**Chapter 111: Celestial Demonic Dance on Water**
Qin Mu slowly exhaled a long breath. This news was staggering—he needed time to digest it.
The Grand Chancellor might hold only a third-rank title, seemingly modest, but the position was of paramount importance. The Imperial Academy governed all cultivation techniques and divine abilities throughout the realm, compiling them into volumes. It was the holiest of holies—the supreme sanctuary of martial arts and divine powers in all the world.
Moreover, Yankang's officials were often graduates of the Academy. Every person who walked through its gates could be called a student of the Young Patriarch, bound by the teacher-disciple bond.
The rank itself was not high, but the influence it commanded was immense.
Add to that the Young Patriarch's concealed identity, and the implications became terrifying.
Fu Qingyun continued, "Since the young master has arrived at my doorstep, you should rest a few days before visiting the Academy. However, if you wish to enter the Imperial Academy, you will need to pass certain trials."
Qin Mu frowned. "What trials?"
"Not just anyone can enter the Academy. One must become an Academy Scholar first." Fu Qingyun smiled. "The Patriarch's intention, naturally, is for you to become a scholar. This year's selection examination is about to begin. You'll take it alongside scholars from every region—and once you pass, you may enter."
"Thank you, Sister Yun."
Qin Mu relaxed. "I don't have accommodations yet. I'll stay here a few days, if you don't mind."
Fu Qingyun lowered her voice. "You're more than welcome to stay, young master—but beware of the little vixens in this house. They're clever and would love nothing more than to climb above me and become the sect master's wife."
Qin Mu's face flushed scarlet. "There's such a thing?"
Fu Qingyun laughed. "Oh, young master—you won't last long against their provocations. Come with me. I've prepared a room for you."
The room Fu Qingyun had arranged was elegant and refined, though its furnishings seemed more suited to a young woman—even the bedding was fragrant. Fu Qingyun quickly explained, "This is my own resting chamber. If it doesn't suit you, I can arrange another."
"This is fine."
Qin Mu set his pack on the table. But Fu Qingyun lingered in the room, her crimson lower lip caught between her teeth. "Is there anything else the young master requires?"
"No. Thank you, Sister Yun."
As Qin Mu spoke, the pack rustled, and a small white fox with her own tiny pack on her back wriggled out. Fu Qingyun glanced at her, turned, and walked toward the door, muttering, "So that's it—he brought his own little fox spirit..."
Ling'er reeked of alcohol. Qin Mu frowned. "Ling'er—you were drinking in the pack!"
"I wasn't!"
The white fox was thoroughly tipsy. She belched, clapped a paw over her mouth, then belched again. She tried to stand on her hind legs, wobbled precariously, and nearly toppled off the table.
Qin Mu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He pulled an empty wine flask from the pack. "Still say you weren't? I've been studying the Celestial Demon Scripture these past days and found a technique suited to you—the Art of Creation and Vitality. I've already comprehended it fully and was planning to teach you—but you've gone and gotten yourself drunk again."
The fox on the table finally toppled off. Qin Mu caught her and tossed her onto the bed, where Ling'er hugged a pillow and fell asleep. Qin Mu himself had been worn thin from fleeing the Dragon-Taming Gate, and he lay down and sank into deep sleep.
He woke in the night, roused by hunger. He got up, saw Ling'er still sleeping, and left without waking her.
Qin Mu took out the medicinal paste and tooth-cleaning twigs from his pack, freshened up, and stepped outside. A girl was waiting by the door. Her eyes brightened when she saw him. "The young master is awake! Big sister knew you would be hungry, so she prepared a meal and asked me to wait here and escort you."
Qin Mu thanked her and followed to an elegant room in the Listening Rain Pavilion. The window overlooked a bamboo grove; through the bamboo he could see a pavilion and a rockery-surrounded pool—a scene of perfect tranquility.
Qin Mu sat down. Several girls filed in, setting dishes on the table until it was laden with food. Beyond the window, in the pavilion, a young woman in white arrived carrying a qin. She settled into the pavilion and began to play. Soon more girls appeared—some carrying pipas, some with flutes, others with guzhengs. Music filled the air.
Qin Mu ate and watched, eaten and listened, utterly entranced.
His gaze settled on the pianist's dancing fingers. Without thinking, he set down his bowl and let his own fingers mimic the movements. Then his attention shifted to the pipa player, observing her fingering technique, then to the flute player's technique. He was lost in it.
"Flicking Thunder—Pipa Hand! It's not just about striking the strings—there's also the picking, the brushing, the hooking, the plucking, the tapping, the flicking..."
Qin Mu's eyes grew brighter and brighter. The musicians' techniques in the pavilion set his fingers tingling with excitement. Cross-referencing them with the Thunder Sound Eight Moves he had practiced, his understanding of the Flicking Thunder Pipa Hand deepened with every passing moment—a sensation of sudden clarity, of a dam breaking open. He ached to leap out there and play with abandon.
Watching the girls play had ignited a fire in him to play himself, and the flame burned hotter by the second. But he knew almost nothing of music theory and didn't dare impose on these accomplished musicians.
Yet the urge grew stronger and stronger.
He watched, transfixed, and forgot to eat. His fingers moved as though strumming a qin, then plucking a pipa, then pinching as though playing a flute, then strumming as though on a guzheng.
The girls in the pavilion seemed to notice the young man at the window. One whispered, "Yue'er—he's looking at you! I think he's smitten!"
The girl named Yue'er blushed and ducked her head, not daring to look up.
At that moment, Qin Mu was lost to himself. He stood, took a single step, and crashed through the window frame in a shower of splinters. In two strides he was in the pavilion, reaching out and seizing the pipa from Yue'er's hands before anyone could react.
The girls had thought their young sect master was about to get violent—to force himself on a girl. Instead, he had snatched not Yue'er, but her instrument.
Qin Mu seemed to have entered a trance-like state. With the pipa cradled against his chest, he plucked a string—and what emerged was no delicate melody. Instead came a crackling, thunderous roar that sent the girls flinching in alarm.
Qin Mu played with abandon, fingers dancing across the strings. The crashing thunder in his ears sounded to him like the most beautiful music—beautiful and irresistible—shattering the girls' qin, flute, and guzheng melodies into chaos.
The girls were accomplished musicians and had trained painstakingly. When Qin Mu's thunderous playing disrupted their rhythm, they adjusted immediately, straightened their postures, and played with fierce concentration, determined to suppress his noise.
*Clang! Clang! Clang!*
Qin Mu's thunder shifted—becoming sharp and forceful, like metal clashing against stone. A vast, killing aura surged outward, drowning the girls' music once more. The pipa screamed beneath his fingers with bizarre, jarring sounds that left the musicians exchanging bewildered glances.
But the girls' competitive spirits ignited. The qin player struck her palm against the instrument, and the qin stood upright on the ground, a foot tall. She played standing up, fingers flying at a speed that blurred into a continuous stream of notes, each one indistinguishable from the last.
The flutist rose as well, her steps unconsciously advancing. With each stride, her presence grew; with each step, her flute tone grew clearer and brighter. The melody spiraled upward, notes tumbling over each other in a determined effort to overpower Qin Mu's raucous playing.
Another woman seized a large ruan. Her ribbons fluttered behind her, their ends touching the ground, lifting her into the air. From above she pressed down on Qin Mu's noise with cascading tones.
Yet another girl darted out of the pavilion. A crash—she had torn the door off its hinges—and wheeled out a hammered dulcimer. Her mallets struck with crystalline clarity and fierce energy, the music almost coalescing into a divine ability. The dulcimer and the girl before it slid forward across the ground, pushing back against Qin Mu and his din.
One more girl rushed from the pavilion. With a thunderous effort, she dismantled the entire bell rack—fifty-six bells of varying sizes. She seized the mallets and struck. The bells rang in fifty-six distinct voices, all directed at Qin Mu.
Qin Mu played on, lost to the world, cradling his pipa and laughing with wild joy. The pipa's range of tones was limited, but in his hands it summoned iron cavalry and golden spears—as if he had entered a battlefield beneath roiling clouds where gods and demons waged slaughter. Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and divine beings wreaked havoc across the carnage.
In his mind, everything merged: Old Ma's Thunder Sound Eight Moves, the village chief's swordplay, the Cripple's footwork, the Butcher's blade arts, the Mute's hammer techniques—all of it woven into the music.
The Celestial Demon Scripture contained chapters on music theory as well, and those flooded into his consciousness now. His pipa sang with increasing ferocity—the killing intent growing heavier—until faintly, within the crash of thunder, there threaded notes of the divine, the demonic, and the faintest echo of the Buddha.
Suddenly, the pavilion could withstand the combined music no longer. It shattered apart, and the girls and Qin Mu plunged toward the pool below. They reacted instantly, erupting with vital energy to stand upon the water's surface.
The girls moved across the water, circling Qin Mu, their music accelerating and tightening like a noose. Qin Mu's vital energy erupted in turn. The pipa hovered in the air before him, his fingers dancing upon it. The music clashed from all directions—chaos against chaos.
Then, one by one, the pipa strings snapped. Qin Mu tossed the ruined instrument aside. The girls' hearts lifted with hope—but the pool's surface surged upward. Threads of water rose and coiled around Qin Mu. No longer constrained by the pipa's size, the water threads became his strings. He plucked them, and thunder roared anew, shaking the girls so hard they staggered and stumbled.
"What is all this racket?"
Fu Qingyun strode out. She saw the girls in full retreat, and then one of them burst into wild laughter, threw down her flute, and began to dance to Qin Mu's music—wild and free, robes askew, dignity forgotten.
Fu Qingyun's eyes widened. She spun, rushed back into the house, and returned with her own pipa. "The young master is comprehending a divine ability! Girls—withdraw! I will assist him!"
But even as she spoke, the girls suffered a total rout. Manipulated by Qin Mu's music, they danced and sang upon the water, laughing like demons and spirits.
Fu Qingyun shook her head and struck her pipa. Its melody crashed down, suppressing the music Qin Mu played on the water threads. The girls snapped back to awareness, bowed hastily to Fu Qingyun, and retreated from the pool.