Chapter 882 — The Cowherd Drunk by the Riverbank

When Long Qilin heard these words, his heart gave a start—though there was something familiar in that voice. Even so, he dared not be remiss. In a flash he shook himself and transformed into a sturdy youth with a qilin's head and a man's body—only he had changed too quickly and forgotten that Shen Mu was still on his back. Shen Mu tumbled down, flailing hand and foot. Long Qilin hastily scooped him up, set him on his own shoulder, and peered cautiously past the moonlight.

Today was the seventh day of the month; when the moon array ran to the seventh, it was a great crescent, and the rest of the array was screened behind shadow. The array was vast, sweeping several hundred li across. The part hidden in shadow had not truly vanished—the array still turned, merely screened from sight. It was like a lunar palace: within the moon stood halls and gate-towers, and the scenery was fair, most pleasing to the eye.

"Whoever governs the moon in the celestial chart must surely be a beautiful woman."

Long Qilin poked his head out from the shadows and saw that the broken place let the moonlight spill down like running water. Upon the tip of the crescent sat a woman, gazing this way, blinking.

"It's her?"

Long Qilin was slightly startled. Shen Mu on his shoulder was like a puppet come apart at the joints; his limbs slid limply off Long Qilin's shoulder, his head lolling to one side. Long Qilin hastily caught hold of him. The woman on the crescent came over and said in surprise, "What is wrong with him?"

"The Sect Master is wounded." To the woman, Long Qilin said, "Badly wounded, but it should be nothing serious. Sect Master, wake up!"

He shook Shen Mu, whose head wobbled like a rattle drum. Then Shen Mu opened his eyes, gazing blearily at the woman, feeling as though a familiar face had entered his sight, though he could not recall who she was.

"What are you doing here?" he mumbled, and sank muddled back into dreamland.

"You see? Nothing serious!" Long Qilin declared with great confidence.

The woman, however, was very worried. She sent him into the lunar palace, saying, "I have just cleaned this place. Rest here and heal your wounds."

Long Qilin settled Shen Mu in place. After diagnosing his injuries, the woman mused for a moment, then refined pills and brewed medicine for him. Long Qilin drew near and said with a smile, "In those days you knew nothing at all, and now you can refine pills and brew medicine too?"

The woman smiled and said, "After you all left, everything had to be done by myself. I was very young then, and I had to learn everything. When one has learned much, one knows how."

Long Qilin thought for a moment, then said, "Those days were truly like a dream. The Sect Master, the Great Venerable, Xiangzi, and myself—somehow we stumbled into Bailong City, and when day broke, we left. Yet the night's experience was wonderfully strange, unforgettable for a lifetime."

The woman turned her head and looked at Shen Mu sleeping peacefully on the sickbed, and a gentle smile crossed her face: "Yes. In the tens of thousands of years after, I woke countless times from nightmares, and remembering that night, I suddenly found the courage to live on."

Shen Mu heard a familiar voice by his ear and several times tried to open his eyes, but he had suffered too much damage; his very source was wounded, and again and again he sank into slumber. He was no longer in grave danger. It was chiefly that in his desperate struggle to the death with Yutianzun, his foe had been too strong, forcing him to employ his own Dao-entering ultimate arts—from the first heaven of the Dao Realm to the twenty-eighth heaven of the Dao Realm, twenty-eight successive great Dao-entering divine powers—and he had had no choice but to fight with all his might. And after fighting with all his might, he was nearly a lamp burnt dry of oil, yet he had had to spend his last reserve of source power, using the Flawless Creation Mystic Scripture and the Three Primordials Immortal Consciousness to repair his body and his primordial spirit, which left his deficit all the greater.

Now, muddled and dim, he felt a bitterness in his mouth, as though someone were feeding him medicine. The elixir entered his throat and became a thread of heat flowing into his belly, then surging in all directions, flowing into his four limbs and hundred bones. He opened his eyes and dimly saw a familiar woman part her small lips and spit out a spirit pearl. The pearl circled him round and round, and his primordial spirit and damaged divine store felt an indescribable comfort. Shen Mu sank hazily back to sleep. By his ear came the voices of the woman and Long Qilin in conversation—clearly Long Qilin and the woman were well acquainted.

How long passed, he did not know, but other voices came to his ear—like the woodcutter, like Celestial Master Zixi, and seemingly Di Yiyue and the others. He did not know what they were saying, and then all fell quiet.

Shen Mu slept, and in his dreams he seemed to return to his early childhood. Time seemed to flow backward, and he was back in Yincan Village, training hard under the supervision of Old Master Huo, Zaifu, and the others. In the dream, time flowed forward again. He became an infant lying in a small basket, waving his hands and feet and babbling, his eyes bright as he looked at Grandmother Zhu, who stretched her arms toward him. Grandmother Zhu was very ugly, but her gaze was very gentle. She lifted him from the basket. Beside her stood a stone statue, and beside it the equally gentle Old Master Huo.

The scenes in his dream receded, and time seemed to flow backward again. He was still in the basket, and he saw a girl carrying the basket, fleeing in terror through the Yong River from gods and demons in pursuit. A world of black water swept over everything. In the swaddling clothes of the basket he stared blankly at the girl as she fought with all her strength against the gods and demons, guarding his safety. Her body was covered in wounds; she was utterly spent.

"Aunt Juan'er..."

The infant in the swaddling clothes raised his short little arms, wanting to stroke her face, but could not reach.

He had never found his memories of the time he drifted from Youdu to the Huangxu. He had been too young; Tubo had sealed him, and his mother had handed him to Aunt Juan'er, who escorted him out of Youdu and into the Huangxu. Aunt Juan'er had sunk into the Yong River to protect him; Grandmother Zhu had lifted him up when the darkness came. That stretch of memory was a blank to him, and yet this time, in his dreams, he had hazily seen it.

In the darkness, the black waters of the Yong River surged, blotting out the sky, and among the black waters and along both banks ravening gods and demons pursued them. Aunt Juan'er's wounds grew ever worse; she could no longer protect him. Then, in the dream, snow-white mist came sweeping through his memory. Aunt Juan'er, carrying the basket, staggered into the mist. The pursuers cut into the mist as well.

When the mist dispersed, there was a brilliant sunny sky, the sunlight so radiant that the infant in the swaddling clothes shut his eyes and buried his face in the cloth. Blood ran from Aunt Juan'er's mouth. She staggered onward, yet her palm covered the basket, and she hummed a lullaby to soothe the baby to sleep.

"Reeds grow tall, reeds grow long, in the reed marsh we play hide-and-seek.

How many seekers after fame in lofty halls were once cowherds tending their herds.

"Reeds grow tall, reeds grow long, we gaze across hills and streams.

On this side of the reeds is home, on that side the boundless sea.

"Reeds grow tall, reeds grow long, by the reed marsh we weave all day.

Weave them into rolls for my satchel, to sail with me far away.

"Reeds grow tall, reeds grow long, the reed flute's notes so sweet.

"A cowherd answers from afar, and one longs for father and mother..."

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