Chapter 238 — A Mother's Love, Belated
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Shen Mu's expression shifted slightly, and the Dutian Demon King hastily corrected himself, smiling apologetically. "I was joking, look how I frightened you. I will lead you in and lead you out, and you must release me as we agreed. You promised."
Shen Mu smiled. "Rest easy, I will never break my word. I can even sign the Oath of Tu Bo with you."
The Dutian Demon King shook his head. "No need. If we signed the Oath of Tu Bo, I would no longer trust you. You would be certain to cheat me."
Shen Mu gave a dry laugh and thought, "The Dutian Demon King truly knows me. Since he has only my word, I would be ashamed to cheat him... Grandpa Cripple was right, I am still too kindhearted."
He leaped onto the Dragon Qilin's back; the Dutian Demon King leaped up after him. Fire clouds grew beneath the Qilin's feet, and treading them he descended slowly, and before long they landed at the edge of the forbidden zone.
The Dutian Demon King was all urgency; he spat a few gears from his mouth and said, "There is a path of life here, true, but it was opened from the inside outward. Walking it from the inside out holds little peril; walk it inward, and you will still meet many dangers. You must keep close behind me and on no account take a wrong step, or you will stir the forbidden zone and we will all die."
Shen Mu hurried forward, opened his chest, set the gears in his chest cavity to rights and added a few components, then warned him, "Demon King, do not play tricks, or you will be trapped here as well."
The Dutian Demon King said sourly, "Rest easy, I understand. Keep close."
Shen Mu followed him forward. The Dutian Demon King's four faces and twelve eyes peered in all directions, and his four mouths muttered and mumbled, discerning the perils within the zone and reckoning them out.
Shen Mu also saw the Dutian Demon King employ his demon qi to work a method of spatial calculation; countless numeral runes leaped in three dimensions through the air, performing calculations of immense complexity.
"Demon King, your attainments in the arts of calculation are exceedingly high as well," Shen Mu said in surprise.
The Dutian Demon King said sourly, "Obviously. If you do not master the arts of calculation, you learn only the outward form of many divine powers and never their true transmission."
"Can you teach me?"
Shen Mu said eagerly, "I have a volume of the Taixuan Arithmetic Classic and to this day have not fathomed it. The Classic uses the trigram images of the eight trigrams to stand for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight — base eight. It is most troublesome."
The Dutian Demon King said in surprise, "An arithmetic classic in base eight? You must calculate with the eight-trigram diagram — Qian, Kun, Xun, Zhen, Kan, Li, Gen, Dui. If you substitute numbers for them, the reckoning is very laborious; but if you use the trigram diagram as an abacus and turn it through its transformations, it becomes far easier... We will speak of it later. Do not talk to me — if my calculations go wrong, we are all finished."
The Dutian Demon King's attainments in the arts of calculation were not merely very high but unfathomable; at a single offhand remark from him, Shen Mu felt suddenly enlightened.
These past days he had studied the Taixuan Arithmetic Classic and gained little; the Classic was too profound, its calculations endlessly troublesome.
But to use the eight-trigram diagram as an abacus — that was an exquisite calculating tool, and many problems could be solved at a stroke.
"In the Taixuan Arithmetic Classic there is not only the eightfold base of the eight trigrams, but the twofold base of yin and yang, and the fourfold base of the four images."
Shen Mu drew inferences from one instance to three. Many of the mathematical principles in the Classic were methods of calculation, yet no instrument of calculation was given; now, with a casual hint from the Dutian Demon King, he at last had a chance to comprehend the Classic thoroughly.