Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way - Chapter 209: Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon

“It’s the emperor!”

In the Ouyang family residence, the young woman in a red dress had a look of absolute hatred in her eyes, and her flawless face tensed up. She looked at the three Origin Core guardians of the city, who were now merely a bloody mess on the floor, and felt a deep anger blaze within her heart. The veins on even her fair and supple arms beneath her large sleeves began to pop up tiny light snakes from how agitated she was. But her slightly trembling body and pale face exposed her terrified emotions beneath her angry exterior.

Was the emperor scary?

To her, he was. He was to be feared. You could even say he was terrifying.

But instead of being paralyzed by fear, she used the crippling fear in her heart as her motivation. She had been planning this for a few decades, and it hadn’t been easy to get to the current stage. Unfortunately, all her prior efforts had now gone to waste.

“Since that’s the case, the most important thing now is to stay alive. As long as I’m still alive, I can still make a comeback,” hissed the young woman through clenched teeth.

She then gave instructions, “Now, we have three years and five spots up for grabs. All of you can decide how to get a spot yourselves.”

With that, she left quickly.

The Equal Spirit Order was an order that believed in the equality of all living creatures.

It was clear that this was a group that was unhappy with the way the emperor of the Qin empire continued its conquest of more and more domains and swallowed up world after world, so they formed their own organization. They had been lying in wait and hid well as they continued to think of ways to overthrow this empire that was oppressing the entire universe and kill the tyrant that ruled from Xianyang.

Unfortunately, they weren’t living in a fairytale, or a novel, or a movie. Also, this wasn’t an empire led by ordinary folk.

This was a reality where cultivators, strange creatures, and countless other races existed simultaneously.

What was the reality?

The reality was that only pure strength was recognized. It was survival of the fittest, a place where the stronger ones would always dominate the weaker ones.

The Equal Spirit Order had been secretly planning for decades, and just when they were about to succeed, the emperor casually put a stone like that on the board. The Order was now forced to kill each other within the next three years. They couldn’t even just keep a low profile and live quietly.

That was what it meant to have power. That was reality.

So-called righteousness, kindness, and good people – to a world where cultivators lived, a spiritual stone was worth more than any of these.

One only had manners when their stomachs were filled. One only obeyed the law when their survival was guaranteed.

On Earth, people only rebelled when they realized that their lives were threatened. And all they really wanted was to fill their stomachs. The really ambitious ones were the ones leading such rebellions.

Why were some of them successful? There were some who claimed that it was because their movement resonated with the hearts of the people. Power to the people.

How about applying it to this universe?

Who the hell cared about the heart of the people? As long as their lives weren’t threatened, they weren’t going to rebel. That was what was really in their hearts.

Did the emperor of the Qin Empire care about the hearts of the people?

Asking this question was like asking if a person cared whether an ant lived or died.

Clearly, the answer was no.

He could ignore these ants altogether, but if some of these ants were hiding a bomb, he was happy to quash them. The reason was simple. The great Qin empire had no lack of people with a heart to survive. And it certainly didn’t lack people either.

The vast empire spanned 49 domains, thousands, and thousands of cities. Its land knew no bounds and contained so many people. A few thousand people were completely insignificant.

The Equal Spirit Order had similarities to a particular political party on Earth¹. But why did the latter succeed and the former fail? At the end of the day, it was because the Equal Spirit Order was nowhere near powerful enough to carry out its intentions.

“Young Master…” Taohua and Lihua ran frantically along the streets, and Fang Rou was tense as she did her best to protect the two girls. She had lived with them for several years now and had some attachment to them. She wasn’t going to just watch the two girls run to their deaths.

“That’s the end of the road for the three of you and me. Li Yu’s still in the arena, you can go to him.”

After Gu Suihan quietly said these words to the three girls with an indifferent look in his eyes, he turned and walked away. He had to make full use of his time and kill more people. He had to use quantity to make up for quality. That way, he’d recover faster.

A thousand people? Two thousand?

Ten thousand? Perhaps, twenty thousand?

He had no idea how many he needed and it didn’t matter. Anybody he saw was dead meat.

Everywhere his saber pointed, a violent qi would rush out and fiendish qi would float around him like an actual black cloud. He was like a venomous snake on the prowl and sent shivers down everyone’s back.

Just then, he raised an eyebrow. He turned and saw an elegant man in a plain robe and a piece of jade hanging from his belt, looking much like a Confucius scholar. The man was standing at least 300 meters away and looked completely at ease. He looked at Gu Suihan and asked, “Do you know the meaning of wind, flowers, snow and the moon?”

“Oh? Interesting.” Gu Suihan’s usually expressionless face finally lit up a little. This man seemed to be at a level no higher than Origin Core, but the way he behaved gave away clues that he was deeper in his cultivation journey than most others at his level.

In other words, this man was at a point where he was beginning to understand the laws of nature. A cultivator who could begin to understand the laws of nature at Origin Core stage was definitely a genius.

“Let me give you the answer.” Gu Suihan’s eyes glinted and a gentle yet strange smile spread across his face. “Wind comes through the mountains and over the waters to meet you face to face; flowers can fade and return to the soil yet bloom again and again; snow is the white substance on rooftops that melt when the sun rises; the moon is a witness from afar to the thousands of years past².”

“I see.” The confused look in the scholar’s eyes slowly faded and became clear. His gaze burned as he looked straight at Gu Suihan. “Thank you so much…”

“You’re welcome. Your cultivation journey has been going well, I see.” Gu Suihan smiled faintly, nodded slightly, then turned and left in a different direction.

Wind…could be wind of the highest heavens

Flower…could be the red spider lilies along the way to reincarnation

Snow…could be the snow of cold hells

Moon…could be the frosty, bright light of the night sky

Understanding the laws of nature this way was to understand the immortal and carefree aspect of these four laws. This was the Way that this scholar had chosen.

Gu Suihan could see that, and that was why he said that the scholar’s journey was going well.

Was there anybody that he wouldn’t kill? Gu Suihan smiled faintly as he went through the crowds in the city, killing everyone he went past in the blink of an eye. He ran into no resistance whatsoever. Blood spewed everywhere, staining the city with an exceptionally beautiful, dreamlike hue, even as his victims shrieked in horror.

“I…you…” Boss Zhang gripped his sword weakly as he stared in disbelief and terror at Gu Suihan. He couldn’t understand why Gu Suihan would want to kill him.

“Because…” Gu Suihan moved past him without any expression on his face, his saber slicing through Boss Zhang’s fingers and into the older man’s head. He unleashed his internal energy like a hook, fishing out Boss Zhang’s spirit and swallowing it whole.

“…you’re just food to me,” Gu Suihan finished his sentence in an emotionless voice after he had finished consuming Boss Zhang.

He kept his saber back inside its sheath.

Hundreds of people lost their lives and even their souls. Gu Suihan had gobbled everything up.

From the moment he kept that stone, he knew…the city of Fengyang had already been condemned. Or at least, to the emperor, his territory would no longer include this city.

This was giving Gu Suihan a chance, and it was also giving the Equal Spirit Order a chance. It was…a chance given to everybody.

A chance for everyone to go from being merely a stone on the board to being a player.

The emperor didn’t care who would live and who would die. He only cared about whether his opponent would give him any surprises. Whether his opponent would pose a challenge to him, a feeling he hadn’t felt for a long, long time.

“Life is like a game of Go, and vice versa. Both of us play a game with one another, but we don’t realize that…we are both stones on the board. We’re stones who think we’re players,” murmured Gu Suihan as he stood alone atop a tower and looked down.

“I must survive, and you must survive too. You must not die, you must not die…” Li Yu uttered over and over again, like he had lost his mind, as he hugged Fang Rou’s body even as it slowly went cold. Next to them, Taohua and Lihua’s cold corpses had a look of relief on their faces even as they died hugging each other.

The two maids had killed themselves.

They weren’t stupid. They had heard that majestic voice from above earlier too. The two of them had just begun their cultivation journey, so they were considered dirt to the thousands of cultivators residing in the city. In order to prevent themselves from going through a living hell, they hugged one another tightly like they were trying to keep each other warm and consumed poison after Fang Rou was severely injured.

Fang Rou had been injured by the impact from the fight between other Origin Core cultivators in her attempt to save Li Yu. The qi blast from those fights was like a sword that stabbed through her defenses and pierced her exactly through her dantian and spinal cord.

The Esteemed One living inside the ring suddenly started speaking in an annoyed voice to Li Yu, “Stop crying and whimpering. At most, I’ll draw her soul out and if you manage to survive long enough, you’d be able to help her cultivate again.”

“Really? Thank you! Thank you so much, Esteemed One!” said Li Yu excitedly even as he wept.

“But on one condition – you have to survive. I’ve taken quite a big hit this time and I need to go into hibernation, so I won’t be able to guide you anymore. You’ll have to do your best to survive,” said the Esteemed One. A red, gloomy beam of light suddenly shot out from the ring and sucked Fang Rou’s soul out before she breathed her last, and the voice spoke no more.

“Esteemed One! Esteemed One!” Li Yu started calling out in a panic. But when he realized that the ring had lost its luster completely, he stopped and pursed his lips before saying with a look of determination on his face, “I will survive this. I will make sure I survive.”

“Oho, has his inner cockroach mentality³ been activated? Things are going to get interesting.”

There was a glint in Gu Suihan’s eyes as he murmured these words, before gobbling up a few dozen more souls before him.

Author’s note: Side character 1 has appeared – it’s that scholar. (Author promised to feature two of his readers in chapter 177) Also, the explanation Gu Suihan gave of wind, flower, snow and moon was copied from a song LOLOLOLOL (ref to TL’s notes)

The Clacker’s Pop-Up Store

Today’s snack recommendation:Potato WheelsThis fried potato flour with MSG. Period. They’re also fun shaped and before you know it, you’ve eaten the entire freaking bag. MSG: off the charts.

1. TL/N: I assume he’s actually referring to the CCP, but it’s been censored in the original text (Read: Coward) ️
2. So. The phrase “wind flower snow moon” originally referred to the usual themes in ancient Chinese poetry, but later also used to refer to shitty poems that sounded fancy but didn’t carry much substance.At the same time, the phrase also referred to falling in love and/or a life of debauchery. It has negative connotations so it’s often used to describe the life of a womanizer/wastrel/bum. But here, the author has copied lyrics from a song that’s titled Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon, sung by internet singers Shan Mao (Mountain Cat) and Dan Juan (Eggroll). The lines he uses are from the very first chorus and the song explains that this phrase means that the speaker wants to be in a love relationship with the entire world. Listen to it here. While the Chinese lyrics are original, the music is actually originally a Japanese song titled Natsukoi, written/produced by Otokaze, performed by Rhyzz & Bell & Jas Mace. You can listen to that here ️
3. The original text literally says “bloodline of Xiaoqiang”, which would mean that Li Yu is a descendant of a cockroach. A Stephen Chow movie from the 1990s had Stephen Chow’s character keep a pet cockroach named Xiaoqiang, so it became a nickname for cockroaches. Someone uploaded a famous clip from the movie where Xiaoqiang gets stepped on and dies But of course, the cockroach mentality is one where basically the person can face failure and trouble again and again but never gives up. So I guess it’s more like that episode of Mythbusters where they tried to kill a bunch of roaches and failed miserably. You can watch that here ️