Chapter 158 — Eloping Together
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Ling Yuxiu called out, "Ox-boy, let me hold her — you fix your hair!"
Shen Mu handed Snow Fox over, and Ling Yuxiu cradled her to her breast. Snow Fox felt how soft and sweet-scented that bosom was. She gave a little hmph, annoyed and yet comfortable, and could not help wanting to nuzzle a bit more — a truly tangled state of mind.
Shen Mu took out a hair band and bound up his hair, then looked back. They were drawing farther and farther from Loulan's Golden Palace; faintly he could still see streaks of golden light flying out from the snow mountains, approaching the Golden Palace with unhurried ease.
Those golden streaks seemed slow, but in truth they flew with great speed, crossing from the snow mountains to Loulan's Golden Palace in the space of a breath.
Then several golden streaks flew out from Loulan's Golden Palace and came this way.
Shen Mu's heart sank a little. Those streaks must be the Witch Kings of Loulan's Golden Palace, who had found their trail and were giving chase. Fast as the Green Ox was, his cultivation was still no match for a Witch King's.
But just then a bright light rose up and intercepted the golden streaks midway. The lights clashed in the air, parted, and clashed again.
From Shen Mu's distance the lights did not seem to move fast at all; but seen up close, they would surely have been too swift for the eye to follow.
After the golden streaks and the white radiance had clashed several times, a ball of light suddenly exploded, and then a wisp of black smoke appeared in the sky and became a skull. From the skull spurted several more wisps of black smoke, and each wisp became a skull in turn, and so on again and again, until the sky was crowded with skulls.
If they could be made out as skulls from such a distance, then up close they must be monstrously vast, terrifying as mountain peaks.
Then Shen Mu saw a blade sweep across the sky, and one of the golden streaks was suddenly cut off.
The Green Ox ran faster and faster, and soon Shen Mu could no longer make out the battle.
When the Ox had raced over several mountain spurs, treading the peaks as he went, the mountains hid everything from sight.
The sun sank in the west and the sky gradually darkened. The Green Ox had run half a day, panting and foaming at the mouth; catching sight of a pond in a hollow on the grassland ahead, he hurried over and lowered his head to drink, glug, glug.
Before long, half the pond was gone.
In the shallows the green backs of fish were already showing. Several fish a foot long writhed to and fro in the mud, crawling toward the deeper water, then with two little plops dived in.
Seeing how utterly spent he was, Shen Mu jumped down from his back. "Green Ox, no more running. Rest a while."
The Ox had not yet drunk his fill when an aged voice cried, "You there, ox! Stop drinking! Drink any more and you'll drain our village dry!"
The Ox raised his head. An old man tending sheep was passing by; he had hastily abandoned his flock and come running, brandishing his whip to drive the ox off from afar. But when he saw how frighteningly huge the beast was, he dared not come closer, and only stood at a distance cracking his whip. "Shoo, shoo —"
Shen Mu patted his hoof. In his true form the Green Ox was colossal; Shen Mu stood only as high as his ankle, and could reach no higher than his hoof.
The Ox stopped drinking. Ling Yuxiu hurriedly jumped down from his back, and Snow Fox wriggled out of her arms, leapt behind Shen Mu, and perched on the bundle.
The old man still dared not approach. The Ox twisted his body, gradually shrank, and rose to stand upright like a man — still as tall as two or three men together. He flicked his tail and swatted a few gadflies dead in mid-flight.