Chapter 854: Ten Thousand Year Turtle for the Supreme Sovereign
“Who are you talking about?” Zu An was stunned. “Is it about a man or woman?”
For some reason, he couldn’t help but feel a bit unhappy when he saw Mi Li mention someone else. He wouldn’t care if it were another girl, but if it were a man, then…
Mi Li didn’t know what he was thinking, or else she might have grabbed the closest object and started whacking him with it. She asked, “Have you heard of Xu Fu?”
“You mean the Xu Fu who searched the seas with three thousand men to find the medicine of immortality?” Zu An chuckled. “It’d be pretty hard to not know about him.”
“Indeed, that’s him.” Mi Li gave the two rows of words a look. “These two lines are talking about Xu Fu. I already had my suspicions when I saw the shape of this temple. Now, they’ve been confirmed.
“After Ying Zheng unified the world, he no longer had any rivals left to face. He was a man with great ambitions, flaunting himself as even greater than the three sovereigns and five emperors. He obviously didn’t want to ultimately return to the soil like those other rulers, so he began to pursue the path of immortality.
“Many outstanding individuals stepped forward when news of this got out; the most famous ones among them were Lu Sheng, Han Zhong, Xu Fu, and Hou Sheng. The most well known out of them was naturally Xu Fu.
“Twenty-eight years after the empire was established, Xu Fu claimed that there were three sacred mountains in the sea where immortals resided: Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou. As such, Ying Zheng sent him out with several thousand men, as well as three years of rations, clothing, medicines, and tools to reach those places, investing a lot of resources there. However, Xu Fu was never able to reach the sacred mountains even after setting out to sea for several years. Thirty-seven years after the empire was established, Ying Zheng asked the reason for their failure, and Xu Fu said that there was a strange, giant fish obstructing them from advancing and he needed help to defeat it. Ying Zheng permitted this, dispatching powerful individuals from the palace and killing that fish.”
Mi Li paused at that point. She gave the temple in front of her a look. “If my suspicions aren’t mistaken, this temple was made using that weird fish’s bones.”
Zu An cried out in alarm. “This massive temple was actually made out of a fish? Just how big was that fish?!”
Mi Li rolled her eyes. “Do you think any random fish would’ve been enough to convince Ying Zheng that it was the reason behind Xu Fu’s obstruction, and furthermore to make him dispatch all those powerful individuals to take it down? If I were to make a rough guess, that fish was around this world’s grandmaster rank.”
“Grandmaster…” Zu An gulped. If there had been a giant fish at the grandmaster rank, then it had definitely been the overlord of a region in the sea. Who was even disturbing whom here?
“It interfered with Ying Zheng’s path to immortality, so that weird fish corpse was hauled out. Ying Zheng even examined it himself. However, there are no more recordings about the matter after that. I didn’t expect these bones to have been left here!” Mi Li exclaimed.
“Then what about after that? Did Xu Fu find that immortal medicine?” Zu An couldn’t help but ask. Even though he had already heard the story before, the history of this world wasn’t the exact same as his other world, but rather an exaggerated fairytale version. That was why he wasn’t confident if what happened afterward matched his memories.
“Once that strange, powerful fish was killed, Xu Fu crossed the seas again. However, I don’t know what happened afterward, because I was sealed up soon afterward.” Mi Li laughed in self-ridicule. “But I reckon he failed; otherwise, how could the Qin Dynasty have been destroyed?”
Zu An frowned. “Something’s not right. You said earlier that twenty-eight years after the empire’s founding, Xu Fu offered up the petition, and then it was thirty-seven years after that this powerful fish was killed. You were there for all of that. But the first emperor had already sat on the throne for thirty-seven years, so he should have at least been in his fifties, and you were Ying Zheng’s empress… How old were you then?”
He remembered that the moment he had undone Mi Li’s seal, she clearly looked like a young lady. Even though cultivators could hide their age, there weren’t any traces of age. It was hard for him to associate her with an old woman at all.
Mi Li harrumphed. “Asking a girl for her age isn’t polite.”
Zu An chuckled in embarrassment. “Come on, we’re so close already. What can’t we talk about with each other?”
“I wasn’t even his original partner…” Mi Li became annoyed halfway through her sentence. “Regardless of whether I was eighteen or eighty, I’m already past eight thousand, eight hundred and eighty now! That’s more than enough to be your ancestor, hmph!”
Zu An was speechless. Girls were at their prime in their third year of college. What about someone who was eight thousand, eight hundred and eighty then?
He could only continuously comfort himself. Things in a world of cultivation couldn’t be viewed through his previous concept of age. Those immortal goddesses of the legends easily reached tens of thousands of years. If he used that as a comparison, wasn’t Mi Li still young?
Bi Linglong suddenly asked, “Ah Zu, what are you muttering about to yourself?”
Zu An snapped out of his daze. “No… Nothing.” Communication through the soul was extremely fast. Even though he and Mi Li had already exchanged a lot of words, not much time had passed in the real world at all.
“Hurry and come over to look! What are these sculptures?” Bi Linglong trembled as she looked at two rows of dark sculptures. The place was extremely strange.
The lighting in the temple was too dark, so Zu An used his Flame Blade to light some nearby torches and candles. Surprisingly, they lit up even after so much time had passed. The temple brightened up. The two of them could finally see the interior clearly. There were eight sculptures in total on either side. Their appearances were all strange and sinister.
“This temple seems to worship many evil gods.” Bi Linglong felt a chill run down her back. She subconsciously leaned toward Zu An. Regardless of whether it was the outer appearance of this temple, what they’d experienced on the way here, or these malicious looking sculptures, they all pointed at bad signs.
Mi Li sneered. “Ignorant. These are General Thunder, Mother Lightning, Wind Deity, Rain Deity, Yaksha, and other such beings. What evil gods?”
Zu An was confused. “Then why did they consecrate these images here?”
“I reckon that since Xu Fu and the others were heading out to sea for a long time, they built these statues to wish for safety against storms and other natural disasters,” explained Mi Li.
Zu An nodded. The cultivators of this world might have been stronger than the ordinary people of his previous world, but similarly, the disasters and power of the world were also much greater than the natural disasters of his previous world. There were many times where not even powerful cultivators could defy them. They could only construct temples and pray for safety.
“Then the one that’s being worshipped at the highest position should be the Ocean Deity.” Mi Li floated forward as she spoke. She saw that there was a sculpture up ahead, but her expression immediately went blank when she saw it up close.
Zu An took the chance to console Bi Linglong a bit. He brought her up to where Mi Li was. He saw a sculpture that was double the size of the others, seated on a giant rock turtle. Compared to General Thunder, Yaksha, and the other statues, this one looked much kinder. He looked human, and even a bit handsome.
But Zu An couldn’t help but frown. He just felt that there was something strange about the statue. How could he describe it? Those with strong and powerful bodies usually looked fierce, right? Then why did this man give off an entirely different kind of feeling? These two different styles didn’t match at all.
“Hm? There seem to be words carved into the base.” Bi Linglong frowned. She was quite well-read, but she didn’t recognize any of these characters.
Zu An recognized them as lesser seals, a form of Chinese characters standardized by the Qin Dynasty. After experiencing several dungeons, he had already learned most of their characters. He wiped off the dust and read out, “A thousand year fish for the beams, a ten thousand year turtle for the supreme sovereign…”
Mi Li snorted coldly. “Utterly arrogant!” Zu An was startled and looked at her. He didn’t know why she would suddenly become upset. Mi Li pointed at the statue and asked, “Do you know who he is?”
“Isn’t that the Ocean Deity?” Zu An was stunned.
“It should be the Ocean Deity, but the portrait sculpted is another man.” Mi Li paused for a moment. Her voice became somewhat cold. “Xu Fu, you dare claim yourself to be a supreme sovereign?!”