Chapter 1339 — Sending You West
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
Beneath the earth, Earth Mother had not gone far; she was secretly watching the commotion of the Sea of Chaos. When she saw this scene, she could not help but shudder again and again, and at once dove into the ground, racing away by earth escape.
Gradually the waves raised by the Sea of Chaos subsided; before long, that ocean formed of chaos qi returned to calm.
Shen Mu let out a breath, hastily returning the two halves of Tai Yi's eggshell to the chaos ore vein, doubt in his heart: "What is the matter with this staff?"
That staff, having made the four Heavenly Venerables retreat, quieted again of itself, standing quietly upright on the sea's surface.
Shen Mu hesitated a moment, then stepped forward and examined the staff closely. He saw nothing unusual about it; it seemed carved from ordinary wood.
There were no runes on the staff either; it gave off not the slightest breath of any Great Dao.
Yet just now it was this utterly ordinary staff that had flung the four Heavenly Venerables away and made them retreat!
"Dao-brother Tai Yi!"
Shen Mu bowed deeply, hands clasped, and said in all sincerity: "Thank you for lending a hand. The Taichu Primal Stone must have fallen into your keeping as well? With the primal stone in your hands, I can rest easy."
He waited a while; the staff still showed no fluctuation, no reaction at all.
Shen Mu laughed: "Since you do not wish to speak, Dao-brother, I shall not disturb you further. Farewell." With that, he turned and left.
After a moment, the Sea of Chaos split open, revealing a passage; out came Xu Shenghua, Lan Yutian, and the others; the aged Tai Yi beckoned, and the staff flew back to him.
Lan Yutian asked, puzzled: "Why did Brother speak to the staff just now?"
The aged Tai Yi's face turned strange, and he explained: "He took me for the staff, thinking that I had taken the form of a staff today."
The two were perplexed, not knowing why Shen Mu should have such a bizarre notion.
They did not know that Tai Yi possessed the 'Yi', which has no fixed form and no fixed state, and can transform into any person or any thing; therefore Shen Mu, seeing the staff drive off the four Heavenly Venerables, assumed that Tai Yi had transformed into the staff, and so spoke to it as he did.
The aged Tai Yi leaned on his staff and said with a smile: "You have seen the perils of the Ancestral Court and obtained the primal stone; it is time you went to the Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains to see Heavenly Venerable Mu. Of this kind of wood, Heavenly Venerable Mu has an abundance; the Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains are filled to the brim with this divine timber."
Xu Shenghua and Lan Yutian thanked him again and again. Xu Shenghua asked: "May I ask, Dao-friend, how does one get to the Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains?"
"The Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains are right there. Keep walking in that direction; those mountains are exceedingly strange, sacred beyond the ordinary, unlike any other — the first glance will tell you."
The aged Tai Yi pointed offhandedly; the group looked where he pointed, but saw nothing; when they turned their heads back, the aged Tai Yi had vanished without a trace.
"A truly extraordinary man," Xu Shenghua praised.
They went on. Xu Shenghua observed the mountains and rivers and the lay of the land of the Ancestral Court; the more he looked, the more astonished he became, and he could not resist stopping to study the topography, saying: "In the mountains and rivers here there seems to be hidden the divine art of Earth Mother. All thirty-six forms of the Yuandu Great Dao can actually be traced to their roots in the Ancestral Court!"
Lan Yutian had not noticed these things; only at his words did he take note. The two each delved into the matter, exchanging what they found, and before they knew it their steps had slowed again.