Becoming a god starting from blacksmithing

Chapter 3 The Call of the People

The sun was blazing.

Shen Chi was eating in the back room, a bowl of brown rice and a dish of pickled vegetables. When A Zhu ran in, he was just shoveling the last bite of rice into his mouth.

"Brother Shen Chi, come with me somewhere."

"where?"

"The stone tablet at the entrance of the town."

Shen paused for a moment while holding his chopsticks.

The day before yesterday, the gray-eyed leader was sent flying by his smash, crashing into that stone tablet. He remembered it clearly—the stone tablet shook when it was hit, and something on it glowed.

He didn't have time to look at it closely at the time.

He put down the bowl, wiped his hands, and stood up: "Let's go."

At midday, Qingxi Town was almost deserted; everyone was indoors eating. The sun beat down overhead, casting shadows that shrank to a mere patch at one's feet.

A-Zhu walked ahead, skipping and hopping, her red headband swaying in the sun.

Shen Chi followed behind, his hand unconsciously touching his chest.

A monument to the people's hearts stands in an open space at the entrance of the town.

It is three zhang high and one zhang wide. The dark blue stone surface is covered with cracks and signs of weathering, and some of the carvings are so blurred that their original shapes are no longer recognizable.

The three large characters "Monument to the People's Hearts" are written in an ancient style. It is impossible to tell what era they were left from.

Scattered at the foot of the monument were a few bunches of withered wildflowers, a polished copper coin, a faded red rope, and half a wheat cake that had hardened like a stone.

"If there's something you want to remember, you'll leave something here." Ah-Zhu squatted down, picked up the copper coin, looked at it, and put it back.

Shen Chi stood in front of the monument.

He didn't do anything. But the thing in his chest moved slightly.

It was as if something inside the monument was attracting the same thing on his chest.

He reached out and touched the surface of the monument.

The stone was warm from the sun. The moment my fingertip touched its surface—

Countless voices appeared directly in his mind, overlapping each other like hundreds of people speaking at the same time. He couldn't hear a single word, but he could feel the emotions in those voices—expectation, sadness, determination, reluctance, anger, and tenderness.

Those voices passed through him and resonated in his chest.

The invisible line was burned.

Then, countless images rained down on his mind.

A young woman knelt before the tombstone, her forehead pressed against the stone: "Please, let my man come back alive..." Her hands trembled, her voice trembled, but she gritted her teeth and repeated, "Please."

An old man touched the surface of the monument and murmured to himself, "I promised my wife I would finish planting this lily grove for her. This is the third year. I've finished."

A mother, holding her newborn baby, whispered, "I swear, I'll make sure you live a better life than I did."

A boy of thirteen or fourteen clenched his fist and said to the monument, "One day, I will let the Yansheng Pavilion know that people's hearts are not meant to be locked away."

The images are layered upon each other, like countless transparent sheets of paper stacked together, each sheet bearing a promise.

Some of them have already been fulfilled.

Some are still waiting.

Some will never come.

But whatever the outcome, those promises have all been remembered by this monument.

Shen Chi abruptly withdrew his hand and took two steps back.

The thing in my chest is throbbing.

A-Zhu helped him up: "Brother Shen Chi?"

Shen Chi looked down at his palm—his fingertips were covered with a very faint layer of golden powder from touching the stone tablet. It looked like pollen, like dust. He rubbed it, and the powder disappeared, seeping into his skin.

He looked up at the monument to people's hearts.

Under the blazing sun, the fine lines in the grooves of the three large characters on the monument shone brightly, like golden veins spreading from the characters to the surface of the monument and then sinking back into the stone.

Ah Zhu saw it too, and whispered, "The monument is glowing..."

An old woman walked out of the town.

She walked very slowly. One hand clutched something, and the other held a bamboo cane for support. She walked straight to the monument.

Then she knelt down. Slowly, laboriously.

She took out a copper hairpin from her clenched hand.

The hairpin had turned black, and the plum blossom carved on it was worn so badly that the pattern was almost invisible.

She placed the bronze hairpin at the foot of the monument, along with the other items.

Then he closed his eyes. His lips were moving, as if he were silently reciting something.

The thing on Shen Chi's chest burned again.

He didn't touch her. But he "sensed" it.

Sixty-three years ago. This woman was seventeen. On the night of her wedding, her husband told her, "Wait for me to come back."

She waited for him for sixty-three years.

He died outside. She knew that. But she still waited.

Today she came, placed the token of their love from back then in front of the monument, and said something to it—

"I promised to wait for you. I waited. Not until you came back, but until I came to find you."

A faint, almost invisible golden light emanated from the old woman's chest and merged into the monument.

The golden patterns on the monument shone for a moment.

The old woman stood up. She dusted off her knees, turned, and walked away. She walked steadily, as if she had unloaded something she had carried her whole life.

Shen Chi stood still.

The burning sensation in my chest had subsided and replaced with a warm feeling.

He couldn't explain what it was. But he suddenly vaguely realized—

The thing in his chest, and the power he unleashed when he smashed the Heart-Locking Blade the night before last, weren't his alone.

It's these people. These ordinary people. They accumulated it through a lifetime of keeping their promises.

He was just the first person to be able to unleash this power.

Under the old locust tree at the entrance of town, a man in a black cloak leaned against the trunk, holding a bowl of tea in his hand.

He looked like an ordinary passerby.

But his eyes never left the direction of the monument. From the moment Shen Chi touched the monument, to the golden patterns on it lighting up, to the old woman kneeling down and then standing up again—he saw it all.

The tea in the bowl had gone completely cold.

He didn't drink a drop.

He watched Shen Chi's retreating figure, a slight smile playing on his lips.

Then he put down his teacup, turned around, and walked into the alley.

When Shen Chi and A Zhu returned to the blacksmith shop, the sun was already setting.

There was an iron cane placed at the entrance of the blacksmith's shop.

It was that one-eyed old man who used it.

There was a note under the cane. Shen Chi unfolded it; a line of text was written on it:

"The monument is lit up. The Yansheng Pavilion will know. They will arrive by tomorrow afternoon at the latest."

There was no signature. But Shen Chi knew who wrote it.

He held the note, his palms cold.

He remembered what A-Zhu had said—"His light is much dimmer than yours, like a lamp that's about to go out."

Who exactly is that old man?