Chapter 231: Water Song Country
The zombie blocked Lu Yan with one sentence:
“No need.”
He had no desire for such things, and the order he received was only to not let Lu Yan leave the Xuan Cang Palace before the end of the Sword Competition, nothing more.
However, Lu Yan pretended not to hear his words and continued to talk to himself: "It is said that thousands of years ago, humanity flourished, and immortals, Buddhas, demons and monsters retreated..."
The corpse interrupted coldly: "I said, I don't want to listen."
Lu Yan glared at him: "Who told you that? Can't I just talk to myself? What does it have to do with you?!"
“…”
The corpse was silent.
Seeing that he didn't say anything, Lu Yan found a seat in the corridor at the entrance of the palace and continued to talk to himself: "In the far south, there is an ancient country that has long been extinct - Shuiyin Country."
Water, chant, country...
These three words somehow touched the heartstrings of the zombie puppet, making him feel inexplicably frightened, with an indescribable sense of familiarity and palpitations. He closed his eyes, slowly clenched the golden spear in his hand, and forcibly suppressed the strange feeling.
"Speaking of the Shuiyin Kingdom, it's amazing. Their people are descendants of the Rain God, and the royal family has the power to create clouds and rain. Therefore, the weather is good all year round, and the people are happy. Although the country is not strong, it is a rare paradise."
"However, there was a severe drought in the world. No rain fell for three years. The surrounding countries had no harvest. Gold was scorched and stones melted... Do you know what scorching gold and melting stones means? It means that the sun was so hot that it could scorch gold and melt stones. Just imagine how hot the sun was at that time. Only Shuiyin Country was protected by the Rain God and escaped this disaster."
"But are they really relying on the protection of the Rain God?"
Lu Yan suddenly changed the subject:
"Actually, that's not the case. Shuiyin Country has a national treasure called the Feathered Dragon Cloak. It is woven with blue feathers and is light, graceful and beautiful. As long as you put on this treasure, you can pray to the sky for rain, and it will always come true. This is the secret of Shuiyin Country's rain-making method."
The man is innocent unless he possesses the jade.
Somehow, this sentence suddenly popped up in the corpse puppet's mind. Lu Yan said that the Shuiyin Kingdom did not have a strong military force and had a rare treasure. It happened to have suffered from consecutive years of drought. If other countries got to know the news, I'm afraid a war would be unavoidable.
Lu Yan asked meaningfully, "General Corpse Puppet, guess what happened next?"
The puppet said calmly, "No guessing."
Lu Yan: "In fact, you don't need to guess. Shuiyin Kingdom has been coveted and attacked by other countries. They are at the gate of the city, forcing the king to offer the precious Yulong Cloak, otherwise they will massacre the city. The king has no choice but to offer the treasure, but-"
Lu Yan suddenly emphasized these two words: "However, there are no gentlemen in troubled times. After those people got the Feather Dragon Cloak, how could they let go of the fertile land of Shuiyin Country? A war and slaughter were still inevitable. In just half a month, they killed their way to the capital, and blood flowed like a river."
"The Lord of Shuiyin has countless princes, but only one princess, whom he loves like a treasure. The princess is also extremely beautiful, like a goddess. However, even though she is a goddess, she is also tempted by worldly desires. During the Rain God Festival one year, she wore a feather dragon cloak and danced. The high platform was made of white jade and was several feet high. There were crowds of people below the platform..."
The air outside Xuanzhu Hall was quiet. Only a red tree outside was blown down by the wind. A gust of wind passed by and fell all over the body. Along with Lu Yan's narration, some fragmentary pictures suddenly flashed through the corpse's mind.
On the white jade stage, the goddess danced in the rain. Her blue figure was graceful and elegant. The bustling crowd was all captivated by her grace and stretched their necks and stood on tiptoe to look at her infatuatedly.
Suddenly, a crack appeared on the jade platform, and rubble fell from the edge. The blue figure stepped into the air and fell from a great height like a butterfly with broken wings. Everyone cried out in surprise, but saw another figure in golden armor leap up quickly and catch the falling body of the princess in time.
Whether it is in myth or legend, such an encounter is beautiful enough.
However, Lu Yan commented on this scene:
"If there was a chance to do it again, the goddess would rather fall to her death, and the young general would rather cut off his own arm, rather than allow this evil fate to happen."
The cold corpse puppet suddenly looked towards Lu Yan. His sharp features were lost in the light and shadow. Although he had a murderous aura, he looked to be in his twenties at most, which meant that he was still very young when he died.
"Why?"
He finally broke his vow.
The princess of Qing State and the brave young general, even if the corpse puppet is a dead man with no emotions, it is not an exaggeration to say that they are a match made in heaven. Why did Lu Yan make such an evaluation?
"Why?"
Lu Yanrao said with interest: "It's just a coincidence, fate plays tricks on us, anyway, they are just not suitable for each other. How can two unsuitable people get together and have a good ending?"
"Since she saw him from afar during the Rain God Festival, the princess has been attracted to the general. She has been spoiled since she was young and has developed a self-centered personality. She directly asked the king to give the brave and handsome young general to her. The king was weak and ignorant, so he naturally agreed."
"However, the young general already had a lover and was not interested in the princess, so he directly declined the king's marriage proposal... Of course, this was useless. She was the princess and he was just a general. If he didn't intend to rebel, he would have to be forced to bow his head."
For some reason, the puppet felt that Lu Yan's half-smile was a little irritating, as if he was waiting to see his excitement. He only heard him say slowly, "After the general and the princess got married, their relationship was always cold. It's not an exaggeration to say that they were like strangers. In the third year after their marriage, various countries attacked. Shuiyin Country was powerless to resist and suffered heavy casualties."
"The king had no choice but to take all his young and strong subjects south to the relocated capital, leaving the old, weak and sick in the city to die. The princess wanted to take the general with her, but the two of them quarreled over this."
As Lu Yan spoke, he produced a folding fan from somewhere and casually struck it against the palm of his hand, making a crisp "pop" sound. The sound was like a stone falling into water, stirring up ripples of the corpse puppet's memories of his past life. He felt a splitting headache and his body could not control itself, slowly sliding down, and he knelt on the ground with a plop.
Those memories are distant and vague. I vaguely heard two people arguing. The woman's voice was cute and slightly angry, but the man was cold and indifferent from beginning to end. There was also the sound of utensils breaking.
"Now that the country is about to be destroyed, why are you unwilling to leave with me?! Zhan Liu, today I will give you two choices, either go or die!!"
"Princess, just take action."
The woman drew out her sword with a clang, her eyes reddened: "Do you really think I won't be willing to kill you?!"
The man closed his eyes quietly, but could still vaguely hear smoke rising from outside the city, and cries shook the sky: "Zhan Liu is a general, and he is incompetent if he cannot protect his own country. If he flees to another place, what difference is there between him and a beast?"
The woman choked up and said, "But the enemy has hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses. How can you resist them? Wouldn't it be better for us to follow our father and the people and move south to rebuild our country?"
"There are still sick, disabled and elderly people in the city."
"There are too many of them. The army can't protect them at all. My father said that in times of chaos, we should sacrifice the small to protect the big..."
The man who had been indifferent all this time suddenly opened his eyes upon hearing this. His cold eyes actually held a rare smile, but it was a mockery: "Big? What is big? The noble king, or the noble princess?"
"The princess is well-dressed and well-fed, and the people of the world have worked hard to raise her. Now that disaster is imminent, are you going to abandon them like a worn-out shoe?"
The man kept accusing the woman, making her burst into tears: "Even if I don't abandon them, it still won't change the situation!"
Zhan Liu closed his eyes again and said calmly: "I know, so I let the princess go and don't bother with me."
The world has been suffering from a severe drought for three years. The rivers have dried up and the seas have dried up. Several surrounding countries have suffered a complete crop failure and have already resorted to cannibalism. Wherever the enemy troops pass through, they kill the old, the young, the sick and the disabled to make human flesh to satisfy their hunger. When the country is destroyed, the remaining civilians in the city will all become food for the army.
The woman shouted hoarsely: "You will die if you stay!"
Zhan Liu: "If you die in the right place, there will be no harm."
The woman smashed the vase in anger: "You actually just hate me, don't you? Last year, your sweetheart was trampled by a horse on the street and accidentally broke her leg. She was thrown into the city with the group of refugees. You just couldn't bear to see her die, so why do you have to find so many excuses!"
She finished her words and walked out of the door with a cold wave of her sleeves, but she suddenly paused as if she remembered something. She pulled out a divorce letter from her sleeve, then slowly loosened her fingertips and let the light piece of paper fall to the ground.
The woman's face was blurry, the puppet only remembered that she was wearing a blue dress, which was very beautiful:
"Zhan Liu, you are so boring. I really regret forcing my father to have you."
Lu Yan waved the fan slowly. He had been in the hall for a long time and his body was stained with incense. The fishy, slightly sweet smell lingered between his nostrils and drifted away with the wind, reminding people of the blood flowing all over the ground.
"That day, the enemy army entered the city, and the sound of killing shook the sky."
"Shuiyin Kingdom moved its capital long ago, and only remnants of civilians remained in the city. General Zhan Liu of the Golden Spear led a thousand of his former subordinates to guard the city gate. The enemy troops came in three directions, their iron hooves were fierce, and their numbers were a hundred times more than theirs."
The huge disparity in numbers turned the war into a one-sided massacre. Later, the remaining residents in the city rushed out of the city gates to fight to the death. The enemy generals were too lazy to even go into battle themselves. They just rode on their horses, laughing and watching the excitement, ordering their soldiers to play with this group of poor "ants", shooting guns here and arrows there.
Zhan Liu fought desperately and killed eight hundred enemies, but in the end he was shot by an arrow due to exhaustion and fell among the corpses, covered in blood.
The enemy general raised his hand to stop his subordinates who wanted to continue the charge, sneering: "Don't damage the body, otherwise the internal organs will be broken and the meat will become fishy. This general would like to taste the difference between the meat of the brave general Zhan Liu and the common people."
Lu Yan's story finally came to the most important part:
"At this point, Shuiyin Kingdom was destroyed, and tens of thousands of people were trampled into pieces."
"However, just as the enemy was preparing to enter the city, a charming woman in blue suddenly walked out. She had a cinnabar mole on her forehead and wore a white feather witch crown on her head. She was the only princess of Shuiyin Kingdom."
The corpse was breathing heavily, and his cold body actually began to have a breath of a living person because of Lu Yan's narration. Even the black lines on his face were gradually fading, and it seemed as if something was beating violently in his chest, perhaps it was his scarred heart.
But Lu Yan seemed not to notice, and waved his fan slowly, his voice far away and low: "The enemy saw her beauty and did not shoot her, but wanted to capture her and present her to the king. But the princess said: I am the descendant of the rain god, with dragon blood. Only I can pray for rain by wearing the feather dragon cloak. Please return this item, and I am willing to pray for rain for the army."
"After the enemy seized the Feather Dragon Cloak, they did not succeed in praying for rain. Moreover, the army was thirsty and could not stand it. The general saw that the princess was alone, so he did not refuse and had someone bring the Feather Dragon Cloak to her."
Lu Yan put away the folding fan in his hand and pointed casually:
"The princess was seen wearing a feather dragon cloak, climbing up the high platform, dancing with it and causing the wind and clouds to change. However, the sky was thundering, but it did not rain. Instead, a huge water dragon appeared, roaring and falling from the sky, knocking hundreds of thousands of soldiers to the ground!"
"At some point, the blue figure on the platform gradually turned blood red. The originally gorgeous feather dragon cloak was like a beast madly sucking the princess' blood, but she was still spinning with her skirt, and her speed was getting faster and faster. It turned out that the princess found the ancient divine tablet from the inner court, and she did not hesitate to use secret magic to sacrifice herself."
"You must know that any magic that goes against the will of heaven will come at a price. The princess sacrificed her flesh and soul to the rain god and stopped hundreds of thousands of troops outside the city. When she ran out of energy, the entire feather dragon cloak had been stained dark red by blood."
The enemy general was almost mad, his face twisted, and he shouted at the top of his lungs: "Shoot! Shoot! Kill that bastard for me! Quickly!!!"
The unknown princess stood on the city wall, laughing with tears in her eyes. She thought of her country, which had been peaceful and harmonious since birth, and the countless corpses on the ground. Those were her people, but they disappeared overnight because of the trampling of iron hooves.
But it took a general to enlighten us about all this.
She faced the rain of arrows, opened her arms, and her dress was blown wildly by the wind:
"May there be no more wars and disputes in my land of Shuiyin!"
"May the barren land of the world be rained down!"
"May my loyal generals,"
Her red figure fell from the city wall, looking at the gray sky and moving her lips silently,
"The soul never dies..."
“Boom——!”
The coiled water dragon killed the defeated enemy troops, then suddenly let out a roar and rushed towards the sky. Its body became larger and larger, and finally it exploded. Countless water drops fell from the sky, turning into an endless spring rain that flowed into the dry and cracked land.
The princess' body fell to the ground, not far from the general.
She looked at the man covered in arrow feathers, laughed at herself, and murmured:
"Look, you died like a general, and I died like a princess..."
The story was a bit long, and Lu Yan stopped talking because he was tired.
The corpse lowered its head and trembled all over, not knowing what it was thinking. After a while, it suddenly raised its eyes and looked at Lu Yan. Veins popped out on his forehead and his eyes were red: "Speak!"
He gritted his teeth silently: "The story is not over yet, keep going!"
Lu Yan raised his eyebrows slightly: "The princess sacrificed herself to the rain god and summoned water dragons to kill the enemy army. Before her death, she made three vows, all of which came true. From then on, there would be no more drought in the world. However, the general was too obsessed with someone and kept his soul in his heart. After his death, his soul did not die and he lingered in the land of Shuiyin and refused to leave."
Lu Yan paused, probably because a person he was very familiar with appeared in this story:
"Until one year, the Demon Lord Fu Guang traveled here and found that his soul was full of evil spirits, and all three souls and seven spirits were missing. If there is no magic treasure to protect him, he might be reduced to ashes in a hundred years."
"Fu Guang wanted to convert him, but the general was unwilling to do so and insisted on guarding the ancient country that had long been destroyed and disappeared. Fu Guang asked him why, and he said that his wife died here."
"But Fu Guang said, things change, souls wander around, they either reincarnate or turn to ashes. Now you are the only soul left on this land, there is no one else. Maybe in a few decades, you will turn to ashes too. You are worse than a fart. A fart still smells bad, but when you are gone, you are really gone."
As Lu Yan was talking, he was a little absent-minded. Could Ying Wujiu have been so kind-hearted at first? His tone was lively and interesting, like that of a high-spirited knight, which was completely different from his current gloomy and cold appearance:
"General Zhan Liu was naturally unwilling, so he asked Demon Lord Fu Guang to make him into an immortal corpse puppet, because the princess sacrificed her life and would not be reincarnated after death. She might become a lonely ghost wandering in the world. As long as he is alive, there will be a day when they meet again."
But being a corpse puppet means being a walking corpse. Apart from being alive, there is really no fun at all. As Lu Yan narrated, the corpse puppet seemed to recall the scene of the past. The city wall was broken, the land was charred, and a man in red stood face to face with a broken soul. He asked a question:
"Even if you have no memory and have already forgotten her?"
"Even though I have no memory, I have already forgotten her."
"Even if you have no feelings of sadness or joy, and have become a walking corpse?"
"Even if I have no sorrow or joy, I have become a walking corpse."
The corpse muttered to himself in a trance. He looked at Lu Yan with red eyes, which contained unspeakable pain and regret. He spoke in a hoarse voice with a hint of hope:
"What about her?"
"Is she still alive..."
Lu Yan nodded slowly. "She sacrificed herself and did not enter reincarnation after death. Her soul floated to the East China Sea and was later found by the Demon Lord Fu Guang. Because she had a trace of dragon blood, she was transformed into a 'water spirit' and offered her feather dragon cloak to seek protection. She has been following Fu Guang for thousands of years."
At this point, even if the corpse puppet was a fool, he would be able to react. He is the general Zhanliu, and the saint Shui Mei is the princess of the Shuiyin Kingdom. The two see each other day and night, but he has never recognized each other in hundreds of years!
Lu Yan ignored the shocked look of the corpse puppet. He had been sitting for a long time, so he stood up from the bench, stretched his waist slowly and said, "Later, Demon Lord Fu Guang was suppressed by the immortal sects and the White Bone Sword Furnace. He relied on this feather dragon cloak to block most of the red lotus fire and barely saved his life. In the end, he changed his name and became the new Lord of the Demon Realm. It's a pity that he is now taking Shui Mei to the Sword Questioning Conference to settle accounts with those famous and upright sects. I'm afraid it's more likely to be dangerous than good."
Lu Yan suddenly turned around and squatted down, grabbing the puppet's shoulders, and said seriously: "So it's urgent to go and ask the Sword Conference. Don't bother me. How about we go together?!"
At worst, he will pay for the transportation!
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