Chapter 719 — The Bride in the Cold Coffin
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
The Woodcutter Sage stopped before one cell, studied the edict, and said in a low voice, "My eldest disciple once entrusted to my third disciple some geographical charts to pass on to me. One of those charts was a map of the Dark Prison, and the place marked upon it was the deepest point of the Dark Prison."
His face darkened. The founding patriarch of the Heaven Sage Sect had done many things in his search for the sage's way — many things even the Woodcutter Sage would not have dared to think or to do.
Yet to this day this eldest disciple had not been seen again; no one knew whether he lived or died.
"He must have come to the Dark Capital, and so wished to send word to me. On the map Shen Mu gave me, at the marked place there was a tiny rune — left by my eldest disciple — and this rune-mark is the sign of the divine ability Di Yiyue most commonly used."
Here he fell silent, deeply worried for the founding patriarch's plight.
The Old Angler praised him: "Your eldest disciple is indeed extraordinary, to have stolen into this place unseen and unfelt and found where Di Yiyue is. Your other two disciples are no ordinary men either. I have met Jingping's Imperial Preceptor — talent unmatched, even greater than yours in your day — only your youngest disciple is somewhat impudent. But then again, in this operation of yours, hiding it from your youngest disciple and using him as bait — is that really well done?"
The Woodcutter Sage's eye twitched. He analyzed the edict upon the cell door in fine detail and said, "There is a great monster hidden in his brow; he will not die. A little hardship will do him good. He is too young, and still a bit naive."
"Naive?" Fu Riluo and Chi Xi snorted in unison; both had suffered greatly at Shen Mu's hands.
The First Ancestor pictured Shen Mu being naive, and his expression too turned a little ugly.
The Woodcutter saw through the edicts upon the door; his vital essence circulated and transformed into runes, and the runes lit up, illuminating the edicts one after another.
Each illumination undid one seal within the edicts. His speed was extraordinary; he transformed countless vital-essence runes, and layer upon layer of seal within the edicts opened.
After a long while, the Woodcutter Sage raised his hand and gently lifted the edict away.
Though the others admired his methods, they were not overly astonished. As the chief of the Four Great Heavenly Masters, the Woodcutter was famed for his erudition; there was almost no seal in all the world he could not break!
The prison door creaked open with a grating, unpleasant sound, and a rush of cold wind struck their faces, stirring their clothes; soon their brows, whiskers, and hair were hung with bits of ice.
"From of old, the amorous are left only regret; sweet dreams have ever been the first to break. Is it that plucking a flower cannot bring release? How pitiful the willow-down, drifting and scattered so."
A plaintive sigh came from within the prison, cold to the very heart of a man. Fu Riluo said in surprise, "This famous Heavenly King Di Yiyue is a woman?"
The Woodcutter Sage nodded and stepped first into the prison.
It was a chamber of ice, dreadfully cold; nine ice dragons coiled around the chamber, hanging head-down, feet-up, their heads toward the ground, and where the nine dragon heads ringed was an ice coffin. In the coffin lay a woman of peerless beauty, dressed in black, yet crowned with a phoenix crown and draped in a rosy mantle, lying quietly within the transparent coffin.
Her skin was whiter than snow, made whiter still by the black bridal robe.
She lay in the ice coffin as though floating amid cloud and mist, serene and mysterious.
The nine ice dragons breathed cold icy air straight at the coffin, as though they wished to freeze the corpse within.