Chapter 52 — Waiting for a Good Price
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
" Grandmother Zhu said bitterly, "I killed him. I had no face to stay in the Nether Demon Cult. To remain there would only have deepened my inner demon. " The Alchemist still could not quite understand.
To him, it was already hard enough to grasp that the Nether Demon Cult had spent forty years waiting and searching for the murderer of their Cult Leader to make her their new leader; that Grandmother Zhu should actually hide from it and avoid it was harder still. The headman smiled slightly and said to the young Patriarch, "If the old woman is unwilling to go with you, you cannot take her.
" The young Patriarch frowned.
"I mean to take both the Cult Leader's widow and the Great Nurturing Nether Demon Sutra.
" The two men looked at each other. The headman raised his tea to see off his guest. "If the guest will not leave, then the guest must be destroyed.
The Nether Demon Cult has too many people — we shall not trouble ourselves with coffins. Of the men of our generation, fewer and fewer remain.
It truly pains me. " The young Patriarch raised his cup, drained it in one tilt, set it down, and rose to his feet. "As it pains me. But your village has few people.
I can arrange coffins. " "Wait!
" Grandmother Zhu spoke suddenly, smiling. "Headman, Alchemist, take the boy back to the village first.
I will have a talk with the Patriarch.
If we cannot agree, then we shall fight to the death. If we can agree, everyone is happy — surely that is a fine thing? " The headman shot her a glance. Grandmother Zhu smiled.
"Rest easy. At worst they carry me off. " The headman nodded.
"Alchemist, boy, let us return to the village first.
" Only after they had gone back to the village did Grandmother Zhu sit down before the young Patriarch and say, "Withdraw, enforcer. " "Yes, Madam. " The Elder of Punishments bowed and slowly withdrew. Grandmother Zhu's eyes shone brilliantly as she looked at the young Patriarch across from her.
He sighed. "You were once our Holy Maiden; in talent and grace you were peerless.
When Fan Xuanshu wished to marry you, I was in fact opposed to it.
" "Yet you did not stop him. " Grandmother Zhu smiled.
"Fan Xuanshu was my master.
A master taking his disciple as wife violates all human decency.
Our Holy Cult calls itself holy — are we to cast aside human decency as well? " The young Patriarch frowned. "When Fan Xuanshu took you as a disciple, I knew it was wrong. Day and night in your company, I feared he would be utterly bewitched by you and lose his reason.
And bewitched he was — he even cast off his old wife of several hundred years of marriage to take you as his new wife.
" Grandmother Zhu ground the few remaining teeth in her mouth and cackled. "You knew he would be bewitched by me — so why let him take me as a disciple? Patriarch, you should have taken me as your disciple!
Had I been your disciple, none of what followed would ever have happened! " "I feared that in your daily company I would be bewitched by you. " The young Patriarch smiled bitterly. "The first time I saw you, you were only thirteen, yet my heart gave a few violent throbs. Even then I knew I could not take you as a disciple.
I was already old; I did not want a lifetime's fame ruined in your hands. A master falling in love with his disciple — I would be laughed at by all. " He sighed. "Few who have seen your true face escape being bewitched by you.
The longer they stay near you, the deeper the enchantment.
" Grandmother Zhu kept grinding her teeth, half smiling, half not. "That being so, why did you still make me Cult Leader? Were you not afraid I would ruin the Holy Cult? " The young Patriarch said, "You were the best candidate. I too thought you rather a beauty who brings calamity, and that as Cult Leader you would only set our Holy Cult to flying into chaos.
But in forty years of wandering we found a few boys and girls of outstanding talent, and not one matched you. To become Cult Leader, they always fell a hair short.