Chapter 16 — Deep in the Old Temple a Young Girl Hides

Behind the jade pendant lay a pair of eyes, bright and limpid as spring water. Shen Mu was only eleven, yet he already understood a great many things.

Once he had gone with Granny Zhu to another village, where a woman was about to give birth. The delivery went smoothly, and the sight of that family of three, so loving together, moved him deeply.

So Shen Mu asked Granny Zhu how he himself had been born, and where his father and mother were. Granny Zhu could not answer, and had no choice but to tell him that he had been picked up, and that when they found him, this jade pendant had been hanging at his neck.

And so Shen Mu treasured the pendant greatly, hoping that one day it would lead him to his parents, so that he might ask them why they had thrown him away.

After a long while, the boy put the pendant away, hanging it at his chest as before, his face calm, the strange thing that had just happened to it buried deep in his heart. Behind him, Granny Zhu returned to her room as well.

The next day, Grandpa Ma, the Blind Elder, the Lame Elder, and the Mute went out hunting again, bringing back more spirit beasts to be refined into blood that would build Shen Mu up. Within a few hundred li around, the four spirit beasts had been all but cleaned out by those four villains, until the four of them had no choice but to travel farther afield to catch any.

The Headman could scarcely move about; the Alchemist was forever out gathering herbs; the Butcher despised the world and flew into rages from time to time; and the Hard-of-Hearing Elder cared for nothing but painting and calligraphy. In the ordinary run of days, the only one who could keep Shen Mu company as he trained was Granny Zhu.

But Granny Zhu was often away from the village too. She was a seamstress and a midwife both, and the villages roundabout were forever calling on her to make clothes, and now and then to deliver a child.

That day Granny Zhu had gone out at dawn, and the Alchemist had gone out for herbs as well. The Butcher and the Hard-of-Hearing Elder carried the Headman out and set him down at the village gate as usual — the one practiced his demon blade, the other painted.

Shen Mu, bored to death, went off alone to the riverbank. Ever since the milk cow had turned into a woman and been stabbed to death by the Lame Elder, there had been much less for him to do.

At the water's edge, the boy drew a long breath; his chest swelled up as though being inflated, fuller and fuller, then his vital essence began to circulate, and his chest slowly deflated again.

He did not let the breath out. Instead he let his vital essence nourish his lungs, making them extraordinarily tough, and compressed the air within them, from full measure down to a single tenth.

Shen Mu kept drawing breath, and still his chest did not swell. He drew until he reached his limit; then the boy paused, and shot out a step like an arrow loosed from the string.

On the river's face, two wakes parted to either side, and between them Shen Mu ran upon the water, hurtling forward at breakneck speed.

Suddenly a blade-light kindled upon the river. Running, he drew the hog-butchering knife; the blade flashed and whirled up and down like a flood dragon. That was the Butcher's blade art.

A blade art is like the man: the Butcher's hog-slaughtering blade carried all his contempt for the world, a wild, overbearing spirit that bowed to neither heaven nor earth. The blade-light rolled and churned, crushing its way across the river's face.

Then all at once the blade-light snapped shut. Shen Mu slung the hog-butchering knife back behind him, and instead brought out Grandpa Ma's fist art: vital essence coursing to both arms, gathering at the tips of his fingers, his fingers curling into fists, his body like the long river rushing to the sea, bearing the highland torrents to smash through the empty sky, unending, inexhaustible.

First stance of the Eight Thunderclaps: Alone on the Eastern Sea, Gripping the Spring Thunder!

He struck out fist after fist, and in his mind rose the image of the great river surging, its waves roaring like thunder, plunging into the sea — and before he knew it, that same realm had entered his fists.

His fist suddenly opened wide, the five fingers and the palm shuddering hard; the air before his palm was violently compressed and then exploded, blowing the river's surface into a spray of water.

"Still no good. I can't manage the palm-thunder."

Shen Mu was somewhat disappointed. Even the lowest level of Grandpa Ma's Eight Thunderclaps required palm-thunder — one fist, one palm, bursting with the crack of thunder, not merely soul-shaking but terrifying in its power.

And to cultivate it to the higher levels was a divine art, the command of thunder — far, far beyond anything he could reach now.

Still running, he took a bamboo staff from his back, its tip stabbing and dotting — and what he performed was no ordinary staff art, but spear art. He had learned the staff from the Blind Elder, and the Blind Elder's staff art was spear art: the great spear like a raging dragon lashing the river, curling, dotting, thrusting, lifting, each stroke accompanied by the water heaving and turning with the bamboo staff.

Shen Mu put the staff back behind him, and took from his back a great iron hammer, performing the hammer art the mute blacksmith had taught him. That hammer art was plain and clumsy, its force immense, ponderous beyond words — the exact opposite pole to Shen Mu's swiftness as he ran.

After a long while, he felt his vital essence running a little short, his body wearying, his strength nearly spent; only then did he look around, and saw that he had left Yincan Village far behind and come a hundred li or more downstream.

"I ran that far without even noticing?"

Shen Mu saw a green islet in the middle of the river, the current surging past on either side. His heart stirred, and at once he dashed toward it.

A moment later his feet struck solid ground, and he stepped onto the islet.

The islet was not large — like a little hill in the river's heart, a li or so across either way, standing some forty zhang above the water, thick with grass and trees.

In the dense woods there was no birdsong at all, only the clatter and rush of water; and not far ahead of Shen Mu a temple hid among the trees, showing a broken wall.

Shen Mu walked up to it. The temple was ruined, long unrepaired, cobwebs everywhere — but it would do well enough for a rest.

He halted before the gate. One of the doors had fallen; inside all was dim, yet he could still make out a great Buddha standing in the hall, its image covered in gold foil that gave off a golden gleam.

But no one had come here for a very long time. Much of the gold foil had peeled away, exposing the bronze beneath, and on the bronze were written strange characters, twisted and crooked as though made of tadpoles.

And around the Buddha's body ran great thick chains. These chains bound the Buddha, and Shen Mu saw at once that they stretched out from the little temple, all the way to the islet's shore and down into the waters of the Yong River.

"Strange. Why would these chains bind this great Buddha...? Blind Grandpa says that when you enter a temple you burn incense — that's the rule. I haven't brought any incense, so I can only rest outside the gate."

Shen Mu cleared his throat and bowed to the temple: "This humble one is a man of Yincan Village; my home stands by the river. Passing by your honored temple, I would borrow this fine place to rest a while. That I have disturbed its master troubles my heart."

He hesitated, then went on with the speech the Blind Elder had taught him: "This humble one has been weak in the kidneys and frail since childhood, his primal yang long since leaked away. If there be any fairy sister in this temple, do not come to do me harm."