Chapter 1466 — With Face Concealed, None Can Tell Your Countenance
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
Shen Mu suddenly smiled, and waved a hand at the tens of thousands of troops of the Northern Heaven Nether Capital: "Disperse, all of you, disperse. Your Lord Yin has already returned to the Nether Sea, so scatter, every man to his own home."
Those generals were as men granted amnesty, and Zhe Huali frowned: "They have seen our faces. If word of it is reported upward..."
Shen Mu, all smiles, took out a black silk kerchief and covered his face: "And now they cannot see our faces at all, can they?"
Luo Wushuang and Zhe Huali were struck dumb.
Not to mask before the deed, and to mask after it, was that not to steal a bell while stopping one's own ears?
Zaifu also produced a black cloth and covered his face, plainly a practiced hand, for Shen Mu had come from a famous sect, and he was that famous sect: "So long as we are not caught in the act, we deny it to the death. Who can do a thing to us then?"
"Masking one's face is nothing but a fig leaf; worn or not, it makes no difference. Who does it fool?"
Shen Mu, prepared against every mischance, took out three black cloths and handed them to Tian Shu, Zhe Huali and Luo Wushuang: "So long as we are not caught in the act, we deny everything to the death; and once it comes to a quarrel, there is no end of things to be said. Black can be argued into white, the dead into the living. Put them on first, and we shall see."
The three took the black cloths in silence and covered their faces.
Shen Mu suddenly recalled something, pulled the black cloth from his face, and called to the troops of the Northern Heaven Nether Capital, who were just then withdrawing: "I am the Heavenly Venerable Mu. I am bound for Xuandu to oversee the war, and on the road brigands wrecked my treasure ship. I requisition one of your swift vessels."
The generals of the Northern Heaven Nether Capital were stunned senseless. The sight of them masking their faces so brazenly after the fact had already left them dumbstruck; now Shen Mu would not even cover his face, but requisitioned their ships outright in the name of the Heavenly Venerable Mu, and such thickness of hide, it seemed, not even the Heavenly Emperor's sword could pierce!
The generals looked at one another; of a sudden one came to his senses and hastily ordered a swift vessel cleared and brought over himself, the several of them trembling and not daring to speak.
Shen Mu glanced at them with a half-smile and said mildly, "Still not going? I am about to mask my face; once it is masked, I am no longer the Heavenly Venerable Mu, but a brigand who dares do away even with Lord Yin."
Those generals scrambled and rolled away.
The five boarded the swift vessel. Zaifu watched the withdrawing army of the Northern Heaven Nether Capital; though the host retreated, its formation was utterly unbroken, its order measured, and even in retreat it showed the shifting postures of attack and defense. He could not help frowning.
"Lord Yin has plumbed the true essence of the art of war and of formation."
His face was grave, and he said in a low voice, "Had Lord Yin not been provoked, had he come at us in full fury, mustering the Nether Capital's host and setting his formations to trap us, I fear we would have been lambs led to the slaughter."
Tian Shu, Zhe Huali and Luo Wushuang were all commanders of great armies: Luo Wushuang had once led the Lingxiu Army; Zhe Huali had been trusted and employed by Emperor Yanxiu, Ling Yuxiu, and served as a general in the Western Frontier; and Tian Shu was one of the four Great Heavenly Kings beneath Kaihuang, holding command of the armies of Kaihuang's age.
They too could see the formidable discipline with which Lord Yin governed his troops, and each of them frowned.
A single god or demon of the Nether Capital counted for nothing against them in fighting strength; even its commanding generals had reached no higher than the Yujing and Lingxiao realms.