Chapter 856 — 丹青裡的佳人

Qi Xiayu shot Shen Mu a venomous glare. Shen Mu smiled helplessly as the girl beside him pressed yet another peach to his lips, and he had no choice but to go on eating.

Seeing him so cornered, Qi Xiayu could not decide whether to be angry or to laugh. Keeping her face straight, she said, "Stop eating! They are blue sparrows — the Southern Emperor gave them to my master. There is nothing they love more than waiting on people, and nothing more maddening than their waiting on people. Usually they hold food in their beaks to feed the little birds; they have taken you for a nestling.

And they have no sense of measure — mind they do not stuff you to death!

" Light broke upon Shen Mu. No wonder these girls were forever feeding him.

"Has Sister Qi ever been fed by them, mouth to mouth?

" Shen Mu's face turned strange, and before he knew it he was picturing these girls feeding Qi Xiayu, and the question slipped out of him. Qi Xiayu's cheeks colored faintly.

"When I was little, yes.

. .

Bah! You are still eating?

Get up this instant!

" The girl called Yan'er giggled and said, "Young Master Shen, we can hold a peach between our teeth and feed you too, and feed you your tea as well. " Shen Mu's heart swayed. The scene was far too lush, too sensual; the mere thought of it set his blood running hot. He was no longer the innocent youth of former years. At the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping's residence he had read the Record of Amorous Tales of the Capital and knew a thing or two of the ways between men and women, and such a picture was more than he could hold himself against.

The youth scrambled hastily to his feet.

"No more tea! No more peaches! Thank you, sisters, for your care. Sister Qi—" "Do not call me sister.

We are not close!

" Qi Xiayu's face darkened.

She flicked her sleeve and turned away, her seven-colored robes spreading like phoenix plumes and blotting out Shen Mu's sight of her, and strode toward the front hall, sneering, "Master, why did you bring this lecher here? Your peach grove is so intricate that even I could hardly have come in without your zither music to guide me.

It is plain as day that you let him in!

" Shen Mu wiped his mouth and followed her to the front hall. The woman behind the screen shook her head.

"What do you mean, I let him in? It was the Lord of Heaven meddling — he hung a star in the sky to guide him and broke the spells of my peach grove.

I have just now snuffed that star of his out, to keep him from prying everywhere. " Qi Xiayu said, "The Lord of Heaven can scarcely keep himself safe, and still he will not stay out of mischief. " Yan'er and the other girls carried in a jade table and rush cushions and bade Shen Mu sit. Shen Mu sat bolt upright, paying no heed to the peaches the pretty girls had peeled for him, nor to the tea held up to his lips. Yan'er sipped the tea, brought her lips close to his cheek, and gazed at him expectantly.

"The monk Chenghuai once gave me a Sutra of Many Hearts that lets a man sit with a woman in his lap and keep his mind unstirred. How did it go again?

" The youth's thoughts were running wild. He felt his Dao-heart gravely challenged; his head was full of red lips, and where in it was there room for Buddhist scripture? Shen Mu hastily distracted himself. "Qi Xiayu said just now that Yan'er and the others are blue sparrows, given to the woman behind the screen by the Vermilion Bird, the Southern Emperor.

So Sister Vermilion Bird must be on very close terms with the woman behind the screen. Anyone who could be a friend to Sister Vermilion Bird cannot be her inferior. Which means the identity of the woman behind the screen all but shouts itself aloud. . . " The woman behind the screen dismissed Yan'er and the rest, and said apologetically, "Yan'er and the others have quite worn you out, Young Master Shen. I see the strain has brought sweat to your brow.

" Shen Mu's brow was indeed sweating. Yet no sooner had Yan'er and the girls gone than he recovered, no longer constrained, and smiled. "I never thought the Red Emperor would prove to be your disciple, Sister. The Red Emperor once hunted me down; I am relieved to have laid that quarrel to rest this time. " A vein stood out on Qi Xiayu's forehead where she sat not far off.

"Master, I was not hunting him. I was hunting a heartless wretch.

Besides, this man is as unreliable as that wretch, all honeyed talk on his lips — do not believe him, Master!

He and that wretch made havoc of the twenty heavens of the Buddhist realm; Brahma, the Great Heavenly King Buddha, used their hands to kill the powers the Heavenly Court had planted in the Buddhist realm, and the Heavenly Court has long wished them dead. Even now the Heavenly Court has sent other mighty ones to seize that wretch. " The woman behind the screen said, "Young Master Shen, Xiayu truly means no ill will; do not blame her. Her own road has been bitter indeed. She was never given any weight among the Phoenix Clan, and was held fast in the Earth Mother's grip; then the Earth Mother's son became the Heavenly Emperor of the Northern Supreme Heavenly Court and named her to enter the palace and serve in his bedchamber. She had no choice but to defect and flee to the Southern Supreme Heavenly Court.

" Shen Mu's eyes flickered. "And then the Southern Supreme Heavenly Court fell, and she went over to the Heavenly Court Beyond the Realm. " Qi Xiayu raised an eyebrow, and said nothing. The woman behind the screen smiled. "When Xiayu was small, it was the Southern Emperor who recommended her to me as a disciple. In truth she may be counted the disciple of both the Southern Emperor and myself.

I have never cared for the affairs of the world, but the Southern Emperor and I are the closest of friends, and when she asked it of me I could hardly refuse, and so I took the girl in. You need not be suspicious of Xiayu, Young Master Shen; in fact most of what she has done was done at my bidding. " Shen Mu said, "You live here in seclusion, Sister, but your heart is not secluded. You still have your designs, and you mean to use the Red Emperor to change the world outside.

Yet the Red Emperor has betrayed one patron after another — from the Earth Mother to the Northern Supreme, from the Northern Supreme to the Southern Supreme, then to the Heavenly Court Beyond the Realm, and in Kaihuang's day she betrayed Indra, the Heavenly King Buddha.

I cannot well say such things to her face, but in my heart I hold it rather contemptible.

" Qi Xiayu said coolly, "What you think of me, what the world thinks of me, I do not care a whit. But that fellow Li Youran is a fickle, heartless wretch. To say that I betrayed him is to call black white!

He betrayed not only me, but Kaihuang as well, and ran off to become a monk! " Shen Mu frowned slightly. Of Indra, the Heavenly King Buddha, he truly could not say much. The woman behind the screen smiled. "Xiayu is indeed a little too suspicious, but she has her reasons.

Whether seen from her side or from Li Youran's, neither of them has done anything wrong.

You should not judge them so harshly, Young Master Shen. " Shen Mu sighed, and said bleakly, "I only pity the people of the Heavenly Artisan divine race, penned to their deaths by the Heavenly Court in the Ark of the Other Shore, with only a single child escaping.

I pity that sole survivor, who in the end became an old blacksmith, who dared not reveal his origins, who had to cut out his own tongue and chose to live as a silent craftsman.

" His face fell. Thinking of that wicked old man in the village who could only say "ah-ba, ah-ba," his eyes stung.