Chapter 104

Lin Yu was taken aback. "A petition to the emperor?"

"What are they accusing me of?" Lin Yu thought for a moment. "Did someone catch me doing something bad?"

Snow God: "..."

Snow God was speechless. "Someone saw you kill someone. I heard quite a few people talking about it when I was out this morning. I thought you knew. Has no one really told you?"

Since returning three days ago, Lin Yu had been laid up with a high fever and hadn't left her room. She'd stayed cooped up in the courtyard, and aside from a few familiar senior sisters and brothers who came by to check on her, no one had actually sought her out.

Lin Yu found it strange too. After the Spring Sacrifice incident, where the Divine Maiden was abducted and then fell ill upon her rescue, normally there would be a long line of people at her door offering well-wishes. Even the elders had been unusually quiet, but she'd been relishing the rare peace and hadn't bothered to look into it.

"Who did I kill?" Lin Yu was puzzled. She'd killed quite a few people these past few days.

"They say it was at the Earth Immortal Temple," Snow God joked. "You're something else, killing someone right under the Earth Immortal's nose. If he caught you, he'd leap up and whack you with his cane."

Lin Yu's senses prickled. Something felt off. Snow God had always despised the gods, but he was joking about one now. "You're close with the Earth Immortal?"

"Yeah," Snow God replied, not catching anything odd. "We were gods together for over a hundred years. He was busy year-round, and I loafed around year-round."

"It just so happens that all those gods in the Nine Heavens look down on both of us," Snow God grew irritated just talking about it. "They can mock me all they want. I don't have many followers, and my job is just making it snow—the simplest thing there is. Anyone could do it. But the Earth Immortal, that old man, he's different."

Lin Yu raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

"He does every dirty, thankless job there is. Of course, he has more followers, but they're mostly ordinary folk who can't offer much and never hold ceremonies for him. You can hardly call them true believers."

"His so-called followers are mostly people passing by the Earth Immortal Temple, seeing the statue inside, and dropping in to make a wish. Most of them aren't even sincere."

"And he's foolish enough to listen to all of them, even if they don't offer a single coin. He'll still answer their prayers." Snow God waved a hand. "It's a thankless task—pure suffering."

"If you swapped in any other god, who'd take that job? Bringing hardship on yourself, living like that even as an immortal. So I say, my position anyone could fill, but the Earth Immortal's role—no one could ever replace him."

Snow God grew wistful. "There will never be another like him."

Lin Yu stared at the rocking chair swaying before her, her mind elsewhere. She'd never known much about the Earth Immortal. "You're right. There's no one else like him."

Lin Yu added, "When all the other gods are lording over their believers, to still have an Earth Immortal like him... that's truly rare."

Too bad he was killed by someone with ill intentions.

Snow God chuckled. "He's just a born workhorse. Whether mortal or immortal, he can't idle for a day."

Lin Yu didn't quite follow, so she pulled over another chair and sat down, surrendering the rocking chair to Snow God.

"What do you mean?" Lin Yu asked, curious.

Snow God glanced at her, then reverted to human form and lay back in the rocking chair. He thought for a moment before speaking. "Before he ascended, the Earth Immortal was a farmer. He farmed his whole life, harvested grain his whole life, and starved his whole life."

"He died of hunger, only in his fifties." Snow God sighed. "I watched him ascend."

"Starved to death?" Lin Yu sat up straight. "Didn't he harvest well?"

"That was over a hundred years ago. The year he died, there was a great drought. Not a single drop of rain fell for an entire year." Snow God paused. "And of course, it wasn't just nature. Man-made calamity played its part."

"The land he worked his whole life wasn't his—it belonged to the master's family. He had to give most of the harvest to them, and he wasn't even paid. He could only keep a tiny bit of grain to survive. That little bit of rice? Throw it on the roadside and no one would stoop to pick it up. They'd find it beneath them."

Snow God's voice grew softer and softer until he could hardly hear himself. "He toiled his entire life, yet couldn't even afford a plot of land. He spun silk for others to wear, lived his whole life for other people."

"And that year, I heard about it."

"The drought in Shu lasted a full year. I knew about it early on." Snow God was inexplicably remorseful. "I promised a believer I'd go and make it snow in Shu. But then I forgot. I didn't go for a whole year."

Back then, Snow God had only agreed offhandedly, not taking it seriously. He was a god; he knew nothing of mortal suffering.

For him, that year had passed in the blink of an eye. Then one day, as he lounged on an ancient tree in the snowy mountains, he suddenly remembered what that believer had said a year prior.

So he went to Shu. It was already October, long past the season for snow, and by the rules, snow should not be carelessly brought down. But he saw the parched, cracked earth, and in the end, he brought a heavy snowfall there anyway.

Soft snow fell like goose feathers, seeming to soothe the dry fissures of the land.

In October, the lingering heat of summer had yet to fade, and the snow quickly melted into nourishing rain. The water vapor almost swallowed the earth. The snow fell for two full days, and the people of Shu celebrated for two full days.

It was around then that Snow God passed by a dilapidated thatched cottage on the outskirts of the city. He heard someone calling for help.

A very faint cry, quieter than a mosquito's buzz. Usually, he wouldn't have paid it any mind, but that time, something inexplicable drew him into that cottage. There, he found the Earth Immortal on the verge of death.

At that time, still in his mortal body, the Earth Immortal lay motionless on the bed. It looked like he hadn't had water in a long time. His lips were cracked and completely bloodless.

Back then... 'skin and bones' wouldn't even begin to describe him. He was so thin he was just a skeleton, loose flesh hanging off jutting bones. Had his lips not still been moving, Snow God would have thought him a corpse.

He had no strength left, and Snow God couldn't make out what he was saying. After a moment's hesitation, Snow God leaned in close.

Finally, Snow God managed to catch what the Earth Immortal was saying. He said, 'It's... it's snowing... when it melts... there'll be water...'

His breath was faint, his words slurred. 'With water, the crops, the crops will live...'

With the last shred of his strength, he spoke with great earnestness, almost as if comforting himself. 'Crops survive... next year... it'll be a bumper harvest...'

'I've waited so long for this snow...'

Before he could finish his self-consolation, he stopped moving.

He was dead. Starved to death.

He died in the snow he had so desperately awaited, before the harvest could come, right before Snow God's eyes.

Even now, Snow God felt guilty. Tears glistened in his eyes. "He died right in front of me. That was the first time I ever saw someone die of hunger—starving to death, right before my eyes..."

It was unlike anyone he'd ever seen before. He had glimpsed many lives: deaths by age, by war, by drowning, by fire, by sickness, by suicide. But none had struck him as profoundly as watching a living person starve to death.

He turned his head away and wiped the tears from his eyes. "But at least, after he died, I saw the radiance of a mortal's Ascension."

At that moment, a golden light enveloped the gaunt old man lying on the straw bed, looking remarkably gentle.

"And then? I chased after that light and met the Earth Immortal after his Ascension. I didn't notice it before when he was lying in bed, but his back was terribly hunched. When he stood up, he was short—didn't even reach my chest. He said it was from carrying grain."

Lin Yu's thoughts drifted, and she could almost see the little hunched old man from Snow God's memories. She suddenly recalled the Earth Immortal's statue.

Nearly all gods' statues were standing poses, but the Earth Immortal's was seated cross-legged.

Lin Yu asked, "So that's why his statue is in a sitting pose?"

"Yes. He was afraid people would look down on him for it, thinking someone so ordinary could never truly attain enlightenment. So when he had the statue made, he insisted on a seated pose, so no one would notice how crooked his back was."

A man like that—no wonder he worked without complaint.

Snow God sighed. "That's why I say he was self-conscious. Even after a hundred years as an immortal, he could never shake that timid, humble nature."

"But there was nothing else he could do," Lin Yu murmured, propping her chin on her hand, her gaze distant. "He was born into hardship. He suffered for over fifty years, and just when he finally became an immortal..."

Lin Yu continued, "Other gods do nothing, yet merely because their domains differ—controlling the wind and rain, wealth, the seas, the crops—countless people flock to be their followers, offering tribute, rushing to do their bidding."

"The Earth Immortal, on the other hand, ascended as a land god. By rights, everything should fall under his purview, but he's only an immortal, not powerful enough to manage so much. Naturally, he could hardly handle any of it. People's expectations of him sank lower and lower. Worshipping the Earth Immortal requires no ceremony, so no one takes him seriously either."

Snow God stared at the drifting clouds on the horizon. The sun had only peeked out for a moment, and the sky seemed ready to darken again. "I'll go visit him at the Earth Immortal Temple in a few days. The new year just ended; he must be busy."

"If we head north this time, who knows how many years will pass before I see him again." Snow God slapped his knees and rose. "When the time comes, I might actually miss him. Without him, who else will be gossip material for the court of heaven with me? We were kindred spirits in misery."

Lin Yu wanted to speak, but the words lodged in her throat and wouldn't come out.

The Earth Immortal was dead, killed on a night no one knew about. Besides the Ghost King, no one knew how or when he died.

A hundred years ago, he had nothing, silently starving to death in a thatched cottage. A hundred years later, after achieving immortality, he had died just as silently.

It seemed nothing had changed.

In the end, Lin Yu couldn't bear to tell Snow God that the Earth Immortal was already dead. She figured he should find out for himself.

"Why did the Earth Immortal ascend only after death?" Lin Yu asked. "Doesn't Ascension depend on cultivation?"

Lin Yu remembered that Fu Ming's mother had also ascended to godhood only after death.

That differed from common belief among cultivators. The prevailing wisdom was that only when one's cultivation reached completion and merits were fulfilled would Heaven send down thunder to grant a mortal Ascension.

"His merits were complete, that's all." Snow God glanced at Lin Yu, then suddenly corrected himself. "No, that's not right either."

The Earth Immortal had toiled his whole life, living in the desolate wilderness, seeing almost no one, and spending his days farming. Where would his merits come from?

It couldn't be that growing food to feed people counted for that much?

"I'll go ask him in a few days," Snow God said, genuinely puzzled about the reason. "I'll tell you when I find out."

"Fine." Lin Yu looked at Snow God with some concern. "Go have your fun. I'm heading out."

"Where are you going?" Snow God asked, confused to see her leaving.

Lin Yu only left him with a view of her back. "You said it yourself—someone's filed a complaint against me. Of course, I have to go see what it's about."