Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1447
"Besides, if my head can be exchanged for a way out for everybody and the dignity and privileges that we deserve, it will be a fair deal!
"Brothers and fellow Cultivators, I will gladly take the place of the commander. If you are willing to trust me, just follow my arrangements, and we will meet all the previous emperors and the ancestors of all the Immortal Cultivators, Blackstar the Great!"
The event was now inevitable.
All the generals cheered.
They had lost their troops and Cultivation after a decade of battles, but they still had abundant experience as professional soldiers. Immediately, they were organized into ten teams according to the military rules. While Chu Tianhe was named as the general commander, ten captains were also elected. They made a deal to gather in the Emperor's Mausoleum from all directions tomorrow morning.
Zhao Zhenwu was the first to jump out and answer the call. So, he was nominated as a captain in the end.
He could be killed for the attempt, but he took the job without batting an eye.
While planning the route, discussing the strategies, and boosting the morale, he was thinking about something else in his head. If things got huge tomorrow, would his wife read the news on the Spiritual Nexus or even see his name?
Chapter 2267: Cry For the Imperium! |
The next morning, the surplus generals who had planned all night were not tired at all. Their nerves and their faces were all burning in excitement, as if they were back to their dominant days years ago.
They left from their temporary residences or the dormitories of the school for the Emperor's Mausoleum on civil vehicles.
The four Kurfürst families had been troubled by Li Linghai, the reformists, and Lei Chenghu's rebellious army for days. They were like shocked birds and considered everybody their enemy.
In the Central District, where the royal palace, the Council of Elders, and the major departments of the government were deployed, tremendous troops had set up impenetrable defenses. Most of the crystal suit legions and low-altitude fleets were deployed in the place too. The defenses were so meticulous that even a fly would not get in.
However, they had limited soldiers and attention after all. The accomplices of the Blood Oath Alliance alone were already too many to be caught. Who could've thought that the destitute, unfortunate generals would go to the Emperor's Mausoleum to cause trouble?
Besides, Chu Tianhe, Zhao Zhenwu, and the rest of them were the legitimate generals of the Imperium after all. It was one thing to rob them below the ground, but when they were walking in daylight, few people would dare to attack them openly.
Most importantly of all, visiting the Emperor's Mausoleum was completely legal and even encouraged by the authorities. As the reservists of the Imperial Guards right now, they were supposed to train in the Emperor's Mausoleum now and then. Even if they were stopped at checkpoints on their way, who would stop them after they revealed their identity?
The surplus generals, divided in ten teams, successfully reached the Emperor's Mausoleum without meeting any obstacle.
In order to keep it a secret, they did not put on the uniform of a general in the beginning but wore casual clothes to be low-key.
It was not until the Emperor's Mausoleum was right before their eyes that they put on the washed uniforms in the public vehicles and the toilets around, before they wore the medals on their chests. Gathering together from all directions, they held each other's hands and pressed forward to the gate of the Emperor's Mausoleum shoulder to shoulder.
It was a sunny, cloudless day. Tourists and visitors from every world of the Imperium had crammed the Emperor's Mausoleum.
After the Imperium's counterattack began, in order to encourage the people to devote themselves to the country, the custom to visit the Emperor's Mausoleum was promoted again. Many schools, sects, and corporations at the edge of the Imperium would organize their members to visit the mausoleum and the national museum together.
On the west side of the Emperor's Mausoleum, there was also a massive national cemetery, in which the people who had sacrificed in the multiple conquests over the past thousand years had been buried. It was the memorial park of martyrs of the highest level in the Imperium.
According to the design of Blackstar the Great, the souls of the sacrificed would continue their loyalty after their death by protecting the Wuying family and the future of the Imperium of True Human Beings.
Because of the scale of the memorial park, a lot of families and students came to pay tributes every day too.
Also, some kind of large activity seemed to be going on in the national museum and the memorial park today. Many official media companies, which were quite influential, had been gathered in the area.
The arrival of thousands of generals whose chests and arms were glittering with medals naturally surprised the guardians of the mausoleum. They hurried to check the schedule of group visits today and naturally did not discover the names of the generals.
They observed the generals carefully, only to discover that they looked sorrowful and furious. Those generals were also all wearing a piece of white cloth on their arms, which was a sign that their closest family members just passed away.
The guardians realized that it was not good, but they did not have the courage to stop so many generals from breaking in. They hurried to report the issue to their superiors, but their superiors simply hesitated with an ambiguous attitude. The highest commander of the guardians was even nowhere to be seen!
The few veterans with the "Wuying" surname, who were experienced and well-informed, immediately knew that there was a lot to the issue. They had recognized who the generals were, knowing that they were all from the "Seminar of Generals".
Today, the generals were still in the seminar, but tomorrow, they might be dispatched to the Imperial Guards as the guardians' direct bosses. Would they be stupid enough to give their future bosses a hard time?
Therefore, they simply hinted at each other. Knowing that there was a lot more to the whole event, they simply slacked off without stopping the unannounced visitors for real.
Zhao Zhenwu was the first to hold his head high and crash into the guardians of the mausoleum. Like a fence made of bamboo, the guardians were immediately dispersed by the angry generals. The thousands of surplus generals barged into the Emperor's Mausoleum overwhelmingly and majestically.
The slightly weird team immediately attracted the attention of all the tourists around. Thousands of them crowded at the newcomers.
It was needless to describe the intimidation of the surplus generals such as Zhao Zhenwu. What was most bizarre was that, before all the generals, there were one woman and five kids, who were the widow and kids of "Zhou Lifu", the general of the Imperium who was beaten to death in the arena the day before yesterday. The eldest child was also holding a picture of Zhou Lifu and changed the light beam into monochrome.
Such a configuration naturally raised people's curiosity.
The surplus generals took the opportunity to hand fliers out to the people and described their misfortunes vividly.
They told the tourists how they fought valiantly on the battlefield, how they were reduced into abject poorness after they lost their troops and returned to the rear, and how they had to sell their dignity for survival only to be beaten to death in the arena, etc.
The fliers were just printed in time. They were still hot with their fury and discontent.
Naturally, they learned the use of fliers from the Blood Oath Alliance.
After the assassination of the Blood Oath Alliance, the oppositions and the reformists in the Imperium all discovered the amazingness of "fliers", an ancient way of propagation.
Dissemination through the Spiritual Nexus seemed advanced and fast, but it was very easy to be interrupted, blocked, and traced back. However, once a flyer was thrown out and picked up by somebody else, it would be barely possible to retrieve it.
On the other hand, it was very easy to make the tools to print the fliers, which involved nothing more than rollers, metal plates, and special ink.
Even if they were not refiners, the common Immortal Cultivators could still carve small words on the metal plates with their spiritual energy. As long as they slightly practiced how to write the words reversely, a couple of them would be more than enough to print thousands of fliers in a single day.
The content on the fliers greatly astounded the visitors.
In the official propaganda, the Imperium's counterattack in the past ten years was a gratifying, unprecedented triumph. Even if a lot of generals and soldiers had sacrificed, they died for a noble cause as heroes.
It never occurred to them that such filthy and dark scandals were behind the glorious triumph, or that the honorable warriors of the Imperium would be reduced to such an extent.
As all the fliers were handed out, more and more tourists and visitors gathered around the generals from various directions of the Emperor's Mausoleum. Even the reporters of the major media caught the anomaly and came to check what was going on.
Surrounded by the crowd, the surplus generals pushed forward along the axis of the Emperor's Mausoleum to Blackstar the Great's monument.
The place where Blackstar the Great rested was deeply buried below the ground and must not be disturbed. But right above it was a statue 725 meters tall that was made of an entire mountain, showing Wuying Qi wearing a battle robe with a determined face and pointing at the universe with one hand. It was considered a symbol of Blackstar the Great. All the memorial ceremonies were all conducted below the super enormous statue.
The intention of the surplus generals had spread throughout the Emperor's Mausoleum. Even the groups before them who were preparing to pay tributes cleared the way for them.
When they arrived below the super enormous statue of Blackstar the Great, hundreds of thousands of people had already gathered with the surplus generals. Despite the enormity of the crowd, they were all standing in silence.
The ceremony officially began.
Chu Tianhe, the leader of the event, invited Zhou Lifu's widow and kids to stand next to him. Squaring his hat, he shouted aloud with the last bit of his spiritual energy, "I'm sure that all the compatriots here have learned why we are here. We are here not to pay tributes but to cry!
"We are all the firmest believers of the true path of immortality. We are the most loyal defenders of the Imperium, His Majesty, and the Council of Elders. We fought against the Covenant Alliance with blood and sweat, never hesitating to die together with the enemy. Although we have never made exceptional accomplishments, we at least did our part. Even our bodies have been reduced to such poor conditions.
"We do not have the luxury to hope that our work can be exchanged for a lot of things, but before the fire in the frontline completely dies out yet, some people already cannot wait to kick us away and deprive us of our chance of living.
"This is General Zhou Lifu's widow. General Zhou was known as 'Ghost Butcher' in the frontline. He was a tough warrior that often intimidated the troops of the Covenant Alliance. But after he returned to the rear, he was unable to make a living and forced to death, leaving one widow and five kids who do not know what to do now.
"What happens to General Zhou today will happen to all of us tomorrow. If you lead livestock to the slaughterhouse to butcher them, even the livestock will scream and weep. We are all living people and soldiers who have sacrificed and shed blood for the country. But we cannot even get a mouthful of food today. How can we not cry?
"However, we are not just crying for ourselves, but also for all the sacrificed soldiers, for the emperors of all generations, for the true path of immortality and its creator, Blackstar the Great, and for the Imperium of True Human Beings as well as the whole civilization of mankind!
"The Imperium today is dominated by wolves and tigers. The arrogant aristocrats have caused all kinds of corruption. It is no longer the Imperium that was founded by Blackstar the Great!
"Even the seemingly intimidating generals such as us are about to be forced to death by life. What about other people? Is the Imperium not worth our cry when it has deteriorated to such an extent?"
Chapter 2268: Loss of Control and Escalation |
Chu Tianhe, Zhao Zhenwu, and a lot of other people discussed all night to compose quite an emotional speech.
However, Chu Tianhe had only just got started when General Zhou Lifu's widow suddenly burst into tears.
After their mother started to cry, the few little kids followed her and started weeping too. The few female officers attending to them nearby, soaked in the atmosphere, were upset and felt like crying too.
Chu Tianhe couldn't help but feel distressed after seeing that, and he could not go on with his speech anymore. He simply turned around and kneeled before Blackstar the Great and shouted, "Your Majesty, take a look at today's world!"
After his cry, many generals began to wail together with him.
The tourists and visitors nearby were all filled with indignity as they watched.
Right then, a team marched close aggressively from not far away. Many people in the team were wearing the uniform of the mausoleum's guardians.
At first, the bystanders thought that those people were here to disperse the surplus generals. They couldn't help but whisper. Some were even bold enough to move forward to stop the newcomers.
However, cries were echoing from the team that was growing larger and larger too. All the bystanders looked at each other in bewilderment, not knowing what was going on.
Before Chu Tianhe, Zhao Zhenwu, and the rest of them went forward to ask, the leader of the team had already introduced themselves. As it turned out, they all belonged to the royal family and were the descendants of Blackstar the Great.
The Emperor's Mausoleum in the Imperium was a splendid and vast city. Besides the tombs of the emperors of all generations, the memorial park of martyrs, and the national museum, there were also smaller museums, hotels, restaurants, and business areas around. The tourism in the place was rather developed.
Most of the interests in the tourism industry, including the staff of the mausoleum's guardians, the memorial park of the martyrs, and the tour guides in the national museum, were in the hands of the royal family.
It was also one of the few ways to make a living that the four Kurfürst families had left them. Many members of the royal family simply gathered in the city and lived on it.
The members of the royal family with the surname "Wuying" hadn't seen so many generals of the Imperium paying tributes to their ancestors for years. Now that they read the fliers and learned why the generals were here, they were even more touched and also thought of their own misfortunes. Organized by certain people, they also formed a huge team to cry to Blackstar the Great.
The royal family was the natives of the place. Naturally, their number was dozens of times higher than the number of generals. Even though only one-tenth of them had joined the team of crying, the crowd had still significantly expanded. Pressing forward like angry tides, they boosted the atmosphere to an even higher level.
The leader of the newcomers walked forward to Chu Tianhe's side quickly and kneeled before Blackstar the Great's enormous statue first, before he turned around with his head soaked in blood and bashed his chest before the people. "I guarantee that what General Chu said is true. The Imperium has been corrupted to such an extent that even the members of the royal family can barely survive. It is needless to mention the generals here.
"Ancestor, please wake up and make things right. There are bad guys in the Imperium. Bad guys!"
While he was talking, the members of the royal family almost burst into tears.
The members of the royal family cried differently from the generals.
The surplus generals such as Chu Tianhe and Zhao Zhenwu were iron-hearted soldiers and ruthless Immortal Cultivators after all.
Even though their lives were terribly difficult, and despite all the dissatisfactions in their hearts, they still had the bones of soldiers and Immortal Cultivators after all. It was definitely impossible for them to weep and snot like women and children. The best they could do was to quietly shed a few tears while they bowed and paid respects to Blackstar the Great's statue. Nothing more.
The members of the royal family, on the other hand, had mostly lived here for hundreds of years. Many of them had come with their entire families, with both the old and the young.
Also, without life-and-death experiences and without too much training, many of them were no different from civilians.
Those aunts and ladies who were slightly aged couldn't care less about their manners. They yowled so hard that even the sky seemed cloudy and the earth was collapsing, with a combat ability ten times higher than the generals.
Such a splendid gathering went on a rampage like a raging flood and a volcano eruption. Soon, the emotions of all the tourists, visitors, and pilgrims on the spot were triggered.
The virus of grief instantly spread to every corner of the Emperor's Mausoleum. Everybody was in a subtle reverberation of feelings. When hundreds of thousands of people burst into tears at the same time, the Emperor's Mausoleum was in a state of almost falling, and Blackstar the Great could have crawled out of his tomb in fury!
After the unexpected turn, the ceremony of crying was already vaguely getting out of the control of the surplus generals.
At this moment, everybody inside and outside the Emperor's Mausoleum was crying beyond their control. Even the Imperial Guards stationed at the edge were cursing that the royal family had been reduced to such misery only because there were too many bad guys in the Imperium today. They were also crying and shouting and spitting in the direction of the Council of Elders.
The surplus generals, on the other hand, became the most conscious ones on the spot.
Zhao Zhenwu vaguely felt uneasy.
