Chapter 637 — Phoenix Courtship

"The second heaven of Kaihuang Heaven.

. .

" Shen Mu looked around. What met his eyes was endless ruin: toppled city walls and palaces, shattered flying cities in the sky, a broken land and rivers, and bones strewn over every inch of the ground.

The mountains in the distance were maimed; peak after peak looked like corncobs gnawed by countless bites, with even the core eaten away in great chunks, ready to topple. The riven earth was everywhere studded with volcanoes and magma; rivers are the blood that flows through a continent, and here that blood was great rivers of molten rock!

In the sky hung bizarre fragments of stars and clouds of monstrous shapes — traces, surely, left behind by divine abilities. Shen Mu stamped on the ground.

The soil here had hardened completely; nothing could ever grow in it. Suddenly a wild wind swept past, and he saw a sight he would never forget: countless human bones, caught up by the wind into a mass of ghastly white, went rolling and tumbling past him. Then more great balls of white bone were driven by the gale, rolling every which way before him. When the wind died, those bone balls came apart and lay scattered over the ground.

Then from the bones rose one broken soul after another, drifting like will-o'-the-wisps, flitting to and fro.

In them one could dimly make out the faces of many living beings, though their bodies were all in tatters, missing arms and legs.

When the wind rose again, the will-o'-the-wisp souls drifting in the air hurriedly burrowed into the white bones; the skeletons took to their heels, trying to escape the gale, but as they ran the wind sent them tumbling head over heels, and so many a skeleton linked arms with its fellows, heaping themselves into huge balls of bone that the wind carried away. Such a grotesque and bewildering spectacle Shen Mu had never seen nor even heard of. "These broken souls must be the spirits of creatures that died in the calamity.

Being incomplete, Youdu will not take them, and leaves them to wander the world. " Shen Mu thought: "They have nothing to cling to, so they must burrow into corpses and bones. Only inside a skeleton can they still feel that they are alive, I suppose? " "I am probably going to die. " Behind him, King Buddha Sakra, his breath as faint as a thread, said dejectedly: "The Crimson Emperor of the Southern Heaven, Qi Xiayu, is far too skilled.

One tune from her is enough to take my life.

I feel that I am near death. Young friend Shen, walk the road ahead by yourself.

. .

" "Very well!

" Shen Mu said cheerfully: "After you die, I will bury you and be on my way. Would the King Buddha prefer cremation or burial? " King Buddha Sakra's eyes went wide with anger: "I am not dead yet, and already you are thinking about cremation or burial?

" Shen Mu laughed: "Though I have not cultivated the Sakra King Buddha Sutra for long, I know well how mighty this art is.

Flesh and primal spirit alike are of the highest order, indestructible as diamond. It may not equal the Imperial Throne art, but it is not far behind.

The King Buddha has cultivated it for so many years — how could a single tune erase you?

" King Buddha Sakra blinked, his face withered and ashen: "To protect you, I had to withstand Qi Xiayu's zither music head-on. The shock has severed my vital force. . .

" "Qi Xiayu's divine ability came chasing across space. It first destroyed the transmigrating energy, and that energy destroyed nearly half of her divine ability.

" Shen Mu reasoned: "So what the King Buddha withstood was the other half of its power, and that power should not be enough to kill you. Besides, I have heard the Crimson Emperor's tune.

It is a very famous piece for the zither. It is called The Phoenix Seeks His Mate. " King Buddha Sakra kept blinking, and said weakly: "The Phoenix Seeks His Mate? Never heard of it.

. .

" "There is a fair lady, whom once seen I cannot forget. A single day apart, and I long for her like one crazed. The phoenix soars on high, seeking his mate through the four seas.

Yet alas, the beauty is not beyond the eastern wall. So I let the zither speak for me, and thus pour out my heart. When will she consent, and soothe my restless longing?

" Shen Mu chanted the verse aloud, his hand stroking the air. Though there was no zither and no strings beneath his fingers, his vital essence turned into zither strings that leaped and quivered and gave forth music — and it was the very same melody as the one with which the Crimson Emperor Qi Xiayu had hunted them down! The youth played and sang aloud, utterly unrestrained: ". .

. Would that we might be mandarin ducks, neck to neck; why not fly together, rising and dipping as one! O phoenix, phoenix, come roost with me; let me take you to wife and raise our brood forever.

Our hearts in accord, our feelings in harmony — who knows of us when we meet at midnight? Together we spread our wings and soar aloft; do not leave my longing to turn to sorrow—" The last notes of the zither circled the two of them and lingered long before they faded. His music and singing drew many skeletons; a crowd of them came running and gathered around, heads tilted to listen, and some capered and danced, accompanying him. Shen Mu dispersed his vital essence and said: "The Phoenix Seeks His Mate was written by a man for a woman.

The words and music are a man urging a woman to elope with him. They had once known happiness together; the man wants her to remember that bond, to cast everything aside and fly off with him, two birds sharing one nest. " King Buddha Sakra fell silent, then suddenly rolled over and sat up, patted the dirt from his clothes, and waved away the eavesdropping skeletons: "What are you looking at? What is there to see? Off with you, off with you. Young friend Shen, Kaihuang Heaven has thirty-three heavens in all.

Taihuang Heaven is the first, and the second is this place, called Taiming Heaven. The thirty-three heavens are in fact all connected to one another. Once we reach Taiming Heaven, we are not far from Taihuang Heaven. . . " Shen Mu went on: "I once learned this tune from Deaf Grandpa in our village. Deaf Grandpa is one of the two most learned men in our village; what he taught me cannot be wrong.

But the Crimson Emperor Qi Xiayu should be a woman, no? This piece was composed by a man, and for her to play it is a little strange. And in her playing there is plainly a note of bitter grievance — it seems she does not use it to kill, but to mock, to mock the one who wrote the poem and composed the music.

.

. " The wounds on King Buddha Sakra's body seemed to heal all at once.

He strode forward and said: "Above Taiming Heaven is Qingming Heaven, and above Qingming Heaven is Xuantai Heaven.

In those days this place was prosperous beyond measure.

. . " The skeletons he had driven off came crowding back like a herd of curious alpacas. Shen Mu continued: "If a woman plays this piece, and plays it to mock the one who wrote the poem and composed the music, then the one the Crimson Emperor Qi Xiayu means to mock is.

. . " King Buddha Sakra suddenly turned around and snapped: "What exactly are you getting at? " Shen Mu was startled and hastily shut his mouth. The skeletons, too, fled in a clattering rush. King Buddha Sakra gave a cold snort and stalked forward in a fury: "I am empty of the four elements; I have let go of everything. There is no need to speak of the past!