The sky was still covered by dark clouds, but through the cracks between these clouds, warm sunlight had already poured down in streams, illuminating the dark world.
Magically, not only a large number of human beings wearing ragged clothes quietly emerged on the surrounding mountains, standing high, dancing, and shouting thrillingly, some small creatures, which seemed to be insignificant and fragile, also popped out from everywhere.
A large group of marmots with moist furs stood right beside Ji Hao. The leader of this group straightened its body as much as possible, popped out its beady eyes, and looked around in surprise.
These marmots were scrawny and exhausted. They gasped quickly for air, seeming to die at any time. However, an indescribably strong life-force could be sensed from their bodies. ‘Squeak, squeak’, a few fist-sized baby marmots reached their heads out of the crowd. Apparently, these few were still newborns.
"Eh!" Man Man found them and stopped moving in surprise. She crossed her fingers over her chest, looking at these marmots with admiration.
They were not even spirit creatures. Instead, they were just a group of small, ordinary marmots. But in Man Man’s eyes, they were explaining the meanings of life, the greatness and strangeness of nature. For an unknown reason, warm tears flowed down from Man Man’s eyes. She carefully took out a large bag of sweetcorn cake and put it before these marmots.
Determinedly, the leader of these marmots looked at Man Man, then fell heavily to the ground.
The coldness and starvation had drained its life-force long ago. But only after its family was away from the danger, this leader could finally leave in peace, without any worries.
Ji Hao looked at this marmot and sensed the greatness of this small creature.
A slight noise caused by flapping wings could be heard. A few tiny dragonflies flew out from an unknown place, happily hovering around a fist-thick stream of sunlight before Ji Hao’s face. Their cyan-blue bodies reflected the sunshine beautifully.
‘Qua,’ a vividly green toad, covered in golden stripes, leaped onto Ji Hao’s foot. The toad thought that Ji Hao’s foot was a stone warmed by the sunshine. Comfortably, the toad lied down, without making any other move.
Three baby toads lied quietly on the toad’s back, with their scrawny bellies rising and falling, as they let out ‘qua, qua’ sounds from time to time.
"Hah, you’re all alive, good job!" Ji Hao looked at these four beautiful little creatures and giggled.
Wherever the sunlight reached and the flood ebbed, a soft greenery quietly emerged on the soil. It had only been a couple of hours since the Huai Gate was broken, but the earth had started healing itself already. As the first layer of juicy moss was growing on the moist soil, one could soon see the charming greenery everywhere.
The boundless, turbid water was gone. The mountains were exposed again in the air. In no time, mountains were covered in greenery too. From the rich soil, a thriving life-force began spreading. Moss for today, grass for tomorrow, and before long, the earth would be covered by healthy plants once again.
More surprisingly, many trees were still standing on these mountains, which had been slowly coming out of the water!
Soaked in the water for years, the leaves and branches of these threes were soft and broken; even their tree barks were flushed away by the water, exposing their mottled trunks. However, a strong life-force still lingered inside these trees. The moment these trees sensed the sunlight, they began absorbing nourishment from the soil, and the first tender sprout popped out from their soft branches instantly!
Unspeakably magical! Not far away from Ji Hao, a few skinny bears stumbled out and stood within a wisp of sunshine that poured straight down from the sky, pausing for a while. Afterward, perhaps their skins got a little bit itchy because of the sunlight, they found the largest tree in the area and rubbed their backs against the tree.
The few bears snorted slightly. Obviously, rubbing against the tree was a very comfortable, nice thing to do.
Standing aside, Shaosi chuckled. Holding her hands in her sleeves, she looked at these few bears and began calculating. "We need to organize people in our territory and grow a batch of crops as soon as we can. Even though the food stored in Pu Ban City is abundant by now, we have so many people that need help. More or less, we can have some harvests if we sow the seeds now."
"The flood is gone. People from many small clans must have no home to return and nothing to eat. They can only go to large clans for shelter."
"If we can store more food and invite more people to our territory, our Yao Mountain territory will grow stronger."
Shaosi carefully calculated about how many crops to grow, how much food could be harvested, and how many homeless people could be invited to the Yao Mountain territory. She was thinking about how many new farmlands could be opened up by these new residents, and how many new villages and towns could be built till the next spring.
Ji Hao smilingly looked at the sky. ‘It’s so nice to have Shaosi help managing the territory.’ thought Ji Hao.
The sky was suddenly illuminated, as two enormous swirls quietly emerged in the sky, one yellow and one black in color.
The black and yellow mist descended from the sky, and slowly, yet stably merged into the bodies of all warriors who contributed to the flood-control mission. This was the natural reward given by the great Dao of Pan Gu world. Anyone who took part in the flood-control mission attained their natural reward. The more one gave, the more one earned.
The great Dao of nature was the fairest. The black and white mist that descended from the sky was neither more or less than it should be.
Shaosi, Man Man, Feng Ling, Yu Mu, Taisi, Heng Xing, Shermie, Yuan Li, and all the others raised their heads. Streams of black and yellow mist, which were thicker and larger than the other human warriors had been receiving, poured down and surged into their bodies.
Next, the sky suddenly brightened up. Two, thousand-miles-wide black and yellow mist streams descended from the sky, one landing on Ji Hao’s body and one on Si Wen Ming, who stood on another side of the Huai Gate, and was smilingly looking around.
Ji Hao felt his embryo of Dao begin shaking, as if it touched a high tension electric wire. Countless strange thoughts crossed his mind. Secrets of the world revealed themselves in Ji Hao’s head, even though he wasn’t spending any effort for it.
His embryo of Dao glowed with a bright Chaos light. Around the embryo of Dao, mountains, stars, and rivers were faintly visible, gradually filling up the inner space of Ji Hao’s body, as if he were a universe that could contain the whole world.
Following a water clattering noise, two beams of light darted out from the flood surging through the Huai Gate, one white and one black.
Those were a dark turtle and a dragon horse. They walked to Si Wen Ming, nodded to him nine times, then roared resoundingly towards the sky. After that, they transformed back into two beams of light and suddenly merged into Si Wen Ming’s body.
Those were He Tu and Luo Shu, two pre-world supreme treasures, which had souls. They sensed the great natural reward power descending from the sky. Therefore, they came over here to follow Si Wen Ming’s lead!
"Oi, I have that much natural reward too. Why don’t you follow me? He Tu, Luo Shu, I can take one of you!" Watching He Tu and Luo Shu choose Si Wen Ming as their owner, Ji Hao mumbled.