Blood Moon Hunters

“I just want to know the real you, senior,” Wang Bugui said with a holding-fist salute.

“Aren’t you afraid that you’ll be killed after you know the real me?” Ying Zheng asked.

“No, because I have the same original intention as you, senior. We both will give everything for the peace of Hua Xia. Besides, you have saved me. Are you willing to kill me?” Wang Bugui touched his head and grinned.

After hearing those words, Ying Zheng also smiled and replied slowly, “Hehe, since you want to know, it’s okay to tell you. Why am I a tyrant? Because I am.

“I was born to be an emperor, so I don’t allow anyone who violates me to live. Those who follow me will be prosperous all their lives, and those who oppose me will be killed or wounded.

“Burn books and bury scholars alive? Hmph, those scholars just didn’t like me. I killed only the necromancers. They courted death themselves. They passed down prescriptions for immortality to the people every day.

“Many people paid a lot of money after listening to the necromancers, and they didn’t hesitate to make their homes ruined. Those who harm my Qin people must die!

“I would soon die at that time, but they still dared to offend my bottom line. How could they not die? I support Legalism and oppose Confucianism, I have clear rewards and punishments, I kill decisively, I don’t need the later generations to evaluate me!

“In my great Qin Empire, all people in the world must live in accordance with my law. They obey me, and I protect them from infringement. I am the law! Who dares not obey?”

In his words, an undeniable majesty was revealed. He did not need the evaluation of future generations, but decided life and death according to his own rules.

A tyrant or cruel, Ying Zheng never cared about those evaluations. He just aimed at managing his world. He believed in his vision.

And it was this self-confidence beyond ordinary people that made him hate those who hindered him. And the Legalism thought that he followed would govern the country according to law, with clear rewards and punishments. On this basis, he added decisive killing. Those who obeyed him would live; those who opposed him would die.

Those words finally resolved everyone’s doubts. The so-called burning of books and burying of scholars in history was only a criticism of Confucianism for him in later generations. In the real history, only those necromancers in alchemy were killed.

And most of the books that were burned were nothing but random recipes, except for some books burned in order to deter a few Confucian students who came to persuade him.

History is written by the victor. After the fall of the Qin dynasty, Hua Xia began to respect Confucianism alone. Even the original Taoism began to fade in the eyes of ordinary people.

The world knew that Ying Zheng was a tyrant, so the descendants of Confucianism would naturally build him up to be more brutal. They linked the book burning with the killing of necromancers, and it became the burning books and burying scholars thing of today.

“It turns out you didn’t bury scholars alive, but just killed all the tricksters, senior. Although the methods and numbers were a bit violent, it was not as brutal as the world has described,” Wang Bugui said, holding his chin.

Zhao Changge put his hands to the back of his head and said, “In my opinion, they deserved it. They pretended to be cultivators and made fake medicine for money.”

“Yes, if it was me, I would have killed them, too. I would execute one as a warning to others,” Lyu Hao also replied, patting his thigh.

“Execute one as a warning to others? There is no need for those who disobey me to live. They are of no value. In contrast, I prefer to cut the weeds and dig up the roots,” Ying Zheng said with his hands behind his back.

“Hehe, I like your temperament! You’re overbearing enough!” Blood Demon King applauded and praised him.

“Senior Blood, don’t kick up a fuss.”

Wang Bugui curled his lips, and then looked at Ying Zheng, saying, “But, why would you build the Great Wall so quickly even if the labor and the people were hurt? If it slowed down, the people would not live miserably, right?

“And maybe the national strength would also be sufficient, so there would be no subsequent increase in taxes, loss of popular support, and vitality loss of the army. Thus, the situation in the imperial court would not go according to the wishes of Li Si and Zhao Gao.

“Moreover, the world would not get info on you and defame the 10,000-mile Great Wall, your military defense project, as a place that had buried tens of millions of lives.”

Wang Bugui had asked a good question. No one understood why Ying Zheng wanted to build the Great Wall so quickly. Even if it might be a “tofu-dreg project”, he was determined to build it as soon as possible.

Although many supervisors were executed later, so the hidden danger problem was eliminated, such a speed was still a waste of money and labor, which made the people desperate and even accelerated the demise of the Qin Empire.

Ying Zheng looked a little dazed. He then quickly regained consciousness and said, “I had offended the sky. I knew I was dying. But there were still foreign enemies and some hidden dangers not found. I was worried about the landscape.

“Therefore, I decided to build the Great Wall. One reason was for the future generations to follow to build it to resist foreign enemies. The other reason was to store the Dragon Qi of the Qin Empire and my last primordial spirit.

“Our Hua Xia mountains and rivers can’t be coveted by outsiders! Before I died, I calculated that someone would wake me up 2,000 years later. And that time would be when Hua Xia faced its greatest crisis.”

“What?!”

Everyone was scared when they heard those words. When he was awakened, there would be the biggest crisis in Hua Xia?!

“Do you know what the crisis is, Your Majesty?” Wang Bugui asked.

Ying Zheng only slowly shook his head and said, “I can’t figure out what it is, but I know the result. That result even shocked me. The world may be implicated.

“But at that time, my energy was going away quickly, and the punishment of the sky would come, so the process had to be accelerated. It’s worth it for those mortals who died to protect Hua Xia’s mountains and rivers.

“I built the Great Wall as an array, and added the world’s blood and grievances on it. The Great Wall will not fall for thousands of years, which holds the Dragon Qi of my Qin Empire. And the grievances that I’ve suffered are not going away, either.

“In this way, my primordial spirit dominates the earth, and can absorb the luck and Dragon Qi of future generations to build the Great Wall. What I did will help Hua Xia survive the disaster in this life, and then I will go…”

This speech moved the present cultivators for a while. Some female cultivators even had tears in their eyes, and it seemed that those tears would burst out at any time.

“What a great person! He is the real Eternal Emperor. He deserves the title!”

Ying Zheng did not care how people in the world criticized him. As long as he had a clear conscience and thought it was right, he would do it.

In the face of Hua Xia, he never hesitated. After reunifying the world, he wholeheartedly wanted to defend this splendid landscape.

The county system initially broke the patriarchal system of blood relations, and the feudal system and bureaucratic system replaced the hereditary system of the nobility. The purpose was to give talented people a chance to show their ambitions.

Abolition of the sub-enclosure system, replacing it with the county system, the uniform script, track, and currency at the same time would better govern the world and unify the Hua Xia culture.

The only reason he attacked the Xiongnu in the north, marched to Baiyue in the south, built the Great Wall and the Linqu canal, and connected the water system was to give peace to his people and make the outsiders fear.

His brutal bloodthirst was written by the world. But history only recorded his cruelty and ignored his human life. Did it ever understand his loneliness and his heart to unify Hua Xia?

“Your Majesty… your thoughts are really far-reaching. You are a real Eternal Emperor. How could the common history books understand you? Please accept my worship!”

Wang Bugui made a holding-fist salute and knelt on one knee toward Ying Zheng, like an ancient Hua Xia soldier.

“Your Majesty, please accept our worship!”

The other cultivators all followed to kneel down, and many of them even made kotows, which was the highest etiquette to show an emperor in the Qin dynasty.

“I’m not your monarch. You don’t need to be like this. Stand up. You can regard me as a cultivator. This is not the Qin dynasty that I ruled over.”

Ying Zheng shook his head, raised his hands to lift everyone up, and then turned around. His eyes were looking through all the obstacles of Hua Xia that had become completely strange to him.

In this way, he slowly patrolled every inch of the mountain and river. No words were necessary. As for the cultivators in the rear, they had an indescribable feeling in their heart when they saw that lonely and dignified figure.

According to the legends in the cultivation world, Emperor Qin Shihuang was always alone when he fell asleep. During the day, he was the king of the world, but at night, he was a lonely person. Who in all the ages could understand his loneliness?

“Senior…” Wang Bugui extended his hand.

He wanted Ying Zheng to look back and to talk with him about the world, to unravel some of the ageless loneliness.

But Ying Zheng didn’t look back. He only raised his hand and slowly shook it, saying, “No need to say more. I’ve been through 2,000 years, and nothing could bother me.

“You can leave and go prepare. We will usher in that crisis in two months, at most. Build up energy and don’t let the common people suffer. Everything will be left to you cultivators.

“Leave me alone. I want to look at this picturesque landscape again…”

Then, he hid his breath and started the journey of “inspecting the world”. If there was someone he didn’t like along the way, he would still stand out to teach them a lesson.

Although after thousands of years, this land did not belong to him, he still wanted to stand out for the weak common people. Because he knew that he was sorry for too many people when he built the Great Wall.

Only in this way could he comfort those complaints and could his heart be relieved.