Back in the village, Old Ma drew in his fist. "Did you see it clearly?"
"I did!" Qin Mu pondered. "Every dragon-force stands for a different power. Scramble the order of the hundred breeds, and this move blossoms into countless variations! Another may take my first punch, but never my second with the same move. Were I to throw a hundred punches, a thousand, each would be wholly unlike the last!"
Old Ma, in rare fashion, showed a trace of a smile. "Your Supreme Body qi once had no attribute, so you could not cultivate the Tathagata Great Vehicle Sutra, and I pledged to the Monastery never to pass it on. So long as you have divined the truth of the fist, whether you study it is beside the point. You have grasped the dragon's rhyme, bearing, momentum, qi, and spirit — without the Hundred Dragon Images, you can divine their mysteries on your own. Your Supreme Body Three-Dan Art will carry the Eight Thunder Moves no short of the sutra!"
Qin Mu's spirits soared — Old Ma had always been cold as ice; to win his praise was rare and delightful. And his words lit a spark. The Nine Dragons Reining Wind and Thunder rested chiefly on dragon-force — what of the first move, Striding the Eastern Sea Alone, Bearing the Spring Thunder, gained by watching the great river pour into the sea? Was the Pipa Hand bound up with music? Kuafu Chasing the Sun, and Tempering the Yang Soul in the Sunlight — each surely held its own path. The more he thought, the more excited he grew, until he wished he could wander the world that very day.
"Tomorrow, mind you rise early and present yourself in the neighboring village," Grandma Si said with a smile.
Puzzled, Qin Mu asked: "Grandma, that village is the Heavenly Demon Cult. Why do they call you the Cult Master's Wife? Why did they make you Cult Master? And if you won't take the post, why do they mean to kill us?"
She patted his head. "You will know in time."
Early the next morning Qin Mu washed, ate, and picked up some eggs — and the chicken-dragon came storming over to trade blows with him, evenly matched. It flapped its sword-sharp feathers at this egg-thief, then spat a gout of flame; with the Green Dragon coiled about him, Qin Mu struck with the Pipa Hand to block those feathered blades.
"Mu'er, don't tussle with it. Go present yourself next door." Grandma Si drove the chicken-dragon off.
She led him to the neighboring village, where the Elder of Discipline came out, sizing Qin Mu up, and said: "Cult Master's Wife, all is ready. Three hundred and sixty chambers. The young master need only walk through each one."
Grandma Si blinked. "All in one go? Is that not asking rather a lot?"
The Elder smiled. "And if he cannot pass them, then we beg you to return with us." "May he rest in between?" "Rest as he pleases — food and drink, a bed, healing salves, spirit pills, everything."
Grandma Si looked at Qin Mu, then said: "Mu'er, go present yourself at the chambers. Call them Elder Brother and Elder Sister; no need for 'Senior.'"
Qin Mu nodded and made for the first chamber of the first wooden building. "Three hundred and sixty — who knows how long. Grandma, I'm going in."
Grandma Si watched his back. "Mu'er, do you know what you will face once you go in?"
Qin Mu glanced back with a smile. "I know. I won't let them take you."
Her heart warmed, and she turned and left. Years ago she had fished him out of the river, and never dreamed the babe of that day would one day carry her worries.
Qin Mu stepped into the first chamber. The room was spacious, seated within a man with a jaundiced face, a goatee, and an abacus in hand — like an old bookkeeper talling accounts.
"Elder Brother." Qin Mu planted his feet, offered a salute, then set down one by one the things on his back — the butcher knife, the bamboo staff, the Khakkhara, the sword satchel, the Shao Bao Sword — laid them at the door, and said: "If you please."
The bookkeeper stared at the youth of eleven or twelve. "Do you know what you are here to do?"
Qin Mu worked his body loose, qi blazing. "No need for Grandma to speak plainly. I know it of myself!" In a single step he was upon the bookkeeper. Crash — a thunder-peal burst from his palm, his qi fierce as flame! "Is it not simply this: fight my way from chamber one to three hundred and sixty?"
The bookkeeper flung up a hand to parry, felt a colossal force slam into him, and was sent hurtling back through the wall into the courtyard. Furious and astonished, he looked through the hole and saw Qin Mu hoist his gear and head for the next chamber. "Here I am raging at a child." He burst into rueful laughter: "Be on your guard, the lot of you! His qi in the Spirit Womb realm is twice what I boasted at that realm. Mind you don't tip over in the ditch!"
"Twice as deep as yours?" A woman's voice, like a silver bell, rang out. "With cultivation like that, he is worthy of his title. I wonder what his arts are like."
Qin Mu reached the next chamber and pushed the door open. Within was a scholar, absorbed in a scroll. "Elder Brother," Qin Mu offered his respects.
The scholar looked wary. "You mean to strike me when I return your bow? I won't give you the chance."
"Qi ke duo!" Crash! Thunder erupted, splinters flew, and the scholar hurtled back through the debris into a towering tree. He struck the ground and cried: "Beware! This boy's arts are formidable. He has mastered the demonic mantra — flows better than our own Holy Sect's!"
The words barely left him when another thunder-peal rang, and a doddering schoolmaster was blasted out, tumbling against a stone pillar, roaring: "Nonsense! I walked into your trap — so busy minding his demonic mantra, he near wounded my soul! Don't fall for it — he uses the Eight Thunder Moves!"
"Nonsense!" A woman's shout came from the fourth chamber. "Old Xie, you've done for me! It's the Demon Art of Creation — he's sealed my three souls and seven spirits, groped me all over, ruined my good name!"
Qin Mu's face colored slightly as he stepped out. The Art's handwork must strike the perineum, the viscera, and the navel — for a woman, all intimate places, hardest to lay hands on; the perineum above all was distinctly indecent. "I'm still young. I don't understand these things," the cow-herding boy blinked, and thought to himself.
In the fifth chamber, a man naught but skin and bone watched Qin Mu approach with a cold sneer: "Whatever you bring, you shall not pass my gate. Supporting Toad Art!" He drew in a long breath, gurglings swelling like a great toad.
Qin Mu marveled, for the thin hall master's body began to swell — tendrils thickening under his skin with every breath. This Supporting Toad Art mimicked the omen-averting gold toad, ordinarily no larger than a washbasin, able to bloat a hundredfold and swallow tigers and lions whole. Its strength became boundless, and when the breath was done, his body was a horror of straining sinew, slabs of muscle like rock, grown a full zhang and more, a veritable little giant — while Qin Mu remained quite unchanged.
As the hall master drew his breath, Qin Mu drew his too, yet his chest did not swell. A single gulp nearly drained the air before him, drawing a breeze through the building until the lattice windows trembled!
"The Supporting Toad Art's strength is invincible — one punch can shatter you! Gurgle—" The hall master raised a palm broad as a winnowing fan, red as blood, flooding the room with crimson glare, and hammered at Qin Mu. Qin Mu met it with his own punch — two fists, one vast, one small, crashing together, shaking the whole building.
The hall master grunted and fell back. The muscle of his arm writhed as though a dragon had burrowed within, racing toward his heart! He raised his other hand and chopped at his arm, severing that force. He fell back another step, his arm bulging as if two dragons churned beneath the skin, and chopped again.
By his fourth step the wall at his back was shattered. On the fifth he landed outside, then fled back until a great tree at his back shuddered to dust. Through the hail of splinters burst nine dragons, riding wind and thunder, roaring behind his back!
He had failed to cut off the ninth fold of the Nine Dragons Reining Wind and Thunder.