Translator: Ninetales Editor: DarkGem
Back then, Butcher was a maniac. He was overbearing, invincible, lonely, and full of ambition, instead of being rough like right now. Not only was his knife skills superb, he was also knowledgeable, and the poems he wrote were bold and unrestrained. He was also a gifted scholar that was renowned at that time.
His knife skills were called Heaven Knife, and he was also named after them. His every move was filled with poetic quality, speaking his mind and emotionally unrestrained.
If Disabled Elderly Village was ranked according to their literary talent, the first would be Deaf, but the second would be Butcher. Even though he'd grown crazy and spewed vulgarities, he was a famous literary giant back in the day.
At that time, he had challenged nearly all of the experts, including even Pangong Tso. The grandmaster of Rolan's Golden Palace could only hide, not daring to face him.
Butcher was enormously proud of his success, and besides an annoying disciple, his life was already complete. Of course, his disciple was also very remarkable. He was called Ba Shan and known as Hegemon Knife.
For over four or five decades, wind and rain clouded the sky. As transient as a fleeting cloud, every cloud had a silver lining
One should not think about boasting, for after the crisis comes hope. When looking at the sky and sea, a journey taken seems but a smoke!
Butcher created Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining, and the battle technique school was pushed to a height at which it had never been. At that time, many people learned the way of the knife in the martial world, and the battle technique school became mainstream, suppressing spell divine arts and sword technique divine arts.
It was at that moment that Butcher finally couldn't resist attacking the sky. He wasn't a person like Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor with his reform, but a person who wanted to fight to his heart's content!
"After I founded that move, I immediately tested it, and the knife sliced the sky apart."
Butcher swung his knife, and the knife skill he executed was none other than Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining. He didn't unleash any power with this move, but only executed it once.
He then pulled back his knife, his expression weird. He composed himself, seeming to be reminiscing about the period when he had become deranged. "I saw a strange sight. The sky split open, but there were no stars behind it. I was very careful and didn't go up to check, instead, I found a few like-minded friends who were all proficient in algebra."
Qin Mu's heart stirred slightly. Butcher actually knew how to be careful? He was the one with the worst temper, the one who would go straight into things, slashing down as he swung his knives.
'This kind of personality should be a facade purposely created by Grandpa Butcher. Those who believe he is a boorish fellow should have all died,' Qin Mu thought to himself.
"Then, I slashed toward the sky with my knife again. My algebra friends should have calculated the thickness and height of the sky, but there was a problem that time.'
Butcher fell silent. After a moment, he said sorrowfully, "My friends died. In the tear that I had slashed open, an eye appeared. A huge eye. A weird eye. When it looked at us, I felt my soul throbbing as though it was going to be pulled out of my body. However, my corporeal body was extremely strong and my heart suppressed the throbbing along with my primordial spirit. However, my good friends didn't manage to do that. They…"
The corners of his eyes twitched, and he fell silent again.
"I didn't go up to the sky to find the owner of that eye immediately. Instead, I brought the corpses of my good friends back to their homes, letting their families arrange for their funerals and bury them." Butcher fell into a daze as he spoke. "I knelt down and begged for forgiveness, especially from the family of my sworn elder brother. Elder sister was a very nice person, but she gave me a slap. She then told me to get out and leave for as far as possible, instead of taking revenge. I knew the meaning of her words: If I went and take revenge, I would definitely die. But I still went."
He revealed a smile and said to Qin Mu, "My friends, my elder brother, all of them had died without knowing how it happened, and it happened because of me, so how could I not take revenge? A man eight feet tall, full of muscle, with heroism in his chest, and big knives in his hands, how could he not take revenge, not do what his heart said? Elder sister cherished me and didn't want me to die, but my knives and my heart were upright and plainspoken, so I had to take revenge! That was why I carried my knives up to the sky. Hehe, many people said I was a lunatic, right?"
Qin Mu nodded silently.
Too many people had said Heaven Knife who had raised his knives against the heaven was a lunatic, that he had fought with the gods of heaven in the dark sky filled with clouds and lightning strikes.
It was said that in that battle, Heaven Knife, the strongest practitioner of the battle technique school, had fallen to a devil's influence which made him challenge the heaven. His actions then became a legend carried down through the generations.
Heaven Knife was severed in half at the waist, and his blood sprayed on the mortal world. The battle technique school lost their strongest practitioner, but it was still prospering. It was so until the rise of Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor who, because the battle technique school was fierce and liked to kill people frequently, challenged it in its entirety, killing numerous famous people. From then on, battle technique school went down the slope.
"I fought against the sky, but it was only this thick…"
Butcher made a pinching motion with thumb and index finger, leaving the space of three inches between them at most.
Qin Mu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The sky was ten thousand miles high and its thickness was one thousand yards, which was calculated by Xu Shenghua, Wang Muran, and Lin Xuan. But Butcher frequently talked drivel, wrote poems, and exaggerated, so three inches was only his metaphor.
"I fought my way up to the sky and saw numerous weird formations." Butcher looked at the sky in a daze. "The sky was only the thickness of a line, but there were numerous complicated formations that operated automatically, presenting the shapes of the sun, moon, stars, Milky Way, and constellations.
"I was furious at that time. The bullshit heaven was all fake, yet the stubborn mules of Dao Sect were still calculating heavenly cycles and constellations. Commoners even worshiped the sun and moon every day, paying their respects to those toys. I wanted to chop them up, to shatter them and see how they would then continue to fool people. But then…"
Then, Heaven Knife met gods, the gods that were protecting the fake astronomical phenomenon.
Heaven Knife and the gods fought, and he was severed at the waist, which resulted in him falling down.
His lower body was snatched by Grand Shaman, who had also snatched the severed hand of a god which was later stolen by Qin Mu. It was still with Butcher.
"I never met the owner of that eye and didn't manage to take revenge for my good friends. I was disabled, crippled." A crazed look appeared in Butcher's eyes but his mind was still stable. "I had no face to return to the families of those friends, to meet my elder sister, or to die. Those friends are still looking at me…"
With a cry that wasn't really a cry and a smile that wasn't really a smile, he said, "I can't let them raise the crippled me and I can't let Ba Shan see the crippled me. This world had Heaven Knife who died in battle, not Heaven Knife who struggled for years at death's door.
"At that time, I crawled and crawled through the rain and snow. I crawled until I reached Great Ruins, where cold mud covered the ground. It was Blind who picked me and brought me to the village. That damned Blind keeps using this against me…"
Butcher's face became sorrowful soon, however. "When I left Great Ruins with Blind last year, I couldn't resist going to visit elder sister. She has grown old, her eyes becoming blurry and her head not being as good as before. She couldn't recognize me anymore. Her grandchildren follow her, for she can no longer walk, just lay in the recliner. Her grandchildren said that the sentence she says the most is: I shouldn't have let second brother go back then."
Butcher wept manly tears, but his voice still remained calm. "When I spent the last moments of her life with her, she was still harping on about me, not knowing that I was right beside her. She said that she had harmed me…"
Qin Mu stayed silent.
Butcher raised his spirits and said, "Even though I didn't spend much time in the sky, I saw a lot of stuff. The sun, moon, and stars are actually formations created in a small space. It seemed like, seemed like…"
He looked at Deaf who had been turned into a bull and said, "It seemed like a painting. However, those sun, moon, and stars weren't things that were drawn. They truly existed and operated automatically, hidden in the painting. I had seen Deaf's paintings before, and they're extraordinary, but not to that extent."
Qin Mu was slightly stunned. "There are formations in the picture which show us the magnificent sight of the sun, moon, and stars?"
"Moo!" A big black cow mooed angrily beside Qin Mu. Next to it were a couple female deer demons that were trying to pick it up.
Butcher chased the deer demons away and placed his Pig Slaughtering Knife on top of the bull's head. He swung it up and down, making the black bull shiver in fear.
Butcher stabbed the knife into the bull's neck and carefully peeled off the cowskin while the deer demons fled in a panic.
Deaf tumbled out from the cowskin and grumbled, "Butcher, you almost hurt me."
"The sky is like a painting, but it wasn't completely a painting. There were a sun, moon, and stars inside. They were all forged treasured. The painting instead covered the true sky and maintained the formations of the sun, moon, and stars for tens of thousands of years. You couldn't do that; your cultivation is too shallow."
Butcher pushed Pig Slaughtering Knife back into its sheath and said, "Those gods in the sky should be the dogs guarding the Astronomical Phenomenon Picture and not the real gods. They are very strong and no weaker than those guys in High Heavens. However, I didn't see the owner of that divine eye. He shouldn't be from this world. When I was investigating the astronomical phenomenon, he detected me and only then looked over."
There was a picture that covered the whole world. The sun, moon, stars, constellations, and Milky Way were all formations that could operate by themselves. The thickness of the picture material was only one thousand yards while its height was ten thousand miles.
Qin Mu had a headache. Was this something that humans could create?
"Back then, I didn't manage to see past the sky." Butcher's face became sorrowful again as he said, "My knife had only sliced apart the astronomical picture, but I didn't slice open what's behind it. Back then, my corporeal body was terrifyingly strong, so I didn't die; however, I went mad."
As a matter of fact, Butcher would still flare up from time to time, scolding the heaven, full of cynicism.
The people of Disabled Elderly Village were all people who didn't have a complete body from various setbacks while their hearts and corporeal bodies had suffered from psychological shock. They were more or less embittered.
"I could draw what I saw in the sky," Butcher said. "However, my drawing isn't as good as that of Deaf. Mu'er, give me a few days, I will draw down all the formations for you to take a look."
Qin Mu was astonished.
Butcher was rough and boorish, courageous and strong to the point he was like the reincarnation of a bull demon. On top of that, the stubble on his face was also incomparably robust, able to give off sparks when he shaved it with Pig Slaughtering Knife!
Such a boorish man was actually talented in both literature and painting. And he was even honored as Heaven Knife!
Deaf, on the other hand, wasn't astonished. "In our village, the one most lacking in culture is Blind. Butcher's literary works and paintings are all first-rated. It's just that he didn't put all his heart into them, or else he would have left his name in history as well."
Qin Mu looked at Blind, only to see him staring at Deaf with shining eyes.
The next couple of days, Butcher cooped himself up in his room and painted continuously. Qin Mu didn't go and disturb him. Si Yunxiang in the meantime managed to contact the young patriarch and came to report to him., "Patriarch had gone to West Earth, but he's on his way back."
Qin Mu was astonished. 'Patriarch went to West Earth? Could he be looking for his old lover?'
At that moment, he suddenly heard a voice. "Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor seeks an audience with Human Emperor!"
Qin Mu turned around and looked toward the source of the voice while laughing loudly. "Why is Heavenly King so polite? Just saying that you are here to meet the cult master will do! Calling me the human emperor is too formal!"
Si Yunxiang was full of admiration. 'Cult Master's level of thick skin is something I can never reach.'