Chapter 129 — The Divine Sword Hides Its Edge

Around him stood a crowd of scholars frozen in shock, and the one who had spoken of the stench of rot a moment before was the most aghast of all—he had never dreamed that the young man and girl who had been dancing so tenderly, so gracefully, only moments earlier would turn and strike to kill; that the youth in brocade would slam the girl so hard she was embedded in a brass pillar. Savage beyond words, and it left a shadow on a man's mind!

Before long Shen Wanyun came over and slapped his palm against the brass pillar. The pillar shuddered violently, and Yue Qinghong, wedged inside it, tumbled out as though jolted by lightning, then covered her face and fled.

The girl's face was bruised and swollen, and her dignity had taken a beating as well. She could have freed herself from the pillar, but the crowd of scholars gathered outside meant she would lose all face; so she stayed hidden inside, meaning to wait until the onlookers thinned before coming out. Instead, they only grew more numerous.

Shen Wanyun then went to the boulder where Lang Nu hung pinned by the blades, drew out the two demon swords, and set him free. Then he leapt down from the jade cliff, stripped off his outer robe, and draped it over Monk Yun Que to cover him, and only then woke him.

Seeing himself left in nothing but a pair of short white trousers, Yun Que understood at once that after he had been knocked senseless, the youth called Shen Mu had stripped him bare, and he was overcome with shame and fury.

That white monk's robe of his was worth a fortune, worth more than an ordinary yuan soldier's kit. Yun Que had sold off every possession he owned to scrape together the money for that one robe, and now Shen Mu had peeled it off him.

Before long Shen Wanyun, Yun Que, Lang Nu, and Yue Qinghong gathered together again. Shen Wanyun said with a smile, "Junior Brother, Junior Sister, what do you make of this Shen Mu's abilities?"

Yue Qinghong gave a cold snort. "You were not sure you could beat him yourself, so you sent us out ahead to sound out his depths? Eldest Senior Brother, isn't that a touch devious?"

Shen Wanyun said calmly, "In war there is no such thing as too much deception—that is a lesson I learned on the battlefield. I also learned there that he who knows himself and knows his enemy will never be beaten in a hundred battles. Until I have observed his weakness, I will not strike rashly. The two of you are not much weaker than I am; if you cannot beat him, neither can I. So the only way left is to hunt for his weakness. If even I were defeated, then he would be the Eldest Senior Brother of our Scholars' Lodge, and its pride and face."

Yun Que was won over and then some. He said, "Eldest Senior Brother, what did you see?"

"His dharma power, his cultivation, his moves, his fighting instinct, his technique, his scheming—all of them first-rate!"

Shen Wanyun said, "You traded palm strikes with him. You cultivate the Buddhist dharma, your cultivation is deep and mighty, and the defense of Buddhist divine powers is fearsome—yet he broke you down with the force of his palm. His dharma power and cultivation are above yours! Lang Nu's cultivation is mighty as well, and his blade art is a killing art honed on the battlefield, yet he could not land a single blow on the man; instead he lost in three moves. That shows his fighting instinct and his moves are top-notch too! And when he beat Junior Sister Yue, he relied on technique and cunning. She was examining Lang Nu's wounds; he slipped up behind her without a sound, so that she lost the initiative and had to press body to body with him in that dance, and so fell into his trap."

Yue Qinghong thought of how tightly she had been pressed against Shen Mu, and her cheeks reddened a little; she gave a cold snort.

Shen Wanyun said, "He wields his sword with incredible speed—he wounded Daoist Lingyun and humiliated him before the hall, which shows his swordsmanship is his strongest suit. And to defeat more than a dozen scholars of the Lodge, he used spells, seizing control of their minds—so he is a master of spells as well. This man has scarcely a single weakness to be found."

The more Yun Que and Yue Qinghong listened, the more alarmed they became. Yue Qinghong had made inquiries about the moves Shen Mu used to defeat those many scholars, hoping to know her enemy as she knew herself, yet she still understood far less than Shen Wanyun did.

That Shen Wanyun had held the seat of Eldest Senior Brother of the Scholars' Lodge all these years was truly no empty reputation.

"A man so perfect, without a single flaw—how do you defeat him?" Yun Que murmured.

Shen Wanyun said calmly, "This concerns the face of our Scholars' Lodge, the face of our Grand Academy, the face of the scholars of Jingping. One way or another, he must lose! He is a cast-off who crawled out of the Desolate Ruins. If he does not lose—heh heh—would that not mean the scholars of Jingping are inferior to a cast-off?"

His spirits stirred, and he said slowly, "He has no weakness in any of those respects, so I set my mind to work and went looking for a weakness in his arts. And I found one."

Yun Que and Yue Qinghong were shaken, and both looked at him.

Shen Wanyun smiled. "I found the weakness in his art. When he fought you and urged his art into motion, there was the faintest, almost imperceptible flaw in the way his vital essence moved. His weakness lies there. I still need to watch him a while longer before I can know its exact place."

Yue Qinghong was won over in her heart as well, and sighed. "There is a reason we have lost to you all these years. You are indeed a cut above us."

Shen Wanyun laughed. "Without the two of you, I would never have advanced so quickly; the pace of your pursuit forced me to train as though my life depended on it. Once I have observed the exact place of his weakness, I will make my move, and defeat him openly before every scholar of the Grand Academy, to preserve the name of Jingping's scholars!"

At the Scholars' Lodge, Shen Mu walked along his way, and everywhere he passed, the scholars wore faces of dread. Clearly many had seen him drive Yue Qinghong into the brass pillar and nail Lang Nu to the boulder, and no doubt others had heard that Yun Que was knocked senseless and thrown off the cliff.

Two of the Lodge's three top experts had already been soundly thrashed by this cast-off from the Desolate Ruins. Apart from Shen Wanyun, who could possibly be a match for Shen Mu?

Shen Mu opened the door of his room and went in. Then the little fox poked her head out and called, "Does anyone still want these sword cases? If nobody does, they're going to be sold off in the capital!"

"Wait!" one of the scholars said in a fluster. "Wait! I want to buy back my sword case!"

"And mine—don't sell mine either! As soon as I scrape the money together, I'll come redeem it!"

"Little fox, my monthly allowance hasn't come in yet. Could you stretch a point and let me take my sword case back first?"

"Then you must write an IOU, and when you have the money, come take the IOU back."

Once Xue Hu'er had settled all the sword cases in the courtyard, she came inside holding a few IOUs between her fingers. "Young Master, would you check whether these IOUs are written correctly? I can't read."

Shen Mu said with a half-smile, "You can't read, and yet you dare to take IOUs? These are all fine—just keep them safe."

Xue Hu'er was delighted, and hurriedly hid the IOUs in a hole in the wall.

Shen Mu called her over. "There are still two days before the term begins. I am going to teach you the Creation Spirit Art."