Volume 1 Chapter 3 - The third appearance of the trash deity in the capital of the Immortals. Part Two

A former favorite of Heaven, now reduced to the rank of a laughingstock with no followers, no prayers, and no offerings, while two of his once most loyal subordinates, having successfully crossed the threshold of Heaven's punishment, ascended to become Gods of War, who had one side of the world at their disposal. Such a situation would make anyone think twice. If Xie Lian was asked to choose between the two of them as to who embarrassed him more, Feng Xin or Mu Qing, he would answer, "Neither of them!". But if outside observers had to decide whose fight they wanted to watch the most, opinions would differ. Still, Xie Lian had sufficient grounds to call both Mu Qing and Feng Xin to account, it was hard to determine which of them was more deserving of a slap.

Therefore, Feng Xin did not reply, and in the end, he kept his presence silent, leaving the rest of the audience in utter disappointment. Xie Lian decided to end the conversation by admitting responsibility for what he had done, and said: "I didn't expect to make such a fuss, there was no malice in my actions, please forgive me for the trouble."

Mu Qing replied coolly, "Ah, so this is just an incredibly fortunate coincidence."

Luckier than anything, Xie Liang felt the same way. How else could he explain the fact that he had managed to both crush Mu Qing with a bell and destroy Feng Xin's palace in one sitting? From the outside, it looked as if he had decided to get even with both of them at once. But in reality, it was much simpler than that, Xie Lian was the type of person who would choose the one with poison among a thousand wine pots even after many attempts. However, other people's opinions could not be changed, so Xie Lian could only promise: "In order to compensate for the damage to the gold palaces of the honorable lords, as well as other losses, I will do my best. I only hope that the honorable masters will give me some time."

Of course, it was clear even to the tail of a broomstick that Mu Qing would probably want to continue spewing chilly reproaches. However, his golden palace was unharmed, and he himself had cracked the bell that crushed him, which meant that putting too much pressure on his interlocutor would make Mu Qing himself look bad, jeopardizing his reputation. Therefore, Mu Qing also, without saying a word, fled. After making sure that the two indignant opponents had both left, Xie Lian hurriedly walked out.

He was still pondering in all seriousness about where to get eight hundred and eighty-eight tens of thousands of merit when he received an invitation from Linwen to come to her palace the next day.

Linwen was the manager of the divine Human Resources Department, responsible for the well-being of the personnel and helping celestials grow faster in rank. Her palace was a very striking sight that would make an observer shiver: everything here, from floor to ceiling, was littered with official documents and scrolls. On the way here, Xie Lian had met many celestials who had come out of Linwen Palace, each of them carrying stacks of papers taller than themselves. The pale faces of the celestials expressed either complete collapse of hopes or utter incomprehension. When Xie Lian entered the main hall, Linwen turned around and said without preamble: "Your Highness, the Emperor needs help in a matter, would you be willing to volunteer?"

There were all sorts of Perfect Lords and Beautiful Lords in the Heavenly Realm, but only one could be called Emperor. And he had never needed help in any matter. Therefore, Xie Lian froze in shock, but still asked: "What kind of matter is this?"

Linwen held out a scroll to him with the words, "The incessant wailing of believers pleading to the Heavens has begun to come from the north. Obviously, all is not well there."

The so-called believers were usually divided into three groups. The first - wealthy people, whose money was used to burn incense, conduct religious services, build temples and monasteries. The second - preachers who could instruct ordinary people on the true path. The third category are those whose hearts were permeated with faith along and through. The first group has always been considered the most numerous: the more money a person has, the more he worships divine and demonic forces, besides, the rich in the world are like fish in the river. The third group is the smallest, because the one who managed to reach such a high level of faith will probably soon ascend to Heaven. Obviously, Linwen was referring to the first group of believers.

Linwen uttered: "Currently, the Overlord is unable to travel to the North personally and if you are able to do so in his place, absolutely all the prayers that the believers offer in gratitude for the solution to their problem will turn into your virtues. What do you think of that?"

Xie Lian accepted the scroll with both hands and said: "Thank you."

The prince was not a fool, of course, he realized that Emperor Jun Wu wanted to help him, and from the looks of it, it looked as if it was the Lord himself asking for the prince's help. But right now, he simply couldn't find any other words to express what he was feeling in full. Linwen uttered: "I'm only doing my job, if you want to express your gratitude, you'd better wait for the Overlord to return and personally thank him. By the way, I can borrow some magic artifacts for you if you wish."

Xie Lian replied, "No need. I will lose my spiritual powers after descending to the mortal world anyway, so I won't be able to use any artifacts."

Exiled twice, Xie Lian had lost all of his spiritual powers. In the Heavenly Realm, there was no such problem, as the palaces of the celestials were everywhere, spiritual power continuously filled the space, and everyone could use it if they reached out their hand. But when he returned to the human world, the prince would become a helpless fool: even to fight someone, he would have to borrow spiritual power from another celestial for a while, which caused a lot of inconvenience.

Linwen, after giving it some thought, uttered: "Well, then, I will summon some war spirits from the palaces of the War Gods to assist you."

The current Gods of War, if they were even familiar with Xie Liang, they clearly had no sympathy for him, this was something he was well aware of, so the prince replied, "It's just a waste of time. No one will respond to the call."

However, Linwen had her own thoughts on the matter, she uttered: "Still, let me give it a try.

Trial or no trial, the result would be the same, Xie Lian didn't support her sentiment, but he didn't object to it either - let her do as she wished. Therefore, Linwen immediately joined the spiritual network and loudly said: "Dear Gods of War, a messenger to the North is needed to assist the Overlord. Can anyone spare two war spirits from their palace for this purpose?"

Before she could stop talking, Mu Qing's voice was heard, "I heard that the Overlord doesn't have time to attend to the affairs of the North right now, does that mean that it's not him who needs helpers, but His Highness the Crown Prince?"

Xie Lian thought, "Are you spending all day until late at night on a spiritual communication network post?"

Linwen thought the same thing, and in her heart, she wanted to slap Mu Qing, who had prevented her from carrying out her devious plan, so that he would be knocked out of the spirit network. But instead, she smiled and said: "Xuanzhen, may I ask why I've been seeing you in the spirit net so often over the past couple of days? Did you really manage to take a moment to relax amongst the many troubles? Congratulations."

Mu Qing nonchalantly replied, "I injured my hand and now have to heal my wound."

Every celestial in the spiritual net thought to himself, "In the past, you could split a mountain in two and shatter the abyss of the sea with the same hand, what could some ordinary bell do to it?"

Linwen had intended to trick the two friends out without going into details, but it turned out that Mu Qing, having figured out her plan, immediately voiced her guess out loud. They would definitely not be able to find any helpers now. Indeed, no one had ever responded to the request, which was no surprise to Xie Liang. He turned to Linwen, "See, just as I thought, no one will help me."

Linwen objected, "If Xuanzhen hadn't interfered, we would have succeeded."

Xie Lian said with a smile: "You hid half of the truth in your words, of course the War Gods would have a misconception of the situation, like a beautiful flower hidden amongst the mist. If they thought you were asking them to help the Lord himself, someone would have responded, but when they arrived on the spot and saw that they would have to act in tandem with me, they would have made a scandal, what kind of cohesion and unity can we talk about? I'm used to acting alone anyway, and I don't look like a cripple, so I can manage without them. Thank you for your efforts, I should be on my way."

Linwen, unable to do anything else to help him, folded her arms in front of her chest in a small bow1 and said: "So be it. I wish Your Highness that everything goes smoothly without any adventures. Heaven give you its blessing."

1 In China, the polite bow is made with the arms folded at the chest, with men's left hand covering the right fist and women's right hand covering the left fist.

Xie Lian replied, "In that case, I don't know of any prohibitions!" Waving goodbye, he carelessly walked away from the palace.

***

Three days later, the human world, somewhere in the north.

On the side of the wide road stood a tea house: the building was not very large, the employees were ordinary people, but the main value of the tea house was the surrounding scenery. From the windows of the teahouse, the mountains could be seen, the sound of the river could be heard, passersby were passing by, and the city walls could be seen in the distance. A little bit of everything, but just right. Meetings in such a beautiful place were sure to become marvelous memories. The owner of the teahouse spent his time in idle carelessness: as long as he had no visitors, he placed a stool at the threshold and sat on it, enjoying the scenery for which the view from the windows of the teahouse was so famous. Suddenly he saw in the distance a traveling monk in white robes. The traveler was covered in road dust, as if he had been walking for a long time.

As he approached the teahouse, the monk passed by, but stopped and slowly walked back. Lifting the brim of his bamboo dawli2 hat, he glanced at the name plate, then said with a smile: "The Meeting Shop, a promising name."

2 A wide-brimmed conical hat, usually made of bamboo chips, to protect against rain and sun.

The traveler was obviously very tired from the journey, but his eyes were shining with a smile, and if you looked at him, you would not be able to keep the corners of your mouth from lifting upward. He asked: "Would you mind telling me how far it is to Yujun Mountain?"

The shopkeeper, pointing in the direction, replied, "It's quite close."

The monk exhaled in relief, almost losing his breath along with the air, and thought to himself, "Well, I'm finally here."

The traveler turned out to be Xie Lian.

After leaving the Immortal Capital, he had predetermined the exact spot near Mount Yujun where he was going to land. However, something went wrong and when the prince casually jumped down after leaving the Heavenly Abyss, he still casually hung his sleeve on a cloud. That's right, hanging on the cloud, himself not realizing how such a thing could happen. In any case, he ended up plummeting down from a great height, completely unaware of where he was. It was only three days later that he finally managed to walk to the designated landing spot, and now he was overwhelmed with a palette of emotions.

Xie Lian entered the teahouse, ordered tea and cakes, chose a window seat and finally sat down after so many days on the road. Just as suddenly, bitter sobbing and drumming sounds were heard from outside.

He looked out of the window and saw a group of people walking down the road past the tea shop. Among them were men and women, old men and children, all crowded around a bright red wedding palanquin.

The procession was a very unusual sight. At first glance it might have seemed as if they were seeing the bride off to the groom's house, but if one looked more closely, one could see serious, grief-stricken, angry and frightened expressions on the faces of the procession, without a hint of happiness. They looked the least like those in whose house the joyous event had taken place, but they were dressed in red and wreathed in flowers, and they were blowing trumpets and beating drums. The performance looked very unusual indeed. The shopkeeper brought out a copper kettle with a long spout and raised it up to pour tea for Xie Lian. Noticing what was happening outside, the shopkeeper only shook his head and then calmly walked away.

Xie Lian, watching the unusual procession move out of sight, put his thoughts in order and decided to take another look at the scroll that Linwen had handed him, when suddenly something flashed brightly before his eyes.

He looked up and saw a silvery butterfly fly by.

The sparkling translucent butterfly fluttered through the air, leaving behind a sparkling trail. Xie Lian couldn't help but reach out his hand to his guest, and she, showing wonders of discernment, was not frightened at all, but even on the contrary, she perched on the tip of his finger. Her incomprehensibly beautiful glittering wings in the light seemed an illusion; touch her and she disappeared. After lingering for a moment, the butterfly flew away.

Xie Lian waved goodbye, and when he turned around, he saw that there were three times as many people at his table.

To his left and right, occupying one of the four sides of the table each, were two young men who looked no older than nineteen years old. The one on the left was a little taller, his face deep and wise, but his gaze was insolent. His companion, an elegant and pale young man, looked more mannered and refined, but his gaze was cold and indifferent, as if he was upset about something. In reality, the two youths did not look very friendly.

Xie Lian blinked and turned to them: "You two..."

The young man on the left identified himself: "Nan Feng."

The young man on the right did the same: "Fu Yao."

Xie Lian thought, "It's not like I wanted to know your names..."

Suddenly, Linwen's voice sounded in his head, "Your Highness, two junior war spirits from the Middle Heavens have volunteered to help, they have already traveled to the mortal world to join you, and should be somewhere nearby by now."

The Middle Heavens that Linwen mentioned were of course different from the Upper Heavens. To put it simply, all the celestials in the Heavenly Heavens could be divided into two categories: those who had attained ascension and those who had not attained ascension. The Upper Heaven pantheon consisted solely of those who had ascended through their own efforts - there were no more than a hundred such celestials in the Heavenly Heavens, and each of them was an extremely rare nugget. The Pantheon of the Middle Heavens includes celestials who were 'appointed' to these positions by immortals of a higher rank; strictly speaking, their status sounds completely like 'equal to a celestial', except that 'equal to' is always omitted when referring to them.

Does this mean that in addition to the Upper and Middle Heavens, there are also Lower Heavens?

Not at all.

In truth, at the time of Xie Lian's first ascension, there was still a division between the Upper and Lower Heavens. However, there was a misunderstanding: when a celestial introduced himself to someone by saying, "Messenger of the Lower Heavens, so-and-so," it sounded very ugly, because the word "lower" gave the speaker a sense of inferiority. It was worth noting that there were also many outstanding talents among the Middle Heavens whose magic power was so powerful. They were only separated from true celestials and the Upper Heavens by Heavenly Punishment, but who knows, perhaps it was already just around the corner? Therefore, it was suggested to change one word so that the phrase would read "Messenger of the Middle Heavens, so-and-so", as it sounded much better. In essence, the meaning remained the same. But Xie Liang ended up having to get used to the new title for a very long time.

The prince looked around at the two war spirits, but he still couldn't decide which one of them looked less annoyed. It was completely unlike them to have 'volunteered to help', so Xie Lian couldn't help himself from asking. "Look, Linwen, the least they look like they're volunteering to help, it feels like they've come to chop my head off for the hell of it. Don't tell me you lured them out by trickery."

Unfortunately, his remark never went to Linwen, and yes, her voice in Xie Lian's head had gone silent. Apparently, he had been outside the Immortal Capital for too long, which meant that he had already used up his reserve of spiritual strength. Unable to do anything about it, Xie Lian had to smile at the two war spirits with the words, "Nan Feng and Fu Yao, right? First, let me begin by thanking you both for your willingness to help."

The young men nodded in response, but the arrogance in their mannerisms told Xie Lian that each of them was probably in the subordinate of a War God with a rather loud name. The prince then asked the tea shop owner to bring two more cups, picked up his own, blew off the tea particles from the surface, and as if by the way, asked: "So whose palaces do you belong to?"

Nan Feng: "Nanyang Palace."

Fu Yao: "Xuanzhen Palace."

Xie Lian: "..."

Xie Lian's soul went to the heels.

Taking a sip of tea, the prince clarified, "Was it your generals who sent you to me?"

Both spirits replied at once, "My general doesn't know that I'm here."

Xie Lian, after thinking for a moment, asked the next question, "So you... know who I am?"

If Linwen had indeed tricked the two war spirits into coming to his aid, they would inevitably be punished upon their return, which meant that this feat was not worth it to them.

Contrary to expectations, Nan Feng replied, "You are His Highness the Crown Prince."

Fu Yao continued: "You are the truth of all mankind, you are the center of the entire world."

Xie Lian choked up and turned to Nan Feng to clarify something, "Did he roll his eyes?"

Nan Feng replied, "Yes. Tell him to get lost."

It was no secret that the relationship between Nanyang and Xuanzheng was not the warmest. Xie Lian was almost completely unsurprised when he heard about this, as these two couldn't be called cronies before. However, in the past, when both War Gods served under him, the prince had urged them not to quarrel and tried to befriend both subordinates, so they had to tolerate each other without quarreling. Even when patience was running out, they could limit themselves to verbal taunts at each other. Except now that there were no restrictions left, there was no reason to pretend, so even the followers of the two celestials in the world from the southeast and southwest treated each other with contempt. And between the palaces of Nanyang and Xuanzhen, there had been a long-standing feud. The two war spirits were the most obvious example of this. Fu Yao replied to Nan Feng's remark with a cold chuckle: "According to Linwen, participation in this venture is voluntary. Why should I suddenly fail?"

The expression on his face with which he said "it's voluntary" didn't add any credibility to his words. Xie Lian uttered: "I would like to clarify. You actually volunteered voluntarily? There's no need to force yourselves if you are truly unwilling to help me."

The youths once again replied with a chorus, "I volunteered."

Looking at their gloomy faces, as if they were in mourning, Xie Lian thought, "It seems like you forgot to add 'get even'."

"In a word..."

Xie Lian uttered: "Let's cut to the chase. You must have already been privy to the details of the incident in the North, so I don't see the point in explaining it again..."

Again, a coherent reply, "Not initiated."

"..."

Xie Lian had no choice but to once again take out the scroll from Linwen Palace and utter: "Well, then I guess I'll have to explain everything from the beginning after all."

According to local stories, many years ago, under Yujun Mountain, two lovers were about to get married.

The bride and groom loved each other immensely and it was time for the bride to be escorted to the groom's house, but after a long time, the procession with the bride did not show up. The groom, gripped by excitement, went in search of his beloved to the house of the bride's parents, but even there he learned from his father-in-law and mother-in-law that the procession was long on its way. The families reported the incident to the local authorities, gathered people to search for her, but nothing was found. But even if the procession was attacked by wild beasts in the mountains, at least there would be at least some traces, such as half-eaten hands or feet, where is it seen that people like that disappear into thin air? So some inevitably suspected that the bride, not wanting to get married, had bribed the procession and escaped. To everyone's surprise, a few years later, when another couple of lovers wanted to get married, the nightmare was repeated.

The bride disappeared again. But not without a trace. The search led people to a narrow path, where they found a foot that had not been eaten by an unknown monster.