Chapter 1 Prologue The First Year of the Divine Manifestation

Chapter 1 Prologue The First Year of the Divine Manifestation

Chapter 1 Prologue The First Year of the Divine Manifestation
Gou Wa has been very distressed recently.

Because his parents didn't let him go to school.

He had just learned the first few sentences of the Thousand Character Classic!
Moreover, he was not allowed to go out and was locked in a dark room, saying that he had a rash on his face and was not to be seen by others.

Gou Wa really wanted to know how ugly his rash was, but everything in the room that could reflect a person's shadow had been taken away by his parents.

Knock knock, someone was knocking outside his window.

A clear girl's voice rang out: "Gou Wa, is your face still not healed?"

Gou Wa recognized it as the little girl from the next room, a six-year-old girl, one year younger than him. The two grew up together. According to the teacher's teachings, they should be childhood sweethearts.

It was the first time someone came to see him in so many days. Gou Wa, who hadn't talked to anyone other than his parents for a long time, was a little excited and stammered, "You, how do you know my face?"

"My mother heard from your parents. They didn't let me get close to your room, saying that your rash is contagious."

Gou Wa said sadly: "I heard that's the case, so don't get too close."

"Have you seen the doctor and taken your medicine carefully? You seem to have been sick for a long time?" The little girl had no concept of time and couldn't tell clearly how long it had been.

"The medicine I take is... a bowl of very thick, dark and hard-to-drink medicine every day. The doctor has never seen it before."

Gou Wa also felt a little strange. Why didn’t he see a doctor when he was so sick? But he was still a little kid after all, so he immediately put the things he couldn’t figure out behind him.

"It must be because you didn't listen to the doctor and made him angry and run away."

The little girl is very smart in her words, but the little girl can only make a few awkward excuses.

"What's going on outside now?" Gou Wa hadn't seen the outside world for a long time and was very curious. If his parents hadn't locked all the doors and windows, he would have slipped out to play long ago because of his restless temper.

"It's strange, these days there are people crying their hearts out everywhere, adults, children, old people, all wearing white clothes. And there are a lot of white cloths floating around, and yellow and white pieces of paper floating in the sky, just like the fairyland described by the storyteller!" Xiaoya's tone was a little more excited, "And there are a lot of earthen buns in the mountains, and there are always a lot of food and drinks in front of the buns. Gousheng and I stole some food a few times, and one day my mother caught us and beat and scolded us severely."

"But we haven't eaten meat for a long time. We have to drink porridge every day. Where can we eat chicken, duck and pork in front of the earthen mounds?" Xiao Ya sounded very aggrieved: "But later, there was nothing to eat in front of the earthen mounds. Some people just slept there and couldn't wake up no matter how I shook them. Some people were missing arms, legs and heads. I wanted to help them put them together. There are fewer people in the village now. It feels like everyone has gone to sleep."

"Gousheng, how is Gousheng?" Gou Wa listened to a lot of things, but his focus was only on Gousheng. Gousheng was also their usual playmate, but his family was poor and he couldn't even pay the tuition for school.

"I couldn't find him a few days ago. I don't know where he went. I can't find anyone to play with."

It turned out that Xiao Ya thought of him because she couldn't find anyone to play with. Gou Wa was a little sad.

"Then, where are Da Niu, Tu Dou, Xiao Qiang and Zhu Zai?" Gou Wa asked about his good friends in the school. They haven't come to see him for such a long time, even though they had such a good relationship in the school.

"The school closed a long time ago, and many of them are not from our village, so I haven't seen them for a long time."

Although Xiao Ya was a girl and could not go to school, she always liked to run to the school and eavesdrop through the window. The teacher gradually turned a blind eye to her, so she became very familiar with the children in the school.

"Well, it should be about the same time you were sick." She thought for a moment and added.

Gou Wa was a little confused as to what was going on.

"Do you want to go out and play?" Xiao Ya suddenly asked.

"I want to! But my parents have locked all the doors and windows..."

"This is easy. The padlock is outside the window. I can just find a stone to break it open! Your parents are not at home, so I'll let you out and relax. Wait a moment."

The footsteps gradually faded away, as if Xiao Ya went to look for stones. After a while, the footsteps came back and there were loud clicking noises from the window. Not long after, Gou Wa was surprised to find that the window that was originally locked tightly had quietly opened a gap, letting in a ray of dim light.

"Xiao Ya, you are so awesome!" Gou Wa said excitedly.

"That's right, come out soon!" The little girl was very proud.

Gou Wa suddenly remembered his own face and hesitated again: "But I'm afraid of infecting you, and... it will scare you."

"I'll just stay away from you. Besides," Xiaoya said nonchalantly, "you're ugly to begin with. How ugly can you be?"

Gou Wa was not angry with Xiao Ya's words. All he wanted now was to feel the long-lost sunshine and fresh air.

He took a deep breath and pushed open the window. Outside the window stood a thin little girl wearing a dirty coarse cloth dress.

"Long time no see." Gou Wa smiled, which he thought was very friendly and handsome.

But Xiao Ya looked at him with her eyes wide open, staggered back a few steps, shock, disgust and aversion flashing across her face.

And fear.

"what happened?"

"They, they are all on your shoulders..."

……

As the sky gradually darkened, Widow Song kept waiting for Xiao Ya to come home.

This girl is running around in such a chaotic world, which is really worrying.

Her husband passed away before the child was born. She had no parents and neither did her husband. She was left alone as an orphan and a widow, struggling to survive.

Besides, no one was home, and that feeling came back.

It's that feeling that someone is always watching you.

That gaze was cold, sticky, and piercing.

No matter where she was or what she was doing, that gaze followed her closely like a shadow.

Whenever she was alone, she could feel as if someone was looking at every strand of her hair, her waist, her hips and legs, and even her toes in the dark, which made her horrified and nauseated.

Every day she would check every corner, behind every door, in every cabinet, even under the table and under the bed, hoping to find the pair of eyes hidden in the dark.

However, no matter how hard she searched, she found nothing.

She is always alone, and it is so quiet around her that she can hear a pin drop.

But the feeling of being watched was so real, so real that her skin could feel the warmth of that gaze. Her heartbeat quickened, and every heartbeat seemed to remind her that those eyes were in a corner, staring at her quietly and coldly.

She felt that she was on the verge of collapse. The torment of many days and the pain of being unable to sleep had pushed her fragile nerves to the edge of a cliff.

Yes, she wants to find Xiaoya back! She will take Xiaoya away from this place tomorrow. Although she heard that it is just as chaotic outside, it is better than now.

She rushed out the door frantically, fleeing from the depressing and cramped house. She breathed in the cold air, but the sharp feeling of being stared at still followed her, as if there was a shadow always behind her.

She looked around desperately, but there was only an empty yard with a simple fence and a dark night. There were strange and tiny noises coming from the house of Gou Wa next door, as if something had happened to their family recently.

In the moonlight, her shadow was stretched lonely on the ground, and the gazes behind her were sticky and entangled with her.

She suddenly had some enlightenment.

……

Under the night sky, Old Man Lu was running frantically.

As a result, he tripped over the ridge of the field and fell face down in the field, accidentally biting into the mud with his mouth open.

He sat up and spat a few times, spitting out the mud in his mouth.

Regardless of the pain in his hands and feet from the fall, he quickly took out the things in his arms.

A tightly wrapped cloth bag was carefully opened, revealing an antique bronze mirror.

The dirty mirror surface reflected the dim moonlight, and the intricate and delicate patterns were covered with rust and dirt, but the material and patterns were obviously not ordinary.

If it wasn't worth some money, Old Man Lu wouldn't have stolen this thing from Widow Song's house.

He was really hungry, so the next village slaughtered a pig, but a piece of meat cost a lot of silver. The prices of food and daily necessities have risen sharply these days.

He heard that Widow Song was once a rich lady who had only fled here to escape disaster. The poor Fenghuang must have some valuable belongings in her home.

He didn't dare to bully the orphan and his widow directly, so he squatted outside the wall for a long time today, and waited until Widow Song went out before sneaking in to look for her. As a result, he really found such a treasure.

As soon as he found it, Widow Song entered the yard. He quickly climbed out the window and slipped into the next yard, intending to stay there for a while and then run away when the opportunity arose. Anyway, there seemed to be no one in this house.

Unexpectedly, he heard rustling sounds and heavy footsteps coming from the side yard, as if a clumsy fat man was dragging his legs and walking.

Old Man Lu sometimes hated himself for being so curious. He tiptoed towards the source of the sound, squatted in the corner, and looked inside, only to see a scene that made his back shudder.

In the dim moonlight, a tall figure was moving slowly. He was not a clumsy fat man, but a seven-year-old boy. However, his shoulders were piled with round things as big as his head. Those round things seemed to be wriggling and swaying, and some black hair was fluttering in the wind.

When Old Man Lu took a closer look, he was horrified to find that it didn't look like a head, but it was a head!
All of them had their eyes closed, lips slightly open, and faces full of pain. They were all crowded on the child's small body. The area above his shoulders was four or five times the size of his body, and in terms of stature, he was taller than Old Man Lu.

Among them, there was a head that Old Man Lu recognized. It looked like Xiaoya, the daughter of Widow Song!
If Old Man Lu had seen the students in the school, he would have recognized them. The heads of the school children such as Da Niu, Tu Dou, Xiao Qiang and Zhu Zai are also on it.

He knew that this was what everyone was calling a "weird creature". Everyone said that one should run away from it once one saw it, but many times one would lose his life before there was even enough time to run.

Old Man Lu covered his mouth and huddled in a corner. He felt like he was about to vomit, but he didn't dare to move or make a sound.

Suddenly, something like a ball rolled through the gap in the fence and landed at his feet.

He looked down and saw a fresh eyeball.

He looked tremblingly in the direction where the thing came from. It was Widow Song's yard. He saw Widow Song standing in the yard, her face covered in blood, with only two black holes left where her eyes should be.

Old Man Lu felt a chill rising from his spine to the top of his head. He could no longer care about anything else. He stood up and ran, with only one thought in his mind: to escape from this place.

……

Old Man Lu recalled the scenes just now, his heart beating as if it was going to jump out of his chest. He raised the bronze mirror with trembling hands. The bronze mirror reflected his pale, old face, which was full of fear.

Suddenly, the dry corners of the self in the mirror stretched all the way down to the ears, revealing a weird smile, and his eyes were fixed on the old man Lu outside the mirror, full of malice.

Old Man Lu's heart suddenly sank, and the bronze mirror in his hand fell to the muddy ground, the mirror facing upwards, reflecting the night sky.

He slumped to the ground, breathing deeply, and could still feel a cold, evil gaze staring at him like a maggot on his tarsus.

In this silent night, Old Man Lu's fear was spread by the cold wind.

Suddenly, that sight seemed to disappear, and he looked down at the fallen bronze mirror as if he had realized something. The mirror reflected not only the night sky and the stars and the moon, but also a huge face in the sky that covered the entire horizon.

Old Man Lu looked up at the sky and opened his mouth in shock.

The huge face in the sky became clearer and clearer as it moved lower and lower to the ground. Even the fine hairs on its face could be clearly seen.

The face has soft contours and is difficult to tell whether it is male or female. The surrounding clouds and starlight dance on it, revealing a mysterious and magical glow.

Its eyes are empty but deep, as if they can see through all the secrets of the world, and seem to swallow up all the light.

The corners of its lips are so smooth that they seem to contain no emotion, yet one can feel a strong sense of sacredness and compassion.

That's God!
I don’t know why, but the moment he saw this face, Old Man Lu knew in his heart that this was the face of God.

It was as if a god was lowering his head into the clouds to look at the creatures on the ground. The god's face pressed down from the clouds until it covered the entire night sky. The moon disappeared and the stars dimmed, as if the whole world had stopped at this moment.

At the same time, Widow Song was standing in her own yard. She looked up, and the two black holes on her face also "saw" the great and mysterious existence in the air. Two lines of black tears ran across her face.

Gou Wa also felt it, and a huge fear inexplicably surged in his heart. He wanted to go into the house, but his legs seemed to be filled with lead and he couldn't move a step until he looked into the eyes of the god.

All the faces on his body opened their eyes and looked into the sky's eyes that were looking indifferently at everything.

No, God would not look at a being like him, he just glanced at him lightly.

Then, Gou Wa died.
-
God's gaze will not linger on such a trivial creature.

As the pair of pale and indifferent eyes on the god's face turned, divine light enveloped and strange aura spread wherever his gaze went.

At this moment, the entire Tang Kingdom was looking up.

People from all over the North were looking up.

People all over the grassland were looking up.

People across the entire sea area were looking up.

After an unknown amount of time, the light on the god's face seemed to dim, and even his face became a little more transparent. The starry sky behind him was looming, and his eyes closed slightly.

But God's face did not fade away, but remained forever in the sky, overlooking everything.

From then on, the spirit of the gods emerged.

This year is called "the first year of God's revelation" by the world.

The prologue is mainly about world setting
Dragon Dragon Dragon Dragon Dragon Year of the Dragon

(End of this chapter)