Chapter 33: Sword Marbles

The village was filled with water and swords, making it almost impossible to walk without stepping on something. The sight of the lifeless bodies added to the eerie and horrifying atmosphere.

The village chief surveyed the surroundings, furrowing his brow, and said, "Lame, tidy up the bodies and prepare them for burial. Don't leave them exposed in the wilderness. Send them down the river. Burn gold candles and paper boats and cranes for them."

Lame, hobbling over, glanced at the blind man and chuckled, "Saoqing, still reciting poetry? Your verses make no sense."

This infuriated the blind man, causing his beard to flutter as he retorted, "You wouldn't know how to recite even if you wanted to. You can't even recognize a single character!"

Old Lady Si hurriedly interjected, "Lame, remember to keep any valuable items during the preparation. Don't put them in the coffins. They're worth some money after all. You can sell them later and buy some oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar!"

"Alright!"

In the Great Market, the most valuable items were not gold, silver, or jewels but oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar, along with luxurious fabrics and silk. These items were not available within the Great Market itself and had to be brought in by merchant caravans from the outside world to the Dragon-Engraved City. The residents of the Great Market would then exchange rare treasures and animal hides for them. It could be said that salt was more precious than gold.

Every time, Old Lady Si would haul a cart full of treasures, accompanied by several livestock, and travel to the Dragon-Engraved City. After selling the animals and treasures, she would be able to obtain some oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar.

The herbalist approached to treat Qin Mu's injuries, dressing the wounds on his hands and shaking his head. "Trying to catch swords barehanded? Your vitality isn't strong enough for that level of ability. Don't push yourself too hard next time."

Qin Mu felt a cool and numb sensation in his palms, unable to feel any pain. He said, "My sword control technique is lacking. I can't achieve the same level of sensitivity as that person from the Li River Sect. I feel like I have strength within me, but I can't unleash it."

"That's normal. Butcher's sword control technique is terrible. He can't teach you."

The herbalist smiled warmly and said, "There is someone in our village who possesses advanced sword control techniques, but unfortunately, they don't want to teach you."

The village chief's expression darkened, and he spoke sternly, "Herbalist, there's a lot of water here. Escort me back to my house!"

The herbalist chuckled, "In that case, Village Chief, you'll have to wait a bit. I'm still bandaging Mu'er's wounds."

After the wounds were dressed, Qin Mu saw the blacksmith, who was mute, picking up swords from the ground. He picked up a sword and gave it a light shake. Thousands of flying swords automatically flew towards him, clashing with the sword in the mute blacksmith's hand. Astonishingly, all the swords disappeared and merged into a single sword, leaving Qin Mu in awe.

He approached and picked up a sword, giving it a light shake, but nothing happened.

The mute smiled with his mouth wide open, his tongue absent, and made a couple of "ah ah" sounds. Then he rubbed the sword in his hands, and to everyone's surprise, the sword became smaller and smaller, transforming into a tiny silver ball the size of a finger.

Seeing this, Qin Mu looked at the sword in his own hand and thought about giving it a try, to see if he could also rub it into a small silver ball. But the pharmacist quickly warned, "Don't rub it, you just had your wounds bandaged! Mute, don't tease him, or I'll poison you!"

The mute couldn't stop laughing, snatched the flying sword from Qin Mu's hand, and stuffed the silver ball into Qin Mu's hand.

Crack!

Qin Mu heard a light cracking sound from his shoulder, and the next moment, he was pressed to the ground by the weight of the silver ball in his hand. The mute was startled, slapped his forehead, realizing that he had forgotten that the silver ball was actually formed by thousands of swords combined together. The weight of thousands of swords combined was extremely heavy.

Caught off guard, Qin Mu's arm was naturally dislocated, and he found himself lying on the ground.

Just as the mute was about to put Qin Mu's arm back in place, he was suddenly kicked out of the village by the approaching Aunt Si. No one knew where he fell, but they could hear his distant cries fading away in the sky.

Aunt Si had a gloomy expression as she helped Qin Mu put his arm back in place. She angrily said, "Those who can't speak are all troublemakers, full of mischief! Mu'er, these swords are the mother and child swords. Among the thousands of swords, one is the mother sword, and the rest are the child swords. As long as you find the mother sword, you can retrieve all the child swords. However, the sword ball of the Li River Sect is quite heavy, and you can't lift it right now."

She picked up a sword, just like the mute, lightly shook it, and thousands of precious swords flew over and merged into this mother sword.

Aunt Si smiled and said, "To turn the mother sword back into a sword ball, you don't need to rub it like the mute teased you. You just need to harmonize your Qi with the mother sword, and it will shrink back into a sword ball. Similarly, you can release the child swords from the mother sword using the same method."

Qin Mu looked at the sword ball in her palm, blinked his eyes, and asked curiously, "Aunt Si, there seem to be many of these silver balls in your room!"

"Really?" Aunt Si blinked her dim eyes in confusion.

"Yes!" Qin Mu remembered that he had seen these silver balls in Aunt Si's room, quite a few of them were thrown under the bed, some were inside unused shoes, and there were also many in the corners.

When he was a child, he even played with these silver balls as marbles, bouncing them back and forth.

He even saw Aunt Si's old mother hen eating these silver balls like pebbles!

In retrospect, it was really terrifying. What if these silver balls suddenly transformed into swords inside the mother hen's stomach? The scene would be gruesome.

Fortunately, that didn't happen.

Aunt Si's eyes flickered as she said, "When you were a child, the ones you could pick up were ordinary silver balls, not sword balls."

Qin Mu was a bit skeptical and said, "I've seen a big box in Grandpa Mute's blacksmith shop filled with these silver balls."

Aunt Si blinked her dim eyes, blinking faster than Qin Mu, and smiled, "Do you think Mute has that much money?"

Qin Mu was confused by her words. Mute certainly didn't seem like someone so wealthy. He was clearly just a hardworking blacksmith.

Aunt Si chuckled, "Don't overthink it. We are all ordinary people in our village, each one of us as poor as can be, and many are disabled. We are just an ordinary village, everything is normal. If you suspect that Mute's box is full of sword balls, you might as well suspect that the water jar in the corner is a treasure!"

Qin Mu looked at the water jar she mentioned. The jar was placed under the eaves of the blacksmith shop and used to collect rainwater during rainfall. But strangely, Qin Mu had never seen the water in the jar fill up completely. No matter how heavy the rain, the jar was always only half full!

Moreover, the water in the jar never decreased, nor did it seem to have a bottom. Mute used a lot of water for blacksmithing, but no matter how many buckets he scooped out, the water level in the jar remained the same!

Aunt Si noticed his suspicious gaze and felt that this example was not quite right. She quickly said, "You don't think those pile of broken clay jars at the pharmacist's doorstep are treasures too, do you?"

Qin Mu looked at the broken clay jars at the pharmacist's doorstep. They contained some unknown herbs and were home to spiders, silkworms, centipedes, and other small creatures.

When the heavy rain poured earlier, the jars filled with water, and a few insects crawled out, standing on the rim of the jars, struggling. Suddenly, a black spider became angry and burst into flames all over its body. Then it expanded, growing to the size of a table, and started breathing fire at the other insects. Amidst the flames, several golden silkworms grew wings and became over a foot long. They flew out of the fire and bit the spider.

The pharmacist stuck his head out and scolded the insects, causing them to quickly shrink their bodies and obediently return to the jar.

Qin Mu became even more skeptical, and Aunt Si forced a laugh and said, "These are all normal, nothing out of the ordinary..."

Qin Mu probed, "Auntie, do people outside also fly like Grandpa Mute?"

Aunt Si nodded, "People outside can all fly."

Qin Mu asked, "Are people outside like the people in our village, all spiritual beings?"

"They are all spiritual beings!"

"Do people outside also possess the same strength as the people in our village?"

"They are very powerful! Otherwise, Auntie and the blind man wouldn't have been forced to hide in the Great Burial Ground! Don't keep thinking about running outside, or you might end up dying out there. The people outside are much more dangerous than the blind man!"

...

Qin Mu had mixed feelings. Were the people outside the Great Burial Ground really as powerful as Aunt Si described, capable of doing anything?

By the riverside, the lame man tidied up the corpses, placed them in coffins, hammered wooden wedges into the coffin lids, nailed them shut, and then pushed the coffins into the river, letting them drift downstream.

The river current was fast, and there were many reefs and rocks downstream. These coffins would have a hard time drifting to the sea. Along the way, they would be shattered by collisions, and the bodies would sink into the water, becoming food for the fish in the rushing river.

"The Li River Sect may be expelled from the Southern Wilderness."

The lame man watched the drifting coffins and murmured, "The Sect Leader is dead, and the martial experts in the sect are also dead. It's hard for this sect to survive."

"I'm not thinking about that right now."

Mr. Ma shook his head and looked into the distance. "What I'm thinking about now is that man who is hailed as the number one under the gods. Mu Beifeng is the governor of the Five Miao Prefecture in the Southern Wilderness. He was personally recruited by the National Preceptor Yan Kang and bestowed with the rank of second-grade official. If he dies and the Five Elders of the Li River also die, will it alarm this person who is regarded as the number one under the gods?"

The lame man shook his head decisively and said, "It will definitely alarm him! But he would never dare to enter the Great Burial Ground!"

Mr. Ma glanced at him and said, "Don't forget, while National Preceptor Yan Kang cannot touch the Great Burial Ground, he has the support of the Yan Kang Nation behind him! Yan Kang Nation is a powerful sect with the status of a nation! How could such a colossal entity not cast greedy eyes on the Great Burial Ground? This place holds countless treasures!"