Chapter 1639 — The Dao Ancestor and the Ancient Buddha
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 5
Shen Mu halted and looked back. Yuchenzi came quickly to his side, bent to his ear, and whispered a few words.
"Truly?" Shen Mu said in astonishment.
Yuchenzi nodded slightly. "They have returned."
Shen Mu's face shifted, fair and foul by turns. Suddenly he flexed both arms and snapped the chaste-tree ropes that bound him. "Take me to them!"
Yuchenzi looked at him, astonished. "What does the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping mean by this?"
Shen Mu fetched clothes and put them on. "Kaihuang has fallen, Youdu has fallen into enemy hands; my hopes were ashes. Had they not returned, I would by now have gone to the Heavenly Court to bear brambles before Hao Tianzun and beg forgiveness for my crimes."
Yuchenzi was greatly shaken. He was the minister of Jingping who handled foreign policy, and he knew well what a blow Kaihuang's fall was to Jingping. The human race had only a handful of peak powerhouses, and among them the first Dao-attainer, Kaihuang, was the most fearsome of deterrents.
With Kaihuang dead, the strategic deterrence that had held Hao Tianzun and the rest in check vanished into thin air.
And Kaihuang's death meant that Youdu had fallen into enemy hands!
The loss of Youdu meant that every soul in Jingping, every soul in the myriad heavens and worlds, held their lives in the Heavenly Court's palm.
To preserve the human race, Shen Mu had only one road left: surrender.
And the news he himself had brought might well be the only way out besides surrender.
Shen Mu said to Langwan, "Do not go to the Heavenly Court yet. Wait until I return, and then we will decide. Yuchenzi, let us go — to see the Old Buddha and the Dao Ancestor!"
Langwan, Lizheng, Ling Tianzun and the others watched Shen Mu hurry back past them with Yuchenzi, looked at one another in bewilderment, and hastened to follow.
As Shen Mu passed the Golden Ship of Salvation, Shen Fengqing came out of the shadows in alarm and called loudly, "Little brother, there is a ghost on your ship!"
"We will speak later!" Shen Mu hurried into the Palace of Earth Virtue.
In the Palace of Earth Virtue, in the Wendao Court, Shen Mu arrived in haste and saw a slovenly old Daoist and an old Buddha sitting in the hall drinking tea, both looking travel-stained and weary.
"Dao Ancestor, Old Buddha," Shen Mu greeted them.
The Dao Ancestor and the Great Brahma Heaven King Buddha hastened to return the courtesy. The Dao Ancestor said in surprise, "Mu Tianzun. You seem much gaunt to me, Tianzun."
Others too flooded in and crowded into the hall.
Shen Mu had no time for pleasantries. "Yuchenzi has just told me that the two of you went to the Chaotic Space to explore it, and that the journey was fruitful. May I ask what the two of you gained?"
The Dao Ancestor and the Great Brahma Heaven King Buddha exchanged a glance. Great Brahma said, "This is better told by you."
The Dao Ancestor nodded lightly. "I have some history with the White-Browed Monk, and with Emperor Ming and Emperor Chi. After Emperor Ming was reborn, we went with him to the Crimson Bright Suspended World, and there took the occasion to visit Emperor Chi. Emperor Chi's brain was still there, though at the time he had not yet been reborn."
Shen Mu nodded slightly.
In his third eye, he had once seen that Emperor Chi's consciousness stood on close terms with the Great Brahma Heaven King Buddha; their friendship must reach back to the Crimson Bright era.
Throughout the Buddhist world and the Daoist sects, many protector deities had three heads and six arms — plainly a borrowing of the essence of that age's cultivation arts.
"Emperor Chi told us of what he had met with in his exploration of the Chaotic Space."