Chapter 16: The Little Girl In The Temple (1/2)
Chapter 16: The Little Girl In The Temple
Translator: NinetalesEditor: Ninetales
Bright eyes stared at the jade pendant. Even though Qin Mu was only eleven or twelve years old, he already understood many things.
Another time that Qin Mu went with Granny Si to help deliver a baby, unlike the other tragic outcome, it went smoothly. The sight of the loving family warmed his heart.
This led Qin Mu to ask how he’d been born and where his parents were. However, Granny Si wasn’t able to answer him. She could only tell him that she had found him in the river and that the jade pendant had been bundled up with him.
This was the reason why Qin Mu treasured this jade pendant. He hoped that he could one day find his parents with it and ask them why they abandoned him.
After some time, Qin Mu put the jade pendant back around his neck where he usually wore it. His expression became peaceful as he stored this bizarre incident deep in his heart along with the mystery of the pendant. Granny Si, who had kept her distance behind him until that point, returned to their house just before he did.
The next day, Old Ma, Blind, Cripple, and Mute continued hunting beasts to refine the blood of the four spirits for Qin Mu. These four dangerous men had essentially swept the area around the village clean, a radius of several hundred miles to be precise, so they had to travel further to capture the spirit beasts that provided blood for refinement.
Village chief had trouble moving around on his own, Apothecary frequently had to go out to gather herbs, Butcher was always bitter and went crazy from time to time, and Deaf was only interested in calligraphy and paintings.
Therefore, Granny Si was the only person who could keep Qin Mu company while he cultivated.
However, Granny Si wasn’t always in the village either. As a tailor and a midwife, the neighboring villages often requested clothes from her or asked her to help deliver a baby.
Early this morning, Granny Si left the village, and Apothecary went to gather herbs. Butcher and Deaf carried Village Chief over to the village’s entrance and placed him there. Then they both went their separate ways, one sharpening his knives and the other painting.
Overcome with boredom, Qin Mu went to the riverbank. Ever since his cow had turned into a woman and gotten herself stabbed to death by Cripple, his chores had diminished tremendously.
Standing by the river, he took a deep breath, his chest swelling with air. He then circulated his vital qi and his chest slowly returned to normal size.
He had yet to exhale. Instead, he used his vital qi to nourish his lungs, making them exceptionally tough. Then he compressed the air in his lungs, forcing it to shrink by ten times.
Qin Mu continued to breathe in and his chest still didn’t expand. The moment he reached his limit, however, he rushed forward, bursting forth like an arrow shot from a bow!
Qin Mu sprinted across the river like a hurricane, splitting the water into two waves that erupted outward in his wake.
Then, all of a sudden, gleaming metal flashed above the river. Qin Mu had taken out his Pig Slaughtering Knife as he ran. It shimmered through the air, flashing like dragons swimming through the air.
This was Butcher’s Pig Slaughtering knife skill! Like its creator, this knife skill felt bitter and possessed a wild, domineering aura that refused to bow to the heavens and the earth. The knife shone as it swung back and forth, capable of crushing everything in its path.
Without warning, the glimmer of metal disappeared as Qin Mu returned the Pig Slaughtering Knife to its usual place in the sheath on his back.
Transitioning to Old Ma’s fist skill, he directed his vital qi to his arms and hands. Clenching a hand into a fist, Qin Mu began to resemble the Yangtze river traversing a plateau, rushing through the sky, and gushing into the sea like a never-ending torrent of water.
Thunderclap Eight Strikes First Form, Spring Thunder On The Lonely East Sea!
Throwing punch after punch, a scene of a raging river flowing into the thunderous waves of an enormous sea appeared inside of Qin Mu’s mind. An essence similar to that took shape in his fist skill as well.
However, the moment it did, his fist suddenly opened up mid-punch, his fingers and palm trembling uncontrollably. The air in front of his palm compressed rapidly, then exploded outward, disrupting the surface of the river and sending water all around him.
”It still isn’t complete,” Qin Mu thought as he ran. ”I still can’t achieve thunder in palm.”
Disappointment weighed upon Qin Mu. The lowest level of Old Ma’s Thunderclap Eight Strikes required the practitioner to achieve thunder in palm. Every punch needed to burst forth the booming thunder that possessed astonishing power and could seize a person’s soul.
It would then become a divine art capable of being trained to the highest level where one could control thunder and lightning with their hands, a level that Qin Mu was nowhere near reaching.
As Qin Mu continued sprinting, he grabbed a bamboo staff from its place strapped to his back. Stabbing the area around him, he wasn’t displaying an ordinary staff skill. The skill that Blind taught him was actually a spear skill. His bamboo staff resembled a great spear that churned the water of the river like a raging dragon. Every swirl, every poke, every flick, and every thrust would be accompanied by a burst of water.
Once he was satisfied, Qin Mu traded his bamboo staff for a huge iron hammer, replacing the latter’s position on his back with the former. Then he performed a series of strikes as a display of the hammer skill that Mute the Blacksmith had taught him. This hammer skill was simple and crude, but it possessed several tons of power. Each strike was extremely heavy which, along with Qin Mu’s agile running, embodied two extremes of martial ability!
After sprinting and practicing each of his skills for a considerable amount of time, Qin Mu finally felt that his vital qi was beginning to run low. His body started to feel exhausted, his strength nearly depleted. Looking at his surroundings, he discovered that he had gone dozens of miles downstream, which was quite far from Disabled Elderly Village.
”I actually ran this far without realizing it?” he thought.
Qin Mu continued to survey his surroundings until he noticed an island in the middle of the river. The violent water of the river surged around it. The sight intrigued him, and he immediately rushed over to it.
A few moments later, Qin Mu stepped onto the island, finally reaching dry land.
This island wasn’t very big. Considering its position in the middle of the river, it resembled a small hill lush with vegetation, about a thousand yards in diameter and around a hundred and thirty yards tall.