荒墟牧神 - 第42章 深更荒影近村門 - 雲海書庫

At the very instant the great serpent moved, Shen Mu too sprang suddenly into the air, his pig-butchering knife like wind and rain, slashing madly at the weak place between the serpent's head and its body! The Butcher's Blade Art: Sun Scorches the Eastern Sea, a Thousand Folded Waves! This one stroke of the Butcher's demanded a momentum like the great sun first rising, like a thousand waves of the Eastern Sea piled one upon another, a blade force without equal that cleaves through all things! Shen Mu's mind held nothing at all; there was only one thought: draw the blade, cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! That head had to come off! Chhh — serpent blood sprayed, and the great snake's triangular head, big as a tabletop, parted from its body; yet still the head, jaws gaping like a basin of blood, lunged to bite the family of three ahead, as though utterly unaware that it was already dead. Just as the huge head was about to reach the family of three, Shen Mu suddenly leaped and landed atop the head suspended in midair, his feet driving down, his body crouched, stamping the serpent's jaws shut. Head and boy together dropped like a great lump of lead, crashing with a boom to the ground before the family of three, already frozen senseless with fright. The three stared blankly, dumbly, at the youth before them. Shen Mu bent down and grinned at the little girl, baring a mouthful of white teeth: "Little sister, it's all right now." Just then a baby's cry came, and a woman rushed out of the house the great snake had smashed open, laughing: "Congratulations, congratulations — mother and child are both safe!" Shen Mu hurriedly slid the pig-butchering knife back into the cowhide sheath on his back and ran back to the yard, where he saw the man already rushing excitedly into the house, while Granny Zhu came out, washed her hands, and looked back at the loving couple and child inside. "Mu'er, quite content, aren't you?" said Granny Zhu. Shen Mu watched that scene of the family of three's affection, nodded lightly, and his hand rose unbidden to grip the Xuanguang Soul-Guarding Pendant at his chest. Seeing his hand, Granny Zhu sighed inwardly. The Blind Elder came up, yawned, and said: "This business here is done, time we slept. Old woman, this house has few rooms — why don't the two of us squeeze in together..." Granny Zhu turned her head, her gaze cold and grim. The Blind Elder could not help but shiver, jabbed his bamboo staff at the ground, and turned to go: "These days even a blind old man gets snarled at. The hearts of men are not what they were. I'll sleep in the street..." "Granny, why did the people of this village never discover this great snake?" Shen Mu asked, puzzled, as he watched villagers pour into the yard and labor to drag the serpent's tail out of the tree hollow. He had lived since childhood in Yincan Village, where every villager bore some infirmity — even Granny Zhu was hunchbacked — yet in his heart the old folk of the village were each of them capable of scaling the heavens and burrowing into the earth, equal to anything. But the villagers here were mostly ordinary people; there were martial artists among them, yet their cultivation and strength were not high, and so he was doubtful. "In the Wasteland, there is only one Yincan Village." Granny Zhu's gaze was deep and distant: "Most here are ordinary folk. They are those who had no time to flee when the Wasteland was stricken, and some are people from the outer world who were driven to the point of death and fled here to escape crushing taxes and the oppression of landlords, hoping to keep alive." "The outer world?" Shen Mu's eyes lit up. "The outer world is more perilous than the Wasteland!" Granny Zhu snorted coldly. "Otherwise Granny and the Blind Elder and the rest would never have been driven to hide away in the Wasteland! Stop always thinking about the outer world!" Shen Mu scratched his head, not knowing why Granny Zhu, always so kind and amiable, had suddenly flown into a r