Granny Zhu pulled him along toward the village, brimming with excitement. "Stop gawking, come on—today is your big day! Village Head! Master Huo! Come out, all of you!" A bonfire had been lit in the village, and the Village Head was carried out again on a stretcher, saying gravely, "Have all four spirits been found?" "All four found." The one-armed Master Huo dragged in an enormous azure-green serpent several dozen feet long; it was still alive and reeked of raw blood, yet with one hand he grasped the spot just behind its skull, so that it could not stir. The Silent Smith, for his part, carried in a great bird that stood even taller than he did, its wings and legs all trussed up. When the bird struggled, sparks of fire shot crackling from its feathers—a truly alarming sight. Blind Weng lugged in a giant tortoise larger than the top of a table. The creature had lived no one knew how many years, and its shell had taken on a golden tinge. It kept all four limbs drawn up inside the shell, but every so often it would furtively poke out one claw. Shen Mu saw that whenever a claw emerged, water vapor gathered beneath it, as if the Dark-Shelled Spirit Tortoise could be buoyed up upon the mist and make clean away—only Blind Weng had run a fishhook through its nostrils, so escape was impossible. "The blood of the four spirits—the Azure Dragon, the White Tiger, the Vermilion Bird, the Black Tortoise—cannot be obtained. But with the Azure-Scaled Jiao Serpent, the Dark-Boned Tiger, the Thunder-Plumed Sky Bird, and the Dark-Shelled Spirit Tortoise standing in for them, we can still refine a bit of spirit blood. It will be enough." The Village Head nodded to the village butcher. The butcher bared his teeth in a grin, braced both hands on the ground, and crawled forward. He was a man cut down to his upper half alone; everything below the waist had been severed from him, the wound neat. Four vats were set before the serpent, the tiger, the Thunder-Plumed Sky Bird, and the Dark-Shelled Spirit Tortoise. One stroke per beast—the butcher bled the savage captives out, and after a short while all four were drained dry. "Pill Master," said the Village Head. The village Pill Master stepped forward. He had no face. The skin of his face looked as though it had been pared away, and with it his nose, and the upper and lower lips of half of his mouth. He was the most hideous, the most fearsome-looking person in the village—yet Shen Mu had always felt that Grandpa Pill Master was the gentlest person there toward him. The Pill Master brought out four strange red leaves, each bearing a snow-white insect egg. He dropped one leaf into each vat, and at once the eggs split open, and silkworm grubs clung to the leaves, drinking the blood. These grubs grew the instant they felt the wind; the more blood they drank, the larger their bodies swelled. Soon the blood in all four vats had been drunk dry, and in every vat there remained one fat, bloated grub. The Pill Master scooped up a handful of white crystalline powder like salt and scattered it into the vats. To Shen Mu's wonder, the four fat, bulky grubs began shrinking at tremendous speed, and he could not help clicking his tongue. After a moment the Pill Master picked them up, each now no bigger than a palm. He produced four white porcelain cups, caught hold of one grub, and squeezed it hard. Squealing, the grub let flow from its mouth a cup of blood plasma as clear and glittering as amber. The Pill Master did the same with the other three, pressing the blood from their bellies, and set the four cups before Shen Mu. "They are, after all, not true spirit beasts," he said with a shake of his head. "This is all the spirit blood that can be refined." "Shen'er, the human body conceals seven great vaults. The Spirit Embryo, the Five Lumina, the Six Harmonies, the Seven Stars, the Heaven-Man, the Life-Death, the Spirit Bridge—these seven are sealed from the moment of birth, like treasure troves locked fast, and for this reason they are called the Seven Divine Vaults." There was a note of authority in the Village Head's voice; by the bonfire's light his face showed now bright, now dark. "The Seven Divine Vaults remain sealed, and it is the martial artist himself who must open them. What bars the martial artist from unsealing a vault is a wall: the Origin Embryo Wall, the Five Lumina Wall, the Six Harmonies Wall, the Seven Stars Wall, the Heaven Origin Wall, the Life-Death Wall, the Spirit Bridge Wall. The process of breaking through these seven walls is called wall-breaking." The one-armed Master Huo gently stroked Shen Mu's head. "If the wall will not break, cultivation cannot begin. Some people are blessed by heaven: their Origin Embryo Wall is broken even at birth, the Origin Embryo Divine Vault opened naturally. A constitution of that kind is called a Spirit Constitution—a body shielded by heaven's grace from the very womb, a natural seedling for cultivation. Those who possess a Spirit Constitution tower above ordinary people in talent by an immeasurable degree, and they cultivate with half the effort for twice the result. The spirit embryo has four attributes, and so there are four Spirit Constitutions: the Azure Dragon, the White Tiger, the Vermilion Bird, and the Black Tortoise. To test which constitution one has, this very Four Symbols' blood is needed." The Pill Master said, "If you were an Azure Dragon Spirit Constitution, drinking the Azure Dragon spirit blood would awaken the Azure Dragon qi within you. Master Huo is an Azure Dragon Spirit Constitution." The one-armed Master Huo loosened his clothes, stood bare-chested before Shen Mu, turned his back to him, and gave a low shout. Shen Mu at once saw a strand of azure qi emerge behind Master Huo's back, running from the tailbone to the crown of his head. Gradually the azure qi took the form of an azure dragon, every scale and whisker rendered to the finest detail. One dragon claw stretched into Master Huo's lone arm, and two more claws coiled about both his legs. "This is the Azure Dragon Spirit Constitution." The one-armed Master Huo put his clothes back on. "Old Granny Zhu is a White Tiger Spirit Constitution." Granny Zhu shot him a glare. "Your old mother here is not about to strip for the likes of you old goats. I'll show Shen Mu by manifesting qi." Her body gave a slight tremor; a tiger's roar sounded faintly from behind her, and a white tiger twelve feet tall, with fierce slanting eyes, loomed indistinctly at her back. "Everyone in this village is a Spirit Constitution. Once, we too knew glory, but now we are nothing but a crowd of old and broken men and women." Granny Zhu laughed. "Us crippled, aged, worthless lot have nothing we can give you. These four cups of Four Symbols' blood are what will rouse a Spirit Constitution. If you are a White Tiger, drinking the White Tiger blood will rouse the White Tiger qi in your spirit embryo; if you are a Vermilion Bird, the Vermilion Bird blood will set its qi dancing; and the Black Tortoise works the same way." "Drink." The Village Head, Granny Zhu, and all the others looked at Shen Mu at once, expectation written on their faces. Shen Mu's heart thumped uneasily. Though in all the years of following the Pill Master to learn herb gathering and medicine refining he had been dosed with no one knew how many strange things, none had been so strange as this. He raised a white porcelain cup. The spirit blood within was burning hot—it was a cup of Vermilion Bird spirit blood. Shen Mu tossed it down in one draught and felt a line of fire run down his throat, coursing through every limb and bone. In a haze, he felt as though a roaring blaze had kindled within him, burning until his very blood seemed about to boil. Before long the burning sensation scattered. "Silent Smith, is he a Vermilion Bird Spirit Constitution?" the Village Head asked. The Silent Smith shook his head. "Continue, Shen Mu," said the Village Head. Shen Mu drank down the second