Chapter 188 — Sudden Appearance

Zhou Yixuan and the other two rested and tended the wild dog's wounds. When the wild dog learned that his life had been snatched back from the brink, he felt all the more fortunate, though privately he was somewhat puzzled by his own unexpected courage that day. Be that as it may, after this trial, the bond between Zhou Yixuan, Xiao Wan, and the Wild Wolf Daoist had grown closer by a degree—after all, they had faced death together, and Zhou Yixuan no longer spoke to the Wild Wolf Daoist with the same cold sarcasm as before. Only when it came to ordering him about for chores did he behave exactly as he always had. But the Wild Wolf Daoist was, after all, gravely wounded, and more often than not it was Zhou Yixuan who did the heavier work—which in turn earned him a stream of complaints from the old gentleman.

Xiao Wan and the wild dog remained as they had always been, save that in Xiao Wan's presence the Wild Wolf Daoist seemed to have grown somewhat more fearful, and spoke to her even less than before. Xiao Wan found this strange, yet did not dwell on it; over these days, her attention had been increasingly drawn to that seemingly unremarkable book with the black cover.

The Wild Wolf Daoist had never seen Xiao Wan reading this book before and found it quite odd, but Xiao Wan never spoke of where it came from, and Zhou Yixuan was vague as well. As the days passed, he grew used to it, though now and then he felt that Xiao Wan's expression was gradually changing—yet in what way it differed from before, he could not say.

The great calamity of the beast demons had risen from the Ten Thousand Wild Mountains of the southern borderlands, and the first to suffer was the land of the southern border itself.

The people of the various tribes here had been poisoned by the beast demons far more deeply than even the Central Plains. Nine out of ten households left empty—that was the inevitable fate of many a village and town, and whole villages and mountain strongholds with not a single survivor were not uncommon either.

After the calamity had passed, the small bands of beast demons remaining in the southern border were far more numerous than in the Central Plains, and those who had survived by luck often still had to endure the ravages and harassment of these remnants. Life was truly sunless and dark, as though plunged into deep water and scorching fire.

It was under such circumstances that Ming Li once again set foot upon the soil of the southern border.

Along the way he found no trace of the Beast Lord's remnants, but there were countless men of the righteous path swarming in, among them not a few figures from such great and famous sects as Qingyun and Fenxiang. All these people seemed mad, searching everywhere for the Beast Lord's whereabouts, yet plainly, for all their searching, no one had found him.

After his defeat at Qingyun, the Beast Lord, gravely wounded, had fled and vanished as though into thin air; no one could find him anymore. Yet these Ten Thousand Wild Mountains of the southern border had always been his old home—surely, whatever else, he would return here?

Holding to this thought, Ming Li entered the southern border. Countless righteous disciples came with him, among them the lineage of Fenxia Valley, who were in truth returning to their native soil—Fenxia Valley lay in the southern border, after all. But the purpose of the other righteous disciples in coming was naturally not merely to help the people of the southern border rid themselves of those small remnant bands of beast demons.

Be that as it may, because of these people's arrival, the remnant beast demons that had formerly run rampant were temporarily restrained—for these righteous disciples, so far as they were able, would also take action to destroy such beast demons.

Thus the atmosphere throughout the southern border was somewhat revived.

Yet no one, whoever they might be, found any trace of the Beast Lord within the borders of the southern border. The only possibility now lay within those barren mountains and treacherous waters, the strange and mysterious Ten Thousand Wild Mountains.

How many secrets still lay hidden within those layer upon layer of black mountain ranges!

Before entering the mountains, Ming Li first went to the Seven-Li Dong of the Miao people in the southern border—for no other reason than that, for what the Great Shaman had done for Bi Li that day, he too had to come and pay his respects.

Tianshui Stronghold, Seven-Li Dong—along this whole road, the once bustling and lively scenes were all gone, and the sights of ruin all the way even moved his heart, which he had thought long since grown hard.

For what reason, after all, had there been such a calamity that poisoned all the living things under heaven?

He himself had achieved success in cultivation and stood apart from this great tide of evil, but what of the countless common folk under heaven who suffered and endured? What fault had they committed, that they should bear such a tribulation?

He thought back to the Fanyin Temple, where countless common folk had day and night bowed and prayed to the gods and Buddhas; and looking across the world, there were far more common folk doing the same, bowing in reverence to the gods of heaven. Yet when the great calamity descended, who helped them?

Then was such worship of any use at all?

Or was it truly as that mysterious line running throughout the Heavenly Book said:

Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat all things as straw dogs?

When he stepped into Seven-Li Dong, Ming Li drew in a breath of cold air. This place, which in his memory had once been fair of mountain and clear of water, was now ruined and broken past recognition. The houses that had once clustered in unbroken rows were almost all reduced to broken walls and toppled pillars; the streets no longer showed the bustling crowds of former days, let alone the children running and playing.

Of the remaining people there seemed scarcely one or two in ten; most stood before the ruined houses, despairingly and laboriously sorting through something, trying to find usable things in the rubble—yet what they found was often enough the remains of the dead.

Throughout Seven-Li Dong hung an air of grief and decay. Now and then a few children stood blankly in place, their eyes full of bewilderment and fear, and before long an adult would come out from behind and pull them back inside.

Ming Li walked slowly along the street and soon drew the attention of some of the Miao folk, in whose eyes appeared at once a thick wariness. In that strange atmosphere, even little Hui on Ming Li's shoulder seemed to grow much quieter, though it still looked about in every direction.

Ming Li sighed inwardly, unwilling to look any longer, and quickened his steps, heading straight for the altar on the slope deep within Seven-Li Dong. The farther in he went, the more plainly could be seen that the surrounding houses and roads were the more severely ruined.

Ming Li was silent, seeming faintly to see the Miao warriors of that day, when the calamity came, facing the fierce beast demons here to defend the holy ground, fighting to the death.

Even in the air, it seemed, there drifted a faint smell of blood.

At the foot of the mountain, two young Miao soldiers stopped him. Ming Li quietly halted and looked at them. These two, spears in hand and armor on their bodies, were no more than boys of fifteen or sixteen, and even the armor on them looked broader than their frames—perhaps left behind by the brave warriors of former days.

"Gulu jiji hu?" one of them asked in the Miao tongue.

Ming Li did not understand, but could more or less guess what he was asking, so he said nothing and merely raised his head to indicate with a glance the mid-slope of the mountain. He did not point with his finger, because he still remembered that the Miao people regarded such a gesture as deeply disrespectful.