Among all the gods and Buddhas in the sky, there is one who is famous as the laughing stock of the Three Realms.
According to legend, eight hundred years ago, there was an ancient country in the Central Plains called Xianle Kingdom.
The ancient kingdom of Xianle boasts vast territory, abundant resources, and harmonious people. Its four treasures are: a sea of beautiful women, magnificent music, gold and jewels, and a renowned Crown Prince.
How should I put it, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is a remarkable man.
The king and queen treated him as the apple of their eye and doted on him. They often said proudly, "My son will become a wise ruler and his reputation will last forever."
However, the prince had absolutely no interest in worldly royal power and wealth.
What he was interested in, as he often said to himself, was -
"I want to save the world!"
·
When the prince was young, he devoted himself to spiritual practice. During his practice, there are two widely circulated stories.
The first story happened when he was seventeen years old.
That year, Xianle Kingdom held a grand Lantern Festival to worship the heavens.
Although this traditional religious ceremony has been abandoned for hundreds of years, we can still imagine what a grand event it was that was celebrated throughout the world from the remaining ancient books and oral accounts of our ancestors.
Lantern Festival, Shenwu Street.
The streets were packed with people. Nobles chatted and laughed on the tall buildings; royal warriors, in their armor, marched with majestic grace. Young girls danced gracefully, their snow-white hands showering the air with flowers, a scene whose beauty was greater. Melodious music emanated from the golden carriages, drifting across the entire imperial city. At the end of the ceremonial guard, sixteen white horses with golden bridles pulled a magnificent platform.
On this high platform is the Yueshen warrior who is the focus of everyone's attention.
During the Heavenly Sacrifice Tour, the God-pleasing Warrior will wear a golden mask, dress in gorgeous clothes, and hold a sword in his hand, playing the role of the Godly and Martial Emperor Jun Wu, the first martial god of the thousand years who subdues demons and monsters.
Being chosen as a Yueshen Warrior is the highest honor, and therefore, the selection criteria are extremely strict. This year, the chosen one is His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. The entire nation believes that he will surely perform the most spectacular Yueshen Martial Arts in history.
However, that day, an accident happened.
When the honor guard made its third circle around the city, it passed a city wall that was more than ten meters high.
At that time, the God of War on Huatai was about to kill the demon with one sword.
This was the most exciting scene. The streets were boiling, and the city walls were surging. People were scrambling to look out, struggling, and pushing.
At this time, a child fell from the city wall.
Screams filled the air. Just when people thought the child was about to be splattered with blood all over Shenwu Street, the prince raised his head slightly, leaped over, and caught him.
The crowd only had time to see a bird-like white shadow soaring into the sky before the prince, holding the child, landed safely. The golden mask fell, revealing the young and handsome face behind it.
The next moment, everyone cheered.
The common people were delighted, but the imperial masters of the royal temple had a headache.
I never expected such a big mistake to happen.
It’s ominous, so ominous!
Each round of the Huatai parade around the imperial city symbolizes a year's prayer for peace and prosperity for the country. Now that it is interrupted, wouldn't that bring disaster?
The imperial teachers were so worried that they cried like rain. After much deliberation, they invited the crown prince and tactfully asked, "Your Highness, could you face the wall for a month as a sign of repentance?" He didn't have to actually face the wall, just the gesture would be enough.
The prince smiled and said, "No."
He said, "Saving people isn't a bad thing. How could God punish me for doing the right thing?"
Uh...what if God punishes me?
"Then God is wrong. Why should the one who is right apologize to the one who is wrong?"
The imperial masters were speechless.
His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is such a person.
He has never encountered anything he couldn't do, nor has he ever met anyone who didn't love him. He is the righteousness of the world, he is the center of the world.
Therefore, although the imperial masters felt very painful: "You know shit!"
But I can't say more, nor do I dare to say more. His Highness won't listen anyway.
·
The second story also happened when the prince was seventeen years old.
Legend has it that there is a bridge called Yinian Bridge in the south of the Yellow River, and a ghost has been wandering on this bridge for many years.
This ghost is terrifying: clad in tattered armor, treading on flames of hell, and covered in blood, swords, spears, and arrows, it leaves a trail of blood and fire behind it with every step it takes. Every few years, it suddenly appears at night, wandering around the bridgehead, stopping passersby and asking three questions: "Where are we?" "Who am I?" "What are we doing?"
If you answer incorrectly, you will be devoured by the ghost. However, no one knows what the correct answer is, so over the years, the ghost has devoured countless pedestrians.
The prince heard about this while traveling, and found the Yinian Bridge. He guarded the bridge every night, and finally encountered the haunting ghost one night.
The ghost appeared, and it was indeed as eerie and terrifying as the rumors said. It asked the prince its first question, and the prince smiled and replied, "This world."
But the ghost said, "There is no room here."
Good luck on the opening, you answered the first question wrong.
The prince thought, I'm going to get all three questions wrong anyway, so why wait for you to finish? So he drew his weapons and started fighting.
The battle was a tumultuous one. The prince was a skilled warrior, while the ghost was even more fearsome. The battle between the man and the ghost on the bridge lasted for what seemed like an eternity, until the ghost was finally defeated.
After the ghost disappeared, the prince planted a flower tree at the bridgehead. A Taoist priest happened to pass by and saw him spreading a handful of yellow earth there to bid it farewell. He asked, "What are you doing?"
The prince then uttered the famous eight words: "My body is in hell, but my heart is in paradise."
Upon hearing this, the Taoist smiled faintly and transformed into a divine general in white armor. He stepped on auspicious clouds, harnessed the wind, and flew away on the light of heaven. The prince then realized that he had happened to meet the Divine Martial Emperor who had come down to earth to subdue demons and monsters.
The gods and immortals had noticed this exceptionally skilled Spirit-Pleasant Warrior during his leap during the Lantern Festival. After their encounter at One Thought Bridge, one immortal asked the Emperor, "What do you think of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince?"
The Emperor also replied with eight words: "This child's future is limitless."
That night, there was a strange phenomenon above the palace, and there was a heavy wind and rain.
Amidst lightning and thunder, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince ascended to heaven.
·
Whenever someone ascended to heaven, the heavens would tremble. When this prince ascended, the entire heavens trembled.
It is so difficult to achieve success.
It takes talent, practice, and opportunity. The birth of a god is often a long journey of hundreds of years.
There are some gifted people who ascend to heaven in their youth; there are also many who spend their entire lives practicing hard for hundreds of years but still cannot expect a heavenly tribulation; even if they wait for a heavenly tribulation, they will die if they cannot pass it, and they will be useless if they don't die; there are also countless ignorant mortals who live a mediocre life and cannot find their own way.
This Crown Prince was undoubtedly a favorite of Heaven. There was nothing he couldn't get, nothing he couldn't do. He dreamed of ascending to godhood, and indeed, at the age of seventeen, he did.
He was already a popular figure, and the king and queen, missing their beloved son, ordered the construction of palaces, temples, and grottoes, as well as the erection of statues, for him to be worshipped by the people. The more believers there were, the more temples and grottoes there were, and the longer his lifespan and the greater his magical powers. Thus, within a few short years, the Prince's Hall at Xianle Palace reached its peak of glory and prosperity.
——Until three years later, Xianle was in chaos.
·
The chaos was caused by the ruler's tyranny and the uprising of rebels. However, even though war raged on earth, the celestial priests were forbidden to intervene. Unless demons and monsters were encroaching, they would be dealt with accordingly. Imagine, the mortal world is rife with conflict, everyone believing they are right. If everyone were to intervene, one day defending their homeland, the next avenging their descendants, wouldn't it be like a constant battle between the gods, a world without light? In the case of His Royal Highness, this was even more crucial.
But he didn't care. He said to the Emperor, "I want to save the people."
Even the Emperor, who possessed divine power for a thousand years, didn't dare to utter these words all day long. One can imagine how he felt when he heard him say that. But he couldn't do anything about it, so he said, "You can't save everyone."
The prince said, "I can."
So, he went down to the mortal world without hesitation.
The people of Xianle naturally celebrated nationwide. However, folk tales throughout history have long taught people a truth: when gods and immortals descend on the mortal world without permission, nothing good will happen.
As a result, the war not only did not subside, but burned even more fiercely.
It's not that His Royal Highness didn't try hard, but he might as well have. The harder he tried, the worse the battle became. The Xianle people were beaten and bloodied, suffering heavy casualties. Finally, a plague swept through the entire imperial city, and the rebels broke into the palace, ending the war.
If Xianle was still struggling to survive, then His Royal Highness the Crown Prince would have killed it directly.
·
After the country was destroyed, people finally discovered something:
It turned out that the prince whom they worshipped as a god was not as perfect and powerful as they imagined.
To put it bluntly, isn't he just a useless person who is more trouble than good?!
The pain of losing their homes and families had nowhere to vent, and the wounded people angrily rushed into the Prince's Palace, toppled the statues and burned down the temple.
Eight thousand palaces and temples were burned for seven days and seven nights, and were completely burned to ashes.
From then on, a war god who protected peace disappeared, and a plague god who brought disaster was born.
If people say you are God, you are God. If they say you are shit, you are shit. If they say you are something, you are something. That’s how it is.
·
His Royal Highness the Crown Prince could not accept this fact. What he could not accept even more was the punishment he was about to receive: exile.
Seal the magic power and send him down to the mortal world.
He had been pampered and carefree since childhood, never having experienced the hardships of the world. Yet, this punishment plunged him from the clouds to the muddy ground. In this mud, he first experienced hunger, poverty, and filth. It was also the first time he did things he never imagined he would do: steal, rob, swear, and abandon himself. His face was completely humiliated, his self-respect completely destroyed. It was a disgrace to him, and even his most loyal servants, unable to accept his transformation, chose to leave.
These eight words, "The body is in hell, but the heart is in paradise", are engraved everywhere on various stone tablets and plaques in Xianle. If they had not been almost all burned down after the war, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince would probably be the first to rush up and smash them if he saw them again.
The person who said this has personally proved that when he himself is in hell, he cannot feel at peace.
·
He ascended quickly, but fell even faster. A fleeting glimpse of the divine martial path, a momentary encounter with a demon and an immortal on the bridge of thought. It seemed like only yesterday. But the heavens sighed, and the past was over.
One day, many years later, there was a loud bang in the sky. The Crown Prince ascended for the second time.
Throughout history, banished priests have either been devastated or relegated to the ghost realm. Few have ever managed to recover after being cast down. His second ascension was truly magnificent and deserved.
Even more spectacular was that after ascending, he rushed all the way to the heavens, punching and kicking, killing everyone in sight. However, he only ascended for a stick of incense before being knocked down again.
One stick of incense. It can be said to be the fastest and shortest ascension in history.
If the first ascension was a beautiful story, the second ascension was a farce.
·
After two such incidents, the Heaven Realm was filled with disdain for the prince. Beyond disdain, there was also a certain wariness. After all, being demoted once was a life-or-death struggle, but being demoted twice would surely unleash his inner demons and seek revenge on the people.
Unexpectedly, after being demoted this time, he didn't become possessed, and he actually adapted to his exile quite well. There were no problems at all, the only problem being... he was taking it too seriously.
Sometimes, he performed on the streets, mastering every musical instrument and even breaking rocks with his chest. Although I had heard that this prince was a talented singer and dancer, I was surprised to see him in this way. Sometimes, he worked diligently collecting scrap.
The gods and immortals in heaven were shocked.
Things have come to this point, and it is unbelievable. To the extent that now, if you say to someone, "If you give birth to a son, he will be Prince Xianle," it is much more vicious than saying that the person will have no descendants.
After all, he was once a prince of noble birth, a high-ranking priest among the immortals. To have fallen to this point was truly unfortunate. This was what it meant to be the laughingstock of the Three Realms.
After laughing, some sentimental people may sigh: The once high and mighty favored son of heaven has really disappeared completely.
The statue collapsed, the country was destroyed, not a single believer remained, and he was gradually forgotten by the world. No one knew where he had wandered to.
Being demoted once is a great disgrace. Being demoted twice is a recipe for disaster.
·
Many years later, suddenly one day, there was another loud noise in the sky.
The sky collapsed and the earth shook.
The eternal lamps trembled, the flames danced wildly, and the priests all woke up from their golden palaces, rushing to ask each other: Which new noble has ascended? What a grand occasion!
Who would have thought that just as he was sighing "it's incredible", he looked up and saw that all the gods and Buddhas in the sky had been struck down.
Are you done yet!
That famous weirdo, the laughing stock of the three realms, the legendary Crown Prince, he he he he - he fucking ascended again!
The author has something to say: Book friends in Jinjiang have been waiting for a long time!
This is my third post on Jinjiang, and it's still incredibly intense. I'll start with a self-pummeling, as usual. Writing this was incredibly painful. I tried many new things, but my heart was in the right place, and the result is still quite different from what I had in mind. I realized a lot about myself during the writing process. I'm not sure how it will turn out in your eyes, but please be prepared for things to go against your expectations. It's best not to have any expectations at all. In other words, you won't be seeing another "Scum Villain" or another "Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation." After all, this is a brand new journey.
Volume 1: Bloody Rain
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