Chapter 264 — We Shall Take Your Head
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 5
" Emperor Yanfeng's body had improved greatly; he could just manage to walk about. But he kept strictly to Shen Mu's words and never once left the room. At noon Granny Zhu carried a basket to the door on a bamboo pole. Emperor Yanfeng crouched, opened the gateway a little, drew the basket inside, and when he had eaten his fill set it back at the door, never going out himself. Since becoming emperor, this was the first time he had been so pent up.
After supper, suddenly there came a peal of giggling—sweet and pleasing, a sound that seemed to bore straight into the brain, lovely beyond words, so that Emperor Yanfeng was spellbound; he felt that among three thousand beauties there was not one whose voice could stir the heart so. "Since Cult Master Shen is away, I think I shall come and play with the emperor. If he amuses me well, I shall flay him and make his skin into a garment, and go to the capital to be empress. " Emperor Yanfeng heard it with both dread and delight; the voice was truly lovely, and it left his heart in a tangle. He wanted to open the door and see what the woman looked like, then remembered Shen Mu's words and thought: "This is Fan Xuanshu, Cult Master Li, luring me out with a demonic voice!
The old devil actually mimics a woman's voice—shameless beyond measure.
" He stopped his ears, but the alluring voice seemed already to have burrowed into his brain, unforgettable. "Hmph, the wretch means to test me! He truly does not know the height of heaven and the depth of earth. .
. These few characters I truly do not know.
I cultivate the true art of the Star-Suppressing Lord and the Earth Marquis, and so does he; I refuse to believe I am his inferior! " . . . The woman outside tried to unravel the mystery of the writing on the door, rehearsing the Earth Marquis true art again and again, and always failing.
Unwittingly she spent more than half the night, and Emperor Yanfeng, his heart in his throat, worried for more than half the night, and at last fell asleep. The next day was the same as the one before.
When night came the woman again came out to try to solve the meaning of the writing on the door. Emperor Yanfeng was nearly driven to an inner demon by her voice; he kept feeling that somewhere in his heart a sweet, bewitching voice was calling him to open the door and look. On the third night, the woman said angrily, "I cannot master it, I cannot solve it! Enough—I will simply break in, kill the emperor, flay his skin.
What need have I to solve riddles?
" Emperor Yanfeng's heart lurched, and he heard the woman say again: "No, no. . .
When Cult Master Shen used this art, a third eye appeared, and the room suddenly went dark, the lamplight turned green, and it was no longer like the world of men. . . There is something strange about this gateway.
Enter it and one may step into another world. The wretch is cunning; most likely he means to ambush me. .
. " Emperor Yanfeng was astonished: "How clever this woman is. . . No, rather, how sly and treacherous Cult Master Li is! But is not Cult Master Li an old man?
Why does he feign a woman's voice, and so seductively at that? " He could not resist wanting one look, thinking: "One look only—surely that can do no great harm? " He was just about to press his eye to a crack in the window when suddenly a dragon's cry came from outside, and Shen Mu strode in, so that he hastily abandoned the thought of looking.
"Cult Master Li did not enter? Can it be she does not know the writing on the door?
Do you admit that you have practiced the Great Nurturing Nether Demon Scripture wrongly? " "Mind your own business.
" "The characters on the door mean the Gate of Heaven's Mandate; it is the tongue of the Nether Capital. I shall teach you.
" With that, Shen Mu taught Fan Xuanshu the phrase in the Nether Capital tongue, and said, "Cult Master Li, now that you have learned it, you may enter.
" Fan Xuanshu giggled.