Chapter 37: It Is Still Shining

"Gu Pan. Fish?"

Long Xi opened her eyes in the deep sea, gazing from below at the faint moonlight falling from the horizon.

Feeling somewhat stifled, she surfaced with practiced ease and stood by the moon platform on the shore, whose outline was now barely discernible.

Listening to the voice within 【Mie Changsheng】.

Is this some other kind of divine ability?

Long Xi, whose state of mind had never known a ripple, just looked on calmly.

【You are the Third Imperial Daughter of the South Sea Dragon King.】

【You were born with divine power that transcends the secular world; since your birth, you have been the precious pearl of the Nanhai Longgong.】

【Your talent evokes sighs of wonder; you were born with an understanding of the Dao and could take human form the moment you touched the ground. If not for the constraints of your divine position, the possibility of Ascension and eternal life might not have been out of reach.】

【Success comes from being a god, and failure also comes from being a god.】

【Your Imperial Father therefore hopes immensely that you can break free from the constraints of your divine position and seek a path of your own.】

【Yet you have never had so many thoughts, or rather, you have never had any interest in cultivation.】

【The thing you love most is to watch the sea from the shore, watching the tides rise and fall, watching the sun on the horizon slowly set.】

【This has been your unchanging habit for a thousand years.】

【Your Imperial Father does not understand, and your elder sister cannot grasp your thoughts, but they have never questioned your affairs.】

【To them, everyone has some unique interests of their own, just as some dragons are fickle and like to vent their anger on all living things, while some dragons crave flattery and enjoy the reverence of mortals; compared to them, you simply like watching the sea more.】

【But in truth, only you know: you are observing someone.】

【A mortal.】

【That was something from many years ago; you often saw him gazing into the distance from the seaside.】

【He was busy, ordinary, and his tender face gradually became resolute, yet he never forgot to watch the sea.】

【Later, as time passed, he slowly grew a head full of white hair and closed his eyes forever.】

【You asked your Imperial Father, and he only smiled and said: "Humans... they are just like mayflies; their hundred years are but a fleeting moment to us."】

【"Born in mediocrity, dying in insignificance—that is the destination of mortals. Are you feeling pity?"】

【And what you found strange was that ten years after he died, his traces appeared once again in Jiangyang Fishing Village; although he had changed his name, his appearance was almost exactly the same as before, as if he were the same person... then he kept appearing in the same place.】

【You know, this is perhaps the Reincarnation your Imperial Father once spoke of.】

【But the Reincarnation of many people leads them to different places and different identities; this person before you had actually reincarnated into the same location again.】

【You ponder Reincarnation, ponder rebirth, and ponder some questions you find difficult to understand.】

【You silently watch over him.】

【In the seventeenth year, he struggled incessantly in the sea to save a child who had slipped and fallen into the water.】

【As a dragon of the South Sea, your duty is to ensure favorable weather in a region; you have no duty to save drowning mortals, but out of curiosity about Reincarnation, you chose to save him.】

【You sent him back to the shore.】

【Your Imperial Father was therefore furious; he told you in a burning rage that the reason a god is a god is because they provide protection within the framework of the rules; if one performs actions outside the rules, one is no longer under the protection of the Dao.】

【Beneath his anger, your Imperial Father also appeared somewhat dejected; you realized that a divine position seems to be a form of protection, but also a form of invisible curse.】

【"Gods only do things within the rules; standing by and watching is the norm."】

【"You only need to know that the mandate of heaven cannot be defied."】

【"Then why, Imperial Father, can you use Mana to bring favorable weather to the southern lands... to help those mortals overcome their hardships?"】

【"Because these mortals offer sacrifices to the Dragon King's spirit tablets and temples; only when mortals become our Believers can we take action."】

【You began to have an initial understanding of these matters.】

【The mortal you saved and brought to shore felt gratitude toward you; every day he would come to the same spot to watch the sea and bow gently toward that direction.】

【You suddenly discovered that a power you had never seen before was surging within your body.】

【For this reason, you sought out your Imperial Father and began to ask what this power was.】

【He also displayed an expression of surprise; your Imperial Father told you that this was faith, born from the respect and gratitude mortals felt for you.】

【This is a power that can be mentioned in the same breath as Merit.】

【You told your Imperial Father that this was the faith produced by the mortal you had saved.】

【Your Imperial Father showed a hint of hesitation; having spent a long time in contact with mortals, he knew better than anyone how fickle these mortals truly were.】

【They do not necessarily feel gratitude toward you; they only know how to revere the gods when they have received benefits.】

【As long as there is one year of favorable weather and a great harvest, they will want an even greater harvest the following year; if they do not get the results they want, the incense provided to the temples will decrease.】

【And the Dragon King cannot bestow blessings upon mortals at all times; only when faith reaches a certain level can one consume both this faith and Mana to drive divine abilities and bring about a scene of a bountiful harvest for the land.】

【This has conditions.】

【Therefore, when the Dragon King does not allow the mortals to fill their granaries, he will receive the mortals' curses; sometimes, when disaster strikes, the mortals who believe in them will even smash the temples to vent their anger, accusing them, as gods, of failing to protect them.】

【So, sometimes mortals will not be grateful, but will only blindly believe that this is what they deserve.】

【"Faith will disappear; he only reveres you for a moment, and after a few years, he will take it for granted and forget."】

【"Humans are just this ungrateful." Your Imperial Father paused, "Just like their usual style."】

【You did not pay attention to your Imperial Father's words; you felt curiosity about this power of faith in your heart, and you seemed to have found some interest in this boundless life.】

【In the deep sea, you just watched that mortal staring blankly toward the seaside.】

【When he was in his thirties, he fell gravely ill and did not come out to watch the sea for several days; you thought he had forgotten that gratitude buried deep in his heart.】

【It was not until later that you learned the mortal had quietly passed away under the weight of his severe illness.】

【"Imperial Father, don't humans have a lifespan of a hundred years? Why is he so fragile?"】

【"Because... humans are humans."】

【"Humans are just this fragile."】

He laughed and said, "Since the person is dead, then the faith he held for you should have also vanished into thin air along with all of this."

"This is human nature; when the time of death approaches, it seems everything can be forgiven, and it seems everything can be forgotten."

"He will complain, wondering why the deity he worshipped did not come to help him, why it could not let him live, and all he can do is resent everything in this world; this is the incompetence of mortals."

You raised your hand, and that faint light still had not extinguished, "Father Emperor, look. It is still shining."

You will never forget the look of shock on Father Emperor's face at that moment.

Yes.

That faith, until the very moment of death, still had not extinguished because of it.

But you do not know if, in the next Reincarnation, that mortal will still land in the same position.

And because of this, you also gained the habit of watching the sea.

Yet you never knew why he liked watching the sea; you only imitated his manner to observe the vast ocean.

This was his ninth reincarnation.

You learned his name for the first time.

Pan Yu.

(End of this chapter)