Chapter 18 — The Youth of the Barren Ruins Is No Good Sort

Darkness crashed over Shen Mu's eyes. When awareness returned, he was aghast to discover that his consciousness had somehow taken up residence inside the stone statue! "What happened?" He opened his eyes and tried to roll his eyeballs, only to find with a jolt that "his" eyes would turn. He tilted his head, and found that his consciousness had grown a head. He looked down and saw that he and the "stone statue" had fused into one: the statue's arms and legs had become his own! Consciousness is formless, yet now his had taken on a shape. The whole thing was far too strange for comfort. He sensed that this "stone statue" was some kind of spirit: part energy yet not energy, part soul yet not soul, queer past all reckoning, impossible to explain in clear words. "The Divine Court of the Spirit-Soul... the Divine Court of the Spirit-Soul... Could it be that the statue is my spirit embryo, and that my consciousness had to enter it before the embryo could awake? Is this what the Divine Court of the Spirit-Soul means?" Shen Mu's spirit embryo blinked, and in that single instant a great many things became clear. The human body hides seven great divine repositories, and the Divine Court of the Spirit-Soul is the first of them. That repository, however, is sealed; ordinary people cannot open it, and so naturally they cannot wake the spirit embryo within. The repositories of a spirit body, by contrast, stand open by their very nature, so all one needs is the matching spirit blood to guide one's consciousness into the embryo along with it and rouse it to life. The spirit embryo: this is the vessel that houses consciousness. The divine repositories: could it be that the gods never bestowed the spirit embryo upon mankind, but deliberately sealed it away? No sooner had he thought this than a surge of primordial energy came flooding in from outside and poured into the sea of light. Thread by thread it was drawn into the little spirit embryo's body, wisps of it drawn in and breathed out at his nostrils, a thoroughly pleasant sensation. And with every breath the embryo drew, his primordial energy grew that much purer. More than that: Shen Mu found the spirit embryo drinking in the golden light of the sea of light as well, the gold passing in and out of him along with the energy, speckling it with motes of gold whose purpose he could not guess. He tried to make the spirit embryo stand, but the tiny infant could not rise, let alone move. "How is a spirit embryo supposed to move? Hmm, I will ask the village headman and Granny once I get back." While he was still thinking, his consciousness snapped back into his body and he opened his eyes. A racking cough was coming from the temple: the monster had not died. It lay sprawled before the Buddha statue, coughing blood, spewing great mouthfuls of it into the air. Shen Mu considered a moment, then stepped through the temple door. Seeing him walk into the ruined shrine, the monster hardly knew whether to quake or rejoice, and scrambled to struggle upright. Shen Mu strode toward it, chanting as he came: "Kikedo Samaya! Prajna, Prajna, Samaya! Kikedo, Prajna, Samaya!" "Abomination, you still dare presume!" The monster's blood ran cold. Behind it the golden Buddha began to sway again, blazing with light; the chains clanged and rattled, wrenching it down onto its knees once more! "Om mani padme hum!" The Buddha's voice roared, and the monster was refined until it vomited blood, all but spent. Shen Mu broke off his demonic chanting, and the golden Buddha's voice, having sounded for only a single line, fell silent too. Panting heavily beneath the statue, the monster was gathering itself to rise when demonic syllables issued from Shen Mu's lips again. It shrieked and dove behind the statue, only to find that Shen Mu had uttered a syllable or two and then stopped. "You are a demon..." The monster poked its head out timidly, staring in terror at Shen Mu as he walked into the great hall, its voice hoarse: "You are the demon! You are a fiend of the blackest malice!" Shen Mu made no answer. He walked straight up to the Buddha statue, hesitated a moment, and finally decided to follow the blind old fellow's seasoned advice, saying with elaborate respect: "This lowly youth has been frail and sickly since childhood, his kidneys weak, his original yang leaking before its time..." Hearing this, the monster's eyes bulged round as saucers; it laughed in wheezing, blood-choked huffs between coughs: "Young lad, you recite your kidney deficiency and your frailty to a Buddha statue? The statue is not about to harvest and devour you!" Shen Mu shot it a glare: "Kikedo Samaya..." The statue shook: "Abomination!" The monster's soul fled to the heavens; it begged for mercy at once, crying: "Stop chanting! Spare my life!" Shen Mu fell silent, though the golden Buddha still got out one more mantra, refining the monster to the point of vomiting blood. Shen Mu looked the place over and found nothing of value, though the mountain of white bones heaped behind the statue gave him a start. Lord knows how many people had died in this wrecked temple, killed by the creature. The lad could not help shaking his head: "Bones hidden behind a Buddha statue; the statue has become your accomplice, shielding your crimes so that more souls walk into the trap. If I were to have the statue refine you to death, it would only count as merit for the statue. I will not do it. Monster, what treasures does this temple of yours hold?" The monster, trembling, said: "What treasures could I have? I was suppressed here by a thieving monk; he scraped away every treasure I had." "Kikedo..." "Don't chant!" The monster forced an ingratiating smile. "All these years I have kept house here, and aside from an occasional indulgence of the tongue I have gathered a few decent things. You may have them." With that it struggled to its feet and lurched up to the roof of the hall, where it gave a gentle poke. A concealed panel in the ceiling swung open. What tumbled out of it, clattering down, was all manner of weapons, armor and the like, and among them a few garments, mostly women's belly bands, though from the fabric they were plainly clothes only the wealthy could afford. "That is all there is," the monster said with an apologetic grin. Shen Mu frowned, disappointed. "That is all? Nothing like a miraculous elixir?" "If there were elixirs, I would have eaten them long ago." The monster stretched its centipede's body, joints crackling, and chuckled with a rasp: "I have been locked up here too long; I wanted to eat everything. Elixir pills taste even better than these people do, how could I let them slip by? Do not look down on these weapons; every one of them is a fine thing. They are treasures born within the Sixfold Divine Repository, nourished from birth by their own primordial energy, terrifying in power. They are called primordial-essence divine arms." Half-believing, half-doubting, Shen Mu reached down and picked up a goose-wing saber. Its weight was shocking, dead and heavy in his hand, far heavier than the butcher knife on his back. Yet oddly, the butcher knife was many times the size of this plain-looking blade, and lighter. The goose-wing saber was long and narrow; the butcher knife, broad and thick. Shen Mu drew the butcher knife and tapped it lightly against the goose-wing saber. There was a single clear clang, and the saber snapped in two, its point falling to the floor. The monster's eyes stuck wide open. It stared dumbly at the butcher knife in his hand and could not find a word. Utterly disappointed, Shen Mu tossed the broken saber aside. "Who forged that knife of yours, the one like a chopping block?" The monster yelped, stammering: "A primordial-essence divine arm, nurtured by a master of the Sixfold realm, and it breaks at a touch! A knife like a chopping block, no ordinary person could have forged it!" Shen Mu ran his fingers along the butcher knife. The blade was cold, a chill dri