Chapter 708 — The Sacred Blade of the Imperial Court
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Tian Shu's face darkened. He ducked back into the room for more wine and said, drunk, "You must be a descendant of Kaihuang? I sense the aura of Kaihuang's lineage upon you, and your features bear some resemblance to his. The little chick at your side must be of the Nine Phoenixes lineage of that so-called Heavenly Court. Heh heh, Qi Xiayu—the Crimson Emperor of the Southern Heaven of the Nine Phoenixes lineage—is quite a figure. Only he had to go and fall for that bastard Li Youran..."
He tipped his head back to drink again, then smashed the empty jar before continuing, "In those years, Kaihuang forged the divine blade Dique and named me its Blade-Bearing God. I could freely enter and leave Youdu, and so he had me sever a length of Youdu to forge Fengdu. Thus I cut off a small piece of Tubo's horn. Then Kaihuang wished to go to the Land of No Sorrow, and again he commanded me to guard Dique, to keep the darkness of Huangxu from invading other places—that place you call Jingping."
Shen Mu blinked and glanced at Qi Jiuyi.
Qi Jiuyi was alarmed and uncertain. Plainly he knew nothing of this hidden history.
"Should I kill Brother Qi to silence him?" Shen Mu thought to himself, a smile fixed on his face.
Left Shaobi Tian Shu sighed, "But I have a failing—I love to drink. Without wine there is no joy. Guarding this place, I am tormented by craving day after day, always wanting a drink. Yet I could not well leave to seek wine. One day, an old rival of mine—the Left Shaobi of the Heavenly Court, a villain named Yan Shaoqing—sought me out and proposed a wager. The stake was wine that could never be finished. The fellow was ever a troublesome one, yet oddly enough he lost to me. The scoundrel was wicked indeed. By some means he hid all that fine wine within the divine blade Dique, then departed snickering. I knew well there was trickery in it, but I could not govern my own mouth. And when the mouth cannot be governed, neither can the head."
Shen Mu glanced at Long Qilin and said, "Senior, that feeling—I know it well."
"You too are greedy for wine?"
Tian Shu shook his head. "You should not be. When you look upon wine, there is no desire in you. I could neither sit nor lie still, always wanting to enter the divine blade Dique, to take out that fine wine, to drink my fill and be gloriously drunk. But I knew too that Dique was formidable, that it could devour a man's primordial spirit. I was only the blade-bearer, not its forger. If I was careless, my primordial spirit too would be trapped in the blade with no escape. Yet in the end I could not hold back. I told myself I had controlled this blade long enough—perhaps I could take out the wine, then walk out and return to my own body..."
Long Qilin could not help asking, "And then?"
Tian Shu sighed. "And then I could never return. That bastard Yan Shaoqing spoke no lie—this wine can never be drunk dry..."
On the ground, the shattered empty jar restored itself, still brimming with fine wine.
"I have drunk here for tens of millions of years. The wine is never finished, and I can never leave."
Tian Shu said, "You three have come at a good time. We can drink together."
Despair filled the hearts of Shen Mu and Qi Jiuyi. If Tian Shu had dwelt within the divine blade Dique for tens of millions of years and still could not escape, then surely they too could never get out!
Were they all to be trapped within this divine blade forever, never to free themselves?
Trembling, Qi Jiuyi opened a door and saw it piled full of wine jars. He opened another, and again wine jars. Door after door he opened, and every one was heaped full of fine wine!
Qi Jiuyi ran madly onward. How long he ran, he did not know—and still this long corridor showed no end!
On both sides of the corridor, countless rooms, all stuffed with wine jars!