Chapter 1638 — The Long Night Without Dawn
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The Golden Ship of Salvation sailed out of Youdu and came to the Ancestral Court. Yue Tianzun brought Ling Tianzun with her and found the place where the Great Luotian of Spirit Consciousness had clashed with another Great Luotian; there she wielded her divine arts, sent Ling Tianzun into the Great Luotian of Spirit Consciousness, and startled Taichu into flight.
Ling Tianzun said little to Yun Tianzun, telling him only of Kaihuang's fall.
Yun Tianzun was silent a while, then said, "When you go back, tell Mu Tianzun this. Through the long ages from Longhan to this day, we have endured miseries darker than these, and we walked through them and came out the other side. He will walk out of this too."
He thought for a moment, wishing to say more, and found he did not know what to say.
Yue Tianzun brought Ling Tianzun back, and saw that Shen Mu was still lying there, whether sunk in stupor or simply unwilling to wake, none could tell.
"Where are we to go?" Tiangong asked, at a loss.
"To Jingping," You Tianzun said.
Shen Fengqing, arms wrapped around his knees, hidden in a corner of the golden ship, said in a small voice, "I want to go home. I want to go back to the Land of No Sorrow. Kaihuang ought to still be there..."
The golden ship came to Jingping.
When Emperor Yanxiu, Ling Yuxiu, heard the news she came at once. She boarded the ship and saw that Yue Tianzun, Ling Tianzun, and the rest had withdrawn; Shen Mu had risen at some unknown hour and was sitting on the rim of the golden ship, staring blankly into nothing.
Ling Yuxiu came to his side, climbed up onto the ship's edge, and sat with him.
She turned her head to look: at his temples, where the tears had soaked them, white had already begun to show.
He was a youth no longer; he had taken on something of a young man's steadiness, a grown man's maturity. The cowherd boy who had once tended cattle by the Yong River had grown up, and his heart had grown somewhat haggard.
"Let us be married."
Shen Mu bowed his head and looked down. Below lay the Lower Capital of Jingping, wrapped in cloud and mist beneath the canopy of Yuanmu. His face calm, he said, "Let us be married. I do not want to be Jingping's Imperial Preceptor any longer. Do you still mean to go on being emperor?"
Ling Yuxiu leaned against his shoulder and said softly, "I will find my father and lay down the throne. Once I have found my father and Jiang Baigui, we can each set down our burdens. Wait a few more days for me. Do the Jingping reforms need to be halted?"
"If the human race is to live, the reforms must be stopped."
The two of them leaned upon each other, their souls seeming hollow, leaving only bodies that moved and nothing more. Shen Mu murmured, "There is no hope of turning this around any longer... While you go to find the emperor and the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping, I will pay a visit to the Heavenly Court."
Ling Yuxiu nodded slightly: "After we step down, will you go to the Yong River?"
"I will. I was a cowherd by the Yong River to begin with; it is time I was myself again..."
"I will go with you."
...
After Ling Yuxiu left, Shen Mu took off his clothes, baring his upper body, wearing only his trousers.
He fetched ropes and brambles and bound himself with them; the brambles bristled with sharp thorns that pierced his skin.
You Tianzun watched this and did not step forward to stop him, but slowly put on his ghost-face mask.
Yue Tianzun came forward to dissuade him. Shen Mu smiled. "When Yun Tianzun fell in battle all those years ago, you too despaired of everything and went into hiding. There is no need to talk me out of it."
Yue Tianzun could find no words.
Ling Tianzun thought it over, and did not try to persuade him.
Tiangong hesitated, then steeled himself and stepped forward. "When will Mu Tianzun revive Tubo?"