Chapter 884 — Conquering Myriad Realms
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
When Shen Mu and Bai Qu'er flew back from beyond the heavens, the sun had already gone out.
The sun in the Heaven Diagram was punctual: though no one steered it, every six double-hours the formation would halt of its own accord. But when Shen Mu and Bai Qu'er returned, they found the moon extinguished as well; even the Milky Way, woven from the tens of thousands of stars in the Heaven Diagram, had gone dark, every last light of it.
For those stars and that moon followed the same law, one cycle of kindling and quenching each day. The two of them, in their heedless opening of the sun formation, had brought sun and moon out together and thrown the cycle into disorder; and now sun and moon lay black together.
Bai Qu'er led Shen Mu in swift flight through the Milky Way, her ribbons and sash streaming out behind her, trailing across the river of stars until it kindled alight.
The people of Jingping, and the gods, demons and demigods of Yuandu, now beheld a sight stranger than any they had seen. The sky hung black and heavy; by rights it should have been day, the hour when the sun climbs and blazes, yet the sun was gone, and not a single star remained.
But just then, out of that black sky, countless lights of the Milky Way burst forth from the south; as though worked by some strange magic, star after star kindled from south to north, a sight to dazzle the eye.
"The stars in the sky have gone mad.
" People shook their heads. "First a sun in the dead of night, and now blackness in broad day.
Nothing so contrary to nature comes without a demon at its back — most likely some spirit is making mischief up in the heavens. " Shen Mu and Bai Qu'er went on stirring the Milky Way of the Heaven Diagram, waking formation after formation; the two flew on, joyous and swift, lighting the whole of it from south to north.
In ordinary times the deities who watched over the Heaven Diagram would never light the entire river of stars; a few thousand starlight formations was the most they ever kindled.
Now Shen Mu and Bai Qu'er lit the whole of it in one reckless sweep, an extravagance beyond words. With the Milky Way wholly ablaze, that shining band became a luminous broad river running the length of the sky from south to north; false as the spectacle was, there was a magnificence in it beyond the common run.
Suddenly the moon in the sky was lit once more, its light pure and bright. It was the fifteenth day; the moon was full.
The people of Jingping and the demigods wore strange expressions. The god who governed the moon seemed to have lost his wits: no sooner had the moon kindled than someone up there seemed to tug at a curtain, slowly, slowly drawing it over half the moon.
Then the moon's god seemed to recall that it was the fifteenth, and slowly, slowly pulled the curtain back, and the full moon appeared once more before countless gaping eyes.
Some in Jingping were sitting in their courtyards, cooling off over a cup of wine; now the wine ran from the corners of their mouths, and the cakes dropped from the mouths of those who had been eating, each cake still bearing the print of teeth. "Waaah—" A child burst into loud wailing, and at once his mother clapped a hand over his mouth; the young mother stared warily at the strange moon that had suddenly appeared in the sky, muttering charms under her breath.
The Heaven Diagram.
The Moon Palace.
Shen Mu and Bai Qu'er sat before the palace, braced on their hands, swinging their bare feet, chatting in fits and starts. Behind them the Dragon Qilin rolled its eyes in silence, thinking their talk utterly meaningless; yet the man and the woman were delighted, finding every word of it heavy with meaning, enough to set the heart stirring.