Chapter 264 — We Shall Take Your Head
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 5
They swept clean the last remnants of the Dao Lord's and the Tathagata's divine powers, and Shen Mu now had a means to go on treating Emperor Yanfeng. He reckoned to himself: "With those remnants gone, his soul can be steadied. The emperor's divine treasury is shattered, but if enough spirit medicines can be found, I might use the Shadow-Transforming Demon Art and the Dharma-Heaven Mustard-Seed Art to enter the treasury and refine pills there—perhaps then the wounds to his treasury can be mended. Only. . . " He had never treated a wound of this kind, and whether he could cure it he had not the least confidence.
Had it been merely a crack in the divine treasury, he could have treated it. But Emperor Yanfeng's treasury was destroyed.
The pharmacology his alchemist grandfather had passed down to him was vast, yet in it there was no method for a wound such as this. There were, to be sure, certain medicinal ingredients that could heal injuries to a divine treasury, and in the Great Nurturing Nether Demon Scripture there were arts that could strengthen one; Shen Mu thought he might work both at once. The two of them left Emperor Yanfeng's divine treasury.
Day had broken. Granny Zhu came to her senses, while Fan Xuanshu sank into a deep sleep. Shen Mu released the Creation Heaven-Demon Art from Emperor Yanfeng's body and said, "Your Majesty, I am going out to buy medicine; it may take three to five days.
In that time, do not step outside this room. Someone will bring you food and leave it at your door.
When night falls, no matter what sounds you hear, you must not set half a step outside the door; and if someone bids you look out, you must not look. " Emperor Yanfeng said weakly, "Shen, my dear minister, where on earth have you brought Us? So mysterious a place? " Shen Mu's face was grave: "Your Majesty, this is where my granny and Cult Master Li dwell. You need only know this: whoever comes for you at night will certainly be Cult Master Li.
If you look out, you die. And it will not be you alone who dies—all of Jingping will die with you!
Moreover, if you step through that door, you will die beyond any doubt! " Seeing how gravely he spoke, Emperor Yanfeng laughed. "Set your mind at ease, I understand. We are not so curious a man. " Shen Mu left the door ajar, took up a brush, dipped it in ink, and with a shake of his body assumed the form of the Star-Suppressing Lord—a man's head upon a serpent's body.
Circulating his power, he painted a gateway upon the door and wrote above it the Gate of Heaven's Mandate, in the tongue of the Nether Capital. Then he returned to his own form, wrote a line upon the ground, and said, "This is a gateway conjured by the true art of the Star-Suppressing Lord and the Earth Marquis from the Great Nurturing Nether Demon Scripture.
Read it aloud and you may enter; fail to read it and you stay outside. " Shen Mu put away brush and ink and said to Granny Zhu, "Granny, whatever you do, do not touch this gateway. When you bring the emperor his meals, pass them to him on a bamboo pole.
On no account step inside the door. " Granny Zhu studied the writing on the door and blinked. "This gateway?
" Shen Mu blinked too, and said nothing. Granny Zhu understood. "I will never go in.
" Shen Mu walked out of the courtyard, leapt onto the dragon-qilin's back, and looked back at the room where Emperor Yanfeng lodged, thinking: "If Fan Xuanshu knows the tongue of the Nether Capital, well and good.
But if she does not, and forces her way in, she will be dragged down into the Nether Capital, and her soul will belong to Tubo!
Then Granny will be free of her.