Chapter 238 — A Mother's Love, Belated

The Dutian Demon King heard Shen Mu's voice and started slightly, and in that instant he understood what the words meant.

This forest forbidden zone had not been made to guard against outside foes, but to keep the people of Wuyou Township from ever leaving it.

Had it been a defense against outside enemies, its defenses would face outward, and only those who tried to force their way in would suffer the zone's attacks.

This zone, however, destroyed without mercy any who tried to enter and any who tried to leave alike.

Those ruins must be roads the people of Wuyou Township had hacked open by main force in their attempt to escape it, not roads that had come into being of themselves.

"Seeing the great in the small — an ordinary man would never have thought of such a thing. Whoever trained this boy must be cunning beyond measure, a thorough villain."

The Dutian Demon King could not help but shiver. Plainly these heavenly demons clinging to the Soul Boat had not escaped Shen Mu's notice, and yet he had said nothing all along, for the very purpose of making them scout the way for him.

A youth so ruthless, so wickedly cunning — his teacher must be an out-and-out scoundrel.

The Dutian Demon King surveyed the forbidden zone and thought: "With the Soul Boat alone, there is no way to set foot in this place. The Boat is too large; force it in and it will surely stir the zone. The zone destroyed that female demon god so easily; destroying the Soul Boat would be little trouble for it..."

He had barely gotten this far when the Soul Boat shuddered; the three-legged giant vessel slowly crouched low, and then a mighty tremor passed through it, and the great ship lay flat against the ground, motionless.

At once the Dutian Demon King sensed Shen Mu's godlike aura disperse, and only then did he breathe easy. Had Shen Mu forced the Soul Boat into the zone, even he would have been destroyed.

That Shen Mu, though he had seen Wuyou Township destroyed, still kept his reason — that surprised him somewhat.

The Dutian Demon King kicked the Dragon Qilin awake and stepped outside.

The Dragon Qilin shook his head, followed behind him, and asked in his rumbling voice, "Iron Lump, where have we gotten to?"

The Dutian Demon King raged, "You slept the whole way, and you still have the face to ask me?"

The Dragon Qilin laughed. "So you do not know where we are either? Which means you slept the whole way too."

At the center of the Soul Boat's giant pillars, Shen Mu's body had returned to its original state; he was drawing back the legs he had sunk into the hull.

The great ship's hull had been joined to his legs and feet; a moment before, Shen Mu's frame had been immeasurably vast, and now that he shrank, huge footprints remained, closing of themselves and giving him the chance to pull his legs free.

Shen Mu stood up and at once felt his mind and spirit waver, felt himself unspeakably weak; the divine storehouses within him, blasted open by the Soul Boat's immense power, closed one after another, until only the Spirit Fetus and the Five Luminaries remained open.

The ship's power was too mighty; it had poured into his body, and to command it he must spend his own life force as the price.

"Yan Jingjing has lived on the Xi Boat all this while; she has lost far more of her life than I. It must be hard on her..."

Shen Mu gulped two breaths, took some spirit elixirs to restore himself, then rose and said, "Demon King, Fatty Qilin, we walk into this forbidden zone on foot."

The Dutian Demon King spat out a breath of turbid air. "You mean to borrow my eyes and my knowledge, to shun the ill and seek the good, and find the scoundrel from your village?"

Shen Mu nodded. "You are the Demon King of the Dutian World, king of the demon gods; your eyes and knowledge surpass mine by I know not how much. Only you can lead me in."

The Dutian Demon King laughed aloud and said proudly, "True enough — only I can bring you in safely and bring you out again. Lick my foot—"

Shen Mu's expression shifted slightly, and the Dutian Demon King hastily corrected himself, smiling apologetically. "I was joking, look how I frightened you. I will lead you in and lead you out, and you must release me as we agreed. You promised."

Shen Mu smiled. "Rest easy, I will never break my word. I can even sign the Oath of Tu Bo with you."

The Dutian Demon King shook his head. "No need. If we signed the Oath of Tu Bo, I would no longer trust you. You would be certain to cheat me."

Shen Mu gave a dry laugh and thought, "The Dutian Demon King truly knows me. Since he has only my word, I would be ashamed to cheat him... Grandpa Cripple was right, I am still too kindhearted."

He leaped onto the Dragon Qilin's back; the Dutian Demon King leaped up after him. Fire clouds grew beneath the Qilin's feet, and treading them he descended slowly, and before long they landed at the edge of the forbidden zone.

The Dutian Demon King was all urgency; he spat a few gears from his mouth and said, "There is a path of life here, true, but it was opened from the inside outward. Walking it from the inside out holds little peril; walk it inward, and you will still meet many dangers. You must keep close behind me and on no account take a wrong step, or you will stir the forbidden zone and we will all die."

Shen Mu hurried forward, opened his chest, set the gears in his chest cavity to rights and added a few components, then warned him, "Demon King, do not play tricks, or you will be trapped here as well."

The Dutian Demon King said sourly, "Rest easy, I understand. Keep close."

Shen Mu followed him forward. The Dutian Demon King's four faces and twelve eyes peered in all directions, and his four mouths muttered and mumbled, discerning the perils within the zone and reckoning them out.

Shen Mu also saw the Dutian Demon King employ his demon qi to work a method of spatial calculation; countless numeral runes leaped in three dimensions through the air, performing calculations of immense complexity.

"Demon King, your attainments in the arts of calculation are exceedingly high as well," Shen Mu said in surprise.

The Dutian Demon King said sourly, "Obviously. If you do not master the arts of calculation, you learn only the outward form of many divine powers and never their true transmission."

"Can you teach me?"

Shen Mu said eagerly, "I have a volume of the Taixuan Arithmetic Classic and to this day have not fathomed it. The Classic uses the trigram images of the eight trigrams to stand for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight — base eight. It is most troublesome."

The Dutian Demon King said in surprise, "An arithmetic classic in base eight? You must calculate with the eight-trigram diagram — Qian, Kun, Xun, Zhen, Kan, Li, Gen, Dui. If you substitute numbers for them, the reckoning is very laborious; but if you use the trigram diagram as an abacus and turn it through its transformations, it becomes far easier... We will speak of it later. Do not talk to me — if my calculations go wrong, we are all finished."

The Dutian Demon King's attainments in the arts of calculation were not merely very high but unfathomable; at a single offhand remark from him, Shen Mu felt suddenly enlightened.

These past days he had studied the Taixuan Arithmetic Classic and gained little; the Classic was too profound, its calculations endlessly troublesome.

But to use the eight-trigram diagram as an abacus — that was an exquisite calculating tool, and many problems could be solved at a stroke.

"In the Taixuan Arithmetic Classic there is not only the eightfold base of the eight trigrams, but the twofold base of yin and yang, and the fourfold base of the four images."

Shen Mu drew inferences from one instance to three. Many of the mathematical principles in the Classic were methods of calculation, yet no instrument of calculation was given; now, with a casual hint from the Dutian Demon King, he at last had a chance to comprehend the Classic thoroughly.