Chapter 74: Frostshade
Chapter 74: Frostshade
Hall of Myriad Stars, Purple Forbidden Pavilion.
Having heard Ding Songyan’s account, the iron-crowned Tao Wenshu said mildly, "That is indeed worth discussing with the Elders."
The Brightnight Sect Master then picked up a longsword lying across her desk and handed it to Ding Songyan, sheath and all.
She smiled as she spoke.
"This is the reward I promised you. It was forged from a small amount of Kunwu bronze, three taels of Dragonhead iron, a single Northern Abyss Ice Essence, and Dingjiang forged steel. It cannot compare to divine weapons like the Eight Swords of Kunwu, but it is exceptional in its own right. It slices iron like it’s mud, and its touch carries a deep chill. It complements the Winter aspect of your Dividing the Four Seasons perfectly."
After he had formally taken her as his master, Tao Wenshu had told Ding Songyan that beyond the prizes he had already claimed, the sect would grant him three further rewards.
First, on the pretext of his having handed over the Secret Classic of Mountains and Seas, he would be accorded the standing of a Grandmaster that would be reflected in food, lodging, and daily provisions.
Second, he would receive a longsword surpassing ordinary fine weapons, one that suited him. This required time to gather the materials and commission its forging.
Third, while working out his own methods for aperture forging, Ding Songyan would be permitted to borrow from the cultivation-teaching Elders the aperture forging, meridian condensation, and viscera installation Chapters of the Celestial Stars Scripture and the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra for reference with the condition that the precious scriptures could not be taken away, and that any later reflection could rely only on his own memory. It was never to be committed to writing.
This was a treatment that even Tao Wenshu herself, as sect master, had never received. Those portions of the scriptures were normally held exclusively by the cultivation-teaching Elders who were senior members who had grown old and stayed permanently in the sect. Even the disciples the cultivation-teaching Elders personally cultivated knew only scattered fragments each, and could only achieve a comprehensive understanding after reaching a certain age and retiring on the mountain for good. Only then would they be considered fully trained.
At the time, Ding Songyan had finished listening and immediately felt a measure of pressure.
What’s this? This is the hope of the entire sect!
He took the longsword and first examined the scabbard.
The scabbard was a deep black, neither quite like metal nor quite like wood, engraved all over with patterns like murals. It appeared to have figure after figure of humans laboring through the darkness of the night. Though no one held a candle, it suffused the spirit of candlelight illuminating the darkness.
With a clear ring, Ding Songyan drew the sword.
The blade was a meter long, crystalline and translucent, as though forged from ice and snow. Its edge carried a deep, penetrating chill as much frozen as it was sharp.
Within the near-transparent blade, a streak of crimson burned like fire, like a hearth flame in a world of ice and snow, warming its tiny corner and bringing life.
The sword possessed both the quality of Winter and the spirit of a candlelit night.
Ding Songyan made a casual flourish with the sword and immediately felt a cold emanate around him, as though the world had jumped straight to late autumn.
He sent a slash toward the wooden window from a distance, and behind him a scene of frozen earth and blanketing white snow materialized.
The air seemed to freeze; an insect on the glazed window beat its wings as it was about to take flight, yet it moved with excruciating slowness, as though crushed by the frost.
Its slowness against the sword’s speed created a dizzying contrast for anyone who witnessed it, stirring a sensation of churning lifeblood.
This was what it meant for time’s light to fall into chaos.
Briefly halting the flow of time is beyond my reach, but with the meaning of Winter, there is plenty that could be modified when it comes to speed... Given time, if I can reach the Heaven-Man Realm, or even set foot in the Spirit Platform Realm, a single sword stroke might freeze even the light of time for a brief moment... Ding Songyan had already fallen completely in love with the sword in his hand.
Beyond being powerful and perfectly suited to him, it was also extraordinarily beautiful.
"No name has been engraved. Think one up yourself." Tao Wenshu smiled.
Only then did Ding Songyan notice that the crystal-like blade bore no inscription. Only the black iron hilt read: "Eighth year of Jianwu, autumn. Qu Zhongheng. Forged at Baoping Lane, Dingjiang Prefecture."
"Qu Zhongheng?" Ding Songyan had not expected the swordsmith to be someone he knew.
Isn’t that fellow a mechanic artisan? He has so many talents?
"I had originally intended to request Qu Zhongheng’s father to forge it, but his health has been poor and he has not yet recovered. As it happens, Qu Zhongheng has fully inherited his father’s skills." Tao Wenshu offered the explanation, then asked, "Are you satisfied with this sword?"
"I’m very satisfied, Master." Ding Songyan thought for a moment. "I’ll call it Frostshade."
He sheathed the blade, held Frostshade in hand, and bade his master a cheerful farewell before returning to his clifftop dwelling.
Officially, he had already begun aperture refinement, which meant he was now permitted to carry a weapon on his person within the sect.
After lunch and a nap to restore his energy, Ding Songyan was greeted by Zheng Zhuxi’s knock at his door.
The young woman wore her hair in a simple upswept bun fastened with a celadon jade pin, dressed in a lake-blue front-fastening jacket over a pale green gauze skirt. She held her longsword sheathed in its gold-and-red scabbard in hand. She smiled brightly at Ding Songyan.
"Junior Brother Ding, do you have anything you need to attend to?"
"I’ve been waiting for you, Senior Sister." Ding Songyan picked up Frostshade as well.
Both were very fast on foot, and with their cultivation arts, the path down the mountain was as easy as flat ground. Before long they arrived at Alpine Lake Town, with its tall encircling walls.
Only a squad of Brightnight Sect disciples stood guard at the gate. There were no soldiers or constables.
In Alpine Lake Town, sect rules took precedence over civil law. Matters were generally handled by the Brightnight Sect’s Disciplinary Hall. If the disputes involved outsiders or were serious crimes involving a disciple, jurisdiction was handed over to the nearest county yamen.
Amid a chorus of warm greetings, Zheng Zhuxi led Ding Songyan through the gate.
"Candied haws for sale! Candied haws for sale! Four coins a stick!"
A surge of various hawking cries poured into Ding Songyan’s ears. From a tavern not far away, the languid notes of a zither drifted out, accompanying the song, A Thousand Years of Waiting.
Vendors selling hairpins and jewelry, children’s toys, sling-stones and arrows, cloth scraps and needles, and all manner of goods lined both sides of the main street. It was bustling and lively.
Ding Songyan was suddenly struck with the feeling of returning to the human world, a world of hedonism.
More than a month of secluded mountain cultivation had made him almost forget what the bustle of the world looked like.
His spirit gradually relaxed and expanded, and a wordless joy rose up in his heart.
"How does it feel?" Zheng Zhuxi tilted her head and smiled.
"It’s as though my whole self has settled in an instant." Ding Songyan described the feeling in words that were not quite right but near enough.
Zheng Zhuxi nodded in satisfaction and said sweetly with her dimples showing, "Knowing you feel that way, I can rest easy as your senior sister.
"Junior Brother Ding, being single-minded about martial arts and working hard at training is good, but the way of the cultured and the martial requires a balance of tension and ease. Always being wound tight and always living apart from others will cause problems for one’s character and be detrimental to long-term cultivation."
Ding Songyan was stunned.
"Senior Sister, you asked for my help, but actually you were looking for an excuse to bring me back to the mortal world and let me unwind?"
Zheng Zhuxi’s dimples deepened, and she tilted her chin up slightly.
"A senior sister’s guidance covers more than just techniques and cultivation methods."
She also needs to look after a junior brother’s wellbeing? Ding Songyan said, half amused and half genuinely moved, "Then I’ll have to properly repay you later, Senior Sister."
"Don’t worry, there will be plenty of chances." Zheng Zhuxi turned with a slight swirl of her skirt and led Ding Songyan on a leisurely stroll through Alpine Lake Town.
Though it was called a town, it had in truth grown to more than ten thousand residents. Its layout had three main streets running in each direction, supplemented by dozens of lanes. As they walked, Zheng Zhuxi gave a running introduction for her junior brother.
"This is Worthy Ancestors Street—there’s a place here that puts on folk opera performances...
"This is the Mei Family Eatery. I love their sheep intestines most of all...
"Heard that? Your Legend of the White Snake has made it all the way to Alpine Lake Town, and it’s very popular...
"This is my family’s place. When Father comes to Alpine Lake Mountain, staying inside the sect is inconvenient in all sorts of ways, so he bought a courtyard here in Mountainview Lane...
"..."
Ding Songyan picked up opera masks and pottery to look at as he went and cooperated with a question.
"Senior Sister, is it always your father who comes to Alpine Lake Town?"
Zheng Zhuxi shook her head with a smile.
"My mother tends to aggregate matters related to Flame Capital before dealing with them in person. When my father is away from Flame Capital, she also brings me back to Changhua Prefecture around the new year—the Changhua Prefecture in Du Province."
Du Province was where the Five Saints Sect was based.
Master and her husband seem to be on very good terms... Noticing that Zheng Zhuxi kept glancing about here and there, Ding Songyan lowered his voice and asked, "Senior Sister, what are you looking for? Is there something I can help with?"
Zheng Zhuxi pulled her gaze back and likewise dropped her voice.
"I brought you to Alpine Lake Town for a stroll not only to help you unwind, but also to serve as cover for me."
"Cover?" A thought surfaced immediately in Ding Songyan’s mind.
As the daughter of the sect master, a rising talent admired throughout the sect, someone whose fine reputation has spread all the way to Dingjiang Prefecture, you would still be the center of everyone’s attention even if you wore a burlap sack.
Zheng Zhuxi cleared her throat and spoke wistfully, "Every year in November or December, the sect recruits new disciples. Many from wealthy families arrive as early as July or August and take up residence in Alpine Lake Town. Over time they become acquainted with people from the sect, and by the time the selection comes around, they may have found someone willing to put in a word for them.
"This is unfair to those of limited means or those in outright poverty. They can only afford to arrive a few days before the recruitment and cannot stay long, which makes it impossible for them to get to know sect disciples and stewards.
"I’ve been coming to Alpine Lake Town often lately to see which foreigners are getting too close to sect stewards and disciples, and noting it mentally. But everyone knows my temperament, and they would never let me see what they’re up to under ordinary circumstances, so I could only ask you to serve as cover."
This is truly something you would do, Senior Sister Zheng... Ding Songyan asked with a smile, "And once you’ve seen it and noted it down, then what?"
"If someone of insufficient talent is being brought in through connections, I will inform my mother," Zheng Zhuxi said plainly and openly. "If they have genuine talent and truly deserve to enter the sect, I can’t do much about that. I would simply not recommend allowing someone of such crooked character to cultivate the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra."
Hm, Senior Sister, somehow I feel like it’s a veiled critique of me... I’m exactly the sort of person who likes to work connections... Though, after making my quantum leap and dedicating myself to martial arts, I’ve thought much less about that sort of thing... It’s fine, it’s fine. I derived the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra’s cultivation art through the Chaos force anyway, so the question of whether my character matches it doesn’t really apply... Ding Songyan grumbled to himself inwardly.
Zheng Zhuxi glanced at the sword in his hand and changed the subject.
"The sword they promised you has arrived?"
"Yes, I named it Frostshade." Ding Songyan drew the sword halfway from its scabbard to show Zheng Zhuxi.
"What a beautiful thing." Zheng Zhuxi’s eyes lit up with admiration.
She smiled warmly and said, "My sword is called Autumn Water. Yours is Frostshade. They correspond to Autumn and Winter. We’re truly senior sister and junior brother.
"Come on, let me pick you a sword tassel."
Zheng Zhuxi was just about to pull Ding Songyan toward a street stall selling sword tassels when a Brightnight Sect disciple hurried over, breathless.
"Junior Sister Zheng, someone has been possessed. Could you come and see whether your Candlelight Sword Intent can deal with it?"
Within the Brightnight Sect, few primarily cultivated the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra, and fewer still had developed Candlelight Sword Intent while in the Great Proliferation Realm. Zheng Zhuxi was one of them.
Possessed? Ding Songyan’s eyebrow moved.
"Of course." Zheng Zhuxi stepped forward without hesitation, and led Ding Songyan along to follow.
Author’s Note: The values of feet varied considerably across different dynasties. Hence, familiar terms like "nine-foot man" sound odd. For consistency, this novel uses: one foot equals 24 centimeters.