Chapter 328

In the 263rd year of the New Heavenly Court, you, reborn and returned, decided to avoid past mistakes; in this life you will no longer insist on taking people to the "Eternal Primordial Wasteland", but instead strive to maintain this hard-won prosperous age!

You are full of heroic ambition: Li Ziliang once created a long prosperous age lasting 120 years in the mortal realm; you naturally cannot fall short of him!

Under normal means, you want to see where your limits lie.

And since it is under normal means, you certainly cannot use the Blood God Son, this kind of extralegal method; thus you straightened your attitude, and while sealing the Blood God Son, you also devoted yourself wholeheartedly to the boundless undertaking of serving all beings……

……

The old Heavenly Court fell, over a thousand heavenly gods were all slain by the Holy Sovereign, heaven and earth ushered in a new era; to commemorate this great historical turning point, the shogun, the Heavenly Court's administrator, and the great Holy Sovereign, His Majesty Lin VI, issued an edict to change the state name.

The state name is: "Great New"!

New means the renewal of all phenomena!

Thus, your position was changed to "Great New Administrator" and "Shogun Grand General"!

Immediately thereafter, you ordered a change of era name, changing "New Heavenly Court 263rd Year" to "New Calendar Year 1"!

In the first year of the New Calendar, Great New Grand General Lin VI issued the first decree since the era change: Considering the old Heavenly Court's long-term neglect and inaction, which left the heavenly signs unattended through the seasons and the netherworld's courts in ruin, leaving all the people living in dire straits without any divine blessings, Great New decided to restart all divine institutions.

That year, you ordered the gods to establish the "Netherworld's Courts", providing reincarnation benefits for the souls of deceased cultivators!

The following year, you again ordered the gods to establish the "Thunder", "Plague", "Fight", "Fire", "Water", "Rain" divisions, each responsible for eliminating and relieving heavenly disasters and human calamities!

Having received the order, the gods each performed their duties, and thus the various long-vacant welfare programs of the Heavenly Court were reopened; such a good thing naturally elicited cheers from all beings.

One shouted, "The general's kindness can never be repaid!"; another shouted, "Pass down General Lin's orders!"; another shouted, "Sing a song of loyalty for the general!"……

All beings were happy, and you were happy too; thus you poured even more energy and enthusiasm into the undertaking of serving all beings.

Precisely because of these welfare policies of yours, the various productive forces in the mortal realm continued to rise, and an age far better than any previous era has already arrived……

"You……"

Watching Lin VI's various welfare policies, the already-retired Heavenly Emperor Xue Xuan wanted to speak but held back, yet in the end he could not help saying:

"Listen to this old senior's advice: absolutely do not do this, hurry up and cut! Welfare cannot be too high, or else you will eventually not be able to bear it……"

Pit? What pit?

Lin VI was immersed in his fulfilling work, unable to extricate himself, he said via the passage:

"I can bear it!"

Speaking, he also teased Xue Xuan with a smile: "I'm not as lazy as you……"

What Lin VI laughed at was the old Heavenly Court's slack attitude: the well-run Netherworld's Courts were abolished at a whim, the heavenly bureau that should have overseen orderly celestial phenomena was likewise done away with, and over a thousand vigorous true gods were left to retire in heaven—truly, slackness reached a new height! "The downfall of the Heavenly Court stems entirely from the loss of power and duty; you lot, who are wholeheartedly lazy and unwilling to bear obligations, naturally have no power to speak of."

"And as for the vacuum of power, if you do not fill it, someone else will, and thus you will ultimately be defeated by me—truly, you brought it upon yourselves…… Your failed experience, I will surely learn from thoroughly!"

Lin VI stroked his beard and laughed thus.

But the black-clad youth twitched the corner of his mouth: "You think I'm stupid? You know it, I don't understand?"

He said solemnly:

"Back then I also harbored the same confidence and enthusiasm as you, wanting to do more good for all beings, so I established the Netherworld's Courts and set up the various bureaus of the Heavenly Court, responsible for eliminating heavenly disasters and human calamities."

"But in the end I still abolished them all…… Guess why?"

Xue Xuan's solemn question left Lin VI a bit dazed: "Could it not be because of laziness?"

He suddenly recalled what Li Ziliang had once told him about the reason for the Heavenly Court's slackness: the Heavenly Court slacks because the gods inherently do not need mortal incense offerings; incense to them is merely a blue potion to replenish divine power.

Replenishing the blue is certainly important, but it's not that one cannot live without it; moreover, if the gods do not work, the blue is not consumed at all.

Thus, essentially, the gods of the Heavenly Court are all working unpaid overtime, even paying to work……

What a damn shift! Purely being a beast of burden!

According to Li Ziliang's account, it is precisely because working equals unpaid forced labor that it prompted the Heavenly Court to successively abolish the Netherworld's Courts and other subordinate agencies, resulting in the gods holing up in heaven in slackness, turning the Heavenly Court into a "self-governing organization", until he rose up unexpectedly and swept it away in one fell swoop……

Thinking of this, Lin VI, who had been mocking, suddenly couldn't laugh anymore.

【The senior's experiential talk made you feel like parting the clouds to see the sun, like a sudden enlightenment!】【The downfall of the Heavenly Court is naturally due to its slackness, but the cause of that slackness is very real: the Heavenly Court's gods are unwilling to be beasts of burden—do you really think the true gods of your Great New dynasty would be willing to be beasts of burden?】

This solemn problem suddenly dawned on you, making you unable to help but feel troubled, for you seem truly unable to come up with a perfect solution……

The Heavenly Emperor Xue Xuan spoke to you with weighty words: "I too once held all beings in my heart, but reality forced me to give up."

"Back then I still wanted to persist stubbornly, but the ministers repeatedly memorialized, asking me not to be obstinate……"

Having said this, the Heavenly Emperor sighed: "Is this a memorial? This is clearly an attempt to force the palace!"

"We are all true gods; I have no superior strength over them, so for the sake of my life I could only be compelled to follow the ministers' memorials, ultimately abolishing all the Heavenly Court's welfare……"

"Also, do you still remember how those folk wild gods treated me back then?"

The Heavenly Emperor's question made you recall again: the various wild gods of that time, in fact just as you had previously thought, all wanted to topple the Heavenly Court's clay-and-wood idols and rebuild a new Heavenly Court that serves the people!

However, since you established the shogunate and assumed power, those once-rampant wild gods have long been swept into the trash heap of history…… Why does the Heavenly Emperor bring them up for no reason?

In your doubtful gaze, the Heavenly Emperor sighed helplessly: "Those wild gods are actually the product of our reduction of welfare."

The populace had long been accustomed to the high welfare given by the Heavenly Court; this sudden cut—who could bear it? Which of the myriad people does not resent? Which does not grudge?

The people's grudge against the Heavenly Court will naturally turn their incense faith toward those wild gods who claim to do practical things for them; the wild gods need not say much, simply putting up slogans like "Restore high welfare", "Punish the inactive Heavenly Court pretender", "Smash the false emperor Xue Xuan's dog head", and they can quickly snowball and grow.

"And the reason the wild gods again fell silent after you took power is also because you took over their ecological niche; the high welfare they promoted, you fully provided, so the populace naturally turned their hearts to you, and the wild gods, deprived of offerings, naturally died out……"

"You became the greatest wild god, and then truly helped the populace topple the Heavenly Court……"

As expected, the Heavenly Emperor still has some substance; his lengthy sighs are all extremely reasonable experiential talk, making you unable to help but fall into contemplation.

The problem is huge!

The Heavenly Emperor back then, because the gods forced the palace, was compelled to cut welfare; and once welfare was cut, it provoked the populace's collective resentment, and the ownerless incense faith thus produced countless wild gods, ultimately causing the Heavenly Court to fall.

Now that you have followed the trend and replaced the Heavenly Court, the Heavenly Court also becomes your cautionary tale: if you long imitate the Heavenly Emperor's welfare policies of that year, it will undoubtedly again provoke ministerial opposition, and no matter how loyal the ministers are, they cannot possibly be willing to be beasts of burden—this goes against their nature!

Under such conditions, you have only two choices: one is to insist on your own way, ending in isolation and abandonment; the other is to cut welfare, ending up walking the old path of the Heavenly Emperor.

Neither path is a good way out, thus you are torn, not knowing what to do……

Ding! Faced with this pressing problem, you can only pin your hopes on "another self", not seeking to give a perfect way, only hoping to give a makeshift method, so that you can last as long as possible in this life to gain more information…… You choose: (?) Please answer freely!

"This problem…… is actually the first time I've encountered it."

Zhao Si felt somewhat surprised: "All are made up of extraordinary beings forming the Heavenly Court, so why does this issue arise in this chapter, while it doesn't appear in the chapters of Jin Bing and Xiao Heizi?"

Other households aren't causing trouble, only Lin Liu's chapter is causing trouble; the reasoning behind it is truly worth pondering.

Zhao Si thought seriously, then compared several Heavenly Courts against each other; with ample examples supporting him, he gradually got a clue…

"Two reasons!"

Zhao Si stroked his chin:

"First, it's because the two sides have different worldviews; in the earlier chapters, primordial cultivators, even after becoming immortals, still had many realms, they were not free of desire, and to reach a higher realm they needed many heavenly materials and earthly treasures."

"Pills, magic treasures, power… these are what they pursue, and the Heavenly Court just happens to satisfy their needs, so after becoming heavenly officials they can still keep ample enthusiasm… This is essentially luring them with benefits, rather than simply making them work for free as oxen and horses."

"But in Lin Liu's world, the true god is the pinnacle of cultivation, possessing immortality, they basically have no desires, not even basic needs, so Lin Liu's Heavenly Court naturally cannot offer them any benefit… work equals being oxen and horses."

"Second…… is strength!"

This is the simplest and crudest answer, and also the most essential answer.

Lin Liu and Heavenly Emperor Xue Xuan cannot gain an absolute advantage in personal strength; they and the other gods are all true gods of the same realm, so when their personal strength cannot surpass others, the Heavenly Court of the extraordinary world cannot be established.

"One's fists aren't big enough……"

Zhao Si furrowed his brows; this problem, under the extraordinary worldview, seems truly unsolvable……

……

(End of chapter)