Chapter 33: Sword Pellet

The village lay submerged, a landscape of shimmering water and glinting steel. Sharp swords protruded from every surface, making every step treacherous. The scattered corpses added a macabre layer to the scene, a chilling spectacle.

The Village Chief surveyed the devastation, his brows furrowed. He finally spoke, his voice resonating across the water: "Cripple, see to the tidying up. Give them proper burials, do not leave their bodies exposed to the wild. Send them down the river. Burn some spirit money, candles, paper boats, and paper cranes for them as well."

Cripple, with his characteristic limp, shuffled forward. He cast a side glance at the Blind Man and chuckled, "Still spouting poetry? What a load of doggerel!"

The Blind Man bristled, his mustache fluttering with indignation. "You wouldn't even know where to start! You can barely read a few characters!"

Granny Si quickly intervened, "Cripple, when you're putting them in coffins, make sure to keep any valuable items. Don't bury them. They're worth something, we can exchange them for oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar later!"

"Alright!" Cripple chirped.

In the Great Ruins, the true treasures were not gold, silver, or jewels, but the simple necessities of life: oil, salt, soy sauce, and woven silk. These were not found within the Ruins, and could only be obtained from caravans journeying from the outside to Inlay Dragon City. The inhabitants of the Great Ruins bartered strange treasures and beast hides for these precious commodities. Salt, in particular, was more valuable than gold.

Each time, Granny Si would load a cart with treasures and bring several head of livestock to Inlay Dragon City. Only by selling these livestock and treasures could she acquire the much-needed oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar.

The Apothecary stepped forward to tend to Qin Mu, bandaging the wound on his hand. He shook his head, saying, "Trying to catch a sword bare-handed? Your vital energy isn't strong enough for that yet. Don't be so reckless next time."

Qin Mu felt a cool numbness in his palm, the pain dulled. He replied, "My sword control technique isn't good enough. I can't be as precise as that fellow from Li Jiang Sect. I feel like I have power, but I can't wield it effectively."

"That's perfectly normal. Butcher's sword control technique is terrible, he can't teach you well." The Apothecary's eyes crinkled with a smile. "There are people in our village who possess profound sword control techniques, but they're unwilling to teach you, unfortunately."

The Village Chief's face darkened slightly. He spoke with a gruff tone, "Apothecary, there's too much water here. Take me back to my house!"

The Apothecary chuckled, "Then you'll have to wait a moment, Village Chief. I'm still bandaging Mu'er's wound."

Once his wound was bandaged, Qin Mu watched as the Mute Blacksmith collected the scattered swords. He picked one up and gave it a slight shake. Suddenly, thousands of flying swords automatically converged, clashing and merging with the sword in the Mute's hand. Astonishingly, these swords vanished, becoming one. Qin Mu couldn't help but gasp in wonder.

He stepped forward and picked up a sword, mimicking the Mute's action, but nothing happened.

The Mute grinned, his tongueless mouth producing two "ah ah" sounds. He then rubbed the sword in his hands, and to Qin Mu's amazement, the sword shrunk, becoming smaller and smaller until it was a tiny silver pellet, no bigger than a fingertip.

Qin Mu stared at the sword in his hand, tempted to rub it to see if it would also turn into a silver pellet. The Apothecary quickly warned, "Don't rub it! Your wound was just bandaged! Mute, don't tease him, or I'll poison you!"

The Mute roared with laughter. He snatched the flying sword from Qin Mu's hand and then stuffed the silver pellet into Qin Mu's palm.

*Crack.*

Qin Mu heard a light snap from his shoulder. The silver pellet in his hand suddenly pressed him down, causing him to fall to the ground. The Mute jumped in surprise, patting his forehead. He had forgotten that this was a sword pellet refined from thousands of swords. How heavy would thousands of swords combined be?

Qin Mu, unprepared, was naturally pressed to the ground, his arm dislocated.

Just as the Mute was about to reset Qin Mu's arm, Granny Si, who had walked over, kicked him with such force that he flew out of the village. He vanished from sight, only his distant "ah ah" sounds echoing through the air outside the village, growing fainter and fainter.

Granny Si's face was grim as she reset Qin Mu's arm. She said angrily, "Those who can't speak are all rotten to the core, full of wicked schemes! Mu'er, these swords are mother-child swords. Among the thousands of swords, one is the mother sword, and the rest are child swords. As long as you find the mother sword, you can recall all the child swords. However, the Li Jiang Sect's sword pellets are very heavy. You can't lift one yet."

She picked up a sword and, like the Mute, gave it a slight shake. Thousands of swords *hua la la* flew towards it, merging into the single sword.

Granny Si smiled. "To turn the mother sword back into a sword pellet, you don't need to rub it. Mute was just playing a trick on you. You only need to attune your vital energy with the mother sword, and it will shrink back into a sword pellet. Similarly, you can use this method to release the child swords from the mother sword."

Qin Mu looked at the sword pellet in her palm, blinking his eyes in confusion. "Granny, your room seems to have many of these silver pellets!"

"Do they?" Granny Si blinked her dim, aged eyes, feigning confusion.

"Yes!" Qin Mu remembered seeing these silver pellets in Granny Si's room. There were quite a few, some scattered under the bed, others in old shoes, and many in the corners.

When he was little, he had even used these silver pellets as marbles, bouncing them around.

He had even seen Granny Si's old hen eat these silver pellets, mistaking them for pebbles!

The thought sent shivers down his spine. What if those silver pellets suddenly transformed into swords in the hen's belly? That would be a tragic scene.

Fortunately, that had never happened.

Granny Si's gaze flickered. "When you were small, you could lift them, so they were naturally ordinary silver pellets, not sword pellets."

Qin Mu wasn't entirely convinced. He said, "I also saw a large box full of these silver pellets in Grandpa Mute's blacksmith shop."

Granny Si's dim eyes blinked, more evasively than Qin Mu's. She smiled, her eyes squinting. "Do you think Mute could be that wealthy?"

Qin Mu was somewhat bewildered by her question. Mute certainly didn't look like a wealthy person. He seemed like nothing more than a poor wretch who only knew how to forge iron and exert force.

Granny Si chuckled. "Don't overthink it. Everyone in our village is just an ordinary person, impoverished wretches, and old cripples at that. We're just a very ordinary village, and everything is perfectly normal. Instead of suspecting that Mute's box is full of sword pellets, you might as well suspect that the water jar in the corner is a treasure!"

Qin Mu looked towards the water jar she mentioned. It was placed under the eaves of the blacksmith shop, used to collect rainwater. However, the strange thing was that Qin Mu had never seen the water in this jar full, no matter how heavy the rain. The jar always seemed to be half-full!

Furthermore, the water in this jar never seemed to diminish, and he had never seen the bottom of it. Mute used a lot of water for forging iron, scooping it out bucket by bucket, but the water in the jar remained the same!

Granny Si saw his suspicious little eyes and realized her example wasn't entirely convincing. She quickly added, "Surely you don't think the pile of broken jars outside the Apothecary's door are treasures as well?"

Qin Mu looked towards the broken jars outside the Apothecary's door. The jars contained unknown medicinal herbs and housed various small insects like spiders, silkworms, and centipedes.

During the recent flood, water had entered the jars, and several insects had crawled out, fighting on the rims of the jars. Suddenly, a black spider, enraged, burst into flames, its body swelling to the size of a table. It spewed fire towards the other small insects. In the flames, several golden silkworms sprouted wings, growing to over a foot long, and flew out of the fire, pouncing on the spider's body and biting with a *zhi zhi* sound.

The Apothecary poked his head out and cursed. The insects quickly shrunk back to their original size and obediently returned to the jars.

Qin Mu's suspicion grew. Granny Si gave a dry laugh, stammering, "These are all normal, nothing could be more ordinary..."

Qin Mu probed, "Granny, can people outside the village all fly like Grandpa Blind?"

Granny Si nodded. "Everyone outside can fly."

Qin Mu asked, "Are all the people outside spirit bodies, like the people in our village?"

"They're all spirit bodies!"

"Are people outside as powerful as the people in our village?"

"Extremely powerful! Otherwise, Granny and Blind wouldn't have been forced to hide in the Great Ruins. Don't always think about running outside. Be careful, you might die out there. The people outside are far more formidable than Blind!"

...

Qin Mu was half-believing, half-doubting. Were the people outside the Great Ruins truly as powerful as Granny Si claimed, capable of ascending to heaven and entering the earth without hindrance?

On the riverbank, Cripple finished tidying up the corpses and placing them in coffins. Grandpa Horse hammered wooden wedges into the coffin lids, securing them. Then, he pushed the coffins into the river, allowing them to drift downstream.

The river flowed rapidly, with many hidden reefs and treacherous rocks downstream. It was unlikely these coffins would reach the sea. They would likely be broken along the way, the corpses sinking into the water and becoming food for the large fish of the Surging River.

"Li Jiang Sect may soon cease to exist in the Southern Border," Cripple said mournfully, watching the coffins drift away. "The Sect Master is dead, and all the experts in the sect are dead. It will be very difficult for this sect to survive."

"I'm not thinking about that right now," Grandpa Horse shook his head, looking into the distance. "I'm thinking about that 'God Under First Person.' Mu Bi Feng was the Prefect of the Five Miao Prefectures in the Southern Border. He was personally recruited by the Yan Kang National Teacher and held a second-rank official position. He is dead, and the Five Elders of Li Jiang are also dead. Will this not alarm that 'God Under First Person'?"

Cripple shook his head and said decisively, "It will alarm him! But he absolutely will not dare enter the Great Ruins!"

Grandpa Horse looked at him. "Don't forget, a single Yan Kang National Teacher cannot deal with the Great Ruins, but behind the National Teacher is Yan Kang Country! Yan Kang Country is a colossal sect disguised as a country! How could such a behemoth not covet the Great Ruins? This place may hold countless treasures!"