Chapter 8: Granny’s Skin
“Granny once said that if you get lost in the Great Wasteland and can’t make it back to the village before dark, don’t panic.”
Qin Mu steadied his nerves, thinking to himself: “There are many ruins in the Great Wasteland, and those ruins often have strange and divine properties. Hiding in one might give you a chance to survive. Whether a ruin can save your life depends on two things. First, whether there are stone statues similar to those in the village. Second, whether there are large numbers of exotic beasts in the ruins. These beasts are spiritually aware and know where to hide from the darkness…”
There were quite a few ruins in the Great Wasteland. During his frantic escape, Qin Mu had glimpsed the remains of some cities and villages—crumbling walls and broken foundations, ancient and weathered—but he hadn’t had time to stop and check for stone statues.
Half of the setting sun had already sunk below the mountains. Suddenly, the world fell into a dead silence, a silence maddening in its intensity.
Then came a rushing sound. Qin Mu looked up to see flocks of enormous birds streaking across the sky, blotting out the light in a dark mass. The ground trembled, trees toppled, and exotic beasts burst forth from nowhere, sprinting wildly.
Qin Mu even saw a lake stir with splashing sounds, and several crimson fish, several zhang long, leaped out of the water, using their fins as legs to race across the land!
Qin Mu was bewildered. Fish running on land—were these still fish?
“All these beasts are heading in the same direction. There must be a place there that can avoid the darkness!”
His spirits lifted, and he charged forward with the herd.
The sky grew darker and darker. In the distance, darkness surged like a tide, different from ordinary night. It was like a great flood, sweeping over mountain peaks, valleys, and wilderness, swallowing everything in its path. Even though this wasn’t Qin Mu’s first time witnessing the darkness’s advance, he was still utterly awestruck.
The darkness bore down ferociously, yet the herd continued to race toward it. Qin Mu hesitated. The direction the beasts were running was the same direction from which the darkness came. Was there truly a safe haven ahead that could withstand the darkness’s assault?
What if there wasn’t? Wouldn’t he die without a place to be buried?
“No time to think! The darkness is too fast—even if I turn back, I can’t outrun it. I have no choice but to follow the herd!”
He gritted his teeth and sprinted madly forward.
Over ten li downstream from the river below Cripples’ Village, Granny’s battle with the Five Elders of Lijiang had reached its most critical moment. Originally, only four of the Lijiang Five had been besieging Granny, but after a prolonged stalemate, Qi Yanbing, the leader of the five who had been watching from the cliff, joined the fray. The five elders surrounded her, forming the Five Elements Demon-Subduing Formation.
Unexpectedly, Granny had barely held her own against four elders, but once Qi Yanbing entered the fray, her strength surged. The Five Elements Demon-Subduing Formation couldn’t even trap this old woman.
The five elders were both shocked and furious, realizing that this old woman had deliberately feigned weakness to lure Qi Yanbing into the trap, ensuring he wouldn’t escape.
Granny shuffled on her bound feet, moving like a ghost. The silver needles and threads in her basket seemed to come alive, in an instant piercing the Lijiang Five all over. Strands of thread wove through them, binding their souls and bodies, leaving them unable to move.
The little old woman beamed, pulling scissors from her basket as she approached. “It’s been a long time since Granny has worked with human skin. I wonder if my skills have gotten rusty…”
She reached Qi Yanbing, when suddenly he opened his mouth, and a silver pellet flew out, shooting straight at Granny’s face.
The silver pellet grew as it met the wind. With a swoosh, thousands of sword beams burst forth from the pellet, expanding outward with a clang, instantly forming a sphere a hundred zhang across, composed entirely of pure sword light!
Caught off guard, Granny quickly retreated. Her body suddenly went limp, twisting through the air like an earthworm, dodging the sword beams. At the same time, the scissors flew from her hands, turning into two silver flood dragons that snapped and snipped, cutting through the sword beams.
But she had been caught unprepared. A sword beam struck her from behind—she was hunchbacked, and there was a blind spot on her back. That beam hit her hump.
The countless sword beams vanished, and broken swords clattered down from the air, embedding themselves into the ground over an area of several mu.
The silver pellet also fell with a thud and lay still.
Granny landed as well, reached behind her, and pulled out the sword. She frowned slightly.
“You still dodged it…”
Qi Yanbing, the leader of the five, showed despair in his eyes, his voice hoarse: “I ambushed you with my sword pellet at such close range—it held six thousand eight hundred and forty-two swords—yet you still dodged. You can’t be some nobody in the demonic path! There’s no old woman like you in the demonic path. Who are you really?”
He suddenly noticed Granny’s back. The hump had been pierced by the sword, leaving a wound, but no blood flowed out. Instead, light shone into it, revealing that it was hollow inside.
Qi Yanbing’s hair stood on end. “That’s not your real form. You’re wearing someone else’s skin…”
“You’ve damaged my skin.”
Granny frowned, but the voice that came out wasn’t the usual old woman’s rasp. It was very pleasant—just hearing it, one would think she was a beautiful woman in the prime of her life, nothing like the half-step-into-the-coffin figure she appeared to be.
Granny pressed her throat, sighed, and muttered to herself: “Leaking air…”
She took thread from her basket, sewed up the sword wound on her back, tested her voice, and it returned to normal.
Suddenly, Qi Yanbing looked as if he’d seen a ghost, his face twisting in shock. He blurted out, “I’ve heard that voice before! I know who you are! You’re the Heavenly Demon Cult’s Leader’s wife…”
Granny’s expression changed. She placed her finger on the threads running through the five men, and in an instant, the Lijiang Five were sliced to pieces, their flesh scattering across the ground!
Strangely, the threads weren’t stained with any blood. Instead, they coiled up like living things, shrinking into a ball and returning to the basket.
Granny snorted, then chuckled. “Dead Cripple, how long have you been standing there?”
Not far behind her, Cripple leaned on his crutch, limping over with a broad smile. “Just arrived, just arrived. Sis, I didn’t see or hear anything.”
Granny glanced at him, smiling sweetly. “Seeing doesn’t matter, as long as you didn’t hear anything. Let’s go back to the village.”
Cripple hesitated, then said, “The Heavenly Demon Cult Leader, Li Tianxing, was brilliant and mighty his whole life, but he made one foolish mistake. In his old age, he fell for the most beautiful demoness of the time, deposed his original wife, and planned to marry her as the new cult leader’s wife. The cult was in an uproar. On their wedding night, the new cult leader’s wife assassinated Li Tianxing, ruined centuries of his cultivation, and stole the cult’s sacred demonic scripture. The cult’s elders and patriarchs all emerged from seclusion to hunt her down, but she still escaped, and her whereabouts have been unknown ever since…”
“Is that so?”
Granny tittered. “In my old age, I once heard a story. There was a man who refined his legs to the level of gods, and they were called divine legs. His speed was unmatched in the world, but he didn’t use it well—he took to stealing, and so he was called the world’s greatest divine thief. Though he hadn’t become a god, his title already carried the word ‘divine,’ which earned him the gods’ jealousy. When he went to steal the Imperial Disk from the Yanguo Kingdom, the never-failing divine thief was discovered by the National Teacher, who cut off one of his divine legs. But he still escaped the National Teacher’s pursuit, vanishing with the Imperial Disk. The Yanguo National Teacher is hailed as the greatest under the gods, yet he couldn’t keep the divine thief. He must still have that divine leg, waiting to return it to its owner, right?”
Cripple’s smile grew wider. He chuckled and said, “Granny, we’re all cripples from the same village. We once agreed that each of us has our own little secrets, and we don’t ask about each other’s past. From now on, I’m a mute and a deaf man. My lips are sealed.”
Granny snorted, picked up her basket, and headed toward the village. “Did Mu’er send you to come and back me up?”
Cripple shook his head. “The noise from your fight with those five old men was too loud, the ripples too strong. We felt it in the village, so the Village Chief sent me to see if you needed help.”
Granny’s face changed. “Has Mu’er returned to the village?”
“I didn’t see him when I came.”
“Damn it!”
The two hurried back to Cripples’ Village. Before they even reached it, the sun had set. Darkness rose from the horizon, filling it, surging like a tide, growing higher and higher, devouring everything in its path as it swept toward them!
Granny entered the village and searched it frantically. Her face turned pale. “Mu’er hasn’t come back?”
The darkness completely swallowed Cripples’ Village.
“Granny, don’t worry.”
The Village Chief, carried over by Cripple and the Medicine Master, stopped Granny, who was about to carry a stone statue out to search for Qin Mu. “We’ve taught him what we could. If he’s learned it, he should be able to survive in the Great Wasteland. Going out now is useless—night has fallen.”
Granny slumped in defeat, knowing the Village Chief was right. The darkness had drowned the Great Wasteland. If Qin Mu was still alive, he would survive the night without her needing to save him. If he was already dead, taking the stone statue to look for him would be pointless.
“He still has that jade pendant to protect him…”
Even as she thought this, Granny knew the jade pendant on Qin Mu’s chest was only meant to protect an infant, with a limited range. Qin Mu had grown up now; the pendant’s light could only shield his chest.
“Mu’er, you have to be clever…” Granny murmured softly.