Chapter 240 — A Brand-New Dawn
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The Dutian Demon King, head high and chest out, led the old, the weak, the sick, and the maimed of Hidden Maim Village onward.
"Many of the people in this village have sound limbs. Why, then, is it called Hidden Maim Village?" the Dutian Demon King wondered.
By now Hidden Maim Village could no longer truly be called Hidden Maim Village; there were Granny Zhu and Shen Mu among its young folk, so the word "old" was a questionable fit.
Elder Huo, the Butcher, and the Lame Elder now had whole limbs; and though Granny Zhu's heart of the Dao was crippled, her body was sound.
Of all in Hidden Maim Village, only the Blind Elder, the Pill Master, the Village Head, the Mute Craftsman, and the Deaf Elder were unsound of body.
But the Dutian Demon King did not know that to the people of Hidden Maim Village, a maiming of the body was no maiming at all; it was the maiming of the heart that was their true crippling.
The Village Head, trapped by his own ideals, by duties he could not fulfill, was heartsick and spirit-broken; sound of limb though he was, he would never walk out of the Desolate Ruins.
The Pill Master, hounded by too many debts of feeling, had been driven to slice off his own face; even were the glory-day features of his youth restored, he would not dare go out and let himself be seen.
The Blind Elder's ruin came not from his blind eyes alone; Elder Huo, even with both hands restored to him, would sink into the deaths of wife and child and never pull free, could never forgive himself.
Granny Zhu's inner demon, the Lame Elder's past, the Deaf Elder's lost country, the Mute Craftsman's mysterious history, the reason the Butcher had swung his blade at the heavens — all these were the shackles that bound them fast.
The maiming within their hearts was the true maiming; that each of them shut himself away in the history that broke his heart, unable to struggle free — that was why Hidden Maim Village existed.
Had the child they had raised not run off, the folk of Hidden Maim Village would only have stayed quietly in the village, quietly waiting to die of old age there, and then dug a pit and buried themselves.
Shen Mu's coming had gradually brought their hearts back to life, but Shen Mu himself could not make them walk out of the past that had made cripples of them.
A crippled body, a ruined heart — that is what it means to be crippled.
To walk out, they could rely on themselves alone.
The Dutian Demon King was worthy of his name — a demon king of another world; he understood far too much. Even the Blind Elder marveled at the depths of his knowledge, and in the arts of divination especially, the Dutian Demon King had utterly won him over.
They had reached the edge of the forest, about to come to its end; only two li or so of road remained behind them, and yet those two and a bit li had cost the Dutian Demon King the better part of a day to traverse.
"New Year's Eve has come," Granny Zhu said abruptly.
Elder Huo shook his head. "The village's people are not all gathered. Then it is not the New Year."
The Butcher's voice boomed like a great bell: "We must find the Village Head, the Mute Craftsman, and the Pill Master! Alive, we see their faces; dead, we see their bodies! Even if they are dead, we drag them back to see in the New Year!"
Ahead there was no road any longer, only Wuyou Township in its state of collapse.
There was no ground here; the end of the forest was a clean cross-section, and Shen Mu, standing at the cliff's edge and looking down, saw another forest.
He could not help but stare a moment.
"Another forest?"
Shen Mu said in astonishment, "This forest grows on a cliff face. How can the trees stand perpendicular to the ground?"