Chapter 389 — The Spear Soul Awakens
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Shen Mu had not been sent far — less than a li from Mishui Pass, with the Wasteland at his back.
For Blind Grandpa, disrupting Shen Mu's translocation was no difficult thing; at most, this was as far as he could fling him.
Blind Grandpa returned to Mishui Pass in silence and sought out Shen Mu, and without a word he unsealed the Divine Treasury seals on Ling Yuxiu and Si Yunxiang; then, leaning on his bamboo staff, tapping and poking his way, he walked off alone. Shen Mu was struck dumb.
"Blind Grandpa.
.
. " "Grown up. Grown up. .
. " Out of the old blind man's hollow eye sockets, turbid tears slid down. The faster he walked, the more the tears came.
The child he had raised had grown up at last, and yet in his heart there rose all at once a desolate, aching loss. Shen Mu would very likely never again follow him back to Yincan Village; he was no longer the small boy who once carried him on his back while he practiced his fists and his arts.
This child he had picked up had thoughts of his own now, and the strength to protect himself. His heart had gone wild; having seen the world outside, he would no longer think of staying on in Yincan Village, a place of nothing but old men and old women.
The old blind man walked very fast.
Shen Mu rushed up onto the ramparts of Mishui Pass and could see only his receding back by the riverside, a little lonely, a little forlorn.
Some melancholy rose in the youth's heart as well. He lifted a hand, but said nothing. The old blind man, walking away with his back to him, seemed nonetheless to see that raised hand, and raised his own in turn, and did not look back. Shen Mu watched him lower the hand and seem to wipe at his eye sockets, as though brushing away tears.
Blind Grandpa hurried on along the river, and after a long while he came at last to Yincan Village. There was no one else in the village; it had become the domain of the plume-crested fire pheasant dragons.
Many hens had hatched brood upon brood of the creatures, and they had moved into the rooms of the village head and of Blind Grandpa. Seeing the old blind man return, one arrogant young fire pheasant dragon charged in and attacked, meaning to drive him off its territory.
A moment later, a plume-crested fire pheasant dragon, stripped bare of its feathers, was skewered on the bamboo staff and set over a campfire, while the rest of the flock hid quaking in a corner, staring at the old blind man in terror. Blind Grandpa went next to the butcher's room, dug several jars of wine from under the bed, roasted the fire pheasant dragon, and ate and drank.
When he had eaten and drunk his fill, he dropped a heap of chicken bones, stood up, and reached for his bamboo staff — but the staff had already burned to ash in the campfire.
Blind Grandpa was stunned for a moment.
He patted the ash from his hands, strode out of the village, and made for the Yong River beyond it. "How many years now. . .
" Walking, he murmured to himself, "Old brother, how many years have you kept me company? In the year I fell, I carried you here on my back.
The village head said my heart had failed, that I was no longer worthy to possess you, and told me to lay you to rest, to bury you in the Yong River.
He said that in Yincan Village I would never need you again. " On the Yong River the surface began to rise in wave upon wave; from beneath the water came a faint trembling sound, and ring after ring of ripples spread outward in a regular rhythm.
Blind Grandpa walked toward the river, his tattered clothes snapping and flapping. "When I abandoned you all those years ago, my heart was ash, dead as ash, without a shred of life or joy in it. In the days when you followed me, it was because of my strength, my invincibility, my contempt for all things!