荒墟牧神 - 第15章 一葦踏波越長江 - 雲海書庫

the bleak wind blows, and my crotch is cold! Mu'er, you're racing naked across the river, swimming with your bare bottom exposed. Don't you feel cold?" A startled cry came from midstream, followed by a loud splash as Shen Mu fell into the water. Some time later, the boy swam to shore, his face flushed with embarrassment. He dried himself and put on his clothes. He had attained sudden insight by the riverbank and become so carried away that he had completely forgotten he was stark naked when he leapt into the air and began running across the water. That wild dash along the river had indeed been cool and refreshing, his bare bottom exposed to the current. "Thank goodness Grandpa Blind can't see..." Shen Mu finished arranging his clothes and abruptly looked up. There, in the woods along the riverbank, stood Ma Ye, the Mute, the Hard-of-Hearing Elder, and all the others. Even Grandma Zhu had come, and the village headman had been carried over on a litter. Shen Mu's face turned scarlet. Stammering, he asked, "Grandma, when did you all get here?" Grandma Zhu burst out laughing. "Mu'er, how many times have we seen your bottom already? What is there to be embarrassed about? We heard your howl. Your vital energy was so abundant that we came to take a look." The village headman coughed and said, "Come here, Mu'er. You were pursued by five warriors of the Spirit Embryo Realm. There may be hidden injuries. Let the Alchemist examine you." Shen Mu stepped forward. The Alchemist inspected him carefully, then shook his head. "Nothing serious. They are all superficial wounds." The village headman examined him as well, then signaled that he could leave. Shen Mu was immediately summoned by the Butcher to train in saber techniques. The Butcher was deeply displeased that it had taken Shen Mu more than five thousand strikes to defeat Senior Brother Qu. He was even more displeased that Shen Mu had ultimately killed his opponent with a sword. For that reason, he intended to discipline the boy severely. "What did you discover, Village Head?" The Alchemist walked to the village headman's litter, his gaze fixed on Shen Mu, who was currently brimming with vitality as he exchanged saber blows with the Butcher. He lowered his voice and asked, "His cultivation of vital energy is advancing at a frightening rate." The village headman did not conceal his thoughts. "Extremely fast. From yesterday until now, the speed of his progress has exceeded all imagination. I heard his howl just now. It was produced by the resonance between his vital energy and his throat, and it faintly carried the sound of gods and demons. Let alone the fact that he has yet to break through the Spirit Embryo Barrier, even a warrior who has broken through it would be incapable of achieving resonance between gods and demons. If I were an ordinary person like him, it would take me twenty years to cultivate my vital energy to this level." Shen Mu had howled across the river, his vital energy resonating with his throat and producing the sound unconsciously, yet within that howl he had unknowingly fused the demonic music he had heard in the ruins within the gorge. Stranger still, while carefully pondering the dark demonic music the previous night, he had also listened to and memorized the divine music of the goddesses in the ruins. Every subtle fluctuation of that divine music was familiar to him. Thus, his howl had naturally absorbed the goddesses' divine music as well. To other ears, there was nothing unusual in it, and no one could discern its mysteries. But to the village headman, it was another matter entirely. He had heard it with perfect clarity. "Resonance between gods and demons?" The Alchemist was startled. "How did he accomplish that? And to possess, in a single night, the power that would take an ordinary person twenty years to cultivate... That is terrifying. Could it truly be the effect of the Four Symbols Spirit Marrow?" The village headman shook his head. "The Four Symbols Spir