Chapter 522 — The Star Beast's Rigorous Interrogation

In a few years' time, the Flame Desert would be a thing of the past. And once the roads were laid, joining the Western Lands, the Wasteland, and Jingping, with the ways open and trade flowing, and market towns and cities set up along the Wasteland route, the people of the Wasteland would grow rich by it.

"Divine Physician Shen, I hear you are a man of the Wasteland. " Xing An stood behind him and broke his thoughts: "You are a man of the Wasteland, yet you bring Jingping's power into the Wasteland.

You are the Wasteland's traitor. " "The Wasteland has no nations; how can there be talk of traitors? " Shen Mu said, puzzled.

"The people of the Wasteland have always lived off the mountains and the waters.

There is no ruler here. Even if Jingping comes, the men of Jingping are people of the Wasteland too; they cannot turn guest into host, but must keep the Wasteland's rules.

Here the Wasteland's rules are mightier than an emperor's law.

" Xing An shook his head: "I have met Emperor Yanfeng only a few times, but I can see that he is a man of grand vision and great capacity, and in time he will surely unify the Wasteland. When his armies stand beneath the walls, it will be too late for regret.

" Shen Mu smiled: "If the Emperor sends troops against the Wasteland, then his throne will not last much longer either.

You should know how terrible the Wasteland is. Those stone statues.

.

. " He pointed to the shrines scattered through Crimson Dragon City and said unhurriedly: "They are waiting for the summons to rise again. When they rise, heaven and earth will be overturned.

Jingping will never be master of this land; this land's master is someone else. " His eyes flickered and he smiled: "I drove off the Minister of Revenue, and the Emperor did not come looking for trouble with me; his designs I know perfectly well.

Only his fancies are all empty fancies. If the Emperor's achievements could surpass Kaihuang's, then there might be a chance; otherwise they are flowers in a mirror and the moon in water.

I mean to go and tend a grave. Will you come with me, Brother Xing An? " Xing An looked at the Box as it came running over on its several legs, then drew his gaze back: "Where you go, I go.

Only when I find the man I seek will I leave your side. " Shen Mu frowned slightly: "When your business is settled, I will go to the grave. " The whereabouts of the Hall of the Human Emperor was a secret known only to each Human Emperor in turn, and with Xing An at his side he could not go there; to lead Xing An to it, and have its location made known, would bring down no end of needless trouble. And who was to say whether Xing An might not dig up the bones of the Human Emperors and add them to his collection?

Another dozen days passed, and the court, the Church of the Heavenly Sage, the Daoist sects, the Great Thunderclap Temple and other quarters gathered up the records of all those born in the Jiazi year, on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, at the hour of Zi; and those born at that hour came to thirty thousand. The Ministry of Revenue official who brought the records said: "The records for the grasslands, the ice plains, and the Western Lands are not yet fully compiled.

" Xing An looked at the dossiers of thirty thousand people and his head swelled.

After a moment he said: "The one I seek is a man. Separate the men from the women. " The Ministry official at once passed the order down, and when the sorting was done he reported: "There are seventeen thousand males; of them only eight thousand are still living.

Many died in wars and calamities.

" After another moment Xing An said: "Strike out those who are not cultivators. " The official passed the order down again and had the clerks of the Ministry sort the records, then reported: "Four hundred cultivators remain.

" Xing An was silent a while, then said: "Now search among these four hundred for any who showed strange signs at birth, cultivators born wearing a jade pendant.

" The official set the investigation of those four hundred in motion. Shen Mu, seeing this, could not help but wonder, and thought: "Every time Xing An gives an order he hesitates a moment.

It does not look as though he gives the order himself, but rather as though he obeys another's command. Yes: in Fengdu, Xing An leapt from the Bridge of Helplessness and fell into Youdu.

Youdu is far more perilous than Fengdu, and full of demon monsters whose resentment reaches the heavens.

How did he come back from Youdu?

Can it be that.

.

. " His eyes flickered, and behind him a Gate of Receiving Heaven suddenly took shape; as the gate formed, Shen Mu's body became that of a man with a serpent's head, and a vertical eye opened in the center of his brow, and he looked at Xing An. Xing An sensed it at once and turned his head; in his eyes a numinous light swirled and blocked Shen Mu's gaze, and he said calmly: "Divine Physician Shen, there are some matters you would do better not to know. " Shen Mu laughed heartily and dismissed the form of the Star Lord Zhen, but inwardly he was shaken beyond measure, for just now, while Xing An was off his guard, he had used the Star Lord's sacred pupils and seen a dreadful eye hidden within Xing An's sacred treasury of life and death!

And in that moment that dreadful eye had marked his gaze as well and turned to look at him, only to have Xing An cut off the line of sight between them at once! Just then the Ministry official came to report: "No cultivator born wearing a jade pendant has been found.

After all, one born with jade in his mouth is only myth and legend. " "That man was not born with jade in his mouth.

" Xing An fell silent again for a moment, then took out a painting and said: "That jade pendant was used to suppress his demonic nature. This is the pattern of the pendant.

Since no cultivator born at that hour can be found, then have this pattern of the pendant put up, posted in every city and every prefecture, to seek word of this pendant!

Divine Physician Shen, have a thousand copies of this painting made! " Shen Mu took the painting, and his gaze came to rest on the pattern of the jade pendant within it.

"Has Divine Physician Shen seen this kind of pendant?

" Xing An asked, seeing how closely he studied it. Shen Mu shook his head: "I have never seen it. " Xing An's eyes flickered; he took out a mirror, and said suddenly: "I have been forgetting to ask all this while: how old are you, Divine Physician Shen? "