Deposed Empress General

Chapter 1

Deposed Empress General 1- Tribute

The sky was not yet bright, little girl Bai suddenly awoke from her dreams, and rubbing her eyes, she saw a few villagers pushing open the gate, entering, upon which, they wrapped her father, who was still lying atop the bed, "sleeping," with a straw mat. Her mother was weeping softly, so she hopped off her bed, and walked beside her mother. The villagers brought her father out, and didn't walk really far away, but rather, started digging a ditch beside the foot of the mountain that neighbored the village entrance.

Little girl Bai walked beside her father, who had still been wrapped by the straw mat, and extended her small hands to shake him, but he didn't awaken. She lifted her gaze, looking over by her mother beside her, and with a sweet and milky voice, asked, "Mother, why isn't father waking up?"

Her mother, choked on her tears, was unable to respond. Someone attending there told her, "Your father died."

Little girl Bai turned her head sideways, inquiring, "What does it mean to be dead?" Nobody answered, but rather, some people lifted her father up, and put him into the ditch. Little girl Bai walked over to the side of her mother; it turns out that what dying meant, could it possibly mean just being buried? She softly asked, "Mother, we've buried father so deeply, when he awakes, how is he going to get out?"

Her mother who had been depressed the whole time suddenly hugged her, and wailed loudly. No knowing how long she wept, her mother finally pulled her, returning; she turned back, taking another glance at that ditch that had already been filled, still uncomprehending.

Right when they had returned home, old granny Yang from the village came immediately to disturb them. She sat by the gate pedestal, only hearing granny Yang speaking softly to her mother, suggesting something, "This time of natural disasters, you, as a sole woman, bringing up a child, your household devoid of food, how are you to keep on living......" "Based off of your looks, wanting to remarry isn't a difficult task; but because you're bringing a child along, it still ends up becoming a complicated matter......"

She was only a little bit past five years old, and only half understood, but she still understood a bit. Waiting a bit after granny Yang had left, she ran beside her mother, and grasping the hem of her sleeve, called out, "Mother, please don't send me off to someone else, next year, I'll go with the adults to learn hunting, and in the future, I'll support you

Her mother hugged her, her tears falling like rain.

In the village more and more people started getting sick from a strange sickness. They coughed, became feverish, coughed up blood in their phlegm, dying not long after, and then were buried in the dirt, or cremated into a pile of ash.

The village elder summoned everyone together, stating that the heavens inflicted disasters, because it must be the unrighteous behavior of mankind, enraging the deities. The villagers had long been scared witless, and although this area was really close to the capital of Great Yan, but the government already couldn't even take care of itself, and if they really waited for the government officials to come and deal with the problem, unfortunately it was highly probably that the villagers would all have already been wiped out.

Asking others was useless, but perhaps they could beg the gods. As such, the entire village decided to make a sacrifice to the deities.

Just south of the village was South Mountain, which had a temple for the deities, and beside the template was a strange hole, which was so deep one could not spot its bottom. The villagers that had entered it had all never been seen again, and amongst the elders of the village, there was the rumor that within the hole was a direct passage to the underworld.