SES Chapter 150 Part 1

Chapter 150

At the same moment, both of them thought of the story written on the bamboo slip photo that the “Shaman” had sent them.

Yin Xi had asked: “If the seven stars remain bright, what should be done?”

Laozi had pondered for a long while before replying: “The appearance of the Great Master can be expected.”

Yin Xi asked again: “And who is this Great Master?”

Laozi answered: “I don’t know either.”

And indeed, he could not have known — for by the reckoning of time, Mozi, the founder and first leader of the Mohist School, was born long after Laozi’s death.

Which made the words inscribed before them now — “Decree of the Great Master: Kill” — all the more intriguing.

Luo Ren crouched down beside Mu Dai, taking the flashlight from her hand. He examined the ancient carved script closely, word by word. The passage wasn’t long, and its tone was deeply sorrowful and furious. Its rough meaning was:

“Disaster struck, the Mohists rose on all sides. The decree of the Great Master ordered death. By the sea, atop the mountains, in the cursed barren lands — the Star Lords fell one after another. We then found no escape. Lured into a pit, molten bronze poured upon our heads — there was no way out.”

It was a final testament — even after a thousand years, its grief and despair lingered in every chiseled mark.

The carving must have been made before they finished digging the escape tunnel.

“Come here, help me,” Luo Ren said.

He began lifting the stacked corpses one by one, moving them aside and restacking them neatly. With each body, he searched for a bronze tag at the waist — there were nine in total — and handed them all to Mu Dai.

Following his instructions, Mu Dai turned each tag to the side with writing and examined them carefully, sorting them into four groups.

One tag bore the oracle-bone symbol for “knife.” Another for “water.” A third for “mouth.” The remaining six shared the same character — one that looked like a mountain.

Luo Ren recognized it at once. “That’s the oracle-bone form of the character ‘earth.’”

Mu Dai gasped softly. “The fifth cursed bamboo slip… its word is Earth?”

Luo Ren nodded. “Most likely. In ancient times, the earth was often associated with burial alive, mass killing, and sealing underground.”

The inscription had said “We ten found no escape,” not “We were killed,” meaning those people might still have been alive when the words were carved.

Mu Dai sighed. “They say the Great Master was the Mohist leader. Does this ‘Decree of Death’ mean the Mohists killed these people? I thought the Mohists were devoted to benevolence and opposed to aggression. How could they do something so cruel?”

Luo Ren’s expression grew thoughtful. “That depends… on who they were fighting.”

He paused, then continued, “Do you remember that night at Tengma Ridge in Nantian? What Yi Wan-san said stuck with me — and later, the Shaman told Yin Erma something similar.”

That night, Yi Wan-san had murmured as he gazed at the outline of the ridge, “If this were in ancient times, it would look just like a sacrificial altar.”

He’d pointed at the swaying rice fields below and added, “See how they bend like they’re worshipping? Imagine a priest standing on that altar, chanting some sacred nonsense to the heavens…”

The Shaman had said something along those lines too — that in primitive times, when productivity was low, people turned to natural worship: wind, thunder, lightning… and most importantly, the worship of the stars.

The seven cursed slips could only be subdued by the Phoenix, the Fenghuang, and the Luan — all auspicious mythic birds, symbols of the ancient avian totems that represented this kind of celestial worship.

Luo Ren motioned for Mu Dai to sit beside him. “In ancient Chinese myths, Hou Yi shot down the suns — the suns were said to be three-legged divine ravens, similar to phoenixes. The seven cursed slips are tied to the Big Dipper, the seven stars of the night sky. Stars rule the night; the phoenix represents the day. The two forces balance each other. When Yin Xi asked Laozi what to do if the Seven Stars stayed bright, he was, in essence, asking what happens if the night never ends.”

Mu Dai caught on. “And Laozi’s reply — ‘the Great Master can be expected’ — meant he foresaw that the Mohist order would one day counteract the cursed slips?”

Luo Ren nodded and pointed at the bronze tags. “They kept these on their bodies, even after death, arranged neatly over their hearts. That means they held deep significance. These people probably weren’t Mohists. If I’m right, some of them might have followed the cursed slips.”

“Followed them?” Mu Dai was stunned. Even in Nantian, the people influenced by Xiang Silan were coerced, not willing followers. Who would willingly worship something like that?

“In the West,” Luo Ren said, “where there’s a Church of God, there’s also a Church of the Devil. Some extremists believe religion itself was born from fear. People worship demons not out of love — but out of terror, hoping to avoid their wrath.”

Mu Dai frowned. “So… like traitors during the war?”

Luo Ren almost laughed. The comparison was crude, but not entirely wrong.

“Put simply,” he said, “some people back then worshipped the cursed slips. They might have formed their own secret, organized sect.”

“And what was their goal?” she asked.

“The everlasting brightness of the Seven Stars.”

That phrase — “the Seven Stars’ eternal light” — was symbolic. What it truly meant, Luo Ren still couldn’t say.

He drew a dagger, signaling Mu Dai to hold the light steady, and began sketching a rough map of China on the dirt.

“At first I didn’t connect the dots,” he said, “but I suddenly remembered what the Shaman mentioned — that on the Bagua Observatory, seven stars had once shone, then four went dark, leaving three that gleamed especially bright.”

He tapped the map’s lower-left corner near the Beihai area of Guangxi with the dagger’s tip.

“Wuzhu Village,” Mu Dai said.

Luo Ren nodded. “By the sea.”

That phrase triggered something in Mu Dai’s mind. “Wait… you mean—?”

Luo Ren smiled, moving the dagger northwest. “Sizhai. On the mountaintop.”

Mu Dai exhaled sharply. Luo Ren glanced at her, then slid the dagger further northwest, waiting.

Mu Dai didn’t need prompting — she knew that location by heart.

“Xiaoshang River… the cursed barren lands?”