Tales of Herding Gods

On that night, when it was silent, He Yiyi heard knocking on the window and grew flustered. She hurriedly opened the window and saw Qin Mu behind it with a smile. “Sister Yiyi, I climbed here only after making sure that no one was around.”

He Yiyi’s heart throbbed violently at the sight of her lover under the candlelight. Her heart became like a frisky monkey, and mind like a cantering horse.

And then, both of them talked about formation skills the whole night.

Before the sun was about to rise, Qin Mu secretly slipped out through the window, since he knew it was the rule of West Earth. Those who went for visiting marriage couldn’t meet the woman’s family.

But Qin Mu didn’t even manage to get downstairs before meeting a couple women who had woken up early. They immediately turned their heads away and acted as if they didn’t see anything. Only after Qin Mu had walked a distance away, did they laugh softly.

When the sun was high up in the sky, He Yiyi was reluctant to part with Qin Mu and send him out of Sword River Valley. “Just our He Family alone is not enough to do anything against True Heaven Palace, so Cult Master should go and see Poison Master. I’ll meet the other heads of influential families in West Earth to discuss this major event together.”

Qin Mu bade her farewell and left.

He Yiyi saw him off with some disappointment.

A girl at her side laughed softly. “Did sister do it with Brother-in-Law Qin? Quite a few people saw him climbing through the window and some also saw him climbing downstairs in the morning.”

He Yiyi was sleepy-eyed and her vigor seemed to be lacking. She said angrily, “Do what? We talked about formation skills the whole night.”

Other girls came up and chattered with smiles. “Talk about formation skills, is that your excuse? The night was long yesterday and you were naturally like a pair of mandarin ducks flying together!”

He Yiyi ground her teeth so much they made a noise.

The girls jumped in shock. “You really talked about formation skills the whole night with brother-in-law?”

He Yiyi looked at them helplessly. “He was so excited, so what could I do? Force him? Does He Family still want face? If I really used force, wouldn’t we wreck the whole place with our fight and tear down this Bamboo City?

“I could only talk the whole night with him about formation skills, but luckily his knowledge and experience were extremely extraordinary. We sank into exploring the formation skills to the point that I forgot to show affection and simply thought that the night was too short. Thinking about it now, I feel we could have done something first before exploring the path of formations and exchanged pointers.”

The girls looked at one another in dismay. A man and a woman spent the night in one room and they really talked about formation skills the whole night? “Truly horrible… worse than a beast!”

“Then why is sister allowing Brother-in-Law Qin to go look for Poison Master, that little hussy?” one girl asked daringly. “If Mu Yingxue isn’t reserved like sister and snatches brother-in-law, what will you do?”

He Yiyi sneered at her. “Unless Lassie Mu uses force, everyone can forget about taking advantage of him. Ever since Lassie Mu lost to him, she couldn’t forget about him and her amorous feelings kept undulating. She always fights with me, so if she found out that I lost, she would definitely make fun of me. So why don’t I let her suffer a setback as well so it shuts her mouth?”

The girls greatly admired her words. “Sister is wise!”

Qin Mu brought Xiong Qi’er to the dragon qilin’s back, and they headed to Thunder Mountain City where Poison Master Mu Yingxue lived.

“Big brother, are we not going to True Heaven Palace?” Xiong Qi’er asked curiously.

“I planned to go there, but so far there has been no news of Imperial Preceptor and your mother. I suspect…” The corners of Qin Mu’s eyes twitched and he sneered. “Imperial Preceptor, that old schemer, hasn’t shown his face from beginning to the end, and now I see what he wants to do! He is definitely waiting for me to create a huge ruckus and attract the attention an the main force of True Heaven Palace.

“Then he will achieve victory amid the disorder! That old schemer… I knew there was something wrong about him personally running over to my Heavenly Saint Academy to invite your mother to West Earth before asking me to join as well.”

He raised his head and examined the surroundings. There were a couple of white clouds following them in the sky, and he immediately said to the dragon qilin. “Fatty Dragon, we are being watched again.”

The dragon qilin was frightened and immediately began to run faster.

The speed of the white clouds also suddenly increased, but after a moment, the dragon qilin left them in the dust.

Qin Mu noticed that not only were the white clouds chasing them, even the water of Sword River suddenly flowed in reverse. The waves moved like dragons, but they still couldn’t catch up to them.

Qin Mu looked with puzzlement at it. The divine arts practitioners were probably the strong practitioners of True Heaven Palace. Its tracking methods were indeed unmatched, and if they got seen, it would be hard for them to shake them off.

Yet how did Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor, that old schemer, had known that he would attract a lot of attention after he entered West Earth? Even pulling out True Heaven Palace’s forces?

He was clearly very low key and knew his place, so how did that schemer had known that he would become the biggest target of True Heaven Palace?

“Imperial Preceptor is an old fox…”

Qin Mu took a look at Xiong Qi’er and instantly knew who was the real target.

According to his understanding gained in the past couple of days, West Earth placed great importance on the little princess, and True Heaven Palace needed to have one to sit firmly in its seat. Since Qin Mu was bringing along Xiong Qi’er, the little princess, with him, how could it not make him the biggest target?

Xiong Xiyu was nothing to worry about while Xiong Qi’er was the target of True Heaven Palace Master!

In the past, the target Yu Bochuan had pursued wasn’t Xiong Xiyu, but Xiong Qi’er!

Qin Mu still remembered why he had saved Xiong Xiyu and her daughter. It was because when he saw Yu Bochuan bullying a four-five-year-old girl like Xiong Qi’er, he really couldn’t bear to watch it and risked his life to save them.

But when he thought of it now, Yu Bochuan had wanted to kill Xiong Qi’er not without a reason.

‘Why does True Heaven Palace place such importance on a little princess?’

He couldn’t help feeling bewildered and squatted down. He grabbed Xiong Qi’er’s shoulders and flipped her around a few times, but he didn’t see anything special about her. This made him even more puzzled.

Nai Kui was True Heaven Palace Master, and the title’s meaning was the mother of the princess, while the father was called Ba Gou. These two names originated from the little princess, which showed how high True Heaven Palace valued the little princess. There had to be a reason for that!

Xiong Qi’er looked at him with her big eyes blinking innocently. She didn’t look like she had any special ability.

Suddenly, Qin Mu focused on her little backpack and was stunned for a moment. Xiong Qi’er had always carried it with her, all the way from Heavenly Saint Academy to there. He had always thought that it held her clothes and didn’t pay any attention to it.

Now, he was curious about that small backpack.

“Qi’er, what do you have in that backpack of yours?” Qin Mu asked.

Xiong Qi’er took it down and opened it up, causing green light to shower Qin Mu’s face.

He sighed. “As expected. Imperial Preceptor, that old schemer…”

The Green Dragon Bead lay quietly in the girl’s backpack. It was green like jade as well as sparkling and translucent. A dragon soul gently swam inside it.

When Qin Mu grabbed the dragon bead, the dragon’s soul looked at him with disdain, but when he let Xiong Qi’er touch it, the green dragon’s soul looked at her with friendliness. It gently touched her hand from within the bead.

“The innocence of the child is the best material to cultivate Ten Thousand Spirit Nature Technique.”

Qin Mu sighed ruefully. The reason why True Heaven Palace needed a little princess was mainly because of her innocence. Without any impure thoughts, she would be able to control a treasure like Green Dragon Bead and unleash its power to the extreme.

In True Heaven Palace, there were three more treasures which represented Black Tortoise, Vermillion Bird, and White Tiger. The person who could unleash the power of all those treasures would only be the little princess of True Heaven Palace!

The most powerful person in that sacred ground was never Nai Kui or the other strong practitioners. It was the little princess which was without the strength to truss a chicken.

Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor and Xiong Xiyu had gone first to West Earth, but leaving Green Dragon Bead to Xiong Qi’er would have definitely not been Xiong Xiyu’s idea, but that of Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor.

Xiong Xiyu felt that Imperial Preceptor was unreliable, so she asked Qin Mu to bring Xiong Qi’er with him. Never would she have expected that she would fall for Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor’s scheme and let Qin Mu and Xiong Qi’er become the targets of True Heaven Palace. Meanwhile, Imperial Preceptor and her could borrow the cover provided by them and execute their plans in secret.

‘Imperial Preceptor needs a smack on the ass. He is a heavenly king of my Heavenly Saint Cult, so how does he dare to scheme even against his own cult master.’

Qin Mu sighed and roused his spirit. At that moment, the dragon qilin suddenly stopped and said, “Cult Master, there’s something.”

Qin Mu looked forward and saw mountains stretching into the distance. Black coffins hung off the cliffs. They nearly covered them whole, making the whole mountain body black.

He quickly counted the coffins and realized that they numbered somewhere around three to five thousand.

“This is… a corpse raising ground!”

He opened Cinnabar Heaven’s Eyes to look and instantly saw sinister wind blowing in waves while dark clouds shrouded the mountains.

The place was indeed suitable to raise corpses.

According to the geographic map of West Earth, they were in Lower County which was about eight hundred miles from Thunder Mountain City. Lower County was the territory of West Earth’s Liu Family.

‘This corpse raising ground is in the territory of Liu Family? Does that means they’re its owners?’

Qin Mu suddenly remembered that corpses had no spirit nor soul, so wouldn’t they be a good material for West Earth’s divine arts practitioner to awaken spirit? The bodies of divine arts practitioners had been through the vicissitudes of life and far surpassed spirit weapons in power. On top of that, they had four limbs and may even be able to execute divine arts in battle, so they might be even more useful than spirit weapons.

“Rise and get rich!”

Suddenly, a shout could be heard, and Qin Mu looked toward the source of it. He saw a few men with embroidered headbands chanting phrases while executing divine arts of West Earth. A black coffin suddenly grew legs and pushed itself off the cliff as though it was flying, then laded with a thump.

Creak.

The coffin opened up and a woman hopped out. Her neck turned around stiffly, and she looked at Qin Mu. “Are you perhaps Heavenly Devil Cult Master from Middle Earth?”

Qin Mu was astonished. He actually couldn’t tell if the woman from the coffin was dead or alive. “That’s me. May I ask who you are?”

“Liu Ruyin of Liu Family.”

The woman landed on the ground. “I’ve heard that Cult Master has brought the little princess to West Earth. Where is she?”

Qin Mu raised Xiong Qi’er’s hand and smiled. “The little princess is right here.”

Liu Ruyin looked at Xiong Qi’er, and the light in her eyes shone brightly. The smell of decay instantly torrented into the sky, and numerous black coffins grew legs to sprint down the cliffs. There were even coffins floating in the sky which creaked loudly as they opened up. Numerous ‘corpses’ whose state of being Qin Mu couldn’t determine sat up and rushed at Xiong Qi’er!

Qin Mu stretched his hand and took out Green Dragon Bead from the girl’s small backpack and stuff it into her hands while saying indifferently, “Liu Ruyin, your Liu Family seems to have ill intentions eh.”

When Liu Ruyin saw the Green Dragon Bead, she couldn’t help covering her face and giving off a miserable shriek which was filled with terror. “Don’t be reckless!”