There are gods three feet above your head. Lu Bian had already verified that for himself.
Mountains had mountain gods, the earth had its land gods, and the waters had water gods.
Though each was a god of their own little patch, their powers were pitifully weak. Even mortals could call them petty gods, and when they encountered a demon even slightly more powerful, they could only hide underground and bury their heads like ostriches.
The demons ran wild and committed evil in their own territories, but the mountain and land gods could do nothing about it. The petty gods of the Heavenly Court couldn't ascend to it; all they could do was hope that some great deity would pass by one day and help drive off the demons.
Lu Bian realized that the mountain and land gods seemed to regard him as just such a great deity.
He continued eastward. Whenever there was a mountain god's shrine or a land god's shrine nearby, the Earth-Shrinking Jade Talisman in his arms would give him a faint prompt, hoping he would go over and take a look.
Lu Bian would always visit the little land god's shrine, sweeping it clean for the helpless land and mountain gods. He cleared away the dust, fallen leaves, spiderwebs, and whatever else had gathered inside, leaving the shrine clean.
In return, the land and mountain gods filled his Old Gourd with wine they had brewed themselves. It was the only thing they had to offer.
Whenever the Earth-Shrinking Jade Talisman rang out with a crisp "Ding~!", Lu Bian knew he could ask the local mountain or land god to use the Earth-Shrinking Technique to bring him to the shrine before him.
Since obtaining the Earth-Shrinking Jade Talisman, Lu Bian had used the Earth-Shrinking Technique once or twice.
The map the old master of the Gao family had given him could no longer guide him. Now Lu Bian found his way by watching the sun during the day and the stars at night, using the heavens to guide his path.
Those two times he used the Earth-Shrinking Technique to return to a land god's shrine were because he had lost his way and gone in the wrong direction. He had no choice but to return to the previous shrine and set off again.
A man and a donkey traveled through the desolate mountains and wilderness. A month later, he entered the territory of the Great Song...
Great Song,
Lu Bian couldn't remember much about the Song dynasty's history.
Though this was a world after Journey to the West, with the Great Song following the prosperous Tang, there was no guarantee that the Song history of Lu Bian's original world matched this "Great Song."
Tang Xuanzang's Tang Taizong, Li Shimin, from Journey to the West had lived several years longer than the Li Shimin of Lu Bian's original world.
Lu Bian didn't want to dwell on the matter.
Since he had crossed into this world, he would adapt and make a life here.
Things that had happened in the history of his original world might not happen in this one. They were only possibilities, however likely.
Immortals, demons, Buddhas, and devils—some strange things were bound to come along and cause trouble.
Lu Bian didn't think he needed to worry over what might happen.
He would see what this Great Song was like first...
Bianjing was the capital of the Great Song.
Once he entered a civilized region thick with people, the roads became smooth and spread out in every direction. Lu Bian and his donkey reached the Great Song's most prosperous capital with ease, and he spent his first winter and New Year in the Song State without a hitch.
He had traveled all the way from Gao Family Town to the Great Song, and the journey had turned traveling into a skill for Lu Bian. He quickly crossed more than half the Great Song's territory and reached its capital, Bianjing.
After entering the Song State, Lu Bian had a lot to consider, such as his household registration and identity.
Magnetic-field power could twist the thoughts and memories of people weaker than oneself. Lu Bian used his magnetic-field power at the Ninth Heaven level to get the Song officials to sort out his registration and identity, making him a local of the capital, Bianjing.
Lu Bian: [Friends, I'm a capital native now too. Take a look at my new home in Tokyo.]
Lu Bian: [Why is nobody replying?]
Shi Tianwu: [Good fortune to you, capital native.]
Lu Bian: [Brother Tianwu knows how to show a guy respect. Good fortune to you too, leader of the Silver Capital.]
The members of the Chat Group gradually discovered that time flowed at different rates in their respective worlds.
When they were all online and chatting together, the flow of time for the group members would temporarily synchronize. Once they logged off, time in each of their worlds went its own way again.
Lu Bian had taken more than half a year to reach the Great Song. At the moment, time in Lu Bian's world was flowing faster than in the worlds of the other group members.
However, the world that had originally had the fastest time flow was Shi Tianwu's.
The speed of time held no meaning for Shi Tianwu, who had complete control over it. He simply manipulated time in his own world until it synchronized with the flow in Lu Bian's, making it easier to guide Lu Bian's magnetic-field cultivation.
With time synchronized to Lu Bian's, Shi Tianwu was always the first to reply whenever Lu Bian sent a message in the group.
Shi Tianwu: [Honestly, I can hardly believe you're living in ancient times now, Lu Bian.]
Lu Bian: [Yeah, I can hardly believe it either.]
The prosperity of Bianjing was beyond anything Lu Bian had imagined.
When he had studied in high school, his history textbook had described the Song as a feudal dynasty. The points tested on the exam had been the Song's handicrafts, the prosperity of its commodity economy, and the development of its thought and technology. But the Great Song Lu Bian now saw, after Journey to the West, had shaken him to the core.
This was nothing like the "Song" I knew!
Cut it off! Cut it off!
Lu Bian chose to fling his "stereotyped impression" of the Song out of his head.
Bianjing was also called Dongjing, and Lu Bian preferred to call this unfamiliar yet familiar capital of the Great Song by that name.
On his journey east, Lu Bian had seen plenty of villages and towns. He had passed through many cities after entering the Great Song, but Dongjing was the place with the highest standard of living he had ever seen.
Dongjing's streets crisscrossed like a chessboard, its buildings laid out neatly and sensibly. Its waterways were convenient and well developed. Trade through its ports brought together a dazzling, countless array of goods from every country and region, then sent them back out again. The crowds thronged, with scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants all busy with their own work...
While eating at an inn, Lu Bian overheard people at the next table chatting. One of them was bragging that although the Great Song's territory was only a third the size of the Former Tang's, its national strength had already far surpassed that of the prosperous Tang.
The Liao Kingdom to the north had allied with the Great Song. Western Xia in the northwest was powerless against the Song-Liao alliance. They were living in a happy age of prosperity, so what was there to worry about?
Lu Bian began to worry.
The locals in Dongjing were busy singing the Great Song's praises. Lu Bian could tell at a glance that the man had never even traveled a hundred li beyond the city.
Some questions were old hat. Lu Bian only mulled them over in his head and didn't say them aloud.
What interested Lu Bian more was the true scriptures brought back by the four pilgrims—Tang Monk and his companions.
In the twenty-seventh year of Zhenguan in the Former Tang, Tang Xuanzang had returned to Chang'an with the true scriptures. The Great Song's prosperity now seemed to be the result of the changes that followed their return.
By Lu Bian's reckoning, the people of this Song State enjoyed one of the highest standards of living of any ancient dynasty. He had found a way to confirm it indirectly: the begging bowls of the beggars by the roadside were full every day.
This Song State was in a flourishing age when even a beggar with nothing to their name could eat their fill every day.
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