Chapter 1861 — Must Be an Old Acquaintance
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Lang Wan mused. "I feel that familiarity too. I keep thinking I've seen you somewhere. You—"
She looked up. The white-templed youth had already vanished.
Lang Wan felt a pang of loss. She murmured, "Perhaps an old acquaintance... perhaps an old acquaintance... Who are you, really..."
Shen Mu returned to his homeland, only to find the site of Yincan Village gone. In its place stood towering buildings, streams of traffic, a cacophony of noise.
"I think I know you!"
A divine being transformed from a plume-crowned fire pheasant dragon spoke to him solemnly.
Shen Mu smiled faintly. Under that smile, the plume-crowned fire pheasant dragon involuntarily recalled the miserable years of the past. When he came back to his senses, Shen Mu had already disappeared.
Shen Mu returned to his wife Ling Yuxiu's side. When the war of the Ancestral Court erupted, he had sent Ling Yuxiu back to Jingping. As one of Jingping's most ancient Great Emperors, Ling Yuxiu had not gone to Jingping's Upper Capital. She seemed to know that Shen Mu would return to their old home in Yincan Village, and that he would not find it—so she settled beside the ruins of the Yong River.
She had not attained the Dao. Through the long ages, despite cultivating desperately, she always fell just short.
That final margin was a chasm. Even though her husband was the Mu Heavenly Venerate, the Seventh Young Master, he could not help her cross it.
The couple lived plainly by the Yong River. Lord Huanlong would occasionally come to their home as a guest, freeloading meals and drink. Shen Mu had entertained him a few times at first, but as Lord Huanlong's visits grew frequent, he drove him away.
"The Yong River is gone. The oath you swore to Lord Earth has dissolved. You will not face tribulation for leaving the Yong River. Lord Huanlong, you may leave now," Shen Mu told him.
Lord Huanlong looked dazed. His voice trembled. "I can leave the Yong River?"
Shen Mu said, "The day the Yong River dried up, you became free to leave. From that day on, you were no longer the Dragon Emperor of the Yong River."
Lord Huanlong was overjoyed, leaping and shouting, carrying on for a long time—then suddenly burst into tears. "Where should I go? I guarded this place for three and a half billion years. Where do I go now..."
"The world is vast, and the future vaster still. You can go anywhere." Shen Mu patted his shoulder and watched him leave.
Lord Huanlong, forlorn, gradually walked into the distance.
Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu's days grew quiet again. Both knew the bond in each other's heart—their souls were tied to their bloodline—but neither mentioned that matter.
Because to mention it would be to mark the day Shen Mu must leave, and the husband and wife would be parted.
They had been together too long—three and a half billion years. After separation, each would feel incomplete, as though body and soul had suddenly lost a piece.
But they would have to part in the end.
In those days, news kept arriving from the Ancestral Court. Dao-attainers had been wounded—grievously wounded with Dao injuries—returning with difficulty from the Ancestral Court to Jingping, bringing tidings that shook the entire universe.
The Jade Capital had descended. The prehistoric flood of savage beasts was about to strike. The Ancestral Court had been shattered. Many of Jingping's Dao-attainers had fallen in battle.
The sensation these tidings caused was imaginable—sweeping through Jingping, sweeping through all the heavens and myriad worlds of the universe.
"Is there not someone stationed there?"
Some were bewildered, some terrified. "Has that person not guarded it for three and a half billion years? How did he flee?"
"Did he die in battle?"
"Or did he run away?"
"Why did he not hold the Ancestral Court?"
...