Chapter 27

Lan Changsheng paid them no further attention and began walking aimlessly, sensing the rate at which the Blue Silver Grass across the continent was dwindling. It had not yet exceeded its natural growth rate, so he was not worried.

The people behind him followed at a distance. Bored, he vanished in a flash.

All along the way, he pondered how humans had come to dominate the continent.

He had seen their frailty: crying out when soul beasts chased them, bowing their heads when their own kind oppressed them, becoming unrecognizable when their own greed devoured them.

Unlike soul beasts, they had neither long lifespans, talents etched deep into their bones, nor survival instincts that could never be worn away. A soul beast naturally knew how to hunt, how to hide, and how to stay alive.

Yet they had won, driving the soul beasts step by step into the depths of the forests.

This was not the first time he had considered this question. He had thought about it ten thousand years ago, when he had just brought Ah Yin along and sat at the edge of the Star Dou Great Forest to watch the sunset. In the distant fields, farmers bent over to plant rice seedlings.

Back then, he had thought: Humans are so fragile, without scales or sharp claws, their lifespans as brief as morning dew to me. In the end, they all turn into a handful of earth, not even as tall as a stalk of Blue Silver Grass. Why were they the ones who became the masters of the continent?

The question had turned over in his mind for many years. He had witnessed the golden age of soul beasts, when hundred-thousand-year soul beasts roamed the earth unchecked, dragons held dominion over the skies, and giant beasts of the deep overturned the oceans. Back then, humans still huddled in caves, smashing fruit with stones to eat.

But later, humans had built cities, founded empires, and established the soul master system, while soul beasts retreated into the Star Dou Great Forest, into the Far North, and into the depths of the sea. They became resources from which humans obtained soul rings.

If the system were to answer this question, it might say: [Because of the war in the Divine Realm, the Dragon God was killed, and human gods came to rule the world, making humans the dominant power.]

But why had the beast gods lost? How exactly had humans become the rulers of this continent?

That brought him back to the question he had just been considering.

He stopped at a market in a small town.

The market bustled, vendors' cries rising one after another. Lan Changsheng stood watching beneath an old scholar tree. No one noticed him.

There was the old woman selling vegetables, arguing with someone over a single copper coin until her face flushed red; there was the young mother holding a child, choosing vegetables while watching the child out of the corner of her eye to keep them from running off; there was the bare-chested youth in the smithy, hammering a red-hot sheet of iron into a plowshare, blow after blow, his sweat falling onto the anvil and sizzling into vapor.

Their soul power was all very low. By the laws of soul beasts, they belonged at the very bottom. They had no sharp claws, venomous fangs, scales, or wings. They could neither outrun a leopard nor defeat a wild boar. Even a single hundred-year soul beast would have been enough to slaughter an entire village.

Yet they were living, reproducing, building, trading, arguing, loving, hating, and inventing new ways to live as they went on living.

Soul beasts would not argue over a price of one copper coin, would not sweat like rain for a plowshare, and would not smile at a stranger after selling a piece of cloth and say, "Come again."

Something suddenly occurred to Lan Changsheng. Once, deep in the Star Dou Great Forest, an injured Wind Wolf soul beast had been dragged back to its den by its companions, and the other wolves had gathered around it to lick its wounds.

Humans had preserved their ways of living. Not in their bloodlines, but in writing, buildings, stories, and habits. Soul beasts lived by instinct; humans lived by what they passed down.

When a ten-thousand-year soul beast died, its lifetime ended with it. The next ten-thousand-year soul beast might have to endure the same dangers all over again.

When a human blacksmith died, his apprentice had already learned to forge plowshares; when the apprentice died, the apprentice's apprentice was still forging them; when that apprentice died, there was still someone next in line.

As Lan Changsheng left, the young mother's voice came from behind him. "Sweetie, don't run off! Come back and eat!" A three- or four-year-old child tottered back to the mother and was scooped up, giggling with dust smeared across a little face. The mother scolded, "You're filthy," then took a handkerchief from inside her clothes and carefully wiped the child clean. The child mumbled, "Mama."

Lan Changsheng paused in his steps, but he suddenly understood something.

He kept walking.

Passing through a stretch of wilderness, he saw a lone stalk of Blue Silver Grass. Around it lay scorched weeds, shattered stones, and trampled mud.

Yet a stalk of Blue Silver Grass remained. It poked its head out of a crack between the stones, half its leaf gone, the remaining half curling slightly as it absorbed the dew.

Lan Changsheng crouched and looked at it. Sensing his presence, it gently swayed its leaf, and something warm spread through its roots, telling Lan Changsheng that it was all right.

Lan Changsheng reached out and lightly touched the damaged leaf with his fingertip. The torn edges began to grow slowly, fresh green pushing out from the gaps and filling the missing parts bit by bit.

By the time Lan Changsheng stood up, the Blue Silver Grass had unfurled again, a faint blue glow shimmering over its entire body.

He kept walking. He crossed rivers and saw reeds along the water. He crossed hillsides and saw wildflowers covering the slopes. He crossed farmland and saw rows of corn and wheat. All of these were life.

They did not think, "Why am I alive?" They were life itself. When the wind came, they moved; when the rain came, they caught it; when the sun came out, they turned toward it.

Lan Changsheng closed his eyes, standing in the middle of a wheat field. Wind swept through the waves of wheat, the rustling drawing nearer from afar. Suddenly, he felt his perception expanding outward. He sensed the wind, the soil, the height of the clouds, and the direction of an underground stream deep beneath the earth.

There was an invisible thread between all things, linking him with this stalk of wheat, that stone, that stretch of sky.

He opened his eyes. He did not know what that feeling was called, but he understood one thing: humans had become the rulers of the continent not because they were the strongest. Humans had something soul beasts did not. Outside of work, they gathered to light fires, eat, sing, and quarrel. They produced the pleasures between birth and death. Soul beasts lived to stay alive.

And this, too, was part of the Law of Life, something he had never realized before. The Law of Life was not merely the two endpoints of birth and death. It was the way all things saw one another. Lan Changsheng stood just like that as the sun rose and the moon set, not knowing how many days had passed.

He opened his eyes, a faint gold glimmering deep within his silver pupils. A notification from the system appeared in his mind: [Thank you, host, for deepening your understanding of life. Mastery of the law has increased by two percent. Current mastery: twenty-three percent.]

The wind passed through the valley, and the Blue Silver Grass bent in unison, as though nodding, or perhaps waving.