He lowered his voice and delivered a soul-searching question to his devout friend who was burning incense: "Brother Liu, when did you change? This isn’t what you used to say!"
Among their circle of friends, Brother Liu had once been the staunchest disbeliever in the tale of the Divine Maiden.
Whenever the Goddess of Dayan was mentioned, the disdain on his face practically spilled over. But it hadn’t been long—just a sighting of the Divine Maiden’s manifestation—and now this guy was the first to kneel!
Zhang Ziyi stood there, surrounded by common folk and fellow students who were all earnestly offering incense to the heavens. He was the only one still standing, and it made him stick out like a sore thumb.
Before long, he earned glares from several elderly men and women.
Zhang Ziyi glanced around. Besides Brother Liu, the other classmates who had slipped out of the academy were kneeling down smoothly too. With great solemnity, he knelt beside Brother Liu and gently nudged him with his shoulder. "Brother Liu, give me three sticks of incense!"
Below, the entire city’s populace—men and women, young and old—was united in one task: kneeling in the heavy rain to burn incense for Yue Fuguang.
Inside the carriage, Yue Fuguang felt the abundant power of faith filling her body and stretched with satisfaction.
"Little Zhu, the people of Nanyue really are giving too much!" In a city of fewer than two hundred thousand, the energy she received was almost on par with the faith power from medium-sized cities.
【Perhaps they’ve been plagued by drought for too long. This rain of yours has saved countless lives. Master, look—the rows of fresh graves on the outskirts of the city are all for those who fell in battle.】
Yue Fuguang thought of the heavy rain due in ten days. These people had already endured a drought; if a flood were to follow, how many ordinary folks would perish?
"System, is there any way to stop the rainfall?"
She knew the art of summoning clouds and rain, but she didn’t know how to halt a torrential downpour like a hole in the sky itself!
【Host, the Seal of Sky-Binding Cloud-Locking, the Ten-Thousand-Li Cloud Screen, the Rain Prohibition Command, and the Cloud Dispelling Art all meet your needs. It’s up to you which one to choose.】
Yue Fuguang raised an eyebrow, surprised at the system’s abundant inventory. Where did it get things not even available in the shop?
Had it stolen them from the background again?
"System, be careful! Don’t let the main system catch on and drag me down!"
She was still a rookie who hadn’t even completed a single mission world. If she got implicated, all her future plans would go up in smoke!
The system found her words baffling. It was just selling some of its own stock—what did that have to do with the old bigwig of the main system?
Yue Fuguang had no idea what the system was thinking. She focused on examining the differences among these methods.
Seal of Sky-Binding Cloud-Locking: Uses spiritual power to set up a massive formation across the heavens, "locking" the rain clouds inside. The clouds could churn within but couldn’t release a single drop of rain.
Rain Prohibition Command (Word as Law): With just a single word or phrase, the rules of heaven and earth shift. Within a hundred li, rain ceases and clouds disperse.
Ten-Thousand-Li Cloud Screen: Instead of destroying the rain clouds, it erects a transparent barrier between heaven and earth, diverting all rain elsewhere. The barrier might be formless and intangible or transform into a shimmering, multicolored dome. While protecting one area’s tranquility, the sweet rain could still nourish other lands.
Cloud Dispelling Art: Uses gentle spiritual power to move clouds, redirecting rain belts to drought-stricken lands. This method goes against no natural order, solves the immediate crisis, and aligns with the way of the world.
Yue Fuguang read through them all, finding each appealing, but with her current abilities, she couldn’t perform the Seal of Sky-Binding Cloud-Locking—she didn’t know formations.
As for buying formation books from the system, she might have done it if she had no other options, but with several paths still open, she wasn’t about to waste money unnecessarily.
The Rain Prohibition Command involved word-as-law magic. She could control rain with her voice, but only over small areas and for short durations. Faced with Nanyue’s coming month-long, unending rain, even exhausting herself wouldn’t make it work.
The Ten-Thousand-Li Cloud Screen seemed possible, but when Yue Fuguang considered that rain would fall across Nanyue as a whole, and the Dayan army would keep pushing their offensive, she couldn’t just divert the rain elsewhere.
"System, I’ll take the Cloud Dispelling Art. When the time comes, I’ll transfer all the rain clouds into Dayan’s territory. That’ll save me the trouble of making it rain there myself."
【Host, excellent choice! The Cloud Dispelling Art is a good pick.】 After a half-hearted compliment, the system got to the point. 【Host, the discounted price is 8,888 points. Trust in your system—you won’t get ripped off or cheated.】
Hah!
Yue Fuguang rolled her eyes, didn’t haggle, and paid the points generously.
Now that she had a way to control the impending heavy rain in Nanyue, she decided to grant them another favor and give them an early warning.
As a woman of action, she instantly changed into a more impressive flowing celestial gown.
Shen Chunying and Luo Shendong watched, wide-eyed, as their mistress’s clothing flickered with light and transformed into something new.
The sisters gasped briefly. Shen Chunying’s eyes sparkled. "Mistress, this gown is beautiful!" she praised sincerely, making Yue Fuguang slightly embarrassed.
Luo Shendong, starry-eyed, nodded vigorously in agreement with her sister. "It’s as pretty as the one you wore at the Helian Mountains!"
Of course it looked good—it was bought from the system shop, and the price was equally stunning.
"Is Mistress planning to go out?" Normally, their mistress didn’t dress up so lavishly unless she was about to meet someone.
Yue Fuguang nodded. "I’m going out to meet Dayan’s new citizens."
Before her figure vanished through the carriage door, she couldn’t help but instruct, "You two stay put in the carriage."
She was afraid that the excitable Luo Shendong might, in a moment of enthusiasm, fall out the window.
"Don’t worry, Mistress. I’ll keep an eye on Shendong!" As the older sister, Shen Chunying naturally understood her younger sister’s temperament.
Yue Fuguang nodded, stepped out of the carriage, and as she set foot onto the air, Feng Tang, sitting on the carriage shaft, knew his mistress could fly. Still, watching her step into the void made his heart leap into his throat.
The moment Yue Fuguang’s foot touched the empty air, a golden lotus bloomed beneath it. She walked down, descending a hundred or so meters, each step spawning a new lotus beneath her feet.
Lotus after lotus unfurled, paving the path she had come.
Within moments, the lotuses behind her slowly dissipated, dissolving into countless specks of light that merged into the pouring rain.
Soon, someone spotted the small yet unmissable figure in moon-white robes high above. Her gown, woven as if from moonlight, trailed through the void, swaying gently with her steps.
There was no embroidery on the skirt, no jewels sewn in—just the liquid sheen of moonlight itself.
At her waist, a jade-green ribbon fluttered, its two ends trailing behind her like slender fish swimming through the air.
"Lotuses! The Divine Maiden is stepping down on lotuses!"
"It’s the Divine Maiden!"
"The Divine Maiden has come down to see us!"
"Wah, I’ve finally seen the Divine Maiden!"
"Why doesn’t the Divine Maiden look like the statue I have at home?" Someone realized the carver had cheated them. The expensive shrine they had bought hadn’t even captured the true appearance of the revered one.