Chapter 314 — Between Father and Son

The light cast by the eye pattern on the membrane behind the head of the Lord Who Guards the Stars was suppressing the transformation of the one in the tree into wood, driving the wood nature upon him ever deeper so that his eyes could see. The face of the one in the tree drew out of the trunk inch by inch, and the wood nature on his tongue was gradually receding.

Swish.

The eye-shaped pattern on the membrane behind her head closed, and she said: "Qin Hanzhen, you should be able to see your son now, shouldn't you?

" She was cautious; she knew that the one in the tree was exceedingly strong, in his prime no lesser than herself, and so she had not wholly undone the forbidden arts laid upon him but merely allowed him to see what was before him. Yet the one in the tree closed his eyes, opened his mouth a little, and still no sound came out.

Shen Mu listened with head tilted, nodded repeatedly, and after a moment said: "He means that the Star Lord has guessed one thing wrong. " The Lord Who Guards the Stars turned her head and sneered: "What did I guess wrong?

" The one in the tree opened his eyes, but they still could not see; the skin on his face was rapidly turning to wood, yet the roots of the Divine Tree were trembling!

Shen Mu said with a calm face: "What the Star Lord guessed wrong is this: he does not want to see me fulfill the pact with Tu Bo. He would rather never set eyes on me for the rest of his life.

His intention was always to have the Star Lord help him suppress his wood nature and recover part of his flesh's mobility.

" The Lord Who Guards the Stars sneered, the membrane behind her head shaking with a rattling sound: "Are those Qin Hanzhen's words, or yours? Little whelp Fengqing, aren't you a little too arrogant, too overreaching, too self-righteous?

Even if Qin Hanzhen recovers the least power to act, so what? His divine sword is already shattered; with barely half a body he is no match for me! " Shen Mu shook his head: "They are my words, and his as well.

Even gods and Buddhas, deities and demons, cannot control everything; there are always lives that refuse to submit and try to leap free. He is not without the power to resist. Because. . .

" "Because I have brought his sword! " Behind Shen Mu, a snow-bright sword light shot up into the heavens! The Sorrowless Sword shattered its wooden scabbard and fell into a huge wooden hand that had grown out of the Divine Tree at breakneck speed.

In that instant sword light flooded the entire hall; before Shen Mu's eyes everything was blazing white, and he could see nothing else!

That was a sword technique bordering on the Way, beyond his understanding, beyond his horizons.

A single sword burst out with heaven-shaking, earth-rending power and brilliance. Divine light surged vast and mighty; the sword light spilled across the floor like quicksilver and scattered through the long sky. In that flash, Shen Mu saw not a sword but a man's joys and sorrows, his partings and reunions, a whole lifetime's pursuit and a will without regret!

Sword and Way were fused into one!

Even the Li Zheng's sword diagram and the Daoist school's Dao swords lost their color before this mythic sword art. From within the sword light came the startled cry of the Lord Who Guards the Stars. Shen Mu felt an overwhelming divine might, and then a blaze of savage fire rolled over him, followed by a boundless pressure, as if the vast, deep, weighty earth itself were pressing down!

He saw, within the sword light, an enormous star of orange-yellow, pregnant with tremendous power, seeming about to grind all things to dust, and the Lord Who Guards the Stars stood before that great star, her might surging to the heavens.

Then his eyes stabbed with pain; he shut them in haste and felt that overwhelming divine might suddenly wane, then rush away at speed, and then came the sound of a door slamming.

"Qin Hanzhen, Shen Fengqing, I will come back for you father and son! " The Star Lord's strange, rasping voice grew ever fainter; then with a thunderous boom the treasure ship rocked violently, and it was plain she had fled the vessel. Twang.

A humming tremor reached him. Shen Mu opened his eyes on the sly.

The sword light that had filled heaven and earth was gone; the Sorrowless Sword now stood planted before him, its hilt still trembling without cease. Beneath the sword lay a pool of divine blood, shedding a divine glow like morning haze, dreadful to behold.

Shen Mu turned around. The face of the one in the tree had emerged from the trunk, the wood receding from it, but he still kept his eyes tightly shut, unwilling to open them. To open his eyes and see him would trigger the pact with Tu Bo; Tu Bo would take his soul, and then Sorrowless Village would be exposed, and all his kin would be destroyed for it.

Shen Mu stood stunned.

Was it that he would never be able to open his eyes and look at him? "Am I called Shen Fengqing?

" Shen Mu looked at the one in the tree and said in a low voice: "The Li Zheng gave me a name, 'Mu' — Shen Mu, meaning a cowherd boy surnamed Shen.

" He leaned against the tree, close beside the one within it, and said quietly: "From that day on I have gone by Shen Mu. Only now do I know the name my parents chose for me, Fengqing.

. .

it feels a little strange.

Are you.

. .

my father? " The one in the tree kept his eyes shut, but a branch grew out of the tree trunk, and tender leaves sprouted from the branch, gently stroking Shen Mu's hair. Shen Mu leaned there in silence while a hundred flavours surged through his heart.

No one had ever touched him like this. The Pill Master would not; he disliked children, and when boiling his medicines he would press little Shen Mu into the vat with one hand or lift him by the leg and toss him in.

The Blind Old Man would not either; even when Shen Mu displayed his finest staff work, the Blind Old Man would only tap the ground with his bamboo staff and nod, showing approval but no fondness.

Granny Zhu had never raised a child — she was forever washing and changing swaddling; and when Shen Mu grew old enough to help her, cutting and sewing clothes, Granny Zhu would usually offer no more than a word or two of praise. The sternest of all, Master Huo, had never been one to praise.

When he saw Shen Mu, he would always think of his own dead sons and daughters, and his face would darken; he hardly ever smiled. The Deaf Old Man found him annoying, annoying in every way; when he painted he would always drive Shen Mu out, and even when he taught Shen Mu to read, write, and paint, he struck his palm more often than he praised him.

The Silent Craftsman was always wicked, playing all sorts of tricks on him for amusement. The Lame Old Man, on the contrary, often took him along to steal things — or stole his things; the Lame Old Man had a child's heart and treated him as a playmate.

As for the Li Zheng, the Li Zheng had no hands or feet and was also a gloomy old man; though he smiled often, he always seemed weighed down with cares. No one had ever stroked his head like that, not even a cold twig or leaf.

It was a feeling he had never known. Shen Mu tilted his head, looking slantwise at the sky so that the tears in his eyes would not blind him. He had always wanted to act like an adult; the grown-ups in the village were his models, and he learned how they carried themselves, how they handled things.

Yet in that moment he felt he was still a small child, one used to nestling at his parents' side.

The Divine Tree he leaned against was hard, and the gnarled bark at his back was rough, but in his heart there was calm — a stillness beyond anything he had ever known, as if he had returned to the harbour of home. That old man from the painting came running out from somewhere, looked all around, then slipped to the foot of the tree and stared up, wondering why it was so quiet here.

"You are good. .

.