Chapter 23 — A Youth of the Desolate Village Touches Divine Might

Shen Mu was shaken to the core. "Carrying a stone statue on your back — that is the same as carrying a god?" The Blind Elder said mildly, "To walk bearing a god upon your back, its weight is beyond compare. Back then, when Granny Zhu and the others were trying to save you, Old Man Ma carried one of the stone statues on his back and brought Granny all the way to the riverbank. A stretch of road that short, and even a man of Old Man Ma's strength was nearly broken by it." Shen Mu's scalp prickled. Were the stone statues in this village truly so ponderous? Then who had carved them? And what god was carved upon them? Why should carving them in that likeness make them so impossibly heavy? When he was small he had climbed up on the statues to shit and piss — would the god resent him for that? "Set your mind at ease. The god who carved these idols died long ago. Mu'er, what I set before you is not the statue — it is your eye I am tempering. And what I set before you is no common block of stone, but an image a god made for gods!" The Blind Elder's voice was deafening, setting Shen Mu's eardrums ringing. He bellowed at a bamboo basket beside the stone statue, "Mu'er, the Nine Heavens Eye-Gazing Art opens the sacred pupil. And being a sacred pupil, it must needs behold gods! Behold them with your eyes — behold a god's momentum, a god's grace, a god's aura, a god's bearing, a god's divinity!" Shen Mu's spirit quaked. "Behold gods? Behold the god within the stone statue?" "Let your vital essence enter your eyes and open the first heaven of your mortal eyes!" The Blind Elder's bamboo staff tapped lightly at Shen Mu's solar plexus — and this time with uncanny precision. At once Shen Mu felt his vital essence surge and run, charging toward his eyes! To temper the eyes is a perilous business beyond all others. Shen Mu's vital essence had already begun to temper his body, refining away its impurities and its excess fat, but the eyes are the hardest place of all to refine, all but forbidden ground; one careless slip and a man is blind for life! Shen Mu had once asked the Village Headman how the eyes were tempered, but the Headman had said little, only warning him never to attempt it lightly. Yet here was the Blind Elder driving his vital essence to charge at his eyes, fierce and overbearing, defying every rule of sense! Shen Mu felt a drilling agony in both eyes as his vital essence poured into them in a vast flood. His cultivation of vital essence was exceedingly deep, yet beneath the terrifying depth of the Blind Elder's cultivation it was crushed thin as a thread. How large are a pair of eyes? Yet in that moment Shen Mu felt his eyes were immense beyond measure, vast as the heavens themselves! His vital essence was like a dragon: a colossal dragon entering eyes as vast as heaven — then bursting violently forth, vital essence surging up into the sky like a pillar propping apart heaven and earth, and then that rolling vital essence spread across the vault of heaven, tracing strange and wondrous patterns upon the dome, weaving into a net like the celestial order of the Dao, filling the whole sky. The agony of a moment before vanished in an instant, replaced by a comfort beyond words, a comfort such as he had never known. "Mu'er, remember the pattern in the sky. That is the first heaven of the Nine Heavens Eye-Gazing Art — the Divine Empyrean Heaven's Heavenly Dipper array patterns." The Blind Elder's voice came as though from beyond the sky, remote and infinitely distant. Shen Mu hurried to commit it to memory. With the Blind Elder driving his vital essence, the array patterns of the Divine Empyrean Heaven's Heavenly Dipper were laid out within his eyes, and he could see their flow, their structure, their every detail with perfect clarity — but the Heavenly Dipper array patterns were too intricate and too complex; memorizing them would take time. The Blind Elder urged his vital essence on again and again. After a long while, when Shen Mu's vital essence was all but spent, he finally drew the staff away from Shen Mu's solar plexus. "How much did you memorize?" the Blind Elder asked. "Six or seven parts in ten." The Blind Elder looked gratified. "In so short a time, six or seven parts in ten is no small feat. Restore your vital essence." Shen Mu broke into a run, urging on the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art to recover his vital essence swiftly. When his cultivation had climbed back to its peak, the Blind Elder said, "Stir the Heavenly Dipper array patterns I taught you, then look upon the stone statue again. See whether it differs from before." Shen Mu at once roused his vital essence into his eyes; his vital essence built the Divine Empyrean Heaven's Heavenly Dipper array patterns. He had learned only six or seven parts in ten, and they were incomplete — but with his vital essence coursing through his eyes, that cool comfort which could see through all things came over him once more. He raised his eyes to the statue of the dragon-headed elder before him, and his spirit quaked. The statue that had once seemed so ordinary in his eyes had in an instant blazed into dazzling color! As though it had come alive, as though it had become a deity towering over heaven and earth! He even saw faint halos bursting out all around it, thread upon thread of radiance setting off its sacred solemnity! In that instant his spirit was crushed beneath the statue. In his eyes the statue was no longer a statue, but a living god! That god's divinity, bearing, aura, grace, and momentum shattered his spirit, and next they would shatter his body, until his knees could not help but long to bow to the ground! "Keep looking. Do not close your eyes, and do not kneel." The Blind Elder said coldly, "When you were small you climbed up on that statue to shit and piss. As a child you dared such things — why, now that you are grown, should you kneel? Mu'er, the Nine Heavens Eye-Gazing Art does not merely open the eyes; it opens your spirit as well, that you may face the world's power and its malice head-on! A martial artist's strength lies not only in the might of his techniques — the strength of his spirit matters more! If your spirit is defeated by a heap of broken stones, then however mighty your martial power, you will accomplish nothing!" The Blind Elder stamped his bamboo staff on the ground and shouted, "If you contend with the statue, if you withstand the oppression it brings to bear, then your spirit too will grow strong! To make your strength great, first make your spirit great — be your own god, and fear nothing!" Cold sweat rolled down Shen Mu's forehead. He fought with all his might against the urge to kneel; the pressure the statue brought to bear was simply too strong, impossible to withstand. The Blind Elder spoke of fearing nothing, but fear nothing he could not. To have opened the eyes and not to have opened them were two wholly different things. Without opened eyes, the statue was an ordinary thing of stone; climbing up to shit and piss on it troubled him not at all. With opened eyes, the statue was a deity — and any act at all, even gazing upon it, was blasphemy! The Blind Elder said, "To break the gods in a ruined temple is easy; to break the god in your heart is hard. Do you know who said that?" Shen Mu's spirit was so shaken by the statue that he could not answer. "The man who uttered those seemingly treasonous words was none other than the State Preceptor of the Kingdom of Yanning beyond the Ruins, a being hailed as the foremost man beneath the gods!" The Blind Elder, awe-inspiring, shouted, "Mu'er, the gods that dwell within your heart are all alien gods, false gods. Smash them, and only then can you raise up your own idol! Never mind a stone statue — even if a true god stood before you, you must never kneel!" He planted his bamboo staff to one side, undid his belt, and laughed aloud. "Not only must you not kneel — you should piss on it!" "Piss on it?" Shen Mu was dumbstruck. "Piss