"There really is one?" Half in disbelief, He Lingchuan took it over. A single glance at the handwriting made him let out a soft cry. "This was written by Sun Fuping?"
"Yes." He Chunhua shook the booklet in his hand. "Loot searched off his body."
With the help of the Gale Army's heroic spirits and the demonic beast, the Blackwater City troops had finished off Sun Fuping, and He Chunhua was never one to pass up an opportunity to loot the former National Preceptor's remains.
He Yue asked curiously, "What else is written in the notebook?"
"Supernatural arts and spells, elixirs and rare curiosities—what people call sorcery." He Chunhua tucked the booklet away. "I originally wanted to see if it contained any secret military intelligence."
He Lingchuan was curious too. "Is there any?"
"None."
Having eaten and drunk his fill, He Lingchuan stood up and took his leave.
Just as he stepped out of the garden, Uncle Hao caught up to him and said earnestly, "Thank you, Eldest Young Master."
He Lingchuan knew he was offering thanks for killing Nian Songyu and avenging the sparrowhawk demon. He waved a hand with casual indifference. "A trifling matter! That cur named Nian wanted to kill me too, but unfortunately for him, things didn't go his way."
The days that followed were calm and peaceful.
He Lingchuan settled right back into being an idle rich heir, treated to drinks and feasts by a whole horde of fair-weather friends. Whenever he visited the teahouses and opera theaters, people inevitably crowded around to flatter Eldest Young Master He for his matchless valor—braving the forbidden zone, rescuing his comrades, and slaying the rebel traitor, each feat far beyond what ordinary men could achieve.
Over the past few days, Zeng Feixiong and the other officers and soldiers who had returned from the perilous expedition were all granted handsome rewards. Flush with cash, they naturally took to the market streets to paint the town red—after all, shared joy was better than solitary delight—and so the tale grew increasingly fantastical as it passed from mouth to mouth.
Naturally, Sun Fuping and Nian Songyu were depicted as wretched, cunning villains rotten to the core—the sort with sores on their heads and pus oozing from the soles of their feet—while the He father and son were wise, brave, and divine, leading the Blackwater City troops to challenge the wild sand season, battle the resentful souls of Panlong City, and return in glorious triumph.
He Lingchuan was quite certain that the young maidens and pretty wives tossing flirtatious glances at him along the streets had more than tripled.
Heroes loved beauties, and did beauties not fancy heroes just the same?
A pity that the technique he cultivated did not allow him to break his abstinence.
On this day, Zeng Feixiong introduced him to a blacksmith shop. It was said to have been passed down for five generations, and the weapons of the officers of Blackwater City were all custom-made and maintained here.
Upon entering, He Lingchuan laid out the broken saber. "Can this be mended?"
The master of the shop was a red-faced man with a bushy beard. The moment he picked up the broken saber and looked at it, his expression shifted. "What a fine saber, and what a fierce one! In my dozen-odd years in this trade, this is the first time I've ever seen such a menacing weapon. Even broken in two, it still looks ready to devour anyone in its path."
Seeing the slight bewilderment on their faces, he explained, "This means the saber heart still lives. Like a tiger that has lost its teeth, it still has sharp claws and its massive frame—ordinary men are still no match for it."
He did not touch the blade itself, but leaned close and sniffed it twice. "This saber has tasted the lives of at least several hundred men."
"Probably closer to five or seven hundred," He Lingchuan said with a chuckle. "This was the sidearm of Commander Zhong Shengguang of Panlong City."
Only now was Zeng Feixiong able to get a word in. "This is the Eldest Young Master of the He Manor."
Eldest Young Master He's heroic deeds had already spread throughout all of Blackwater City as though on wings. Yet, rather than being impressed, the blacksmith waved his hands repeatedly once he heard. "Forgive me, but I cannot repair this treasure. Not just me—in the entire Blackwater City, no, in all of Qiansong Commandery, I fear not a soul can do it."
He Lingchuan's face darkened. "What do you mean by that?"
Perhaps because their temperaments resonated, the more he looked at this saber, the more he liked it, and he had no wish to leave it sitting idle.
To put it more calculatingly, just the label of 'formerly possessed by Zhong Shengguang' meant that once repaired, it would be priceless.
"Legend has it that divine artifacts possess sentience. While this saber has not yet reached that level, it has drunk so much human blood and is enveloped in such heavy ferocity that over time, it developed a faint, rudimentary spirituality. This is what is called a saber heart, or a saber eye." The blacksmith lifted the precious blade and pointed to the fracture, bidding the two look closely. "Look at the break. Isn't it lustrous and smooth, as though mercury were flowing over it?"
He gave the blade two gentle shakes.
Zeng Feixiong watched without blinking, then nodded repeatedly. "Indeed!"
He had handled no fewer than dozens of weapons, yet this was the first time he had ever seen a fracture like flowing mercury.
"When people say blades have no eyes, they are speaking only of ordinary weapons. When those break, they're broken—you just reheat, forge, and patch them up, or at worst melt them down and recast them." The blacksmith smiled wryly. "Yet if this precious saber of yours is melted down, the saber heart nurtured over all those years will be gone. And if you merely try to patch it, it will never accept ordinary iron. It requires not only its master's blood, but also wujin."
"Wujin?" He Lingchuan found the word familiar. Searching carefully through his host's sea of consciousness, he actually managed to turn up relevant memories. "The wujin said to be produced only on Mount Kunwu and used exclusively to forge divine weapons?"
The original host had heard storytellers speak of it in teahouses more than once or twice.
"Precisely. A treasure like that is unheard of anywhere in Qiansong Commandery, as far as I know."
He Lingchuan tapped his fingers against the tabletop a few times, a troubled look on his face.
Just when Zeng Feixiong thought he was going to give up, Eldest Young Master He drew a short pestle from his robes. "Take a look. Would this do?"
Zeng Feixiong was astonished. "Isn't this National Preceptor Sun's ritual staff?" Was this young master really planning to destroy an intact treasure just to mend another?
He cautioned in a low voice, "Eldest Young Master, this ritual staff is worth a fortune." Even the commandery governor had parted with it rather reluctantly.
He Lingchuan scoffed. "So what if it's worth a fortune? What good is keeping it if I can't use it?"
He and He Yue had both read through the page of instructions He Chunhua provided and tested them out, but the ritual staff was far too haughty and gave no reaction whatsoever to any command.
Its previous master had been a National Preceptor; having once seen Mount Wu, no other clouds could compare, and its standards for choosing a master had naturally soared. Given Sun Fuping's prowess, had it not been for his status as National Preceptor being revoked, had the Panlong Secret Realm not suppressed his cultivation, had He Lingchuan and the others not ambushed him with repeated volleys from city-defense ballistas, and had the Gale Army's heroic spirits not joined the fight, how could the Blackwater City troops under He Chunhua have ever brought him down?
Now forced to choose a new master, the treasure clearly had no desire to take either of these two weaklings.
He Lingchuan certainly had no intention of indulging such haughty arrogance.
If he couldn't have it, destroy it. Wouldn't it be better spent on a broken saber that suited his temperament?
He thrust the pestle into the blacksmith's hands. "Look closely. Is this beast head made of wujin?"
During their expedition, Sun Fuping's attendants had bragged with great pride that the head of the National Preceptor's staff was cast from the copper of Mount Kunwu, a treasure money could never buy. He Lingchuan guessed that this must be wujin.
Of course, those attendants had already been hacked to pieces by He Chunhua, but their words still rang fresh in his ears.
The blacksmith was equally stunned by Eldest Young Master He's wealth; something casually pulled from his pocket was a modest goal that commoners could not achieve in several lifetimes.
Taking the precious pestle, he inspected it closely, then produced a vial of medicinal liquid from who knew where, dabbed a few drops onto it, and rubbed it repeatedly. After examining it for a long while, he finally looked up. "Eldest Young Master, this is indeed wujin, but it cannot be used here."
"Are you pulling my leg?" First he said it couldn't be repaired without wujin, and now that wujin was here, it still couldn't be repaired.
Chapter 77