“In my eyes, mortals possess infinite potential.”
The Divine Lady’s voice was as clear and resonant as a phoenix’s cry from the Ninth Heaven, echoing in everyone’s ears. “Follow me.”
She lightly flicked Her wide sleeves.
Accompanied by the soft chime of a bell...
A shimmering screen of light manifested atop the ritual altar.
Seeing the crowd captivated by the light screen, Yun Shu subtly signaled the invisible system standing nearby.
She asked if everything was ready.
To put on this performance today, she had specifically spent 30,000 Shock Value yesterday to upgrade the Floating Dream Set by one level.
Now, the Dream-Entering skill of the Floating Dream Set could be used twice before entering a forty-eight-hour cooldown. Furthermore, the dreams were more realistic, even including the sense of touch.
She was responsible for pulling everyone into the dream with the Dream-Entering Bell, while the system, just like last time, was responsible for controlling the dream’s scenery.
The little fox’s paws tapped rapidly on the system panel before it. After a series of crisp clicking sounds, it raised a furry paw and gave Yun Shu an “OK” gesture.
Seeing the system’s gesture, Yun Shu felt much more at ease.
She lightly rang the Dream-Entering Bell.
The chime rippled outward like waves on water.
“Six hundred years ago, the people of the world only farmed the fertile plains. No one dared to go into the mountains to reclaim land and grow grain.”
“But as the population grew day by day, the flat lands were no longer enough to sustain everyone.”
The crowd was suddenly swept into a desolate mountain wilderness.
Thorns grew thick all around, and jagged rocks were scattered everywhere.
A dark-skinned old farmer was crouching on a hillside, his rough, large hands clutching a handful of wild rice.
The people saw that the farmer did not complain. Instead, he chose to stack stones and mound earth level by level on the hillside.
One level, two levels, ten levels, a hundred... he carried every single stone for those embankments up from the foot of the mountain on his back.
The stones rubbed his shoulders raw.
They scabbed over, only to be rubbed raw again.
Finally, they turned into a thick layer of calluses.
The villagers all mocked him: “Planting rice on a mountain? I’m afraid you won’t even get your seeds back when the time comes.”
He ignored them.
In the first year, most of the rice seedlings were washed away by heavy rain.
In the second year, he learned to dig drainage ditches.
In the third year, a mountain flood broke out. It was the stone embankments he had built that blocked the mudslides and saved the village below.
“He spent twenty years turning a barren mountain into a thousand mu of terraced fields. The people of the world suddenly realized that grain could also be grown on mountains, and that poor land could also sustain life.”
As the Divine Lady’s words fell, golden waves of rice swayed in the wind, leading straight to the clouds like a staircase.
The old farmer stood at the highest point, his face lined with deep furrows, smiling even more brightly than the ears of rice.
Beside the Divine Lady, a group of farmers who relied on the land for their livelihood tremblingly reached out to touch those waves of rice.
“Five hundred years ago, the world looked down on scholars. Academies were abandoned, and those who read books were seen as useless.”
The vision before everyone went dark again. When it brightened once more, they were standing inside a dilapidated academy.
Rain leaked through the roof, and cracks had opened in the walls, allowing the piercing cold wind to pour in.
A teacher dressed in an old robe sat upright on a worn prayer mat, with only three young children before him.
The people saw this teacher rise every day before dawn, using a tree branch to teach the children to read in a sand tray.
Having no paper or brushes, he went into the mountains to cut bamboo, splitting them into bamboo slips and carving characters stroke by stroke with a knife.
Someone tried to persuade him with good intentions, “In these times, what use is reading? You’d be better off farming.”
The teacher only shook his head. “If the land is not farmed well, one season is wasted. If the human heart goes to waste, a lifetime is lost.”
He taught for forty years.
Of those three children, one later became an incorruptible official, one opened an academy, and one wrote books to establish his philosophy.
Before he passed away, the teacher sat on that prayer mat in the academy, with three hundred students now seated before him.
“The disciples he taught are spread throughout the world,” the Divine Lady said, Her expression cold and detached. “After his death, the locals spontaneously erected a monument for him, upon which only four words were carved: Civilization Resides Here.”
A group of literate scholars knelt on the ground, bowing deeply toward the teacher on the prayer mat.
“Four hundred years ago, in the region of Wu and Yue, the first stone arch bridge without central pillars appeared.”
“Its creator was merely an ordinary carpenter.”
Everyone was transported to a nameless small town.
The entire town was built along a river, but the riverbed was too narrow and the bridge was too old. Every rainy season, transportation would be cut off.
A young carpenter stood by the river, a roll of yellowed blueprints in his hand.
The people saw that he first spent three years drawing blueprints, and the discarded paper piled up nearly half as high as a man.
The people in town all said he was mad. “The river is so wide. Without pillars, how can a bridge stand?”
He did not explain. He only silently went up the mountain to gather stone, chiseling and grinding them piece by piece.
His hands went from being covered in blood blisters to being thick with calluses. His apprentices came and went in waves, but he was the only one who never left.
In the seventh year, the first arch stone was set in place.
In the tenth year, the final keystone was hammered in by him.
That day, the entire town came out.
They watched as the bridge spanned steadily across both banks. Even though there wasn't a single central pillar, it could support three ox carts passing at once.
“He understood no immortal arts, yet with a chisel and a ruler, he calculated the equilibrium between heaven and earth.”
The Divine Lady spoke.
In the crowd, those craftsmen who had long suffered from being looked down upon knelt on the ground, secretly wiping away their tears.
“Three hundred years ago, the imperial court banned maritime trade, and the merchant routes were cut off. Southern tea, silk, and other goods could not be sent out, while northern horses, furs, and other items could not be brought in.”
Everyone felt as if they had walked into a world of swirling wind and snow.
On a winding ancient path, a camel caravan was struggling forward, led by a middle-aged merchant.
The people saw this merchant do something that no one else dared to do.
He led his caravan across the vast snowy mountains.
He was attempting to open a new trade route.
The accompanying workers were all shivering from the cold.
Someone urged him to turn back, but he said firmly, “Over this mountain lies the way to survive!”
An avalanche buried his caravan.
He gritted his teeth and dug them out, continuing on.
When the horses collapsed, he carried the goods on his own back.
On the thirteenth day, they crossed the final mountain ridge, and the view before them suddenly opened up.
A vast prairie appeared at their feet.
In the distance, curls of cooking smoke rose into the air.
“He spent three full years opening that trade route that had been sealed by heavy snow for centuries.”
“From then on, goods from the north and south could be exchanged, and the towns along the way became prosperous due to the arrival of merchants.”
Numerous merchants knelt down one after another, striking their heads heavily three times toward the ancestor who had opened the trade route.
The Divine Lady flicked Her sleeve once more, and everyone returned to the ritual altar.
“The wisdom of mortals goes far beyond this.”
“What is called potential does not lie in being born with extraordinary talent, but in doing the impossible, in daring to command the sun and moon to bring a new day.”
“I was born into this world when heaven and earth first opened. Over tens of thousands of years, I have seen countless living beings.”
“Only in mortals have I seen this kind of potential—the ability to turn impossible things into possibilities.”
“For this reason, I did not hesitate to wager my ten thousand years of cultivation against the Weaver Girl, betting that you will surely win against the heavens!”
【Pei Du Shock Value +100】
【Shen Yu Shock Value +100】
【Shen Jue Shock Value +100】
【...】
【Current Shock Value: 156,000】
There was a dead silence below the altar.
Everyone stared blankly at the Divine Lady and the strangely shaped spinning machine beside Her, their hearts filled with a complex mix of emotions.
None of them had expected that the Divine Lady would actually wager Her own cultivation against the Weaver Girl just to stand up for mortals.
The Divine Lady’s voice was as clear as a spring.
“If a hundred spinning machines can be built here and a thousand bolts of fine cloth can be woven, then I shall be considered the winner.”
“I must remind you that this spinning machine is, after all, an object of the Heavenly Palace. If mortals wish to comprehend its mysteries, they will surely suffer a backlash—ranging from injury and disability to death.”
“Now, is there anyone willing to take up this heavy responsibility?”
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