places and put the memorial in his hand aside.
The tone of this memorial was mournful and earnest, and it persuaded the emperor. He saw the emperor's intention to use this method to reduce the power of local clans. This move would certainly release a large amount of land resources and benefit the country and the people, but the ignorant people were greedy. After they divided up the big clans, sooner or later they would remember that the most noble family in the Great Zhou that occupied the most land was the royal family, the Gao family. By then, people would probably question the authority of the royal family.
Next to the imperial desk, Pei Shanggong lowered her head and ground ink. She heard the emperor sneer, "What happens a hundred years from now has nothing to do with me?"
She is the kind of person who only likes what she can get at the moment.
Her heir will lose power, and it's none of her business.
The emperor stretched out his hand, and Pei Shanggong quickly handed him a brush dipped in ink.
She pondered for a moment, then wrote a few words on the blank imperial edict, requesting Yin Chan, the deputy minister of the Ministry of Works, to promote the improved loom in Fengzhou, and send people to the capital to explain in person whether the thunderbolt she mentioned last time could really allow ordinary people with no cultivation to exert power comparable to that of high-level cultivators, as she said.
If every citizen of the Great Zhou was equivalent to a cultivator...
The emperor was overwhelmed with emotion and thought that the territory of the Great Zhou was still too small.
…
In the temple of Wangjia Village, fortune teller Li Zhou woke up in Wan Niang's arms and heard the head of the Wang family outside the temple reporting that preparations for going to sea had been made and they could set off at any time.
Hearing this, Wan Niang immersed herself in the banner that read "Believe it or not". Li Zhou put the banner in his arms and walked out.
Behind her, the statue that had been bowing its head and looking submissive suddenly raised its eyes, looked at her with resentment, and then lowered its eyelids as if nothing had happened.
Li Zhou felt an itch on the back of his neck and scratched it with his hand, but found nothing.
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