"Grandma once said that if I lost my way in the Great Ruin and could not return to the village before dark, I was not to panic." Qin Mu steadied himself and thought: "There are many ruins in the Great Ruin, full of strange wonders. Hiding among them might just save my life. Whether a ruin could save me depends on two things: first, whether it holds stone statues like the ones in the village; second, whether great numbers of strange beasts are gathered there. Those beasts are wise to the spirit; they know where one can hide from the dark…"
During his flight just now Qin Mu had caught sight of the remains of old walled towns and villages, broken walls and crumbling beams, all very ancient—only he had had no time to stop and look for stone statues.
The sun was already half sunk beneath the hills. Then, of a sudden, all heaven and earth fell silent, silent enough to drive a man mad. Next came a great rustling of wings: Qin Mu looked up to see great birds wheeling overhead in a black press that blotted out the sun. The earth trembled, the trees bowed low, and strange beasts came crawling out from who knows where to flee on legs. Qin Mu even heard the sounding of waters in a lake and watched several crimson fish several zhang long leap clear of the surface—taking their fins for legs and racing across the ground! Fish running over dry land—were these even fish anymore?
"All these beasts are running toward the same direction. That way must hold shelter from the dark!" His spirits rose, and he charged forward with the herd.
In the distance the darkness swept in like a tide. It was not at all like ordinary night; it came like a great flood, washing over mountains, valleys, and wilds, drowning everything in its path. Though Qin Mu had watched it come before, he was shaken anew. The darkness came on in force, and the herd still galloped straight into it. Qin Mu hesitated. The beasts ran toward where the darkness came from—was there truly place of safety ahead? And what if there was not? Was he to die without so much as a grave?
"No matter. The darkness comes too fast; even if I turned back now I could not outrun it. The only choice is to run with the herd!" He set his teeth and charged madly ahead.
More than a dozen li downriver from the Village of Broken Elders, Grandma Si's battle with the Five Elders of the Li River had reached its most critical point. At first only the Four Elders had surrounded her, but as their siege failed, Qi Yanbing, first among the Five and watching from the cliff, leapt into the fray—five elders besieging her at once, laying down the Five-Phase Demon-Refining Array.
Yet Grandma Si, who had barely held out against the four, suddenly grew in strength the instant Qi Yanbing joined in. Not even the Five Elders' array could cage this old woman. Astonished and furious, only then did they understand she had feigned weakness to lure Qi Yanbing in, so that she could take them all at once and keep him from slipping away.
Grandma Si, tiptoeing on her bound little feet, flickered about like a ghost. The silver needles and silken threads in her basket seemed to come alive of themselves, and in the blink of an eye she had pierced the Five Elders until they streamed blood, a single strand of thread lacing them together, pinning souls and flesh so they could not stir. Her wrinkled face split into a wide smile as she picked up her scissors: "It has been an age since Grandma last flayed a man's skin. I wonder if my hand has lost its cunning…"
She came before Qi Yanbing, and abruptly he opened his mouth and spat out a silver pellet that flew at her face! The pellet swelled as it met the wind, and with a whoosh ten thousand beams of sword-qi burst from it, in an instant swelling into a sphere of a hundred-odd zhang made wholly of flashing sword-light.
Caught off guard, Grandma Si fell back, her body going suddenly soft as she undulated through the air like an earthworm, dodging beam after beam, while her scissors flew from her grasp like two silver flood-dragons, snapping shut to shear the sword-beams in two. Taken by surprise as she was, a beam still caught her, driving in from behind. She was hunchbacked, and her back held a space beyond her own sight—it was squarely on that hump the blade-light struck. The sword-light vanished, and broken blades clattered down, bristling from the earth across several acres. The silver pellet fell with a pat and lay still.
Grandma Si landed, reached behind her back, and drew out the sword, frowning: "So you slipped past even that…" Qi Yanbing looked on with despair in his eyes, his voice hoarse: "I ambushed you at close range with a sword-pellet holding six thousand eight hundred and forty-two blades, and still you dodged it. You cannot be some nameless chit of the devil way! There is no old crone of your look among its ranks. Who are you?"
Of a sudden he took note of her back. Where the hump had been pierced there showed a wound—but no blood flowed. Rather, light shone into the hole, and within it was plainly empty. Qi Yanbing shuddered with terror: "This is not your true appearance! You wear another's skin…"
"You have wounded my skin." Grandma Si frowned, and the voice she gave was not the aged woman's tones she used daily but something far more pleasing, that would make one think her a beautiful lady in the full flower of her years. She pressed her throat, sighed, and muttered: "Leaking breath…" She took a strand of silk from her basket, sewed shut the wound, tried her voice again, and it had returned to normal.
Suddenly Qi Yanbing started as though he had seen a ghost, his face changing drastically as he cried out: "I know that voice—I know who you are! The mistress of the Demon Heaven Sect, the lady—"
Grandma Si's face flickered with displeasure. She touched a finger to the thread that ran through the five, and the Five Elders of the Li River were in that instant minced to pieces, their flesh and blood scattered across the ground! Strangely, the silken thread caught not a single drop of blood; it wound itself about of its own accord as though alive, coiling into a ball that slipped back into her basket.
Grandma Si snorted, then broke into bubbling laughter: "Dead Cripple, how long have you been standing there?" Some ways behind her, the Cripple limped forward on his crutch, his lined face wreathed in smiles: "I just arrived, just arrived. Senior Sister, I saw nothing and heard nothing."
Grandma Si shot him a glance, her eyes narrowed in a smile: "Seeing is no matter, so long as you heard nothing. Let us return to the village." The Cripple hesitated, then said: "The Demon Heaven Sovereign, Li Tianxing, was a man of shining wisdom and valor all his life, yet he did one foolish thing. In his later years he took a fancy to the most beautiful witch of that age, set aside his former consort, and meant to take her as his new bride. On their wedding night, in the bridal chamber, the new consort did him harm, ruined the hundreds of years of his cultivation, and made off with the sect's supreme canon. The patriarch and elders hunted her down, yet still she slipped away, and no word of her has been heard to this day…"
"Is that so?" Grandma Si tittered: "In her early years this old woman heard of a man who refined both his legs to the level of a god's, so that they were hailed as divine legs. His lightness was without peer on earth, but he took up thievery and was called the greatest thief under heaven. Though not yet a god, his name carried the word 'god,' and drew divine jealousy. When he went to steal the imperial edict from the Yanqin Kingdom, the thief who had never once failed was found out by the Grand Tutor, who cut off one of his divine legs. Yet he still escaped with the edict. The Grand Tutor, called the first man beneath the gods, should still be keeping that divine leg, waiting for its rightful owner to reclaim it, should he not?"
The smile on the Cripple's face grew even broader, and he echoed with a weary laugh: "Grandma, we are all cripples of one village. We have said before that each of us keeps his little secrets and asks nothing of the others' origins. From this moment on, I shall be a mute and a deaf man, and keep my lips tightly sealed."
Grandma Si snorted, and picking up her basket made for the village: "Was it Muer who sent word to you to come and stand by for me?" The Cripple shook his head: "When you clashed with those five the noise was too great and the trembling too strong. We felt it in the village, and the Village Chief sent me to see whether you had need of help."
Grandma Si's face paled: "Has Muer returned to the village?" "I did not see him when I came." "Then all is lost!" The two hurried back, but before they reached the village the sun sank below the horizon, and darkness rose from the rim of the world, flooding the whole horizon, swelling higher and higher, swallowing all that lay in its path and rolling toward them!
Grandma Si reached the village and searched it at a furious pace, then went pale: "Muer has not returned?" Darkness swallowed the Village of Broken Elders utterly.
"Grandma need not be anxious." The Village Chief, carried over by the Cripple and the Apothecary, stayed Grandma Si who was about to take up a stone statue and go out searching for Qin Mu. "All that we could teach him, we have taught him. So long as he has learned it, he should be able to survive in the Great Ruin. It would do no good for you to go out now—night has already fallen."
Grandma Si wilted, knowing full well the Chief spoke truly. If Qin Mu still lived, he would live out the night without her rescue; if he were dead, taking a statue forth to seek him would avail her nothing.
"He still has that jade pendant to protect him…" Even as she thought this, Grandma Si knew the pendant on his breast was made to guard an infant, and its range was limited. Qin Mu had grown up now; the light of the pendant could shelter only his chest.
"Muer, you must be clever…" Grandma Si murmured low.