Chapter 3 - Undercurrents

Upon landing on the defensive wall where the current elders of the Li family and the patriarch was present,

the man wearing scholar attire glanced at them and dismounted from the bird when he nearly reached them, everyone present greeted him by holding their palm and fist together and bowed lightly by saying "greetings left prime minister".

the scholarly man who was called the Left Prime minister of the royal household, also greeted them in response and took out a scroll which he unfolded it and read out loud, so that everyone could hear him loud and clear,

"BY THE DECREE OF THE EMPEROR I ANNOUNCE THAT FOR THE NEXT 100 YEARS THERE CAN BE NO WARS ALLOWED IN THE GREAT "BRIGHT HEART" CONTINENT, ANYONE DISREGARDING THIS DECREE WILL BE MET OUT WITH EXTREME PUNISHMENT AND EVEN DEATH!!!"

LONG LIVE HIS HOLINESS!!!

LONG LIVE HIS HOLINESS!!!

(CHANTED EVERYONE).....

after hearing the decree brought out by the left minister the mood turned weird in the surrounding not knowing what to do for either side, the first one to react was the patriarch of the Li family,

who bowed slightly and thanked the left minister for his interference and that the part of resources given to the imperial family will be doubled for this year as well as the Li family will be sending 500 young cultivators of master stage to the royal army's Crimson brigade as a tribute to the emperor.

of course, the remaining three family head's faces turned solemn upon hearing all this and turned displeased about how all of this turned out.

the Wang family head coldly snorted and slightly bowed towards the left minister and left with his entourage,

the Zheng family head disappointedly also slightly bowed towards the left minister and said "sorry for the intrusion, sir Li Wei" and left with his entourage, and the Gu poison family was the only one left whose family head was calculating in his mind to make something out of the situation, unwilling to give up and finally sighed and just bowed towards the left minister and left with his group.

the left minister mounted his bird and was ready for take-off when the family head of Li family came to him and sincerely thanked him saying "I can't thank you enough dear sir and his majesty"

"there's no need to fret Li family head" said the left minister and then he said with utmost seriousness but remember this you owe his majesty this time.

"yes sir minister I am honored to serve his majesty" said the Li family patriarch with a determined tone.

after their conversation, the bird flew up flaring with it's large beautiful flaring wings, seeing which made the youths of the Li family's eyes shine with envy.

At the same time, at the center of the continent stood a majestic palace which was covered with gold which depicted utmost craftsmanship and design inside which was vast rooms and corridors at the center of the palace was a throne erect on which a man sat with a very pressing and holy aura, his eyes shone with vicissitudes of life and experience, he had grey sideburns and black hair which was slicked back, he was the emperor of this whole continent who ruled everyone in this continent.

In front of him was standing an old man with some tomes on astrology and had a face which was calculating something, he had a bald head and long white beard who had a set of peculiar eyes which were black and white but the peculiarity was that his eye color would shift their position from time to time while one was pitch black the other was pearl white and they would change again and again from time to time like flickering.

the emperor said to the old man

"Sir Seeker will your prophecy work."

the old man stopped and looked like pondering for some time and said after a while "who can be sure how fate plays out to be your majesty, only time will tell if the karma that we sowed today will work in our favor in passing the coming catastrophe that has the potential to destroy the whole continent."

the emperor sighed hearing this with some trepidation on his face and was looking at the starry sky through the windows in melancholy.

in the castle of Li family sat the patriarch in front of whom, a tired women can be seen who had two babies in her embrace with a weak smile plastered on her, near her sat a boy who had a sharp sword-like eyebrow with a round cute face and chubby build but he had intelligence on his face which was rare for kids his age,

no one knows why but everyone in the Li family have been witness to his intelligence, his very actions, and his way of thinking astounded everyone in the household from his father the patriarch to the lowliest servant knew that the young master of the Li family had ungodly intelligence like no other when he was 6 months old,

he started to look at stars hardly and tried to bring his small hand upwards as if these small hands wanted to grasp the very stars present in the sky, that was when he first started speaking and from speaking gibberish he learned to speak fluently in a matter of days, which was unheard of.

after speaking, he started learning how to read and write which was also learned by him in a matter of days which was again shocking and a joyous moment for the whole family, when he reached 1 year old he started questioning, but that wasn't shocking,

what was shocking was, he was questioning the meaning of life and why and how everything in creation exists which was shocking because it is not something to be said by a 1-year-old boy but a question to be pondered upon by the old sages and hermits, the boy "Li Jie" was looking at his younger twins and had a smile on his face, while at the same time his face turned sour remembering how the family was just in a major crisis sometime before because of the phenomenon that was caused by his younger twins made him understand that this world wasn't as carefree as he thought it was, and right then and there he vowed to himself to get stronger in this world and not let his family ever face a crisis again.