荒墟牧神 - 第13章 木棍百擊斷生機 - 雲海書庫

Senior Brother Qu was finally seized with terror. "He means to use this little wooden stick to beat me to death, to keep beating me until I die!" He genuinely wished the other man held a knife, even a dull one. Of course, the little stick was not very powerful, but by now Senior Brother Qu's head and face had swollen into bruised, pus-filled lumps; the swelling had squeezed his eyes into two thin slits, and his sight was growing ever blurrier. The skin over his body was purple and blue, some of his muscles had been pounded into paste, and his joints had received Shen Mu's special attention. Shen Mu was not going for the bones of the joints but for the ligaments and fascia; the ligaments and fascia at every joint had snapped under that small wooden stick, and the slightest movement brought a tearing agony. To be killed a bit at a time by a little wooden stick was the most terrifying thing imaginable, for the agony and the fear were stretched out untold times, yet death would not come anytime soon. By then the herd that had been galloping above their heads had vanished; the two had fought their way out of the ruins' gate, and the beasts had scattered. Shen Mu's strength was ebbing too. After one slashing stroke after another, so many that he had lost count, he also could not hold on much longer. He had been running and fighting under the great beasts' bellies with Senior Brother Qu, dodging both his opponent's sword and the beasts' hooves and claws; the ceaseless changes of footwork had left his legs swollen and sore. When the Butcher trained him, mad as the Butcher often was, he still knew how to set limits and never drove Shen Mu past exhaustion. Now Shen Mu no longer had the strength to keep swinging, and only sheer will kept him going. He knew that if he stopped, even a single breath of vital energy might let Senior Brother Qu move, and Shen Mu would be cut down, head and body split apart. He could only keep on beating him until Qu died. Thump. Senior Brother Qu finally could not hold on any longer and pitched face-first to the ground; his precious sword fell with a clatter. Shen Mu threw away the stick and grabbed the sword, but he could not lift it; his arms did not even have that last bit of strength. He lifted his foot and kicked the hilt a little at a time, turning the point toward Senior Brother Qu. Qu could barely make out the sight and tried to squirm away, but his bones and fascia were almost entirely destroyed, and even his muscles could no longer move him. He could not move an inch and could only watch Shen Mu, with immense effort, adjust the angle of the sword bit by bit, then kick it forward bit by bit, driving the blade slowly into his throat. At last the sword pierced his throat; gurgling sounds came from his neck, bubbles rose among the blood, and before long he breathed his last. Shen Mu was relieved and sank to the ground, limp. It had been too hard; he had never been this exhausted. A corpse lay beside him, and the feeling was far from pleasant. He tried to move his body, but he truly could not, so he gave up the attempt. This was not his first corpse. The woman who had crawled out of an oxhide by the river had turned into a corpse, and so had Senior Brother Qu's two junior apprentice brothers. Once Granny Zhu had taken him to a neighboring village to help a woman in labor—aside from tailoring clothes, Granny Zhu also served as a midwife and delivered babies for the women of nearby villages. When they arrived there, the villagers were all dead, men and women, old and young, including the woman who had been waiting to give birth. At the time Shen Mu's mind had gone blank; he had felt himself drifting through the air, floating weightlessly above the village, looking down at the horror. It was Granny Zhu who had woken him. She said he had been so frightened that his soul had left his body, and she had pulled it back and stuffed it in. She did not say who had killed the villagers; she only told him such things