The lights in the sky reflected the transparent pond which, in return, reflected two figures.
"Here." Jun Sheng retreated into the little cabin-like shed of the raft boat, propped up a table and signalled for Pei Yi to follow.
Pei Yi kneeled down opposite her as Jun Sheng took out a basket of delicacies.
"We can enjoy these while," Jun Sheng pointed to the side. The shed-cabin thing had a shaper of a little room, except no front or back doors, just two willow pleated walls that you can lean against and see-through satin curtains for the doors. It's designed this way so that people can see the scenery while sitting down and chatting, or even in the rain, just hang a sheet over the top so that the rain wouldn't get in by the gaps in the willow pleats, then you can enjoy the extraordinary rain view of the pond-lake.
The fireworks were still going on, sparks of blue and orange filtrated the night air. Distant voices of people at the night market and those watching at the bank breezed through at one point or another.
It was a rather queer sight. In the middle of winter, everyone is out of their houses at night, busying about with no means of going to bed early. Even children were allowed extra play time.
"Why is the festival set on such a day?" Without meaning to, Pei Yi asked her inward query aloud, but after realising that she did that, she looked at Jun Sheng expectantly.
Jun Sheng thoughtfully tapped on the little table for a moment, then spoke.
"There's this old story that they used to tell, and it's written in script in the village temple. It was said that, a couple millenia ago, an unknown ranked cultivator sprang from the capital. He had fallen into the trance of lure during his breakthrough of his ascension into some world above, signed the trade with the devil and gave out his soul.
He became a berserker. One with power too much for this world. Before his fall, he had already reached the ascension stage. So he had the power of a god to our world. That divine force, once overtaken by dark magic, almost tripled."
Jun Sheng halted, and gave a small indesceptable sigh.
"Even those elders who had reached their ascending stage years ago came out of their hidden living place that they settled into due to too many people bothering them, to see this for themselves.
Many of them were stirred up and persuaded by countries and the cultivator's seminar to rid the fallen cultivator. At this point, driven by another soul, he was terrorising the neighbouring towns and villages. Lian Hua village, the one we are currently in, was one of his targets. You see over there,"
Jun Sheng pointed to a mountain just in sight. Pei Yi recognised that, actually. Because it was the same as the one that she had always gazed out of her room window. It's unique shape near the peak was one that she cannot forget.
"Yeah, where we first met." Jun Sheng smirked to Pei Yi.
"That was the place where the savior first came down."
Jun Sheng unlatched a rhinestone looking thing from one of her numerous bracelets and placed it flat on the table.
"Show me what happened." She spoke to it.
A swirl of mana drifted from the stone, also lighting up the dust in the air. They flickered for a while, but then the mana seemed to move the dusts into place and formed a moving picture.
It showed a quiet still man hovering in the air, scanning the town, then seemed to run out of patience as he gathered a fist of mana. He sent bolts of energy down, shaking the entire village beneath him. People were running, silently screaming as the dust performed the scene.
Just as he was about to send one gathered blast that would have wiped out the entire town, the clouds seemed to part. He gazed up, something inside of him stirring. Before anyone's eyes could catch the movement, even in recording and performed by mana and dust millennials later, the berserker crashed into the mountain, full impact.
Promptly making a massive dent in the mountain. The dusts zoomed in on the person - or, rather, god, who had a foot on the back of the man on the floor, sprawled, grimacing and growling, trying to get back on his feet.
The god's gaze met and deadlocked on one point, which happened to be directly at Pei Yi. Pei Yi startled. It was just a recording, but the fierceness in her eyes was as if it could penetrate someone's soul, pin them to the spot.
Her aura was so powerful, even if it was through a recording, that it was easy to ignore her beauty. Or maybe people assume that only a god may have those features, or the stereotype that fairies are generally prettier.
It was as if she had a field of repellent around her. Aura of regal and dignity - born to be. Such a strong sense of someone who's used to be the commander. The sense of...godliness, was none that Pei Yi had ever seen. Not even from generals and emperors that had bathed in blood on battlefields countless times.
Not someone to mess with. Pei Yi concluded.
The goddess gazed in a certain direction and said something, it was like an amused murmur, so it was indecipherable.
The cast ended there.
"I visited the village temple before. I found this while I was doing some research in the temple's library, the monk was to have it transferred. So I...borrowed it, and made a copy. I returned the original one of course, this is just a copy."
Pei Yi raised an eyebrow at this, but didn't say anything as she was still thinking about the gaze of the goddess.
"That wasn't the end of the story. Somehow the fallen cultivator got away, when he came back he became even stronger. The goddess found him and set a barrier in the sky, where the citizens of Lian Hua village saw them fight for three days and three nights. In the middle of the third night, the villagers heard a loud crash and came out to see.
When they peeked out of their doors and windows, they saw a gazillion sparkling lights, looking like stars that had just fallen from the sky, rising up to the heavens. When they came out and looked up, the evil cultivator was gone. The goddess, in her victory, only glanced back and then the stormy clouds parted for her. Then it started to snow."