劍問蒼天 - 第188章 驚現 - 翰墨軒

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.