He forced Lu Wu back by trading injuries.

Yu finally left Kunlun Mountain with Yuan. Until the very end, the Queen Mother of the West and Gengchen did not intervene, allowing King Yu, covered in blood, and the True Spirit Yuan to leave. Lu Wu held his hand over the wound on his abdomen, his face pale. Although he wasn't truly killed, he suffered a significant injury.

He no longer had the strength to stop King Yu from leaving.

Yu hurried away with Yuan, but eventually, he had to stop due to the effects of his injuries.

At that moment, he looked around and realized that he was actually on the eastern side of Chongwu Mountain. A little further ahead was the place where Yuan was buried. Yu himself had unconsciously brought Yuan to this place. After tending to his wounds, he saw that Yuan was still confused and bewildered.

Yuan looked at the man, familiar yet unable to remember, and hesitantly asked,

"Who are you?"

"Have we met before...?"

Yu was stunned, then burst into laughter, reaching out and heavily patting Yuan on the head.

It was such a hard pat that his head hurt a little.

Then he ruffled his hair fiercely.

Then Yuan saw the man wink and smile, saying,

"Guess?"

………………

In the end, Yuan couldn't guess. His memories had faded too much.

Yu looked at the tomb behind the stone tablet, fell into thought, then pointed at the tomb and seriously asked,

"Yuan, why don't you try jumping in and see what happens?"

"Maybe you can crawl out again?"

The ignorant True Spirit was bewildered.

Yu shook his head, smiling, casually tossed the ancient sword on the ground, leaned against the stone tablet, took a wineskin from his waist, tilted his head back, and drank deeply. Then he threw the wineskin to the True Spirit, gesturing for him to take a drink too. Yuan hesitated, then tilted his head back, took a sip, and choked violently.

Yu laughed heartily.

He took the wineskin back and patted Yuan on the back to help him catch his breath.

Finally, his eyes drooped slightly, and he smiled softly, saying,

"I never thought I'd be able to drink with you again."

"It's worth it, it's worth it."

He tilted his head back, wanting to take another sip, but found that the wineskin was already empty. He smiled helplessly, tossed the wineskin on the ground, and saw the Queen Mother of the West, dignified and graceful, waiting there in front of him. Yu patted Yuan on the shoulder and said, "Go on, let her take you away."

The Queen Mother of the West raised an eyebrow, her voice graceful: "Aren't you afraid I'll do something to him?"

Yu smiled calmly and quietly, like a fierce tiger overlooking the world. He sat on the ground, leaning against the tombstone, the sword of Yeying lying diagonally beside him, his eyes bright and quiet. Even in simple clothes, covered in blood, he possessed a calm and subduing aura. He laughed,

"Since you've come, it proves you won't do that."

The Queen Mother of the West looked at him deeply and said, "Yu... take care of yourself."

She beckoned, and Yuan walked over uncontrollably.

And Yu let him leave.

Yuan left step by step, while Yu leaned against the stone tablet, his braided black hair falling loose, covering his face.

The ignorant True Spirit turned his head, looking at the man leaning against the tombstone, a strange feeling boiling in his chest. He suddenly did something that an almost blank True Spirit would never do, and called out, "Yu, you're Yu, right?!"

Yu's lowered head suddenly lifted.

In front, the potter who had lost his memory waved his hand and said,

"I heard them calling you that."

"Will we meet again?"

He said loudly, "When that time comes, my alcohol tolerance will be very, very good."

"Let's drink together!"

Yu was stunned, then he laughed heartily,

"Don't worry, when that time comes, I'll definitely drink you under the table!"

Yuan waved goodbye and left.

The Queen Mother of the West did not take him back to Kunlun. Her previous actions were to maintain the peace of the gods and to let the youngest Celestial Maiden come out. Now that King Yu and the Lu Wu had traded injuries, their relationship had become very tense, so there was no need to do so anymore.

And Yu's intention was that she could conceal Yuan's traces, preferably allowing his True Spirit to leave the mortal world for a short time. Yuan lowered his head, looking at the gradually shrinking and receding scenery of the mortal world, staring intently. Then he turned his head and asked the Queen Mother of the West, "Where will I go?"

The Queen Mother of the West said, "Where will you go? I don't know..."

"But ah, person, the road you are about to take will be very difficult. Compared to the suffering of immortality, the pain of constant reincarnation will be even more intense and prolonged. You may spend your whole life regretting and repenting the past. Even so, do you still want to go?"

Yuan was bewildered. He thought for a while and asked, "Can I still see scenery like this?"

The Queen Mother of the West replied, "As long as you want, you should always be able to see it, right?"

The ignorant True Spirit smiled and said, "Then I won't regret it, will I?"

"Being able to live and see these skies, this earth, and this scenery is already very good."

The Queen Mother of the West looked at him deeply and said,

"Very well, I will respect your choice."

"However, I am also very curious whether you will regret it in the future."

"I shouldn't."

……………………

Yu watched Yuan's True Spirit being taken away, the smile on his face slowly disappearing.

It wasn't until something touched his face that he recovered from his wooden expression. He turned his head and saw Qi, who still looked somewhat youthful, who was also a born saint. Among the friends who went out together in those years, the three of them had always remained unchanged, watching Yuan grow old himself.

Qi said, "Wine, you need this, right?"

Yu took the wineskin, tilted his head back, and drank deeply.

Qi said to himself, "You'd better go back to Xuanyuan Hill as soon as possible. You rushed out alone just now, which has long violated the rules. Now things are in a mess over there, and only Nujiao can barely control it. But if you stay here any longer, she won't be able to hold on for too long."

"Yu, Yu?"

"Are you listening?"

Yu drank the strong liquor in the wineskin in one gulp, his face flushed with drunkenness, and he exhaled a mouthful of alcohol. Leaning against the stone tablet, Qi was silent for a moment, then said, "What are you thinking about?"

Yu said, "I'm thinking... I'm thinking, perhaps, this is the last time I'll see Yuan, right?"

He lowered his eyes and said, "I promised to drink with him."

"And I'll definitely break my promise."

Qi was silent for a moment, then asked, "Why do you say that?"

King Yu said slowly, "Yuan's True Spirit must appear when the world is in chaos. But I am the leader of the human race in the world. Under my rule, the human race must and will prosper, with no disasters. In such an era, Yuan can never be reincarnated, so this drink, no matter what, I can only break my promise."

"And, we still have other things to do."

Qi was silent for a moment, looking at the quiet Yu over there, and said, "What are you thinking about?"

King Yu murmured, "I'm thinking, today I went to save my friend, why should I take the gods into consideration? Why, if I violate the rules of the gods, must I accept the punishment of the heavenly gods?" He reached out his hand, as if to grasp the sun, and said, "Why must we live under the gods?"

Qi said, "Because since the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, a contract has existed between humans and gods."

"This contract has been passed down from generation to generation. Humans sacrifice to the gods, and the gods protect humans, also regulating the order of heaven and earth. And the human race and all living beings have thus lived on."

He pointed to a sapling under a towering tree next to him and said,

"The human race is like this little tree. The storms of the Shanhai Realm are fierce, and a single tree is difficult to support, but this giant tree can shield it from the wind and rain, so it can grow naturally."

This was a natural explanation, a continuation of the contract between humans and gods that began with the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors.

Yu fell silent. Qi thought he had persuaded his friend, but King Yu looked at the big tree and suddenly said a sentence that could be called the most heretical in this era. He said thoughtfully,

"But, if this tree wasn't in the way, this sapling should be able to grow bigger and more lush, shouldn't it?"

Qi was shocked. He lowered his voice and said, "Yu, what are you saying?"

"Are you drunk?"

Yu said, "I'm just saying, is it possible for the human race to survive on its own?"

"Without relying on the gods, and without having to obey the rules set by the gods."

Qi was stunned. He gazed at Yu's eyes, and he saw something that he had not been able to see clearly before was jumping and burning in his friend's eyes, as if to burn the world to ashes.

When they used to walk in this world, they had talked under the bonfire. They talked about the ancient Three Sovereigns, about the achievements of the Yellow Emperor, about Emperor Zhuanxu's severing the connection between heaven and earth... At that time, Yu said that he wanted to establish achievements that were no less than those emperors. At the time, he only thought he was joking, but now, the flame in those eyes was even more intense than the great sun in the sky.

Qi said in disbelief, "You want the human race to abandon the gods and grow on its own?"

"The human side is abandoning the contract that has been in place since the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors."

"Have you thought about what those who break the contract will suffer? Yu, don't mess around..."

Yu smiled, "I know."

"Don't worry, I know very well."

Just then, they both heard a rustling sound approaching. The two stopped talking. Qi took out a broken sword from under his sleeve and handed it over, saying, "The blade of Yeying, I just got it back for you. Find someone from the Zhu Rong clan, and they can reforge it, but be careful when using it."

"It will break if it goes through another great battle."

"You're also bold enough to rush to Kunlun alone."

King Yu said proudly with a smile, "That's right, I've traveled all over the world, when have you ever seen me afraid?"

Qi looked at the self-satisfied and boastful Yu, smiled without saying a word.

He thought for a moment, then took a step back.

King Yu heard a crisp and pleasant, yet playfully drawn-out "Oh," and his body stiffened. He turned his head little by little and saw the witch Nujiao, with her clear eyes and black hair, and his scalp tingled. He said with a dry smile, "...Nu, Nujiao, when did you get here?"

"What are you afraid of? Yu, aren't you afraid of anything?"

"No, no, I'm not."

"I didn't say those words..."

Qi smiled as he looked at Nujiao and Yu, turned his gaze to the stone tablet, looked at the two trees next to it, and thought of the words that Yu had said to him. His heart surged, and then he saw Yu wink at him, and he smiled helplessly.

Never mind.

It should just be a temporary whim.

……………………

That was what he was thinking.

And the scene that Wei Yuan saw suddenly became fragmented, all the way to the years a hundred years later.

This time, Qi came to the tombstone alone.

He had lost his usual laziness and gentleness, his face was full of vicissitudes. He sat in front of the stone tablet, and with a clang, he thrust the twice-broken Yeying sword upside down in front of the stone tablet, sprinkled the wine from the wineskin on the sword's edge, and it fell on the stone tablet. He said softly, "Yuan, Yu said he was afraid he would break his promise..."

"This way, it shouldn't be breaking his promise, right?"

"Let's have a good drink together."

"Speaking of which, that country purely led by humans that Yu spoke of has been born."

"The greatness of its rites is why it's called Xia. That doesn't sound good at all. Shang sounds much better."

Qi touched the spine of the sword and the stone tablet with the wineskin and drank alone.

When he left, he didn't take the Yeying sword away. He just said drunkenly,

"Wait... One day, if the country you created goes astray, my descendants will guide the human country back on the right track."

He looked at the two trees, one large and one small, that used to be there, and thought of what Yu had said back then.

He drew his sword, cut down the big tree, laughed desolately, and turned away.

Finally, the scenes before Wei Yuan's eyes all dissipated. Yu, steady and with a wildness burning in his eyes; Qi, who could avoid all crises, but was ultimately lonely; Nujiao, who left the mortal world with Tushan and Qingqiu – everything disappeared, and in the end, only the stone tablet and a broken ancient sword remained.

The wind blew past, and the ancient sword rang softly, as if telling the story of the past.

In the end, the once-vibrant people and the past had all dissipated into dust.

He had left the earliest, but he also arrived here last. Wei Yuan was silent and lost in thought. Yu, who took the first step, along with his great ambitions, had all left. And the gods still existed, still were, but was this meaningless?

Wei Yuan subconsciously reached out and grasped the sword.

Dust of light scattered from above, and then suddenly spread out. The mist and the formations formed by starlight surged and slammed in all directions. The Bo beast panicked and made a sound like a war drum. The scene in front of him blurred, and then suddenly became clear.

Before him was a vast expanse of green.

The small, weak sapling of that year was now a banyan tree, with drooping branches falling to the ground, sprouting roots, and eventually transforming into a lush forest that occupied the entire eastern part of Chongwu Mountain. And the sapling of that year had also grown incredibly thick. The sapling that once needed others to shield it from the wind and rain was now able to provide shade for Wei Yuan.

The wind blew, and the sound of the leaves was as magnificent as waves.

That was the story of the first people and heroes. In the distant past, the young people had seen the whole world, and then buried their dissatisfaction with the rule of the gods in their hearts, and bit the flame called ambition between their teeth, and finally erupted violently, wanting to be enemies with the whole world, and eventually even the world was cut off.

Wei Yuan was slightly stunned. He vaguely seemed to hear something and turned his head.

Behind him ah…

There was no one left.

ps: Today's second update… 4000 words.

Thank you 丨Ma Que丨for the ten thousand reward, thank you~