Chapter 233 — Folding Paper into a Boat

Once Shen Mu's wounds had healed, he left the village carrying the gifts he had prepared for the Xuanliao Demon Ape and set off toward the valley of Mizai Palace. He had scarcely stepped past the village edge when he saw a strange beast dragging a corpse along the ground; at the sight of him it gave two flustered, low hisses and the fur along its neck bristled upright.

The river murmured on. More strange beasts came leaping up from beneath the water — fish-headed, man-bodied — and made for the other corpses. These too halted in alarm when they saw Shen Mu, flattening themselves against the ground and not daring to come a step nearer.

Shen Mu paid them no mind. In the two days he had spent nursing his injuries, pursuers from among Jingping's masters of divine ability had found their way here one after another, and not one of them had reached the village before he put an end to them, using whatever common objects lay ready to hand.

Some of the things in that village were terrible beyond measure. Besides the insects in the earthenware jars, there was the rake for gathering grass, the curtain cloth of the blacksmith's shop, the water vat, the sword pellet beneath Granny Zhu's bed, the butcher's whetstone, the chicken trough — and the washbasin the Dragon Qilin had carried off to use as its dinner bowl.

There was no small number of those hunting Shen Mu. Apart from Long Jiaonan's band of formidable figures, there must have been several other companies of masters from the various sects; in the two days of his convalescence, many had tracked him to this place.

Yincan Village was not hard to find. Built along the river, it stood only a little over a thousand li from Jianglong City, and Jianglong City lay not far from Jingping's frontier; anyone determined enough to search could find it.

Shen Mu reckoned that forty or fifty people had found their way here in those two days — all of them dead now, of course.

"Long Jiaonan hasn't come. Has she lost her way? Or was she finished off on the road? Or perhaps..."

Whenever he was in the village, Shen Mu felt a pair of eyes fixed on him from beyond its bounds, like a great venomous serpent lurking in the dark, ready to strike at any moment.

"She's close by?"

This walk out of the village was meant to draw her into the open.

Long Jiaonan bore him a hatred deep as blood. The destruction of Yulong Sect had been his doing and his alone; had Shen Mu not summoned a demon in Tianbo City and called up the Dutian Demon King, Yulong Sect would never have been wiped out so easily.

Shen Mu walked to Mizai Palace and found the place thick with wild beasts, but neither the Xuanliao Demon Ape nor the Dragon-Elephant was among them.

He searched all around and found no trace of them, and the beasts in the valley knew nothing of cultivation and could not speak, so there was no asking where the Demon Ape had gone.

Shen Mu had no choice but to turn back to Yincan Village. Two more days passed, and at last he could sit still no longer: the year's end was very near now, only two or three days off, and still Granny Zhu and the headman had not returned!

"The old folk of this village — not a moment's peace will they give a man!"

He went to Mizai Palace once more, and once more there was no sign of the Xuanliao Demon Ape; his heart grew more restless with every hour.

"Fatty Long, get up!"

Shen Mu packed his things, fed the insects and the Crested Fire Pheasant Dragon once more, then wiped the ding character from the Dutian Demon King's body, roused the Dragon Qilin, and said, "We are going deep into the Wasteland to look for them!"

The Dutian Demon King stretched out his limbs and sneered, "Even a half-divine being like old Kuisou goes into the Wasteland and never comes back. What use are you?"

Shen Mu shook his head. "My strength may be nothing much, but I have helpers. Demon King, you are of the Heavenly Demon clan yourself, are you not?"

The Dutian Demon King said proudly, "So you mean to borrow my strength. Treat me well and there is no reason I should not help you. But you beat me for no cause, and it left a sourness in my heart. Coax me nicely, and then I will help you."

Shen Mu asked, curious, "And how does one coax the great Demon King?"

The Dutian Demon King grew excited and was about to say his usual piece when he suddenly sensed that all was not well — say it aloud, and the one left kneeling would most likely be himself.

Shen Mu said gravely, "If you throw your whole heart into helping me find them, I will set you free. How does that bargain suit you?"

The Dutian Demon King's eyes lit up. "Your word on it?"

"My word on it!"

His preparations finished, Shen Mu walked out of Yincan Village and set the Dragon Qilin to follow the Yong River upstream. The headman and his people had gone in search of the whereabouts of the Land of No Sorrow, and the last time the headman took Shen Mu with him, they had likewise gone upstream, all the way to the depths of the Wasteland, to the source of the Yong River, where they saw many strange and wondrous things.

That time, though, what they found was not the Land of No Sorrow but a Soul Boat in Fengdu.

The Soul Boat had answered to the jade pendant at Shen Mu's neck, drawing the pendant up to float, and so it had led Shen Mu to that place.

Shen Mu reasoned that when the headman and the others searched for the Land of No Sorrow, they too must have begun their search there — and might well have left some faint thread of a trail behind.

The Dragon Qilin's pace was not slow, but set beside the headman's stride it was far slower. When the headman carried Shen Mu along, it was like a god of dazzling radiance walking through the Wasteland in the dark, swift beyond telling.

Shen Mu could only venture deep into the Wasteland by day; when night fell, he had no choice but to seek out other villages or ruins in which to hide from the darkness.

The Wasteland by day and the Wasteland by night were two entirely different worlds. The headman guessed that by day the Wasteland was the world of reality, and that at night another world of darkness overlapped it.

If the headman and the others had entered that world in the dark and been carried off by it, then Shen Mu would never find them.

Now he could only hope that they had found the Land of No Sorrow.

Not long after he left Yincan Village, a girl in a long dark-green gown came to the village outskirts. From her earlobe hung a single red earring; the earring stirred, stretched, and became an ear pendant — a little red snake.

"This village is stuffed with treasures. I wonder whether I might slip in and steal a few?"

Long Jiaonan said softly, "Little Red, call me some helpers."

The little red snake at her ear hissed out its tongue, and one after another, great red-crested serpents came gliding out of the mountain forest. One large snake slid into the village; it had barely entered when a black spider crouched on a leaf of spirit medicine in the herb plot beside the village leaped up, landed on the great snake's head and bit it.

The great snake perished on the spot, its flesh and blood rotting away to water, which the spider drank up clean and whole, leaving behind nothing but a snakeskin.

The spider grew larger and larger. Having drained the great snake dry, it spat out ball after ball of true fire, burning itself smaller and smaller, and then jumped back into the herb plot to hide.

Long Jiaonan's eye twitched. She turned on her heel and left, the serpents scattering at her back, and said, "This village — not even a celestial could get inside it!"

The Dragon Qilin traveled six thousand li upstream against the Yong River. Shen Mu raised his head and saw that the day was already far spent, so he looked about in every direction, trying to find a place to put down.

"The Wasteland Atlas says there is a place called Sigua Palace nearby. It may serve as somewhere to shelter."