Chapter 158 — Eloping Together

Ling Yuxiu staggered to her feet. The Green Ox shook his head, still dizzy and heavy. Shen Mu scooped up the little fox and stuffed her into his bundle, then with one hand seized Ling Yuxiu and with the other the Green Ox, and charged down the mountain.

Ling Yuxiu was still muddled. She grinned foolishly at him. "Ox-boy, you're still alive..."

Shen Mu turned a deaf ear. He went whistling down the slope, dragging Ling Yuxiu and the Green Ox along so fast that their feet scarce touched ground, so that they seemed to float.

When they reached the foot of the mountain, Shen Mu looked toward the wooden boat, and saw that the goat-faced shaman aboard had been drugged as well. He had pitched headfirst into the water, his backside thrust up at the sky, half his body still aboard the boat — drowned in the Weak Water, no doubt.

Shen Mu leapt aboard in a flash, seized the goat-faced shaman by the ankles, hauled him up and flung him into the water, then took up the bamboo pole and poled — but the boat did not stir an inch.

He poled several times more. Still the boat would not budge.

"The Weak Water has no buoyancy!"

Shen Mu understood at once. He poured his vital qi into the bamboo pole; strange veins and patterns surfaced along its length, and when he stirred the Weak Water again, he felt resistance pushing back from the water.

Shen Mu breathed out in relief and poled for the far bank, driving the wooden boat like an arrow loosed from the string. Even so, he thought it far too slow.

If the Witch Kings and Witch Venerables of Loulan's Golden Palace returned to the mountain, they would likely dispel the Bewildering Incense in an instant and know that these men had merely been drugged, not poisoned.

And if they came hunting them now, what awaited Shen Mu and his companions would be a fate beyond all misery.

At last they reached the far bank. The Green Ox came to his senses and said in alarm, "The master is still in the mountain!"

Shen Mu said, "Rest easy. If we can escape, he can do better. He is far stronger than we are; if we went looking for him, we would only be a burden. And with the Witch Venerables and Witch Kings returning to the Golden Palace to look things over, that only gives Libationer Bashan his chance to slip away."

He sprang ashore and reached out a hand, but Ling Yuxiu and the Green Ox had already leapt across and needed no help from him.

The Crimson-Pearl Purple Fruit had restored them completely. It was the antidote to the Bewildering Incense, and the Bewildering Incense had first been compounded by alchemists to drug flood dragons. That flood dragon had been a creature of immense power, a match for a strongman of the Heaven-Man realm — and yet the alchemists had brought it down.

The only thing that could counter such a drug was the Crimson-Pearl Purple Fruit.

"Green Ox!" Shen Mu shouted. The Ox understood, dropped low, and shook his body, resuming his true form — a huge green ox, awe-inspiring, his hooves treading wind and cloud.

Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu leapt onto his back. "Green Ox," he said, "run as fast as you can!"

The Ox's four hooves flew, never touching ground, racing atop wind and cloud. The two on his back felt the fierce wind strike their faces like needles. Behind Shen Mu, Snow Fox woke and had just poked her head out of the bundle when she nearly got blown away by the gale; she clutched at the bundle in panic, her body already whipped clear of it, the wind stretching her tail and body out straight as a rod.

Each time the Ox's hooves rose and fell, they stopped a foot or so above the ground, and wind and cloud welled up beneath them to bear up his massive body. His speed was tremendous.

Shen Mu looked back, his hair blown into a tangle — he wore it in the shaman's fashion, with no band to bind it. Only then did he notice Snow Fox, the little vixen clinging to the bundle with both paws, her body stretched straight by the wind. At once he caught her up so the wind would not sweep her away.

Ling Yuxiu called out, "Ox-boy, let me hold her — you fix your hair!"

Shen Mu handed Snow Fox over, and Ling Yuxiu cradled her to her breast. Snow Fox felt how soft and sweet-scented that bosom was. She gave a little hmph, annoyed and yet comfortable, and could not help wanting to nuzzle a bit more — a truly tangled state of mind.

Shen Mu took out a hair band and bound up his hair, then looked back. They were drawing farther and farther from Loulan's Golden Palace; faintly he could still see streaks of golden light flying out from the snow mountains, approaching the Golden Palace with unhurried ease.

Those golden streaks seemed slow, but in truth they flew with great speed, crossing from the snow mountains to Loulan's Golden Palace in the space of a breath.

Then several golden streaks flew out from Loulan's Golden Palace and came this way.

Shen Mu's heart sank a little. Those streaks must be the Witch Kings of Loulan's Golden Palace, who had found their trail and were giving chase. Fast as the Green Ox was, his cultivation was still no match for a Witch King's.

But just then a bright light rose up and intercepted the golden streaks midway. The lights clashed in the air, parted, and clashed again.

From Shen Mu's distance the lights did not seem to move fast at all; but seen up close, they would surely have been too swift for the eye to follow.

After the golden streaks and the white radiance had clashed several times, a ball of light suddenly exploded, and then a wisp of black smoke appeared in the sky and became a skull. From the skull spurted several more wisps of black smoke, and each wisp became a skull in turn, and so on again and again, until the sky was crowded with skulls.

If they could be made out as skulls from such a distance, then up close they must be monstrously vast, terrifying as mountain peaks.

Then Shen Mu saw a blade sweep across the sky, and one of the golden streaks was suddenly cut off.

The Green Ox ran faster and faster, and soon Shen Mu could no longer make out the battle.

When the Ox had raced over several mountain spurs, treading the peaks as he went, the mountains hid everything from sight.

The sun sank in the west and the sky gradually darkened. The Green Ox had run half a day, panting and foaming at the mouth; catching sight of a pond in a hollow on the grassland ahead, he hurried over and lowered his head to drink, glug, glug.

Before long, half the pond was gone.

In the shallows the green backs of fish were already showing. Several fish a foot long writhed to and fro in the mud, crawling toward the deeper water, then with two little plops dived in.

Seeing how utterly spent he was, Shen Mu jumped down from his back. "Green Ox, no more running. Rest a while."

The Ox had not yet drunk his fill when an aged voice cried, "You there, ox! Stop drinking! Drink any more and you'll drain our village dry!"

The Ox raised his head. An old man tending sheep was passing by; he had hastily abandoned his flock and come running, brandishing his whip to drive the ox off from afar. But when he saw how frighteningly huge the beast was, he dared not come closer, and only stood at a distance cracking his whip. "Shoo, shoo —"

Shen Mu patted his hoof. In his true form the Green Ox was colossal; Shen Mu stood only as high as his ankle, and could reach no higher than his hoof.

The Ox stopped drinking. Ling Yuxiu hurriedly jumped down from his back, and Snow Fox wriggled out of her arms, leapt behind Shen Mu, and perched on the bundle.

The old man still dared not approach. The Ox twisted his body, gradually shrank, and rose to stand upright like a man — still as tall as two or three men together. He flicked his tail and swatted a few gadflies dead in mid-flight.