As Qin Mu fled he stirred up a wind, and Grandma Si and the Blind One rode the very crest of that gust, borrowing its force to travel. A crest of wind was just like a crest of waves: waves are water set in motion, wind is air set in motion, and the head of the gust Qin Mu had raised was its crest.
The young man on Qin Mu's back slid down at once, hurrying the three of them toward his house. "Come, hurry — all of you!"
Qin Mu set the wind's crest aside and looked the courtyard over. This village was far larger than the Village of Broken Elders, holding a hundred-odd households of ancient, simple homes.
A great tree grew in the courtyard, its crown shading half the house. The woman in labor lay in the room beneath that canopy.
"Her waters have broken — boil hot water fast!" a village woman poked out and said. "Oh! The old midwife from the Village of Broken Elders is here. Then all's well, mother and child safe!"
Grandma Si glanced about, understanding all. "Mu'er, open your eyes and look for anything strange. If there is something strange, you deal with it; I'll go in and deliver the child. Blind One, keep your wits — don't be taken off guard."
"Shenxiao Heavenly Eye — open!"
Qin Mu spread the Shenxiao Heavenly Eye and looked, and his gaze fell on the dense crown of the great tree. His hair stood on end; he barely choked back a cry.
The trunk beneath that crown was thick. At a glance, a trunk; looked at closely, a great serpent as thick as a water barrel!
Half its body lay sunk into the tree's wood, and the knots swelling from the trunk were only the serpent showing through! From its bulk its length was beyond anything he'd seen; the other half must lie buried in the roots below, even larger than the green flood-dragon Old Ma had caught!
The whole tree, crown included, gave off thick black vapors coiling about the courtyard! And the serpent was flicking out its vermilion tongue toward the birthing room, sucking and blowing — who knew what it was about!
Afraid he'd misread, Qin Mu dismissed the eye and looked bare. The tree was a tree, no serpent. Open the eye again, and the serpent still coiled in the crown, waiting for the mother's child to be born that it might devour its soul.
So the mistress of this house had had every child she bore eaten of its soul by this serpent!
Fury rose in him. "Grandpa Blind…" he said low.
The Blind One sat utterly composed. "Grandma says to leave it to you. Then leave it to you. This will be your first hunt. Hurry — the child's about to be born."
Qin Mu steadied himself and walked beneath the tree, breathing slow.
His qi went from stillness to motion; with the fire in his heart, its circulation ran faster and faster, swelling vaster and vaster. Within him the qi churned, and his fury burned hotter.
Zheng—
The pig-knife on his back sang in unison with his surging qi, leapt ringing from his back, and shot over his head.
Qin Mu seized it. His qi raged into the blade, and he swung — swung with all his strength! Let the qi burst, let the fury burst, one thunderous explosion in a single blow!
Slash!
The pig-knife shrieked as it sundered the air and tore through the great tree's trunk.
Dang—
A thunderous sound. That blow cleaved into the trunk and into the serpent hidden within, but only halfway through. The serpent's hide, flesh, bones had been tempered beyond compare; even this blade, forged by the Mute with all his craft to surpass an ordinary spirit weapon, could not sever it in one stroke.
Qin Mu seized the blade-back in his other hand and put his weight into his feet, using the Cripple's leg arts.
The Cripple said the legs are wind, are earth, are the root of power!
Now his legs rooted deep in the ground and he exploded with effort; the earth about his feet cracked and sank. His hand drove the blade-back while the other gripped the hilt — and he pushed the blade!
A grating piercing wail rose, and the great tree, serpent within, snapped clean in two!
Qin Mu steadied his stance, the pig-knife crosswise before him, blood streaming, the muscles of his back leaping.
Behind him the towering tree pitched and fell.
Honglong—
It crashed into the courtyard, dust flying, and then the fallen tree came alive!
The serpent he'd cut in two lived still. Its severed half writhed, and beng, beng, beng percussive cracks burst without end. The serpent's body split the tree to pieces, bark and splinters flying, even stabbing into the walls!
The flung bark and wood were more fearsome than spears, shrill of passage, freighted with terrible force!
Fending Off a Fortress Rained With Swords at Night!
The pig-knife spun in his hands, light flashing. That first swing had driven his blade-qi, all his strength in one cut; now his blade-work turned swift.
The Butcher's art had one secret: fast, faster, still faster!
Dang, dang, dang, dang—
A rain of impacts; countless bark and splinters slammed the blade, driving a dull ache up his arms.
The serpent's strength lay far above his own, but its attention had been fixed on the birthing woman, ready the instant the baby came to seize its soul and essence. At birth, the cord still binds the child to the mother's placenta (the ziheche), and the infant's essence is all innate; after birth the innate becomes the acquired. Before birth the essence is not yet complete — so the serpent chose the instant of birth to snatch it.
By what means it had slipped into this village and hidden in the tree to cultivate, fooling every soul, all these years undetected — having devoured several infants' souls, its cultivation leapt. This time it had expected smooth plunder — but it never noticed Qin Mu, and Qin Mu's blade caught it unawares.
Yet cut in two, it would not die for some time. Now it flew into a rage. Knowing its body severed, it burst the tree's wood and gaped its cavernous maw to bite!
A gale beat at his face, his skin rippling, his eyes near-lifted from his head.
Qin Mu struck without a thought, the blade lashing like a storm of wind and rain — and then an unimaginable force slammed him. The boy grunted and hurtled backward, the courtyard wall bursting open in a man-shaped hole!
Before he could plant his feet, the two gate doors flew up like paper. The serpent had smashed through, a reeking wind before it, charging with booming menace. That maw and those fangs set his heart quailing; he dared not face it head-on, and could not help wanting to cry out for the Blind One.
Behind the serpent, the Blind One stood utterly unruffled, indifferent to the scene.
Qin Mu's mind stirred: "Could Grandpa Blind really believe I can handle this serpent? Since he believes I can, then I can! Shenxiao Heavenly Eye — open!"
His qi surged into his eyes, knitting into layered array patterns, forming in his pupils a complex eye-pattern. The Shenxiao Heavenly Eye opened, and the dim village, the scattered houses, the lunge of the serpent — all grew twice as real, and every move of the serpent he could catch with ease.
He shifted his footing and dodged the lunge by a hairsbreadth, the pig-knife cutting into the snake's eye as it swept past. He sprang upward, slipping past its sweeping body by a hair.
Every move landed with crystalline clarity — the run of its muscles under the hide, the angle of its effort — so he could know its next action and dodge. It all came naturally, no guessing.
The Nine-Layer Heaven Eye Art's first layer, the Shenxiao Heavenly Eye, did more than pierce the surface of things; it vastly heightened his senses too!
Cut through the left eye's pupil, the serpent hissed in agony and lunged at the just-landed Qin Mu; then its other eye went black, sliced open by his blade.
The great serpent fell abruptly still. Qin Mu fell still too. Man and serpent stood no more than a dozen feet apart.
Villagers had come out on both sides of the road to stare at the boy of eleven or twelve locked in battle. Oil lamps cast dim light through window lattices that could not brighten the road. Everyone held their breath.
Then a little girl, frightened out of her wits, burst into a wailing cry. The great serpent moved at once, streaking toward her, its cavernous maw gaping as it dove straight down at the stunned family of three!