Chapter Forty-Six: Chaotic Night in Shiyang City, Reflections on the Ancient County Academy

"Go to hell!"

Shi Bufeng's figure appeared beside Song Mu, his body erupting with overwhelming demonic energy that surged toward Song Mu like a tidal wave.

The young scholars watching were so terrified that they nearly screamed, yet they gritted their teeth and clung desperately to their robes.

But Song Mu recited another line of poetry:

"Recall those days: armor flashing, steeds thundering, a spirit that could swallow ten thousand miles like a tiger."

The atmosphere shifted monumentally!

As these grand verses echoed through the sky, an immense power of literature began to gather, coalescing before Song Mu into countless phantom soldiers, ironclad horses, and among these apparitions, the massive head of a tiger slowly emerged, baring its fangs and unleashing a thunderous roar.

The roar shook the heavens, reverberating into the very souls of all who heard it. The demonic energy surging toward Song Mu dissipated instantly.

Elsewhere in the city, Butcher Wang was wielding his sharp pigsticker, fighting desperately as he slew a jackal.

His meat shop was far from the east city wall, but after the walls collapsed, countless beasts had swarmed into the city. Though Butcher Wang had hidden his wife and child in the back room, the starving monsters had still found them.

"Come on, then! Old Wang has Lord Zhong Kui’s blessing—see if I don’t hack you all to death!" After slaying the jackal, Butcher Wang roared in his courtyard, but more wolves appeared on the eaves.

From the sky, the grand sound of the Dao resounded; feathers of light fell like snow. The beasts whimpered and retreated, and Butcher Wang breathed a sigh of relief—until a woman’s scream rang out from inside.

"Wife! Son!"

He spun around and dashed inside, only to see that a wolf had slipped in, immune to the power of the falling feathers. Its red eyes were now fixed on his wife and child.

"Beast, your life ends here!" Butcher Wang charged in with desperate fury, swinging his knife, but this wolf was much larger and its eyes shone with an unsettling intelligence. With a whip of its tail, Butcher Wang was sent flying, coughing blood as he crashed to the ground.

His wife screamed, clutching their son as she tried to escape, but the wolf growled and pounced.

Butcher Wang let out a hoarse, hopeless roar, forced to watch helplessly as his wife and child faced death.

At that moment, another grand note descended from the heavens. As his son began to cry, a surge of literary force fell from above, transforming into a white tiger that leapt through the window and, at the last moment, clamped its jaws around the wolf’s waist.

The white tiger, formed of radiant light, dispatched the wolf in a few swift moves before vanishing, leaving wife and child unharmed.

Butcher Wang scrambled over and gathered them into his arms, tears streaming from his reddened eyes as he saw his son had fallen asleep.

"Like a tiger, truly like a tiger! This is the protection of Heaven itself, the blessing bestowed by Young Master Song!"

As Song Mu’s poetic power repelled Shi Bufeng, Li Mo’er also sprang into action.

Her hands moved in a blur, releasing line after line of poetry, each one falling beside Song Mu and forming a barrier of radiant light that enclosed Song Mu and the others protectively.

Shi Bufeng’s demonic energy was swept aside. Shocked, he finally grasped the immense threat Song Mu represented, and his gaze grew even fiercer.

"If I don’t kill him, the consequences will be endless!"

With that, Shi Bufeng suddenly clawed toward the city, and countless lines of blood instantly snaked out from his fingertips.

These threads of blood snaked through the city, attaching themselves to the bodies of the dead and the fallen cultists, drawing streams of blood energy toward Shi Bufeng!

Li Mo’er’s face flushed with rage, and she unleashed a flurry of sword-light from her brush.

Shi Bufeng took the brunt of the attack with his own body.

"No matter what, I will not let you compose a poem of nine measures of talent in front of me!"

Shi Bufeng roared, and at that moment, Jin Changwu and the others arrived. Seeing Shi Bufeng’s state, Jin Changwu leapt into the air, producing a small piece of tourmaline, which he wrapped in literary force and activated as he shouted urgently to Registrar Zhou, who had just arrived.

"Registrar Zhou, act quickly! This man is performing a Blood Demon Sacrifice!"

"Blood Demon Sacrifice?! You mean he’s casting a death curse on Song Mu!"

"Exactly—hurry, we cannot let him succeed!"

Jin Changwu’s brush danced wildly, conjuring battle-poem after battle-poem from thin air. The tourmaline before him rippled with waves of light, and in the next moment, a phantom general, several stories tall, coalesced behind him and charged at Shi Bufeng.

This was the trump card of a presented scholar: with the literary vein’s tourmaline, one could summon phantasms from poetry itself to aid in battle!

Li Mo’er, noticing Shi Bufeng’s movements, grew even more anxious. Her hands moved ever faster, and she produced a brush of purest white and a little gourd, from which she took a deep drink.

A faint blush colored Li Mo’er’s cheeks, and an almost divine presence gathered around her.

She swept her brush down—another verse appeared in the air:

"The great roc rides the wind in a single day, soaring up ninety thousand miles…

…Even Master Xuan was wary of the young; a true man’s youth must not be underestimated."

It was none other than Li Bai’s "To Li Yong"!

As the poem took form, the skies changed; torrents of literary force surged toward Li Mo’er, and a massive roc appeared before her, its talons reaching for Shi Bufeng.

Li Mo’er was a peerless master of literary warfare!

As her poem changed the world, the two colossal phantasms struck Shi Bufeng almost before the onlookers could react.

Shi Bufeng howled amidst the radiant light. The blood waves around him surged and coalesced as if becoming solid, their chilling presence merging with the surrounding darkness before pouring into the severed finger in his mouth. The finger slowly transformed into a crimson blood needle.

Shi Bufeng’s laughter grew even wilder and more maniacal.

"Die, die! If I cannot achieve my great cause, then let us perish together today! To destroy a literary vein before dying—worth it! Worth it! Hahaha!"

His features had lost all trace of humanity; he was now a pure demon.

He had fully embraced his demonic transformation for this final attack.

His blood-red eyes were filled only with murderous intent, and that intent, fused with the eerie blood needle, shot straight for Song Mu, who was still composing poetry atop the county school’s roof.

Li Mo’er, Jin Changwu, and the others dashed forward, unleashing every ounce of their power.

Their furious assaults tore Shi Bufeng’s body apart in moments, leaving only his head to fall slowly to the ground.

But Shi Bufeng’s face wore a twisted smile, for he saw the blood needle already before Song Mu.

He would drag Song Mu to death with him.

Li Mo’er and the others saw what was happening and cried out in alarm.

"Song Mu, dodge!"

Even as Jin Changwu shouted, Song Mu’s brush was already raised. His poem was complete!

In the chaos of rebellion, demons run rampant—how pitiful the suffering of the people.

Five years have passed in this era; looking to our ancestors, the flames of war still burn across the land.

How bitter to recall, beneath Shiyang’s walls, so many fell with severed throats and shattered bellies.

Who can ask: has old General Lian Po still the strength to eat?

The poem descended, and with it, its title shone forth—

"On the County School Amidst the Turmoil of Shiyang City: A Meditation on the Past."

As the title echoed, the poem’s meaning truly took shape; heaven and earth stirred, torrents of literary force surged, and the heavenly chorus resounded without end!

Song Mu’s lament for the past and sorrow for the present, in one poem, encapsulated the glory of his ancestors and the crisis now facing Shiyang, as well as his own helplessness and weakness.

Yet with the honor of his forebears still shining, he would not be a coward. As long as his heart blazed with passion, who could say that the illustrious Song clan—etched so boldly in history—was now merely the aged General Lian Po?

Even the lingering shade of the Song family could shelter all the people of the city!

In the sky, streaks of light crossed paths, visible even to those far from Shiyang County.

At that moment, the blood needle pierced Li Mo’er’s barrier and reached Song Mu.

Song Mu raised his gaze. The blood needle hovered before his eyes.

Yet it could advance no further.

A torrent of literary force from heaven and earth now enveloped Song Mu and all around him, making him invulnerable.

And the gathering of literary force upon this poem did not cease.

Jin Changwu and the others stopped, stunned by the surging waves of literary energy above.

"Nine measures of talent—a poem for the ages—a heaven-sent prodigy. Is Shiyang County about to produce a top scholar?" Jin Changwu murmured, gazing skyward along with countless others.

Suddenly, he felt his official seal vibrating violently.

Jin Changwu looked down in astonishment to see it pulsing with power, and then glanced into the distance.

On the north city wall, soldiers and monsters alike paused in their fighting, turning in awe toward Dengwen Pavilion.

From beneath the pavilion, the work of the great scholar shone with dazzling golden light, radiating an unprecedented pressure.

Outside the city, Ouyang Hong, locked in battle with the Qingjiang Demon King, looked back in shock as a bone-deep terror seized the demon king.

It was the aura of a great scholar—the presence of a true master.

"The great scholar’s work is awakening?!"

Ouyang Hong exclaimed in delight, watching the streams of literary energy gathering in the sky. He reached out, marveling, "No… What is this power? Could it be—the power of the great scholars?!"

Even as he spoke, the stone stele of the great scholar erupted with brilliant light, and the sound of poetry recitations filled Dengwen Pavilion.

The great scholar’s might manifested; poems across the land trembled.

Countless people noticed this phenomenon. At the same time, Song Mu, sensing something in his heart, felt the ancient book in his mind vibrating. He looked up, gazing toward the north city wall.

Within the golden light of the great scholar’s work at the foot of Dengwen Pavilion, a radiant figure slowly appeared.

It was a towering silhouette, blocking out the sun, gradually forming into a refined, scholarly figure who resembled Song Mu by six or seven parts.

…