Chapter 1194 — The Master's Yellow Talisman
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Shen Mu sailed back to Jingping on a great storied ship, in company with the Jingping caravan, and went first to call on the Mute Craftsman and the Blind Elder and tell them of the Ancestral Court. Both men's eyes gleamed — the Blind Elder's blazed brightest of all — and they were all for setting off for the Ancestral Court that very moment.
Shen Mu hastily stopped them, saying: "There are rare treasures and exotic herbs aplenty there, and we must bring Grandmaster Alchemist along. Besides, that treasured ground of mine is the foremost treasured ground in the Ancestral Court; it needs strong hands to guard it, lest the experts of the Ten Heaven Venerables' line snatch it away. That is why I mean to ask the Human Emperors of every generation from the Hall of Human Emperors to come and hold it in force. The Ancestral Court is far off, and perilous withal; when we go, we should go together, so that we may watch over one another.
" Only then did the two elders hold their impatience in check.
Ling Yuxiu sent someone at once to contact Grandmaster Alchemist and the First Ancestor, the Human Emperor, saying: "It will take them several days to get here.
Wait a few days, the two of you. " Shen Mu took out the Woodcutter Sage's letter and, without a word, set the Soul-Guiding Art in motion.
After a while he put the letter away, fetched the Moon Heaven Venerable's lantern, and rose to leave.
He had already sensed where the Woodcutter Sage was; seek in that direction, and he would find Fengdu.
The Primordial Realm was vast beyond measure. Lantern in hand, Shen Mu pressed on for the better part of half a day, and at last came to the source of the Surging River.
Here the Surging River was no longer the Surging River but the Heavenly River — it flowed out from one after another of the Primordial Realm's many heavens, gathered into a single current, and drifted aloft from the Primordial Realm to the Heavenly Court beyond the realm, and from there to the Four Extremes Heavens. Shen Mu walked to the river's source and looked about.
He saw that the sheer cliffs that had once spanned the Wasteland from south to north had been split into countless sections by the unsealed Primordial Realm; cliff after cliff stretched in broken lines from the realm's south to its north.
He strolled on with his lantern, and before long his figure flickered — and vanished from the Primordial Realm. At that very moment, in the heavenly palace atop the Primordial Tree, the clay statue of the Dawn Heaven Venerable gave a sudden stir; outside the palace, the divine artifact, the Imperial Heaven Venerable, at once opened its eyes and swept them toward the spot where Shen Mu had disappeared!
Its gaze pierced fold upon fold of the void and penetrated heaven after heaven, yet all along it found no trace of Shen Mu.
"Could the brat have gone to the Nether Capital?
" The divine artifact swung its gaze straight into the Nether Capital, while the clay statue in the heavenly palace — astonishingly quick and lively for clay — knit its brows and said: "It is one thing for him to run to Jingping to raise troops and horses; but dashing about the realm like this, he is surely plotting something. Mu Heaven Venerable, can you not just keep yourself quiet and be a good pawn. .
. " The Imperial Heaven Venerable's gaze swept into the Nether Capital like two blazing columns of light, monstrously thick; it searched the darkness, found no Shen Mu, and then turned to sweep over the fleshly body of the Earl of Earth in the dark Nether Capital.
Just then a paper boat came drifting along, swaying and tilting. An old man on the boat raised a storm lantern and shone it full into the Imperial Heaven Venerable's face — and the clay statue's eyes went black in an instant; it was struck blind.
The old man took a sheet of yellow talisman paper between his fingers and pressed it against the Imperial Heaven Venerable.