Chapter 496 — When It Is Written Into the Annals of History
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 4 of 4
" Bai Qu'er's body trembled slightly.
She nodded.
"Will you walk on with me?
" she asked. Shen Mu was silent a moment.
"It will be light soon.
" He looked east. His voice was hoarse from a night of slaughter, yet carried a peculiar resonance: "After dawn, I will most likely disappear. I came here through a strange twist of fate—a fate I cannot see through.
The road ahead may be one you must lead them down alone.
Live. . . " Bai Qu'er lifted her head and looked at the sky paling in the east. Shen Mu stood and smiled: "Good sister, I fear I can escort you no farther.
From here you must walk alone.
" Bai Qu'er's heart was in utter turmoil.
She rose, at a loss, still holding Bai Qingfu's son in her arms, tears wetting her cheeks without her knowing.
Shen Mu cupped her face in his hands and encouraged her with his most innocent smile: "Live.
You must live! " Bai Qu'er's heart was torn. One arm held him tight, her body trembling: "Do not go—I am afraid I cannot hold on. . .
" "Perhaps every trace of me in this prehistoric world will be erased, and nothing I brought here will remain.
But I can leave behind one sentence that moved me. " The sky was gradually brightening.
The first ray of sunlight spilled over the eastern horizon, falling across the mountains and rivers; the darkness around them fled swiftly away. With one arm around the girl, Shen Mu pointed with the other at the cliff they were passing.
The Carefree Sword flew out, its strokes like dragons and serpents, and left his words carved on the face of the cliff. The sword flew back.
Before the sunlight reached them, Shen Mu held the girl—who was about to face the peril alone—tightly in his arms. Bai Qu'er clung to him desperately, as though by doing so she could keep a support to lean on.
A thread of sunlight fell upon them, and Shen Mu in her arms dispersed like green smoke. The chest vanished too, leaving behind a ground full of bewildered people. Bai Qu'er stood dazed.
Suddenly she turned her head to look at the cliff, where the words left by Shen Mu's Carefree Sword stood carved. Human life weighs more than heaven!
Bai Qu'er suddenly felt how utterly weighty that sentence was. The hopes of the people below pressed down on her shoulders all at once; their yearning gazes became a terrible pressure and a driving force. "Follow me!
" She held her brother's child and raised her arm, her voice full of power: "I will lead you out of this dead end and find a place where we can live! " Hope rekindled in the people, and they followed her in a winding line, walking into the distance. "Did you come from thirty or forty thousand years from now?
" Bai Qu'er turned back to look at the cliff where Shen Mu had left his words, then turned her head again and led the people toward the place where the sun rose: "I will live.
I will come find you!
You must wait for me! I will be here.
.
. " "To meet you again—" A reunion across ten thousand ages. Wait for me.
When you left, I never spoke my fondness aloud.
When we meet again, I hope no regret will remain.