Chapter 524 — Making Offerings to the Ancestral Spirits in the Hall of Human Emperors

The old man grinned, and in his mouth there was no tongue. He raised a hand and drew it lightly across his own throat, and the little silver boat drifted away.

Xing An flew into a rage—and suddenly felt that the old man's smile was somehow familiar, as though he had seen it somewhere before. "That smile—I have seen it, I am sure I have. .

. " He calmed his mind, cast the image of the old man's grin to the back of his thoughts, and concentrated on finding a way out.

Just as he was about to finish unraveling the first sealing glyph, Shen Mu's smile suddenly surfaced in his mind and overlapped with the smile of the old Silent Craftsman. His mind was thrown into chaos, and the sealing glyph blasted him flying.

Shen Mu's smile and the old Silent Craftsman's smile overlapped almost perfectly; the only difference was that Shen Mu's smile was plain and guileless, while the Silent Craftsman's carried a sly cunning. "I.

. .

" A mouthful of divine blood surged into Xing An's throat, and he forced it back down.

"I am not angry. I am not angry. I will never let him damage my dao heart. I. .

. bwaaah—" In the end he could not hold it back, and spat out a mouthful of divine blood.

His face ashen and withered, he let out a roar of fury: "Divine Physician Shen, I will never let you off!

" Following that guiding light the whole way, Shen Mu walked out of the Wasteland. The road took him from the Wasteland to Jingping's Southern Wasteland, a place of many insects and serpents and few human traces; the farther he followed the light, the wilder and more desolate it grew.

In the end, at sunrise, the guiding light on a mountaintop transformed into a modest doorway that appeared before him. On this little hilltop there was only this one doorway made of light.

Shen Mu looked around: barren mountains and wild ridges, no sign of human habitation, only the waste of hills. Dragon Qilin raised its head and looked about. Seeing that the sun had come up, it was overjoyed: "Hierarch, it is dawn, breakfast.

. .

" Shen Mu pushed at the door. The lone doorway opened, light spilling out from within, and he stepped in to meet the light.

Dragon Qilin hurriedly straddled the chest and charged in after him. Their figures vanished, and the light door dimmed of itself and disappeared.

After a moment, Shen Mu appeared on a vast, silent, desolate land—compared with which the barren hills and wild ridges of before were nothing at all. Before him, all was fallen temples, all was dense mist.

In the mist stood gravestone after gravestone, and behind the gravestones, grave after grave. Broken walls and ruined pillars, gravestones and tombs, assailed his soul.

In the distance, only one palace still stood more or less intact, standing alone in the mist. Shen Mu walked forward and looked all around.

The space here was exceedingly broad, and the countless gravestones in the mist formed the scene of the Hall of Human Emperors. He came to the first grave and looked at the gravestone. On it were written the words: The grave of Wei Ming, Western General of the Heavenly Court.

Beneath the gravestone lay a bloodstained shield.

He came to the second grave. On the gravestone: Ding Yunhe, Chiliarch of the Heavenly Court's Tiger Guard.

Beneath it lay a helmet. He walked on.

Here all was silent; even Dragon Qilin, which had been clamoring for breakfast, dared not speak, its tail tucked, trembling. Suddenly it threw open the chest and burrowed inside to hide, not daring to show itself.

Shen Mu examined the gravestones one by one. Many graves bore no inscription at all—presumably because those who set the stones did not know the names of the dead. These graves paved a road leading to the Hall of Human Emperors in the mist.

How long it took, he could not say, but at last Shen Mu drew near the Hall of Human Emperors, and a thatched hut came into view. In the hut a skeleton sat cross-legged, its head bowed, and beside it a stone tablet had toppled before him.

Though only bones remained, one could still tell that in life he had been stalwart, with thick, knotted joints in both hands—surely skilled in seal-arts, palm-arts, and fist-arts.

Shen Mu brushed the dust from the tablet, and was struck dumb. On the tablet was written: Qi Kang, Human Emperor. Feeling that in this life he had achieved nothing, he had no face to erect a stele, no face to be buried, no face to meet his ancestors. He was buried in this thatched hut, his dry bones unentombed. Shen Mu opened the chest and took out candles, paper money, and offerings.

Reverently he lit incense and made sacrifice to Human Emperor Qi Kang.

He stepped out of the hut, and then saw that beside it stood another hut. Within were several severed hands and feet, and another toppled stone tablet.

On the tablet was only one character, Su. The character had been written with a broken sword, left half-finished, the broken sword still thrust into the stone; the inscription was never completed.

Shen Mu looked at the severed hands and feet; the stumps bore the wounds of swords. The corner of his mouth twitched, and he made obeisance with all reverence. "Village Elder. .

. " He knew that when the Village Elder came here, he had meant to end his life on the spot; it was only because the Human Emperor Seal had not yet been passed on that he could not die.

So he had buried his severed hands and feet here.

He did not even dare write his own name, for at that time he had left no inheritance behind. Shen Mu came to the third hut. Here too was a skeleton, short and squat of build—that was Human Emperor Yi Shan.

The gravestone likewise bore only a few brief lines.

Human Emperor Yi Shan, defeated by the hand of Heaven Above, no face to be buried and meet his honored master; those who come after need not pay me homage. Shen Mu came to the fourth hut.

Again a skeleton, the bones of one hand cradling a flower basket.

Human Emperor Lan Po, who achieved nothing in all his life, ashamed before his master's teachings.

.

.

Shen Mu entered hut after hut, making offerings at each, witnessing the twenty thousand years of the Hall of Human Emperors' history. He had already seen these Human Emperors in Fengdu: they beat and cursed their masters, utterly at odds with them. But here, in the thatched huts of the Hall of Human Emperors, Shen Mu saw their reverence for their honored masters, and their remorse for their own failures. Shen Mu came before the Hall of Human Emperors, and saw a figure standing there with its back to him.