Someone's Raided Your Home While You're Away

The Moonlight Clan's Vanguard Squad members who had gone inside knew nothing of this, but even if they had known, they clearly wouldn't have cared.

They simply couldn't spare it any attention. They really couldn't.

Because at this moment, they had eyes only for their god.

Several thousand members of the Moonlight Clan's Vanguard Squad stood before Wuma Xiu.

Not one of them had looked away from the silver-white figure before them for even an instant.

They had all turned into stone statues.

Their silver-white robes hung down to the ground.

The hands that had held weapons, slain enemies, and survived who knew how many bloody battles now hung at their sides, not a fingertip trembling. Even their breathing had been subdued to its softest and slowest, for fear that a breath too heavy would disturb him.

Wuma Xiu looked them over and asked,

"Why isn't anyone talking?"

The stone statues collectively stiffened.

What were they supposed to say?

How were they supposed to say it?

Besides, stone statues couldn't think.

"Is this your first time seeing me? Do you think I'm different from the Moon God you imagined?"

Wuma Xiu paused, his silver-white lashes lowering to conceal the faint, almost amused glint in his eyes.

"So you have nothing to say?"

That one sentence.

To these Moonlight Clan members, it was an absolute killing blow.

It pierced everyone's heart with a single sword, then gave it half a twist for good measure.

The stone statues came to life.

The Moonlight Clan members all moved at once, some shaking their heads, others waving their hands.

One shook his head so vigorously that his long silver-white hair whirled like a windmill.

Another waved so frantically that he nearly slapped the companion beside him.

The formation that had been frozen like stone statues moments ago was now a pot of porridge boiled into chaos by moonlight.

"No, no, no!"

"God, we absolutely don't!"

"How could we dare!"

"God! It's not like that!"

Voices piled upon voices, like wave after wave rushing toward the shore, only to break halfway there. Those surging voices held only one meaning, shouted at once by thousands of mouths in thousands of ways.

No.

It's not like that.

How could you possibly be the way we imagined?

How could we be worthy of imagining you?

We aren't even qualified to imagine you, so how could we think you're different from what we imagined?

Whatever you look like, that is what the Moon God looks like.

Standing here, you are the destination of every prayer, the light we have waited for since the moment we were born.

Amid the commotion, someone finally managed to squeeze out a sentence. The instant he did, all the noise died away.

"God, we just... don't know what to say."

The speaker was a young Moonlight Clan member. Judging by his Bone Age, he was probably not even a hundred years old, making him one of the youngest in the Vanguard Squad. His face was flushed red, and so were his eyes. Not knowing where to put his hands, he could only clutch the hem of his robe, crumpling the moon-white fabric.

He dared not raise his head, and his voice grew quieter as he went on.

"And... you like peace and quiet, God. We thought we would just stand here and attend to you. That would be enough."

After saying that, he dared not speak again.

The other Moonlight Clan members dared not speak either.

The closer one drew to home, the more timid one became.

Now that they had seen their god, they, who had once feared neither heaven nor earth, were "timid as mice," seemingly liable to be startled by the slightest sound.

Wuma Xiu looked at their deeply bowed heads, the hands clutching their robes, and the way they stood there, afraid to move, like a flock of birds that had finally found their nest.

They dared not call or hop, only crouch in the nest.

Afraid that if they made a sound, they would wake from the dream.

But the young Moonlight Clan member had just mentioned the Moon God's preferences.

The Moonlight Clan had erected dozens of stone pillars specifically for that purpose.

The inscriptions on the pillars ranged from what colors the Moon God liked to how he disliked being disturbed by any sound when he was alone, as well as what the Moon God had said to them or praised on a certain day...

In short, nothing was too great or too small, and they were more devout than any religious scripture.

Those dozens of stone pillars stood at the center of the Moonlight Clan's Sacred Land.

Everyone, from the clan leader down to every newborn member, went to see them every day.

They weren't required to go; they went of their own accord, dozens of times a day, without fail.

The first thing they did when they woke in the morning was go and stand before the pillars for a while.

Before carrying out a mission, they went and stood before the pillars for a while.

After returning from a mission, they went and stood before the pillars for a while.

Before going to sleep, they went and stood before the pillars for a while again.

They had long since memorized the words engraved on the stones backward and forward, but they still went to look.

Because every time they looked, they felt a little closer to their god.

Every time they looked, they felt their day had a little more meaning.

If they hadn't each had things to take care of, it wouldn't have been out of the question for them to stay before those stone pillars all day.

Wuma Xiu reached out and gently touched the top of the head of the Moonlight Clan member nearest him.

The lucky Moonlight Clan member who received his favor had emerged.

His pupils suddenly widened, and whatever had been welling in his eyes for who knew how long finally spilled over, rolling down his cheeks.

He could not feel the warmth of that tear.

Because now, all his senses were focused on that spot atop his head.

Wuma Xiu withdrew his hand and asked,

"Tell me. In all these years I've been away... surely something must have happened."

Everyone present felt that everything that had happened today was too dreamlike to be real. Yet in their daze, they had a vague feeling that they had forgotten something.

What had they forgotten?

They couldn't quite say for the moment, but in all of heaven and earth, nothing was greater than the god before them.

Nothing else mattered.

Meanwhile, the Moonlight Clan leader, far away and waiting for them to report back on the situation.

Yuexi: Where are they? Did someone glue their legs in place today? What's taking them so long?

A certain onlooker enjoying the drama:

"Someone's raided your home while you're away, and you're still sitting here without a care.

"Tragic. Really tragic."