Chapter 244 — Wreaking Havoc Upon the Living

The folk of Yincan Village came out to offer their congratulations — celebrating that the village head, with one foot already in the grave, had at last found an heir to his mantle, and celebrating too that Shen Mu had taken up that mantle and become the Human Sovereign of this age. Only, the village head would not give the silent craftsman a kindly look, and Shen Mu himself was none too pleased with the title of Human Sovereign.

After the hubbub, Shen Mu went on following the village head in the study of the sword.

The Sword Diagram was a sword art of the village head's own founding, not a sword art of the Human Sovereign Hall. Its first form, Sword Treads Rivers and Mountains, was already the most intricate sword art Shen Mu had ever seen — more intricate even than the first form of the Daoist sword, the Two Modes' Inner Reversal of Yin and Yang.

And yet Sword Treads Rivers and Mountains was the simplest form in all the Sword Diagram. The second form, Sword Brings Forth Kaihuang, was several times more intricate still, and monstrously hard to learn.

When Shen Mu had first learned Sword Treads Rivers and Mountains, it had cost him more than ten days.

During his wanderings through Jingping Kingdom his horizons had widened beyond all reckoning. He had received the scripture the woodcutter passed down upon the stone, had comprehended the Great Unification Art, had fused the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art into himself, and his own aptitude and insight had risen no little.

Yet learning the single move Sword Brings Forth Kaihuang still cost him more than twenty days.

Only then did he understand the village head's painstaking intent. Had the village head not crossed swords with him over that one move, Sword Treads Rivers and Mountains, he would surely have needed far longer to master Sword Brings Forth Kaihuang — a year or half a year, perhaps.

It was precisely because the village head forced his talent out of him and wrung it dry that Shen Mu could learn Sword Brings Forth Kaihuang in a mere twenty-odd days; for he now stood at a height half sword-art and half sword-craft, and though comprehension came hard, he could still manage it.

But the third form of the Sword Diagram, The Supreme Emperor's Tribulation Stirs, reached in technique and variation the utmost limit a sword art can attain, and that lay beyond Shen Mu's power to learn. He could only commit the moves to memory; to perform them he would have to fathom the mystery within them, and though he pondered with all his heart, he could not wholly unlock the mystery of The Supreme Emperor's Tribulation Stirs.

This was the doing of his horizons and experience. If a man's horizons are not high, his experience not deep, his foundation is insufficient; even if the art is taught to you, you cannot learn it, cannot use it.

Shen Mu had no choice but to let it be, and gave himself wholly to the one move Sword Brings Forth Kaihuang.

One sword brings forth Kaihuang, blood a vast ocean.

In the little barren village of Jingping Kingdom, Shen Mu had heard the young village head who stepped down out of the deaf elder's painting recite that verse; a strange feeling lay hidden in the sword art.

The Sword Treads Rivers and Mountains the village head had taught him carried a flavor and a sentiment too — the sentiment of gathering heroes to the cause and warring against gods and demons — while Sword Brings Forth Kaihuang was the sentiment of mourning the fallen.

The two sentiments were not the same, and the inner realms of the two sword arts stood worlds apart. Though Shen Mu had learned both forms, he could not yet fathom the inner realm and the feeling stored within them.

Sword Brings Forth Kaihuang demanded an even more terrifying expenditure of vital essence; a single move drained nearly half his cultivation. Without a deep reserve of vital essence, the move could not be performed at all.

"Village head, how many moves does the Sword Diagram hold?" Shen Mu asked.

The village head sat in perfect serenity: "Only eight."

Shen Mu was startled: "Eight? So few?"

"One move to a realm."

The village head narrowed his eyes. "And so, only eight."

Shen Mu counted on his fingers: Spirit Embryo, Five Luminaries, Six Harmonies, Seven Stars, Heaven-Human, Life and Death, Spirit Bridge — by any reckoning, seven realms. Then why eight moves?

"Beyond the Spirit Bridge realm, what comes next is godhood! Could the village head's eighth move be a god's move?" His heart pounded.

These days, apart from pondering the sword art, he did nothing but cross swords with the village head, using the pressure the old man put on him to force himself one step further.

He was trying to fuse the three basic sword forms of the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping into Sword Brings Forth Kaihuang, and with a figure like the village head to guide him, his progress was naturally swift.

The village head's sword art drew near to the Dao; to him it mattered not whether the basic forms numbered fourteen or seventeen. But for Shen Mu, adding the three sword forms of the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping could raise the power of that move considerably.

In those days his mastery of the sword advanced by leaps and bounds.

Shen Mu seemed to have gone back to former times: every day sparring fists with Lord Huo, matching blades with the butcher, stealing from and being stolen from by the lame elder, learning to forge with the silent craftsman, cultivating the Sacred Pupil with the blind elder, refining elixirs with the alchemist, painting with the deaf elder, cutting and sewing clothes with Granny.

Though every day he collapsed onto his bed utterly spent, the days were full to the brim.

Now that he had returned to the village, what Lord Huo, the butcher, and the rest had to teach him was deeper and higher as well. Before, they had taught him only the rudiments; now that Shen Mu's horizons and experience had risen, he could learn their more profound skills, which gladdened every one of the old men and women of Yincan Village.

"Granny's inner demon has flared up again!"

In an instant the village was in chaos. The lame elder cried out at the top of his voice, "Blind elder, come quick! Old Lady Si has shown her true face — I can't bring myself to strike her. You can't see her, so you do it, you put down this little demoness!"

Shen Mu was in the middle of a blade contest with the butcher. At the words he looked up in alarm, and saw a woman walking out of Granny Zhu's room. At the sight of her, Shen Mu's heart gave a violent lurch, as though an invisible arrow had struck him square in the chest.

Granny Zhu must have revealed her true face, and plainly she had dressed with great care. The clothes she wore were no longer ragged things but cut from fine silk, fitting her perfectly and setting off her figure to advantage.

Her makeup too was carefully done: bright eyes and white teeth, powder and paint very light, concealing nothing of her devastating beauty.

On her left wrist she wore a bracelet of emerald green jadeite, and from her earlobes hung teardrop earrings. As she stepped out of the room her radiance was such that it seemed no longer deep winter; it was as if spring had turned to summer in a single breath. Though the cold still bit to the bone, everyone in the village felt only spring warmth, blossoms opening, lush and fragrant.

She walked out like a goddess descending from beyond the world into the mortal one, and every soul in the village was struck still.

The alchemist, ashamed of his own unworthiness, covered his face and fled. The deaf elder's brush dropped onto the table; he hurriedly fetched a bronze mirror and began to comb and paint before it. The silent craftsman rushed to the water vat to wash his face. Lord Huo recited the Buddha's name to quell his inner demon. The butcher scraped off his beloved whiskers with his slaughtering knife. And the lame elder shut his eyes tight and bawled for the blind elder to come.