Chapter 70 Blasphemy 19. And then I... I was in that hand...
Twelve years ago, I looked up at the autumn mountains.
At dusk, the Shenxiang Temple was brightly lit. A child with his hair in two horn buns and wearing a thin red jacket, looking like a beautifully carved jade sculpture, excitedly stepped over the high threshold and crawled out of the door.
"You're only allowed to play inside the temple. Don't you dare run out!" came the woman's loud voice from inside the hall. "If I see you, you'll be sorry!"
The child secretly made a face behind his back in the hall, then answered very obediently, "Don't worry, Mom, I definitely won't run around."
Having agreed, the child opened his arms, let out a wail, and dashed off to the back of the hall.
"Follow the young master closely."
The man's voice also said.
The child is impatient and can't sit still. It's already quite an achievement that he managed to finish praying to the gods. It's really difficult to expect him to stay still and wait for his parents to ask for prayers. However, the child has been frail since childhood. He's already eight years old, but he only looks like a typical five or six-year-old, which makes people worry a lot.
"Having received my father's instructions, the servants all followed. I was probably too bored at the time, and there was nothing to do in the temple except for weeds, so I suggested that we play hide-and-seek with them..."
Shen Mingxin's gaze wandered aimlessly as she searched for images deep within her mind.
He thought that after so many years, and since he was so young at the time, these memories would naturally have become blurred. But now that he's actually talking about it, he realizes that he still remembers them so clearly.
It was so clear it was almost eerie.
“Everything was fine at first, but as I kept hiding, I got competitive and wanted to hide somewhere they couldn’t find me,” Shen Mingxin said. “I remembered my mother’s warning that there was a dry well behind the temple. Although it was covered with wooden planks and weighed down with stones, I was still small, so I had to be careful not to fall in if a stone rolled down…”
In another round of hide-and-seek, the child, taking advantage of a nap by the servant who wasn't participating in the game but was only watching him, slipped away and, as if by magic, found himself at the edge of the dry well.
His eyes lit up when he saw the dry well.
The stones that weighed down the dry well had long since rolled away and were nowhere to be found. There was only a wooden plank on top, which was a bit heavy, but still movable. Next to it was a rotten wooden bucket, a little taller, with a rope still wrapped around the well frame's windlass.
"I'll tie the rope around myself and go into the well; they definitely won't be able to find me then!"
Children are often unaware of the consequences and recklessly bold, and this child in the red coat is a prime example of this.
He considered himself clever and had come up with an excellent hiding place. Hearing the servant counting, he didn't think twice and simply tied the rope around his waist, wrapped the other end around a little, tied a knot, and secured it firmly.
The night was deep and dark, overgrown with weeds, and the dry well was so dark that the bottom could not be seen. When the wooden plank was moved slightly, a cool breeze came out, making one's hair stand on end.
When the child sat down at the edge of the well, he became a little scared and regretted trying to climb out. However, the well was covered with damp moss. As soon as he turned around, he slipped and fell in suddenly. Even his scream was swallowed up by the deep well, and not much of it escaped.
"I was so scared at that time that I can't remember much. When I opened my eyes, it hurt a lot. I was hanging in mid-air, and it was pitch black all around. It was wet, slippery and cold. It was also dark when I looked up. I couldn't even see the well opening. I was so scared that I cried loudly and shouted, but no one came. I tried to climb up, but I couldn't climb up at all."
Shen Mingxin didn't know where she got the courage to go into such a well. Even without demons or monsters, such a dry well was enough to bury an eight-year-old child.
"After a while, the rope broke. It had been there for so many years and had aged too much to withstand the commotion of a child. It's a pity that I, who was drilling at the time, didn't understand."
"I fell to the bottom of the well, but luckily there was a rope to help me down. The well wasn't too deep, and I was very lucky to survive. I just passed out. When I woke up, everything was still dark."
Shen Mingxin closed her eyes slightly: "I cried and screamed until my voice was hoarse, but no one came to save me. I'm not stupid, I knew they couldn't hear me, so I forced myself to suppress my fear and groped around at the bottom of the well, trying to see if there was anything that could help me get out."
"I searched for a long time but couldn't find anything suitable. Instead, I was startled by a toad that was hiding somewhere, and I started crying again until I had no strength left."
"I was scared and tired, and I thought I was going to die. I grabbed the mud at the bottom of the well and wanted to build myself a grave."
Shen Mingxin smiled and said, "Then, as I kept grabbing, I grabbed a stone."
Children are naturally curious. They found the only spot on the red coat that wasn't stained by the well mud, wiped away their tears, and started digging, eventually unearthing the stone.
The bottom of the well was so dark that he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. He couldn't make out the shape of the stone, but he could feel it. Nine black arms wrapped around him served as a seat, and he held a white lotus as a lamp. His figure was slender, and his face was indistinct. This was Shen Xiangjun!
"elder brother!"
The child cried out in a hoarse voice, and hugged the small statue, which was as long as the child's arm, as if it were a piece of driftwood in the water.
"Brother, I accidentally fell into the well. Father and Mother can't find me or hear me. They all say you are a great deity who can appear and protect me. Please, can you let me out?"
"Good brother, please help me! When I get out, I'll give you all my delicious food and fun toys! Oh, right, Mom said you don't eat mortal food and you like incense. I'll give you incense, lots and lots of incense, okay?"
Holding the small statue of the deity, the child felt hopeful again, and kept chanting and pleading, even kowtowing and worshipping in a very serious manner.
However, it was just an ordinary stone statue.
Or rather, an ordinary stone.
It was simply chosen and sculpted in the likeness of Shenxiang Jun when the Shenxiang Temple was completed, and placed at the bottom of the well as a statue to guard the well. It possesses no divine power and has no connection whatsoever with the Chu Shenxiang.
As Chu Shenxiang watched Shen Mingxin recount his story, it was as if she could see through him, through those words of recollection, the pitiful child who, twelve years ago, was trapped at the bottom of the well, clutching a small statue and weeping.
He wanted to help him, just as he wanted to help the many helpless children he had seen in the past.
But he couldn't help him, just as he couldn't help them or himself.
"Finally, how did you get out?"
Chu Shenxiang was so concerned about the protagonist's fate that she asked about the ending before the story was even finished.
Shen Mingxin paused, raised her phoenix eyes, and looked at Chu Shenxiang: "I have always felt that it was you who helped me."
Chu Shenxiang's gaze narrowed slightly, almost thinking he had misheard. Although his memories were somewhat chaotic due to certain moments of madness in the past, there were no obvious omissions, especially from twelve years ago.
He remembered clearly that, whether before or after becoming a god that night, he had never saved any children from the dry well behind the temple.
Shen Mingxin seemed to glimpse something in Chu Shenxiang's face, which was as white as a distant mountain peak, and laughed: "I'm not referring to you hearing my cries and suddenly appearing to pull me out of the well, but rather..."
He paused, as if trying to find the right words, and after a long pause, he said, "It's hard for me to explain... Actually, when I was holding the little statue of the deity, I was already in despair after receiving no response and realizing that even if the deity was right next to me, they wouldn't appear. But not long after, I saw some strange things..."
"Brother," the child's voice was completely hoarse, and his words were slurred, "Please, brother, brother..."
At the bottom of the dark well, he held the small statue, sobbing, huddled in a dirty, damp corner, shivering from the chill of late autumn.
The pretty little red jacket was no longer recognizable; it was all filthy and black. Her hair was also disheveled and stuck together, making her look pitiful and dirty, like a kitten that had just been born and fallen into the mud.
"Brother, please, please..."
The child's voice gradually faded, as if he had fallen asleep from exhaustion, or perhaps he was too weak and had already fainted.
After an unknown amount of time, suddenly, the earth shook.
The child, who was clinging precariously to a rock, was suddenly jolted to the ground and jolted awake from his daze. He frantically grabbed the small statue, looking around in bewilderment, not knowing what had happened.
The tremor lasted only a breath or two before it ended.
The next moment, the little statue in the child's arms suddenly became unusually cold, as if he were holding a block of ice.
The child's little hands shivered from the cold, and he quickly put the small statue down. At that moment, as if drawn by something, the statue began to glow faintly. The glow was small, but enough to illuminate the bottom of the well. The child was stunned for a moment, then almost jumped for joy.
"Brother, you came to save me, didn't you? You came to save me!" Ignoring the cold, he hugged the little statue tightly. The chilling cold made the child shiver uncontrollably even through his coat.
The small statue did not answer.
The child didn't mind, hugging the small statue of the deity, trying to draw warmth from the cold.
After holding the child for a short while, the child's eyes suddenly widened.
The small statue glowed, illuminating the bottom of the well and a hole in the rock wall, just big enough for a child to crawl into.
The child approached hesitantly, peering closely through the hole for a while, his eyes gradually brightening: "There's the sound of flowing water here...maybe it's connected to a river in the mountains? Can we climb out from here and get outside?"
"No, no... What if it's a dead end, or there are wild beasts, or giant snakes in there! Then, then I won't be able to come back, I'll die, and my mother, father, and grandfather will never find me again. In the well, maybe it won't be long before they find me..."
"How much longer... I'm so hungry and so sleepy..."
Having fainted once, and with darkness still lingering all around, the child had no idea how long he had been trapped there. He only felt that it was unbearably long, perhaps as long as five hundred years.
“My mother said that all the water veins of Wangqiu Mountain will lead to the Yu River, and I…”
The child stared at the hole, his mind in turmoil.
Not long after, he suddenly looked down at the little statue in his arms, then wiped his face, took off the half of the old rope from his body, tied the little statue to his chest, and then lowered his head and crawled into the hole.
With the fearlessness of a newborn calf, the child crawled headlong into the dark passage, the small statue on his chest illuminating the long, dark tunnel.
The deeper the passage went, the damper it became, and there were snakes and insects that lived there. If you accidentally touched them, they were slippery and cold. The child was so frightened that he bit his lip tightly, afraid to cry out loud, lest these terrible creatures take the opportunity to crawl into his mouth.
He felt like he had been climbing for a very long time. Looking back, he could no longer see the hole behind him, but looking forward, there was no end in sight. He felt as if he were trapped in some kind of narrow, claustrophobic, dark prison, unable to escape forever.
He climbed slower and slower, and if it weren't for the small statue on his chest still shining, he would have lost even his last bit of courage.
Just as he became increasingly reliant on that light, the small statue suddenly returned to normal.
It was no longer cold, nor did it emit light; inside the dark passage, the last glimmer of light went out without warning.
The child was completely engulfed in darkness that could devour a person entirely.
The crawling motion stopped, and the child froze in place.
“Back then, I thought I was dead. Perhaps it wouldn’t be until much, much later that someone would discover there was a small skeleton here…” Shen Ming thought to himself, “But…”
But in this terrifying, suffocating, and maddening darkness, some worm-like orbs of light appeared.
They were incredibly illusory, as if they had floated down from an extremely high place. The child's numb and desperate eyes began to move, filled with fear and nausea. He lowered his head and began to gag loudly.
But when he looked down, for some reason, he was surprised to see that the small statue on his chest had also changed, melting like a candle and oozing sticky, dirty pus.
He vomited so much he almost fainted.
But after he finished vomiting, he strangely calmed down.
He stared intently at the orbs of light, and under their illumination, he once again moved his stiff limbs and crawled forward.
The orbs of light also began to wriggle.
The child saw the shadows within the ball of light.
Some of them wore strange clothes, walked on very wide roads, drove boxes that looked like horse-drawn carriages but had no horses, and liked to hold a small piece the size of a palm in front of their eyes and fiddle with it.
Some knelt in the dark, gloomy shadows, constantly praying and begging, or cut their withered wrists and forcibly squeeze out blood, or kowtowed repeatedly until their faces were unrecognizable, while incense burned slowly in front of the shrine, emitting a foul stench.
Some would simply bring a steamed bun and a bowl of water, gently and devoutly wiping the child's body while softly praying, "Please, Goddess Xiangjun, bless my children."
Natural disasters, man-made calamities, the bones of those in war, the flesh and blood of those in famine—all floated and sank in the ball of light, following those shadows.
Buried, battered, and worshipped.
The child, bewildered, didn't know what he was seeing, but his mind was unconsciously drawn in. The nausea subsided, leaving only sadness. He subconsciously touched his face; it was covered in mud and tears, damp and sticky.
“At the time, I didn’t know what it was, and when I recalled it later, I always felt it was a hallucination. Now I think it probably wasn’t; rather, for some unknown reason, I inadvertently glimpsed your past memories.”
Shen Mingxin said softly, "Those light orbs came quickly and disappeared quickly. I tried my best to climb out before they completely disappeared. But soon I discovered that one light orb hadn't disappeared; all the others had.
"Inside that ball of light was a small, very dilapidated statue. I followed it, climbing for a very long time. When I was almost exhausted, I smelled the outside..."
The child crawled out of a narrow cave, stared blankly at the faint light appearing on the horizon beyond the mountains for a long time, and then burst into tears.
But his voice was already hoarse, and no matter how loudly he cried, it was only weak and fragile.
Amidst the faint, fragile sobs, through his blurred, tear-filled eyes, he saw the last ball of light float up and quickly dissipate. In the final moment of its disappearance, the ball of light no longer contained a small statue, but a person—a man as handsome as a god.
He had jet-black eyebrows and dark blue eyes, extremely handsome, yet devoid of any vitality, only inhuman indifference, like the merciless heavens above him, where all living things were beneath his notice.
He is not a stone statue, but he is colder than a stone statue.
The child watched so intently that he forgot to cry; only tears instinctively fell with a soft patter.
At this point, Chu Shenxiang understood what Shen Mingxin had encountered back then.
That was the night he was inspired by heaven and earth and became a god.
Many strange phenomena, along with the memories of the Heavenly Soul, the karma of the Earthly Soul, and the emotions of the Human Soul that were uncontrollably emanating from the temple, were all suppressed within the temple and did not leak out. However, unbeknownst to him, a small child was hidden in a well near the temple.
He saw the movements of all the nearby small statues when he lit the incense, he saw the strange phenomena reflected by his three souls, and he also saw his two hundred years of past and the moment he became a god.
It's quite amazing that he had such a companion twelve years ago.
As for the last wisp of light that dissipated, it may have been the last trace of humanity he still possessed.
Unfortunately, he had long since lost his complete humanity, and even that last bit of humanity vanished silently in the dead of night when he became a god.
"You have done one good deed."
Chu Shenxiang spoke of humanity within the spiritual sea.
Human nature glanced at him: "Praising yourself, you're over two hundred years old, aren't you ashamed?"
Chu Shenxiang ignored her and Shen Mingxin's recollection came to an end: "I crawled out and cried for a while, then I shouted at the top of my lungs. My voice wasn't loud, but Grandpa still found me."
He chuckled, "Turns out I was only missing for a few hours, not as long as I thought. All that commotion for so long didn't even last a night..."
"Later," Shen Mingxin paused, "I had nightmares for a long time. In my dreams, there were melting statues of gods, disgusting maggots, and the statues sat high, coldly staring at me. I was desperately crawling in the darkness, desperately crawling, but I would still be dragged back... At that moment, another hand pulled me up and saved me..."
“I was sick for a while, and then I became afraid to go up the mountain to worship the gods. Shen Xiangjun, to me, seemed to be both fear and dependence... I couldn't tell. Later, as I grew up, the nightmare began to change.”
"At eighteen, I... I don't know why, but for the first time, I turned the tables and grabbed the hand that saved me in my dream."
"It looked like the hand of a deity, or it looked like the hand of that handsome, heartless man. I held that hand and pleaded, though I don't know what I was pleading for, and then I... I was in that hand..."
Shen Mingxin lowered her face again, her lips so red they seemed to be overflowing with thick, sticky moisture.
Did you masturbate?
Chu Shenxiang's indifferent voice suddenly rang out.
"Or...did you lose control of your bladder?"
He asked.
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Author's Note: [Glasses] Students, in the next chapter we will continue to explore the reasons for adolescent erotic dreams. Please do your pre-reading (just kidding).
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