Chapter 918 — Being and Non-Being Beget Each Other, Yet All Ends in Void
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 4 of 5
The Jingping Imperial Preceptor examined it closely; a world was hidden within the mirror, and within that world were countless jade slips, each stamped with various runes.
"You give this thing to us — and what of yourself?" asked the Jingping Imperial Preceptor.
"I refined the mirror myself. Refining as many as I wish is no trouble at all."
Shen Mu turned his hand and brought out another mirror, smiling. "Set two identical mirrors facing each other, and the jade slips will be imprinted into the other mirror. I have several more mirrors here; do not worry about me. My friends, let us part here!"
He bowed and said: "I am going to the Heavenly Court, and who knows when I shall return. Emperor Yanxiu and I made an agreement, setting a term of one year — within a year I will go back to see her. If the two of you should return to Jingping, tell them on my behalf that I am well!"
The Jingping Imperial Preceptor said: "You are not going back? You truly mean to go to the Heavenly Court?"
Shen Mu laughed. "I want to see whether the Heavenly Court has any weakness at all. Only by knowing both yourself and your enemy can you fight a hundred battles without danger; if I do not go to the Heavenly Court, I will never know its true strength and weakness. So I must go!"
Emperor Yanfeng said suddenly: "Have you married Yuxiu? Have you become her empress?"
Shen Mu's face went scarlet; he waved his hands in flustered denial. "How can Your Majesty say such a thing? We are innocent!"
Emperor Yanfeng spat. "We — I — as the father of Emperor Yanxiu, do not wish you to be innocent at all. You wretch, I am worrying that you will never get a wife; I am not trying to sell my daughter to you. Is it worth being frightened like that? I am not going to have your head cut off! You are just like the Jingping Imperial Preceptor — the two of you have earned your bachelorhood on merit. If I had not granted the Jingping Imperial Preceptor a wife back then, look at him now, a lonely old man..."
The Jingping Imperial Preceptor coughed once and reminded him: "Your Majesty, it is time to go."
Emperor Yanfeng sighed. "I am no longer emperor; Yuxiu is emperor. And you are no longer the Jingping Imperial Preceptor — heaven knows what bastard holds the post now."
Shen Mu reminded him: "That bastard is standing right in front of you — and that bastard has just saved your lives."
Emperor Yanfeng roared with laughter and waved farewell.
Shen Mu, high in spirits, shouted: "Dragon Fatty, let us be off—"
Emperor Yanfeng and the Jingping Imperial Preceptor watched him go into the distance; after a long while, Emperor Yanfeng, his face changed, said: "Yuxiu has become emperor, and he has become the Jingping Imperial Preceptor — fate does love to mock us. I had hoped the two of them would end up together."
"In truth, Your Majesty, had you not long ago envisioned this very future?"
The Jingping Imperial Preceptor, too, changed his face, and walked toward the east, saying calmly: "We had long since laid our plans. If the Reforms failed and we died, there would need to be someone to inherit our unfulfilled will. The ones Your Majesty chose were precisely Emperor Yanxiu and Sect Master Shen."
Emperor Yanfeng followed after him, and after a moment's silence said: "Back then I was emperor, and I did not think of Yuxiu's happiness; I only wanted her to inherit our cause. Now I am not an emperor but a father, and I no longer wish her to shoulder that burden; I only hope she can find a husband after her own heart and live out her days in peace and happiness. But now that she is emperor, the chance of her being with Shen Mu is vanishingly small. That boy cannot be her empress, and an emperor cannot be married out. The two of them..."
He shook his head and said no more.
The Jingping Imperial Preceptor understood what he meant.