Great Yin had always been winning.
After reading more than a dozen versions of the Book of Yin from cover to cover, Hong Yuan was left with only that thought.
Great Yin had always been declining, continually collapsing, yet it had always been winning.
Over eight hundred years, false gods and wicked cults, Dragon Emperors and Devil Lords, and all manner of ambitious schemers had risen one crop after another, each following on the heels of the last to plunge Great Yin into turmoil and calamity again and again.
Yet in the end, Great Yin alone always won.
Hong Yuan raised his eyebrows.
Winning for a time was nothing remarkable. Winning for eight hundred years was truly inconceivable. Great Yin's waters ran far deeper than he had imagined.
Hong Yuan felt he had been right to slow his pace and let himself settle.
He needed not only to digest the essence of martial arts, but also to use this opportunity to learn more about this world's history.
Among the powerful clans and nobility, the Book of Yin was merely a popular read, but to the middle and lower classes, it was knowledge kept under a monopoly.
As Hong Yuan pondered, he opened the Record of Calamities and Portents in his hand.
Compared with the Book of Yin, this book contained more fantastical tales of the strange, much like the Miscellaneous Records of the Bai Sea that Master Qin had left behind.
However, the Miscellaneous Records of the Bai Sea was rather scattered, swinging a hammer here and a club there, whereas the Record of Calamities and Portents chiefly recounted supernatural events in Ming Province.
Hong Yuan turned to a page that happened to concern Linjiang Prefecture.
"In the thirteenth year of Jingming, a clear spring suddenly gushed from a dry