The Blue Sky Is Dead
It was the year of Gapja. To explain how I ended up possessed in this godforsaken adult game, stealing loot from others, I'd have to go back much further than now. Far earlier than the Three Kingdoms period. Before the Yellow Turbans, before the restoration of the Later Han, even long before the Han Dynasty was founded. In other words, a story about the ancient primitive Chinese people.
Hard as it may be to believe, every single ancient primitive Chinese person was a degenerate. To be more precise, during that era when the land was fragmented into countless pieces and people fought endlessly, the kind of chaos that would give an orgasm to modern internet users who love China so much they wish there were multiple Chinas, every last one of those primitive people was a total degenerate. The only reason they couldn't widely broadcast their depravity was because it was so long ago that not only video, but even paper itself didn't exist yet.
The age of the ancient primitive degenerates. People call that period the Spring and Autumn and Warring States era.
The Spring and Autumn and Warring States period. It was a beautiful time when the very concept of "one China" didn't even exist. Whenever a village grew large enough, the village chiefs would simply pick the strongest among them to be king. Dozens of nations rose and fell in the blink of an eye. In such chaotic times, it wasn't even surprising news when the village chief who became king yesterday was found as a corpse today. If the heads of those above flew off so casually, how much worse was it for those below?
It was a brutal era where praise one day could mean your head rolling the next, and the beheading of others today might mean your own head tomorrow. Everyone ignored morality and chased only pleasure. Naturally, what was completed was a world of people living only for today. In other words, a real-life version of Hitomi was born.
Of course, there were a few with iron mentalities who kept their sanity, but they soon had their lifelines forcibly severed. The survivors diligently practiced their own twisted sexual desires in reality, the kind you'd only see in Hitomi. Or rather, since Hitomi came much later, perhaps those people were the originals that inspired it.
They'd fuck married women with husbands whenever they saw them. They'd fuck women without husbands. They'd fuck them even if they had husbands. Sometimes they'd fuck the husbands too. When they got tired of that, they'd secretly fuck their sons' wives. If they got caught, they'd dispose of the son, take the widowed daughter-in-law as a concubine, and fuck her again. If the concubine gave birth to a daughter, they'd fuck the daughter too. If the legal wife gave birth to a daughter, of course they'd fuck her. And if they occasionally had a son, they'd raise him for a little while before fucking him too. When kings, ministers, and commoners were all like this, it was truly no different from the animal kingdom.
Thinking about it, those countless internet China enthusiasts who love China so much they wish there were multiple Chinas might not actually love China itself. They might simply be longing for the degenerate ancient Chinese people from those fragmented eras.
The mortal enemy of such internet China lovers, the benefactor of the continent, the great teacher among teachers who transformed ancient primitive perverts whose brains were ruled by their cocks into somewhat human beings where at least a quarter of their bodies were controlled by their brains, the figure occasionally revered as one of the Four Sages, was none other than the renowned Master Kong. Confucius.
Of course, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I wrote that only a quarter of the body was controlled by the brain rather than half. Obviously, half of a man's brain is ruled by his cock, so half the body is handled by the dick. As for the remaining half, I divided it again because those who imported the red ideology popular in the West, burned cultural assets, dug up graves (and notably, Confucius himself wasn't found in his own tomb, which is so very Chinese), and called it a great revolution, well, no matter how you look at it, half of those bastards' bodies weren't human either.
Anyway. In that hellish era, this man wandered around with his disciples, preaching about dreaming of humanity and annoying the powerful. What was the content of his sermons? "Kings should live like kings. Commoners should live like commoners. Stop secretly shitting in the grass. Be filial to your parents. Stop turning people into salted fish. Don't commit adultery. You bastards, did you turn my favorite disciple into salted fish? If everyone fulfills their proper role, the world will be at peace." And so on.
He traveled in every direction, desperately shouting these obvious truths. Why did he do it? Because kings weren't living like kings, and commoners weren't living like commoners. Because the ones secretly shitting in the grass were the decent ones, while most were openly shitting right on the roadside. Because no one was being filial to their parents. Because people killed others at the drop of a hat and turned them into salted fish as part of ceremonies. Because adultery was basically a passive skill for people of that time. Because his most cherished disciple had been turned into salted fish. Because everyone failing to fulfill their roles had thrown the world into chaos. And so on.
He wasn't asking everyone to become saints. He was simply asking them to keep to the basics. Yet even these most fundamental principles were met with responses like, "Master Kong's words are good, but they seem too idealistic to actually follow." In the end, Master Kong let out a great sigh and died.
Fortunately, perhaps Heaven was moved by his efforts. Long after Confucius's death, a nation emerged that took his words, Mencius's words, and the teachings of Confucian scholars as the state doctrine and unified the continent. That nation was the Han Dynasty.
And now that very Han Dynasty, which had boasted four hundred years of history, found itself on the brink of destruction due to a peasant rebellion. People called this event the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
From ancient times until now, Heaven had always been a distant and fearsome existence to humanity. Why did the rich slaughter their livestock and offer them to Heaven before feasts or celebrations? Why did the poor always swear oaths to Heaven when making vows, and curse Heaven when natural disasters struck? Because Heaven was always watching over them.
When the weak suffered injustice at the hands of the strong and cried out in resentment, why did people say they should be ashamed to look at Heaven? When the strong oppressed the weak and justified their actions, why did they always claim they were delivering Heaven's punishment? Because no one could cover the sky with their palm.
Thus, Heaven looked down upon the earth from on high, day and night. So how could these people utter such blasphemous words as "the blue sky is dead" in broad daylight?
On the city walls of Julu in Ji Province, Inspector Wang Shun felt his blood boil and surge in reverse, causing his entire body to tremble uncontrollably.
The yellow-turbaned rebels who had surrounded the city in layers and been spouting their doctrine all fell silent at once and glared at him. Wang Shun flinched slightly at the sight but quickly regained his momentum, trusting in the high city walls.
"Ha! You say the emperor watches over us so well, yet he did nothing while my children starved to death?"
"We don't fear a blue sky that's about to die soon! When we reach Luoyang, a yellow sky shall rise!"
"You old fool, what gives you the nerve to talk so big! Have your eyes gone bad with age? Can't you see we're filling up the entire area out here? If you don't open the gates right now, every last bastard inside the walls is going to die!!"
The bandits had filled the area outside the walls so completely that everything visible was yellow, but Wang Shun merely scoffed. After all, they were just a bunch of beggars who had gathered because they were hungry and wanted some rice. He'd dealt with these pathetic creatures flocking here many times before. This time they seemed to have coordinated by wearing matching turbans, but they were still the same dirt-eating rabble at heart. As always, he'd intimidate and threaten them a bit, then offer a little appeasement, and they'd scatter on their own.
…….
Watching the previously arrogant shouters suddenly fall silent and lose their spirit, Wang Shun laughed inwardly. Fucking bastards. Dirt-eating worms who don't even know their place, daring to threaten their own masters? Once they scattered, he'd trample them as usual. No, since they'd clearly rebel again next time, he might as well confiscate their farming tools this time so they had nothing left to bring. He'd been too soft-hearted before and left their tools alone, but from now on he'd make them dig the earth with their bare hands.
"Ugh..."
When Wang Shun glared at them with a deliberately furious expression, the rebels began to slink backward, eyeing each other nervously. Look at those frightened faces. Yes, that's the look that suits you lot. Squeeze them a little and they'd obediently cough up money. Since it was going to end up like this anyway, there was no need to waste energy. See? They were looking around like rats, wondering who would run first. They'd start fleeing any moment now.
Wang Shun was certain. As it had always been. As it always had been. They would submit.
However.
"...What?"
"M-Master Zhang Jue!"
This time, things began to change a little.