Chapter 35 — Storm Clouds Rise Over the Desolate City Fair

"Eat it, Zhuang!" In the valley of Zhenyang Palace, Shen Mu took out an Essence-Condensing Pill he had refined himself, the size of a fist, and gestured with it at the nether ape. "Zhuang. Sturdy!" The nether ape scratched its head, took the pill, and swallowed it. Nothing happened. Puzzled, it said, "Zhuang?" Then all at once the beast went berserk. Hair burst wildly from every inch of its body, and a sapling sprouted from its head, which then grew into a great forked tree. — A tree seed must have fallen into the nether ape's fur, and the pill had goaded it into frantic growth. Its bulk was growing wildly too, muscles swelling, bones thickening and strengthening, until the nether ape was stretched so taut it howled without cease and smashed at everything around it. Shen Mu rushed in to stop it and was hammered to the ground by a single punch. The ape's second blow struck the earth and shook him up out of the soil, and then a punch sent him flying. Shen Mu charged back. The nether ape roared on and on, and man and ape went at each other again in the valley, battering the rocks into flying shards. After taking the Essence-Condensing Pill Shen Mu had refined, the nether ape had grown bigger and stronger, its strength rising by a great margin. When Shen Mu faced it head-on, his own strength was crushed by it; he simply could not match the ape's power. Left with no choice, Shen Mu converted his vital essence into the fire attribute. The scalding essence coursed through his body, and on the skin of his back a dragon pattern faintly emerged, the dragon's four limbs joined to his own four limbs, its claws falling exactly where his palms were, overlapping his fingers. A five-clawed fire dragon! Fire-attribute vital essence belonged to the Vermilion Bird, yet Shen Mu was no Vermilion Bird spirit embryo but a human-shaped one. The dragon pattern that surfaced on his back was not the work of his vital essence but the effect of practicing the Eight Thunderclap Arts that Old Man Ma had taught him. Old Man Ma's Eight Thunderclap Arts, the circulation of vital essence, was wondrous beyond measure: the essence traced a dragon pattern through the body, spreading over the whole of it. If a man like Old Man Ma, with an Azure Dragon spirit body, were to perform the Eight Thunderclap Arts, his essence would carry the attributes of wood and thunder, and the dragon pattern on his back would be azure, woven through with lightning. But Shen Mu had not cultivated Azure Dragon essence and could only use Vermilion Bird essence, so beside the dragon pattern on his back there were blossoms of fire cloud. Only when he roused the Eight Thunderclap Arts did the dragon pattern and fire clouds surface on his body; so long as he did not use them, those strange markings slowly dimmed and vanished. As Shen Mu circulated his essence, his strength surged, and at last he could stand against the nether ape head-on. But the ape was in a frenzy and fought by no rule at all, willing to take a beating in order to give one, and in the end man and ape alike were black and blue, lying flat on their backs, gasping, unable to move. The great fork on the nether ape's head had grown into a full tree, thick as a water bucket, hung with bright red fruit. The pill's potency faded, and the tree stopped growing. There was indeed something wrong with that batch of Essence-Condensing Pills Shen Mu had refined: the potency was too strong, too fierce, not balanced and mild. Only a body as powerful as the nether ape's could withstand the shock of it; any other martial artist at the spirit embryo realm would likely have been blown apart. Now that the potency was spent, the nether ape's body began slowly to shrink, though it was still much taller than before, and far more robust, which made Shen Mu suspect that his pills had indeed gone a little wrong. Yet judging by the ape's behavior, the problem was not serious; and even if there was a problem, it was a good one. He picked a fruit from the tree on the nether ape's head, peeled it, and ate it. It was sweet and moist, with a faint medicinal fragrance. The nether ape sat up and pulled the tree off its own head. The roots had crawled all over its face. The ape stripped off a handful of leaves and fruit and chewed them slowly. Shen Mu handed it the remaining pills and instructed, "Only one at a time. Never more than one. And if you want to fight, go out and find other strange beasts to fight. You are not to tear down Zhenyang Palace." The nether ape's eyes lit up. It hastily put the pills away and nodded again and again. The Essence-Condensing Pills Shen Mu refined were too large. A pill master's pills were only the size of a little finger's tip, while his, made with unskilled technique, were the size of an ordinary man's fist. So a batch yielded few pills, only some twenty-odd. Shen Mu left with an easy mind. As soon as he was far off, the nether ape took out one absurdly large pill and hurried off, eager, to settle a score in the nearest strange beast's territory. The strange beast next door was its enemy, often invading its territory, plundering beasts to fill its belly, and had beaten it soundly several times. Shen Mu's palm print was on the cliff wall, and the beast knew a new master had come, so it had not trespassed for some time. The nether ape arrived at its enemy's home, swallowed the pill in one gulp, roared, and charged into the enemy's territory. Two days later, the day of the temple fair finally came. Granny Zhu brought cloth; Old Man Ma brought some furniture he had newly made; the pill master carried his medicine basket on his back; the butcher loaded onto the cart a strange beast the lame old man had caught the day before, evidently meaning to slaughter and sell the meat at the fair, the butcher selling and the lame man taking a share, a clear division of labor between them. The mute brought his furnace and his blacksmith's tools; the hard-of-hearing old man brought brush, ink, paper, and inkstone; they called Shen Mu, hitched up the ox cart, and set off for Granny Temple. The cart was packed to the brim, and it rolled rumbling toward Granny Temple. Shen Mu drove, without much enthusiasm. A country fair would once have held some attraction for him as a boy, but his horizons were far wider now, and a fair was no longer so interesting. Yet when they reached Granny Temple, Shen Mu was still startled. The fair was bigger and noisier than he had imagined: around the ruins of Granny Temple stretched a market ten li long, stalls everywhere, crowds coming and going, a bustling, clamorous throng. These were not the people of ten li around, but villagers from every village within a hundred or two hundred li, most of them gathered here! "On the map of Zhenyang Palace, this place is not called Granny Temple but Azure Wolf Palace," Shen Mu marveled, wondering why it had been renamed Granny Temple. The ox cart drove into the market, and Shen Mu saw all manner of strange and unheard-of things laid out on tiny stalls: sugar-figure makers, cooks and food sellers, jugglers, fire-spitters, sellers of strange beasts, of ores, of jewels, of daughters, a little of everything, nothing missing. "This humble father and daughter are from Ox Family Village, passing through your honorable parts. We seek neither fame nor profit, only that my daughter has come of age and has no husband yet; therefore we hold a contest of arms to choose a bridegroom, hoping to find a hero of surpassing skill..." Shen Mu saw a great commotion ahead, stopped the cart, and craned his neck to look. It was a marriage-by-combat contest at Granny Temple, men and women fighting fiercely on the platform. He watched a few moments, lost interest, and went on, only to find that Granny Temple had several such platforms. These platforms were built on earthen mounds, and on them were young men and women from the various villages, many of them young martial artists in their prime; and of course there were also