Chapter 36 — The Ancient Thunder-Sound Temple Startles the Mortal World

"Shen'er, the temple fair is in truth an excellent place to see the world."

Huo Ye set the finished pair of crutches down before the furniture and said to Shen Mu with earnest weight: "There are many villages in the Desolate Ruins, and no few masters who could not make a place for themselves in the outer world and were driven into the Ruins against their will. They settle here and take disciples too, but only at the time of the temple fair can these men and their disciples be gathered together. Here you may see, one might almost say, the martial arts and the crafts of every school under heaven!"

Shen Mu, half understanding, mused: "I have never been tempered by real combat, so my cultivation is hard to turn into true strength. Is that why you, Huo Ye, would have me seize this chance—to cross arms with fighters of every school while the temple fair lasts?"

Huo Ye's face showed expectation: "That is the reasoning."

"But what is all this about selling crutches?"

Shen Mu asked, bewildered: "And why has Blind Elder set up a betting stall besides? And Grandpa Tu is selling exotic beasts that plainly are not dragons—why does he shout that what he sells is the precious blood of dragons? And why has the Alchemist already prepared wound medicine?"

Huo Ye coughed twice, dryly: "The doings of grown men are not for a child to ask after. Aren't you going up?"

Shen Mu had no choice but to mount the fighting platform and paste the scroll the Deaf Elder had written onto the platform's post.

Before long, more and more villagers from every village gathered below the platform, a great hubbub of voices. Shen Mu too felt that what the Deaf Elder had written was not quite seemly, but that in so short a while it should have drawn so many people still left him stunned.

"Kicks unrivaled by any hand in the Surging River; sweeps clean eight hundred villages of the Desolate Ruins! What a boast! Young man, by the look of you you are no more than eleven or twelve; even if you began cultivating in your mother's womb, your cultivation can be no great matter!"

A voice spoke with righteous indignation: "You hang up such an arrogant scroll—is it a challenge to the villages of our Desolate Ruins? Who gave you such nerve?"

Shen Mu's face flushed slightly; inwardly ashamed, he then came to himself and glared furiously at the Blind Elder—that voice was very familiar, and was it not the Blind Elder's own?

The Blind Elder grew more righteous still, his voice thick with seduction: "Has the Desolate Ruins no true men left, that this boy should swagger up there? A little brat of eleven or twelve—can you stomach it? Where is the blood of the men of the Desolate Ruins?"

At these words, no small matter, a dozen or so young men at once leaped onto the platform, and Shen Mu's face went green.

"But the good men of the Desolate Ruins must not be held cheap by him either."

The Blind Elder's voice was like a great bell, making everyone's eardrums hum: "Since he has set up a platform, we must keep the rules. He has come to challenge, not to brawl in a crowd, so we go up one by one. This youth is of the Spirit Fetus stage; whoever goes up to challenge must likewise be of the Spirit Fetus stage, and not lose face for his own village."

Scarcely had his words fallen than the dozen or so young men each stepped down from the platform, leaving but one young man upon it.

Shen Mu let out a breath and said: "How may I address you, brother..."

"If you want to fight, fight! Who is making nice with you?"

The young man suddenly dropped low, his vital essence bursting forth, and upon the surface of his body there formed line after line of tiger stripes, like a striped fierce tiger!

On his palms and soles his vital essence sharpened into claws like knives. He sprang suddenly, so swift he was a blur of light and shadow, and pounced at Shen Mu!

With that pounce, Shen Mu felt as though he had been fixed upon by an incomparably ferocious beast; a foul wind came head-on, as if a tiger roared from the ridge. This kind of momentum he did not possess—it must be a knack that could be comprehended only through the trials of life and death!

Behind Shen Mu appeared dragon markings; dragon patterns coiled about his body. His feet moved like the long river hung upside down, rushing into the sea, wave upon wave like thunder. He used the water-natured Black Tortoise essence to drive the first form of the Thunder-Sound Eight Formulas. Though he could not yet make his palm crack like thunder, he gave full, free rein to the momentum of a river pouring down from high mountains and plunging into the sea!

The instant the two clashed, Shen Mu's fist met his opponent's, and the water-nature power of the Black Tortoise essence burst forth, forming about his fist the likeness of a dragon's head, riding the waters in full spate, surging forward!

The young man at once felt the other's strength to be incomparably great, crushing his own vital essence like rotten wood; startled at heart, he was sent flying by this one move of Shen Mu's.

In that very instant of being sent flying, the man actually kicked off the ground with both feet toward Shen Mu's chest. His soles, like tiger claws, were sharp beyond measure; with a ripping hiss they tore Shen Mu's clothing and all but opened his belly!

Hastily, Shen Mu stood on one leg and fell backward, while his other leg flashed out and kicked the man tumbling head over heels through the air, to fall more than ten zhang away, flung off the platform.

That man flipped over and sprang up, and had just steadied himself when his leg gave a crisp crack—his leg bone had been broken by Shen Mu's kick.

The Alchemist's voice drifted over, long and unhurried: "Fine wound medicine—a broken bone healed by the next day, and no delay to your hunting."

Huo Ye said loudly: "A pair of crutches, made of dragon-eye wood, sturdy beyond compare."

The Blind Elder said clear and loud: "If your luck runs ill, come to me and I will defy heaven and change your fate."

"A pair of fu characters, and great fortune comes knocking," said the Deaf Elder in a loud voice.

Shen Mu's face darkened. He steadied himself. The moment before had been perilous in the extreme, and yet the Alchemist and Huo Ye were still fretting over whether their goods could be sold!

"But Huo Ye and the others are right. I lack the trials of life and death. That man's cultivation was not high at all, far lower than mine, and he was sent flying by a single move of mine, yet in the instant he was flying he could kick like a tiger, nearly opening my belly and turning defeat into victory!"

Shen Mu drew a long breath, light flickering in his eyes: "I have far too little experience in this. The temple fair is a rare chance—I can cross arms with the fighters of the villages within two hundred li and draw on their combat experience! This platform I must hold to the very end, hold to the last!"

Below the platform the crowd grew greater, voices in an uproar. Shen Mu's fight with the young man had been seen by all, and they at once perceived that his cultivation was deep indeed, but that his experience was wanting.

To survive in the Desolate Ruins, virtually every village had its fighters; some villages even had those who wielded divine powers. For the Ruins were perilous, and the villagers honored the martial; they were full of wildness, brave and skilled in war.

Soon another leaped onto the platform, a girl. Her vital essence was a mutant strain of the Black Tortoise essence, but her strikes were vicious. At the first meeting her vital essence coiled about Shen Mu's legs like a great serpent, binding them tight.

Having bound his legs, the girl moved over his body like a female python, before him and behind him, striking to kill.

Her vital essence was uncanny, turning into a great serpent coiled about her whole body. Such essence was not the pure Black Tortoise essence but only a part of it.