Chapter 1193 — Filling the Mountains, Patching the Chasm
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Long Qilin, Yan'er and Little Tubo turned their heads together, and saw an old man in plain, unadorned clothes trudging over with a little iron bucket in his hand. The bucket held water, and a sprig of willow.
Long Qilin looked around in astonishment. The twenty-eight heavens of the Lapis Lazuli Azure-Heaven Banner were still there, still guarding this place; it would not be easy to pass through the heavens of the world's foremost treasure!
But where had this old man come from?
The old man came to the riven Great Black Peak, set down the little bucket, took out the willow branch, swished it in the water, and said, short of breath: "I am old. Will none of you come and help?"
Long Qilin hastily transformed into a qilin's head on a human body and alighted on the mountaintop; Yan'er became a young girl and came to the old man's side as well; Little Tubo, solemn of face, also meant to transform, but after a couple of grunts it could not manage it at all, and had no choice but to walk over crestfallen.
The old man handed the willow branch to Long Qilin and had Yan'er carry the little bucket. "Dip the willow branch in the water," he said, "and sprinkle it over the cracks. Every last crack must be sprinkled. That way, that thing from the past won't come running over here."
Long Qilin did as he was told, swishing the branch in the bucket, then drawing it out and flicking its droplets across the cracks of that sundered mountain.
"Ha?" Little Tubo lifted its head and asked, gazing gravely at the old man of utterly unremarkable looks.
"I have always lived here. I did not break in."
The old man's eyes were kindly and his brows benevolent; he seemed to have understood the question, and said with a smile: "I am no intruder. You are the intruders. You broke into my home, built houses, and drew the void beasts here."
Little Tubo said, suspicious: "Moo?"
The old man sat down beside it, supervising Long Qilin's and Yan'er's work, and said loudly: "Be careful now, don't use up all the water. This water is hard to come by."
He said to Little Tubo: "I could have left in the beginning, but I am not welcome anywhere, and this tree has died. Someone wants to climb up here from the past age by way of this tree. So I had no choice but to stay and keep watch here, and not let them crawl out."
Little Tubo, wearing a look of bafflement and perplexity, pointed down the mountain and said: "Moo?"
"Yes."
The old man nodded. "They live down there. But they have been dead a long while now — or rather, they died before this universe was born."
Little Tubo grew more confused still, scratched its head and said: "Ha?"
"You could put it that way too, I suppose."
The old man thought it over and said: "The boundary between life and death is not really so strict. Life and death are only different states of matter. They seem to have died when the universe was destroyed, but before the universe was destroyed they were still alive. All they need is to seize the chance to crawl from before the universe's destruction into the present, and they can live on."
Little Tubo scratched its head, still puzzled.
The old man was of very good temper, and went on explaining: "Why do the corpses of these void beasts vanish? They are dragged off into the past by them. The past universe gains a portion of the present's matter, and then they can swap themselves over while the chance lasts. That is how they are able to crawl from there into the present."
"Moo?"
"There is no need for doubt; it is very simple. This Great Black Tree was alive once. Its roots connect sixteen cosmic eras — one cosmic era is one year — and its substance runs through endless ages."