"Could it be that she controls this sword with that fine thread? But with a thread so thin, how does she manage to make the sword turn?"
Qin Mu had no time to puzzle out the mystery. He fled at once, and with a thud, the sword grazed past him and buried itself deep in a great tree.
The sword seemed alive; it twitched twice in the tree trunk but failed to pull free. Then the woman drifted over, closed her slender hand about the hilt, drew the sword from the tree, and said in vexation: "My White Tiger True Essence is still not strong enough—I cannot yet wield it as easily as my own arm…"
"Junior Sister Qing, to turn your True Essence into fine silk and fly your sword at an enemy is already quite remarkable." The young man who had crossed the waves beside her came up and said in a soft voice, laughing: "What you lack is not cultivation but experience. This time the Master has brought us to the Great Ruin to train, precisely to remedy that weakness. In the past we cultivated entirely on our own and lacked real combat; now this little demon whelp is our chance for practice, and you will soon master driving the sword with qi."
The other three youths hurried over, and one of them laughed: "This little demon whelp transformed into a deer, and deer are naturally agile, which is how he dodged Senior Sister's flying sword."
That Senior Sister Qing's spirit was greatly lifted, and she drove her sword at Qin Mu once more, laughing prettily: "Senior Brother Qu, do not strike yet—leave this little demon whelp for Junior Sister to practice her sword on."
Senior Brother Qu, the young man who had crossed the waves with her, nodded at this and laughed: "Three junior brothers, shall we watch Senior Sister Qing's swordsmanship together?"
Qin Mu dodged the flying sword-light with every scrap of speed, thinking in bewilderment: "Driving the sword with qi? Could that thread in the woman's hand be no real thread at all, but her own vital qi? Can vital qi be refined to such a degree that it commands a sword? Could I ever do the same?"
He had studied butchery with the butcher, and the butcher had only taught him to wield the knife with both hands; never had he taught him to command the knife with qi. Of such matters Qin Mu knew nothing at all.
Seeing this Senior Sister Qing drive a sword with qi, Qin Mu's thoughts stirred as well. If one could drive a sword with qi, could one use vital qi to control other things?
But Senior Sister Qing drove her sword at him again, and left him no time to ponder. Moreover, he had been turned into a moose-deer by Grandma Si, his hands and feet clumsy, and the vital qi within his body had sunk into stillness, less lively than usual.
Ssh—
A flash of sword-light swept in from behind and grazed across Qin Mu's back. He felt his back go cold, then a burning pain came, and he knew the blade of Senior Sister Qing had wounded his back.
"Terrible—a deer may be swift, but in the end it is not so nimble as my own true body. I have been turned into a deer by Grandma, and now I am wounded besides. I am likely doomed…"
The thought had barely crossed his mind when he felt his mouth split open.
It was not truly split; rather, the mouth of the deer-hide peeled away from his body!
At once Qin Mu remembered that when Grandma Si had urged him to run, she had quietly taken a needle from "his" brow—the very needle that pinned his Heavenly Soul!
Soon his head came away from the deer-hide.
Behind him, sword-qi split the air with a hissing sound and cut down at him. Qin Mu lunged forward with all his strength, burst out of the deer-hide entirely, tumbled and rolled a dozen-odd zhang, then sprang to his feet and fled at a dead run.
Behind him, the deer-hide was shredded to pieces by Senior Sister Qing's qi-driven sword, the blade flitting like falling blossoms, coming and going like lightning—in her pursuit of Qin Mu, this woman's swordsmanship had advanced by leaps and bounds!
Still, shedding the deer-hide had cost him a moment, and a youth, treading the leaves above the trees, descended from the sky and landed before him, blocking his way.
The two were separated by only two or three zhang—a span a blink could cross; in the next instant they would be face to face!
Qin Mu had no time to change direction, and no other thought came into his head. His body of its own accord called up the leg-work the Cripple had taught him: head-down, feet-up, legs sweeping out like a whirlwind!
"Green Dragon Arm!"
The youth, a few years older than Qin Mu, wore a sneer as he crossed his arms to block. A dim green light streamed from both arms, and dragon claws covered in scales surfaced from the skin of his hands. Then Qin Mu's leg met his arm—ding, ding, two clashes of steel on steel—and the boy's sneer had not yet faded when he grunted, lost his footing, and was knocked staggering back.
The sleeves of both his arms burst apart with a bang, fluttering away like paper butterflies, scraps scattering through the air. His arms seemed carved with dragon-claw tattoos, the claws winding about the arms.
Yet having taken Qin Mu's two kicks, his arms in an instant turned red and swollen.
"Do you have iron ingots hidden in your legs?" the boy cried, hands trembling with pain, astonished and furious, his gaze then falling on Qin Mu's feet: "And your shoes are iron too?"
Qin Mu braced his hands, set both feet on the ground, and fled at a dead run.
But the boy's words had reminded him: his legs indeed bore iron ingots. When the Cripple taught him leg-work, he had demanded that both legs be bound with iron ingots, never to be removed whether he lay, rose, or walked—he was to carry them always.
Of late, seeing Qin Mu's body grow more robust and his strength greater by the day, the Cripple had bound the ingots heavier and heavier. Not content with that, the Cripple had the Mute, the blacksmith, forge Qin Mu a pair of iron shoes to add yet more weight.
A pair of thick-soled iron shoes weighing ten jin, and a single leg's iron ingot weighing twenty jin—Qin Mu's two legs carried fifty jin of weight!
The Cripple required him to train until he could no longer feel the weight of the iron shoes and ingots before he might remove them. Of late Qin Mu had grown used to shoes and ingots both; when he fled at a dead run just now, it had never crossed his mind that he was running burdened.
But to stop and take off his shoes and unbind would surely let them catch him. He could not stop—not for the world.
"Trampling the Sumeru Mountain!"
As he ran, Qin Mu suddenly drove into his right foot, unleashing a move—trampling the Sumeru Mountain—and the thick soles of his iron shoes were stamped flat as mud, splattering away; the iron shoes shattered, shards scattering in every direction.
At the same time, the muscles of his calves tightened and bunched, swelling outward, and burst the iron ingots loose—they shot off like arrows, thudding deep into the surrounding trees.
Qin Mu's other foot stepped forward, landed, and likewise shattered its iron shoe and burst its ingots.
Whoosh—
His body suddenly grew light, and he took a single step up onto a treetop, startling himself.
Barefoot, toes upon the treetop, his body began to sink.
And below him, sword-light flashed, stabbing upward from beneath—what met his eyes were dozens of sharp sword tips!
Senior Sister Qing's skill at driving the sword with qi was growing more terrible by the moment. She was not commanding dozens of swords at once; she was shaking a single sword into dozens of blossoms!
Qin Mu suddenly recalled the Cripple's words: "Do not think about whether the spot your foot lands upon can hold your weight. Run fast enough, and water is level ground, grass is level ground, air is level ground—everywhere is a smooth open road!"
He tapped with his toe and ran at a dead sprint. Behind him, sword-light shot into the sky, slicing the crown of the very tree where he had stood a moment ago to shreds!
Two youths leapt up onto the tree-tops and stared, aghast, as Qin Mu ran across one treetop after another, sweeping past like a gale—feet moving so fast one's eyes could scarce keep up!
"That fellow is younger than us, how is he so fast? His cultivation seems… seems even a little stronger than ours…"
Even as the thought occurred to them, they saw Senior Brother Qu spiral up with a single streaming motion and give chase, faster even than Qin Mu.
"Senior Brother Qu is truly a martial artist at the very peak of the Spirit Fetus; his strength is far beyond ours."
The two praised him: "If Senior Brother Qu moves in person, that little demon whelp is done for."
At that moment, a huge shadow rose from the mountain woods—a paw of mat-size, furred and enormous, swept around at Senior Brother Qu, and with a single swipe knocked the mid-air-flying young man clean out of the sky!
Senior Brother Qu spun like a top and flew backward, crashing to the ground with a boom, rolling over and over for who knew how many circuits before he stopped. He had barely sat up when he vomited a mouthful of blood, and cried out sharply: "Do not go over there! That is the territory of a demon ape; a demon ape lives there!"
The other four hurried to a halt and saw that the shadow in the woods was a black gorilla of terrifying size, eyes blood-red, fangs protruding, pounding its chest with both fists as its voice boomed like war-drums: "Little one! Die!"
And Qin Mu, who had been running at the front, had also been sent flying by that single swipe of the demon ape's paw, tumbling down to lie at the big creature's foot—motionless, alive or dead unknown.
Senior Sister Qing said in a low voice: "Even Senior Brother Qu was gravely wounded by one swipe of this demon ape. That little demon whelp was also swatted—surely he is dead by now?"
Her words were not yet finished when she saw Qin Mu, lying beside the ape, quietly tilt his head and open one eye to size up the creature. Senior Sister Qing started: "This one is not dead?"
The ebon demon ape roared a few times; seeing that none dared come forward, it let the matter rest. It lowered its head to look at Qin Mu, reached out two fingers to flip him over: "Little one, dead?"
There lay Qin Mu, eyes wide, seven orifices streaming blood, tongue lolling out—clearly dead beyond all doubt!
The demon ape grunted twice, tossed the "corpse" aside, sat itself down, and pulling up a tree, munched contentedly on its leaves.
"For all its ferocity, the demon ape is a vegetarian." Qin Mu, still streaming blood from seven orifices, eyes still wide, quietly shifted his shoulder inching his way out.
The demon ape whipped its head around. Qin Mu's "corpse" did not stir a hair. The ape stared fixedly at him; still his "corpse" did not move.
The demon ape stretched out a finger and poked the "corpse," found it cold and gone stiff already, and was well pleased: "Little one, dead." It paid him no more heed, turned its head, and went on eating leaves.
From afar, Senior Sister Qing could not help saying: "Big one, does it not strike you as strange that the little one's corpse went stiff so quickly?"
The demon ape seemed to understand her words. It clapped a hand to its brow, turned at once—and saw the little one's "corpse" shoot bolt upright and race away at a dead run.