Chapter 162 — The Young Master Is Smitten

"I cut it down from the heavens back then, so of course it is still alive."

Butcher Tu and the Blind Elder, one before the other, slowly drew away. Their steps were slow, yet their speed was great. Butcher Tu's voice came drifting back: "This is the hand I traded my lower half for. The divine flesh on it, I expect, has been made into elixirs and eaten by someone; only the bones are left."

"Shen'er, remember to come back to the village for the New Year!" the Blind Elder's voice came from far off.

Shen Mu watched them go, a faint smile on his face, and waved at their receding backs: "I will be back for the New Year, I promise!"

The Blind Elder seemed to see him waving; without turning his head, he raised his arm and waved.

"Blind Grandpa really is something."

Shen Mu marveled: "He can see that clearly from so far away."

Before long a heavy voice came rolling from afar, echoing endlessly over the grasslands: "Junior Brother Shen, Brother, Bro--"

Shen Mu recognized Libationer Bashan's voice and called out hastily at the top of his lungs: "I am here!"

The voice was still shouting: "Doctor Shen, Doctor, Doc--"

Shen Mu answered again, but Libationer Bashan's voice kept calling from afar. Shen Mu came to his senses: "Libationer Bashan must still be several hundred li away. His voice can reach here, but mine cannot carry that far to him."

Ling Yuxiu woke and said hastily, "Ox-boy, let me!" With that she waved her hand and loosed a flame divine art; a fireball burst in midair, waves of fire rolling out.

Shen Mu silently praised her cleverness and said with a smile, "It is no use. He is still several hundred li away; he cannot see it."

Snow Fox and the Green Ox woke too. The Green Ox looked this way and that, and not seeing Butcher Tu or the Blind Elder, asked, "Where is the old master?"

"He has gone."

Shen Mu heard Libationer Bashan still shouting, calling him by ever-changing names, and sighed. Libationer Bashan's voice was indeed loud, and he could certainly talk; it was hard to imagine such a rough fellow being so talkative. He said, "Let us head for the frontier pass first. If Libationer Bashan cannot find us, he will surely go there."

The Green Ox revealed his true form. Shen Mu took Snow Fox up onto the ox's back, and Ling Yuxiu jumped up as well. The Green Ox set off at a run toward the frontier pass. Shen Mu glanced at the girl beside him and asked, "Are your wounds healed?"

Ling Yuxiu nodded. "Not even a scar remains. Look, I took a sword thrust in the waist, and now it is completely healed."

She lifted her clothing, baring her waist, and turned sideways. "Right here."

Her skin was very fine; even at the waist it was white, so she must never have been out in the sun. Shen Mu's skin had once been somewhat dark; as a boy he had often swum bare-backed in the Yong River in high summer, sunburned until his skin peeled, and sometimes chased round and round by the great monstrous fish of the Yong River snapping at his heels.

These days at the Grand Academy, Shen Mu had no chance to strip off and run wild, and his skin had gradually grown white; but beside Ling Yuxiu he still seemed a little dark.

Shen Mu reached out a finger and touched her wound; he could still feel a slight ridge there.

Ling Yuxiu felt ticklish and giggled.

Shen Mu said, "Hold still. I will dissolve the clotted blood here for you, or it will stay swollen forever."

Ling Yuxiu hastily held still, holding up her clothing. Shen Mu turned his own vital qi into Azure Dragon vital qi; thread by thread the qi at his fingertip wove and darted, and with great care he guided it into her skin to dissolve the clotted blood.

Ling Yuxiu felt a tingling numbness and giggled again. "You are making me so ticklish. I have a ticklish spot there."

Shen Mu did not raise his head. "Bear it. It will not tickle in a moment; it will hurt a little."

After a while Ling Yuxiu felt a pricking pain and hastily looked down. Shen Mu was wiping away the clotted blood seeping from her skin with the Heaven-Fragrance silk kerchief; once the blood had flowed out, no mark at all remained on the skin.

Ling Yuxiu lowered her clothing and blinked her big eyes. "Divine physician, I have still got a few wounds on my back. I wonder whether they have left scars..."

Snow Fox said in her crisp voice, "I applied the medicine to the wounds on your back. Before I dressed them I squeezed out the clotted blood for you; there will be no scars."

Ling Yuxiu looked at her. The little fox smiled very sweetly, very falsely.

"Hmph, fox spirit!" thought the girl and the fox spirit at the same moment.

Snow Fox blinked. "Sister Yuxiu, how old are you this year?"

Ling Yuxiu's eyes flickered. "How old are you?"

"I am twelve."

"I am sixteen."

"You are a year older than the young master!"

...

Ling Yuxiu felt as though the little fox had pounced and driven two knives deep into her heart. It hurt badly. This fox was a mere shrimp of a thing, yet her strikes were vicious and came without warning, leaving her no defense.

She had long since seen that the little fox meant no good, deliberately burrowing into Shen Mu's blankets every night, pretending to understand nothing, shamelessly playing cute, without a shred of modesty.

And now this little minx had begun to attack in earnest.

Ling Yuxiu was usually free-spirited, a girl who seemed broad-minded, with a boldness and generosity rare in other girls; but she had a delicate side as well. She smiled sweetly and said, "Little Sister Ling, the fur on your paws is so soft. Why have you never tried turning them into human hands?"

Snow Fox yawned, eyes half-closed. "The young master likes it."

"Little Sister Ling, why have you still not taken human form?"

"The young master likes it."

"Look, your pupils are different from ours."

"The young master likes it."

...

Ling Yuxiu conceded defeat. This little fox's defense was seamless, not a drop leaking through, and she parried and counterattacked in the same breath, like the Great Thunderclap Monastery's divine art, the Mirror-Flower Void Wall, which can rebound another's attack back upon them.

"Where did the fox spirit learn that?" Ling Yuxiu, no match for her, was somewhat indignant.

Snow Fox was smug. In the Rain-Listening Pavilion she had consulted the ladies there on precisely this kind of skill.

Ling Yuxiu was suddenly caught between laughter and tears: here she was, jealous and vying with a little fox. Truly a disgrace to the royal house. She had a bosom where a bosom should be and a figure where a figure should be; though Shen Mu's eyes were a bit blind and he always said she was somewhat plump, she was not bad-looking. However sharp the little fox's moves, she had not taken human form.

Victory was already hers; there was no need at all to vie jealously with this fox spirit.

Before they reached the frontier pass, Libationer Bashan finally caught up. Seeing that Butcher Tu had already left, the big man was beside himself, wailing and weeping, cursing Heaven's Blade between his sobs.

Shen Mu comforted him a while, then said, "It is not that he did not want to see you; it is that he found you too talkative, always nagging him, so he left first. In truth Grandpa Tu cares for you a great deal; when he heard you were in danger, he was the first to rush over. Do not cry, do not cry. We are at the frontier pass now. How can Khan Wu be seen with tears and snot all over his face?"

Libationer Bashan wiped away his tears and poured out his troubles to him, beginning from when he was a boy and first followed Heaven's Blade, telling even how he had wet the bed and been spanked and made to stand in punishment by Heaven's Blade, every detail of his training, how he had washed Heaven's Blade's underclothes, how Heaven's Blade had taken him to the neighboring village to steal ducks for soup. Everything, all of it, spilled out.