荒墟牧神 - 第16章 古廟深處藏稚女 - 錦書坊

Behind the jade pendant were a pair of bright, limpid eyes. Though Shen Mu was only eleven, he already understood a great many things. Once he had followed Granny Zhu to another village, where a woman lay on the verge of childbirth; the delivery went smoothly, and the sight of that family of three, so loving together, struck him deeply. So Shen Mu asked Granny Zhu how he himself had been born, and where his parents were. Granny Zhu could not answer, and had no choice but to tell him that he had been found — picked up — and that this jade pendant had been on him when he was found. For that reason Shen Mu treasured the pendant greatly, hoping that one day it might lead him to his parents, so that he could ask them why they had cast him off. After a long while, the boy put the pendant away, hanging it once more at his breast, his face calm; the strangeness the pendant had just shown he buried deep in his heart. Behind him, Granny Zhu too returned to her room. The next day, Lord Huo, the Blind Elder, the Lame Elder, and the Silent Smith went out hunting again, bringing back more Four Symbols Beasts whose blood was refined to nourish Shen Mu. Within a radius of several hundred li the Four Symbols Beasts had been all but wiped out by these four fiends, so that the four were forced to range farther afield to catch them. The Village Head could scarcely move about; the Alchemist was forever out gathering herbs; the Butcher was a misanthrope who flew into rages without warning; and the Deaf Elder cared for nothing but calligraphy and painting. In the ordinary run of days, the only one who could keep Shen Mu company in his training was Granny Zhu. But Granny Zhu was often away from the village as well. She was a seamstress and a midwife; the nearby villages were always calling on her to make clothes, and now and then to deliver a child. Today Granny Zhu had gone out at dawn, and the Alchemist had gone to gather herbs; the Butcher and the Deaf Elder had carried the Village Head out and set him down at the village gate as usual, one of them practicing his demon blade, the other painting. Idle and bored, Shen Mu went alone to the riverside. Ever since the milk cow had turned into a woman and been stabbed to death by the Lame Elder, his chores had grown far fewer. At the riverbank the boy drew a long breath, his chest swelling as though being inflated; his chest bulged more and more, then his qi began to circulate and his chest slowly deflated again. He did not let the breath out. Instead his qi moistened and nourished his lungs, making them extraordinarily tough, compressing the air within them from ten parts down to one. Shen Mu kept drawing breath, and still his chest did not swell, until he reached his limit; then the boy halted his steps and shot forward like an arrow loosed from the string. On the river's surface two waves parted to either side, and between them Shen Mu ran upon the water, racing away like a gale. Suddenly blade-light flared over the river. Mid-stride he drew the Slaughtering Knife, its gleam flashing, wheeling up and down like a flood dragon — the Butcher's blade art! The art was like the man: the Butcher's Slaughtering Knife was a misanthrope's art, wild and overbearing, yielding to neither heaven nor earth; the blade-light rolled and surged, crushing its way across the river's face. Then the blade-light snapped shut. Shen Mu slung the Slaughtering Knife back behind him and shifted to Lord Huo's fist art. His qi ran through both arms, gathered at his fingertips, his fingers curling into fists; his body was as the Long River rushing to the sea, bearing the torrents of the high plateau to shatter the empty sky, unending. The first stance of the Eightfold Thunder Roar: Alone to the Eastern Sea, Bearing the Spring Thunder! He struck out fist after fist, and in his mind rose the vision of a great river racing, its waves thundering, pouring into the sea; unknowingly, that same spirit entered his fists. His fist suddenly op