Chapter 7 — A Wall at the Brow Seals the Spirit Fetus

The underworld ape flew into a fury. It sprang up and gave chase to Shen Mu, but after a few strides its body proved too heavy, and its speed fell far short of his. Maddened beyond measure, the beast reached out and tore up one great tree after another; a single pass of its hand stripped each trunk clean of branch and leaf, leaving a spear of immense size, which the ape flung out with a flick of its wrist. "Little runt, die!" The blow carried full force, full savagery, terrifying speed — only its aim was somewhat lacking, and it shot past more than ten zhang wide of Shen Mu. The ape grew even more furious. It stripped another tree and made to hurl again, but Shen Mu had already run far off, and it could only beat its chest in helpless rage. Senior Brother Qu said in a low voice: "That little fiend's cultivation is far below ours. His wounds must be worse than mine. He cannot go far." He forced himself to rise, but gave a stifled groan; his chest hurt so badly that he feared many of his ribs had been cracked by the ape's blow. Yet if even a little fiend like Shen Mu could withstand the ape's savage strike, then surely he could hold out too. What he did not realize was that Shen Mu's cultivation was not weak at all — not in the least; it was only that his vital qi had no attribute, and so its power could not be brought out. If one truly measured cultivation, Shen Mu, young as he was, was no weaker than any of them, Senior Brother Qu included. The five skirted the ape's territory and again picked up Shen Mu's trail. It was indeed as Senior Brother Qu had said: Shen Mu had been wounded by the ape, and badly. Once he fled the ape's territory he had been forced to slow down, which gave them their chance to close in. But as they pressed the chase, they found that his speed kept rising, as though his wounds were steadily healing. "That little fiend must have some wondrous medicine for wounds!" The five grew heavy of heart. Senior Brother Qu had already taken his own sect's wound medicine, yet its effect was nothing like that of Shen Mu's "medicine." Judging by how fast his speed climbed, his wounds must be healing at a rate visible to the naked eye. Such medicine set all five of them burning with envy. "Our sect's wound medicine is hardly of the highest grade. If we could get the recipe for a superior wound medicine from this little fiend, Master and the elders would surely be delighted and reward us richly!" At that moment, however, Shen Mu was not taking any wound medicine as they supposed. He was running while breathing in and out, circulating what the village headman had taught him as the Profound Body Three Elixirs Art — which was in truth the most ordinary of qi-guiding arts, though he did not know it. This time, driving the Profound Body Three Elixirs Art while fleeing at a run, Shen Mu made a new discovery: his vital qi was livelier when he ran, and circulated faster. But this differed from what the headman had taught. In teaching him the Profound Body Three Elixirs Art, the headman had always required him to sit in stillness, regulate his breath, inhale and exhale slowly, gently nourish his vital qi, move it through its courses, and use it to moisten and nourish the body. Shen Mu had cultivated for some ten years, always practicing the art as the headman taught, and only now discovered that it might work better when practiced on the run. At a full sprint, the Profound Body Three Elixirs Art ran faster, nourished his vital qi faster, and moistened his body far faster too. More than that, wave upon wave of vital qi scoured his five viscera and six bowels, scoured his four limbs and hundred bones, even scouring along the fascia between bone and muscle, again and again. The ape's palm had injured his organs and bones, but under that scouring of vital qi the cracks in them kept mending. Senior Brother Qu and the others thought he relied on a superior wound medicine; it never occurred to them that he relied on that unreliable "Profound Body Three Elixirs Art." Gradually Shen Mu discovered that in his body there was one place, in the fascia between bone and skin, that his vital qi could not reach: the space between his brows. The spot between his two brows, no more than a finger's width. At this place his vital qi could not reach. His vital qi could scour beneath the scalp and strengthen the skull, but whenever it came to the space between the brows it met with enormous obstruction, as though an invisible wall stood across the way, barring his vital qi's path. And when he drove his vital qi to strike that invisible wall, something stranger still happened: he heard a mysterious sound. It seemed to come from beyond the ninth heaven, high and distant, rising and falling, melodious and holy, like a god enthroned on high proclaiming a decree. And whenever the sound rang out, his vital qi slipped beyond his control, ebbing back like the tide and flowing around the space between his brows. "Could this be the spirit fetus wall?" Shen Mu did not understand. The village headman and Granny Zhu and the others had spoken to him of "walls" and "breaking walls." A wall was the seal on one of the body's many treasure houses; to break a wall was to open the seal and take the treasure. But the headman and Granny Zhu and the others had never told him where in the human body the spirit fetus wall lay, nor spoken of how to open it. What Shen Mu did not know was that it was not that the headman and Granny Zhu and the others were unwilling to tell him; it was that in all the world there was no art or method at all for breaking the spirit fetus wall. Ordinary people and spirit bodies were simply people of two different strata, two different classes. To be a spirit body was to have the spirit fetus wall open from birth, to be born a cut above. The spirit fetus wall of ordinary folk was sealed, and they were a cut below; the lofty spirit bodies seldom troubled themselves with the needs of ordinary people. Among ordinary people, martial artists were rare; as for an ordinary person who had opened the spirit fetus wall, even the headman and Granny Zhu had never heard of such a thing, and so of course they did not know how to break it. As Shen Mu ran, he roused his vital qi and hurled it again and again at that invisible wall between his brows. The mysterious sound kept ringing out, making his vital qi retreat of itself. Each time he failed to break the wall, but he had patience to spare, and he firmly believed that sooner or later he would succeed. He did not intend to tell the headman and the others of what he had discovered today about the Profound Body Three Elixirs Art. He meant to wait until he had broken the wall, and then give them a surprise. Whether it would be more of a surprise or more of a shock for the headman and the others, however, was hard to say. The more Senior Brother Qu and the other four chased, the more anxious they became. The "little fiend" ahead of them was not merely healing his wounds — his speed had actually increased beyond what it had been. That was terrifying, for it meant that Shen Mu's cultivation was growing even as he fled. Slow though the growth was, it was already frightening enough. Everyone cultivated step by step; even after breaking a wall, one's cultivation advanced gradually — no one grew fat on a single mouthful. Who did not cultivate with perseverance for tens of days, months, even years, before seeing any progress? Yet this "little fiend," even while fleeing, showed a cultivation that was plainly rising. That was truly terrifying. Fortunately, Shen Mu had been weaker than them to begin with, and though he was rising now, there was still a gap between him and them. Still, catching him was no easy matter. Ever since he had been caught out once, he had grown far more cautious, and would avoid the territories of the strange beasts as he ran. When the pill master took him out to gather herbs, he had told him that the strange beasts of the Ba