荒墟牧神 - 第2章 四極靈髓入體 - 雲海書庫

Granny Zhu pulled him along toward the village, brimming with excitement. "Stop gawking, come on—today is your big day! Village Head! Master Huo! Come out, all of you!" A bonfire had been lit in the village, and the Village Head was carried out again on a stretcher, saying gravely, "Have all four spirits been found?" "All four found." The one-armed Master Huo dragged in an enormous azure-green serpent several dozen feet long; it was still alive and reeked of raw blood, yet with one hand he grasped the spot just behind its skull, so that it could not stir. The Silent Smith, for his part, carried in a great bird that stood even taller than he did, its wings and legs all trussed up. When the bird struggled, sparks of fire shot crackling from its feathers—a truly alarming sight. Blind Weng lugged in a giant tortoise larger than the top of a table. The creature had lived no one knew how many years, and its shell had taken on a golden tinge. It kept all four limbs drawn up inside the shell, but every so often it would furtively poke out one claw. Shen Mu saw that whenever a claw emerged, water vapor gathered beneath it, as if the Dark-Shelled Spirit Tortoise could be buoyed up upon the mist and make clean away—only Blind Weng had run a fishhook through its nostrils, so escape was impossible. "The blood of the four spirits—the Azure Dragon, the White Tiger, the Vermilion Bird, the Black Tortoise—cannot be obtained. But with the Azure-Scaled Jiao Serpent, the Dark-Boned Tiger, the Thunder-Plumed Sky Bird, and the Dark-Shelled Spirit Tortoise standing in for them, we can still refine a bit of spirit blood. It will be enough." The Village Head nodded to the village butcher. The butcher bared his teeth in a grin, braced both hands on the ground, and crawled forward. He was a man cut down to his upper half alone; everything below the waist had been severed from him, the wound neat. Four vats were set before the serpent, the tiger, the Thunder-Plumed Sky Bird, and the Dark-Shelled Spirit Tortoise. One stroke per beast—the butcher bled the savage captives out, and after a short while all four were drained dry. "Pill Master," said the Village Head. The village Pill Master stepped forward. He had no face. The skin of his face looked as though it had been pared away, and with it his nose, and the upper and lower lips of half of his mouth. He was the most hideous, the most fearsome-looking person in the village—yet Shen Mu had always felt that Grandpa Pill Master was the gentlest person there toward him. The Pill Master brought out four strange red leaves, each bearing a snow-white insect egg. He dropped one leaf into each vat, and at once the eggs split open, and silkworm grubs clung to the leaves, drinking the blood. These grubs grew the instant they felt the wind; the more blood they drank, the larger their bodies swelled. Soon the blood in all four vats had been drunk dry, and in every vat there remained one fat, bloated grub. The Pill Master scooped up a handful of white crystalline powder like salt and scattered it into the vats. To Shen Mu's wonder, the four fat, bulky grubs began shrinking at tremendous speed, and he could not help clicking his tongue. After a moment the Pill Master picked them up, each now no bigger than a palm. He produced four white porcelain cups, caught hold of one grub, and squeezed it hard. Squealing, the grub let flow from its mouth a cup of blood plasma as clear and glittering as amber. The Pill Master did the same with the other three, pressing the blood from their bellies, and set the four cups before Shen Mu. "They are, after all, not true spirit beasts," he said with a shake of his head. "This is all the spirit blood that can be refined." "Shen'er, the human body conceals seven great vaults. The Spirit Embryo, the Five Lumina, the Six Harmonies, the Seven Stars, the Heaven-Man, the Life-Death, the Spirit Bridge—these seven are sealed from the moment of birth, like treasure troves locked fast, and for this r