The Human History of Those Gods: A Continuous Stream

Hanging in the sky was a delicate crescent moon. The moon was slender, yet its light was exceptionally bright, washing over the valleys, streams, and foothills. The bright moon, high in the sky, made the still night seem desolate.

Li Jushuang squatted on a rock, chin in hand, gazing at the moon. He loved Du Fu's poem: "The bright moon hangs high in the sky, the night is desolate and bleak. A few mournful notes of the bugle sound, the brave warriors are sad but not arrogant."

But my former uncle preferred another poem by Du Fu, "Leaving the Frontier After the Battle of Yichun": "A man born into this world, when he reaches adulthood, should be ennobled. Having achieved merit in war, how can he remain in his old village? Summoned to Jizhou, the army is mobilized and cannot be delayed. A thousand pieces of gold for a saddle, a hundred for a sword. The villagers see me off, relatives and friends surround me on the road. The elderly, with graying hair, sit at the head of the line, and in their cups, they are offered delicacies. The young men give me a special gift, and I smile as I gaze upon their Wu hook swords."

The young man gave me a gift, and I smiled as I looked at the Wu hook.

Upon reading this sentence, Li Jushuang felt a lump in her throat.

The moonlight was as gentle as water, and all things were immersed in the moonlight.

The moonlight was unusually bright; the lake water seemed to have become moonlight, and the moonlight seemed to have become water. Moonlight and water blended together, and the air was so thick that it was hard to breathe. Everything in the world was dazzling, like a feast of light and shadow, yet it concealed an unspeakable danger.

who.

Someone has broken through the formation.

Li Jushuang was on high alert, and Nan Dou's back bent like a bow.

She took two steps back, and saw the moonlight twist and writhe like a living thing, its silvery glow flowing across the ground and intertwining with the dark lake water in front of her, carrying a chill and gloom, surging silently, wave after wave, slowly condensing into a pair of transparent hands, gently reaching out to the lakeside, like a blind person caressing the face of a lover. The water streaks meandered like snakes, climbing step by step along the mountain rocks to Li Jushuang's feet.

Before the lake water could change its appearance, Li Jushuang leaped into the air like a startled swan, forming a sword incantation with her hands in mid-air, and softly proclaimed: "The Great Dao flows forth, Ding Fire arises! Rise!"

Before the words were finished, a crimson flame shot up from the soil, like a serpent emerging from its hole, meandering and blocking the hands' path along the water's edge. The hands tentatively touched the flame, then quickly withdrew as if burned.

The lake gradually fell silent, the surging waves subsided, and not a single ripple remained.

The crisis lurked within this calm. Suddenly, the water surface slowly rose, rippling and rushing, gradually transforming into a giant eye. The eye blinked, its pupils moving, searching high and low.

Suddenly, the eyes slowly turned to Li Jushuang and stopped. In an instant, the lake water seemed to come alive, and countless water droplets leaped out, tumbling, piling up, swallowing, and merging in the air, gradually transforming into a human shape.

Initially transparent, it gradually gained light and shadow, eventually solidifying into the shape of a man. It stretched out its hands and adjusted its head. This was a man with slender eyebrows and fair skin, with a faint smile playing on his lips.

"Refuse frost".

His voice was deep and gentle.

"have not seen you for a long time."

Li Jushuang stood on high ground, holding Nandou in her arms, coldly staring at him.

"Southern Dipper".

"Hope you've been well."

Meow... Nan Dou roared angrily in Li Jushuang's arms.

"Look, Nandou, we've been apart for so many years, and we finally meet again, but you're still so unfriendly."

He came wading through the water, his shadow reflected obliquely on the surface, rippling with every wave.

"Tsk tsk, Frost Rejection, why are you still using Ding Fire Technique? Ding Fire... is too weak for me." The man casually flicked his fingertips, and the line of bright flames spreading on the ground suddenly went out. The scorching heat slowly dissipated, and wisps of pale white smoke rose up and drifted away in the night wind.

"The great formation has collapsed... Even so, it still took me some effort to get in..."

He gazed at Li Jushuang, his smile gradually fading, a hint of affection flashing in his eyes, which vanished in an instant.

"You're still the same, even your eyes are the same as before. But six hundred years have passed..."

Have you ever regretted it?

Li Jushuang stood there indifferently, without saying a word.

"The problem with mortals is that they are blinded by a single path and obscured by the greater truth. For six hundred years, you have been guarding this place. Ai Mang Mountain, ah, a hundred miles to the east, it is all mountains; a hundred miles to the west, it is also all mountains. Cross one mountain, and there is only another mountain stretching to the horizon."

"Spring comes and autumn goes, and then comes the long winter, with nothing but wind and snow. It's like we've fallen into a crack in time and space, climbing and climbing, never reaching the end, just like life is always experiencing a single fragment, only this one fragment, playing on an endless loop."

Over the years, the world has changed, and his heart has long been unmoved. But at this moment, he felt his emotions suddenly collapse and he could not control himself.

"For so many years, I've been wondering why you wouldn't leave, why you wouldn't leave with me. Until a few days ago, Sun Wuliang called me and said that Liang Song had gone missing in the Ai Mang Mountains. I asked myself, is this why Ju Shuang refuses to leave?"

Shi He smiled and said, "Perhaps only in this place can Liang Song use a cauldron to gather up the fragments of Junior Uncle's soul. And you have been guarding this place for 600 years, just waiting for this moment in the sky."

Li Jushuang stood in the moonlight, looking down at Shi He.

Shi He and Liang Song are completely different kinds of people. Shi He appears composed and dignified, a model for the world, but deep down he harbors a dark and resentful energy that is hard to dispel. Liang Song, on the other hand, is clear-headed and pure inside and out, but he is simply too simplistic.

She smiled. If Liang Song were here, she would have rushed over with delight, pleading, "Secretary Shi, you finally found me! My dad doesn't know about this, does he? Please don't tell him! Come on, let's go right now!" But Liang Song was asleep. In his dream, a girl with loose hair and bare feet was smiling: "Where have you been? I've been looking for you for so long!"

Thinking of Liang and Song, Li Jushuang's eyes gradually softened. For a moment, time and space seemed to intertwine in her presence, with 600 years of time converging and 600 years of figures appearing and disappearing.

Li Jushuang sighed: But it still failed...

Shi He couldn't suppress his laughter. "So, he's still that good-for-nothing? That brainless good-for-nothing who only knows how to eat, drink, and have fun all day?" His voice gradually took on a hint of madness. "You think I haven't looked for him? 300 years ago, he reincarnated once, but that life was even worse than this one. He was a premature baby, his body wasn't even fully developed. The family that gave birth to him raised him in a sheep pen. He crawled around my feet like a worm, filthy and smelly, covered in flies and maggots. He used his only three fingers to grip my trouser leg tightly, making bleating sheep sounds."

"I gave it my all, but I couldn't change the outcome. So I saw him off before you found him. I could only see him off for a moment, Jushuang. If he really is Junior Uncle, he will definitely be grateful to me. How could such a powerful soul be willing to watch itself trapped in such a body?"

Li Jushuang's eyes shone, but she didn't say anything.

"Uncle-Master won't be coming back, he won't be coming back, do you know that? The mountains collapsed, the lakes leaked, even that dilapidated Taoist temple collapsed. The one in the house is just Liang Song with half of his remnant soul. Even his name was created through the art of chaos and separation. He's just a brainless good-for-nothing. And you still plan to keep him here and watch this body go through birth, aging, sickness, death, formation, existence, decay, and emptiness? Let him stay in this gap of time and space, watching spring flowers bloom and autumn fruits ripen, eating hazelnut porridge for the rest of his life? Hehehehe."

Shi He curled his lips into a low laugh. The laugh was hoarse and thin, carrying endless sorrow, until only a wisp of breath remained, barely hanging between his lips and teeth.

"Did you ask him if he wanted to stay here and dig in the dirt? By the way, doesn't he know that you're not even a person? If he knew, wouldn't he run away, run away to somewhere as far away from you as possible to continue his life of debauchery and extravagance?"

Li Jushuang had a small face, her eyes were a bit wide apart, and the shadows of her eyelashes covered half of her face in the moonlight.

Shi He looked at her for a while, then his tone softened: "Ju Shuang, the great formation has collapsed, why do you still want to stay? Come with me. The two of us will never be separated again. We'll travel to the mortal world, wherever you like, we'll go, see flowers bloom and wither, witness the changing of the world, enjoy the prosperity of the times, and see all aspects of life. It's always better than living a life of hardship here, isn't it?"

Li Jushuang looked somewhat bewildered, and after a long while, she said, "We said these things six hundred years ago."

His chest heaved slightly as he let out a long, weary sigh, a hint of desolation and weariness spreading across his brows. But in an instant, that gloom vanished completely, and Shi He casually raised his hand, a gentle, aloof smile returning to his lips.

He gazed at Li Jushuang, appearing once again a model of virtue and self-cultivation: "Yes, I knew this would be the answer. I hate myself too; of all the madness and ruthlessness in this world, I alone cannot go mad. Six hundred years, and I am still imprisoned."

Shi He shook his head, seemingly mocking his own naiveté. He paused, then turned his head to the side. "What about Liang Song? Are you going to keep him here?"

Li Jushuang turned her head to the side, brushed the hair off her face with her hand, and gently shook her head.

Shi He was overwhelmed with tenderness. He stared silently at Li Jushuang. The mountains were all the same color, the moon was bright and clear, and the wind blew through the valleys. He had been with these mountains, this moon, and this wind before.

After an unknown amount of time, the water rippled, and Shi He's human form became somewhat distorted: "Ju Shuang, when are we coming to pick up Mr. Liang? If you want him to stay a few more days, I'll try to delay it. After all, who knows when we'll meet again in the cycle of reincarnation after this?"

Li Jushuang looked back at the ancestral hall, seemingly reluctant to leave.

tomorrow.

She turned to look at Nan Dou, and after a long while, she finally spoke: "I will open the array gate at 9:00 AM tomorrow, and you can come and take him away."

------

It was a beautiful, sunny morning when I woke up, but just as I was about to go into the water, a sudden gust of wind picked up in the mountains.

At first, the wind was light, but in just three to five minutes, the entire mountain valley was filled with howling winds, as if the wind were tearing mountains apart. Wang Lantian, who weighs 90 kilograms, was still blown around by the gale and could not stand steadily.

Chen Song changed his gear, dived down, and surfaced again after a short while, shouting against the wind, "Captain, the water is too murky, it's all mud and sand, we can't see anything!"

Wang Lantian yelled back at the top of his lungs, "Why don't you come up here, and I'll go down and take another look?"

"Stop messing around, it's too dangerous to go into the water now. Let's wait for the wind to stop."

Wang Lantian insisted on going into the water, but came back a few minutes later, saying, "It's really not working."

They had no choice but to call it a day and return to the Langang camp. The wind didn't last all morning, and the group sat in their tents waiting for it to stop. Unexpectedly, before the wind died down, news arrived about Liang Song. Another search and rescue team, forced to retreat from Fanziding due to the storm, had found Liang Song on their way back.

The search and rescue team member on the other end of the phone said helplessly, "We've confirmed it's Liang Song, but he won't leave, saying he's waiting for someone. I've been talking to him for ages, but he's just washing his socks and completely ignoring me. Can any of you come and help? Oh, and remember to bring some gear; he doesn't even have a pair of shoes that fit."