Chapter 1696 — The Eighth Ancient Tree
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 4 of 4
Shang Jun hesitated. Shen Mu looked at him with a calm face. "Shang Jun, who attained the Dao through killing — you are afraid. The reason you dread the outside world is not that you lost to the Eldest Young Master. It is that you dread returning to the outside world."
Shang Jun was silent.
"Even though you attained the Dao through killing, even though you cultivated the thirty-sixth heaven of the Dao of killing, your Dao heart is still flawed."
Shen Mu's gaze was sharp. "You believe the sixteenth epoch was destroyed by your hand, and for that you feel guilt, self-reproach, and think you have no face to walk out of here. It was not the Eldest Young Master who sealed you and imprisoned you — it was you yourself who found a cage for yourself and locked yourself inside it. You are no longer the Shang Jun who attained the Dao through killing. Even if you walk out of here, you will never be able to brand the ultimate void with your Dao and become a Dao-attainer again."
Shang Jun's voice was hoarse. "Then do you still need me?"
Shen Mu walked past him and laughed. "Of course I need you. I need you to help me find Taiyi, and I need the sharpest blade in the world. You are no longer that blade — but I can grind you into one. Follow me, and I can bring you out."
Shang Jun followed at his heels, like his shadow.
Soon they entered the obelisk forest. Shang Jun hid within his shadow; the two walked in the same rhythm, lifting their feet together, setting them down together, moving to the same cadence, and gradually vanished into the forest of obelisks.
Outside the village, the others watched the two disappear. Zhu Santong said suddenly, "The Seventh Young Master of Miluo Palace is a strange man."
"He is indeed a strange man."
The old woman sighed. "He is plainly of an enemy power, and yet it is hard to hate him. Not only hard to hate — one rather wants to be his friend."
The woman laughed. "Such a strange man I have never seen before. A pity he is already married; otherwise Yaya might have found herself a good husband..."
The girl spat, her face red with shame, and hid behind a tree.
The others burst out laughing — and laughing, they began to cough violently.