Chapter 865 — The Walking Corpse Fiend
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Even if she dies, her corpse will vanish and become her again, and she will live once more. For her divine art is the immutability of matter.
What you gather will never be her—only the water of the river. The true her has already become that eternal mass of matter above the Heavenly River.
She has become the mist upon the river.
She does not care what you do!
She does not care that you raise a stele for her, or build a tomb for her! " Choose one person who understands Heavenly Venerable Ling, and that person must be Shen Mu.
He understood her divine art better than anyone; in the beginning it was he and Kaihuang who had taught her the art of creation before it had taken shape, and the embryo of her divine art had been completed with the help of Shen Mu and Kaihuang. Later, when Shen Mu entered the ghost ship, it was Shen Mu who broke her divine art with the aid of the Four Emperors—though at that time her art was still imperfect. Still, in understanding Heavenly Venerable Ling's art, he was beyond dispute the first. In his eyes the blind old man's vigil at the river, gathering her corpse, was wholly unnecessary, for she had already fused with her own divine art; it could be said outright that Heavenly Venerable Ling had become her divine art. She would live forever inside the art, dying and coming back to life, living and dying again, round and round without end. Shen Mu even guessed that the mist he had met at the source of the Yong River was Heavenly Venerable Ling's divine art—that it was she who had carried him back to remote antiquity, back to the last years of the Supreme Emperor Era.
Only, Shen Mu had not known it then.
The blind old man's stone coffins ran out, and he dragged the outer coffin away to raise a stele and bury it, saying in a muffled rumble, "No one cares for her, and she does not care for herself. Our master was a person born solely for the Way, a pure person, so simple that her heart held nothing but the Way! She had nothing of your calculations, nothing of your plots; she did not care for power or position, and she threatened no one.
Why must she die? Why can she not be allowed to live?
" The blind old man's fury flooded the heavens; he threw back his head and gave a long howl, like a wounded beast.
"Why must a pure person die? Why will you two Heavenly Venerables not take the burden up yourselves? Why must you go back to the day you first knew her and drop the whole weight on her?
" His hair rose in his rage so that it lifted his cap.
"Can you not shoulder it yourselves? Why did you leave?
Could you not have walked on with her?
Why must she face the world's evil alone? " "She does not understand, Heavenly Venerable Mu! She truly does not—" Two streams of bloody tears ran down his old face, and with his head bowed he dragged stone coffin after stone coffin forward, his voice sinking lower and lower. "Why do I bury her? Why do I keep watch here and bury her again and again? Heavenly Venerable Mu, do you not understand?
Because she died.
Because in her divine art she has died again and again. Do you not understand the agony of death?
She has died countless times, so I must bury her countless times. For every one of her deaths is bitter, is a true death. She must repeat that death countless times.
.
. " Shen Mu was struck dumb, and watched him go.
Yan'er flew up from his shoulder and became a beautiful girl; she took out a gauze kerchief and wiped the tearstains from his cheeks. Shen Mu forced a smile and said hoarsely, "I am fine. Thank you, Yan'er.
" From the Jade Capital City came one violent crash after another. Suddenly the Heavenly Dragon King roared with laughter, flung the others aside and flew out with a whistle; with a great bang he leapt into the black coffin at the dock and cried, "Heavenly Venerable Ling's treasure is mine! There is hope of bringing Earth Mother Yuanjun back to life!