The Sacrifices That Actually Made It into Their Mouths

He had still come.

Li Ping'an stood above Chentang Pass, several black lines hanging over his forehead as he watched below.

A festival happened to be underway, and the streets were abuzz with voices.

Seeing the two freshly slaughtered water buffaloes mounted on wooden racks, Li Ping'an's eyes gained a hint of amusement.

Very good. This sort of sacrifice did not harm people or disrupt harmony.

Of course, considering that these livestock had families too—and perhaps their families might one day gain intelligence and take human form—such practices still deserved plenty of criticism. In the future, they should switch to wooden animal sculptures.

Li Ping'an curled his lip and shrugged.

The closer he came to the Great Dao, the more he realized that so-called individual heroism was mostly an act of hypocrisy.

Yet evil committed by an individual was true evil.

In this current mythological world, the upper limit of individual strength was extremely high, creating the effect that a single living being could interfere with the entire world. But was such interference not also the world reshaping that being's actions and beliefs?

If one viewed living beings solely from the perspective of the Great Dao, they were actually quite simple.

Living, moving, dying.

Everything else was an addition, unheard by the Great Dao.

Individual tragedies often arose from the influence of other individuals. Deception, intimidation, exploitation, oppression—these were all forms of interaction between individuals.

Heaven and earth did not concern themselves with such matters.

What heaven and earth governed was merely this place, providing living beings with an environment in which to survive.

Rites, righteousness, integrity, shame, trust, concepts of loyalty, filial piety, good and evil, and so on, all arose from humanity's social nature.

The interactions between individuals and nature, and the interactions between groups formed by individuals