Chapter 1586 — The Maiden Who Protected You Back Then
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
The matter around her was ceaselessly changing; she sat watching old mountains age and new mountains be born, watching generation after generation born and die, watching the rise and fall of the Kaihuang era, watching the seas turn to mulberry fields, watching dynasties rise and decline, watching the partings and reunions, joys and sorrows of the mortal world, watching the great banners change upon the walls of the city of gods and demons. She sat watching the Yuan Realm, once so prosperous and flourishing, turn into a wasteland of ruins. She never waited for Shen Mu. In her bitter vigil she went searching through history for traces of Shen Mu; she came to the Shanghuang era.
She had waited nearly forty thousand years and still had not waited for Shen Mu. She thought that perhaps Shen Mu was even older than Kaihuang, perhaps he was a man of the Shanghuang era, perhaps by the time of the battle of the Great Luotian Shen Mu had already been tens of thousands of years old.
One day, as she searched, she suddenly sensed that her peach-wood hairpin had vanished — someone was using her hairpin.
She went to look, and found it was Wei Suifeng, the disciple of that Heavenly Master Wen Tiange who stood at Kaihuang's side. She asked no more. Another day, she again felt someone using the hairpin to call her. She looked across the sky of history at that person, and could not help but be stirred beyond measure.
It was Mu Tianzun!
He was using the hairpin, urging the Unchanging Divine Art, trying to find her! "Mu Tianzun? Is it you? Mu Tianzun!
" She called out joyfully: "So you were not in the Shanghuang era after all.
Wait for me to come find you—" She had many things she wanted to say, but Shen Mu's power had already been exhausted, and he vanished.
(See Chapter 802 for details.
) She waited many more years. That year, she saw a dragon maiden in white robes pass by the source of the Yong River, fleeing the pursuit of the Heavenly Court; the Heavenly Court's pursuers called her the Shanghuang Sword God, Bai Qu'er.
In the sword arts of the Shanghuang Sword God Bai Qu'er, she saw the shadow of Mu Tianzun's sword arts.
Curiosity stirred in her.
She traced Bai Qu'er's history, and returned once more to forty thousand years ago, to that desert of the heavens where the War of the Tianzuns had taken place.
That place was a vast desert, where the history of the Shanghuang era lay buried under wind and sand.
It was here that she had once used the Unchanging Divine Art to send the Great Luotian of Divine Consciousness forty thousand years into the future.
This heaven had originally been destroyed by the War of the Tianzuns, but her Unchanging Divine Art had restored it, returned it to its former state.
Her Unchanging Divine Art had left deep traces here; whenever sun and moon alternated, the Unchanging Divine Art would carry the time and space here back to ancient years. Here she saw Shen Mu as a youth, riding a box, the box clattering across the desert as he fled the pursuit of enemies.
She was greatly stirred, but did not show herself; the Shen Mu of this time could not see her.
She watched Shen Mu awaken the gods and demons of the Shanghuang era who had died in battle in the desert, ask them the way, and bury those fallen soldiers. She watched Shen Mu walk into the darkness, into the last evening song of the Shanghuang era, Bailong City.
There Shen Mu met Bai Qu'er, a lively, lovely girl of the White Dragon clan.
"Mu, you have finally come near. " Ling Tianzun smiled, and returned to the source of the Yong River, continuing to observe this girl who had fought shoulder to shoulder with Shen Mu for a night.
Then darkness descended, and the stars in the sky were blotted out one by one by enormous shadows. The waters of the Yong River ran deep, and thick Youdu demonic qi churned up from them.