Chapter 158 — Eloping Together
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Ling Yuxiu staggered to her feet. The Green Ox shook his head, still dizzy and heavy. Shen Mu scooped up the little fox and stuffed her into his bundle, then with one hand seized Ling Yuxiu and with the other the Green Ox, and charged down the mountain.
Ling Yuxiu was still muddled. She grinned foolishly at him. "Ox-boy, you're still alive..."
Shen Mu turned a deaf ear. He went whistling down the slope, dragging Ling Yuxiu and the Green Ox along so fast that their feet scarce touched ground, so that they seemed to float.
When they reached the foot of the mountain, Shen Mu looked toward the wooden boat, and saw that the goat-faced shaman aboard had been drugged as well. He had pitched headfirst into the water, his backside thrust up at the sky, half his body still aboard the boat — drowned in the Weak Water, no doubt.
Shen Mu leapt aboard in a flash, seized the goat-faced shaman by the ankles, hauled him up and flung him into the water, then took up the bamboo pole and poled — but the boat did not stir an inch.
He poled several times more. Still the boat would not budge.
"The Weak Water has no buoyancy!"
Shen Mu understood at once. He poured his vital qi into the bamboo pole; strange veins and patterns surfaced along its length, and when he stirred the Weak Water again, he felt resistance pushing back from the water.
Shen Mu breathed out in relief and poled for the far bank, driving the wooden boat like an arrow loosed from the string. Even so, he thought it far too slow.
If the Witch Kings and Witch Venerables of Loulan's Golden Palace returned to the mountain, they would likely dispel the Bewildering Incense in an instant and know that these men had merely been drugged, not poisoned.
And if they came hunting them now, what awaited Shen Mu and his companions would be a fate beyond all misery.
At last they reached the far bank. The Green Ox came to his senses and said in alarm, "The master is still in the mountain!"
Shen Mu said, "Rest easy. If we can escape, he can do better. He is far stronger than we are; if we went looking for him, we would only be a burden. And with the Witch Venerables and Witch Kings returning to the Golden Palace to look things over, that only gives Libationer Bashan his chance to slip away."
He sprang ashore and reached out a hand, but Ling Yuxiu and the Green Ox had already leapt across and needed no help from him.
The Crimson-Pearl Purple Fruit had restored them completely. It was the antidote to the Bewildering Incense, and the Bewildering Incense had first been compounded by alchemists to drug flood dragons. That flood dragon had been a creature of immense power, a match for a strongman of the Heaven-Man realm — and yet the alchemists had brought it down.
The only thing that could counter such a drug was the Crimson-Pearl Purple Fruit.
"Green Ox!" Shen Mu shouted. The Ox understood, dropped low, and shook his body, resuming his true form — a huge green ox, awe-inspiring, his hooves treading wind and cloud.
Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu leapt onto his back. "Green Ox," he said, "run as fast as you can!"
The Ox's four hooves flew, never touching ground, racing atop wind and cloud. The two on his back felt the fierce wind strike their faces like needles. Behind Shen Mu, Snow Fox woke and had just poked her head out of the bundle when she nearly got blown away by the gale; she clutched at the bundle in panic, her body already whipped clear of it, the wind stretching her tail and body out straight as a rod.
Each time the Ox's hooves rose and fell, they stopped a foot or so above the ground, and wind and cloud welled up beneath them to bear up his massive body. His speed was tremendous.
Shen Mu looked back, his hair blown into a tangle — he wore it in the shaman's fashion, with no band to bind it. Only then did he notice Snow Fox, the little vixen clinging to the bundle with both paws, her body stretched straight by the wind. At once he caught her up so the wind would not sweep her away.