Chapter 568 — No Guarding Against It

The old ghost officer was taken aback, then blurted out, "His true intent was to ask me whether he would be punished on this visit! There is no guarding against him—"

Molten Tubo nodded, his gaze still resting on Shen Mu's face. "Do not speak for now. Let me question him."

Shen Mu stood obediently still.

Molten Tubo looked at how docile he was, thought for a moment, and finally decided to say nothing; instead, lifting a finger lightly, he made the jade pendant hanging at Shen Mu's neck float slowly up and settle of itself into his palm.

Molten Tubo plucked from the crown of his head one long nine-coiled horn and thrust it into the jade pendant, then struck down hard: the whole horn sank into the pendant and vanished.

Rings of firelight spread out from the pendant, then slowly dispersed.

The pendant flew up of itself again, hung once more at Shen Mu's neck, and was tucked back beneath his clothes, close against the flesh.

Molten Tubo waved his hand. "This visit was, in the first place, to examine the pendant's seal. Since the seal is now firm, send him back. Everything else waits until after his death."

The old ghost officer said hurriedly, "After his death, will he not then..."

Molten Tubo glanced at him, and only then did he remember that Tubo had told him not to speak; he shut his mouth in haste. Molten Tubo's body spun and vanished into the molten rock beneath his feet, his voice rising from the lava: "Let no one touch your jade pendant! My Lord, when you send him away, do not speak with him!"

Shen Mu said hastily, "Tubo, I want to see my mother. May I?"

Molten Tubo had vanished.

Shen Mu stood there dazed, lost and forlorn. After a while he said, "I only want to see my mother. I have never seen what she looks like... My Lord, do you know what she looks like?"

The old ghost officer thought, then nodded.

Shen Mu gazed at him with eyes full of hope. The old ghost officer was truly put in a hard place; he hesitated a moment, then still spoke: "Tubo has given his order. I cannot tell you more."

Shen Mu said, agitated, "My Lord, is my mother still alive?"

The old ghost officer hesitated. Shen Mu's look truly tore at his heart, and he had no choice but to nod. In a low voice he said, "Ask no more; you put me in a difficult place. In speaking with you I have already disobeyed Tubo's command. Come, the sky over Taihuang Heaven is not yet light; I will send you back to the world of the living."

Shen Mu had no choice but to follow him aboard the little boat, the youth silent.

The little boat drifted; it flew out from the broken-off continent that was Tubo's horn and sailed into the darkness.

Tubo's true body was beyond all grandeur — none knew how tall, how vast, how wide. The little boat drifted a long while through the darkness before it finally left behind those two nine-coiled Yellow Springs.

The old ghost officer watched the surroundings warily, lifting the lantern from time to time to shine about him. He tossed Shen Mu a yellow talisman. "Those fellows who want to find you certainly will not let this chance slip. Put the yellow talisman on your face; no god or demon will be able to see your features. And even if they do see, what they see will be false — just as with me."

Shen Mu pasted the yellow talisman on his forehead and did not move.

"Why have you not poked two holes in it?" the old ghost officer asked curiously.

Shen Mu, his heart ashen, answered listlessly, "No interest."

The old ghost officer laughed. "A child's temper."

Just then the little boat halted abruptly and drifted no more.

The old ghost officer rose to his feet, lantern in hand, and said calmly, "Still not given up?"

"I beg Your Lordship, leave us a way to live!"

A voice came out of the darkness, like countless voices layered upon one another: "We want only his face, only his identity in the world of the living! We do not want his life — not now!"

The old ghost officer said coldly, "You reach too far. Withdraw at once, or I will descend in my true body, and you will not even have the ghost of a ghost left to be!"

On the boat, Shen Mu quietly took out the Book of Life and Death he had gotten from Kui Wushen and shone it toward the darkness. His body and mind shook violently: a name surfaced upon the Book of Life and Death.

"Heh heh heh heh, so you have shown your hand after all..." The strange voice in the darkness sped swiftly away.

The old ghost officer turned back, his gaze falling on the Book of Life and Death in Shen Mu's hands. He sighed. "You have learned his true identity, and he has learned yours. What you hold is the Book of Life and Death of the Heavenly Court; treasures of its kind are few, and he will soon trace it back to you. You... take care of yourself."

Shen Mu was stunned, and only then did he understand where he had given himself away.