Chapter 1093: The Predecessors Cut Down Trees, the Successors Endure the Sun [Seeking Monthly Tickets]
"You stubborn old man!"
These were the words of Gongxi Chou.
Who gave this prisoner the audacity to curse Mama and even talk back to her older brother? He deserves a miserable old age! He'll rot in jail!
Wei Lou's reaction was to simply close his eyes.
They act as if they'd rather not see it than not see it.
His eyes were closed and he couldn't see, but his hearing wasn't blocked, so Ji Moqiu believed he could hear: "This junior has just had a bold guess—that Senior Wei Lou has spoken with King Ji Sun?"
Wei Lou wanted to hear what kind of nonsense this high priest could spout.
He said indifferently, "We talked, but it ended on a sour note."
I remember those meetings were filled with arguments, a rare instance of the two of them losing control since they met, with no trace of reason.
Otherwise, Wei Lou wouldn't be so disappointed.
To destroy something that is almost equivalent to life itself requires not only despair but also immense resolve. He wasn't a reckless young man; he couldn't have unilaterally severed ties without testing the waters or making any attempt to salvage the situation. The thought still pains him.
Ji Moqiu confirmed the details with him.
"The kind of open and honest, heart-to-heart kind?"
Wei Lou's lips twitched slightly, and he let out a long sigh.
He replied listlessly, "No."
Several near-breakdowns were enough to crack the relationship between the ruler and his subject, and true openness and honesty require mutual trust. However, what Ji Moqiu said next opened Wei Lou's eyes and shattered his previous understanding.
"From the perspective of the High Priest alone, if I were the ruler of Ji Sun, I might have made the same decision at that time."
Wei Lou lifted his eyelids, his lips pressed tightly together as he took a deep breath, desperately suppressing the negative emotions churning within him. If it had been a quarter of an hour earlier, if Ji Moqiu had uttered such nonsense, he would have taken it as a provocation, and even robbing the other man's ancestral graves wouldn't have been enough to quell his anger.
At this moment, he could only ask in a hoarse voice, "Why?"
"The following is merely personal speculation, not the truth." Ji Moqiu gave him a warning before gently stabbing Wei Lou in the heart, striking at his vitals. "Judging by the timeline, the large number of soldiers using Gu worms to exchange for military strength are about to give out, aren't they? The Wu Kingdom is only one step away from unifying its territory. The drawbacks Your Highness mentioned are actually nothing; they can be resolved gradually after unification. If three years isn't enough, five years; if five years isn't enough, ten years; if ten years isn't enough, a hundred years is possible. Martial arts warriors and scholars have much longer lifespans than ordinary people. But, while you and King Ji Sun can afford to wait, can the hundreds of thousands of Gu worm soldiers afford to wait?"
"Their lives have been completely consumed by the Gu worms."
"I don't understand. When lifespan is exhausted, all that remains is a skeleton and a human skin."
"Undoing it won't be easy either—the user sacrifices their life essence and lifespan, and the Gu worm rewards them with strength equivalent to a martial arts master, giving ordinary people the ability to survive. That's fair. Now that the world is about to be at peace, to undo the Gu and break the contract, letting these people regain their normal lifespan, is not something that can be done so easily. Even the current high priest can't do it, let alone someone who wasn't chosen by the gods?"
“But Your Highness can do it.”
Several paragraphs completely overturned Wei Lou's previous understanding.
He was breathing rapidly and suddenly looked up at Shen Tang.
His pupils trembled almost imperceptibly, his breathing alternated between rapid and slow, the whites of his eyes were covered with dense red veins, and in his eyes was a restrained, suppressed madness, the restlessness before a volcanic eruption. His fingers gripped the tree roots tightly, each knuckle groaning as if it could no longer bear the weight. Shen Tang hadn't expected Ji Mo Qiu to offer this angle of speculation; for Wei Lou, it was tantamount to killing him psychologically.
She paused for a moment, then nodded: "Maybe."
As he spoke, he recalled the plague that had been discovered in Heyin County in his early years.
The source of that plague was also a Gu worm.
Shen Tang used her own blood to lure out the Gu worms.
Ji Moqiu continued, "Unraveling the curse is only one guess. Another is that Your Highness has a close connection with the land. Although you are not in charge of agriculture, you still have some influence. If you can help, the food crisis after the unification of Wu Kingdom can be overcome at the lowest cost, and many people will starve to death. As long as the food problem can be solved, other problems, such as corruption and rebellion, can be solved by force."
The name "Wu Kingdom" itself suggests a strong martial spirit.
They lack everything except military force.
Ji Moqiu, as if trying to cover up the truth, emphasized again: "This is just one person's opinion, this is what I think, I don't know what the ruler of Ji Sun thinks."
The more Shen Tang listened, the more she felt something was wrong.
"No, it all sounds like dirty and tiring work?"
Wasn't it said that the Wu Kingdom was offered as a sacrifice to the gods?
Why does it seem like we're sending God to do chores and clean up the mess?
Which god is so humble?
Even the honest Ji Moqiu delivered a painful blow to Shen Tang: "Actually, what Your Highness is doing now is pretty much the same."
Which one isn't dirty and tiring work?
The moment he opened his eyes, he was either at war or dealing with official documents. He had no money, spending his days paying off other people's loans. He couldn't enjoy any power; the imperial palaces, the six courtyards, and the seventy-two concubines that emperors were expected of—not a single one of them. How could that be? His subordinates were all utterly incompetent!
Other officials work 996, she works 996*3, and occasionally 007*3.
A normal person would have broken down long ago.
Your Highness has been busy for so many years, yet you haven't noticed anything amiss.
Shen Tang opened her mouth, but found she couldn't refute it.
"No, but I..."
She talked for a long time but couldn't come to a conclusion.
Ji Moqiu abruptly changed the subject and asked Wei Lou a strange question: "Have you ever owned a cat? If we use cats as an analogy, Your Highness is the cat owner, the Gongxi clan is the house cat, and people outside the Gongxi clan are the cats outside the house cat. When a free-roaming cat gets into trouble that it can't handle and hopes its owner will help, as long as it doesn't cross the line, the request is generally not refused."
It would be easier to understand if explained this way.
Su Shang couldn't beat Chu Yao's dogs, so he always sought Qi Shan's support.
Qi Shan welcomes all comers and thoroughly enjoys the feeling of being close to and relied upon by Su Shang. If Su Shang were to bring back a group of hungry and pitiful little companions from outside, he would definitely treat them to the best cat food and wish he could fatten them up before letting them go.
He pampers his cats, even though there are only a few!
To cats, Qishan is a kind-hearted god.
However, Shen Tang believes that he is the one who cleans up poop.
so--
Pet owner + soft-hearted god = pet god?
Looking at Wei Lou, whose expression was blank and eyes were lifeless, Ji Moqiu spoke with a touch of cruelty, yet he had to: "Senior Wei Lou's concerns are reasonable, and from your perspective, they are entirely correct. 'God' is a term used to refer to an unknown existence. It can be a saint who loves all people in the hearts of mortals, or it can be an observer who sees all living beings as nothing. 'God' may really exist, or it may be an embodiment that people have passed down and evolved, a hope placed upon them. Senior Wei Lou's previous understanding of the definition of 'God' was too narrow."
The cat doesn't know whether the stranger approaching it is a compassionate rescue or a tyrannical monster who will abuse it. Being wary and fearful of the unknown is a survival instinct born of natural selection. Neither Ji Sunguo nor Wei Lou was wrong.
They simply have different perspectives.
"Does everything Your Highness is doing now match what you worried about back then?" Ji Moqiu asked a soul-searching question.
Above the ruins, inside the prison.
Wei Lou's time seemed to be frozen at a certain moment.
The blood color faded, replaced by a thick layer of grayish-white.
Just as Wei Cheng was worried that his uncle would suffer a stroke and die, Wei Lou clutched his chest and vomited a large pool of bright red blood. He covered his face with his hands, and it seemed that water was trickling down his fingers and onto the back of his hands. The arrogance he had shown at their first meeting had vanished, replaced by an air of utter dejection and decay.
Even though Wei Lou knew this was just Ji Moqiu's guess, and not the true motive of Lord Ji Sun back then, he still couldn't help but hope so. This scene left Shen Tang completely stunned.
No, you just accepted a simple way out?
Where's the stubborn old man I was promised?
Ji Moqiu continues to diligently and conscientiously fulfill his duties as high priest.
"You can be prejudiced against gods, but you cannot be prejudiced against Her Highness. If we hold her to the same stringent standards a subject must use to choose a lord, she has done a more than adequate job as his ruler. She hasn't abused her power to interfere with you all; she is now just a mortal like you. Tell me, if you were in her shoes, could you do the same? If you went to a remote, isolated, and uncivilized place, would you shed your fine clothes and don coarse linen, working alongside the farmers to help them escape poverty and achieve prosperity, instead of using your power to forcibly interfere with the overall situation and its consequences? With the power of a 20th-rank Marquis, it would be easy to rewrite the fate of ordinary people."
If his inexplicably acquired memories weren't deceiving him, then His Highness is someone who dreads entering the mortal realm to undergo tribulation, with a success rate practically zero. For her beloved cat—no, for the little one of the Gongxi clan—she's really going all out. Who can say His Highness isn't a good person?
Wei Lou's collapse lasted only a few breaths.
When he calmly lowered his hands, his expression returned to normal.
"You are indeed loyal to her."
Ji Moqiu: "When a lord is disgraced, a subject will die; when a subject protects his lord, the same principle applies to the high priest who considers serving the gods as everything."
Wei Lou: "..."
Ji Moqiu's "a subject dies for his lord's dishonor" hit him where it hurt again, but this time he didn't have the strength to break through: "Time flies, I never thought I would hear these things more than a hundred years later. No matter what the truth is, it's all too late. As for prejudice, I will take it back for now."
"Withdraw your prejudice? Oh, should I be grateful to you?" Shen Tang was amused by his words and laughed for no apparent reason. "Actually, I have a question too. Since you are so wary of gods and ghosts, why do you cooperate with the Gods' Association?"
Isn't this a contradiction?
Besides the Pantheon, there is also the Cult of Immortality.
How can this be explained?
"Evil... there's a difference between you and a charlatan."
Wei Lou almost blurted out the words "evil god" again.
He wasn't confident he could kill a god, but he was confident he could wipe out all the charlatans. However, he hadn't expected the Pantheon to be so deeply entrenched in its foundations—indeed, who would have thought that such a secretive charlatan organization would still possess relics from the previous civilization? Although the relics were few and far between, and even fewer that they could use, they were still unimaginable to Wei Lou.
Humans cannot comprehend existences beyond our comprehension; this applies to gods as well, and even to Shen Youli, this wicked... unorthodox god.
As for the Eternal Life Cult?
The leader is Wei Cheng, not him.
He was merely helping to compile some doctrinal guidelines.
The ridiculous trinkets he casually made up for fun not only attracted the common people, but even noble families and royalty, whom he considered unworthy of being fooled, flocked to them, willingly offering countless treasures as tribute. He found it both ironic and laughable, and his disgust grew stronger; he considered fooling them merely a way to pass the time.
The Cult of Immortality expanded rapidly and even caught the eye of the Pantheon.
Coincidentally, those ambitious fools in the Southwest Branch wanted to target Shen Tang, and Wei Lou also had a deep-seated grudge against Shen Tang. They simply hit it off and temporarily became accomplices. The ways of the world are based on mutual benefit, and also on mutual benefit—this has been true since ancient times.
Shen Tang: "..."
Hehehe, she still has to say thank you, right?
Feeling bored, Shen Tang decided to leave, but before leaving, she needed Wei Lou and Wei Cheng, the uncle and nephew, to give their opinion.
"The affairs of the Wu Kingdom are none of my business. The one who should be seeking retribution from you is your former master. Of course, it is also possible that your former master was indeed a treacherous swindler who disappointed you utterly. He betrayed you, and you killed him in return. What kind of traitor are you? However, now you are all my prisoners. If you want me to spare your lives, you must give me a clear and unambiguous answer."
Wei Lou sneered: "Loyalty to you?"
“No need for that. A small temple can’t hold a great Buddha.” Shen Tang was good at reading people. She and Wei Lou and his nephew were not on the same side at all. Even if they were forced to travel together, she could not trust them to work. She threatened, “As long as you behave yourselves before I unify the world and don’t make me unhappy, that’s all I want. Otherwise, you and your nephew will probably be seeing your old master right now.”
I'm not really confident.
Wei Lou is alright, but Wei Cheng is a real headache.
If we really want to kill these two, we must come up with a foolproof plan.
Even the soon-to-be-extinct Confucian Way should be seen by Justice first.
Unexpectedly, Shen Tang's words amused the uncle and nephew.
Wei Lou scoffed, "Unify the world? You? You don't even have your own moat, yet you want to unify the world? You'll have to unify the world within twelve years! Otherwise, it's all in vain!"
Wei Cheng's smile faded, replaced by confusion.
Why twelve years?
"You'll have to ask Yunda about that."
"What does this have to do with that scoundrel?"
Wei Cheng and Yun Da used to have a pretty good relationship, but Wei Cheng couldn't stand Yun Da's arrogant attitude. That old bastard Yun Da always appeared in white, wore a perpetually bitter and resentful widower's face, and loved to flaunt his fancy wind and snow gadgets whenever he fought, always trying to steal the spotlight. Despite not being particularly talented, he loved to show off, loved his white robe, and always had his spear in hand, as if afraid others wouldn't know he admired that Zhao fellow.
He's a shrewd copycat, but all he's learned is his appearance. Bah!
In the vast, dark army, he was the only one standing out in white.
Who wouldn't notice him, except for the blind?
It's fortunate that I'm no longer made of flesh and blood; otherwise, if I fought alongside him, not only would my credit be stolen, but I'd also inevitably fall seriously ill from the cold. I've told him this several times, but Yunda still does as he pleases.
In his view, Yunda had a similar mindset to his own.
When did that old rascal become so in sync with his uncle?
Shen Tang noticed a word: "moat?"
"The scholars under your command are all second-rate, not a single one of them can build a moat. At best, you can only secure a corner of the country, yet you dare to dream of conquering the world?"
Wei Lou angered Shen Tang with just one sentence.
"You old scoundrel, who are you calling low-class?"
I can tolerate being insulted, but those who insult her are asking for trouble!
Gong Xichou frowned: "We can dig up as many moats as we want. Martial arts experts are enough. Why do scholars have to do it? Apart from a few scholars, most of them stay in the rear."
Why build a moat?
Wei Cheng: "..."
Wei Lou: "..."
The war in the Northwest is almost over, and you still don't know this?
Wei Lou almost laughed in anger, realizing he had lost to such a thing: "The so-called moat is not what you think it is, but rather the incantation used by the literati under your command to restrain the enemy's generals. If you don't know it, you can have a special way of the literati like me. Since the Wu Kingdom, the surviving countries have been wary of martial artists, and they are even more afraid of using high-level martial artists but also afraid of thorns in their side, and even more afraid of a strong enemy on the other side."
Do you really think that the literati only do the work of a clerk, throw a few spells at the enemy before battle to help them out, and the warriors just lead their troops to charge? This approach worked before the Wu Kingdom, but after the Wu Kingdom, the path of military conquest was banned.
The predecessors cut down the trees, and the successors are left to suffer the scorching sun.
The central government of China has been focusing on this aspect in recent years.
The veneration of literary figures and scholars has almost reached a pathological level. Otherwise, where would the fertile ground be for such a ridiculous notion as "the upper class has no poor families, and the lower class has no noble families"? It even sparked the so-called debate between aristocratic families and literary ideals, all of which is just idle talk.
Only the Northwest still maintains the simple, martial spirit of a century ago.
Shen Tang retorted defiantly, "Wu Hui and the others can do everything!"
Wei Lou responded with an "oh," neither confirming nor denying.
Shen Tang couldn't stand his smugness: "Even if there really isn't one, you old bastard, don't you have one? As long as I can keep you trapped for another day, I'll get that so-called moat out of you sooner or later..."
This did remind Wei Lou.
“There was a young man before… At that time, we didn’t know why he dared to appear in Wu Zhaode’s camp. Now that you mention it, I understand a bit. He was one of your men, wasn’t he? Judging by the time, the seventh day after his death should have passed. I’m afraid the King of Shen is disappointed.”
"Impossible! You're spreading rumors!"
Shen Tang subconsciously thought of Luan Xin.
ヽ(ー_ー)ノ
Tangmei: I'm in a bad mood. It's getting cold, let's bankrupt the Qi Kingdom.
P.S.: I woke up this morning to find everyone on WeChat Moments talking about the earthquake. I wondered when it happened, and when I checked the time, I was still fast asleep...
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
