Records of Mysterious Things in the Southern Dynasties

Chapter 324: Large Xie Family Village

"Strictly speaking, it's them." Chen Qingzhi replied softly, "They appeared in the distant ancient times and left behind many deeds. So anyone who has read a few books will know them."

"Yes." The Fifth Dimension nodded, "But the book says they died a long time ago."

"Only their bodies died, but their souls are immortal... So as long as they replace them with a younger body every hundred years, they can continue to live with their original souls, which can be considered a kind of immortality." Chen Qianzhi replied.

After hearing this, Ren Yuan couldn't help but think of the people in Xiejiazhuang. Didn't they also prolong their lives through a similar method?
This world is really a big Xiejiazhuang.

"They claim to be the mentors of the human race and the patron saints of the human race. They claim to have helped the Yellow Emperor defeat Chiyou and helped Dayu control the floods." Then Chen Qingzhi continued:
"I heard from one of the great witches that it was they who assisted successive emperors to drive those demon gods out of the human world, which opened up the golden age of our human race. Of course, no one has ever seen it, and I don't know if it's just bragging or if it's true."

"If that's the case, why do they want to summon the devil back?" Ren Yuan asked in a deep voice.

"The great witch said that witches were not originally human beings, but rather they regarded themselves as mediums between humans and gods." Chen Qingzhi said this, using his finger as a pen to write the word "witch" in the air.

"Just like this character, the upper horizontal line represents the sky, the lower horizontal line represents the earth, the vertical line is the pillar that connects the sky and the earth, and the witch is in the middle as the medium."

"They witnessed the ancient demon gods' reckless fighting, causing the earth to collapse and all living things to suffer, so they felt that the demon gods were a scourge to the world, so they assisted successive emperors in waging a protracted and fierce battle with the demon gods. In the end, Xia Yu completely expelled the demon gods from the human world, and cast nine tripods to guard the destiny of Shenzhou, cutting off the passage between humans and gods in Lingshan. From then on, the gods and the gods were separated forever for thousands of years."

"However, more than four thousand years later, the world is once again devastated and beyond redemption. This time, there is no evil spirit causing trouble, but it is purely the people's own fault." Chen Qingzhi sighed and said:

"In the late Western Han Dynasty, relatives of the emperor and eunuchs took turns to seize power, officials imposed heavy taxes, and the powerful went on a rampage of annexation. The people were reduced to poverty and had no ability to resist risks. When they encountered floods, droughts, and locust plagues, thousands of miles of land were barren, people ate each other, and society was completely out of control—"

"There are millions of refugees in the country. 'The rivers and lakes, the seas and the mountains are all bandit areas', just like hell. This makes the ten witches very distressed."

"Wang Mang's usurpation of the Han Dynasty was the last straw that broke the camel's back. The Ten Witches concluded that all the virtues that the human race had displayed when facing the ancient demon gods had disappeared."

"So they decided to open a small hole in the seal and release some weaker demons back, so that people would remember the fear of being dominated by the ancient demons, stop harming each other, and regain their former virtues. This led to the meteor shower that changed history during the Battle of Jinyang."

Ren Yuan was stunned. He didn't expect that the demons came into being in this way. No wonder they were just minor characters in ancient times.

But the ten witches seemed to have overlooked that humans no longer had the magical powers of the ancient times, and were even more miserable... "However, subsequent developments did not go as they wished. The demon gods, who originally lacked wisdom and only knew how to kill each other, became cunning and cruel after thousands of years of exile, and were full of hatred for humans. They colluded with the barbarians and slaughtered us, the descendants of the Human Emperor... This is the reason for the Five Barbarians' Rebellion." Chen Qingzhi said in a low voice:
"The world has not returned to the ancient times as they wished, with wise rulers and wise ministers, and everyone selfless and willing to sacrifice. Instead, it has become worse and more desperate - including the human heart that they value. Instead of regaining virtue, people continue to break through the bottom line. From top to bottom, they believe in nothing, fear nothing, and care about nothing. Therefore, from the Wei and Jin Dynasties to the present, there have been so many outrageous things that are worse than beasts..."

"It looks like this world is about to be destroyed. No, it's already in the abyss of destruction." Chen Qingzhi continued, "As the initiators of all this, the Ten Witches are naturally greatly shocked. They have two reactions. One is that they feel they are wrong."

"They are indeed wrong." Ren Yuan said in a deep voice: "Trying to awaken people by creating disasters is evil in its starting point and will definitely not lead to good results."

"Yes, you are right. That great witch also reflected in the same way." Chen Qianzhi nodded and sighed, "Unfortunately, great witches like him are a minority after all. Even wise men like the Ten Witches who transcend time and space cannot avoid blaming others..."

"Most witches and shamans believe that the reason they messed up is because humans are too corrupt and the demons are too evil. Even if they are wrong, it is because they think too highly of them and trust their own wisdom too much." Chen Qingzhi said:
"In short, the result of their reflection is that they decided to personally take action and use their own strength to end these hundreds of years of hell and reshape the world they dream of."

"Every time they were reborn, except for their immortal souls, everything else had to start from scratch, including their magic power. So for a long time, they didn't value their own strength, but instead focused more on wisdom and experience."

"But this time, they want to become gods themselves. This is difficult for ordinary people, but it is not difficult for the ten witches who have thousands of years of wisdom. They hide in the dark, use sophisticated calculations to instigate internal conflicts among the demons, and gradually grab the divine fire to strengthen themselves."

"So, in every change of dynasty, they got the biggest benefit. Until the end of the previous dynasty, they had enough strength and finally stepped to the front, cooperating with the current emperor to overthrow Da Qi and kill the patron saint of the previous dynasty." Chen Qingzhi smiled bitterly:
"But as you know, all this comes at a price..."

Chen Qingzhi was not allowed to speak too directly about the following events, but fortunately Ren Yuan had already roughly understood them, so he said softly: "Thank you, General Chen, for clearing up my confusion. But there is still one thing I don't understand. Why did Wu Yang choose to wear the skin of Buddha instead of directly developing Wu religion?"

"Because they are the 'murderers' who banished the demon god. If the other party discovers their existence early, they will definitely attack them in groups. So before they are no longer strong enough to protect themselves, they should try to hide themselves."

"So they chose Buddhism?" the Fifth Dimension said softly.

"That's right. In fact, the Buddha that Emperor Cheng of Han dreamed of was actually the incarnation of the dream god. Therefore, Buddhism was introduced to China by the Ten Witches. They believed that this religion could not be compared with local religions in terms of developing believers and strengthening itself."

"But how could the ancient imperial teachers like the Ten Witches really let a wolf into the house? So from the very beginning, Emperor Cheng of Han introduced the fake Buddha Wu Yang, and the Buddhist religion is not the real Western Buddhism at all, but a tool used by the Ten Witches to strengthen themselves and intervene in the human world."

(End of this chapter)