The Lishan Deity's beak stabbed down, caught up the old man, and with a tilt of its head swallowed him whole; then it beat its wings and, turning into a streak of red light, fled far away. Shen Mu was dumbstruck.

He had watched this god and this man chatting over homely trifles, and had taken it for a custom that the aged go to serve the gods, so that he had not even time to stop it. He followed the Lishan Deity.

After flying several thousand li, the deity folded its wings and alighted on a divine mountain; then it whipped its head around and only then caught sight of Shen Mu, and said in haste, "Greetings, Brother! " Shen Mu nodded slightly and said, "Lishan Deity, I just saw you descend and eat a man, yet that man conversed with you most cheerfully. What is the reason for that?

" The Lishan Deity laughed. "Brother, are you from out of town?

No wonder you do not know our customs here. Our Southern Heavens are a land of civilization and propriety, the place where the Fire Heavenly Venerable bestows his teaching. The gods of the Southern Heavens live in harmony with all the myriad races of the world. The people of this world have need of us, praying for favorable wind and rain, praying for abundant harvests, and we too must eat. And so this custom came to be: any common man who reaches sixty years is reckoned as already dead, and must go to the temple to be offered up to the gods. " Shen Mu asked, "Laid down by the Fire Heavenly Venerable?

" "Just so," said the Lishan Deity.

"The Southern Heaven is a nation of civilization, not coarse and savage like the Western Heaven and the Northern Heaven, and better than the Eastern Heaven by I know not how much. " Shen Mu asked again, "And what of divine ability users?

The longest-lived among the human race's divine ability users can live eight hundred years.

" "Divine ability users who reach seven hundred without becoming gods must also enter the temple and be offered up to the gods.

" The Lishan Deity laughed. "If they become gods, then they stand on equal footing with us, and we address one another as brother. Only, in the territory under my jurisdiction there are not many divine ability users; once in a year or half a year I get to eat one. Brother, you have come at an unlucky time.

There has been no seven-hundred-year divine ability user of late, or I would certainly have treated you.

" Shen Mu frowned. "Is this the custom throughout the Southern Heaven? " "Throughout," said the Lishan Deity.

"Look at this Southern Heaven, all peace and harmony, men and gods dwelling together amicably, demigods and post-heaven beings no longer slaughtering one another. Is it not a pure land?

" Shen Mu's expression hovered between a smile and no smile. "What sort of pure land is it that eats men?

What the Fire Heavenly Venerable has done is devour men without spitting out the bones, making them go willingly to their deaths.

" The Lishan Deity said gravely, "Brother, you are mistaken. When we eat a man, we are reasonable about it.

We ask first: may I eat you? And then we eat.

" Shen Mu asked, "And if the man says no? Do you then not eat him? " The Lishan Deity could not help laughing. "Brother, your innocence is almost charming! We ask only to observe the proprieties.

If we are refused, we eat him all the same.

" The Dragon Qilin could not hold back.

"And what of the gods of the human race?

Would a human god tolerate you eating his own people?

" The Lishan Deity laughed. "Brother, a god of the human race is no longer a man!

How exalted is a god? To become a god and still count oneself a man, if word of that got out, would it not be the death of laughter?

A divine ability user spends a lifetime in bitter cultivation, tempering his breath, toiling at his practice, all for the sake of becoming a god high above! If you told a human god that he was still a man, he would die of rage and curse you for no true son of man! " Killing intent stirred in Shen Mu's heart, then dispersed.

All the Southern Heaven was like this; whether he killed the Lishan Deity or not made no difference. Kill the Lishan Deity, and the land he protected would only suffer more calamities, and more people would die. "The pure land the Fire Heavenly Venerable created.

Heh heh.

. .

" He departed with the Dragon Qilin and Yan'er. The Lishan Deity watched him go far off, then frowned and said, "What a strange fellow, with no manners at all!

An outland barbarian!

" As Shen Mu traveled the Southern Heaven, he saw that it was a primitive society in perfect order: the people burned brush and sowed with hoes, and the divine ability users dwelt in seclusion in the deep mountains, never lending a hand to common folk.

And the gods of the human race sat high above, calling the gods among the demigods brother, holding that once they became gods they were no longer of the same race as men. Ask them to fight for the human race, to risk their lives for mortals, and they would only laugh at your foolishness.

They would never do such a thing.

They wore bright, splendid robes and rode in gorgeous carriages, hastening to banquets with the gods among the demigods; those they kept company with were all gods, and they chatted and laughed with ease, observing a propriety that was almost rigid.

The Southern Heaven was a land of ritual and propriety.

Traveling here, Shen Mu saw sect after sect, sects founded by the gods of the Southern Heaven, almost the same as Jingping in the old days. But in Jingping of those years, though the sects stood thick as a forest, they ruled over the life and death and fate of mortals, manipulating the wars of mortal kingdoms and seizing land. The sects of the Southern Heaven, by contrast, loved and respected one another, never trespassing on each other by so much as a hair.

All here was peace and harmony, a harmony like a pool of dead water. A common man could only ever be a common man his whole life, and his children and grandchildren after him could only be common men; never would there be a chance to rise above his station!

What ambition, what ideals, what delving into the arts of the Dao and divine abilities for the good of the people, all of it was a dream, a bubble, a shadow!

And moreover, no one even thought such things, no one did such things. It was a world so still it stifled the breath. Shen Mu's face was as still as water.

What the Fire Heavenly Venerable had done seemed to shelter the common people of the Southern Heaven, but in truth he made all the human race meekly accept a fate already fixed for them, with never a day of turning it over! He came to a divine city, and in that city stood a statue of the Fire Heavenly Venerable, tall, towering, with a wheel of flame carved in bronze behind its head.

In that sculpture, the Fire Heavenly Venerable's gaze seemed infinitely far-seeing and profound, gazing into the distance, wise and divinely martial. Here were many disciples of the Fire Heavenly Venerable, and they too taught disciples, passing on the traditional system of the Divine Treasury and Heavenly Palace, step by step, by the letter, without the slightest variation.

Should any disciple raise a doubt, he would be severely reprimanded, scolded, even beaten, and the fellow students around him would cast him looks of contempt. The disciples of the Fire Heavenly Venerable, their divine abilities were almost identical, their divine weapons identical, and even their clothing identical. They wore the same garments, wore their hair in the same topknot, trimmed their beards to the same shape; they met everyone with a face full of smiles, spoke the same words of greeting, performed the same courtesies.

Shen Mu clenched his fists and passed by the statue of the Fire Heavenly Venerable, his robes whipping and snapping like a great banner in the wind. Crash!

The tall, towering statue of the Fire Heavenly Venerable abruptly collapsed and melted, turning into surging molten bronze, and from the bronze rolled up billowing demonic flames!