Chapter 1 — Dusk Seals the Village, Do Not Enter the Wild Night
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 4 of 4
Now something's happened. I told you drinking milk until four would make you attached to a cow. " Qin Mu flushed; being weaned at four was indeed a bit late, but that did not seem to be the real point.
"Grandma, that woman was killed by Grandpa Lame.
. . " "Killed well. " Granny Zhu laughed. "That was letting her off easy. She ought to have died eleven years ago.
If she had not been needed to nurse you, could she have lived until now? " Qin Mu did not understand.
Granny Zhu glanced at him and said, "This woman was the lady of Crimson Dragon City's lord, a thousand li from here.
The lord was lustful, and she was jealous; the lord liked to philander and carry off innocent women.
Every time the lord defiled a woman, the lady would send someone to beat that woman to death. I slipped into Crimson Dragon City, originally planning to kill her; but I saw she had just borne a child, only three months old, and I remembered that you had no milk to drink while she had milk.
So I turned her into a dairy cow and brought her back to nurse you.
I never imagined the woman could break the seal and speak, nearly costing you your life. " Qin Mu was dumbfounded and cried, "Grandma, how can a person become a cow? " Granny Zhu cackled, showing half a mouthful of broken teeth. "Want to learn? I'll teach you. . . Lame Weng is back! " Qin Mu looked and saw Lame Weng, one hand on a cane and the other holding the game on his back, hobbling toward them. Darkness was rushing toward the village like a tide, and Granny Zhu hurriedly called, "Damned Lame Weng, hurry, hurry!
" "What's the rush?
" Lame Weng still took his time walking into the village; in the very moment he crossed the boundary, the dense darkness engulfed the village. The game on his back was a striped tiger, not yet dead; its tail was caught by the darkness, and suddenly the tiger let out a mournful roar.
Qin Mu looked over quickly and saw that the tiger's tail had become nothing but a string of bones; the fur, skin, and flesh were all gone, as if gnawed off by something. He peered curiously at the darkness outside the village—a black, murky expanse where nothing could be seen. "What exactly is in the darkness? " he wondered.