Chapter 808 — A Breed Apart

The folk of the Village of the Hidden Maimed who had raised Shen Mu had for the most part never borne children of their own, and so had never passed on to him any knowledge or experience in that regard. The Village Head was a Human Emperor, who made it his daily duty to eradicate Heaven Above, and dared not take a family.

The Butcher was a great literary master, wild and unrestrained, and never gave a thought to such trifles as marrying and begetting children.

The Lame Elder's name was thoroughly rotten: when he was not stealing, he was on his way to steal, and when he was not being hunted down, he was on his way to being hunted down.

The Blind Old Man had never once spoken of a family; the Silent Craftsman knew only that he had been swindled most cruelly.

Granny Zhu, on the very night of her wedding, did away with her own husband, Fan Xuanshu.

The Deaf Old Man was wholly absorbed in calligraphy and painting; after his kingdom fell and his home was destroyed he wandered homeless and half-mad.

He had once had a wife and children, but they had died when the kingdom fell, and so he never spoke of family. Lord Huo and Ma Rulai were the same: Lord Huo's wife and children had died in the pursuit of the monks of the Great Thunderpeal Temple.

The only one with rich experience in such matters was the Pill Master, yet the villagers often held the Pill Master up as a cautionary example when instructing Shen Mu, to make him realize how dangerous women were.

The Village Head said, "While Heaven Above stands unvanquished, what use is a home? " Granny Zhu said all women beyond the village were fox-spirits; and in the Butcher's poems and in his blade there were only fast horses, strong wine, and swift sabers, never a woman.

Only then did Shen Mu realize that if he wanted to have a child, the only person he could ask was the Imperial Teacher of Jingping, who had borne children herself. Of those about him, the Dragon Qilin and the Water Qilin need hardly be mentioned; Heaven Venerable Yu was now so muddle-headed that there was no point in asking him at all; and Gongsun Yan was still a little sapling who would not understand even if asked.

"Best we go back to Jingping.

" Shen Mu sat on the Dragon Qilin's back and looked back toward the battlefield where the two Earth Mothers fought; the dreadful throbbing there still reached this far now and then, and he could not tell whether it was the after-ripple of the back-and-forth surges of their divine abilities, or whether the two Earth Mothers were still fighting. Gongsun Yan was looking that way too, sick with worry.

"I wonder how the Earth Mother is.

And Sister Qiuyun, I do not know whether she lives or dies. She carries the Primal Lady's Kunyuan Sword, so she should not die. .

. " She was somewhat at a loss.

For tens of thousands of years she had stayed in the Earth Mother Primal Lady's shrine outside the underground palace, tending her fields and caring for the Earth Mother, who had nothing left but a remnant soul.

This upheaval had thrown her life into disorder, leaving the simple girl at a loss. There was no going back to the Earth Mother Primal Lady's shrine, and she could not help but lose her sense of direction in life. In truth she was more like a tree, fond of putting down roots in one place.

Drifting about, she was not quite used to it. Beside her, Shen Mu was still holding her hand; the power of the Earth Origin Dao Fruit poured ceaselessly through his palm into her body, and the warmth from his hand set her at ease.

The little Yuan Wood sapling in the halo behind her head shook off its wilted look, its branches stretching and growing little by little.

"Still, I never got to speak with Bai Qu'er. " Shen Mu drew back his gaze, and a melancholy rose in the youth's heart. "I wonder how she has fared these forty thousand years. She ought to be able to escape from that place.

.

. And this war of the Earth Mothers, whoever wins, bodes no good for Jingping. If they destroyed each other together, that would be the best outcome of all; alas, the odds are too low. Failing that, the next best is that both are gravely wounded and each carves out a domain of their own, for then the pressure on Jingping and on the living things of the Wilderness Ruins would be least. A pity I have not the strength for it. " Even had he wished to seek out Bai Qu'er, he could hardly find her; the Primal World of today was immeasurably vaster than in the age of the Wilderness Ruins, and to find a single person was truly too hard.

Meanwhile, on the battlefield of the Northern Upper Emperor's Heavenly Court, the two Earth Mother Primal Ladies were still fighting. Though it was not so dreadful as at the first, it still shook heaven and earth; even a powerhouse of the Imperial Throne would feel a thrill of dread at such a battle.

One of the two Earth Mothers was above the ground and one below it, yet the earth itself seemed not to exist; all that could be seen was the radiance of the Great Dao's rules filling the air, turning the land to gleaming gold, while a thousand golden mountains and ten thousand peaks rose and were destroyed without cease. The primal magnetic divine power tugged at the stars, sun, and moon in the sky; now and again the primal magnetism of sun, moon, and stars would erupt, becoming blade after blade of soul-seizing light that fell from the heavens to cut down the opponent. "With my strength, it is very hard to slay two Earth Mother Primal Ladies.

After all, I am only at the Lingxiao realm and have not yet cultivated to the Imperial Throne. Would you not say so, Lü Zheng? " At the edge of the battlefield, the scholar sat sideways on the donkey's back, watching that soul-stirring struggle, and said to the donkey, "I can only settle for the next best thing: wound both Earth Mothers gravely, so that their standoff divides the powers of the Primal World and they pose no great threat to Jingping.

" The donkey said, "Hee-haw—" The scholar opened a small bundle and laughed. "It is fortunate that both Earth Mothers were already wounded when they came to blows, and are not at their former peak; otherwise, to wound them gravely I would have to cultivate to the Imperial Throne realm.

" The donkey laughed. "Hee-haw, hee-haw.

" "You are right. If I could defeat the likes of Zhuo Cha, foremost in the martial way, then naturally I can wound the Earth Mothers of today; it is only that there are two of them, which weighs on me greatly. " In the bundle lay countless game pieces.

The donkey bore her galloping into the distance, and the scholar tossed down pieces as she went, dropping one every so often, and laughed.

"Go is played on a grid of nineteen lines; that is for mortals. A true game of Go, how could it be only nineteen lines? Take the starry sky for the game and the earth for the board, with lines beyond counting; such a game, turned into a formation, is a catastrophe.

Lü Zheng, I think my formations rank first.

" "Hee-haw. " The donkey raced, swift beyond measure.