Chapter 303 — The Deep Valley and the Precipitous Chasm
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
It shrank to the size of a large dog and could shrink no further. Bulging its big belly, it kept urging its technique onward, straining for a moment, and at last said sheepishly, "Sect Master, do you think this will do?"
Shen Mu looked at the ball-shaped fellow, picked out the largest pupa, opened its lid, and tried to scoop him up and stuff him inside.
"It has been a long time since anyone held me," the dragon qilin said, wistful for the old days.
Shen Mu squeezed his belly hard and shoved him down with all his strength, but the dragon qilin got stuck. He could not push him in no matter how he tried, nor pull him back out; half the body was left hanging outside.
In a fury, Shen Mu clapped the eggshell-like white lid onto the dragon qilin's head. "Hold that pose and don't move!"
The dragon qilin, the pupal shell perched on his head, dared not budge an inch, and said pitifully, "Sect Master, you won't cut my rations, will you? I'm still growing..."
Shen Mu also opened a pupa and jumped in. The inside was like egg white; soaking in it proved unexpectedly comfortable, as soothing as taking a miraculous elixir.
He felt fine, slender energies drilling in through his pores, entering his muscles, blood vessels, meridians, and the five viscera and six bowels, nourishing his body, skin, and hair.
These energies even penetrated into his soul, nourishing it!
Astonished, Shen Mu tried to activate the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art, and at once felt more energy flow from the egg-white liquid, making his primordial spirit grow steadily tougher.
"This egg white is several times better than any miraculous elixir. If I could cultivate inside it all the time, my primordial spirit would surely become extraordinarily powerful!"
He looked at the other pupal eggs. Most of the pupae on this mingbie's body were already empty -- no doubt the mingbie within had ripened, shed its shell, and gone -- leaving only two or three unripe ones.
"Good stuff. When we reach our destination, I'll steal those pupal eggs!"
He had barely had the thought when the giant mingbie woke, shook its head, and plunged headfirst into the lake.
This lake was a tributary of one of the rivers in the valley. The mingbie dived into the water, swam from the tributary into the main channel, and went downstream toward the place where the two rivers met.
The river water was strange too, teeming with all manner of creatures of the Nether Capital: long worms covered from head to tail with eyes; great fish all muscle and no scales; grotesque insects bristling with tentacles, each tipped with a round mouth full of barbed hooks; and glowing, soul-like things drifting to and fro.
Shen Mu also saw lotus flowers floating on the river's surface. Some had withered and grown seed pods, and from the holes of those pods crawled out plump, white, tender babies, bare-bottomed, dancing and crowing with laughter, innocent and guileless.
Suddenly one of the infants opened its mouth, and a tongue six or seven zhang long lashed out and coiled around a strange fish in the water. The tongue was hollow; in an instant it sucked the fish dry, leaving only its bones to drift down to the bottom.
Sated, the baby again danced and crowed with laughter -- then a great bird flew down from the air, pecked it up lightly, tilted back its head, and swallowed it whole.
"What kind of monsters does the Nether Capital breed!" Shen Mu shuddered with cold dread.
At last the mingbie brought them to the deep pit the two white bats had spoken of -- a pit that was less a pit than an abyss, where two rivers joined and the whole flood plunged over the edge into the depths, its thunderous roar never ceasing.
Just as they were about to plunge into the abyss along with the mingbie, it suddenly rose to the surface, leaped into the air, and with a swish spread two stiff wings -- and beneath the stiff wings were soft ones.