Chapter 43 — The Demon Spirit Treads the Moon, Racing Swiftly

The next day, Shen Mu was woken by the clamor of villagers. He rose and asked what had happened, and only then learned that the night watchman had suddenly dropped dead the night before, giving the whole village a fright.

The night before, Shen Mu had felled a tree, and a great serpent had burst from the trunk when it came down — frightening enough in itself. But no one had expected the night watchman to drop dead in the small hours as well. Now the villagers were restless with fear, tongues wagging.

The couple came carrying a tray draped in red cloth, with a few gifts of thanks laid upon it. "Old Granny, little brother," they said, "we are poor folk with nothing fine to offer. But you must accept this small token."

Shen Mu was about to decline when the blind elder said, "Mu'er, take it. Don't leave them owing you a kindness they can never repay."

Shen Mu took the few items from the red cloth and bade the couple farewell. The man smiled and said, "Little brother, with your skills and gifts, you stand head and shoulders above the rest. One day you'll be a dragon and phoenix among men!"

"What's so good about dragons and phoenixes?"

Granny Zhu said, "Dragon liver and phoenix marrow are nothing but delicacies on the dinner table. Don't be the dragon and phoenix. Be the one who devours the dragons and phoenixes of this world."

The couple exchanged looks. Granny Zhu waved her hand. "Go on home. Mu'er, blind elder, let's be off to market!"

Shen Mu hurried after the little old woman. "Granny," he asked, curious, "what happened last night? Was the night watchman the one casting the spell? How did he die? And what was that silver pellet floating over my brow last night? Last time you said everyone in our village was perfectly ordinary. So why do I feel the ordinary folk of other villages are a little different from the ordinary folk of ours?"

"Where do all these questions come from?"

Granny Zhu's head swelled. She threw a pleading look at the blind elder. He went cheerfully forward — and with a thud, walked straight into a tree and passed out cold.

Granny Zhu stamped on the blind elder's face several times, but he would not wake for anything.

Shen Mu hastily slung the blind elder onto his back and looked at Granny Zhu with hopeful eyes. She drew a needle from her basket and jabbed it into the blind elder's backside. Blood spurted from the puncture with a hiss, yet he remained unconscious.

Granny Zhu gave up, blinked, and said, "The night watchman was indeed the demon-path master who kept the serpent. He was no weakling, either. He used the Phantom Shadow Demon Art, a divine power of the Dark Demon Cult. It is formidable — impossible to guard against. I wounded his shadow with my Sand-Spitting Shadow Art, and used the shadow to injure his true body. But the demon in my heart stirred. I once promised someone that for all my life I would never harm a disciple of the Dark Demon Cult, so I only made him see sense and withdraw. It wasn't I who dealt the killing blow. That was the blind elder."

Shen Mu blinked. "What about the silver pellet? Is it the Ten Thousand Blades Sword Soul? Are you a master of the sword, Granny?"

Granny Zhu blinked and blinked too. Old and young stared at each other blinking, until their eyes ached. Granny Zhu ground her teeth and jabbed another needle into the blind elder's backside. He still did not wake.

"The silver pellet? Ahem — you mean this?"

Granny Zhu turned her palm, and a silver pellet appeared in her hand. Shen Mu nodded eagerly. "Granny, teach me the sword!"

Granny Zhu sighed. "It isn't that I don't want to teach you. It's that I can't. My swordsmanship can earn a name among the world's best, but it can never reach number one under heaven. Once you learn my sword, the one who should teach you won't be willing to. So I'll die before I pass it to you."

Shen Mu was disappointed, then his spirits lifted. "Number one sword art under heaven? Is he from our village?"

"Don't go making wild guesses."

Granny Zhu warned, "If you go begging him, he'll be even less willing to teach you. Only when he comes round on his own will he teach you! Right now you carry several supreme arts on your shoulders, and you have mastered none of them. Wait until, at the same cultivation realm, you can punch Uncle Ma, cleave the butcher with a blade, spear the blind elder off his feet, and outrun the lame elder — then think about how to hone your swordsmanship! When that day comes, if he won't teach you, we'll make him!"

The blind elder yawned and said mildly, "He has the keenest insight and the deepest cultivation. Over the years he's grown ever more terrifying. The lot of us tied together might not be able to beat him."

"So you've decided to wake up?" Granny Zhu raged, and jabbed another needle into his backside.

The blind elder slid down from Shen Mu's back and leaned on his cane. "All in all, this is something you'd explain better than I could. I can't manage it. The killing of the night watchman, though — that I can explain. His Phantom Shadow Demon Art was formidable. He had already achieved the exchange of man and shadow: his body was not his true self — his shadow was. In a duel with him, if you attack only his body, his shadow kills you. When he tried to kill me, I nailed his shadow to the ground with my bamboo cane and pinned him dead there."

Shen Mu thought it over. "Then what was he cultivating by keeping serpents and using the innate essence and souls of infants?"

The blind elder said, "Granny, you know demon-path arts best. You explain."

"This art is called the Natural Innate Art."

Granny Zhu said, "This art is a method by which the Dark Demon Cult advances from the postnatal to the innate. But he had only a fragment from who knows where, and practiced it awry — actually using unborn infants to cultivate. The true Natural Innate Art, though a demonic art, is upright and honorable; it disdains such despicable means. Instead it breathes in and out the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and draws on the essence of sun and moon to cultivate."

A shadow of worry crossed her face. She said in a low voice, "Disciples of the Dark Demon Cult appearing nearby — it seems the Wasteland Ruins will know no more peace. These fellows tend to swarm out all at once..."

The three returned to Granny Temple, where the gathering was still going on. By afternoon, the people of the various villages began to leave for their own homes. Shen Mu drove the ox cart back to Yincan Village once more.

"Mu'er, from now on you may go out hunting on your own."

Uncle Ma sat on the ox cart, his body rising and falling with the jolting road. Suddenly he said, "You've grown up."

Warmth filled Shen Mu's heart. He turned and smiled — the cowherd boy of Yincan Village smiling bright as the early spring sun.

"But you're only allowed to hunt strange beasts. You are not allowed to challenge strange beast lords."

Granny Zhu added, "And every evening you must come back to tend the oxen, and let them eat plenty of grass."

The cowherd boy's face went black at once, and the two oxen silently pulling the cart let out a furious bellow, their eyes brimming with tears, looking deeply aggrieved.

Seeing this, Shen Mu asked suspiciously, "Granny, are these two oxen also people?"

"Guess," Granny Zhu said with a chuckle.

Shen Mu did not want to guess.

A gust of wind swept up from behind. It set the youth's heart rippling. Suddenly he strode forward, leaped from the ox cart, and ran after the wind. He would catch this wind and tread its edge, walking through the sky!

He was fast. He burst from the pine woods, racing over the treetops, faster and faster, until at last he caught the head of that wind. He sprang up and leaped into the air. Though he was in midair, a strange upward lift came at once beneath his feet.

The youth let out a cheer. His steps flew, dancing through the air, treading the wind's edge as he ran through the sky.