Legends

The Koi King swam gently along the riverbed, carefully observing its surroundings as it went.

"Have all the people in this village already starved to death?"

The Koi King had come to Lin Household Village first.

In the past, quite a few of its clansfolk had undergone their tribulation here, and many had survived.

To it, this place could be considered a blessed land.

Yet now, after coming here and looking around, it discovered that everyone in the village had actually died, and the entire village had fallen into ruin.

Damaged houses stood everywhere, their interiors thick with cobwebs, while a heavy layer of dust covered the broken tables and chairs.

At the sight, the Koi King's heart sank.

It did not want the people of this village to simply starve to death like this.

Judging by past patterns, if its children underwent their tribulation here, their chances of survival would still be quite high.

"Mother..."

Just as the Koi King was roaming around, a silver koi swam swiftly over.

Frightened by her surroundings, she quickly pressed close to her mother's body.

"What is it?"

Seeing its second daughter, the Koi King could not help asking softly.

"Mother, why do we have to undergo that Human Tribulation? Those members of the Human Race have almost all become food for the various members of the Demon Race now, yet we still have to rely on them to survive this tribulation..."

Silver Scale was timid. At the thought of losing all her Law Power during the tribulation and then being left at others' mercy to be cooked and eaten, her tail could not help trembling with fear.

"Ah."

Hearing this, the Koi King fell silent for a moment before saying, "Your mother isn't too sure about this either. There are only a few legends."

"Legend has it that in High Antiquity, the Human Race had a Human Sovereign who could stand as an equal to the immortals in heaven. Our Demon Race was weak, and many immortals in heaven flew the banner of slaying demons when their true intent was to gain merit by killing members of our Demon Race."

"In those days, our Demon Race was slaughtered until we spent every day hiding here and there. Later, the Human Sovereign intervened and sheltered our Demon Race. The Heavenly Dao acknowledged the Human Race's great kindness, and from then on, the Demon Race had to undergo this Human Tribulation."

"Another legend says that humans are the highest of all living things, the elder siblings of all creatures, with the duty to oversee them and act on their behalf, and thus have the authority to pass judgment on the Demon Race."

"There is also a legend that says the Demon Race is the most evil by nature, and must therefore undergo the Human Tribulation to wear away that evil nature."

There were many legends, but it no longer knew which was true. It only knew that all members of their Demon Race had to undergo this ordeal.

Silver Scale fell silent as she listened to these legends. There were too many versions of the story. How could anyone tell which was true and which was false?

The Koi King continued swimming forward with its second daughter. It remembered another village up ahead, one that was actually quite good too.

If they underwent their tribulation there, they would have some chance of surviving. If it pulled a few strings as well, those chances would increase a little.

These places were all a little better than the others. Members of the Demon Race occupied the other places now, and if they discovered that the koi clan was undergoing the Human Tribulation, there would be serious trouble.

The Demon Race was not all that harmonious among itself.

Devouring one another to increase their cultivation was extremely common.

"Now that I've changed books, reading through one once seems much more effective than before."

An Weiyan stood beneath the plaque bearing the words "Bright Mirror Hanging High," examined how brightly it shone, and made this remark.

He had no way of directly sensing how much change each reading brought him.

He could only come beneath this plaque and check how brightly it shone.

With a poetry collection, the effects of repeated recitation seemed to diminish gradually. But with a new collection, or some other exquisite piece of writing, the first reading had the best effect.

"I just wonder, if I give a poetry collection I've already read once to someone else to recite, will it work as well as my first reading?"

At this thought, An Weiyan could not help pondering for a moment. But after thinking it over carefully, he felt it was probably unlikely.

If the effects were that pronounced for everyone, scholars should have been walking around everywhere here.

Still, no matter what, he really did feel that his vision had become clear and sharp lately.

Sometimes, when he looked in the mirror, he could even see that his eyes in the reflection were dark and luminous.

Those eyes alone added considerably to An Weiyan's looks, as though a single pair of eyes had saved an entire face.

Previously, his looks had been around a seven, not much different from an ordinary face in the crowd.

But now, his looks were at least a nine.

And with his current bearing added in, giving him a full ten would not have been excessive.

An Weiyan straightened his clothes and strode out of the yamen.

Outside the yamen, fires were already being lit.

An Weiyan glanced around. The commoners working the fields outside had not returned yet.

They had endured hard lives for far too long in the past, so the people who went out to till the fields could generally be seen leaving very early.

And when it was time to eat, they only returned very late.

The main thing was that everyone received the same portion of food each time. No one got less, and no one got more.

The commoners sat gathered in the distance, craning their necks to look this way.

Rice was poured into the pots and set to boil over high flames.

A little while later, faint traces of fragrance began wafting through the air.

"Sir."

Just as An Weiyan, after standing there for a moment, was about to head back, a carpenter suddenly hurried forward and called out to stop him.

"What is it?"

An Weiyan turned back and asked, looking at the carpenter before him with some puzzlement.

"Sir, almost all the houses in Linbei County are badly damaged. Before, we still had some timber left, or could tear down the east wall to patch up the west, but now quite a few villagers have arrived from elsewhere, and there isn't enough timber."

"Sir, should we have those woodcutters go up the mountain and cut down some more trees to bring back...?"

The carpenter asked with a deeply cautious expression.

He did not dare tell the woodcutters to do this himself. Going up the mountain was dangerous. If anything happened, someone would certainly blame him.

But if the official gave the order, it would have nothing to do with him.

"Up the mountain? But it's dangerous up there..."

As An Weiyan said this, he suddenly remembered that these very woodcutters had risked their lives to cut down and bring back the golden-thread nanmu.

At that thought, he could not help frowning.

"Sir, then tomorrow I'll take the others up the mountain and cut down some big trees to bring back."

Just as An Weiyan was thinking this, the woodcutter from before stepped out with several others and spoke.

"But it's dangerous up the mountain..."

He had come down from that mountain before, after all, and had nearly been eaten by that female ghost back then. Only by experiencing it firsthand could one know just how dangerous the mountain was.

And aside from the female ghost, there were also the jackals, wolves, tigers, and leopards, to say nothing of anything else.