Chapter 3 — Fists Rise with Thunder, a First Glimpse of Divine Might

Shen Mu steadied himself. The skills Master Huo and Grandpa Tu were passing on to him today were different from anything before. In the past they had always set him to practicing blade-work and fist-work; this time both of them had spoken the same word.

Divine ability!

The word was strange to him. It was the first time he had ever heard it.

Shen Mu unleashed the Eight Thunderclap Arts and attacked Master Huo. One-armed as he was, Master Huo blocked every strike with casual ease, without the least effort. Unlike the Butcher, who seemed mad yet was always measured in his exchanges with Shen Mu and had never once hurt him, Master Huo showed no mercy. The moment Shen Mu's stance left an opening, a fist came at him. The blows were light, but soon Shen Mu's face was bruised and swollen.

Only when Shen Mu could not go on did Master Huo let him rest.

"The leg is wind, is earth, is the root of strength."

Lame Weng leaned on his crutch. He had only one leg left, and yet he was the one who taught Shen Mu leg-work. Once Shen Mu had thought Grandpa Lame Weng the most normal person in the village, always smiling that simple, artless smile, giving a man the feeling he was utterly dependable.

But ever since Lame Weng had smiled his simple, artless smile and stabbed to death the woman crawling out of the ox hide by the river, Shen Mu had stopped being quite so sure.

Lame Weng's smile was a smile with a knife hidden in it. No one knew whether the smile was real or false.

Smiling, he said to Shen Mu: "Shen'er, the Butcher brags of his blade and Master Huo brags of his fist, but the true divine ability is the leg. You cannot cut your enemy down and you cannot win the fight. What then? You run, of course. Your life matters above all! Life is not only poetry and distant places, you know. There is also the grubby business of getting by. So to live is to win! Run fast enough, and you can race along a wall, race across the water, race even through the sky! Run fast enough, and everything is flat ground, fire and air, all of it flat ground! When you run so fast that sound itself cannot chase you down from behind, then you will have begun to master the divine ability of the leg. Shen'er, come. Onto the iron ingots."