Chapter 120 The Sacrifice

While Fei Yu and Wu Yu were in stunned silence because of those four words, Wei Yuan had already stepped down from the altar. With a wave of his hand, the mountain wind stirred, and the young Taoist priest rode the wind, crossing layers of mountain rocks, and arrived outside Chaoge City, on the summit of the ancestral mountain.

Wei Yuan looked at the city of Chaoge from afar, and sat down cross-legged.

This time, he didn't use his palm to touch the mountain rock. A wisp of his divine soul consciousness had naturally penetrated into the ancestral vein, following the trajectory of the rock, reaching the altar in the hollow of the mountain belly, and then using the earth vein spiritual energy of this mountain to reconstruct a temporary body.

The Bo beast was originally resting, but when it sensed Wei Yuan's aura, its pupils brightened slightly, and it jumped up.

It ran over, making a sound like a war drum or a dragon's roar.

Wei Yuan helplessly stretched out his hand to stop the approaching Bo beast, pressed down on the Bo dragon's head, and then looked ahead, seeing King Wu Yi of Shang sitting there cross-legged. It wasn't until he got closer that Wei Yuan realized that he wasn't actually sitting on the ground.

Wu Yi had lost his feet, and he could only sit there.

That arm, pieced together from a tiger's paw and a human arm, had also been severed, leaving only the upper arm. The only intact limb was his left hand. His originally dirty and muddy clothes had been replaced by a clean and simple white robe, making him look solemn and dignified.

His spine was straight, and he sat there steadily.

Wu Yi opened his eyes.

"You've come."

Wei Yuan's heart surged with emotion. He cupped his hands and bowed slightly. Then, without revealing any pity or sympathy, he simply smiled and said, "Your Majesty, I've been waiting for a long time."

He slightly lifted the hem of his Taoist robe, sat down opposite Wu Yi, and, seeing the Chaoge City depicted behind Wu Yi over three thousand years, paused and said:

"The sacrifice is about to begin."

In the eyes of the Shang King opposite him, there was a faint glimmer in those dark, calm pupils.

……………………

"What did you say?!"

The old man exclaimed in a low voice, losing his usual composure and calmness.

Fei Yu and Wu Yu told the Grand Tutor what Wei Yuan had said, especially the sentence that the main participant in the sacrifice this time was not him, but the Emperor God Wu Yi. The old Grand Tutor was lost in thought for a long time, as if he had lost the wisdom accumulated over the years, and paced back and forth quickly like a young man.

Then he decided to immediately prepare according to the specifications Wei Yuan had said.

Fei Yu and Wu Yu quickly told the people in charge of the sacrifice about the requirements.

The grand sacrifice every three hundred years was a tradition of the Shang people. Compared to ordinary sacrifices, the only difference was that the number of participants was far greater than that of ordinary sacrifices. Soon, the news spread to Chaoge City, to the people who were working, the old men who were sharpening weapons, the children who were diligently exercising, and the women who were weaving and sewing clothes at home.

They all put down their work, put on the cloth clothes that they only wore during sacrifices, and then appeared on the streets, full of anticipation and desire, heading towards that ancestral vein.

……………………

Finally,

The sacrificial ceremony began.

Accompanied by the sound of heavy instruments, the solemn and grand voices of prayer, and the slight tremors of people dancing and stepping on the mountain rocks and steps, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, gathered together, like waves, so loud that even the two people inside the mountain belly could hear clearly. King Wu Yi of Shang was lost in thought, and his only intact palm gently tapped the ground.

His lips moved, silently chanting the sacrificial poems.

Wei Yuan said, "Let's go up too."

"The scenery above is better, and the people of Chaoge City are also looking forward to seeing the demeanor of the Emperor God."

Wu Yi didn't answer. Wei Yuan smiled slightly, pressed his palm on the ground, and then the spiritual veins of the mountain surged, sending Wei Yuan's wisp of spirituality and Wu Yi, whose main body was the true spirit, to the top of the mountain. In a place higher than the sacrificial altar, the mountain rocks rose up, turning into a table.

Wei Yuan and Wu Yi sat on either side.

Wei Yuan had his back to Chaoge City.

So Wu Yi could see that city. The sun of this world slowly rose, and the sunlight fell on Chaoge City, the city walls, streets, and houses, as if everything was shining brightly, just like Wu Yi's three-thousand-year dream. He watched in a daze for a long time, and finally just murmured with a smile:

"Good, good."

"Really good."

………………

In the sacrificial procession, the old Grand Tutor was at the front.

Fei Yu and Wu Yu followed closely behind.

When they raised their heads, they saw the two people sitting opposite each other at the highest point of the ancestral vein. They felt the familiar, pure aura of a ghost god on Wu Yi, who was sitting opposite Wei Yuan. The three of them were stunned, and then the old Grand Tutor was the first to react.

His palms were trembling slightly.

"The Emperor God, it's really the Emperor God..."

"The Emperor God is indeed still here. They haven't abandoned Chaoge."

He straightened his clothes, as if he had returned to his youth, and shouted the name of the deity with all his might. Then, as if it were contagious, all the surviving Shang people who came to participate in the sacrifice chanted the name of Emperor God Wu Yi in unison.

Mixed with the solemn and heavy tones of the chime bells, it seemed to soar into the sky.

Wu Yu came back to his senses, his expression still excited. He lowered his head and asked the little girl who had been chosen to offer flowers from outside Chaoge City to the ghost god. In the magnificent sacrificial melody, the little girl in white, holding a bouquet of flowers, walked towards the high place step by step.

Wu Yi's body suddenly emitted a white light, shrouding his legs and arms.

The little girl was still a little ignorant, not quite understanding why those adults were so excited. She had been working earlier, helping her mother cut the vegetables planted in the yard with a sickle. If only the leaves were eaten, the roots would be left in the ground, and they would grow again after a while.

She looked at Wu Yi, feeling a little curious in her heart. Was this a ghost god?

It didn't seem to be the same as in the articles and poems.

When the sacrificial melody became melodious, she remembered what she was here to do, and hurriedly raised the flowers grown in Chaoge City in her hands, holding them out to Wu Yi, who sat upright and steady, with his broken right arm supporting the stone table, and stretched out his intact left arm to take the flowers.

It was at this time that the little girl noticed that she had come in too much of a hurry.

Her hands were still stained with some dirt.

She was a little afraid and worried, but the ghost god didn't seem to care about these things. The young Taoist priest opposite her was just smiling, dispelling the little girl's worries. Wu Yi looked at this child, saw the doubts in her eyes just now, and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Ah, nothing, nothing..."

The little girl shook her head, then hesitated and said:

"I just feel that you don't seem like the Emperor God in the legends..."

"Not so high, not so far away."

She thought for a while, and smiled, "You're like the uncle you'd meet on the road."

Wu Yi froze for a long time. Just as the child thought she had said something wrong, she heard a gentle voice, "Well, that's what I am. I'm just a person."

Wu Yi put the flowers on the table.

He stretched out his last complete, human arm.

He placed it on the child's head, paused.

Then he carefully and gently put it down, rubbed the child's hair, felt the softness of the strands, felt the warmth of flesh and blood. At this point, there was no more distraction or madness in the king's heart, only calm and gentle peace, as if he had found his home.

Three thousand years of journey had been meaningful after all.

He whispered, "Thank you."

………………

The child walked down from the high mountain with incredible joy and excitement.

The light on Wu Yi's body faded a little. He raised his eyes and looked at Chaoge City in the distance. After a long time, he retracted his gaze. Two bronze goblets and a square ding wine vessel had appeared on the table. These were the things used for sacrifices in Chaoge City over the generations, and they were even more ancient than the one in Wei Yuan's museum.

He looked at Wei Yuan and finally asked, "Who exactly are you, and where do you come from?"

Wei Yuan had known for a long time that the explanation of being a mountain spirit could not deceive this Shang king.

He replied with a smile, "I come from my hometown."

Wu Yi didn't seem surprised, and said, "...So that's how it is."

"It seems that the descendants of Yan and Huang still exist in the world, and are doing well."

Wu Yi poured himself a cup of wine, looked at the amber liquid, and said:

"So, what is Shenzhou like now? How prosperous is it?"

He looked at Chaoge City, and then asked again, "Do people still have to fight with beasts to survive? Do they still have to worry about natural and man-made disasters, and worry about droughts and floods? Will there still be foreign tribes invading Shenzhou?"

Wei Yuan thought for a while and replied, "It's no longer needed."

"No longer needed?"

"Yes, now humans are the strongest race in Shenzhou, or rather, in the human world."

Wei Yuan sat on this side, and opposite the small table was a Chinese ancestor who lived more than three thousand years ago.

So this small stone table was three thousand years of time.

An old friend asked, are you all well...

And today's people answered.

Answering in this way—

Shenzhou is safe and sound.

Wei Yuan's expression was gentle, and he replied, "Some of those ferocious beasts still need people to actively protect them in order to prevent them from becoming completely extinct."

"As for natural and man-made disasters, they definitely still exist, but we also have the power to resist these disasters. If there is a drought, we can artificially rain, and there are water conservancy projects to adjust the water level, so floods are not as frequent as in the past."

"We can reach the moon in the sky and catch turtles in the five oceans."

"As for foreign tribes, there are always some."

"But now Shenzhou still stands at one pole of the world, unafraid of any country or force."

Wu Yi listened in a daze, and finally said, "It seems that the cultivators of Shenzhou have done a good job."

"This was not created by cultivators."

The young Taoist priest raised his head slightly and replied with a smile:

"This is a legend forged by ordinary people."

……………………

These words seemed to have a greater impact on the monarch of the Age of Gods than everything that had been said before. Wu Yi murmured for a while before saying:

"That's how it should be."

"I used to think that King Yu was making a fuss about nothing when he exiled the strange beasts of the mountains and seas."

"I thought that even if there were some ferocious beasts, our human race could still occupy the human world, but now I know that I am not as far-sighted as King Yu and the others. Ferocious beasts are brutal and powerful, and if we coexist with them in the same world, we will have to pay a great price even if we survive."

"Not to mention those races that are similar to humans but not quite human."

"King Yu must have foreseen an era dominated purely by humans, so he made that decision."

"He's really amazing."

Wu Yi shook his head, a relieved expression appearing on his face: "However, since you are from my hometown, and since you have developed to that extent, then I can rest assured if I leave Chaoge City to you to help."

Wei Yuan said, "Doesn't Your Majesty want to personally see Chaoge and Shenzhou?"

Wu Yi said calmly, "I've reached my limit. After today, there will be no more Wu Yi."

Wei Yuan said:

"Then, what if I said that I have another way to let Your Majesty live on?"

Wu Yi looked at Wei Yuan, "What is it?"

Wei Yuan opened his palm, and wisps of golden Buddhist light overflowed, turning into a Buddhist scripture in the language of this era in the void. Most of the Buddhist doctrines were cut off, leaving only the simple act of making great vows, and strengthening oneself with the power of vows fed back by the world and all living beings.

It was even possible to make a great vow that was impossible to fulfill.

Then, as long as this great vow existed for one day.

The self that was linked to this great vow would also exist for one day.

This was a way to take a shortcut, an attempt to live as long as heaven. Of course, it was also extremely difficult to do this, requiring great perseverance and great determination. And when Wei Yuan showed the means of becoming a god through Buddhist vows, the cultivators of Chaoge City, who had received the relics from Fei Yu and Wu Yu, all unfolded their palms, holding up those relics.

They stimulated them with their own qi and blood.

As a result, each and every Pure Land relic lit up together.

Scattering a faint Buddhist light, like motes of light, slowly rising upwards, the brilliant light directly enveloped the entire ancestral vein, like a dream. This was also an extremely extravagant gesture. But Wu Yi looked at the second path given by Wei Yuan, and only shook his head with a smile.

Wei Yuan said, "Your Majesty, do you not approve of this path?"

Wu Yi didn't say whether he approved or disapproved, but simply commented, "Using so-called great vows as obsessions, and then allowing oneself to exist in this world, is a very clever method."

He filled the wine goblet, held the bronze goblet, paused, and smiled:

"But, ancestors protect their children."

"Kings protect their people."

"Does this still require any obsessions?"

Wei Yuan was speechless.

Wu Yi held the bronze goblet with his intact hand, felt the texture of the patterns on the bronze goblet with his palm, and then he raised the bronze goblet, facing Chaoge City, facing the tens of thousands of people below the mountain, and murmured:

"Look, Chaoge City, how beautiful it is."

"I moved the capital of our ancestors here. We carved stones in the mountains and moved them down to make city walls. We cut down trees and reclaimed wasteland. We brought in rivers to irrigate farmland. At night, the stars filled the sky, and it was such a scene..."

Wu Yi closed his eyes.

Little by little, golden Buddhist light rose slowly against the heavens and the earth.

Vast and magnificent, it was as if he had returned to the past, when he looked at the people and the world during the sacrifice, when his limbs were intact, when he was healthy and strong, and looked ambitiously at the distant world, to break the blind obedience to the gods.

At that time...

Everyone was there.

Wu Yi listened to the solemn sound of prayer, a smile appearing on his face. The heavens and the earth and Chaoge City were reflected in this wine glass, as if his past was all contained in the cup. He raised the bronze goblet, drank the fine wine in the cup, and murmured contentedly, "Sacrificial wine, how long has it been since I drank it..."

"It's good wine indeed."

Clang!

A crisp sound.

Wei Yuan turned his head and saw the bronze goblet falling to the ground, the wine flowing out.

King Wu Yi of Shang, who shot at the heavens and killed gods, and guarded the human world for three thousand years, completed all his duties in this life, and greeted the end with the most frank posture.

Wei Yuan opened his mouth, but was speechless.

Then, he saw the golden Buddhist light that permeated the entire world, after stagnating, suddenly surging and boiling. The Buddhist light was burning violently in an unprecedented way, grand and magnificent, dazzling and radiant.

Wu Yi said that he had no obsessions or great vows.

But, how could the obsessions that were deliberately spoken, the wishes that had to be declared to all living beings,

be considered great vows?

Great vows were originally unspoken.

Wei Yuan felt the light behind him lighting up layer by layer. He picked up the wine cup and touched it against the overturned wine cup next to him, the sound crisp, and then gently drank the wine. At this time, the people who were still participating in the sacrifice suddenly noticed something, turned their heads to look, and let out exclamations, seeing wisps of light falling on Chaoge City, which had become slightly dilapidated after three thousand years.

And so, just as Wu Yi had said.

The streams of light continued to weave, turning into tall city walls and simple houses. They were just illusions, but in this instant, Chaoge City crossed thousands of years of time, came from Wu Yi's dream to reality, with people coming and going, bustling and lively, their faces prosperous.

Outside the city were ten miles of blooming flowers.

The little girl who had offered flowers earlier was peering from the mountaintop, watching this incredible scene, and like everyone else, her eyes were wide with astonishment. Suddenly, her eyes blinked, and she saw a figure slowly walking away in the white flower bushes outside the city.

She subconsciously reached out her hand towards that person and shouted loudly, "Where are you going?"

Her voice was mixed in with the exclamations of the people, in the noise, and almost no one could notice it.

But that person heard it, and his footsteps paused.

He turned his head, that seemed to be the gentle god of just now, but he was younger, more vigorous, and had light in his eyes. The little girl was stunned. She shouted loudly, and that person smiled at her, waved his hand, turned his head, and walked step by step into the Chaoge of her dreams.

You have walked a very, very long road.

You have walked through mountains, walked through rivers, walked through the ten miles of blooming flowers outside Chaoge City.

You have also walked through three thousand years of time.

When your descendants walk here, will they, too, meet you?

…………

Wei Yuan quietly watched the dreamlike scene dissipate, and suddenly felt the heat in his arms. He lowered his head and saw that the two relics were emitting heat. They were the Chan Buddhist relics given to him by Yuanjue. Wei Yuan was silent for a moment, watching the Buddhist light surging in the heavens and the earth.

A portion of the golden light surged towards him.

This was because the Pure Land relics had obtained true Buddhist merit, which was purer and more vast than all the Buddhist merit stored in the human world. When this power fell into Wei Yuan's hands, it was supposed to pour into his spirituality, turn into his foundation, and cleanse his soul.

Wei Yuan put down the bronze goblet.

He was silent for a long time, and tapped the void with his finger.

With each tap, a strand of energy would dissipate from his body.

In the end, he shook all the Buddhist merit out of his body, and exhaled a mouthful of wine-scented air, saying:

"It is good wine indeed."

Wei Yuan got up, seeming to be drunk, his body slightly staggering. He pointed his fingers in the void, forcibly dipped these pure Buddhist merits as ink, and then wrote in the void, using the heavens and the earth as paper to draw talismans, but what he wrote was the path of Buddhism. He learned from the strokes of the *Bhaisajyaguru Sutra* and wrote.

Although Wu Yi felt that he had no obsessions or great vows.

But Wei Yuan felt that he still had unwillingness and regrets in his heart, as well as a trace of obsession. He hesitated in his heart, and simply laughed self-deprecatingly.

"I'm just a mortal after all, so I don't care about karma."

"If I'm vulgar, then so be it."

Although Buddhism is vast, the Bhaisajyaguru Sutra states, "May I in my next life, when I attain *bodhi*."

Wei Yuan's writing was the opposite of theirs.

"May you in your next life, attain *bodhi*..."

His movements paused, and Wei Yuan recalled the contents of the scripture, and muttered to himself: "You probably wouldn't like such a serious thing." He shook his head, casually erased this line of words, paused, and with a smile, manipulated these Buddhist merits to write in a simple and unadorned tone that would make the Buddhas jump with anger:

"Then..."

"May you in your next life, be able to see the ten thousand *zhang* of blue sky every day without getting tired."

"May you in your next life, be able to look at Chaoge City as you wish."

"May you in your next life, be able to lay down the burden of the king, and live as an ordinary person, with joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness. Life in this world is rich and colorful enough. I think it shouldn't disappoint you."

Wei Yuan slowly raised his hand. Those merits were vast, turning into three great vows, but they did not bring any benefits to Wei Yuan. He put his slightly trembling right hand behind his back, and watched the three great vows fly out, soaring towards the heavens and the earth.

Wu Yi's true spirit had been tempered by the years, and was enough to support reincarnation.

You and I, we will meet again one day.

"Finally, there's still a bit of a mess..."

The surrounding energy was vast, and Wei Yuan raised his hand, the Heavenly Mandate Scarlet Talisman on the back of his right hand slowly lit up.

He forcibly connected these powers left by Wu Yi to the spiritual veins of that Chaoge ancestral vein, and then incorporated the remaining Buddhist light from the relics. With the Heavenly Mandate Scarlet Talisman as the overall guide, and the *Taiping Jing* as the core, he set up a similar talisman array above Chaoge City, imitating the Heavenly Court of Shenzhou in the human world.

That Chaoge City slowly floated into the air, stabilizing between the heavens and the earth.

This was far from being comparable to the Heavenly Court created by Zhang Daoling, but with the power left by Wu Yi as the core, it barely stabilized the prototype. At this time, a spell was needed as the core to fix this talisman array. Wei Yuan was silent for a moment, and chose the simplest and most basic spell, which was also a spell that the Taoist school must master.

The Protection Spell.

After doing all this, Wei Yuan was a little exhausted.

He walked down the mountain. The little girl who had offered flowers earlier relied on her small body to drill back and forth in the crowd, and ran to Wei Yuan before Fei Yu and the others, anxiously saying:

"Mountain God, Emperor God, Emperor God is gone, where did he go? Bring him back..."

Wei Yuan was stunned, stretched out his hand and stroked the child's hair, gently saying:

"He, he just fell asleep."

"He was very tired and wanted to rest."

The little girl was not old, and said sadly:

"Then doesn't he want us anymore?"

Wei Yuan squatted down and said, "How could that be?"

He stretched out his hand, pulled the little girl's palm, and wrote the Protection Spell in her palm, softly saying, "Remember this talisman. As long as you recite it, no matter where you are, no matter when."

His voice paused, and he smiled:

"Your king will definitely come to protect you."

Today's update... a combination of two, thank you Bai Yi Hua Feng Hou for the ten thousand rewards, thank you.

Six thousand four hundred words, splitting it up as a normal update would also be a chapter of three thousand two hundred words, but it's not good to cut it off in the middle, so I'm posting it together.

By the way, deducing the detailed outline, I always feel that if Wu Yi accepted it, it wouldn't be in line with the spirit of these three thousand years, so I compromised. Moreover, he was too tired.

It's so hard to write... lying down... almost squeezed out like toothpaste.

Yan ZK reminds you: Remember to bookmark after reading