荒墟牧神 - 第15章 一葦踏波越長江 - 錦書坊

the bleak wind blows and my crotch grows cold! Shen-er, you're running naked as a jaybird across the river, swimming bare-bottomed for all you're worth. Don't you feel cold?" A cry of alarm came from midstream, followed by a loud splash as Shen Mu fell into the water. A short while later, the boy swam back to shore, his face burning with embarrassment as he dried himself and put on his clothes. He had suddenly awakened to insight at the riverbank and become so carried away with himself that he had completely forgotten he was stark naked when he leaped into the air and began treading across the river. His wild dash along the water had indeed been cool and refreshing, but he had crossed the river bare-bottomed. "At least Grandpa Blind can't see..." Shen Mu had just straightened his clothes when he abruptly looked up. In the woods beside the river stood Lord Huo, the Carpenter, the Blind Elder, and all the others. Even Granny Zhu had come, and the Village Head had been carried over on a stretcher. Shen Mu's face flushed scarlet. Stammering, he asked, "Granny, when did you all get here?" Granny Zhu burst out laughing. "Shen-er, how many times have we seen your bottom already? What is there to be shy about? We heard your howl, heard how full of qi it was, and came over to take a look." The Village Head coughed once. "Come here, Shen-er. You were hunted by five warriors of the Spirit Embryo Realm. We cannot be sure you suffered no hidden injuries. Let the Alchemist examine you." Shen Mu stepped forward. The Alchemist gave him a thorough examination, then shook his head. "Nothing serious. They are all superficial wounds." The Village Head examined him as well and signaled that he could go. Shen Mu was immediately summoned away by the Butcher to practice his saber technique. The Butcher was deeply dissatisfied that it had taken Shen Mu more than five thousand cuts to defeat Senior Brother Chu. What displeased him even more was that Shen Mu had ultimately killed his opponent with a sword, and so he intended to give the boy a merciless drilling. "What did the Village Head discover?" The Alchemist walked to the Village Head's stretcher and lowered his voice, his gaze fixed on Shen Mu, who was now brimming with energy as he exchanged saber blows with the Butcher. "His cultivation of qi. The speed of his progress is frightening." The Village Head did not hide the truth. "Extremely fast. The extent of his advancement from yesterday until now is beyond imagination. I heard his howl just now. It was produced by the resonance between his qi and his throat, and it faintly carried the sound of gods and demons. Even a warrior who has not yet broken through the Origin Embryo Wall should be incapable of such a thing, let alone one who has. If I had been an ordinary man like him, it would have taken me twenty years to cultivate my qi to that level." When Shen Mu had howled over the river, the qi within him had resonated with his throat and produced the sound without conscious intent. Yet, without realizing it, he had fused into that howl the demonic music he had heard in the ruins of the Hidden Valley. Stranger still, while he had carefully pondered the dark demonic music the night before, he had also listened to and committed to memory the divine music of the goddesses in the ruins. Every subtle fluctuation of that divine music was familiar to him. Thus, his howl had naturally absorbed the goddesses' divine music as well. To anyone else it meant nothing. They could not hear the mystery concealed within it. But to the Village Head, it was an entirely different matter. He had heard it all with perfect clarity. "A resonance of gods and demons?" The Alchemist was startled. "How did he manage that? And to possess the power of twenty years of an ordinary man's cultivation after a single night... That is far too terrifying. Could it truly be the effect of the Four Symbols Blood?" The Village Head shook his head. "The Four Symbols Blood can indeed strengt