Chapter 100 — The Seven Volumes of the Book of Creation
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
He is surrounded by mighty men as thick as clouds, and he himself is the first man beneath the gods; how could he be ambushed and gravely wounded? There is something very strange in this. If these rebel sects have misjudged the situation, I fear they will all find no place to bury their dead.
" The convoy's ships were towed by giant beasts of the water and moved with great speed; by evening they came to Dijiang County. Dijiang County was built along the river and was a little larger than Jianglong City.
Shen Mu opened the Heaven-Soaring Eye and looked all around, but found no towering, imposing divine statue, and a vague unease rose in his heart. Then it came to him, and he mocked himself: "I still think I am in the Wasteland. . .
" He had lived in the Wasteland since childhood, and to find shelter under the protection of a divine statue before nightfall had become his instinct; such a habit, he feared, would not be broken for a long time yet.
Before Dijiang County the convoy suddenly halted, for fishing boats were coming and going ahead, and some fishermen were using hooks to fish floating corpses out of the water. "What foul luck," a merchant said, shaking his head. Shen Mu took Snowfox and entered the city with the convoy.
He had no sooner come in than he saw coffin after coffin set out on either side of the street, an immense number of them, four or five hundred at least. Shen Mu was startled.
Some of the coffins had not yet been sealed; soldiers were carrying corpses one by one and laying them inside, while others were already covered. The townsfolk kept far away, not daring to come near.
"What has happened here?
How did so many people die all at once? " Shen Mu was full of doubt.
A merchant went up to ask, and a soldier said: "Floating corpses. Washed down by the river; no one knows where they are from.
Likely a flood upstream drowned them, and the current brought them to our Dijiang County and the dam caught them.
The magistrate said that if the bodies piled up there would be a plague, so he had us knock together some thin-plank coffins and lay them in, and tomorrow they will be buried. " "So that is it. " The merchants all drove their carts aside and sought inns to lodge in; Shen Mu found an inn too and settled in to rest. After supper he took out a map of Jingping's geography and studied it.
Dijiang County lay in the middle of Jingping; going north all the way, one would reach the capital in about ten days or so.
If one went east instead, about three thousand li would bring one to the sea. The sky had already dimmed, the night deepening by the moment.
Shen Mu put down the map and looked out the window. The darkness here was not the darkness of the Wasteland.
In Jingping the night came on little by little, and there was still moonlight in the sky, still starlight; but in the Wasteland, when night fell, the darkness came from the west, smothering the heavens all at once and shrouding everything, and within that darkness there was no light at all. He cautiously put his hand out of the window; the darkness beyond held no danger whatsoever. "What has the Wasteland been through, to suffer such a thing as an invasion of darkness? " The youth drove the doubt from his mind, took out the Great Nurturing Nether-Demon Scripture, and read on.
He drew a single thread from the white glove and let his vital energy seep into it; at once the thread swelled and grew thicker and thicker, revealing countless characters.
Shen Mu read it closely.
This time he was comprehending the Chapter of Creation within the Great Nurturing Nether-Demon Scripture.