Safe City Ch.201.1

Chapter 201.1: The Fall of the Heavenly Dao

“The workings of heaven and earth, the turning of the four seasons, the rise and fall of fortune and calamity, the cycle of yin and yang, and the reverberations of good and evil—all are predetermined by the Heavenly Dao.”

Inside a Taoist temple, an elderly Taoist priest recited from the front of the hall. Below him, a group of little Taoist disciples, no more than six or seven years old, sat cross-legged on their meditation cushions and recited along in their childish voices.

“The workings of heaven and earth, the turning of the four seasons…”

After they finished reciting, one of the little Taoist disciples suddenly asked a question.

“But if everything is predetermined, why aren’t the four seasons turning as they should?”

As he spoke, he looked curiously out the window. Outside, enormous snowflakes were drifting through the air.

Yet it was only the beginning of autumn.

Seeing the snow, the little Taoist disciples wanted to go outside and play. However, the senior Taoist priests had firmly kept them inside, afraid they would catch a chill and fall ill. As they continued staring out the window, a trace of longing gradually appeared in their eyes.

The elderly Taoist priest also looked outside, but a hint of sorrow crept into his eyes. Then he shook his head with a self-mocking smile.

“In the end, all phenomena return to stillness…”

The little Taoist disciple didn’t understand what he meant, so the old priest simply smiled and rose to his feet.

“You needn’t concern yourselves with such things. Just focus on doing what you should do in the present. Stay inside and warm yourselves by the fire. You may open the doors and windows a crack to let in some fresh air, but you must not go outside.”

Under the disappointed gazes of the little Taoist disciples, the old priest picked up the cloak beside him and pushed open the door. Amid the snow falling from the heavens, he gazed into the distance.

From where he stood, he could see countless flecks of golden powder raining down from the sky above. Every so often, an enormous mass of it would suddenly fall all at once.

As the golden powder descended, the faint demonic energy suspended in midair surged sharply, spreading toward every direction.

A moment later, a thunderous roar rang out from the sky—a sound only he could hear. It was as though countless voices were shrieking and wailing in agony.

The sound drew closer and closer, until at last, it lunged toward the mortal world.

“There’s more and more of it…”

A thin voice suddenly came from beside him.

“More and more of what? Why did you say that all phenomena ultimately return to stillness? What’s happened to the Heavenly Dao?”

The old Taoist priest shuddered violently and turned his head. His eyes gleamed with golden light.

He warily looked left and right, trying to locate the speaker, but the voice sounded again.

“What are you looking around for? I’m down here.”

The old Taoist priest lowered his head and saw a crudely made cloth doll lying quietly on the ground. It was only about the size of his palm, dressed in a dusty gray cloth skirt, with two black beans sewn on as eyes. Those eyes were staring straight at him.

He asked in surprise, “Was that you speaking?”

“That’s right!”

The old Taoist priest examined it from head to toe with his golden eyes. After confirming that it wasn’t some evil entity, he asked curiously, “May I ask who you are, fellow Daoist?”

The little cloth doll answered in a thin, soft voice, “I’m the Child Deity A-Fu.”

“Song Tiande’s mother made me and told me to protect him.”

The old Taoist priest carefully lifted the palm-sized cloth doll and cradled it in his hand.

Among ordinary people, there had long been a custom of making cloth dolls to pray for blessings and protection for their children. He knew of this practice, but he had never imagined that such a tiny doll could develop intelligence of its own.

Now that it had acquired a spirit, no matter how weak it might be, it was still a divine being. Naturally, it deserved to be treated with the respect accorded to a deity.

The old Taoist priest raised his hand until the cloth doll’s line of sight was level with his own before asking, “Then why are you here?”

The cloth doll snorted.

“That boy has no appreciation for good things. He thought I was ugly and threw me away, so I walked back here on my own. Now I’ve gotten myself all dirty!”

The old Taoist priest took a closer look and indeed saw numerous dark stains on the doll’s body. Its feet were especially dirty, caked with muddy snowmelt and soil.

The doll had a spirit of its own, and since it had been created to protect Song Tiande, the way Song Tiande had treated it was naturally a serious breach of taboo.

The old Taoist priest hurriedly apologized.

“The child is young and ignorant. Allow this old Taoist to apologize to Child Deity A-Fu on his behalf first. Once their lessons are over, I will personally drag that good-for-nothing disciple of mine before you to beg forgiveness.”

A-Fu, however, seemed entirely unconcerned. Unlike ordinary child deities, who couldn’t stand the slightest offense and would make a fuss over even the smallest grievance, it didn’t appear to take the matter to heart at all.

Instead, it pressed on with its questions.

“I heard everything you said inside. So what’s happened to the Heavenly Dao? And why are your eyes golden? Do you know something? Can you tell me? If you do, I’ll repay you.”

As the little deity rattled off question after question, the old Taoist priest’s face, which had been tinged with sorrow, couldn’t help but reveal a faint smile.

And when he saw A-Fu solemnly promising to repay him, he found the sight even more amusing.

For a little child deity like this, developing intelligence at all was no easy feat. Although they were divine beings, they were so fragile that anyone with even a little cultivation could disperse them with a single poke of a finger.

In their daily lives, the most they could do was look after children. When a child kicked off their blanket, they would help cover them back up. When a child fell ill, they would shout at the parents, prompting them, through some unseen intuition, to realize that they ought to check on their child.

The old Taoist priest stroked his long beard. “What could a little deity like you possibly do to repay me?”

A-Fu answered with absolute conviction, brimming with confidence.

“Just tell me what you want. Whatever you ask, I can definitely do it!”

The old Taoist priest was genuinely amused.

Cradling A-Fu in his hand, he sat down beneath the covered veranda.

“I don’t want anything in return. It’s just that whether I speak of these matters or not, nothing will change. You’re so full of life and spirit right now. If I tell you all these troubling things, you’ll probably end up worrying just as much as I do. So it’s better if you never know about them in the first place.”

But A-Fu wasn’t so easily placated. It insisted, “What’s the use of sitting here worrying all by yourself? Maybe if you tell me about it, the two of us can come up with a solution together. Just tell me! I promise that even if the heavens collapse and the earth splits apart, I can still keep you alive.”

What a naturally boastful little deity!

The old Taoist priest felt that he hadn’t been this happy in a very long time. Seeing how determined A-Fu was, and thinking that the other party was a divine being, after all, he finally relented.

“Very well. Since you wish to know, I’ll tell you plainly.”

He raised the cloth doll in his hand and turned its gaze toward the sky.

“Do you see that? Up there, the Heavenly Dao is falling.”

Hearing this, the cloth doll neither grew frightened nor showed any shock. Instead, it simply asked curiously, “Can the Heavenly Dao fall, too?”

“It can.”

“Then why are you the only one who can see it?”

“I was born with a pair of True Eyes, so I’m able to see it.”

A-Fu suddenly grew excited for some reason. “True Eyes? Does that mean you can predict the future?!”

The old Taoist priest shook his head. “Impossible. The future is entangled with countless, countless karmic causes and effects. How could a mere mortal possibly meddle in such things?”

A-Fu understood. “In other words, you can only see things as they are in the present. So, did you see how the Heavenly Dao fell?”

The old Taoist priest sighed.

“It happened on an utterly ordinary day. I was up in the mountains chopping firewood when the colors of heaven and earth suddenly changed. Yet the woodcutters around me couldn’t see anything at all. I was the only one who could see that something was trying to force its way into the world, while golden light flashed all across the horizon to resist it.”

“Back then, I hadn’t yet come to this Taoist temple. I was still just an ordinary woodcutter. But the instant I saw that golden light, I knew what it was. That was the Heavenly Dao.”

“The Heavenly Dao battled that thing for five whole years. In the end, it shattered itself to drive the intruder out. But the Heavenly Dao fell in the process. Ever since then, the order governing heaven and earth has been maintained by nothing more than the Heavenly Dao’s corpse.”

A-Fu seemed to understand every word, and almost as if it could breathe, it let out a sharp gasp.

“But what exactly was that thing? What kind of existence could bring about even the fall of the Heavenly Dao?”

The old Taoist priest shook his head and rose to his feet, taking A-Fu along with him.

“I don’t know, either. The Heavenly Dao only managed to drive that thing away by sacrificing itself. Before it was expelled, I witnessed something with my own eyes: beyond the boundaries of this world, there was something that the intruder took a bite out of.”

“Ever since then, everything has gradually begun to go wrong. Demons and monsters have proliferated, temples have collapsed, and the realm that provides shelter for souls has fallen apart. Somehow, deep down, I know that the day the Heavenly Dao’s corpse completely disintegrates will be the day that thing from back then returns.”

He pushed open another door. Beyond it lay his study.

The old Taoist priest took out a painting and showed it to A-Fu.

“This depicts the scene as it was that day. I later left my hometown and sought out a master to learn painting, so that I could recreate what I had witnessed. Carrying this painting with me, I’ve traveled from one Taoist temple and shrine to another, hoping to find someone who could help. But not a single person has been able to see the scene depicted in it. To them, the painting is nothing more than a blank sheet of paper.”

Some people refused to believe him, assuming he was nothing but a fraud.

Others couldn’t see anything in the painting but believed his account. They abandoned everything to search for a solution. But this was the fall of the Heavenly Dao. No matter how profound a cultivator’s attainments were, there was nothing they could do about it.

All they accomplished was spreading the knowledge of the despair that awaited them.

In the end, when he had grown old and frail, he affiliated himself with a Taoist temple and buried all these truths deep in his heart, never speaking of them to anyone again.

“If you can’t see it, then just take what I’ve told you as a joke.”

A-Fu looked at the painting. Sure enough, it appeared completely blank.

But she said nothing.

Because the God she served, watching through her eyes, had seen the painting.

…

“The Great Annihilation?!!”

Cheng Qisheng’s heart nearly stopped beating.

The good news was that a Tier 7 Transcendent wouldn’t die just because their heart stopped for a little while.

She stared intently at the scene in the painting. It was far too familiar. Far, far too familiar!

When the Great Annihilation had swallowed Moon Silk Star back then, it had looked exactly like this.

That thing really was impossible to shake off! Why did it show up everywhere she went?

Cheng Qisheng quickly regained her composure. What shocked her even more was the fact that the Heavenly Dao of Fallen Heaven Star had actually succeeded in stopping the Great Annihilation from devouring it.

By now, Blue Sea’s residents had already passed the initial exploration phase and entered the stage of deploying large numbers of residents into this new world.

Ever since learning that the reward for completing the World Mission was a fragment of the world’s rules that would allow Blue Sea to possess a planetary core and mantle, all the residents had become incredibly excited.

With a core and mantle, Blue Sea would finally have the opportunity to develop an underground world.

It was no exaggeration to say that no matter how much surface area Blue Sea Safe City possessed, it would probably be able to create roughly the same amount of space underground.

This was a chance to double its area permanently!

Yet the people of Fallen Heaven knew nothing about the Heavenly Dao’s situation, either.

Several months had already passed, and more than a hundred million Blue Sea residents had still been unable to uncover any further clues related to the Heavenly Dao.

Until now.

A Blue Sea resident who had arrived in this world just half a month ago, taking on the identity of Child Deity A-Fu, had unexpectedly learned the truth about what had happened to the Heavenly Dao from an ordinary old Taoist priest in an unremarkable Taoist temple.

In fact, just seven days ago, Cheng Qisheng had even arranged for the closest Blue Sea resident to her to come and collect A-Fu. That Old Eighth’s current identity was that of a Traveling Merchant Deity, which allowed him to travel freely with merchant caravans.

After all, A-Fu’s duty was to look after children. As long as she was placed in front of some children, she would be fulfilling her duty.

Who could have expected this?!

The Traveling Merchant Deity hadn’t arrived yet.

But news about the Heavenly Dao had arrived first.

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