荒墟牧神 - 第29章 小謊牽出老謎局 - 雲海書庫

I set out to teach you kindly and in good faith, and you cheat me!" Shen Mu still stood outside the hall, letting the demon shadow rage before him, and shook his head: "Senior is joking. Were you not trying to trick me inside so as to set yourself free?" The door of the side hall gaped wide; the lattice windows were like eyes and the doorway like a mouth, ghastly and grim: "You knew?" "We are not of the same clan to begin with, Senior. First you told me we were, then you dangled the Great Perfection Seal before me to draw me step by step closer to you — and there can only be two purposes behind it." Shen Mu put on the guileless grin of a lame old man: "First, to get me into the hall, luring me nearer and nearer the wall, so that you could seize me and force me to pull up the bronze nails in the four corners of the hall. Second, to play on my hunger for the complete Great Perfection Seal and get me to pull the nails of my own accord. Had I pulled them, Senior would not have been content with merely drawing a breath — you would have broken free and devoured me, just as you devoured the silly roe deer. But—" His smile grew more guileless still: "I am no roe deer. I only played along, and swindled two and a half seals out of you." The whole side hall shook without cease, and through the doorway came a world-shaking roar: "Son of a whore — I'll kill you! Once I'm free, I'll tear you apart with my own hands!" The cowherd boy of Hidden Remnant Village curled his lip, turned to leave, and shook his head: "You're full of cheap tricks. Old Cripple has pulled more of them than I can count — he's swindled me from childhood right up to now, even the sugar figurine Granny bought me, time and again. And you still think you can swindle me..." "I'll kill your Old Cripple!" the figure on the wall howled. Shen Mu turned back and said with perfect gravity: "Don't provoke him. He'll swindle you right out of your breeches." The figure on the wall fell suddenly, unnaturally quiet, a quiet somehow eerie, and murmured: "Just now you said we are not of the same clan? Heh heh, you little fool, you think far too shallowly. How could you and I not be of the same clan... heh heh heh, a fine young little demon..." Shen Mu shivered. In a flash he thought of the divine voice from beyond the nine heavens that had come to him as he broke through the wall; he thought of how he had used the demon tongue to oppose that voice; and putting it together with the words of the figure on the wall, he was seized by an unpleasant conjecture. He hurriedly shook his head, drove the jumble of wild guesses from his brain, and turned away. "Heh heh heh — you and I are the same. The same, the same..." Behind him, the shadow on the wall laughed with an eerie leer. Shen Mu frowned and walked out of Zhenyang Palace. The Dark Ape hurried to meet him, stealing a glance at the side hall, where the figure on the wall had shrunk back within; only then did it relax, and it said to Shen Mu in all solemnity: "Trust? Ha!" Shen Mu nodded, in heartfelt agreement: "The Wasteland is far too dangerous. Honest, simple folk like us — unless we learn to be a bit sharp — will surely be swindled clean out of everything and eaten to the last scrap." The Dark Ape shot him a look, curled its lip, and said: "Trust. Ha." Shen Mu colored faintly and protested: "I'm no swindler. I only got the short end of the stick all my life, and turned sharp because of it. Still, I'm afraid you can't go on living here. Zhenyang Palace is half in ruins — who knows when it will collapse? If it does and that old demon gets free, he'll certainly take it out on you." The Dark Ape shook its head, looked at the wild deer and wild cattle grazing in the valley, and said nothing. Almost everywhere in the Wasteland where one could survive had already been taken — by men, or by other strange beasts. If the Dark Ape tried to move house with all these animals, it would not likely find anywhere to settle before long; when the dark cam