Chapter 1335 Great Dreams Heart Sutra, Shepherd License!
This wasn’t a piece of breaking news but rather a nuclear explosion. Everyone was stunned after hearing it.
“Grandfather!”
An Xinhui looked toward An Zaiyi.
“What he says is right.”
An Zaiyi actually admitted to it, making it hard for An Xinhui to ask the countless questions in her heart.
“Just like us humans won’t eat maggots and bugs, that ‘God’ won’t eat ordinary humans either. To it, ordinary people are like low-grade ingredients. No, they can’t be referred to as ingredients but trash!”
Ji Shiwen explained.
“To put it more accurately, these people’s intellect and bodies are too weak. Even if they are eaten, they won’t be able to provide the slightest bit of nutrition!”
An Zaiyi added.
“That’s right. That is why ‘God’ will disseminate knowledge and bestow holy words, enlightening these people. Therefore, great teachers were born.”
Ji Shiwen smiled in self-mockery. “You guys have no idea, but the highest realm that cultivators dream of achieving-shattering the void—isn’t a transcendence. It refers to them having become ripe and ready to be eaten.
“Similarly, the highest realm for great teachers-saints—are also the most perfect fruits that contain the highest amount of energy
“There was a time when great teachers were sparse and humans were weak. Therefore, they were still manageable. However, as the Nine Provinces gradually developed, the number of great teachers surged tremendously and the people’s qualities started to improve by leaps and bounds. This gave that ‘God’ too much work, and thus it picked a shepherd to manage these ‘sheep’, thereby producing ‘ripened’ ingredients in a better and higher quantity way.
“Shepherd An, am I right?”
Ji Shiwen’s last sentence was filled with mockery.
“Thereabout. However, I need to correct one thing. ‘God’ has an extremely advanced civilization, and the shepherd picked is just its work habit. It’s not like ‘God’ can’t handle the workload!”
An Zaiyi’s lips twitched. “The rate at which ‘ingredients’ are produced by humans is too slow, and it is only enough to cover the most basic level of energy depletion for ‘God’, causing it to have no choice but to be in deep slumber for several hundred years in order to lower its energy depletion.”
“What is God?”
An Xinhui interjected.
An Zaiyi didn’t explain.
“You say that ‘God’ can bestow holy words and induce enlightenment. Then is it the same thing with the holy words one hears when they advance to become a secondary saint?”
An Xinhui then looked toward Ji Shiwen.
“Of course it is!”
Ji Shiwen felt very inferior. “We’ve been working hard all our lives, but to think that it’s just to become food for others. An Zaiyi, don’t you find this to be very sad?”
An Zaiyi didn’t reply. He recalled how he had felt when he first heard of this great secret from his father. He was very astonished and in despair, then he felt great rage.
(To think that the father I respected is a lackey for someone?) (I can’t accept it even if this ‘someone’ is God!)
Back then, although An Zaiyi was only a 7-stars, he was already a great teacher who had the magnanimity of a ‘saint’. He loved his students.
At the thought of how the students he had put in so much hard work and effort to nurture were just going to be eaten by ‘someone’, becoming the necessary nutrients for someone else’s survival, he was so angry that he felt like killing that ‘God’.
That was what he did. With his father’s death, he made use of the opportunity when he took over the shepherd identity and started attacking that ‘God’.
However, the results were ridiculous!
It was like an ant challenging a great and supreme human, unable to even hurt the latter with their bite.
At that moment, An Zaiyi felt both helplessness and despair.
It was later proven that ‘God’ was forgiving. The An clan had shown their loyalty and value as ‘sheepdogs[1]’ and thus ‘God’ forgave his offensive act.
After that, An Zaiyi had thought of killing all of humanity.
If all of humanity were dead, ‘God’ would also die from having no food. However, when he saw children running and playing happily on the streets without any worries, when he saw childhood lovers grow up and get married, forming many blissful families, he couldn’t bear to do it.
His son, An Xinhui’s father, was a mediocre person. Therefore, he had devoted all his efforts into nurturing Sun Mo’s father.
Due to the existence of some shackles and restraints, An Zaiyi was unable to tell Sun Mo’s father the secret of this world. However, he’d occasionally give hints.
Things seemed to be within An Zaiyi’s expectations. When he sent Sun Chuanming to train in the Darkness Continent, the latter then discovered the truth and ‘went missing’.
At that moment, An Zaiyi felt consoled that the student he had nurtured was talented enough and didn’t let his expectations down. However, he was also very disappointed at the same time.
It was because this path was destined to be hopeless and lead one to their demise.
An Zaiyi couldn’t stand having to send the respected saints to ‘God’ stomachs one after another. However, in order to buy time for Sun Mo’s father to grow, he endured it.
At the same time, he started to suppress the various geniuses in the great teacher world. With fewer ‘ingredients’, that ‘God’ would not be able to get any nourishment and would become weak.
However, when ‘God’ woke up once again, it noticed this abnormality.
An Zaiyi knew that there was no hiding anymore and thus challenged it. However, without any exception, it was another complete loss.
‘God’ had wanted to wipe out An Zaiyi, but this guy hadn’t worked hard in nurturing a perfect successor in the past 100 years.
Left without a choice, ‘God’ could only let An Zaiyi find out about its civilization, letting him understand what a stupid decision it was to go against ‘God’. It then subdued An Zaiyi utterly on the psychological level.
At the same time, the shepherd system—the Absolute Great Teacher System that Sun Mo had obtained—was introduced and used as a backup plan.
As for why Sun Mo was selected instead of An Xinhui, who had the reputation of being an unparalleled genius, it was because after the system had performed a scan, it realized that Sun Mo’s ability to teach and nurture people was stronger.
To put it simply, he could teach and thus could nurture even more ‘ingredients’!
A big reason Sun Mo was chosen was also because he was An Xinhui’s fiancé and was related to the An Clan.
In the years An Zaiyi was in a coma, he appeared as if he had failed in his attempt to strive for the saint realm, but he was actually being brainwashed by God’s civilization while he ‘roaming’ in the country ‘God’ was from.
Thereafter, a “brand new’ An Zaiyi came back.
“Based on my understanding, you had put up a resistance before as well. But why did you give in?”
Ji Shiwen was puzzled. “Is the thought of standing at the pinnacle of the world and dominating all of humanity really so irresistible?”
An Zaiyi was silent.
Becoming a shepherd meant that one wouldn’t be subject to illnesses and disasters. Moreover, they’d possess a long youth and lifespan. Most importantly, they could decide a person’s life or death.
Regardless if the person was a saint, an emperor, a beauty, or a hero, the shepherd could decide on their life or death. As long as they were ‘sacrificed’, they’d become food for ‘God’.
Even the unrivaled experts who had shattered the void couldn’t kill ‘God’, so how would these people have the power to put up resistance?
“Teacher, give me an answer!”
Sun Chuanming spoke up.
“There’s no way to win!”
An Zaiyi let out a long sigh, and a painful expression finally appeared on his emotionless face. “I’ve seen God’s civilization before! They are too strong!”
“You stop resisting just because the enemies are very strong?”
Sun Chuanming couldn’t accept such an answer. He was the type who’d rather die than give in. “Teacher, you taught me before that there are many things loftier than life and death!”
“Grandfather, why did that ‘God’ choose our An Clan?”
An Xinhui felt very upset. Her super strong capability to understand things allowed her to understand the situation. The grandfather she respected and loved was a lackey for ‘God’, helping it to enslave all lives in the Nine Provinces!
This was something An Xinhui couldn’t accept.
“It’s because our ancestors were very lucky. When God had just descended onto the Nine Provinces, they had given God some help. In return, our An Clan became its shepherds!”
When An Zaiyi talked about this, indescribable feelings flashed in his heart.
It was like how when a person was drowning, a dog dragged them to the shores. After that, the person was very thankful to it and gave it youth and power, letting it become the king of all dogs.
By right the dog king should be very happy since it had gotten everything. Moreover, its ‘master’ had never harmed it other than letting it send some ingredients over on a regular basis.
However, if this dog had a human nature and knew about kindness, evil, right, and wrong, then how would it choose?
To keep on sending one of its own as an ‘ingredient’ to the dining table of ‘God?
That was something that had happened when the Nine Provinces were in the primitive eras. The An Clan’s ancestor, an aboriginal commoner in a primitive tribe, had relied on the knowledge bestowed by ‘God’ and became the tribe’s prophet. He had then nurtured various tribe chieftains.
Of course, all of these chieftains were eaten by ‘God’ without any exceptions.
“The reason you want to kill all of our school’s teachers and students is because we are from An… An… ‘s school? But we didn’t know anything!”
Jin Mujie was very enraged. She didn’t want to address An Zaiyi as the headmaster anymore, but she wasn’t able to call his name either because he was a saint.
“That’s right! We aren’t from the An Clan and don’t have the right to be that shepherd!”
Gu Xiuxun was angry.
“It’s because once our plan succeeds and we kill An Zaiyi as well as An Xinhui, there’s a very high possibility that the next shepherd will come from the Central Province Academy’s teachers and students. It’s because to ‘God’, you guys are the humans it is relatively more familiar with!”
Ji Shiwen explained.
The shepherd was a very important job, so that ‘God’ wouldn’t choose someone it was unfamiliar with to take on the role.
“I’ll tell you another piece of explosive news. You know about the Great Dreams Heart Sutra, right? It’s the Central Province Academy’s ultimate divine art. Anyone who has learned it before has a very high chance of becoming a sheepdog!”
Sun Chuanming let out a cold snort.
The Great Dreams Heart Sutra was a tool used to select sheepdogs. Its primary ability was to allow the cultivator to be able to see ‘God’, hear its guidance, and unconsciously be influenced by God. The person’s perspectives would be remodeled by it, thereby becoming its believer and faithful lackey.
“But this time around, everyone who enters this ancient divine hall will have to die!”
Ji Shiwen smiled in self-mockery. “You guys have seen those monsters, right? Some people have been ‘killed’ by them. That’s actually a means to process ingredients. Once a person is ‘killed by them, they’ll become pure energy and be sent to God’s dining table.
“It’s no wonder that the people who died became a wisp of black smoke, not even having any corpse left behind!”
Gu Xiuxun was struck by the realization but then felt perplexed. “That’s not right. This time around, the great teacher groups are all formed from elites of the Nine Greats. If all of them were to die, the great teacher world would experience a setback, right? It’d suffer a blow for at least several decades, being unable to produce any saints!”
“Due to An Zaiyi being non-cooperative, as well as our assassinations and persuasions that were specially targeted toward secondary saints, the number of saints produced is extremely low. That ‘God’ has been starving for very long.”
Ji Shiwen sighed. He had thought that he could have convinced An Zaiyi to join his side, but he hadn’t expected An Zaiyi’s character to have undergone a tremendous change after he woke up. “Are you done talking?”
An Zaiyi’s tone was very calm. “Since the talk is over, then get ready to go on your way.”
[1] The use of sheepdogs instead of shepherds is likely because of the relation to lackeys ‘referred to as dogs in Chinese raws’.