Chapter 100 — The Seven Volumes of the Book of Creation

Shen Mu returned to the inn and went on poring over the Great Nurturing Nether-Demon Scripture, and before he knew it the night had deepened. He had already learned more than ten spells, but having no matching cultivation arts to go with them, he could draw out only the greater part of their power.

"I must find a grand unified cultivation art," he said, "or I will never bring out the full might of the Great Nurturing Nether-Demon Scripture.

" He was deep in his reading when suddenly he felt a warmth at his waist, as though something were nuzzling and burrowing against him; he looked down, and there was the little white fox, asleep at his side, rubbing its head against him in its dreams. Shen Mu smiled.

Carefully he carried the little fox-spirit to the bed and laid her down with her head upon the pillow, then went back to the table and continued to fathom the Scripture. A long while passed, and drowsiness came over him; he put out the lamp, stretched himself out upon the bed, and unwittingly sank into a deep sleep.

The next morning Feng Xiuyun came to see him aboard the ship.

"Young master, this is as far as I may escort you. Follow the river downstream from here and you will enter Jingping. Take care on the road, young master; reach the capital of Jingping as soon as you can, for the Patriarch is already waiting there.

" Shen Mu nodded and waved farewell.

Ahead of the fleet, upon a tall wharf, soldiers were turning capstans, creaking and groaning as they raised a massive iron sluice gate. One merchant ship after another got slowly under way, carried by the current out of Mishui Pass and down the Yong River.

Shen Mu and Snowfox stood at the bow and looked about them. The scenery on either bank of the Yong River was gradually changing from that of the Wasteland: here there were prosperous villages along the water, hidden among the hills and woods, not like the Wasteland, which was all thatched huts. Boats on the river grew more numerous as well, most of them ore-hauling vessels sitting deep in the water; along the banks were mines, where countless mine slaves dug at the rock.

"How many of these are the Wasteland's cast-off people? " Shen Mu withdrew his gaze.

After another hundred li or so, smelting works appeared along the bank, where great blast furnaces refined ore, and many boats lay moored there, unloading their minerals.

The furnaces threw up flames tens of zhang high, fierce and violent; as the boats passed, Shen Mu saw a dozen or more divine-power practitioners working the bellows, casting spells to make the flames fiercer and the heat higher. Others were using spells to draw up river water to cool the refined dark iron and red copper.

Still others wielded the aura of the White Tiger to cut the dark iron and red copper into neat square blocks, easy to stack and load aboard. Such a sight was not to be seen in the Wasteland.

"In manpower, in resources, in wealth, Jingping far surpasses the Wasteland," Shen Mu said in admiration.

From small things one may know great ones; the prosperity and strength of a nation can be read in its least details. The smelting works along the Yong River stood close to water, with easy transport, and could supply the empire endlessly with materials, forge primal armaments, and improve the army's equipment; one could well imagine the heights that the military and national power of Jingping had reached.

"Feng Xiuyun said that certain sects, seizing the moment when the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping was defeated in the Wasteland, ambushed him on the road, leaving him gravely wounded, and rose in rebellion.

" Shen Mu thought: "The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping may have suffered a setback at the Wasteland's edge, but the army's vital strength is unharmed and its overall fighting power remains.

He is surrounded by mighty men as thick as clouds, and he himself is the first man beneath the gods; how could he be ambushed and gravely wounded? There is something very strange in this. If these rebel sects have misjudged the situation, I fear they will all find no place to bury their dead.

" The convoy's ships were towed by giant beasts of the water and moved with great speed; by evening they came to Dijiang County. Dijiang County was built along the river and was a little larger than Jianglong City.

Shen Mu opened the Heaven-Soaring Eye and looked all around, but found no towering, imposing divine statue, and a vague unease rose in his heart. Then it came to him, and he mocked himself: "I still think I am in the Wasteland. . .

" He had lived in the Wasteland since childhood, and to find shelter under the protection of a divine statue before nightfall had become his instinct; such a habit, he feared, would not be broken for a long time yet.

Before Dijiang County the convoy suddenly halted, for fishing boats were coming and going ahead, and some fishermen were using hooks to fish floating corpses out of the water. "What foul luck," a merchant said, shaking his head. Shen Mu took Snowfox and entered the city with the convoy.

He had no sooner come in than he saw coffin after coffin set out on either side of the street, an immense number of them, four or five hundred at least. Shen Mu was startled.

Some of the coffins had not yet been sealed; soldiers were carrying corpses one by one and laying them inside, while others were already covered. The townsfolk kept far away, not daring to come near.

"What has happened here?

How did so many people die all at once? " Shen Mu was full of doubt.

A merchant went up to ask, and a soldier said: "Floating corpses. Washed down by the river; no one knows where they are from.

Likely a flood upstream drowned them, and the current brought them to our Dijiang County and the dam caught them.

The magistrate said that if the bodies piled up there would be a plague, so he had us knock together some thin-plank coffins and lay them in, and tomorrow they will be buried. " "So that is it. " The merchants all drove their carts aside and sought inns to lodge in; Shen Mu found an inn too and settled in to rest. After supper he took out a map of Jingping's geography and studied it.

Dijiang County lay in the middle of Jingping; going north all the way, one would reach the capital in about ten days or so.

If one went east instead, about three thousand li would bring one to the sea. The sky had already dimmed, the night deepening by the moment.

Shen Mu put down the map and looked out the window. The darkness here was not the darkness of the Wasteland.

In Jingping the night came on little by little, and there was still moonlight in the sky, still starlight; but in the Wasteland, when night fell, the darkness came from the west, smothering the heavens all at once and shrouding everything, and within that darkness there was no light at all. He cautiously put his hand out of the window; the darkness beyond held no danger whatsoever. "What has the Wasteland been through, to suffer such a thing as an invasion of darkness? " The youth drove the doubt from his mind, took out the Great Nurturing Nether-Demon Scripture, and read on.

He drew a single thread from the white glove and let his vital energy seep into it; at once the thread swelled and grew thicker and thicker, revealing countless characters.

Shen Mu read it closely.

This time he was comprehending the Chapter of Creation within the Great Nurturing Nether-Demon Scripture.

That Chapter of Creation had many parts: the Creation Heaven-Demon Art, the Creation Heaven-God Art, the Creation Innate Art, the Creation Human King Art, the Creation Ghost-God Art, the Creation Spirit Art, the Creation Earth-Origin Art, and others besides. Shen Mu had learned the Creation Heaven-Demon Art among them, but Granny Zhu had not taught him the whole of it then; she had taught him only the method of sealing souls, and not the art itself.