Qin Mu answered with every sign of respect: "Rest assured, Senior. I've practiced since childhood; my kidney waters abound, my vital yang brims full, my eyesight is excellent—I can see in the dark of night, and see clearly."
The figure in the wall flickered but made no further move, going on instead to unveil the subtleties of marshaling qi. The third seal of the Great Freedom Seal, the Seal of Great Wisdom, was far more complex; its qi ran faster and faster until even with the Shenxiao Heavenly Eye open, Qin Mu could not fully track it, and could not help wanting to step into the side hall.
He hesitated, then set one foot inside the doorway while the other stayed without. At last he could just barely catch the qi's route and struggle to memorize it—but soon the figure ran the seal once. He tried to drive it, yet something was always wanting.
"This is the fourth seal," said the figure, growing ever feebler, its shadow and voice shrinking, "and the strongest form. All the might of the first three flows into it. But it's even more complex—I fear you won't see it clearly."
"Don't worry, Senior." Qin Mu wore his most innocent smile. "My kidney waters abound, my vital yang brims full, my eyesight is fine. I can just manage."
The figure fell silent, its voice a thread: "But I can no longer hold on. Come in. In the four corners of the hall four bronze spikes are driven into the floor—into my back. Pull them up and I can draw a breath; then I can teach you the seal whole." His voice turned coaxing. "You haven't learned the Seal of Great Wisdom fully. It's complex, its power immense, and you can't unleash it unless you learn it whole. And the strongest of all is the fourth, the Great Freedom Heavenly-Demon Seal! Pull up the spikes..."
"Senior, I'd rather not after all." Qin Mu drew his left foot back out of the hall, shaking his head. "It's too troublesome, and I'm dense. Most likely I can't learn it."
The figure shuddered, schooling its voice: "I can teach you a second time, if only you'll pull up the spikes..."
Qin Mu grew more troubled. "Senior said you'd teach only once. If I asked for a second lesson, wouldn't that make you break your word? I'd feel the more ashamed. And I'm so dull I'd only disappoint you."
"No—you are clever." The voice grew gentler, like a kindly elder correcting a junior. "You learned the Seal of the Demonic Deity's Mighty Power and the Seal of Heavenly Demon Freedom after one viewing, and grasped seven or eight parts of the Seal of Great Wisdom in a single pass. Your aptitude is superb. I delight in it so much I'll break my word once and teach you a second time..."
At that the voice stopped short, then turned icy: "You tricked me out of my techniques?"
Qin Mu feigned surprise. "Senior, whatever do you mean?"
"You tricked me out of my techniques!" The figure flew into a rage, its shadow swelling over the whole side hall, fierce and hideous. "You little whelp—with all my good will I taught you, and you trick me!"
Qin Mu still stood without, unmoved. "Senior, you jest. Were you not likewise trying to trick me into coming in to set you free?"
The doors of the side hall gaped wide; the lattice windows like eyes, the doorway like a mouth, murky and baleful. Its voice dripped cold: "You knew?"
"Ours were never the same kind. Senior first duped me into thinking we were kin, then lured me with the Great Freedom Seal to draw me nearer—for two purposes only." He wore the Cripple's artless smile. "The first: make me enter, coax me to the wall, seize me, and force me to draw the bronze spikes. The second: exploit my craving for the complete seal to make me pull them myself. Had I, you would not merely have drawn a breath—you would have broken free and swallowed me as you did the foolish roe deer. But..." He smiled all the more innocently. "I'm no roe deer. I simply laid a snare for your snare and got away with two and a half seals of your teaching."
The whole side hall shook, and a roar split heaven and earth: "You bastard! I'll kill you! Once I break free I'll tear you apart alive!"
The cowherd boy of the Village of Broken Elders curled his lip and turned to leave. "Tricks like that Grandpa Cripple played on me a thousand times, fooling me from the cradle and swindling Grandma out of the candy figures she bought me. And you thought to trick me..."
"I'll kill your Grandpa Cripple!" the figure howled.
Qin Mu turned, all seriousness: "Don't provoke him. He'll fool the trousers clean off you."
The figure suddenly went eerily still, then murmured silkily: "Just now you said we're not the same kind? Heh. Little whelp, you think too simply. How could you and I not be of the same kind... heh heh heh, young little demon-heart..."
Qin Mu shuddered. He thought of the divine sound that had come from beyond the heavens when he broke through the wall, and how he had answered it with the demonic mantra. Set beside the figure's words, it bred an uneasy association he did not care for. He shook the jumble from his mind and turned away.
"Heh heh heh. You and I are the same, the very same..." From behind, the shadow laughed with unnatural mirth.
Frowning, Qin Mu walked out of the Suppressing Calamity Palace. The demon ape hurried to meet him, peered toward the side hall, and only when it saw the figure shrink back inside did it relax. "Believe? Ghost!" it said gravely.
Qin Mu nodded, feeling the same: "The Great Ruins are far too dangerous. For honest folk like us, unless we learn to be a little sharper, we'd surely be tricked to the skin and eaten to the last bone."
The demon ape curled its lip: "Believe, ghost."
Qin Mu colored a little. "I'm no liar—I've suffered small losses all my life, that's all. But you can't live here any longer. The Suppressing Calamity Palace is falling to ruin and will collapse who knows when. If it falls, that old fiend will claw free and take it out on you."
The demon ape shook its head, looking over the wild deer and cattle, and fell silent. Almost everywhere in the Great Ruins fit to live in was already claimed. Were it to herd these beasts to a new home, it would find no footing in short order, and when darkness fell, death would be certain.
Nor could Qin Mu think of an answer; the village was too small to hold so many beasts.
"Little runt, come." The demon ape led him under the cliff, where it pointed at a palm print in the rock with a look of expectation.
That print the ape had stamped itself, pressing its enormous palm into the cliff. It declared the ape lord of these lands: other beasts, seeing it, would steer wide; a covetous beast would come and challenge, and if the ape lost, the new lord would erase the print and stamp his own.
"Your, print." The demon ape looked at him hopefully.
Qin Mu was puzzled. The ape took his hand, pressed it beside its own print: "Print."
Understanding at last, heart moved, Qin Mu slapped his hand hard against the cliff and left his own palm print there. The demon ape smiled, and pointing to the valley said in its deep voice: "Mine, yours."
Qin Mu's stir of feeling turned to ha-ha laughter, and the ape chortled along.
It was then that a voice came down from midair: "Master, there are people below."
Qin Mu looked up to see a paper boat sailing the sky, some six or seven zhang long, with several robed men and women in blue standing in it. Then he saw stranger things yet: paper cranes flapping around another paper boat as it flew over, and on them stood more middle-aged men and women, each with a sword on their backs. The second boat held a single man and goods that could not be made out.
That boat paused, still floating aloft, and an old man seated in it said: "Qianqiu, ask the way."
"Yes."
A young man on one of the paper cranes looked down: "Boy, do you know the way to the Village of Broken Elders?"
Puzzled, Qin Mu pointed in the village's direction. The young man bowed with great courtesy, and a gold ingot dropped down from the crane; the cranes clustered around the boat and flew on.
Qin Mu picked up the ingot, baffled: "What do these people want with our village? Merchants passing through? But wouldn't merchants head for Xianglong City?"