Chapter 45: Purple Clouds’ Birth
In the Cloud Wilderness, there were few people, while desolate and wild beasts were everywhere, resulting in many small tribes.
Under such situations, to gather all the small tribes together for an examination needed lots of manpower and resources.
Although the Kingdom had a long history, but the number of warrior selections held in the vast wilderness could be counted with one hand.
It was needless to say that being born in the vast wilderness was a tragedy. Not only was there a lack of resources, but even a prodigy would not be noticed by others. So it was impossible to get ahead in life.
The Tai Ah Divine Kingdom knew that, but nothing could help the situation. Besides the Cloud Wilderness, even some prodigies from the 108 states might be missed!
Over the years, an unknown number of wilderness prodigies had died in vain. They either died from starvation, illness, from falling to their deaths while picking herbs or being eaten by beasts.
Those who could become great men ended up dying as beggars. Even after dying, they were not given a proper burial and were simply buried underground. Sometimes there might be a wooden stick erected as a tombstone–just like Yi Yun’s. However, these tombstones would decay and collapse after a few years. Once those who remembered the dead died too, their presence in the world was erased.
Born poor and dying without a trace; that was the fate of the people in the wilderness. Lian Chengyu understood it deeply, resulting in his distorted view of life.
The fat elder said, “Our trip here has both something and nothing to do with the Tai Ah Divine Kingdom’s selection. To say it more concretely, the reason why we are here and the sudden warrior selection by the Tai Ah Divine Kingdom are likely caused by the same incident.”
“Oh?” This had evoked the young girl’s interest. A pair of slender long eyes gently stirred as her long eyelashes caught the faint sunlight.
“Five months ago, some strange phenomenon had happened in the Cloud Wilderness. It was a day with clear skies, but in a couple of seconds, the entire sky in the Cloud Wilderness, a region of hundred thousand miles was covered by thick clouds!”
“And the strange thing about it was, the clouds were purple in color!”
“The purple cloud covered the entire Cloud Wilderness. This sort of phenomenon was simply amazing. Even the astronomers of the Tai Ah Divine Kingdom declared that night an astronomical phenomenon, and named it: ’Purple Clouds’ Birth’!”
“This phenomenon had happened again two months ago. It was even more spectacular, covering the celestial objects and masking the world!”
“This Purple Clouds’ Birth had alarmed the Tai Ah Divine Kingdom; but for the commoners in the Cloud Wilderness, they did not know anything. As the phenomenon happened at night, with their normal eyesight, it would be hard for them to distinguish the colors at night. They also didn’t know that the purple clouds had covered the entire Cloud Wilderness, nor did they know that the Purple Clouds’ Birth had caused a Yuan Qi disorder in the confines of the Cloud Wilderness.”
“At that time, even in the deepest parts of the Cloud Wilderness, desolate beasts that lay dormant for hundreds of thousands of years were startled!”
“There are only a few possibilities for such a phenomenon to happen.”
“First, it could be the birth of some treasure. However, the Tai Ah Divine Kingdom had used treasure compasss five months ago to search the Cloud Wilderness. Although the treasure compasss would be unable to find the exact location of the treasure, they would be able to confirm the existence of a treasure within a large vicinity.”
“But the treasure compasss had not a single reaction. That meant that there was either no treasure, or that the treasure was so mysterious that the detector could not detect it. If it was the latter, it would be hard to imagine! Such a treasure would be capable of stirring a storm of bloodshed on the lands!”
“The second possibility is a reclusive lord among the human race had made a huge breakthrough. Or it could have been an ancient desolate beast causing chaos. However, such a possibility is extremely unlikely; although the Cloud Wilderness is extensive, it would be a speck when considered under the backdrop of the entire world. There’s nothing special about it, so a reclusive lord or an ancient desolate beast would not likely choose this place.”
“As for the third possibility, the odds are slimmer. They are legends purely from hearsay, it’s pointless speaking of those. I’ve brought you here to the Cloud Wilderness, one was for that phenomenon, for who knows if there will be any treasure that will join up your Yin Meridians!”
“Master…” the girl faintly sighed. Although she was touched, she could not bear seeing this fat elder rushing everywhere over even the tiniest possibility of curing her of her terminal illness.
But she knew that her terminal illness was a curse, although rumors mention of an ancient empress had managed to join up her meridians through her own powers, it was after all a rumor.
Such rumors proved the difficulty of joining up the meridians of this terminal illness!
The fat elder knew Lin Xintong’s thoughts and smiled, “Alright, coming here for such a phenomenon to enrich your experience is a must, even if there were no results from it. This phenomenon that happened within the Tai Ah Divine Kingdom had caused the Tai Ah royal family to be alarmed. Besides the Tai Ah Divine Kingdom, even neighboring kingdoms had sneaked into the Cloud Wilderness to investigate!”
“In the past few months, Tai Ah Divine Kingdom had sent out the Jin Long Wei, looking for the cause of the phenomenon. They were yearning that it was the revelation of some treasure. Since the Jin Long Wei were in the Cloud Wilderness, they might as well hold a warrior selection.”
After the fat elder’s monologue, the girl understood suddenly. It was no surprise the Jin Long Wei had drawn up a detailed map, that included even the thousand-household small tribes for the Cloud Wilderness.
“Alright, let’s get going. After passing that mountain, we will pass through the Lian tribal clan, then we will stop by at the Tao tribal clan. That is a big tribe of over a hundred thousand households. We can rest there.”
Just as the fat elder finished saying that, his heart skipped a beat and let out of quiet “eh” sound.
“Master, what’s the matter?”
“In the waterfall ahead, there’s someone there. It seems like a case of drowning. Let’s go take a look!” he said as he started moving forward through the dense forest. Although his steps looked slow, each step yielded a large distance, as if the ground under his feet had contracted in length.
Lin Xintong had also followed. There were people who lived at the peak, and would not interfere with the sufferings of the millions of people in this world. But if they were to actually meet it, they would interfere by saving lives.
…
Yi Yun did not know how long he had been under the plunge basin. From the previous night, after absorbing all of the desolate bones energy in one go, Yi Yun had jumped into the plunge basin, entering a cultivation trance state. Till now, Yi Yun was still not fully awake; it was as if he was still in a dream.
The desolate bones’ energy had already been digested completely by Yi Yun’s body, with not a drop left!
His body had entered a starvation mode once again.
In a daze, Yi Yun felt a soft hand grabbing him by the collar, lifting him up…
Yi Yun’s body was light; he felt like he was lying on a soft grass patch, and the soft hands were pressing on his chest.
“Puah!”
Yi Yun spit out a mouthful of water. This water wasn’t clear, but cloudy. It was mixed with Yi Yun’s impurities that resulted from his body cultivation.
“Eh?”
The girl who had saved Yi Yun did not reveal any expression of aversion, but was one of surprise. As a Desolate Heaven Master, she knew immediately what it meant by spitting out such water.
After Yi Yun woke up and recovered his vision, he had trouble opening his eyes from the bright sunlight.
(Author notes: Some people might say there are plot holes in the story, such as why don’t the people in the vast wilderness eat vegetables or fish. For this, please don’t consider from the point of view of modern Earth. In ancient times, many people ate Guanyin clay, and exchanged their children for food. Even in the China of the 1950-1960s, people had experienced famines for 3 years. Many had died, and people can also ask, why didn’t they eat fish or dig for worms? Why didn’t people eat the locusts when there’s a locust plague?？ Were people from ancient times silly, and didn’t know how to eat those?)
(People from ancient times weren’t silly. If they were willing to exchange their children for food, what else could they not eat? Cocooned’s family was located near the seas and mountains. The fish in the seas were much more than in the lakes. There were even mushrooms and rabbits, but yet we still starved. Cocooned’s mother had experienced the famine. According to her, during the starvation period, there wasn’t even grass growing on the mountains. Why? First it was dry, and secondly, all the grass roots were uprooted and eaten. It was extremely hard to hunt for rabbits. As for fish, going to the ocean to fish needed a boat and nets. Commoners did not have that, and even in the shallow seas or lakes, if you did not rear the fish specially, there would be few fish. Since it was originally few, after fishing, it became even fewer. This resulted in the cost to fishing to become extremely high. So for a person like Cocooned, if I were to fish, the small fish I capture might be less than the energy I expended. Not to mention catching insects as it expended energy faster, and was equivalent to suicide.)
(In this book, the setting of the vast wilderness is even more barren that many places on Earth. Even the land was described by Cocooned, such as littered with black ironstone, which caused farming to be extremely difficult. And from the food production capabilities of ancient China, the production quantity is pathetic. There was no such thing as genetic modified grains or combiners. As for other details, Cocooned feels that explaining it one by one will make it seem rife with nitty-gritty details. A small lake with such low number of fishes that it will lose you more energy to catch it than not doing anything, frogs without poison would have been eaten clean early on. When people become hungry, nothing really matters be it insects or worms. Using a lake and a frog pond to rear a tribal clan with a thousand households is quite impossible. Cocooned tried to cut down on those details, but has resulted in controversy. So I decided to explain it in one detailed paragraph.
(Also some people asked why didn’t Yi Yun hunt. The book has explained, only in the Purple Blood realm could a person have the ability to hunt fierce beasts. Some may ask what do fierce beasts eat? Although Cocooned thinks Xuanhuan books don’t need to delve into all the unknowns, but Cocooned had planned an entire setting for this world, and tried to construct it without any loopholes. As the story progresses, it will be slowly explained.)
(I’m thankful for everyone’s opinions. And I would accept any constructive criticisms.)
(After explaining with a thousand characters, I’m also drunk. I won’t go into such details in the future. I sincerely hope people will think more and doubt less. It isn’t because there are plot holes, but because Cocooned didn’t want to go into too much nitty-gritty details. And some might miss things that were written. Thank you everyone.)