"The Mother Goddess has felt your devotion and has just issued an oracle. Tomorrow, you may take a day off."
"Rember, this is not for rest but for the proper conduct of the ritual!"
The priests looked at Zhang Ze without refuting, nodding chanically, and then turned to leave according to protocol.
Their movents were more sluggish and numb than before; the human essence vanished as they began to resemble true clay statues, much like those slaves.
At this point, the priests and slaves were already mingled together, leaving through the exit of the stomach one by one. Zhang Ze counted their heads, calculating the number of sacrifices already digested, but found one person missing.
It was the man who had been watching him since his first day here.
He previously had Profound Identification watch him, but found nothing unusual except the man marking his leg, and with new discoveries taking precedence, he had put this matter aside.
Now thinking back, that man might be the key.
In so sense, that slave and the Wooden Fish Taoist were the most human-like individuals in this great stomach, besides himself...
But before he went to find that man, there was another matter to attend to.
Since he had already beco so kind of mighty dicine nad Gastric Health and Digestion Tablets, there’s no point in regrets; he might as well increase the dosage.
Best to give this great stomach diarrhea.
He stealthily approached the fully automated rit Machine, adjusted a few levers and volus, tampered with the assembly line, and added so extra material into one module.
After all was set, Zhang Ze departed from the area of this great stomach.
...
At the alveoli area.
While Zhang Ze pondered about Li Yu, Li Yu was also thinking of him.
Li Yu crouched in the corner of his room, stealthily peeking through the window to the outside.
He was extrely anxious.
Because he hadn’t attended the ritual for two days.
If you count from when that assembly line started, he had secretly slipped to the back of the crowd without being noticed.
Feeling safe in the last row for two consecutive cycles, Li Yu’s courage grew larger.
He put away the scripture, not reading it for half a day, yet nothing happened.
No sense of being watched, no priests pulling him out of the stone chamber, no divine punishnt from the Great Mother Goddess.
Everything was as usual, as if this was indeed the order of the world.
Only at that mont, Li Yu suddenly realized many things.
The outside wasn’t chaos as the scripture described; it seed to be a world out there where...
He was unclear about what was out there. Fragnts zipped through his mind but left no trace, like fleeting glimpses.
He strived to grasp those fragnts, and after nurous attempts, he finally succeeded.
Li Yu sat up from the stone bed, crossed his legs awkwardly, and overlapped his hands at his Dantian, blushing as if his first ti practicing breathing exercises years ago.
After a while, he felt the Qi again, and with it, he recalled more things.
Spells weren’t a taboo but tools for a cultivator.
As mories gradually awoke, he recalled his childhood.
People had fathers.
He had a father, though he couldn’t recall what he looked like or if he was kind.
He only rembered being a child, seeing a cultivator from afar flying across the sky on Qi, and desiring to be like him.
Later, he stole money from ho and ran away, seeking the immortal path.
However, the immortal path was hard to find. After many trials over the years, he finally embarked on the path of cultivation.
He was dull and had no master to guide him, fearful of being targeted for his talents, he hid in the mountains. He lived there for half a month, nearly starving, before he sensed a wisp of Spiritual Qi.
It was then he realized that Spiritual Qi filled this world.
Yet when he excitedly returned ho, he found everything had changed.
The ho was gone.
The broken courtyard had collapsed, a small tree growing through the house, breaking windows, pushing tiles askew, greedily seeking sunlight.
The yard was overgrown with weeds, wild grass taller than the millstone, taller than the courtyard walls.
Outside the village, there were two new graves.
And though he gained the ability to wield Spiritual Qi, it seed he had nothing else left...
Li Yu awoke abruptly, realizing he could not continue this line of thought; the consequences would be dire.
But more alarming was during ditation, he instinctively marked two more scratches on his leg.
Indicating two more days had passed.
And that he hadn’t attended the ritual in two days.
What would happen?
Li Yu didn’t know; the joy of regaining partial mory had faded, and he climbed down from the bed to hide beneath the window, occasionally peeking outside.
Just as he started feeling slightly relieved, a voice suddenly sounded behind him.
"Who exactly are you, mate?"
Zhang Ze sat on the heated platform, looking at Li Yu’s back.
...
Celestial Sect.
Chen Qianhu held his daughter’s hand, standing beneath the mountain gate, looking at the Celestial Sect’s ancestral gateway as if unearthed from Dongqi’s ancient tomb, feeling a sudden impulse to return ho.
But thinking about Zhang Ze... mainly about his daughter, Chen Qianhu bit the bullet and stepped inside.
So things, so people, are unrelated to cultivation or status.
If you don’t want to see, you just don’t want to see.
So annoying...
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