Chapter 127 — Draw Your Blades

" Shen Mu shook his head and walked up the mountain. Snow Fox slept in a heavy daze, finding it most comfortable draped over Shen Mu's neck.

When they came to the edge of the cliff, Shen Mu's steps suddenly slowed, and Snow Fox felt as though needles had sprouted from Shen Mu's neck, pricking her. She hurriedly turned on her side and shifted her position, but still came that pricking of needles. The little fox changed position several times and found no comfort, as though Shen Mu had become a great hedgehog.

She narrowed her drowsy eyes and reached out a furry paw to feel the back of his neck; there were no spines to be found, yet the pricking was truly there. "Can it be that the young master is about to show his true form? " While the white fox was puzzling over this, Shen Mu had already halted. Only then did Snow Fox notice that someone stood upon the cliff: a white-robed monk, long robes streaming, standing on the crag and looking their way.

"Shen Mu?

" the white-robed monk asked.

Shen Mu nodded. "I am.

And you?

" The white-robed monk set one palm upright before him, a gentle smile on his face, the very image of a Buddha; his voice was ethereal, and in it dwelled the sound of Buddha.

"Your wild nature is hard to tame. This humble monk has come especially to convert you and to subdue that wild nature. Draw your weapon!

" Shen Mu was baffled.

"Senior Brother, you have not yet given your name. " The white-robed monk's face flushed with excitement; the Buddha-look of a moment before had vanished without a trace. He leaped down from the top of the crag, head down and feet up, attacking Shen Mu, laughing.

"Once I have converted you, you will know my name! " He was still in midair when suddenly came the cry of a dragon and the trumpeting of an elephant. Shen Mu looked up and saw the air ablaze with Buddha-light, and a great Buddha coiled about with a great dragon, riding a white elephant, bearing down upon him!

This was the strange vision wrought by the white-robed monk's vital essence. His vital essence was mighty and full, surpassing that of the other scholars, and not inferior even to Daoist Lingyun's!

This attack must be a fist technique, and mingled within it were true words; the true words struck at the soul, while the fist technique of the dragon-coiled, elephant-seated vision struck at the body. Two attacks joined in one, forming the vision of the dragon's cry and the elephant's trumpeting, the dragon coiled and the elephant seated, all but a divine power, proof enough of the white-robed monk's mastery.

Shen Mu's spirits surged, and he could not help but be stirred. At last he had met a true master!

Since coming to the capital, all he had met were scholars like Qu Ting, and even one of the Imperial College like Daoist Lingyun had been humiliated by a single stroke of his sword; it was hard to have a good fight.

This white-robed monk who would not give his name was plainly very strong, and it roused his fighting spirit.

Ever since he set foot on the soil of Jingping he had disguised himself as a civilized man, and the pretense had been bitter hard; yet at bottom Shen Mu was still an outcast of the gods from the Wasteland, that wild and savage land, a forsaken one with no god's favor, a fierce wretch who with a single knife dared go down the river to slay a flood dragon and up the mountains to wrestle strange beasts!