The whispers mixed into the great bell left Ying Zheng frozen in place despite himself. The voice was both real and illusory, yet he knew perfectly well that it was no hallucination. It was a sound truly and unmistakably mingled within the rainbow light, like the dawn of sunrise.
It was the voice brought by "Donghua Dijun," "Fusang Great Emperor," "Water Official Great Emperor," and Taiyi, the new Heavenly God worshiped in Chu.
The carriage drawn by the eight-legged, twelve-winged Azure Dragon stopped upon the rainbow bridge and did not descend. Xu Fu leaned over the front of the carriage, her body tilting slightly forward, her small frame arching backward beneath her loose clothing into a taut curve. She lowered her eyes to look below. The square cap on her head swayed from side to side, and the one eye she had exposed carried a trace of surprise.
What entered her sight was the stern, towering spectacle of Qin. The Qin army stood like a forest of steel. That solemn, dignified momentum pervaded the whole state from top to bottom—one heart from above to below, one body within and without.
"No wonder it could become the strongest of the states..." Xu Fu let out a muffled, whimpering sigh of admiration.
Yu Mei-ren merely glanced down twice before looking away. "Compared to Shennong and Xuanyuan's allied army against Chiyou's Jiuli army back then, it's far inferior."
Rovi picked up where Yu Mei-ren left off. "When the Yellow Emperor fought the Lord of War, it was still the mythical age. You can't compare that to now."
Or rather, in a certain sense, the fact that Yu Mei-ren could mention Qin in the same breath as the armies of Yan and Huang and Jiuli was already nothing short of a miracle.
Rovi gazed down at the earth beneath his feet. He did not let the carriage—now perhaps it ought to be called a dragon carriage—descend. Instead, his gaze turned toward the officials within Xianyang Palace, and toward the tall figure already standing before them all.
The future Qin Shi Huang, the present King Zheng of Qin, wore a black robe patterned with the dark bird emblem. A crown rested upon his head. His features were handsome, and his eyes were sharp as a hawk's.
Though young, he still appeared quite majestic.
Judging by his appearance and bearing alone, he was without question an "emperor," a king no one could doubt.
Of course, perhaps no one would ever know that this emperor's mind was currently blank.
To others, there was only the sacred sound of bells. To him, however, that bell sound was mixed with all manner of bizarre whispers... If not for King Zheng of Qin's will, which was so powerful it could almost be called terrifying, he would likely have already fallen into a muddled daze.
Those blunt words, those crude phrases, clearly held no profound meaning, yet every single one struck straight at the weakness of the human heart.
Ying Zheng pressed his lips together, frowned, and said nothing.
He merely raised his head and looked toward the carriage in the sky, meeting the gaze of the "god" above—
"He resisted it?" Rovi chuckled.
Aiming "chaos" at Ying Zheng was something he had already thought of before entering Qin, and it was also one of his purposes for doing so.
Especially after seeing the Qin people united from top to bottom like this, this action had become even more imperative.
Because while Qin was powerful and prosperous, Rovi knew that after this mighty empire unified all under heaven, it would collapse in the second generation and perish by the third.
King Zheng of Qin would push the empire to its peak, yet also bury within it the hidden danger of its collapse. Those who came after him would lack his ability to suppress that tremendous danger.
In a certain sense, King Zheng of Qin bore an exceedingly faint resemblance to the first king Rovi had encountered in this world: Gilgamesh. Without Rovi, Uruk too would have reached its peak in Gilgamesh's hands, then swiftly collapsed after his death.
So Rovi wanted to do something similar to what he had done back then.
To ask the human king on behalf of the people.
Though saying it this way might sound somewhat arrogant, by now, he had long since acquired the capital to be arrogant.
Along the way, he had gathered the questions of thousands upon thousands of people. Whoever had a question, whoever had a request, Rovi had never refused them—precisely for this moment.
He was a god of the people.
So naturally, he could ask the king on behalf of the people.
Thus, in that instant, god and king locked eyes. In that moment, the King of Qin and Donghua Dijun met above and below Xianyang.
The sound of the Chaos Bell echoed in all directions. The whispers of chaos overlapped layer upon layer. Rovi flicked his sleeve and, with his own consciousness, wove an illusion—a virtual space.
King Zheng of Qin abruptly came back to himself and saw only boundless space around him. In the darkness, stars dotted the void, glimmering faintly.
But his daze lasted only an instant. Immediately after, he regained his composure and laughed. "Huhahaha... Donghua Dijun, are you so eager to meet with me alone?"
"What do you think?" A figure appeared in the darkness ahead. Rovi sat behind a table and said, "Sit, King of Qin."
"Or would you rather I keep communicating with you through the sound of the Chaos Bell?"
Ying Zheng's expression shifted almost imperceptibly. Facts proved that even someone with the firmest will could not withstand bombardment by indescribable whispers... At the very least, it would leave a shadow in the heart.
Rovi was naturally satisfied with this. He no longer needed to rack his brains thinking about how to break someone's defenses. Instead, the language generated automatically would attack his opponent on its own, and even accurately locate their psychological weaknesses.
If used well, this "chaos" could become not only Rovi's "death path," but also a trump card for defeating enemies—a supreme Noble Phantasm.
King Zheng of Qin sat down, yet his kingly bearing did not diminish in the slightest.
Though he did not know what this place was, he showed no sign whatsoever of feeling inferior to Rovi.
He said, "Huhahaha, as expected of Donghua Dijun. Such bearing is not the least bit inferior to my own."
"There's really no need to praise yourself. I'm tired of hearing it." Rovi flicked his sleeve and filled the wine cup on the table before him. He lifted his cup and said, "I came to say only one thing, and ask one question."
"Can Great Qin become all under heaven?"
"My towering Great Qin naturally can become all under heaven!" King Zheng of Qin said as a matter of course. "Look across all under heaven. What else can be stronger than my Great Qin?"
"There is."
"What?"
"Me."
"..."
King Zheng of Qin narrowed his eyes and stared fixedly at the divine Emperor-Lord and immortal Immortal Lord before him.
"Do you know what I saw when I came to Qin lands?" Rovi said slowly. "I came to Qin and saw the towering Qin sword. This is indeed an unparalleled divine sword beneath heaven, but it is also a double-edged sword."
"One edge points outward. One edge points inward."
The King of Qin fell silent for a moment, then slowly picked up the wine vessel before him.
Darkness stretched on all sides. Within this virtual space woven from consciousness, King Zheng of Qin showed a very rare expression that had surfaced from the outside world: deep thought.
After a long while, King Zheng of Qin exhaled and laughed aloud. "Huhahaha. As expected of Immortal Lord Donghua. With one glance, you saw the hidden flaw beneath my Great Qin's sharp edge."
Of course he knew what Rovi was talking about. The Qin sword was sharp, but that sharpness had always come at a price.
Qin was built upon a system of farming and war: farming sustained war, and military merit earned fiefs. For that reason, the people of Qin did not fear death, because their deaths could bring land grants to their descendants, allowing them to rely on those granted lands and live well.
And ever since Shang Yang's reforms, this system had always been implemented with extreme fairness. From top to bottom, it had accumulated absolute credibility and popular support.
However—King Zheng of Qin intended to unify all under heaven. What he wanted after unification was not enfeoffment, but centralization.
He wanted to gather power back into Great Qin and have the king oversee everything.
Not like Shang and Zhou, where feudal lords were enfeoffed and the Son of Heaven could not directly control the various regions.
This fundamentally denied the system of the Qin army.
"But this step is necessary for me."
"Because I will forge Qin into a true empire. I will cast Qin into a divine sword that shines across the world. I want this sword to last ten thousand years without fading. I want, thousands of years from now, for Great Qin's bright moon to still shine here."
King Zheng of Qin held an ambition that embraced all under heaven, and even more than that, he possessed the courage to surpass those before him.
When the Qin sword marched east, what it swept away was not merely all under heaven.
It was also the past.
"Do you not fear death?"
"Huhahaha. I have sworn to surpass life and death and forge an unprecedented achievement beyond the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. How could I fear death?"
"Then let's return to the main point." Rovi smiled as well. "Do you know what all under heaven is?"
"All under heaven is Great Qin's all under heaven, my all under heaven!" King Zheng of Qin's answer was perfectly standard. "Everything that can be placed beneath my rule and managed by me is all under heaven—the best all under heaven."
"That is your all under heaven, not the true all under heaven." Rovi rejected King Zheng of Qin's answer. He said, "All under heaven belongs to the people."
"Of course, this idea may be a little ahead of its time, and perhaps it does not fit the era. But there is one thing you should understand clearly..."
"They are all under heaven."
King Zheng of Qin froze slightly. He watched Rovi raise a finger, his sleeve fluttering as he pointed around them. In this pitch-black space woven from consciousness, lights and shadows suddenly manifested.
They were human figures, one after another—person after person.
They were all the people who had asked something of Rovi along his journey riding wind and rain, crossing the Wei River and entering Qin.
There was an old man in ragged clothes with no means to live. There was a woman whose entire family had died in wars year after year. There was a farmer whose fields had yielded not a single grain because of famine...
"They are all under heaven. The countless living beings beneath heaven are all under heaven."
Rovi flicked his sleeve and said, "So I came here only to ask one question."
"Can you treat this true all under heaven well?"
"To be placed under Great Qin's management is the greatest kindness." Ying Zheng's reply did not waver in the slightest. "If they are my people, I will naturally treat them well."
"They—"
"I will never abandon them!"
There was not the slightest wavering in the young King of Qin's eyes. Nor could he possibly become lost because of a few words from the figure before him.
As the King of Qin, as the one who wielded the strongest sword beneath heaven, he had already made his resolve before taking up that sword.
"Everyone says the tyrannical Qin has no Dao. But to me, if it can end the endless strife of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States that has lasted hundreds of years, then that is a great good."
Ying Zheng abruptly rose and said, "Even if I must bear infamy for a thousand autumns, even if I am denounced as a solitary tyrant, this heart of mine that grips the sword will never waver!"
With a ringing clang, the Qin sword swept down, and the images around them collapsed in an instant.
The King of Qin's figure stood among them, towering and unmoving as a mountain. The words he spoke, the things he said, were all declarations of his heart. They were the "good" that King Zheng of Qin firmly believed in.
To place all under heaven beneath my management is, for these people, the best and kindest destination!
The darkness dispersed.
Rovi withdrew the virtual space woven from consciousness. The suspended carriage still remained above Xianyang. The rainbow bridge shone in brilliant colors, and after the dark clouds scattered, the clear sky gradually revealed itself.
The bell sound reverberated grandly. Ying Zheng came back to himself and gazed upward without any change in expression.
Rovi had the dragon carriage move forward... descending toward the mountains behind Xianyang.
His conversation with the King of Qin had allowed him to confirm this young king's will. The one who held the sword did not need to fear a frail body; what mattered was whether his own sword knew where it ought to be swung.
And Ying Zheng had always known that clearly. He had not wavered in the slightest because of Rovi's words.
The "good" he believed in was also in line with this era.
For the people, a unified all under heaven was, in the end, countless times better than an age of separatism and war.
And now that he knew the suffering of the common people, Ying Zheng's actions afterward would also change.
It would not alter his path, but it could allow his gaze to touch the true "all under heaven."
And so Rovi entered Qin.
Tacitly agreeing to "cooperate" with him.
...
"Transmit my command. From this day forth, Great Qin shall venerate Donghua Dijun as the god who presides over the state and its seasonal rites, with Fusang Great Emperor, Water Official Great Emperor, and Taiyi as his titles."
"We honor him above the four Emperors venerated by Great Qin, dwelling at the center as 'Azure Heaven.'"
Ying Zheng spoke loudly, then gave orders to those at his left and right. "Order Wang Jian, Li Xin, Meng Tian... order each of you to command your respective Qin armies and send them beyond the pass. Station troops at Hangu. Order Li Si to plan and coordinate the logistics. Zhao Gao, you will go to Shu and transfer the grain and fodder accumulated in Shu's granaries to the front line. You will personally serve as the superintendent of grain logistics!"
"All other officials shall remain in their posts. Fulfill your duties. There must be no mistakes!"
"We obey my king's command!"
"We obey my king's command!"
"We obey my king's command!"
The magnificent voices echoed throughout Xianyang, inside and out.
...
On this day, Ying Zheng welcomed Donghua, venerated him as chief god, and further ordered this unsheathed Qin sword to be swung directly beyond the pass.
"In the ninth year of the First Emperor, the Qin army marched east, with Wang Jian, Li Xin, Meng Tian, and other generals commanding the various armies. They launched their assault against the six states and caught them off guard!"
—Annals of the First Emperor
...
"This Ying Zheng is pretty interesting!"
Standing atop the dragon carriage as it descended toward the mountains behind Xianyang, Rovi gazed into the distance at the scene of swaying lights and countless troops and horses moving as one.
The news that the Qin army had been massively redeployed within Qin over the past few days had long since become known to the states.
But they all knew this was Qin's arrangement to welcome "Donghua."
They would never imagine...
That Ying Zheng would directly seize this opportunity and order the already assembled Qin army to head beyond the pass.
It saved him the time needed for mobilization and caught the states completely unprepared.
Xu Fu and Yu Mei-ren looked at each other, utterly unable to anticipate this sudden turn.
Only Rovi laughed aloud.
"Then next—"
"It's time I sharpen my own sword as well."
The Qin army was about to march east.
And Rovi had entered Qin not only to meet Ying Zheng, but also for his own purpose.
He intended to borrow this Qin sword, to borrow the "momentum" wrapped around this Qin sword that carried the vast earth, to force out the Old Ghosts of the Six Heavens hidden among the states, concealed within each state's history, within the gaps of each state's Human Order.
The Old Ghosts of the Six Heavens had always been a problem for this heaven and earth.
Let alone ordinary people—even if immortals and gods drew near, there was a possibility their consciousness would be tainted. Even the previous Tamamo-no-Mae had only dared to touch them through a projection; her true body had not dared move at all.
But Rovi was not afraid.
Not only because he wanted to absorb the chaos of the Old Ghosts of the Six Heavens to make the chaos in his mind grow ever more vigorous, using it to seek the opportunity to ascend to the "seat."
But also because he had seen the vast earth rise and fall, and the common people suffer through chaos and displacement.
No matter what, this place had always been that homeland within his mind. Even if it seemed true and false at once, he could never truly let it go.
Those who did not fear death, who regarded death as home, had always been willing to take up the sword and drive out the Old Ghosts of the Six Heavens, returning peace to all under heaven, for no other reason than to give full release to the will within their hearts.
---
T/N: hello i am back from japan, and i am sick heres some chapters i remembered you guys exist
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