荒墟牧神 - 第22章 鎮夜神像現玄機 - 錦書坊

im a scornful look, thinking him a poor eater, and thumped its chest hard: "Eat! Strong!" Shen Mu, battered black and blue, endured the ache in every limb, stood up, and performed the Thunder Cry Eight Forms before the Demon Ape, then thumped his own chest: "Train, strong!" The Demon Ape rolled its eyes at him, went on chewing its leaves at a leisurely pace, and said with contempt: "Believe? Ghost." When Shen Mu had rested enough, he leaped down from the cliff, raced off with his feet on the rock face: "Tomorrow, fight!" The Demon Ape blinked; once Shen Mu had gone far off it sprang up at once and mimicked his earlier movements with great solemnity. Rough as the Thunder Cry Eight Forms were in its hands, it was after all possessed of boundless strength, and it actually captured something of their spirit; one punch boomed out with the sound of wind and thunder. The Demon Ape stood stunned a moment, then its face lit with wild joy. It kept striking, whuh, whuh, until the cliff top was full of the howl of wind, crying: "Strong! Strong! Strong!" When Shen Mu returned to the village, the Alchemist rushed up in a fluster to examine his body, smearing a healing salve on his face: "Any abnormalities?" Shen Mu nodded, and the Alchemist grew even more frantic. "Grandpa Alchemist's spirit elixirs really do work," Shen Mu said. "My vital essence has grown stronger." The Alchemist finally let out his breath and laughed: "So the elixir truly does work on Overlord Body vital essence. As long as it hasn't killed you, my path is the right one. Take this whole jar of pills for now; I am off to puzzle out other formulas!" With that he hurried away in high spirits. The Blind Elder came over leaning on his bamboo staff and said with a smile: "Shen-er, are you tired? If you are, I will teach you a first-rate eye technique." Shen Mu cleared his throat: "Grandpa Blind, I'm over here. That's the outhouse." The Blind Elder turned and, addressing himself with a smile to the Butcher, who was sunning himself on the millstone, said: "I have thought it over long and hard. Your Overlord Body vital essence has no attribute, and my arts you cannot cultivate; but this eye technique requires no attributed vital essence, and an Overlord Body should be able to cultivate it as well. Come with me—my art is called the Nine Heavens Eye-Gazing Method..." Shen Mu's head ached; he had always felt the Blind Elder was a little unreliable, but he steeled himself and followed. He was full of doubt: the Blind Elder said he would teach him the Nine Heavens Eye-Gazing Method, yet taught him nothing of how to refine his eyes, and instead brought him to study the four stone statues of the village. The two sat before the statue at the village's eastern corner, and the Blind Elder's eye sockets were empty, yet he stared hard at the statue as though he could see something in it. Shen Mu knew that everyone in the village was strange, and that even the statues at the four corners of the village were strange—in Hidden Maim Village, there was nothing that was not strange. The four statues were not tall, but they were monstrously heavy, heavy beyond reason, so heavy that Shen Mu could not budge them. His strength was great now, and greater still since he had taken the Blood of the Four Symbols; lately his vital essence had begun to temper his flesh, washing his sinews and scouring his marrow, making his body ever more formidable—and still he could not move the statues a hair. As a child he had often climbed up on them to play, but Granny Zhu and the others always shooed him down, telling him he must not be disrespectful to the statues. On festivals and at the turning of the year, Granny Zhu and the rest would make offerings before the statues and light incense, praying that the statues would keep the village at peace and guard the villagers' lives. The four statues were not carved in the likeness of men, though they had human form. The statue at the village's southern corner had a bird's