“So then Heaven is wrong. Why should the right apologize to the wrong?”

The court astrologers were left speechless.

This is exactly the kind of person The crown prince is.

He has never encountered anything he couldn’t accomplish, nor anyone who didn’t love him. He is the righteous path of the world, the center of the universe.

So, although the court astrologers were inwardly tormented—“What do you know!”

They dared not say more, nor could they. After all, The crown prince wouldn’t listen anyway.

·

The second story also happened when The crown prince was seventeen.

Legend has it that south of the Yellow River, there is a bridge called the Bridge of a Single Thought, where a ghost has wandered for many years.

This ghost is terrifying: clad in battered armor, treading on karmic fire, covered in blood, pierced by blades and arrows, leaving a trail of blood and fire with every step. Every few years, it appears suddenly at night, haunting the bridgehead, stopping travelers to ask three questions: “Where is this place?” “Who are you?” “What will you do?”

If you answer incorrectly, the ghost will devour you in one gulp. But no one knows what the correct answers are, so over the years, the ghost has already devoured countless travelers.

While traveling, The crown prince heard of this and found the Bridge of a Single Thought, keeping vigil at the bridgehead night after night. At last, one night, he encountered the haunting ghost.

The ghost appeared, just as eerie and terrifying as the rumors said. It asked The crown prince the first question, and The crown prince replied with a smile, “This is the human world.”

But the ghost said, “This is Avīci.”

Right from the start, the first question was answered wrong.

The crown prince thought, since all three questions are bound to be answered wrong, why wait for you to finish asking? So he drew his weapon and started to fight.

The battle was fierce and chaotic. The crown prince was highly skilled, and the ghost was even more ferocious and terrifying. Man and ghost fought on the bridge as if day and night were reversed. In the end, the ghost was finally defeated.

After the ghost vanished, The crown prince planted a flowering tree at the bridgehead. At that moment, a Daoist passed by and happened to see him scattering a handful of yellow earth as a farewell, and asked, “What are you doing?”

The crown prince then spoke the famous eight words: “Though in Avīci, my heart dwells in paradise.”

The Daoist smiled faintly upon hearing this, transformed into a divine general clad in white armor, stepped onto auspicious clouds, rode the long wind, and ascended into the sky. Only then did The crown prince realize he had just encountered the The Great Emperor himself, who had descended in person to subdue demons.

The gods and immortals of the heavens had already taken notice of this outstanding god-pleasing youth during his leap at the Shangyuan Festival. After this meeting at the Bridge of a Single Thought, an immortal asked The Emperor, “What do you think of this The crown prince?”

The Emperor also replied with eight words: “This child’s future is beyond measure.”

That night, a celestial phenomenon appeared above the imperial palace, and a great storm broke out.

Amid thunder and lightning, The crown prince ascended.

·

Whenever someone ascends, the heavens tremble. When this The crown prince ascended, the entire celestial realm shook three times over.

Achieving true immortality is incredibly difficult.

It takes talent, cultivation, and opportunity. The birth of a god is often a journey of a hundred years.

There have been prodigies who ascended in their youth; there are also many who spend a lifetime of bitter cultivation and never even see a heavenly tribulation. Even if one finally faces the tribulation, failing to pass means death, or at best, ruin. Countless others, like grains of sand in the Ganges, spend their whole lives in mediocrity, never finding their path.

But this The crown prince is undoubtedly Heaven’s favorite. Whatever he wants, he gets; whatever he wants to do, he accomplishes; when he wished to ascend and become a god, he truly did so at the age of seventeen.

He was already beloved by the people, and with the king and queen mourning their beloved son, they ordered the construction of grand temples and shrines for him across the land, carving statues and images, and the masses worshipped him. The more followers and temples, the longer his life and the stronger his power. Thus, the Palace of Celestial Music’s The crown prince flourished in just a few years, reaching its peak.

—Until three years later, when chaos erupted in Celestial Music.

·

The chaos began with the tyrannical rule of the sovereign and the uprising of rebels. Yet, even though war raged in the mortal world, the gods of the heavens could not intervene at will. Unless demons or monsters crossed the boundary to invade, things were to proceed as they would. Imagine, the mortal world is full of conflict, and everyone believes themselves to be right—if every god intervened, today you’d support your homeland, tomorrow he’d avenge his descendants, wouldn’t that mean endless divine battles and darkness? In cases like The crown prince, it was even more necessary to avoid suspicion.

But he didn’t care. He said to The Emperor, “I want to save all living beings.”

The Emperor, with a thousand years of divine power, didn’t dare to utter such words lightly. Hearing him say this, one can imagine his feelings. But there was nothing he could do, so he said, “You can’t save everyone.”

The crown prince replied, “I can.”

And so, he resolutely descended to the mortal world.

The people of Celestial Music naturally celebrated as a nation. However, folk tales throughout the ages have always made one truth clear: when gods descend to the mortal world without permission, it never ends well.

As a result, not only did the flames of war not subside, they burned even more fiercely.