Chapter 1014 — The Young Heavenly Lord's Residence
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
God King Langwan was deeply suspicious.
"Why does everyone say I am Jue Wuchen? " She was, after all, a God King of the Creator race. Though she had had little contact with the outside world, as the sole God King the Creators had produced in a million years—a being who had fought Kaihuang and the Worry-Free Land to a standstill—her cunning and calculation ran deep. Despite her doubts, she did not speak. The moment Consort Qiang uttered those words, she knew she had misspoken; a single short sentence could expose a great deal.
She shut her mouth at once and lapsed into silence. On the other side, Shen Mu was left gape-mouthed, his mind churning with towering waves, and he too could find no words.
Only a handful of Heavenly Alliance leaders who had taken part in the ambush of the Ancient God Heavenly Lord, and the Heavenly Lord himself, knew of Jue Wuchen.
The Heavenly Alliance of that time, needing to unite every force opposed to the Heavenly Lord, had been a motley gathering indeed: besides the several Heavenly Lords who had founded it, there were demigod leaders, the Son of the Heaven Lord, the daughter of the Earth Lord, and even the Great Emperor himself mingled among them. Yet few had reacted so strongly to the name Jue Wuchen.
Ruling out the Empress and Lady Yuanmu, the most likely candidate was the Heavenly Lord himself. If Consort Qiang was in fact the Heavenly Lord, that would make for a very interesting tale.
Shen Mu immediately recalled a possibility from the days of the Longhan Heavenly Court: to preserve his rule and guard against the Empress consort consolidating the power of the inner palace, the Heavenly Lord had split off a wisp of his soul to become Consort Qiang and enter his own inner palace, preventing the Empress's influence from growing too great. The Empress and Lady Yuanmu stirred up all manner of trouble in the inner palace, and as Consort Qiang he had seen it all. And when he descended to the mortal world and reincarnated, going to bed Jue Wuchen—the form Lady Yuanmu had assumed—Consort Qiang remained behind in the inner palace. At the time, the Heavenly Lord's physical body also presided over the Heavenly Court, but the body was hollow, empty of the Heavenly Lord's primal spirit.
Lady Yuanmu, in league with the Heavenly Alliance of the time, had done away with the Heavenly Lord's reincarnated body, scattering his soul to the winds. At that moment, Heavenly Lord Yun, Heavenly Lord Hao, and Jue Wuchen—the form assumed by Yuanmu—had all rushed to the Heavenly Court at once, seeking to seize the Heavenly Lord's physical body.
All this Shen Mu already knew.
"But what if, when those three broke into the Heavenly Court hoping to control the Heavenly Lord's body, they found that it was already under someone else's control? " Shen Mu blinked. "What if the one controlling the Heavenly Lord's body was Consort Qiang? " Who was the clam and who the crane?
Who was the fisherman? Who was the victor of that age?
Of course, this was only his conjecture. But one thing he could be certain of: if the Ancient God Heavenly Lord of old had wanted to keep his rule from being stolen by outsiders, he would surely have left some hidden measure to protect his physical body.
The simplest path would be to leave a part of himself in the inner palace. Therefore, that wisp of the Heavenly Lord's soul was most likely hidden in the inner palace.
That being so, both Consort Qiang and Consort Yan could be the Heavenly Lord—and given how startled Consort Qiang had been by God King Langwan, she seemed the more likely of the two. "But beyond that, there is one more matter. The identity of Heavenly Lord Hao's birth father. " Shen Mu's gaze remained fixed on Consort Qiang, the habitual simple smile on his face, while he thought, "The Heavenly Lord of old had taken a fancy to his sister-in-law Yuanmu, and under the pretext of siring a demigod to find a path to immortality for the demigod race, he reincarnated as a mortal.