He and It Chapter 35: A God’s Marriage (6)

Chapter 35: A God’s Marriage (6)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

Yun Chi was silent as he followed Sa’gya through the broken walls.

If this huge thing in front of him was once just the top of Sa’gya’s temple, how grand it must have been in its entirety…

The steps were broken, and the great sea otter was in front of him as he blew out a barely trampled passage with his subtle divine power, then he and Yun Chi picked their way up the steps, and walked together towards the dark and lightless front door.

Yun Chi didn’t speak. He looked at the structure of the temple, and hated that he didn’t have a lit flashlight in his hand so that he could have a good look at the wonders of that divine civilization.

Around him, most of the painted and gilded statues had collapsed to their basic remains. Only gaps in the snow revealed a remnant of their former beauty. There were uneven relief frescoes, also filled with snow gullies and broken places, and from a distance one could only see a flawless white.

Here, instead of the wind, the snow became the gravel of the more leaky measure of the rotation of time, and it invaded pervasively, smearing all the glorious past in a silent way.

Sa’gya slowly walked into the front door, and as he moved, the snowflakes silently scattered and swirled around, revealing the gold colors on the ground. As Yun Chi watched, his heart suddenly jumped heavily.

Although the depiction method was different, but this kind of old gold…didn’t it look like the petroglyphs he saw in the underground caves?

In the darkness, Sa’gya’s snow-white fur glowed faintly. Yun Chi’s robe also slowly glowed, illuminating a small patch of ground beneath his feet.

“Over here,” Sa’gya spoke, interrupting his thoughts. “Follow me.”

Yun Chi hesitated for a long time, but decided to follow him with his legs. He couldn’t escape the temple. As long as those traces were still in place, he didn’t have to fear that there was nothing to study.

He was barefoot, tapping on the cold floor with a clattering sound. Seeming to sense that the master had returned, the stale, mournful air gradually rose to a delicate, ancient fragrance, that wrapped around the tip of the nose. Only when someone wasn’t aware of it, could they notice its presence, but when they make a special effort to find it, it was nowhere to be found.

“That is divine incense, born from the faith of believers.” As if guessing what Yun Chi was thinking, Sa’gya answered him gently, “Back in the day, the sacred incense here could be lit all the way to the sun, so that Ugo, the God of the Sky, could also smell it and laugh with pleasure…”

He gradually stopped talking. Yun Chi, as he walked beside him, hesitated for a moment, then decided to reach out and tenderly touch Sa’gya’s thick spine.

It must be spectacular to be able to span the distance between the earth and the sky, to keep calling the fragrance that even the sun knows, right?

“You…Don’t you be sad,” Yun Chi said. “Nowadays, I also smell the fragrance of divine incense. It has been so many years but the fragrance still exists. Your devotees must have loved you very much then.”

Sa’gya smiled as he thoughtfully murmured and sniffed, “Yes, how can the fragrance of the gods still be here after all these years?”

As they walked through the long, silent corridor, Yun Chi could vaguely see that on both sides of the corridor stood a forest of serving gods, each in a different form and with different movements. Some seem to be holding water bottles, some seem to be carrying long lyres, and others holding some kind of tall animal…However, what they all had in common was that the faces and clothing were all ambiguous.

At the end of the corridor, Yun Chi looked at a tall male idol, draped in a wide robe and wearing a four-shot crown, with the line of the hem swaying down like water. The god held a shell of raw beads in his left hand, his right hand pointed downward, and beneath it were the heaving waves.

This statue was of superb workmanship, even if the specific details have long been untraceable, with the kind of boundless majesty and inclusive divinity, still seen through the posture and air, and also from the circumference of the exhibition.

–The face of the man was destroyed by external forces, so that no one could see the slightest frown.

“This is me.” The white sea otter lifted up its hairy face and looked at the high, face-destroyed idol, “The old me.”

Even though Yun Chi was prepared for it, he was still shocked. He examined the ubiquitous decorative elements related to seawater and lowered his voice, carefully guessing, “You were…Were you a sea god?”

In the faint light, he saw that Sa’gya’s eyes were as ancient as a dead star that had been silent since the beginning of creation.

The white sea otter hung his head and turned to the walkway on his right.

“Before the sky and the earth were separated, there was only one chaotic and disorderly ocean in the world,” Sa’gya said calmly. “It was in that chaos that the Mother Goddess Irma flew freely, the bird of prey who never landed, the daughter of space.”

He walked over to a large, decaying door and used his divine power to gently move the fragile panels out of the way.

“Until one day she felt unparalleled loneliness, so she voluntarily descended into the vast expanse of water, where the ocean and the wind awakened the life within her, and she thus floated alone on the ocean, where for thirty centuries she nurtured, before finally laying nine golden eggs.”

Yun Chi repeated, “Golden eggs?”

“Golden eggs,” Sa’gya nodded solemnly. “Irma cracked one and it became the sun; another cracked one and it became the moon; the third broke and it became the stars in the sky; the fourth broke but it was empty. No egg white, no yolk, only the shell, which formed the continent of Kaleva; the remaining five golden eggs were transformed into everything under the sea and in the world.”

“Irma was unusually disappointed until the last one, which was also the most swollen and hardest one. She carefully cracked it open with hope – and Lunotar, the Primordial God of the Sea, The Reproducer, and the main god of the golden body, sat inside. Lunotar founded the first generation of the gods, and in every generation since then, the God of the Sea has been the main god among the gods.”

“I am the second generation of the God of the Sea, the God of the Sheltering Family, and the main god of the second generation,” Sa’gya said. “So, all the gods of the second generation are far gone, and I am the only one left here, lingering on…Waiting for the day of my final demise.”

He was silent for a long time, then opened the last door, “The temple’s treasure house is here. This is our destination.”

“Wait!” On impulse, Yun Chi grabbed Sa’gya’s fur. “Are you telling the truth? The gods will die, and so will you…You’ll die too?”

Sa’gya turned his head to see Yun Chi stubbornly glaring at him, staring firmly.

“The human life span is, in fact, very short.” Sa’gya smiled and said gently, “Don’t be afraid, even if I can’t find a way to bring you home, I will still be with you. Even if your soul also goes to Dhanera, to the Bottomless Darkness, I will always be by your side.”

Yun Chi clutched that warm fleece tightly, unwilling to let go. He swallowed, but his voice trembled slightly, “How long do you have…? I mean, how long do you have left…”

Distant memories tumbled up. Of his parents who never returned; the housekeeper who raised him; the friends and acquaintances who left…How many loves do you have to give away in your life before fate will give up?

The only thing that remained in the air was the hazy and subtle fragrance of the gods as they stared at each other in the empty temple.

He realized one thing. Sa’gya was a dying god, and in his heart, his own end was bleak. The parting with Yun Chi was destined to come. He had seen too much, heard too much, lost too much. He had experienced too much time. Yun Chi couldn’t imagine the astronomical amount of time. Yun Chi even bet his life here, but what could it do? He couldn’t keep Sa’gya from dying, nor could he stay with him for long…

He took a deep breath and shook his head, casting off those sad thoughts, his eyes were as bright as stars, all defiant light.

What was the use of thinking so much? People were creatures who lived in the moment. A happy day was a day earned. Later meant parting later, and later bitterness will be talked about later.

“Anyway, I’m only 23, though my body is only 17 now,” he muttered.

Sa’gya nodded in confusion, “Hmmmm?”

“Let me find condiments, spices, honey, and other messes.” Yun Chi crossed his arms confidently. “I have plenty of time, and I’m going to spoil you.”

Sa’gya tilted his head back in surprise, “Uh-huh!”

The teenager aggressively pushed up his sleeves and took the lead going into the treasure trove. He intended to raid it to back up his words, but just as he stepped in, he stepped on something slippery and almost slipped on the spot.

“Shit!” Yun Chi exclaimed. Yun Chi shouted, “Light, light, light, light! Sa’gya turn on the light!”

The sea otter’s mouth was open, he hadn’t yet recovered from the surprise. Hearing Yun Chi’s call, he subconsciously straightened his body, lightly rubbed the flesh pad, and a tiny spark burst out, like a surplus of feathers, that floated to the wall.

The sound of flames burning the air rose with a bang, the golden and red flames traveled fast along the wall’s pattern, and the stars on the dome lit up one after another. The painting also seems to have no end, revealing its almost endless true appearance.

Yun Chi had never seen so much gold and silver treasure in his life, except for once in his last life. However, in The Hobbit, he looked at the dragon named Smaug sleeping in the mountains of gold coins, and could not help but let out a breathless and amazed statement, “Good Lord, it’s not afraid to suck the gold coins into the nostrils. When is it that you don’t choke yourself awake?”

Now, as he looked at the mountains of treasures in front of him, his mind turned to only one thought.

This silver brick and gold brick, he was looking at more than gold coins. If Smaug sucked in a piece, he was afraid it wouldn’t be as simple as choking awake, it would sneeze eighteen tears, ah.

“Go inside,” Sa’gya paced slowly and restrainedly, then nudged his waist with his nose. “It’s all indifferent decoration here. The useful things are inside.”

Yun Chi was completely numb. He looked down. The culprit that almost tripped him was a round aquamarine, as big as a deer’s eye. In the firelight, it reflected a clear and transparent luminescence.

“No, that’s not right,” Yun Chi scowled and took a few steps inside. “How come you’re so rich?”

Sa’gya asked rhetorically, “A lazy man, even if he saves only one bunch of grain a day, after thousands and thousands of years, he will hold enough grain to fill a barn, let alone a god.”