Legend of the Great Sage
chapter-1508

Rāhu Xiaoming’s face darkened. His expression became vicious, yet he gave off the dignified aura of a god.

He was not some so-called “blessed son of the heavens”. He was an asura god in the first place, so he basically shared the same breath and fate as the Asura realm.

Ever since he returned to the Asura realm, his powers grew with each passing day. The only thing he lacked before he returned to his status as a god was time.

However, gods had bottom lines too. Suddenly, he struck out, and the boulder that Li Qingshan sat on exploded loudly. Dust rushed up into the air.

“There is no mother or son on the battlefield!” His voice was resolute, but also rather tired.

“That is your inner demon. If you can’t overcome it, you might not have the opportunity to unite with her again on the battlefield.” Li Qingshan’s voice rang out from the dust slowly.

The first few heavenly tribulations posed no threat to Rāhu Xiaoming, but the closer he was to the status of a god, the more dangerous the situation became. Tribulation lightning and demonic haunts had no concepts of old acquaintances. The tests he faced were as great as how powerful he was. Any openings he had inside of him could be used by demons, leading to destructive consequences.

Rāhu Xiaoming’s twisted, vicious expression returned to normal. He showed a hint of sorrow. “That’s also my fate.”

Li Qingshan thought of something. “Oh right, have you heard of Nüwa before?”

“Nüwa?” Rāhu Xiaoming furrowed his brows. “Who’s that?”

Li Qingshan gained an even deeper understanding that this really was a great secret. Even a god of the past did not know about Nüwa.

“Then have you heard of the Battle of Mending the Heavens?”

“I have heard of that.” Rāhu Xiaoming pointed at his own head. “In the legacy memories of the Rāhu clan, that’s the most ancient battle, but it’s just too long ago. Back then, even the six realms of sa?sāra did not exist. It’s merely a legend that cannot be verified in any way. If the Nüwa you speak of really did exist, where’s she now?”

“What if the legend is true?”

“How do you know?” Rāhu Xiaoming said in surprise, “You’re clearly a bumpkin, so how do you know something so ancient? Don’t tell me you made up all of it yourself?”

Li Qingshan pointed at his own head. “Legacy memories.”

Rāhu Xiaoming smiled and crossed his arms. “If I recall correctly, you were just a mortal in the beginning.”

Li Qingshan spread his arms. “How many people in the Asura realm were originally mortals?”

“Apart from the Rāhu and the Ketú, all of them.”

“Then where are the Rāhu and the Ketú from?”

“This… they should be branches from primordial gods and demons.”

“Then where are primordial gods and demons from?”

“They’re born from the world, obviously.”

“Gods and demons are also humans, while humans were not born from the world!”

During the birth of the world, everything was so new that many things had yet to be named. When they were mentioned, it still required gesturing around. These concepts of “gods”, “demons”, and “humans” did not exist at all. It was all interpretations made by later people.

Probably only the spirit turtles would inherit these ancient memories, and only Ruin’s End could preserve them.

When Nüwa created humanity, she did not use some god or demon as a model. However, when she first made people, she was brimming with interest, carefully moulding them from mud. Afterwards, she found it too troublesome, so she covered a vine in mud and swung it around casually, splattering the ground with mud.

Those moulded from the mud were the so-called “gods”. The mud splatters became the so-called “humans”.

There was no intrinsic difference between the two. Powerful leaders lead their respective tribes to tear through all obstacles on the ground, so they thrived.

These were all little stories from history he had obtained over the years from the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance through offering the novels from the World of the Five Continents. It allowed him to gain a deeper understanding of the Nine Transformations of the Demonic and Divine, and his cultivation increased. At this level, knowledge was power.

“What are you on about?”

Rāhu Xiaoming raised an eyebrow. He found it absurd. The Rāhu clan were natural gods. Even regular asura came nowhere close, so how could they be born with humans?

Li Qingshan said, “This is the historical data recorded by the spirit turtles.”

“Even if what you said is true, where are humans from?”

Li Qingshan grabbed a handful of mud with his left hand and moulded a small person. “This is you!” He also grabbed a handful of mud with his right hand and swung it around. The ground also became covered in tiny people. He casually grabbed one. “This is me.”

Rāhu Xiaoming glanced at them. The two tiny people were both extraordinarily ugly. They only possessed a vague humanoid shape, but the tiny person representing him was just slightly more detailed.

“You mean that Nüwa created…”

Li Qingshan interrupted him in a hurry. “Shut up! Don’t say that so carelessly! You’ll be struck by lightning!”

Rāhu Xiaoming smiled. “Isn’t the story you came up with far too absurd? If you were in the Heaven realm, it’s enough for them to execute you a hundred times over.”

Humans were the paragons of nature and creation, while deva were obviously the people that stood above people, the spirits of spirits. Yet now, he was claiming they were not created by nature, but creations like puppets, even beneath regular beasts and avians. How could the proud deva accept that?

Li Qingshan said seriously, “Do you know why Nüwa died in the memories I’ve inherited?”

“Why?”

“To save all the sentient creatures, these lowly, pitiful creations. Heh, and maybe the gods and demons too.”

Li Qingshan crushed the two mudmen together, and they dispersed in the wind. Dust returned to dust, and earth returned to earth.

This was not something that the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance had told him, but the conclusion of the Battle of Mending the Heavens from the memories of his previous life.

“In the blood-red clouds at the horizon was the glorious sun like some fluid orb of gold lapped in a waste of ancient lava. Opposite, the frigid white moon seemed as if it was made of iron. It was hard to say which was setting or which was rising. Utterly spent, Nüwa fell back between them, no longer breathing…”

This was the account by a certain novelist from his previous life.

TL: The novelist is Lu Xun, and this is referring to his 1930 work, Mending Heaven. I’ve used the translation by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang from the book Old Tales Retold.

This was probably something that the primordial spirit turtle never would have been able to predict. No matter how wondrous its calculations were, it could not foresee the “great mother god” who thrived with the world willingly sacrificing herself for the tiny figures and puppets she had made from mud, hence unable to avoid her fate of being slain.

Li Qingshan became rather sorrowful as well. “The mother of humanity sacrificed herself for humanity. Isn’t that ought to be?"

After a period of silence, Rāhu Xiaoming clasped his fist and bowed. “I understand!” He smiled freely, dispelling the worries on his mind. “From today onwards, Nüwa is my mother! As for those pointless shackles, I’ll sever them myself!”

Freed from his mental burden, his aura showed signs of breaking through once again at that instant, which he gently held back.

Li Qingshan bowed slightly. “It’s something I should do.”

Hehe, through the teachings of the great demon king, heavenly king Xiaoming of the four heavenly kings has finally decided to kill his own mother! What a terrifying story!

Rāhu Xiaoming then said, “Oh right, just so you know, I’m not afraid of being discovered. Gods aren’t omniscient and omnipotent either.”

“But in my knowledge, gods basically all possess the natural ability of prophecy.”

Li Qingshan did not dislike fighting valiantly as a chess piece, but if everything was within the calculations of those gods and buddhas no matter what he did, that would be terrible.

“Logically, yes, but not in practicality. First of all, the will of people is unpredictable. When the number reaches the billions, it can form a colossal variable. Secondly, how is a god supposed to predict the thoughts of another god?”

“When their thoughts diverge, fate becomes chaotic, yet they can’t neglect each other’s existence either. Even if they’re worlds apart, the greater the divergence, the more chaotic it’ll be. They’ll fall into a mess.”

“I see. I don’t have to worry then.”

“I’ve been incinerated by the flames of karma. I’ve already started over again. My bloodline has already been severed from my mother’s, and my fate’s been completely changed. However, the reason why I’m bold enough to return is actually because of you.”

“Me?”

“You should know just how many chaotic and changing fates are tied around you! You were born for a crisis. I suspect that even the buddha does not have complete control over this, yet I am facing the crisis with you now, so who can still grasp my traces?”

“Haha, I see. So I come with an inference signal. Oh right, what kind of crisis?”

“A crisis of death from the world!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t know, that’s just how it’s always been called.”

“Alright then!”

“But now that you mentioned the matter of Mending the Heavens, I have some thoughts. Who was the primordial spirit turtle fighting for? And who obscured these parts of history? Where does the lightning that tries to strike you come from?”