Chapter 305 — The Old Man in the Scroll

The two white bats hastily dodged aside and hung upside down on either side of the doorway, craning their heads to peer into the room. This room was one of the chambers in the buildings on the deck of the treasure ship. It measured seven zhang in length and breadth. There were screens and jade tables, and the candlestick on the jade table was still lit; a bronze crane held an incense burner in its beak, and wisps of smoke curled upward from the burner.

There was no one in the room, but judging by the candlestick and the incense burner, someone seemed to have been here only moments before. "It is safe here! " said Fu Yuchun.

Shen Mu opened his Azure Empyrean Heaven Eye and looked; he saw no problem.

Then he swept the room again with his Cinnabar Empyrean Heaven Eye, and still found nothing amiss.

They went into the room and looked all around.

Fu Yuqiu said: "How strange. This door has never opened before.

Why has it opened today. .

. " "It has never opened before? " Shen Mu was somewhat taken aback.

The two white bats nodded. "The doors on this ship cannot be opened; no matter how much strength one uses, they will not open.

It is very strange.

" There were not many things in this room. On the screen were embroidered green hills and blue waters, and a lone boat at the heart of the river, with an old man seated in the prow, fishing. One of the white bats came to the jade table and tried to pick up a candlestick for light, but could not lift it at all, and so gave up.

Shen Mu surveyed the room once over, and dimly felt that something seemed to be watching them; yet he could not sense the source of the gaze, and grew quietly wary.

His eyes searched all around, and still that feeling of being watched remained.

Shen Mu whipped his head around, but saw nothing. His essence qi surged forth and became a mirror that reflected all around him.

Suddenly he saw that the old man fishing in the painting on the screen had quietly turned his head and was furtively sizing them up. Shen Mu hastily turned and lunged at the screen.

The old man fishing was thrown into a panic; he flung down his fishing rod and, with two hops and three skips, nimbler than could be imagined, ran from the screen onto the wall, and raced along the wall on his legs into another doorway.

Shen Mu gave chase at once, opened the door, and rushed in. Suddenly a bang came from behind him as a door shut.

Startled, Shen Mu hastily retreated; the Carefree Sword at his back leapt into the air and became the Cloud Sword Form to guard his whole body, while he reached back to push open the door behind him and said in a low, heavy voice: "Brothers Fu, Fat Dragon, come in quickly! Brothers Fu. .

. " Shen Mu turned to look, and was slightly stunned.

Where the door opened, it was not the room he had come from, but another room entirely -- a room that looked like a woman's embroidery chamber! And the room he had just entered had vanished without a trace!

The two white bats and the dragon qilin hastily pushed open the door as well, but Shen Mu was nowhere to be seen, and their expressions changed drastically. They hurried to open the other doors, but could not find any trace of Shen Mu either.

"Something is wrong! " The dragon qilin batted open the door behind it with its claws, peered in, and cried out in alarm: "This is not the room we came in through! There is something strange about the rooms on this ship!

" The two white bats closed the door, and when they pushed it open again, the room had changed -- it was yet another room. Again and again they tried: every time the door closed and opened, the room was different! "We are done for! " Fu Yuchun's face was ashen, and his voice trembled: "If we do not find him, we just wait for the poison to erupt -- and our White Bat Divine Race will go extinct!

" "Do not panic," said the dragon qilin. "These rooms must have a fixed number; there cannot be an endless supply of them.

Once we find the same room twice, we can work out the pattern.

By the way, how are you two brothers at the arts of divination? " Shen Mu's heart skipped.

He at once walked into the embroidery chamber and shut the door behind him, then looked all around, thinking: "I came in through this door.

How could coming in and going out by this same door change the room? There must be some folding of space at work here.

This ship is very large, but the rooms in these buildings cannot be endless; they must be finite. So long as the number of rooms is finite, the pattern can be found.

" He set his mind at ease and looked around.

The embroidery chamber was lit by wall lamps; several pieces of women's embroidery hung on the walls, and below them stood a table, on one side of which lay a kerchief with dragons at play embroidered on it. The writing desk stood lower down, with brush, ink, paper, and inkstone set upon it, and a rush mat below it for sitting.

On the paper the ink was not yet dry: "Dew bathes the tender yellow, wind sways the green.

Late beauty in the world is not without intent; immortal grace and light adornment are gifts of heaven. Who can compare? " The writing broke off abruptly here; some urgent matter must have arisen, and it had not been finished.

Shen Mu examined the handwriting and inwardly praised it: "The brushwork is in no way inferior to my own -- only a touch more delicate. " Just then, the old fisherman suddenly darted into the calligraphy and painting before him and winked at him. Shen Mu sneered and swept his brush downward. The old man hastily sprang onto the table, then ran to the wall and escaped through another doorway. Shen Mu at once took up his brush and gave chase. The old man in the painting entered another room and vanished, no telling where he had hidden.

Shen Mu entered this room and looked around. It was a study, and the books in it were very old.

Shen Mu pulled one down and tried to open it, but could not turn a single page. Suddenly the old man from the painting leapt out of his book and darted into another. Shen Mu hurriedly drew that book out, and this time the book could be opened.

He turned the pages and saw that it was a genealogy.

"First generation: the Founding Emperor, of the Shen line, taboo name Ye, lord of all under heaven.

. . " Shen Mu was stunned.

"The Founding Emperor -- the one whose single sword opened the dynasty and set a sea of blood? This emperor is surnamed Shen too.

He shares my surname. " The genealogy was very thick, recording in a few scant words the lives and marriages of one Shen after another.

Shen Mu leafed through it quickly, searching for the old man from the painting.

When he reached the final page, he saw written there: "One hundred and seventh generation: Fengqing, son of the one named Hanzhen.

" And here the genealogy broke off.