Continuation of Ch.1:

When that cultivator heard, he gave a light smile. He then transformed into a divine warrior

donned in white armour, with auspicious clouds beneath his feet, and rode off in wind and holy light. Only then did the crown prince realize that he had accidentally met the Heavenly Martial

Emperor, who had personally descended the mortal realm to defeat evil.

All the gods and celestial beings had already noticed this exceedingly outstanding God-Pleasing

Warrior when he did that leap during the Shangyuan Heavenly Procession.

So, after this meeting at Yinian Bridge, the deities asked the emperor: “How does my lord find

this royal highness?”

The emperor answered: “This child’s future is infinite.”

That night, a celestial phenomenon manifested in the skies above the palace, and storms raged.

Amidst the flashes of lightning and the roars of thunder, the crown prince ascended.

Every time a mortal ascended, the heavenly realm would always shake. When this crown prince

ascended, the entire heavenly realm shook with three times the normal tremors.

To achieve a fruitful cultivation truly was much too difficult. It required talent, training, and

chance. It was often a long road of a hundred years in order for a god to be born.

It wasn’t that there weren’t any fortunate souls who became deities at a young age. But, there

largely existed those who exhausted themselves for their entire lives and trained for a hundred

years, and still there’d be no heavenly calamities4 to dawn upon them. Even if they did come to

face a heavenly calamity, they would die if they couldn’t pass such a trial; even if they didn’t die,

they’d be ruined. Their numbers were as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, but most were

simply ignorant mortals who would spend their entire lives as nothing more than ordinary, never

finding their own paths.

Yet this royal highness was no doubt the darling of the heavens. Whatever he wanted, he got;

whatever he wanted to do, he succeeded; he wanted to ascend and become a god, so at the

age of seventeen, he actually ascended and became a god.

He had always followed the will of the people, and the king and queen loved their son and

missed him dearly. So the king ordered for great temples and shrines to be built all across the

land, and for the crown prince’s statues to be erected and worshipped by all. The more

believers there were, the more temples there’d be, and thus the longer his life and the stronger

his spiritual powers. Thus, in a few short years, the Xianle Palace of the Crown Prince became

incomparably glorious, and for a time, its prosperity and splendour reached the peak.

4 Before a Daoist Cultivator can ascend, they must go through the trial of a Heavenly Calamity in order to

pass to the heavens. It’s usually a fierce storm full of piercing lightning.

——### Until three years later, Xianle fell into chaos.

The cause of the chaos was tyranny, and rebels rose in revolt. However, while the flames of war

were set ablaze all over the mortal world, the deities of the heavenly realm couldn’t easily

intervene. Unless it was ghosts, monsters, and demons encroaching on the borders—otherwise,

whatever was, was.

Imagine: conflicts were everywhere in the mortal realm, and everyone believed they had reason.

So if anyone were to stick a foot in, today you would back your former kingdom, tomorrow

another would avenge his descendents. Thus, wouldn’t there be gods who’d want to fight each

other all the time and fall into a life of disgrace?

A situation like this for the crown prince meant he must keep his distance. But, he didn’t care at

all.

He said to the Heavenly Emperor: “I will save the common people.”

The Heavenly Emperor was in possession of a thousand years of divine power, but even he

didn’t dare hang those words off his lips. When he heard this, it was easy to imagine how he

felt, yet he couldn’t do anything about the crown prince.

So he said, “You can’t save everyone.”

“I can,” the crown prince declared.

Thus, he descended to the mortal realm without looking back.

Naturally, the people of Xianle rejoiced. However, ever since ancient times there had been one

truth the people had always spoken of in the human world: when gods descended to the mortal

realm without permission, there was never a good outcome.

Thus, not only were the flames of war not extinguished, they blazed even wilder.

It wasn’t that the crown prince didn’t work hard, but it would’ve been better had he not tried at

all. The harder he worked, the more of a mess the war became; the people of Xianle were

devastatingly battered and crushed, the number of wounded and casualties severe, and in the

end, a plague swept through the entire imperial city, the rebel army broke through to the palace,

and so ended the war.

If it was said Xianle was originally hanging by a thread, then the crown prince came and cut it

directly. After the kingdom had fallen, the people finally came to realize one thing: the crown prince they

worshipped as a god was never as perfect or strong as they imagined.

More harshly, wasn’t he just some useless trash who couldn’t do anything right?!

Without anywhere to vent the anguish and pain of losing homes and families, the battered

people furiously poured into the Palaces of the Crown Prince, toppled his divine statues, and

burned down the divine temples.

Eight thousand temples burned for seven days and seven nights, and burned until there was

nothing left. From that moment on, the martial god who guarded peace and safety vanished,

and a God of Misfortune who brought disasters was born.

When the people call you a god, then you are a god. If they call you crap, then you’re crap. You

are whatever they said you were. It has always been thus.

The crown prince couldn’t accept this reality no matter what, and what he couldn’t accept even

more was the punishment he was sentenced: Banishment.

His spiritual powers were sealed, and his person knocked back down to the mortal realm.

He grew up endlessly coddled and pampered, he had never tasted the suffering of the human

world before, yet this punishment threw him from the clouds down into mud. And in this mud, for

the first time, he understood the taste of hunger, poverty, and filth. This was also the first time

that he did things he never thought he’d do willingly: stealing, robbing, loudly cursing, and giving

up on himself. He’d lost all dignity, there was no self-esteem left, and he was as unkempt as

one could be. Even his most loyal servant couldn’t accept this change in him and chose to

leave.

“Body in abyss, heart in paradise”. This phrase was engraved on stone monuments and plaques

everywhere in Xianle. If it wasn’t for the war that burned almost all of the kingdom to the ground,

if the crown prince were to see the remnants of those words, he’d probably be the first to rush

up to destroy what remained.

The person who had said those words had personally proven that, when the body was in the

abyss, the heart couldn’t be in paradise. He ascended to the heavens quickly, but he fell from grace even faster. That awe-inspiring

glance upon the Great Martial Avenue, having met evil at Yinian Bridge; it was as if it was only

yesterday. However, after the heavenly realm whispered for a while, what was past was past.

Until after many years, one day, a huge rumble thundered from the sky. This royal highness

ascended for the second time.

Throughout history, heavenly officials who were banished either never regained themselves, or

fell into the ghost realm. There had never been many who were able to turn a new leaf after

having been banished. The second ascension was fully grand and spectacular.

What was even more spectacular was that, after he ascended, he charged all the way into the

heavenly realm and rampaged in full fury. Thus, he had only been ascended for the spanse of

one incense time before he was knocked back down again.

One incense time. This could be considered the swiftest and the shortest ascension in history.

If the first ascension could be considered a beautiful tale, then the second ascension was a

farce.

Having been banished twice, the heavenly realm looked upon this crown prince with full

contempt. And in this contempt, there was also caution. After all, he was already threatening

and on edge after the first banishment; now that he was banished twice, wasn’t he going to go

berserk and avenge himself against the world?

Yet who knew, after getting banished this time, he didn’t go berserk, and was even adjusting to

the banished life honestly. There were no issues at all, the only problem was…maybe he was

taking things a little too seriously?

Sometimes he’d busk at the end of the street, expertly playing any instrument and singing any

songs, and even shattering boulders on his chest was not beyond him. While there had long

been word that this royal highness could sing and dance and was a master of many talents,

unbelievably, all of his talents were being witnessed in such a fashion, truly making one feel

complicated. Sometimes, he would diligently and humbly collect junk.

All the deities were shocked to the core.

Unthinkable, that things would reach this point; the point where now, if anyone was to say “the

son you gave birth to is the Crown Prince of Xianle”, it’d be a curse more malicious than “may

you die without sons”. He was once the noble and gracious crown prince, a heavenly official who made part of the

divine ranks. But to have screwed up to this point, there really was no one else. And so, this

was the story of the man who was known as the laughingstock of the three realms.

After laughing, those who were more sentimental might also sigh. That darling of the heavens,

who once stood at such a height, had truly and thoroughly disappeared.

Divine statues collapsed, native kingdom destroyed, not a single believer remained. Gradually,

he was forgotten by the world. Thus, no one knew where he drifted afterwards.

Another many years passed. Suddenly one day, there was another huge rumble in the sky. The

heaven fell and the earth cracked, the ground trembled and the mountains shook.

The lanterns of everlasting light shuddered, the firelights danced in fury, and all the heavenly

officials jolted awake inside their own golden palaces, every one of them running out to ask

each other:

Which new dignitary ascended? Such a grandiose entrance!

Yet who knew—they’d only exclaimed in wonder the first second, when in the next second, all

the gods and buddhas of heaven were thunderstruck.

Weren’t you done?!

That infamous weirdo, the laughingstock of the three realms, the legendary royal highness the

crown prince, he—he—he—he fucking ascended again!

To Be Continued...

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