Chapter 524 — Making Offerings to the Ancestral Spirits in the Hall of Human Emperors
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
Suddenly the old man appeared again, sitting at the bow of a little silver boat, wearing a bamboo hat he had gotten from somewhere. Xing An steadied himself, the corner of his eye twitching. He wanted to rush over, but a sealing glyph drifting through the air blocked his way.
The old man grinned, and in his mouth there was no tongue. He raised a hand and drew it lightly across his own throat, and the little silver boat drifted away.
Xing An flew into a rage—and suddenly felt that the old man's smile was somehow familiar, as though he had seen it somewhere before. "That smile—I have seen it, I am sure I have. .
. " He calmed his mind, cast the image of the old man's grin to the back of his thoughts, and concentrated on finding a way out.
Just as he was about to finish unraveling the first sealing glyph, Shen Mu's smile suddenly surfaced in his mind and overlapped with the smile of the old Silent Craftsman. His mind was thrown into chaos, and the sealing glyph blasted him flying.
Shen Mu's smile and the old Silent Craftsman's smile overlapped almost perfectly; the only difference was that Shen Mu's smile was plain and guileless, while the Silent Craftsman's carried a sly cunning. "I.
. .
" A mouthful of divine blood surged into Xing An's throat, and he forced it back down.
"I am not angry. I am not angry. I will never let him damage my dao heart. I. .
. bwaaah—" In the end he could not hold it back, and spat out a mouthful of divine blood.
His face ashen and withered, he let out a roar of fury: "Divine Physician Shen, I will never let you off!
" Following that guiding light the whole way, Shen Mu walked out of the Wasteland. The road took him from the Wasteland to Jingping's Southern Wasteland, a place of many insects and serpents and few human traces; the farther he followed the light, the wilder and more desolate it grew.
In the end, at sunrise, the guiding light on a mountaintop transformed into a modest doorway that appeared before him. On this little hilltop there was only this one doorway made of light.
Shen Mu looked around: barren mountains and wild ridges, no sign of human habitation, only the waste of hills. Dragon Qilin raised its head and looked about. Seeing that the sun had come up, it was overjoyed: "Hierarch, it is dawn, breakfast.
. .
" Shen Mu pushed at the door. The lone doorway opened, light spilling out from within, and he stepped in to meet the light.
Dragon Qilin hurriedly straddled the chest and charged in after him. Their figures vanished, and the light door dimmed of itself and disappeared.
After a moment, Shen Mu appeared on a vast, silent, desolate land—compared with which the barren hills and wild ridges of before were nothing at all. Before him, all was fallen temples, all was dense mist.
In the mist stood gravestone after gravestone, and behind the gravestones, grave after grave. Broken walls and ruined pillars, gravestones and tombs, assailed his soul.
In the distance, only one palace still stood more or less intact, standing alone in the mist. Shen Mu walked forward and looked all around.
The space here was exceedingly broad, and the countless gravestones in the mist formed the scene of the Hall of Human Emperors. He came to the first grave and looked at the gravestone. On it were written the words: The grave of Wei Ming, Western General of the Heavenly Court.
Beneath the gravestone lay a bloodstained shield.
He came to the second grave. On the gravestone: Ding Yunhe, Chiliarch of the Heavenly Court's Tiger Guard.
Beneath it lay a helmet. He walked on.
Here all was silent; even Dragon Qilin, which had been clamoring for breakfast, dared not speak, its tail tucked, trembling. Suddenly it threw open the chest and burrowed inside to hide, not daring to show itself.