Chapter 493: Inscribing Words on a Cliff
Time swept across the mountains and rivers, carrying away the people of the past, leaving behind only history that was either remembered or forgotten.
Years were like a song, and the song would inevitably be desolate and mournful.
Qin Mu stood on the box, embracing the girl. As sunlight poured down like the passing years, the moment its radiance touched him, the girl in his arms turned into flying sand, flowing backward with the retreating darkness.
The sunlight was clear, scattering across the golden desert, reflecting the scale-like dunes. This place had once been a valley, surrounded by low but picturesque mountains with clear waters and lush greenery.
Yet the interweaving of years had left nothing but a vast expanse of yellow sand.
Qin Mu jumped down from the box. Even though he had known this would happen, he still couldn’t suppress the melancholy in his heart.
The box opened its lid and tossed out Dragon Qilin. The large box seemed puzzled—its belly had just held several hundred people moments ago, yet now they had suddenly vanished.
Dragon Qilin was also terrified. He was already superstitious and extremely afraid of ghosts, and now he was so frightened that he buried his head in the sand.
Qin Mu looked up. Before him stood a bare cliff face, standing alone amidst the desert sand. It had weathered tens of thousands of years of sandstorms without eroding or collapsing.
On the cliff wall were words he had inscribed tens of thousands of years ago.
“Human life is greater than heaven!”
Qin Mu was stunned. He had indeed left his mark on history.
Accomplishing all of this was neither a flashback of history nor a dream. He couldn’t explain the strange experiences of that night, couldn’t explain why he had returned to thirty or forty thousand years ago, or why he had endured the invasion of darkness alongside the people of Bailong City.
He also couldn’t explain why he had returned to the present, or why the Sovereign Era had vanished after the darkness passed.
Yet all of this had truly happened!
He had fought side by side with people from tens of thousands of years ago, watching them shed blood and sacrifice their lives, witnessing the suffering endured by those in history, and seeing the deaths and devastation caused by another heavenly court destroying the Sovereign Era’s heavenly court!
“The Sovereign Era was destroyed, and the Kaihuang Era was destroyed too. Was the heavenly court that destroyed both eras the same one?”
He had some guesses but no evidence to prove them.
“Perhaps the one that will destroy Yankang is also the same heavenly court? Where do they come from?”
Beneath the box, Banguo Cuo silently emerged, looking up at the lone cliff in the desert and examining the words on it. He said leisurely, “Chief Qin, you must be feeling very lost and sad now, right? That girl from the Bai family might have liked you, and you might have liked her too. But she knew she had to part from you, so she never said it. Time is too cruel…”
His eyes flickered. The gourd behind him quietly opened, and blood clots floated silently into the air without making a sound.
Banguo Cuo stared fixedly at Qin Mu’s back. The blood clots in the air twisted like venomous snakes, and his voice also seemed to burrow like a snake into Qin Mu’s heart, gnawing at his soul, poisoning his Dao heart, making the young man reveal a flaw.
“If you had stayed in that era, your life and experiences would be completely different from now.”
Banguo Cuo quietly shifted his steps, adjusting his breath. His voice grew even more seductive, painting a picture completely different from reality: “You might have fallen in love, had many children, faced many setbacks and dangers, but your life would have been so colorful! The passage of history would have become vibrant hues, and you two young lovers would have experienced those colorful moments of history… What a pity.”
He changed his tone, becoming poisonous: “What a pity, you still parted, separated by tens of thousands of years. What love, what affection, what future—all turned to sand and illusion in the span of tens of thousands of years!”
He revealed a sinister smile, and his voice twisted with it, becoming warped and eerie: “That girl from the Bai family is likely long dead. After you left, she probably died at the hands of pursuers! Even if she escaped, she might have married someone else, had children, become an old woman. Only when her beauty faded and she grew old would she occasionally remember that night, that sudden appearance, that young man who cupped her face! Chief Qin—”
“Does sorrow gnaw at your heart, poison your soul?”
He drew closer, his voice eerily like a demon king from beyond the heavens whispering, tempting one to fall: “She died in the end, turned to dust. After thirty or forty thousand years, in this desolate desert, buried in the sand of history, no one remembers her except you, this sentimental man. She is thus submerged in the dust of history, buried in this rolling yellow sand.”
He chuckled darkly: “In youth, one knows not the taste of sorrow; one loves to climb high towers, loves to climb high towers! Now, having tasted all sorrow, one wants to speak but hesitates, wants to speak but hesitates! Chief Qin, your heart is so fragile. Let me…”
Just as he was about to act, Dragon Qilin behind him grew larger and taller, suddenly raising a massive claw and slapping him to the ground.
Banguo Cuo quickly tried to get up but was knocked down again. Dragon Qilin slapped him again and again, blood spraying from his mouth as he roared, “Shut your mouth, shut your mouth!”
Banguo Cuo flew into a rage: “You fat pig, do you think I’m afraid of you?”
Dragon Qilin’s claws suddenly clanged, extending razor-sharp nails, ready to gut him.
Suddenly, Qin Mu’s calm voice came: “Fatty Dragon, no need to beat him. Let him go.”
Dragon Qilin was startled and said in confusion, “Chief, this guy is thoroughly evil-hearted, a master at escaping, and he just tried to harm you! If we let him go, catching him again will be ten times harder!”
“We fought side by side. He also put in great effort to save people and risked his life. He deserves one chance to live.”
Qin Mu clasped his hands behind his back, looking at his own words on the cliff, his expression calm. “Great Venerable, I won’t kill you. Go. The next time we meet, I’ll take your head.”
Banguo Cuo got up, brushed the sand off his clothes, his eyes flickering. “Are you sure you’re letting me go this time? No tricks? You won’t strike me down when I turn my back?”
Qin Mu said indifferently, “Too many died last night. I don’t want to kill anyone today.”
Banguo Cuo didn’t turn around but stepped backward, staring intently at Qin Mu’s every move. He thought to himself, “Though this was perilous and bloody, I still gained something. At the very least, I got two divine legs… Wait, these two divine legs…”
Qin Mu kept his back to him, making his eyes light up. His heart pounded with excitement: “With these two divine legs, why should I fear this kid? I have divine legs—my escape speed is unmatched! If I can’t beat him, I can flee! And with unmatched speed, my combat power will skyrocket. I can kill him!”
His heart raced with excitement, and a fierce light flared in his eyes. Just as he was about to stop and strike, a sudden alertness made him leap high.
A sword light shot out from the sand, flashing past the root of his right leg!
Banguo Cuo cried out in pain, shouting from midair, “Chief Qin, you broke your word!”
Qin Mu turned around and said calmly, “I kept it. I cut off one of your legs before, so I can give one back, but I won’t let you have two divine legs. Great Venerable, no need to see me off.”
Banguo Cuo, still in midair, looked down at the divine leg falling away. He wanted to grab it, but the yellow sand below had already swallowed the severed leg.
In the sand, countless sword lights flickered faintly, like silver needles weaving and intersecting, protecting the divine leg. These were the eight thousand swords formed from Qin Mu’s sword pellet. Clearly, while Banguo Cuo had been trying to poison his mind, Qin Mu had already driven the sword pellet into the sand.
Banguo Cuo immediately knew he had lost the initiative. Gritting his teeth, a lotus flower taller than a man appeared behind him.
He retreated into the flower, and the lotus closed. Banguo Cuo, along with the flower, vanished.
“Chief Qin, next time we meet, I’ll take your head!” His voice grew fainter, disappearing into the depths of the vast desert.
“The Great Venerable has become much bolder now.”
Qin Mu turned around. Countless flying swords rose from the desert, carrying the divine leg to the box. He said softly, “That’s a good thing. Now that he has courage, killing him next time won’t require so much effort.”
The box grew excited, quickly opening its lid to take in the divine leg and store it carefully.
Qin Mu looked at the words on the cliff and murmured, “If you’re still alive, will you come here to find me? Are you still alive? Tens of thousands of years, countless trials—have they withered your beauty, turned you to bone and dust…”
He waited quietly beneath the cliff, reluctant to leave.
The surrounding mountains had been worn flat by wind and sand. Why did only this cliff remain?
A glimmer of hope still burned in his heart.
“Chief, there’s a large stone tablet on this side of the mountain!” Suddenly, Dragon Qilin made a discovery.
Qin Mu’s heart stirred, and he hurried over. Dragon Qilin had found a stone tablet at the foot of the mountain. It was half-buried in sand and located at the cliff’s base, easy to miss without careful inspection.
The tablet seemed to possess a strange power, resisting wind and sand, remaining unweathered.
There were words on the tablet.
Qin Mu looked at it and was taken aback. The characters on the tablet were bold and domineering, reading: “Demon Lord Qin Mu, Chief of the Demonic Sect, Great Venerable of the Loulan Golden Palace, Buried…”
The characters after “Buried” were somewhat blurred, and some were buried in the sand. Dragon Qilin was about to approach and brush the sand away when Qin Mu quickly said, “Fatty Dragon, it’s a trap! Don’t touch the sand under the tablet!”
Hearing the word “trap,” Dragon Qilin immediately retreated without hesitation.
Qin Mu sneered, “Setting a trap with such a method underestimates me. The words under the tablet are nothing more than ‘Buried Here.’ If I moved the sand, I’d trigger the trap and die without a burial place!”
Dragon Qilin shuddered and said, “If my name were on it, I’d definitely go check…”
Qin Mu looked around. This desert was utterly desolate, with no other life besides them. It was impossible for anyone to be lying in ambush nearby.
“To be honest, I am a bit curious.”
His eyes flickered as he examined the tablet buried in the sand. Dragon Qilin had a bad feeling and said, “Chief, don’t do anything foolish!”
Qin Mu quickly retreated, laughing, “I really want to see if the person who left this tablet to ambush me and the Great Venerable left their name. Someone so arrogant and cocky would surely leave their signature. We’ll retreat a hundred miles, and then I’ll cast a spell to brush the sand away from under the tablet!”
—Though I updated early today, I won’t be cocky. I know you all want to kill me. It’s New Year’s, after all—everyone wants to slaughter a pig for pork. I can’t jump around too much, or I’ll get butchered.
Now for the fan-unfollowing segment: On Zhuzhu’s public WeChat account, we’re voting for the strongest king of the Cripples’ Village. Today, we’ve reached the top few. As the saying goes, “Drawing a blade from the court, carrying Zhuzhu’s head,” I won’t tell you who we’re talking about tonight. Follow the public WeChat account, Zhuzhu!