Chapter 254: Good Little Sister, Please Look At Humanity
Demeter grew increasingly helpless the more she thought about it; the originally surging resentment and grievance ultimately slowly dispersed in her eldest sister’s warm embrace.
After her emotions slightly calmed down, she instead felt a bit guilty.
She quietly lifted her emerald eyes, quickly glancing at her sister’s gold-red eyes burning with sacred flames, then swiftly looked away, not daring to meet her gaze, just like a little deer that had made a mistake yet was incredibly stubborn.
Hestia softly sighed in her heart and held her tighter.
“Good girl,” she said softly in the warmest tone in the world, whispering into her younger sister’s ear: “Those few golden clouds and rosy glows in heaven are just flowers stirred by the wind—what big deal is that?”
“We are a family. As long as we sit down and slowly untangle the threads, things will always turn out well.”
“My lovely younger sister, you must remember that in the world, only family is most important, and only unity makes a true family.”
She paused, her fingertips gently brushing Demeter’s temple hair: “Our dear Hera can even accept Metis, and Metis has accepted everyone with the greatest magnanimity. So now, why must you make yourself unhappy?”
Demeter pursed her thin lips tinged with emerald, her willow-leaf fine brows tightly furrowed, and softly retorted full of grievance: “But… but I clearly came first!”
This childish remark filled the gentle Hestia’s eyes with helplessness.
It seemed her earlier words had been in vain.
Her good younger sister was still so stubborn in temperament; sometimes, this really wasn’t a good thing.
She dotingly pinched her good younger sister’s delicate little face that could squeeze out water, softly saying: “However, you must know that from the moment we were severed again from our father god Cronus’s body, Zeus first saw Hera.”
“Perhaps, at that moment, the god He would love most in His lifetime was already determined.”
Hearing this, Demeter’s little hand suddenly clenched into a fist.
Her knuckles turned white; at this moment, that strong unwillingness and hatred toward father god Cronus reached a new peak.
Hestia gently held her beloved younger sister and continued tenderly comforting her: “Demeter, Demeter, my beloved younger sister, we sisters are the closest to Hera; we are connected by blood, our divinity sharing the same origin.”
“You are the most merciful goddess, and she is the most good goddess. A family is like a hearth; we sisters are the firewood sustaining the hearth fire.”
“If cracks form between the firewood due to jealousy, letting cold wind blow in, what ultimately extinguishes will be our shared warmth.”
“We and Zeus are inherently the most intimate; we are one divine family. Living happily together with Zeus—what need is there to fuss over that bit of nominal precedence?”
“Doesn’t Zeus love you? Look, someone as lovely as you—who wouldn’t love you? He loves you the most too.”
“Love is an ocean, Demeter, not grains of millet countable in the palm. What’s the difference between drowning in a sea ten thousand li deep and one ten thousand li and one inch deep?”
“Ten thousand parts of love and ten thousand and one parts of love—for our eternal lives, that one part difference is so negligible.”
“You can even tolerate and accept Zeus’s flirtatiousness—what need is there to fuss over that negligible little gap?”
“Anyway, we will forever be the closest sisters, forever united in love. That tiny gap can even be blown away by the wind—why care so much about it?”
Demeter finally calmed a bit under her eldest sister’s gentle consolation, the watery light in her eyes receding somewhat.
But that soft little face was still full of unmelting grievance: “Clearly, clearly I wanted to bear His eldest son with Zeus, but—but now”
Hestia dotingly glared at Demeter and chided: “Silly younger sister! You’re usually the most clever and wise—how come now you’re not getting this simplest reason?”
“Is who is Zeus’s eldest son really that important? You must know, no matter who is the god king’s eldest son, Zeus will forever be the eternal god king.”
“Yes, perhaps bearing the god king’s eldest son adds ‘a little bit’ more weight in love.”
“But if striving for this ‘first’ harms our sisters’ feelings and disrupts family harmony, Zeus will surely be saddened by it.”
“That way, you’d lose even more of Zeus’s love—isn’t that putting the cart before the horse?”
“You must know, the order of children cannot decide parents’ love. What truly decides parents’ views is the children’s own performance and virtue. Why persist over this empty title?”
Demeter was stunned upon hearing this, suddenly somewhat enlightened.
Right! She’d almost gotten the ultimate objective backwards!
Hestia continued, but her voice had already turned serious: “Moreover, are you really just bearing a child for a title? Is that fair to the child not yet born?”
“A child should be the crystal of you and Zeus’s love, the sweetest fruit naturally borne after your feelings naturally achieve fruition.”
“And not make him, from the moment of gestation, bear any utilitarian expectations or burdens from his parents that he shouldn’t.”
“Otherwise, my dear younger sister, wouldn’t that be so selfish and terrifying?”
“My beloved Demeter, you are the most gentle and merciful goddess. I know your heart holds not only the most sincere love for Zeus, but also the deepest love for all spirits.”
“I am equally certain that deep in your divinity lies the most selfless, most precious, deepest motherly love for your future child.”
“My dear younger sister, when your emotions plunge into a turbulent ocean, what you should do most is not impulsively go with the flow, but calm down and let your heart return to its original place.”
“Please listen carefully to your ‘Mother of Earth’ divinity, to the voice deepest in your heart.”
“Would the earth stint her nourishment because of which seed falls first? Would she withdraw her broad, selfless love because a flower blooms late?”
“Do you really want to hurt Hera? Do you really want to make Zeus unhappy? Do you really want, for your momentary persistence, to burden your future most lovely child with heavy shackles he shouldn’t bear?”
“My younger sister, please think clearly. Love is tolerance, not harm—whether love or motherly love.”
“You are the noble Mother of Earth; all living beings upon the earth are your children. Sometimes, your gaze should look farther and broader.”
With that, Hestia lightly raised her jade hand; the eternally burning sacred fire inside the divine palace followed her action, suddenly expanding before her into a huge, clear mirror of divine fire.
Shadows flowed in the mirror; through this fire mirror, one could clearly see the newborn, thriving humans in the mortal world.
One small tribe after another, like fire points scattered on the wild plains; one person after another, like busy little ants.
They bustled across the vast earth for survival and reproduction.
At this time, humans already had quite a few children.
The older ones could even follow their mothers to gather fresh berries.
These children lived in this vast, prosperous world, bathed in the radiance of the ten true gods; their learning and growth were even faster than their parents’.
However, these second generation children had much inferior physical qualities and lifespans compared to their parents’ generation.
Though humans originated from extraordinary matter, they were ultimately mere mortal spirits.
The mortal world had no aetherial atmosphere for gods to breathe.
They didn’t cultivate either; prolonged consumption of mortal food would gradually wear away even the deepest origin in the merciless passage of time, ultimately reducing them to mortals.
However, at this current time, it was destined to last quite a while.
Because
His Majesty the God King frequently bestowed blessing golden rain upon the entire universe.
This thing was just too useful!
This was a large-scale supplement to humans’ origin that nearly everyone could enjoy, and the effect was astonishing.
In fact, after several years, many strange things had happened, but the origin consumption in first generation humans’ bodies had actually increased rather than decreased.
Except for those giving birth.
Giving birth was instead the most origin-consuming thing.
Their descendants were greatly inferior to them.
Second generation humans, though pure-blooded children born of first generation humans,
were still born in the mortal world; during growth, they ate mortal food and received far fewer blessing bounties than their parents, so their physical qualities naturally fell short.
The scene in the mirror shifted to a mother and her daughter.
The mother’s build was clearly taller and stronger, while the daughter seemed more delicate, but her gaze was more lively than her mother’s, full of curiosity toward the world.
Watching in the fire mirror those second generation humans clearly thinner, more prone to fatigue than their parents’ generation, Demeter’s eyes revealed motherly pity.
However, though second generation humans had inferior physical qualities to their parents, their desire for wisdom and knowledge, their desire for learning and progress, far surpassed the first generation.
Because the knowledge accumulated by the first generation had turned so much into survival instincts, directly passed to their children.
And their rapid growth, weakened bodies, and short lives also gave these children a vague sense of urgency, making them even more diligent and proactive in learning knowledge.
In this regard, the first generation truly fell short.
After all, first generation humans were born as sturdy youths with long lifespans, slow aging, and little sense of time’s passage.
Plus, with gods always caring for them nearby and no life-or-death crises, their motivation for learning—except for a few—was naturally lower.
Watching this scene, Hestia smiled: “See, Demeter, this is mortal spirits’ civilization—there are losses, but also gains. The decline of the flesh brings the thirst of the spirit. Perhaps this is the price and hope of mortal spirits’ civilization.”
On the fire mirror, a clear breeze swept over the forest sea, and the scene cut back to the broader heaven and earth.
Though current humans still faced too many unknowns in this world, today’s human society had few troubles.
They, just stepping onto the path of civilization, under the ten true gods’ personal guidance, upheld God King Zeus’s sacred justice order of utmost goodness and beauty, learning the noblest virtues.
Plus, they truly lacked no survival resources, with no existential crises.
Though not exactly carefree, it was hard to be weighed down by “troubles.”
Even concepts of “evil” and “bad” had yet to truly emerge.
Though due to civilization’s progress they couldn’t form large collectives and had already split into various small-scale tribes living separately,
currently, everyone coexisted equally and kindly.
After all, everyone was basically the same now, with no true class differentiation; all possessed the same.
Weak humans facing the world needed collectives for warmth even more, so it was naturally extremely harmonious and equal.
All tribes, internally and externally, had no contention, no deception, no oppression, no prejudice, no hoarding; the overall living atmosphere was extremely simple and pure.
However, having separated after all, differences were slowly emerging.
Tribes in farther regions even had almost no interaction.
Developmental directions and progress naturally varied.
The most obvious were language and symbols.
Language unity relies on frequent, stable communication; when people communicate often, pronunciation and vocabulary stay consistent.
Once communication frequency drops, languages evolve separately, gradually forming differences; lack of exchange is the most basic premise for linguistic divergence.
And in development, languages continuously innovate and, through exchange, fuse and reconstruct.
Due to these various origins, languages gradually differentiated, and it was certain that such differences—and differences in all aspects—would only grow.
For similar reasons, “symbols” diverged even more, the two complementing and influencing each other, destined to become completely different in the near future.
Living habits differing by region would also differ; developed further, they become distinctive civilizations and cultures.
After that, harmony would be hard to maintain.
However, that would take at least two or three generations; for now, it was too distant, and no one thought that far.
And now, the concept of “leaders” had already emerged.
Those more curious, braver, better at thought, better at learning, and more diligent, under the gods’ guidance and certain fortuitous encounters, had shown clear differences.
Prometheus and the others were ultimately only eleven gods, especially now with just ten.
They also needed some helpers to share the teaching duties.
Thus, “leaders” of various tribes naturally emerged.
