The eyes of the baby girl were shining like black gemstones, free of impurities and pure like the spring water in a century-old mountain. At the sight of her eyes, Li Mu’s original irritable heart calmed down even before he knew it.
Since the little girl was found in the collapsed loft of Huju Pass, Li Mu had held her in his arms and never let go.
The mother of the baby girl had been buried.
The cute baby was particularly fond of Li Mu.
Especially after Li Mu strengthened her body and promoted her blood circulation with the wood qi of the Eastern Wood Emperor. The baby girl was very adorable when she was in Li Mu’s arms. Every time she caught sight of Li Mu, she would giggle like only babies could do.
“Your honor, trouble has emerged in the main government.” As Li Mu just entered the city, a chiliarch of the Great Moon Empire bustled toward him.
Hearing that, the impetuousness in Li Mu’s heart surfaced again.
“Let’s go and take a look.” He unhurriedly headed for the main government, gently comforting and amusing the baby girl in his arms.
Soon, he heard a wave of hollers in front of the gate of the main government.
“Kill Bastard Li!”
“Li Mu, come out!”
“Let’s kill those evil remnants of the Great Moon Empire first. That will force Bastard Li to show up.”
All sorts of shouts threw Li Mu under the impression that he had come to a public trial site. He saw that Zhang San and Mu Qing were trying their best to restore order, but they could not stop all those people who had been carried away by rage.
Those would-be righteous faces that were actually distorted by ferocity grew larger and larger in Li Mu’s eyes.
“Is Li Mu afraid now? Haha, it doesn’t matter. As long as he turns in the manuals on secret magical methods and the treasures he carries, we might spare him.”
“No. He must also give up Taibai City. A man who has murdered the emperor is not worth living in such a blessed land.”
“He should also seal his power and retire from the martial arts world for 500 years!”
“Haha! Never knew Li Mu could be cornered one day.”
Well, men were weird creatures. Most people, when left alone, were always calm and rational. They would think twice before they took action. But when too many people were gathered together, they would sink into a state of full-fledged excitement and radicalness. Anyone would be infected and go crazy no matter how sane he was before.
Looking at the mob ahead, Li Mu was suddenly amused.
These people were outstanding practitioners. They were all new faces that Li Mu had not met before, but judging by their dressing, perhaps they were important figures from some ancient factions and families. Each of them had a prestigious air. Some were celebrated, some domineering. Anyway, with one glance, Li Mu knew they were certainly not ordinary people.
It was just that the contorted faces of those big shots were even more ugly than the table manners of the beggars on the street.
“Things have developed to this extent?”
Li Mu listened to those people’s shouts with a strange expression on his face.
“How come they all think I’m afraid of them?”
“On what grounds do they believe that I already fell into their hands?”
“Is that just because I have ignored their requests these days?”
“Are they a bunch of fools?”
“Or they recently got kicked in the head by a donkey?”
Holding the baby girl in his arms, Li Mu found all that a bit funny. Thus, he waved his hand, and the troops behind came to a halt and stood at the outside to quietly accompany Li Mu watching the scene.
At the gate of the main government, Zhang San and Mu Qing, the only two experts left in the army of the Great Moon Empire, were in a tight corner. The dozens of soldiers that had been trying to maintain the order were directly sent flying to the air. Vomiting blood and seriously injured, they hit the government hall and fell to the ground.
The so-called big shots advanced upon the gate of the main government step by step.
“Li Mu is a bloodthirsty man! Death would suit him well.”
“He has killed so many people at such a young age. He even thinks the emperor was beneath him. What a monster he would be when he grows up?”
Someone among the mob bellowed.
The coldness in Li Mu’s eyes unfurled like a layer of ice.
“Bloodthirsty?”
He went speechless.
With Emperor Qin Ming’s one word, the Western Qin’s army killed millions of people in the ten cities and nine counties who were all innocent. Such a massacre had converted the places into mountains of corpses and a sea of blood. At that time, those big shots shrank in the remote mountains and voiced no objection. They didn’t even dare to fart in those days. Instead, they just turned a blind eye to the slaughter and refrained from accusing Emperor Qin Ming.
And now, those people had hopped out to impeach him?
Li Mu suddenly felt that his recent agitation came… for no good reason.
Those people’s faces were filled with numerous kinds of greed, desire, enthusiasm, ferocity, gloom, sneer, madness, cruelty, ecstasy… In Li Mu ‘s eyes, all their expressions gradually converged into seven words.
Bullying the weak but fearing the strong.
Then, Li Mu lowered his head and looked at the baby in his arms.
The baby girl had fallen asleep with a smile on her face. She had two sweet dimples and long eyelashes. Her lips curled cheerfully, and her little fist was still clenching Li Mu’s sleeve… That was a peaceful picture, very intoxicating.
At the sight of the baby’s face, the agitation he felt dissipated quickly.
In the Legend of the Condor Heroes, Guo Jing’s confusion and doubts about the theory of “the toll caused by martial arts” were finally lifted by Hong Qigong, the nine-fingered Divine Beggar.
In his life, the legendary Divine Beggar of the north had killed a lot of killings, but each one he killed deserved such punishment. Hong Qigong was always honest and upright, not involving in any sordid business. When facing the harsh questions of Qiu Qianren, the four most powerful martial arts practitioners at that time and Huang Rong all fell into silence, only Hong Qigong condemned Qiu Qianren justly and put her to silence.
Li Mu knew the answer to Guo Jing’s confusion.
The answer given by Louis Cha Jing-yong was “be free from compunction”.
Li Mu was not free from compunction when he was moaning for the death of Caicai and her grandmother and the Ning couple. He blamed himself for failing to arrive in time and save them. That was why he had been so irritable and confused.
He had ignored that answer.
But at the moment, Li Mu looked at the sweet baby girl in his arms, and then glanced at the mean experts from the martial arts circle, and was suddenly struck by an idea— if he killed all those bad guys. wouldn’t all the good people be saved?
Was he too kind-hearted and hesitant before?
He always felt he was a passer-by in that world, like a hurrying traveler who would stay at the hotel for only a few days before he set off again. Thus, he hated being involved in the power struggle and dark plotting. He seldom meddled in other people’s business unless his close friends and families were in danger. All the time he had been eyeing the world from an outsider’s perspective.
To describe it in two words, it was “too passive”.
For that reason, when Yu Hualong invited him to stay in the Great Moon Empire and help defend Longcheng Pass, he politely turned down the offer, or say, kind of fled in a haste.
It was just like destroying the entire Huju Pass with a massacre.
But now Li Mu reckoned he should not just be a passer-by.
On the way of life, no one was just a guest. Wherever you went, you were the host of that place.
Therefore, the real reason for Li Mu’s recent bewilderment and anger was that he had been savoring the bitterness of the host from the perspective of the guest.
If he had looked at it from the perspective of the host, everything would be different.
It was still possible to bring Yu Hualong back to life. Plus, it is not really hopeless in the Huju Pass now covered in blood. At least a baby girl had survived like the tinder. Sooner or later, she would rebuild Huju Pass.
All the losses could still be made up for.
So, how to make up?
To stop violence with violence.
To stop the war with the martial arts.
Only by weeding the field of virtue could the seedlings grow well.
So, what was the point of learning martial arts?
To do Heaven’s work.
What was Heaven?
The good and evil in one’s heart embodied Heaven.
Rewarding the good and punishing the evil was exactly Heaven’s work.
“If Heaven doesn’t bother to do the work, then, I am here to get the work done!”
That was the meaning of Li Mu practicing the art of drawing power from heaven and earth.
Holding a strong sense of justice and being ready to help the weak meant everything.
Li Mu now felt Hong Qigong’s “be free from any compunction” could finally be applied to himself.
Then, his vision became clear.
Li Mu exhaled a long foul breath, abruptly felt unprecedentedly relieved. As though enlightenment had dawned on him, the fog in his heart, as well as the agitation, seemed to have been blown away by a gust of wind.
From that moment on, he was the host of his life.
Li Mu bowed his head and gently kissed the baby girl who was fast asleep.
“When it comes, let it be. From now on, your name is Li Anzhi.” Li Mu whispered.
In truth, he was also telling himself to let it be.
Now that he had come to that planet, he might as well settle down in that world.
One step at a time, he marched forward to separate the crowd.
Several indignant martial art giants were about to rush into the government. They all sensed a surge of force before they were pushed aside by someone from the rear. At that, they were vexed. But as they looked over their shoulder, all they saw was a short-haired teenage boy cladding ordinary clothes. His face was smeared by dust, and he looked quite woebegone, but that pair of eyes of his flashed gloriously. Cradling a sleeping baby girl in his arms, the boy had just squeezed to the front from behind.
“Who are you?”
“Which faction do you belong to?”
“Why is there a little beggar…”
The manic experts started to swear. They all thought that the boy was a future leader of a certain unknown faction who had come to Longcheng Pass to acquire profit in time of trouble.
However, Qi Huai, sitting by the window on the second floor of the opposite attic, narrowed his eyes slightly.
The middle-aged scholar standing next to Bai Mochou also revealed a strange glow in his eyes.
Qin Zhen stared at the boy holding the baby… Suddenly, he felt an upsurge of bitterness. The arrogant and fascinating Taibai whiz in both poetry and martial arts in his memories turned out to be so haggard, as though he had aged faster than the rest. His chin even sprouted dark stubble.
Qin Zheng also recognized that the bedraggled-looking teenager was Li Mu, the God of Killing who had killed his father and made the royals in the Western Qin uneasy. But he could not bring himself to hate Li Mu at all, for he basically has no memory about his father, Emperor Qin Ming.
Xu Wan’er, Lu Shengnan, and others made to say something but were stopped by Bai Mochou.
The middle-aged scholar noted all that but did not speak, either.
“Hey! Stop pushing me!”
“Get out!”
Zhou Wu, the Supreme Guardian of Rules of the Northern Brilliance Sect, flung his sleeve to his side. A huge force gushed out, ready to throw the teenager who squeezed his way into the air directly. Yet, to his astonishment, the force produced by his flung of one sleeve, though enough to crack a mountain, melted away when it fell on the boy like a drop of water falling into the sea.
It did not take a smart brain to realize that something was wrong.
“Who… Who are you?” Zhou Wu demanded as he backed away quickly.
By then, the radical crowd around also noticed the presence of Li Mu.
At that point, Li Mu had already edged his way to the gate of the main government.
“Your honor.”
“Your honor, you are back.”
Both Zhang San and Mu Qing were overjoyed. But then, they started examining Li Mu with worried looks.
Li Mu turned around. Looked down at the strange faces in the crowd, he smiled, baring his white teeth white. “Thank you for traveling a long way to open my eyes. You guys seem to be outstanding figures. Your aura is all impressive. You are indeed prestigious senior practitioners who have gained great achievement. So, in return, today I will let you all ascend to heaven earlier than you expect.”
Li Mu had decided to stop the war with martial arts so as to do Heaven’s work.
He would serve them nothing but death.
