Chapter 1257 — A World Without Flaw
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
A few months later, Bai Yuqiong returned to the Heavenly Court.
Hiding her features, she quietly slipped onto the Spirit Energy Transfer Bridge for the Southern Heaven. Leaving the Great Void and coming back to the Heavenly Court had been time-consuming, but from the Heavenly Court to the Southern Heaven the journey was far easier; Shen Mu had spread the Spirit Energy Transfer Bridge through every world, and with such convenient transport it was not long before Bai Yuqiong arrived. The Southern Heaven was nominally under the rule of the Red Emperor Qi Xiayu, a forest of heavens standing one upon another.
Bai Yuqiong first made for the Southern Heaven Continent where Qi Xiayu's celestial palace stood, transformed herself into a comely young maiden, and wandered about.
Her contests of wits and courage with the Nether Emperor had taught her a great deal, and she moved with the utmost caution. "Fire Heavenly Lord governs the Southern Heaven quite well. " After a first tour, she saw the people dwelling in peace and going about their work in contentment, like a pastoral idyll; no one had a heart for contention, and everywhere was a scene of harmonious joy.
Unable to suppress her delight, she began to think the less of Shen Mu's doings.
"Heavenly Lord Mu is indeed wrong, and Fire Heavenly Lord is right. The people here can live in safety, and they can also cultivate, becoming divine adepts, or even divine beings of the human race. This is a pure land.
Heavenly Lord Mu is far too extreme! " She shook her head and meant to leave, but then, as if at some ghost's prompting, she stopped and continued her wanderings, observing the lives of all living things. "After all, I have stayed here only a short time, and a glance at flowers from horseback can hardly reveal the true life of this world.
Since Heavenly Lord Mu has come so far, he must possess something extraordinary. I need to remain a few more days and discover why he bears such enmity toward Fire Heavenly Lord.
" She calmed her mind and surveyed the human civilization of the Southern Heaven with a detached eye. After several days, her expression gradually grew heavy. She witnessed the funeral rites of the Southern Heaven's humans and found them absurd beyond belief. "Even so, Fire Heavenly Lord has his reasons.
After all, the demigod races are in the ascendant now; for a human to live to sixty is already a rare achievement.
" She consoled herself.
In the other heavens, such good fortune did not exist.
She had been to the other heavens of the Primordial Realm, where people, because of harsh environments and every kind of oppression and servitude, lived only to forty or fifty. In comparison, many in the Southern Heaven reached sixty, and to be sacrificed to the demigods after sixty could be counted a ripe old age.
Of course, Jingping was an exception; the ordinary people of Jingping now lived longer, for living conditions were better and the martial arts flourished in youth, so that in every village there were a dozen or more elders of eighty. "Jingping's survival is uncertain from one morning to the next; the Southern Heaven is naturally better! " Bai Yuqiong saw, too, the Southern Heaven's education.
Although she felt the Three Obediences and Four Virtues, the Three Bonds and Five Constants, were somewhat amiss, still, if the common people were taught in this way they would not rebel, and without rebellion there would be less suffering. She thought it understandable.
She also witnessed the funeral of a divine adept. A divine adept who failed to become a god by the age of seven hundred had to offer himself to the demigods. "That is understandable as well.
" Bai Yuqiong murmured to herself.