Chapter 568 — No Guarding Against It
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
"You have recalled nothing, and yet how is it that you are so fluent in the tongue of the Dark Capital?"
Molten Tubo was still staring at him, as though he could see through everything in him. Slowly he said, "Your mastery of the Dark Capital's tongue let you begin to cultivate the Dark Capital's arts and divine powers, and opened for you the Divine Treasury of the demon path. Are you not curious why you can open the demon path's treasury?"
Beside them, the old ghost officer said, "The demon race are descendants of the gods and demons who came out of the Dark Capital; that is why they can open the demon path's treasury. Why can you also open it? Are you not curious about this?"
"Curious!" Shen Mu put on a look of curiosity. "Why can I open the demon path's treasury, and the god path's treasury as well?"
"Because you are a descendant of the Sorrowless Land, and a living being born in the Dark Capital..."
No sooner had the old ghost officer said this than Molten Tubo cut him off: "He has no need to know these things, and we have no need to explain them to him. He was summoned here to be questioned, not to coax words out of us."
The old ghost officer came to his senses and laughed. "I have had a sentence coaxed out of me after all. This boy — his face is too abominable; it had me caught before I knew it."
Shen Mu flushed and said sheepishly, "His Lordship stirred my curiosity, and so I asked. I was not trying to coax words out of you two. I am only a little child of eighteen..."
The old ghost officer shook his head. "You truly cannot tell that he is lying."
Molten Tubo nodded. "This is an acquired cunning, learned from the people of the world of the living; it is not his nature — though by now he has trained it into his nature."
The old ghost officer said, "Then of his words, how much is true and how much false?"
Molten Tubo knew Shen Mu as he knew his own palm. "When he recounted the cause and consequence of the returning of souls in the ill-omened land, every sentence was true. After that matter he seemed to say a great deal, but in truth he said nothing at all — rather, he was the one asking questions, fishing for ours."
The old ghost officer thought it over carefully, and indeed it was so.
Shen Mu said bashfully, "My nature is not like this. It is only that the elders of my village poured some bad things into me, and so I became like this. I truly have not recalled any images of the Dark Capital."
"That sentence is true," said Molten Tubo. "The seal is still there. It should be that only the memories concerning language have awakened in him; the memories of what he lived through have not."
Sweat beaded on Shen Mu's forehead. He ventured, "I have in the past committed a few killings too. Will that deepen my guilt?"
"That sentence is false; it is fishing."
Molten Tubo said, "But what he wishes to ask is no secret. He may be answered."
The old ghost officer said, "For the evils committed in life, all are treated alike after death. The Dark Capital is not a place of judgment but the home to which the dead return. Only those who are utterly wicked, or who throw the Dark Capital's order into chaos, are eaten by Tubo."
Shen Mu let out a breath of relief. The old ghost officer went on: "Utter wickedness means sins and karmic debts coiled about one; even fallen into the Dark Capital, such a one is forever tormented by the fire of karma, in unspeakable pain. So Tubo eats them, taking their sins and their karmic fire onto himself. To throw the Dark Capital's order into chaos — that is your kind, letting the dead remain undead — you too will be eaten by Tubo."
Shen Mu's heart began to pound with fear again. The old ghost officer studied his face closely, then wore a look of satisfaction. "But we of the Dark Capital do not meddle in the world of the living. You are not yet dead, so we cannot deal with you now; we must wait until after your death."
"My Lord, you have been fished for words by his face again," said Molten Tubo.