A long time ago, the first deity of the Shang clan appeared, opening the long era of the clan system. Clans existed independently of nations, often possessing strict hierarchies and numerous rules. The clan members worshiped and offered to the deity, and the deity protected the clan members, making the clan prosper. Unlike nations, which frequently experienced dynastic changes, clans possessed a stable structure and development from the moment they were born.
For a very long period of time, many small nations survived under the immense pressure of powerful clans. Every nation hoped to receive the support and assistance of the great clans.
The Qin clan’s deity was born in the early to middle period. He witnessed thousands of years of history, and in the chaotic era of a hundred nations, he even witnessed the destruction of more than a dozen clans—because the nations supported by those clans were drawn into wars, and when the nations perished, the clans perished along with them, and thus the deity also vanished.
Humanity had always been developing. For the past several thousand years, change was extremely slow. However, in the last few hundred years, suddenly everything seemed to be governed by some mysterious force. The speed of change became overwhelming. Ghosts and plagues that once troubled humans the most disappeared. In modern times, most people no longer even believed they had ever existed. Humanity acquired a completely different path of development, and faith in the deity gradually faded away.
More than two hundred years ago was when thousands of years of division ended, and the thirty-six states of East Continent were unified under one authority. Over a hundred years of war finally established today’s situation.
During the century-long war, the existence of many clans was impacted. Many people felt that hiding under the protection of the clan held no meaning. Many longed to create a brand new world in this era of chaos. The leader of one Qin branch resolutely left the clan, taking the people of that branch into the war and forming a legion.
In the end, this branch became one of the victors of the war. The leader relied on his legion and became a general. Without a doubt, he would have a bright future, but he was not satisfied with his achievements and wanted to obtain greater power.
At that time, most deity had entered a weakened state, but the influence of clans was still immense. To the newly established East Continent regime, the existence of clans was like a chronic sickness lasting thousands of years. If they could not eradicate this ancient illness, they would be unable to completely change the long-standing situation of the clans’ strength and could not fully grasp control over East Continent.
Born of a clan, yet now a member of the new regime of East Continent, General Qin stepped forward. He decided to begin with his own clan and destroy the clan system. Once he set this precedent and dealt a heavy blow to the clans, his merit would be tremendous. After gaining the support of common people without clans, he would even have a chance to contend for the highest power in East Continent—a single Qin clan occupying Yuzhou was naturally far inferior to the entire East Continent.
With great ambition, he returned to the Qin clan lands. Unfortunately, the proposal to destroy the deity and disband the clan was not accepted by the clan members and was even condemned. General Qin had long been prepared. With one command, his legion immediately surrounded the Qin clan lands, controlling the other branches before they could react, and brought his own branch to the shrine to destroy the deity.
Before that, everyone believed that the disappearance of a deity could only come through the destruction of the clan. But somehow, he obtained a method—bringing a group of villains to kill in the shrine, attempting to pollute the deity and make him fall into an unintelligent “gui,” then use the method where the deity would kill clan members and be countered in turn to make him perish—there were so many Qin clan members, as long as the deity turned into a gui killed most of them, he would weaken to the point of no longer posing a threat.
“At that time, some small accident occurred. I never lost my consciousness. That child’s actions truly made me a little angry, so I devoured them.”
Exactly what happened back then, the deity never told the remaining clan members, and they did not dare ask. They only saw that General Qin, that branch of the clan, and those villains he brought were all devoured, and they fell silent with fright, treating the matter as a secret of the clan. After that, he completely transformed into an existence different from other deity.
“That ignorant child was a descendant of my elder brother, with too much ambition.” The deity’s tone was calm, and he even smiled slightly while shaking his head, “It’s fine for children to be naughty, but if they cause great disaster, they must be punished.”
Luo Yuan was so stunned she could not recover. The Qin clan’s deity had lived too long and seen too much. In his casually spoken words, thousands of years passed. During that time, countless clans rose and fell, yet he brushed over them with a single plain sentence.
Once again, Luo Yuan felt the difference between the deity and herself. A familiar fear arose uncontrollably—why me? Why am I able to become the wife of such a deity?
She could not help but hug the deity even tighter. The deity mistakenly thought she was somewhat afraid, so he patted her shoulder with a smile, “There’s no need to be afraid. Although I was indeed ‘polluted,’ I do not go around eating people.”
Luo Yuan shook her head desperately, her chin pressed against his chest, “I’m not afraid. I just want to ask… was that crack on Er-ge’s chest made by that person?”
The deity: “It was knocked by that ignorant child.”
He even had the mind to joke, sighing, “It’s a pity his strength was too small. Otherwise, if he had smashed it directly, perhaps he would have succeeded.”
In that instant, Luo Yuan wanted to travel through time and stab that General Qin early with a knife.
The deity: “Hahaha, just joking. In truth, the crack only appears when I devour evil.”
But Luo Yuan did not feel any better. She recalled the Liang clan’s deity she had seen before—there had been many cracks on his body. She could not help tightening her grip on the deity’s arm and asked anxiously, “Er-ge, if you keep devouring evil, will the cracks increase? In the end… what will you become? Will you die?”
Compared to her tension, the deity remained calm and unhurried, “Even though a deity’s ‘life’ is long, it also has an end. The era of deity has already passed. I will be the final conclusion of this era.”
Seeing his little wife still unable to relax, he lifted her up, holding her like a child, pacing about in the garden Luo Yuan had just built by hand. “Is An afraid of death?”
Luo Yuan lay on his shoulder, smelling the gentle fragrance from his neck and hair, “I died long ago. I’m only afraid Er-ge will be sad. If Er-ge suffers, I will suffer even more.”
The deity: “But thanks to An, I have gained many precious joys.”
Luo Yuan could hardly believe it, “Really? I brought you any happiness?”
The deity smiled, “In the past, I had only the children of the Qin clan. But now, you are also my most precious child.”
Luo Yuan: “…Even though I know my age is truly like that of a child to Er-ge, please don’t call me a child anymore. It really feels like committing a crime.”
The deity: “Alright, I won’t call you that.” He was quite earnest in admitting faults, but he simply couldn’t remember—what slipped from his mouth was always that tenderly affectionate “child.”
“Actually, Er-ge must be tired too.” Luo Yuan suddenly wrapped her arms around his neck, “If one day Er-ge naturally perishes, or chooses to give up, I will accompany Er-ge.”
When Qi Ji met her the second time, he once said she wanted forever. But Luo Yuan felt she was too greedy. How could there be a “forever” in this world? Greedily asking too much was not good. As a human, she had long experienced human fragility and life’s fleeting impermanence. She could accept the natural disappearance of the deity but she could not bear for him to be shattered by schemes, broken apart by the clan he had protected.
“Alright, accompany me. Only, before then, we still have at least a hundred years. We can also be a couple in the human world for a whole lifetime.” When the deity finished speaking, Luo Yuan’s face heated up uncontrollably.
He suddenly said something like that—she felt as though flames were burning inside her chest.
Was this her own feeling, or was the deity’s feeling being passed to her? Heart like fire, body like a wildfire spreading endlessly—yet the one who set the fire was still there smiling at her serenely, pure and unbothered.
Luo Yuan could not help secretly kissing that white-jade-like neck before her.
While kissing him, she inwardly scolded herself. What was going on? Why did she lose control every time she saw the deity? Where did this indescribable impulse come from—was it her nature, only now discovered? Or was it because she liked the deity too much, so whenever he treated her so intimately, she couldn’t restrain herself?
The deity let out a low laugh, tilting his head and meeting her gaze.
Luo Yuan awkwardly withdrew her hand and forced herself to calm down.
The deity: “I understand.”
Luo Yuan: “…I don’t quite understand myself.”
The deity covered her eyes.
Full of confusion, Luo Yuan, having her eyes covered by Er-ge, instantly recalled what had happened earlier in the red cocoon. Her whole body became restless and uneasy.
But then, a sudden wave of drowsiness flooded her, and she quickly closed her eyes, quietly resting against the deity as she fell asleep. This was naturally not a normal state of sleep—the deity had let her enter a kind of soul-resting state.
The deity held his wife as he descended onto the divine altar. His fingers pressed on the center of her forehead, slowly reaching into her mind—as though snow was melting into water.
It was probably uncomfortable. Luo Yuan’s originally solid body even started to slightly dissolve. One of the deity’s hands steadily reached into her mind, while the other hand held her wrist, gently caressing to soothe her.
That white-jade-like hand steadily pulled out a mass of black mixed with red from inside Luo Yuan’s mind. The moment it separated from her, the thing seemed to lose nourishment and wither, yet it kept twisting in the deity’s hand, as if trying to draw power from him.
The deity held his wife with one hand, gently patting her back, while his other hand grasped that thing and examined it closely.
After a long while, he revealed a smile of “so that’s how it is.”
He spoke to that thing in a rather friendly tone: “So it turns out you are the Luo clan’s deity.”
That thing gave him no response. The Qin clan’s deity observed it for a bit longer, finding it interesting. The Luo clan, if he remembered correctly, used to be around the Yanzhou area. The Luo clan’s deity should have disappeared more than two hundred years ago. He never expected a remnant to linger like this, not completely gone.
“Although you are the deity of my wife’s family, hiding inside her and absorbing my power is probably not good, right?”
His wife loved him, and indeed wanted to be close to him, but being influenced and induced by something to desire closeness was truly not normal. She must have sensed something was wrong too, and held herself back with such difficulty—how hard that must have been for her. He had noticed some signs earlier, and only after devouring the Liang clan’s deity did he clearly see this thing in her mind.
“No wonder I couldn’t devour her at first. It seems it was because of you.”
While protecting her, that thing also stirred up her emotions and various desires—desire for love, desire for hate. What was this parasitic deity fragment trying to do? A red thread surged out from the Qin clan’s deity’s hand, swiftly wrapping up that withered lump into a little ball of red thread.
He was just about to wake his wife when he suddenly let out a puzzled “hmm,” and once again reached into her mind, pulling out another tiny black-and-red mass.
They seemed able to use emotions as soil to constantly reproduce.
“Impossible to eradicate… this is a bit troublesome.” Though he said troublesome, a smile still remained on his face. He stuffed this lump into the earlier red thread ball and then lowered his head to awaken Luo Yuan.
Luo Yuan’s eyes were filled with confusion, “Er-ge…?”
The deity responded with a sound, smiling as he asked, “Do you want marital relations?”
Why could Second Brother always ask something so directly? Luo Yuan’s gaze drifted, “…No.”
She felt like she had just woken up, unable to connect with what happened before, still slightly dazed. Then she heard the deity say, “Then let’s play a game.”
Luo Yuan took out her phone with practiced familiarity and opened a new game of Tetris.
After playing for a bit, she gradually sobered up. From behind her, the deity said, “An, I just came to know that you are of the Luo deity clan.”
Luo Yuan’s finger froze in mid-air, and she suddenly turned her head, “What?!”
Although long ago people of the same surname belonged to one clan, that clan would also branch into many shi, and only one shi would be protected by a deity. And not every clan would have a deity—those without a deity were the majority. Before encountering the Qin clan’s deity, Luo Yuan had no knowledge of the existence of clans, nor had she ever imagined she would have any connection to other deity. Hearing this so suddenly left her completely shocked.
A long red Tetris block fell straight down the center, protruding high and failing to fit into the surrounding gaps.
The deity: “Ah, what a pity. If you had placed that piece to the side, it would have fit perfectly.”
Facing her unmoving, wide-eyed look of shock, the deity looked puzzled, “Hmm? Why aren’t you playing anymore?”
Luo Yuan: “……”
Er-ge?? Why suddenly reveal such a huge secret and still expect me to continue playing calmly like nothing happened?!
