荒墟牧神 - 第42章 深更荒影近村門 - 星閱書城

The instant the great serpent moved, Shen Mu shot up as well, the Beast-Slaughtering Saber falling like wind and rain, hacking madly at the tender joint between the serpent's head and its body! The Beast-Slaughtering Saber Art: Sun Blazing Over the Eastern Sea, a Thousand Layers of Waves! This stroke of the Butcher demanded the momentum of the great sun at its first rising and a thousand waves of the Eastern Sea heaped one upon another—an unmatched saber-force to cleave through all things! Shen Mu's mind held nothing but a single thought: strike—cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! That head must come off! Ssss—serpent blood sprayed out; the serpent's triangular head, large as a tabletop, parted from its body, yet the head still gaped its blood-flooded maw and snapped down at the family of three ahead, as though wholly unaware that it was already dead. Just as that massive head was about to crash down before the family of three, Shen Mu suddenly leaped and landed atop the head hanging in midair; planting both feet, coiling his body into a crouch, he forced the serpent's jaws shut. The head, with the youth atop it, dropped straight as a great lump of lead and, with a thunderous crash, smashed into the ground before the family of three, who stood frozen with terror. The three stared dumbly at the youth before them. Shen Mu bent down and grinned at the little girl, showing a mouthful of white teeth. "There, little sister—it's all over now." Just then came the wail of an infant, and a woman burst from the house the great serpent had smashed through, laughing: "Congratulations, congratulations—mother and child are both safe!" Shen Mu hurriedly thrust the Beast-Slaughtering Saber back into the oxhide scabbard on his back and ran back into the courtyard, where he saw the man had already rushed excitedly into the house, while Granny Zhu stepped out of it, washed her hands, and looked back at the loving couple and their children within. "Shen'er, quite satisfying, is it not?" Granny Zhu said with a smile. Watching the tender scene of the family of three, Shen Mu nodded slightly; his hand rose unbidden and closed around the jade pendant at his chest. Granny Zhu saw his hand and sighed inwardly. The Blind Elder came shambling up and yawned. "The business here is done; time for bed. Granny, their house has few rooms—why not let the two of us squeeze in together..." Granny Zhu turned her head, her gaze grim as frost. The Blind Elder shuddered in spite of himself, jabbed his bamboo staff at the ground, and turned to go. "These days even a blind old man gets snarled at. The hearts of men are not what they were. I shall sleep in the street..." "Granny, why did the people of this village never discover this great serpent?" Shen Mu asked, beset by doubt, as he watched villagers pouring into the courtyard, laboriously dragging the serpent's tail out of the hollow of the tree. He had grown up in Hidden Cripples Village, where every villager bore some disability—even Granny Zhu was hunchbacked—yet in his heart the elders of his village could do anything at all, ascend to the heavens or burrow into the earth. But the villagers here were for the most part ordinary folk; though there were martial artists among them, their cultivation was not very high. Hence the doubt in his mind. "In all the Desolate Ruins there is only one Hidden Cripples Village." Granny Zhu's gaze was deep and distant. "Most here are ordinary people—those who had no time to flee when the calamity of the Ruins struck, and others who could no longer survive in the outside world and fled here to escape ruinous taxes and the oppression of landlords, hoping to keep body and soul together in this place." "The outside world?" Shen Mu's eyes lit up. "The outside world is more perilous than the Desolate Ruins by far!" Granny Zhu gave a cold snort. "Otherwise, why would Granny and the Blind Elder and the rest have been hounded into hiding in the Ruins? Stop dreaming about the outside world!" Shen Mu s