I Was the Heavenly Emperor in the Primordial Age

Chapter 13: The Origin of the Wood Guests

Under the vast sky.

On the grassy plains outside, cattle and sheep wandered leisurely by the river, while all the important members of the Ximu Clan gathered inside the tent.

The tent was not large and was already packed to capacity.

Everyone was discussing whether it was necessary to repair and expand the altar atop Mount Kunlun.

In this era, there were no temples, no shrines, and no ancestral halls of any kind, nor did anyone think of establishing such structures.

The altar was already the most important building for worshiping Heaven and Earth.

The original altar at the summit of Mount Kunlun had been hastily constructed. For the people of the Ximu Clan, this single altar was no longer sufficient to worship and offer tribute to the Emperor, who represented Heaven.

They had to build a new one, a structure more befitting the Emperor.

They had to devote all their strength to constructing it, as a way to repay the Emperor for his protection of the Ximu Clan.

This was true for the ordinary people of the Ximu Clan, and even more so for their shaman, the Great Roc.

“Should we clear the mountain path?”

“The fog is getting thicker. Soon it might be too difficult for us to ascend the mountain.”

“As long as the Great Roc can fly up to Kunlun, the Ximu Clan will never cease the Emperor’s worship.”

“Yes, even when we are not at the foot of Kunlun, the Great Roc can still fly back.”

“But while we are still at the foot of Kunlun, and the fog isn’t too dense yet, we must hurry and take advantage of the time.”

Finally, everyone turned their gaze toward the Great Roc.

Originally, everyone had followed their usual custom of looking directly at one another, but upon seeing her, they could not help but lower their heads.

Although the Great Roc had taken human form, her essence had undergone a complete transformation compared to before. As a shaman, she was one being; as an ordinary mortal, she was entirely another.

Her figure had become more perfect—tall, with long and powerful limbs.

Her skin was as smooth as jade. Upon closer inspection, it lacked the pores and fine hairs of ordinary humans.

Looking even closer, one could discern an imperceptible detail: fine lines resembling feathers.

The Great Roc wore a simple coarse linen robe, yet still bore her grass crown and mask.

Her exposed arms, bare feet, and the skin around her neck all radiated a sense of power, a mysterious aura beyond ordinary humans.

The more mysterious she became, the more awe-inspiring she was.

It was as if the earth were vast and imposing, yet everyone felt the high, untouchable sky above.

After discussion, everyone finally knelt before the Great Roc.

In truth, this was exactly what the Great Roc had wanted them to do.

The Great Roc said, “Then let it be so. Also, gather more jade and stones; they will be needed during the ritual.”

The Ximu Clan members did not ask questions. The image of the Divine Stone standing atop Mount Kunlun had already been etched deeply in their hearts.

In their eyes, even ordinary jade and certain special stones must possess some extraordinary power.

Perhaps from this moment onward, ordinary jade began to carry a special symbolic meaning.

The problem was already sown the moment the Ximu Clan members touched the Divine Stone.

The Ximu Clan grazed to the north of Kunlun, while the Hanhuang Clan gradually settled at the southern foot of Kunlun. The Hanhuang Clan even traded goods with the Ximu Clan to the north.

At this time, the Ximu Clan had yet to realize the issue.

After all, other clans often passed through the area, and their attention was focused elsewhere.

At the southern foot of Kunlun, the Hanhuang Clan was stationed in a valley, with most members resting in a cave.

Nü Mie stood at the cave’s entrance, her gaze stretching across the vast valley, looking toward Kunlun’s main peak, which rose like a pillar to the heavens.

She had stood there for a long time, motionless, lost in thought.

Having exhausted her strength, she had twice climbed the perilous peak of Kunlun.

She had bribed members of the Ximu Clan and braved the constant danger of being discovered and killed.

Finally, she obtained a branch from the divine peach tree atop Kunlun.

Logically, she had at last acquired the thing she had longed for—the thing she had yearned for ever since she had glimpsed the divine tree atop Kunlun.

Yet at this moment, she seemed somewhat absent-minded.

The female priest approached her from behind and asked,

“What’s wrong?”

The female priest had noticed Nüjue’s troubled thoughts—or rather, her unusual state.

Nü Mie finally came back to herself, her gaze detaching from Kunlun’s peak, and she turned to the female priest.

She said, “I have obtained the peach branch, and Female Priest, I remember you recorded the entire process of the Ximu Clan’s worship of the Emperor, right?”

The female priest nodded. “Yes.”

Nü Mie then asked,

“And you also met the Emperor—twice, right?”

The female priest nodded again, confirming it.

To the female priest, it seemed that Nüjue’s next words would concern how to imitate the Ximu Clan’s process of worshiping the Emperor in order to gain power akin to the Great Roc of the Ximu Clan.

At the peak of Kunlun, the one with power was not only the Blue Bird; compared to it, the divine tree attracted more attention.

If the Blue Bird could make the Great Roc a shaman, naturally, the divine tree’s power could make them shamans of the Hanhuang Clan.

However, at this moment, Nüjue’s words took an unexpected turn.

Nüjue stepped forward, her eyes locking onto the female priest’s, and asked excitedly,

“What does the Emperor look like?”

“Have you touched the Divine Stone? Have you touched the Emperor?”

Before, Nüjue had most desired the power of a shaman; now, she seemed to have cast that desire aside.

The Female Priest looked at Nüjue as she stared deeply into her eyes. It felt as if Nüjue wanted to see, through her pupils, the scenes she had witnessed before, and even hear the words she had spoken to the Emperor.

Looking at Nüjue’s strange gaze, the Female Priest, who had always grown up alongside her, immediately sensed that something was wrong.

“Nüjue, what’s wrong with you?”

“You seem a little off.”

Nüjue was indeed acting abnormally. She muttered nervously to herself, her eyes constantly following the Female Priest’s gaze.

“Why?”

“Why is it that every time I go up Mount Kunlun, I can’t find the Divine Stone?”

“Why was it that every previous time you saw it with your first glance, and I never did?”

Then, Nüjue grew incredibly agitated.

“You want to speak with the Emperor again, don’t you? You even want to touch that Divine Stone, right?”

The Female Priest felt terrified. Nüjue seemed to have become an entirely different person.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Nüjue continued staring into the Female Priest’s pupils as she spoke.

“I’m fine.”

“I saw the Emperor, and the Emperor looked at me too.”

“That feeling… it’s just too wonderful. He truly is the embodiment of Heaven.”

“I felt that I had become one with Heaven and Earth… something inside my body came out… ah…”

“That feeling… it’s just too wonderful.”

Her appearance grew more and more deranged, and what she said became incomprehensible to the Female Priest.

Then.

It seemed as if she had truly “excavated” something from the other’s pupils and exclaimed joyfully:

“I saw it.”

“The Emperor rejected you. He won’t let you become his shaman.”

“No wonder, no wonder! No wonder you came back so distraught!”

She was elated, as if the Female Priest’s inability to become the Emperor’s shaman was some kind of blessing.

This shifted the Female Priest’s emotions from worry and helplessness to extreme irritation.

Then Nüjue said nothing more and simply turned to leave.

The Female Priest hadn’t even had the chance to speak to Nüjue about the ritual; her mind was entirely consumed by annoyance.

She planned to speak with Nüjue later, but by the time she went to find her, Nüjue had vanished.

The Female Priest searched every corner of the tribe, inside and out, but could not find her.

“Nüjue?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wasn’t she here this morning?”

“I didn’t see her in the afternoon.”

“I saw her earlier by the river. She was wearing a simple white dress, holding a branch, not sure what she was doing.”

The Female Priest asked one member of the Hanhuang Clan after another, but in the end, she received only this fragment of information.

The Female Priest rushed there immediately and eventually found the peach branch by the river, but Nüjue herself was nowhere to be seen.

“She even abandoned the peach branch?”

That was something she had fought desperately to obtain.

Until late at night, Nüjue still hadn’t returned.

She had disappeared.

The Female Priest raised her head to look at the main peak of Mount Kunlun. Though no one had told her, she already knew where Nüjue had gone.

“She went up again.”

If the first time Nüjue ascended the mountain was because of the Divine Wood, and the second time was for the shamanic power,

Now, she had obtained the peach branch. They could use it to gain the power of a shaman.

She had gotten everything she wanted.

So this time she went up again… what was she going to do?

At the peak of Mount Kunlun.

This time, Nüjue ascended the mountain without any obstacles and did not get lost in the clouds that often covered the peak. She wandered along the mountain paths with no direction.

But that didn’t mean she had escaped the mist; rather, it seemed she had fused with it, falling deeper into a realm of confusion.

Soon, she reached the ritual altar built by the Ximu Clan.

Nüjue looked very much like the Female Priest. At first glance, Li Jun almost mistook her for the Female Priest returning.

“Why have you come again?”

Upon hearing this, Nüjue panicked slightly, pretending to be the Female Priest.

“I thought about it… I still very much desire that kind of power, to be by the Emperor’s side,”

But her nervous tone and awkward movements immediately made Li Jun suspicious.

Li Jun finally recognized who she was. He had seen her before when she had followed the Female Priest here.

“No!”

“You’re not the Female Priest. You’re Nüjue.”

Nüjue admitted it.

Outside the altar, she looked up the stone steps toward the Divine Stone at the end.

“I am Nüjue.”

Li Jun observed the woman before him and realized that she too had been parasitized by the Peach Tree.

Her condition was even more severe than the Female Priest’s.

He could vaguely see that she had already progressed from the first stage of parasitism to the second stage of transformation—a stage in the future where nothing could be done.

Looking at the peach branch, Li Jun understood even more.

“You have taken a branch from the Divine Wood and are ready to become a shaman.”

The Peach Tree was a force beyond control. Li Jun didn’t know what might happen when one became such a demonic shaman.

Nüjue knelt down, claiming that this was not her wish.

“But I want to become the Emperor’s shaman, not a Peach Shaman!”

Li Jun said, “The Peach Tree’s power has already corrupted you. You cannot acquire any other power.”

He refused Nüjue just as he had the Female Priest. At this, Nüjue’s expression became sorrowful, but she quickly made another request.

“If I can’t become the Emperor’s shaman, may I at least touch the Divine Stone?”

“I want to touch it!”

“To touch the Emperor, you.”

Nüjue’s condition was initially stable, but as Li Jun rejected her, she began to act unnaturally.

A certain obsession consumed her, immersing her in the visions and sensations that had appeared when the Peach Tree had first been born.

“When I touched it, I felt as if I were with the mountains, rivers, sun, and moon.”

“I was no longer just a person, bound by this flesh. I could go anywhere I wished. I am the stars in the sky, the earth beneath my feet…”

“That feeling… is just too wonderful.”

She saw that vision again, lifted her head, and locked eyes with the Emperor’s Double Pupils. The stars of heaven surrounded all the mountains beneath her as she touched the Divine Stone.

In Nüjue’s ears, it was as if a voice was speaking to her.

“Touch the Divine Stone.”

“Go, touch the Divine Stone.”

“Touch it!”

She would stop at nothing to touch the Divine Stone, to touch a part of the Emperor.

Nüjue stepped onto the altar, inching closer to the Divine Stone.

At that moment, the Blue Bird startled her awake.

“Chirp!”

With the Blue Bird’s protection, she could not get any closer.

“Emperor, since you did not choose the Female Priest, why can’t you choose me?”

“Could it be that only the Ximu Clan was special?”

Nüjue’s condition became increasingly unstable. Li Jun could see that her body was undergoing alienation, her form gradually transforming into another kind of lifeform.

At this moment, she also spoke words that seemed oddly familiar.

“No, why am I sprouting?”

“Emperor!”

“I was wrong, I was wrong.”

“Spare me, spare me…” The source of this content ɪs novel⁂fire.net

In the end, Li Jun watched as Nüjue hastily and frantically fled from the ritual altar, retreating into the depths of the mist.

Nüjue ran in panic along the mountain path, but as she ran, her body continued to take root and sprout.

Before long, her body on the mountain path turned into a new peach tree.

But this was not the end.

Suddenly, a figure squeezed out from inside the peach tree, shouting toward the outside.

“No, I still have things left undone.”

“I still have things left undone.”

“I have not yet touched the Divine Stone, I have not yet…”

Not long after, that figure squeezed out of the peach tree and ran down the mountain.

That was no longer a human.

It was a Wood Guest.

In a certain sense, this was truly the very first Wood Guest, born tens of thousands of years ago, far earlier than the Wood Guests Li Jun had seen.

But to Li Jun, this was just yet another Wood Guest among the countless he had already witnessed.

She left, carrying a kind of obsession and fixation.

But in the end, she would still return here, merging with the peach tree.

As though what had run out was merely a corpse carrying an obsession, while the soul remained forever on this mountain path, transforming into a peach tree.

That peach tree stood guard on the mountain path, causing the mist on the road to grow even denser.

Even the clouds and fog over the summit of Kunlun became more profound and unfathomable.

They wrapped around the Divine Stone on the mountain from all directions, no longer allowing anyone to glimpse its existence.

Southern foothills of Kunlun.

The return of “Nüjue” brought great joy to the Hanhuang Clan’s tribesmen and the Female Priest.

The Female Priest stepped forward and looked at Nüjue.

Nüjue was still wearing that plain ritual robe imitating the Ximu Clan’s ceremonies, though now tattered and torn. However, the Female Priest also noticed that Nüjue’s figure and appearance had undergone some changes.

“You have returned.”

“What happened?”

The Female Priest did not know that Nüjue had not only changed in appearance, but had transformed inside and out into another species entirely.

Nüjue lifted her head and looked at the Female Priest.

She said: “Female Priest, you must become the Peach Shaman, and go touch the Divine Stone on Mount Kunlun.”

Northern Kunlun.

The Ximu Clan had finally decided how to construct the ritual altar, decided where to obtain stone locally, and determined its design.

They had even prepared quite a few jade artifacts for use in the next ceremony to worship the Emperor.

A group of people carried various tools, preparing to ascend the mountain and do the preliminary work.

“Go check the mountain road again, tidy up the path.”

“Stay close together, we’ll all enter when the fog disperses at noon.”

“Bring the ropes.”

The ropes were used to measure dimensions. Although universal measurements did not yet exist in this era, the Ximu Clan had their own methods.

The higher they went, the more they realized something was wrong.

“What’s going on?”

“The sun is already high overhead, why hasn’t the fog dispersed?”

“This is far too unusual.”

And with the fog refusing to disperse, the people of the Ximu Clan naturally dared not go in. They had been warned by the Great Roc about just how dangerous this mist was.

But with time passing and still no entry possible, the Ximu clansmen grew anxious, circling around and looking in all directions.

“Why is this happening?”

“The fog is spreading far too quickly!”

“Look, it seems like there’s a shadow on the mountain path.”

Soon, everyone noticed something on the high mountain path. Within the mist, there appeared to be a tree.

On these towering peaks where no tree could grow, the sudden appearance of one stood out starkly. Yet this was not even the strangest part—the strangest thing was that they faintly heard a voice coming from within the mist.

“The tree—the tree seems to be speaking.”

“It’s telling us to leave.”

“Truly, I heard it too.”

“It forbids us from ascending the mountain.”

At that moment, the mist suddenly surged downward, and three people were caught off guard and swept into it.

When the fog drew back, those people had already vanished, as if swallowed by a massive tongue.

The others were horrified, terrified into fleeing down the mountain at once.

They were but ordinary people. How could they dare contend against such an anomaly? They did not even dare glance too long at the shadow within the clouds and mist, scrambling down the mountain instead to report this to the Ximu Clan’s Great Roc Shaman.

“Great Roc!”

“Disaster, disaster has struck.”

“A great calamity has happened.”

Hearing the commotion outside, the Great Roc emerged from the tent and asked the people:

“What happened?”

The tribesmen all fell to the ground, pointing toward Mount Kunlun, and said: “On the mountain, on the mountain… a peach tree has appeared, blocking the path.”

The Great Roc furrowed his brows: “Another tree has appeared on the mountain?”

The man added: “Yes, and it’s as if that peach tree forbids us from going up.”

The Great Roc asked again: “How does a tree forbid you from going up?”

The man answered: “That tree seems to be able to speak.”

To the Ximu Clan, this could indeed be called a calamity—an unknown anomaly had blocked the path to ascend the mountain and offer worship to the Emperor.

What it blocked was not merely the path up the mountain, but the entirety of the Ximu Clan’s way forward.