Chapter 104 — The Wicked Brood Leaves the Village

Granny Zhu turned around and blinked. "Who's leaving the village?"

The Village Head laughed. "I may be a plain man, but I can hear the tune behind the strings. These past days you've eaten poorly and slept worse; plainly you can't go on staying here, and you must be off to look for Shen'er."

Granny Zhu said, vexed, "So you've seen through me after all. I'm leaving! I won't stay here any longer!"

The Alchemist coughed and said, "If you leave the village, who will help you hold down your inner demon? While we were here, Cult Master Li's primal spirit dared not run wild, but if you go, I fear you won't be able to keep Great Cult Master Li in check. Cult Master Li's attainments in the demonic path ran very deep; on the eve of death he turned himself into a demon seed and planted it in your dao heart, living on through your dao heart and waiting always for the moment to bite back. You cannot wear him away, you cannot hold him down, and so he will bite back: he will snuff out your primal spirit and seize your flesh."

Granny Zhu's eyes flickered. "He won't seize my body."

"Because he loves you too much?"

The Alchemist sneered. "Then you're wrong. If he seizes your body and is reborn in it, then he is you; and what he loves is not you but your shell. Once he has become you, he may love himself. He is your inner demon, and you are his; by being reborn in your body he overcomes his own inner demon. Cult Master Li means to use you to temper himself. He wants to become a god."

Granny Zhu gave a shudder, then suddenly laughed. "Alchemist, you've said so much — can you be rid of this inner demon of mine?"

The Alchemist fell silent. Fan Xuanshu's primal spirit was already planted in Granny Zhu's dao heart; he could not be rid of it. Nor he alone: Lord Huo's Buddhist dharma could not do it, nor could the Village Head's sword root out that demon in the dao heart.

The only one who could be rid of that inner demon was Granny Zhu herself; all they could do was help her hold it down.

"I've lived here more than forty years. If you can't be rid of him, what use is it for me to stay on?"

Granny Zhu took up her basket and set off without a backward glance. "I'm going to find Shen'er. I keep fretting that he isn't eating enough, isn't dressed warm enough, that people push him around. Don't worry — if I can't hold old devil Li down, I'll come back!"

The Village Head and the Alchemist frowned together.

Granny Zhu slung the basket over her shoulder and came to the riverside. She called up a River-Bearer, climbed onto its back, and went down along the river.

After the River-Bearer had gone a hundred li or more, Granny Zhu suddenly started. In the middle of the river an old blind man was walking along on a staff. Her face went black at once; she reached out, hauled the blind man up by the scruff, set him down on the River-Bearer's back, and scolded, "Blind Elder, are you going to hold me back too?"

The Blind Elder looked blank, then smiled apologetically. "So it's Granny. I was walking along perfectly well — hold you back from what?"

Granny Zhu said, half believing and half doubting, "You've come all this way at first light — is it not to block my road and keep me from leaving the village?"

The Blind Elder protested his innocence. "You go yours, I go mine. Why would I hold you? By the bye, where is the old dame headed? Might you give me a ride?"

Granny Zhu blinked her dim old eyes and laughed. "I'm for the Kingdom of Jingping. Would you like a lift?"

The Blind Elder clapped his hands. "Jingping is just where I'm going!"

Granny Zhu stared at him wide-eyed and hard; the Blind Elder wore a look of utter innocence. Granny Zhu sneered, "What business have you in Jingping?"

The Blind Elder said mildly, "My eyes are blind. I'm going to find the man who dug them out."

Granny Zhu's heart jumped. She laughed, "I thought you were fretting over Shen'er's safety and meant to go to Jingping to find him — so it's real business after all."

"He's grown up. He'll be able to handle whatever changes come."

That shamed Granny Zhu inwardly. The Blind Elder went on, "I won't go to him directly. I'll watch him from the shadows."

Just then a streak of light flashed across the sky. Granny Zhu looked up, but the streak was already gone. Suddenly it turned back, and with a swoosh it landed on the River-Bearer's back: there stood the Lame Elder, glaring sullenly at the pair on the beast.

The Blind Elder said angrily, "Lame Elder, flitting about like a ghost — you give a body a fright! What are you about?"

"Out of the village for a wander."

The Lame Elder looked east and west. "Have you seen Lord Huo? I didn't see him yesterday, and he didn't come home last night."

Granny Zhu said in surprise, "Lord Huo didn't come back? He always comes back to the village on time."

The Lame Elder sighed. "I reckon he misses Shen'er and has gone to Jingping. I'm going to find him. The old rascal slips off without a word — I'll go and ask him why he had to do it, why he'd throw away all the friendship of our years. And I want to have a look at my leg..."

The Blind Elder sneered, "It isn't that you want to see Shen'er, is it?"

The Lame Elder said coldly, "Me, miss him? I'd never miss him! We picked the brat up; he was a nuisance and a pest from the very start, and I've long wanted to drive him off... Hey, look, that wretch up ahead looks like that fellow the Butcher... It is the Butcher!"

A moment later four people were standing on the River-Bearer's back — though the Butcher stood on his hands. The three looked at one another; the Blind Elder leaned on his bamboo staff and cocked an ear, but not one of them spoke.

Granny Zhu with her basket on her arm, the Lame Elder leaning on his cane and whistling, the Butcher with his hands down and his fists on his hips, looking all around.

At length the Blind Elder said hesitantly, "So Lord Huo's run off too. Add the four of us, and there's only the Alchemist, the Village Head, the Deaf Elder and the Silent Craftsman left in the village..."

"The Silent Craftsman's run off."

The Butcher snorted. "The Village Head and the Alchemist hadn't even risen, and the Silent Craftsman was already gone, off with a big chest on his back. I ran out after him and couldn't catch him!"

The Blind Elder was dumbstruck, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "Then it's only the Deaf Elder, the Village Head and the Alchemist left."

The Lame Elder chuckled. "It's not that we miss Shen'er; we've each our own proper business. I'm off to the imperial palace to have a look at my leg. What if the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping has pickled my leg, roasted it, smoked it, and made it into a ham? That would be a fine how-do-you-do!"

The Blind Elder nodded. "I've proper business too. I'm going to take revenge for my eyes."

Granny Zhu nodded again and again and laughed. "As Holy Maiden of the last generation of the Holy Cult, now that a new Cult Master has taken the seat, naturally I must go and meet the new Cult Master."

The Butcher thought for a long while and came up with a reason. "I think my lower half may have dropped off somewhere. I'll go and look for it — perhaps I can still reattach it."

All four breathed out in relief and said with one voice, "So we all have proper business!"

Hidden Maimed Village. The Village Head and the Alchemist sat at the village entrance, drinking tea in silence. After a long while the Alchemist said, "There's only the four of us left in the village."

"Alchemist, Lord Huo left yesterday."

The Village Head drank his tea. "Their temperaments are still too thin; they can't sit still. Not like the Deaf Elder — steeped in books, five cartloads of learning, deep and steady in the heart, calm and composed..."

He turned his head and stared, dumb, as the Deaf Elder walked past them with a bamboo creel on his back, covered with a sun-shading cloth.

The Alchemist could not help saying, "Deaf Elder, where are you going?"

The Deaf Elder seemed not to hear, and walked on.