"That is both true and untrue.

" General Shen smiled. "How the Wasteland came to be, no one can trace any longer. But when our Kingdom of Jingping was founded, we received a divine oracle, and the oracle said that the Wasteland is a land the gods abandoned, that the god-forsaken folk were to be kept there and forbidden to come out, and that any who did come out were to be killed on sight. I have heard that every kingdom besides Jingping received much the same oracle. Only it is not merely the Wasteland's own natives who live here; there are also desperate men, vicious beyond measure, who choose to take refuge in the Wasteland. To my mind, such men are more dangerous by far than the Wasteland's Forsaken. " Seventh Young Master asked curiously, "At the frontier I saw merchant caravans going in and out of the Wasteland.

Why would our Kingdom of Jingping still do business with the Forsaken here? " "Young Master does not know the whole of it.

The Wasteland is barren, yes, but its riches are abundant -- treasures of heaven and earth beyond counting. We need only use goods worth nothing, oil and salt, soy sauce and vinegar, to trade for heavenly treasures and precious pelts. Why not?

" General Shen said, "These years the frontier has kept up its exchange with the Wasteland and earned untold wealth, and it subsidizes the army. That is how our Kingdom of Jingping has come to have strong soldiers and sturdy horses, surpassing all other kingdoms.

" Seventh Young Master asked, "But what if one of the Wasteland's Forsaken slips through the pass?

Would that not be disastrous? " "Handed down together with the oracle in those years were certain treasures called Vision Mirrors, and they hang upon the mighty passes that lead into Jingping. Any of the Wasteland's Forsaken is revealed by the mirrors. The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping surmises that the Forsaken may have blood unlike our own -- though when he examined their bodies, he found no difference at all.

" General Shen said with a smile, "Every year those great passes catch many demon folk seeking to flee into Jingping. Some are executed on the spot; some are sent to the mines to dig, and those who live a year or two are accounted lucky. " The tower ship sailed slowly away.

Shen Mu stood on the cliff and praised him: "That man is remarkable, his eyesight extraordinary -- no wonder he could be a general at so young an age! He was charting the geography of the Surging River. Could it be that Jingping means to send troops against the Wasteland?

" Something struck him as strange. The Wasteland was plainly a barren place, perilous in every direction, and each time the sun set darkness came creeping in. He did not think much of Jingping's prospects in a war on the Wasteland.

If the Kingdom of Jingping sent few soldiers, they would not even fill the gaps between the Wasteland's monstrous beasts' teeth; if they sent many, then when night fell, where could those soldiers hide? For the Wasteland's dangers and its ferocious creatures were far too many, so that no one had ever been able to rule it.

Neither could Jingping.

If Jingping invaded, it would only stumble and fall hard!

Suddenly Shen Mu remembered something, and said in alarm, "Big fellow, go back to the Palace of Averted Calamity at once and destroy the map of the Wasteland on the wall!

" The Xuanliao Demon Ape rose, seized the Dragon-Elephant, gave a roar, and leapt onto the Dragon-Elephant's back; the Dragon-Elephant raced off at once. "The Kingdom of Jingping has begun charting the geography of the Surging River.

If they ever find that map in the Palace of Averted Calamity, it will be wings for a tiger.

" Shen Mu's face shifted between dark and clear as he thought this. Destroying the map was a great pity, but he had already engraved the Wasteland's geography deep in his mind and would not forget it.

Before long the river's surface abruptly turned pale red.

Shen Mu started slightly and looked upstream, and saw that the water surging toward him was redder still than what lay downstream! "Young Master, there are corpses on the river!

" Snow Fox cried out suddenly.

Shen Mu saw the corpse too, but made no sound. He looked upstream and saw more corpses drifting toward them. Great fish lurked below, river beasts churning at the surface, throwing up sheets of spray and seizing the chance to feed on the bodies -- a great clamor of it.

Shen Mu opened his Heaven-Reaching Eye and saw the face of a head bobbing up and down in the water. His body gave a slight shudder: these corpses were none other than the travelers who had passed through Green Cloud Valley earlier!

The river rolled on, its blood color deeper, and even the floating ice was stained red.

A hundred corpses could not have done this!

The Surging River is vast, more than ten li across, its waters swift and fierce; the blood of a hundred or so people could not redden it.

Shen Mu's expression froze: he saw the tide of corpses pouring down from upstream!

Not merely a tide of corpses -- a tide of ice-corpses, over a thousand bodies mixed with blocks of floating ice!

These people must all have been the powerful ones who lay in ambush for that general. Their numbers were great; they had gone upstream in batches, meaning to set formations and lie in wait, and the general had cut them down!

That they formed an ice-corpse tide meant their deaths had come nearly at the same moment!

They died almost simultaneously, slain by that general or by the masters aboard the tower ship!

Shen Mu steadied himself. This was the first time he had seen such a hideous slaughter -- grimmer even than the day he followed Granny Zhu out to another village to deliver a baby, and came upon a village put to the sword.

In those years the sight had frightened his soul right out of his body, and Granny Zhu had snatched it back. Now, though he was a martial artist, the sight still shook his soul.

Too cruel.

The young general of Jingping was so powerful, so ruthless. If Jingping's iron cavalry came to the Wasteland, what a blow would it deal to this wild land?

Shen Mu shook his head to drive out the unease and said to Snow Fox, "Don't go out drinking these days, and tell your sisters to keep quiet and stay indoors. " Snow Fox nodded again and again.

Though she was a demon, the scene before her had frightened her too.

"Ling'er, go back first and find your sisters.

I'll go down and take a look, lest these corpses pile up into a lake dammed by a thousand dead! " With that Shen Mu leapt down, ran along the cliff wall all the way to the river below, and then went striding over the water.

The corpses and the floating ice gathered more ice as they passed, rolling on downstream.

Shen Mu soon caught up with the ice-corpse tide and saw it growing larger and larger, ice crashing against ice with a crack-crack, the corpses squeezed by the ice into severed limbs and broken arms that floated atop the floes. He ran along the river for several tens of li, and the floating ice on the surface had already become an iceberg, hung with mutilated corpses -- a terrible sight. The ice tide and the iceberg grew heavier and higher, moving slowly; even the water surging down was blocked, and the river behind rose higher and higher. Shen Mu frowned.

The Surging River still ran straight now, but when it reached the oasis where Sang'e was, the river turned; the floating ice would not get through and would jam there, forming a barrier lake. The water would pile up higher and higher, and the ice too, until at last it stood a hundred zhang high, heaped up there!

And when the ice tide and the iceberg could bear no more, they would collapse and shatter, and a great flood would sweep away everything, devouring all along its path; man and beast alike would be carried off by the flood! Many of the Wasteland's villages were built by the river, the better to travel.