Chapter 618 — A Glimpse Inside the Opened Box
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Shen Mu and Zhe Huali felt their hearts give a small jolt. They hurriedly looked toward the voice, and saw that the hand had plucked away the little box; the hand's owner was a man with a great axe slung on his back and a bamboo hat on his head, broad-armed and thick-waisted, heavy-browed and big-eyed.
He looked like a woodcutter who had just set down the firewood from his back, yet between his brows lay the deep air of a scholar. Garb and temperament were utterly at odds.
The little box rested in his palm, and looked very small indeed.
"The Woodcutter Sage!" Joy leapt in Shen Mu's heart.
Zhe Huali was aghast: "Celestial Master!"
On the other side Qi Jiuyi was still kneeling where he was. He stole a glance upward, and his heart shook violently: "The one who offered blood sacrifice at Luofu Heaven, the one who forced Fu Riluo into signing the Earth Lord's Pact with him!"
He rose noiselessly to his feet and backed away, wanting to leave and yet not daring to.
Chi Xi, three-headed and six-armed, his body withered to skin and bone, managed to lift his head and size up this woodcutter. He sneered: "You want it? You dare want it?"
The Woodcutter Sage held the square, upright box in his palm and looked it up and down. "Why would I not dare? Your cultivation is unhealed, and so is your flesh. Were you at your peak I would yield you three parts; since you are not at your peak, I do not even have the desire to beat you. Here, take it."
He cut his wrist, and divine blood flowed from the wound.
Chi Xi stared at the divine blood, could hold back no longer, and opened his mouths. The blood flowing from the woodcutter's wrist flew into his three mouths.
Having gotten the woodcutter's divine blood, his shriveled body visibly swelled, blood coursing, his heartbeat growing louder and louder, and every withered organ within him recovering one after another.
His essence, energy, and spirit grew steadily fuller, his face gradually flushed with color, and little by little he regained his original appearance.
Chi Xi might well be counted a middle-aged man of considerable character. The three faces of his three heads were identical, all with sword-like brows, and the killing air between those brows was heavy, perhaps because he had once been the execution overseer of the Chiming Heaven Court.
His aura too grew steadily stronger, and soon it set Shen Mu, Zhe Huali, and Qi Jiuyi swaying on their feet, so that they had to fall back.
By the time he had recovered more or less, the wound on the Woodcutter Sage's wrist slowly closed and bled no more.
"Your primordial spirit has been withered for twenty thousand years. Nurse it back little by little yourself."
The Woodcutter Sage's gaze had rested on the little box the whole time; he had never once looked at him squarely. After a moment he said: "Shen Mu, where did this little box come from?"
Shen Mu said: "Elder Senior Brother found it."
"He did?"
The Woodcutter Sage was startled, and asked: "Where is he?"
"Elder Senior Brother has never appeared. I found the wicked dragon he had suppressed in a ruin in the Desolate Wastes, and I slew the dragon. The star sand that suppressed the dragon in Elder Senior Brother's cauldron then revealed many geographic maps; only, he did not show himself."
Shen Mu swiftly recounted the whole chain of cause and effect, and said: "The geography around the God-Slaying Platform on that alien star is one of those maps. Following the map, I tracked my way here and found the little box. Elder Senior Brother used the All-Heaven Star Slaying Array to bind the little box, and left behind one Daoist arithmetic puzzle after another. Solving them, I found the number: three hundred and fifty thousand years."
"Three hundred and fifty thousand years…"