Geniuses Remember Love in One Second ÷ Little? You will be provided with splendid novels to read.
These words caused many of the customers in the tea house to roar with laughter. Everyone shook their heads and felt proud. It was as if beating back the tax officials of the imperial court was a great honor for them. [Love ↑ Little ↑ Little ↑ Say ↑ Little]
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While laughing, they looked at Li Yao as if they were looking at a mentally challenged child.
Li Yao had a lot of words that he wanted to say to the ordinary people who were dark, skinny, and had scabies all over their body because of long-term malnutrition. They were a completely different species from the Cultivators.
However, under their gazes, Li Yao thought for a long time and did not know where to start.
After leaving the tea house, under the guidance of the teacher, he went to visit the local temples that were said to be popular.
Along the Sorcerers' River, theocracy was very important. There were a lot of temples, temples, and ancestral halls in the towns, villages, and even in the forests deep inside the mountains.
However, the places where the gods were worshiped were mostly not the groundless deities but the Cultivators who had sacrificed themselves heroically in the operations to slay evil.
It was said that after the Cultivators perished, their souls would not perish. As long as they were worshiped by the incense, they would still protect the safety of the local people.
Therefore, after the Cultivators of the Stone Martial Hall died, those who had a high Cultivation and a high social status would establish their own temples. Even the low-level Cultivators who were not strong enough would be assigned to the ancestral halls so that they could enjoy the incense forever.
Every village in the area had more than one temple or ancestral hall. They were often the most magnificent buildings in the village, with blue bricks, white tiles, stone lions, and bronze gates. They were a sharp contrast to the low, shabby huts nearby.
Inside every temple or ancestral hall, the souls of three to five Cultivators were enshrined.
It was the most sought-after item. Whenever a Cultivator of the Stone Martial Hall perished, all the villages nearby would compete for it. Everybody would offer the most generous terms, hoping to summon the hero's soul to their own village.
The number of heroic spirits worshipped was the symbol of a village's strength!
In the temple that Li Yao visited, four Cultivators were worshipped, including an elder and a leader of the Stone Martial Hall. It was known to be the Four Saints Temple. It was said that it was the largest temple in the surrounding villages. No wonder the villagers said that the place was full of incense and was very efficacious.
Inside the Four Saints Temple, the clay idols of four Cultivators had been painted with gold powder. A few glittering, colorful rune arrays had also been carved on them, making them look rather vivid. If the ignorant villagers saw them at night, it would not be strange at all that they thought that they were the souls of the heroes.
A few bronze plates were carved with the stories of the Cultivators, especially the reasons for their demise.
Li Yao took a closer look. The three cultivators had all been killed while fighting ferocious beasts in the forest. The Sect Leader, who was at the peak of the Building Foundation Stage, had been killed by a powerful evil cultivator who had fled to the local area.
Li Yao did not know what to say about the stories of their demise.
Obviously, a Cultivation sect could not make a living off the taxes collected from the surrounding villages. If they wanted to cultivate themselves, they had to go deep into the mountains and forests to hunt spirit beasts and demon beasts for their flesh and blood, spiritual cores, and demon cores. Then, they had to excavate all kinds of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures and crystals. That was the foundation of a Cultivation sect.
Therefore, the Stone Martial Hall had gone into the mountains to slay evil because it was necessary for the sect's survival and development. It was not purely 'serving justice'.
But objectively speaking, it was true that the Cultivators had been fighting for living space fearlessly against the monsters and wolves for hundreds of years. That was why they had opened up a land where the ordinary people could barely survive.
When the monsters and tigers went on a rampage, or when the evil cultivators from other places snuck in, the 'deities' of the Stone Martial Hall never hesitated, either.
Therefore, when asked whether or not the Cultivators of the Stone Martial Hall had made any contributions to the ordinary people here, Li Yao found it impossible to say 'no' shamelessly.
A Cultivator of the Stone Martial Hall can't look more disgusting if he is so arrogant and disdainful of the ordinary people today.
But chances are that he will unfortunately be killed in a battle with the monsters in the mountains tomorrow!
"Subjectively speaking, of course, he did it purely for his own cultivation. He only went to collect Monster Cores, Beast Bones, and all kinds of spiritual herbs. He didn't consider the interests of the common people at all. But objectively speaking, he did sacrifice his life to protect the people and make a small contribution!"
Is such an ancient Cultivator a good guy or a bad guy?
For a moment, Li Yao could not figure out the answer to the question.
Besides, did the ancient Cultivator really not consider the interests of the ordinary people at all?
The Cultivators of the Stone Martial Hall were mostly from the surrounding villages. They were all locals.
Many of the Cultivators' mothers and three-year-old children were ordinary people who all lived in the area.
Once the ferocious beasts and devils did go on a rampage in packs, the families of the Cultivators would certainly suffer a catastrophe, too.
When the Cultivators were slaying the monsters in the forests, did they really only consider their own interests and did not have the slightest feelings of 'defending their hometown'?
Humans were not plants and could not be emotionless. How could the world be judged by simple 'right' and 'wrong'?
Li Yao secretly sighed. After hesitating for a long time, he finally bowed deeply to the four ancient Cultivators represented by the four clay idols as a modern Cultivator and greeted them in his heart respectfully, Seniors!
No matter what, the ancient Cultivators represented the history of the civilization of mankind and the past of all the modern Cultivators.
How could there be a future without a past?
When he was about to turn around and leave, Li Yao noticed a detail.
In front of the four clay idols were dozens of plates of offerings such as roast chicken, steamed pork, steamed buns, dried meat, and so on.
Li Yao knew that, with the poverty of the villagers here, they could not even afford millet porridge. Roast chicken, steamed pork, steamed buns, and so on were the ultimate delicacies that they did not even want to eat during the New Year.
There was no telling how much effort and sincerity the villagers had gone through to purchase the offerings for the four clay idols!
However, the offerings were slowly rotting in front of the clay idols and eventually fell into the hands of the pests.
Outside of the temple, a few children who looked like beggars with unkempt hair and dirty faces were standing on their tiptoes and staring at the offerings while drooling. They watched the roast chicken and steamed pork rotting bit by bit, but they did not have the courage to step forward and lick them.
Li Yao heard the rumbling of the children's stomachs.
The fondness for the ancient Cultivators that had just arisen in his heart was suppressed again.
At this moment, another round of crying came over from the village outside. The crying seemed to be contagious. Very soon, the entire village, and even quite a few nearby villages, were drowned by the cries.
When Li Yao walked out of the temple, he discovered that almost a hundred white flags had been raised in the entire village. Many villagers were wearing mourning clothes as if they were familiar with the situation.
"The day before yesterday, Elder Lei of the Stone Martial Hall led twenty newly-promoted deities into the mountain for a trial. Unfortunately, they alarmed a weird boa that had been lurking below the ground for decades and was about to evolve into a dragon. Elder Lei and six newly-promoted deities perished. Perished!"
Inside the hundreds of square kilometers around the entire Stone Martial Town, explosions were echoing nonstop. Everybody was crying.
…
Li Yao spent a day tracking and executing the weird boa that had a red tumor on its head. He also dug out the dead bodies of Elder Lei and three other Cultivators in the Refinement Stage from its abdomen. Collecting them carefully, he placed them at the intersection of three roads at the foot of the mountain when nobody was around at night.
After bowing to them three times, he finally returned to his boat at the dock of the Sorcerers' River with complicated feelings.
Then, he went east and observed the towns along the river. But he dropped the arrogance of a modern civilization and viewed the problem from the perspective of the locals.
The Great River flowed eastward, and the ten to twenty cities and towns behind it were almost the same. With the Cultivation Sects as the center, the cities and towns expanded outwards. The Cultivators were indeed lofty and arrogant existences that were above the imperial power.
However, the landscape in the middle and upper reaches of the Sorcerers' River was almost the same as that around the Stone Martial Town. The mountains were high, the forests were dense, and there were a lot of ferocious beasts and devils. Without the fights between the Cultivators and the devils, the ordinary people couldn't have survived at all.
If Li Yao had been a local farmer, what could he have done when faced with the ferocious devils and tigers except to place all his hopes on the 'deities'?
If Li Yao had been a local Cultivator, he probably would not have felt guilty about such a relationship at all. Instead, he would have felt that he was protecting the safety of the people. Wasn't it only natural that the people worshipped, worshiped, and revered him when he was at risk of death every day?
But such a logic could not be explained at all!
Several days later, they finally sailed out of the zigzagging Sorcerers' River and entered the hills and plateaus in the middle and lower reaches of the Sorcerers' River.
After they reached this place, they gradually entered the prosperous southeast of the Great Qian Dynasty, where the spiritual energy was most intense. The development had been significantly improved. Naturally, there were fewer primitive forests, devils, tigers, and leopards.
The hills and farmlands in this place had been made full use of. It was hard to find a desolate land the size of a fingernail.
After a thousand years of merger and accumulation, most of the farmlands and forests belonged to the local magnates, who then rented them to the farmers for farming.
The magnates, on the other hand, were often attached to a certain Cultivation sect. Many of the 'farmlands' with abundant spiritual energy in the best quality belonged to the Cultivation sect directly. It was impossible that they would fall into the hands of ordinary people.
The land here was sparse and crowded. Every inch of land was worth its weight in gold. The territories of most of the Cultivation sects were deeply entangled.
Therefore, the greatest enemies of the Cultivation sects in the middle and lower reaches of the Sorcerers' River were no longer the devils and tigers but other Cultivation sects!
In this place, Li Yao witnessed the competition between two Cultivation sects for the first time.
Led by almost ten Building Foundation Stage Cultivators, almost a hundred Refinement Stage Cultivators, holding the banners of their respective sects, crashed into each other brutally like two packs of infuriated tigers and wolves. Their sabers and swords were deadly and soul-stealing. There was no respect for their fellow Cultivators at all.
After only half an hour of fighting, three Building Foundation Stage Cultivators and more than twenty Refinement Stage Cultivators had perished.
As for the reason, it wasn't because of some peerless divine ability, nor was it because of some heavenly material or earthly treasure. It was actually because of a cow, an ordinary cow!
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I'm sorry, everyone. I went to the postoperative examination with my wife today and did not come back until the afternoon. That's why my update is late.
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