The warm-colored light of the illumination talisman gradually faded away, and the surroundings became clear. The morning white mist, carrying the night’s cold dew, slowly spread across heaven and earth. In the courtyard, crisp sounds of “ding ding dang dang” rang out.

This was a morning after the snow.

“Chai Sang, up so early to forge swords?” Someone’s voice called out, carrying good-natured teasing. “Planning to forge a few more swords to save up as dowry for your daughter?”

“Hehe.” The one being teased wasn’t angry, just gave an honest laugh.

Chai Sang? Zanxing’s heart stirred slightly. Wasn’t that the swordsmith of the Wuyou Sword? Was this a memory of the Wuyou Sword?

In the center of the courtyard stood a middle-aged man. Compared to the profound and mysterious swordsmiths who were always silent and strange, this man looked more like an ordinary craftsman. He was short in stature, with rough, dark skin, and could even be called ugly. Hunched over, he was hammering iron by the furnace with ding-ding-dang-dang sounds.

The courtyard was filled with accumulated snow. Despite the bitter winter cold, he was bare-chested, sweating profusely from his work. His pants, washed to a faded white, were covered with patches, suggesting his family circumstances weren’t very good.

Zanxing walked to his side. Chai Sang was completely unaware, concentrating wholeheartedly on the work in his hands.

This was a memory of the Wuyou Sword. The people existing in memories couldn’t see Zanxing.

As he was hammering away, sudden “yi yi ya ya” cries came from inside the house. Chai Sang startled, dropped his iron tongs, and rushed inside. Zanxing curiously followed and saw that in the dilapidated, crumbling red clay house, Chai Sang stood beside the bed, frantically changing a baby’s diaper.

“Aiya, don’t cry, don’t cry. Papa’s here, Papa will protect you.” The man clumsily comforted the baby in his arms. “Our Wuyou is the most well-behaved.”

Wuyou?

Zanxing looked toward the child in swaddling clothes. This should be a baby girl, only three or four months old, wrapped in a flowered blanket, showing a sweet smile to Chai Sang, who was making funny faces.

Wuyou was Chai Sang’s daughter. He named the sword after his daughter?

The craftsman wouldn’t answer Zanxing’s confusion. She could only follow along with the Wuyou Sword’s memories.

What followed was a period of Chai Sang caring for his young daughter.

The craftsman Chai Sang was a swordsmith from the Yuezhi Kingdom. It was said that his family had been swordsmiths for generations, and their ancestors had once been masters who forged swords exclusively for the imperial family and nobles. However, they had gradually declined, and by Chai Sang’s generation, life was even more difficult – they could barely afford to eat. As for the so-called swordsmithing family heritage, neighbors would only laugh when they heard about it.

Chai Sang’s parents had died early, and his wife had also passed away shortly after their daughter was born, leaving only a crying baby daughter, Chai Wuyou.

Chai Sang doted on his daughter very much.

He worked hard every day to earn more wages, spending them all on food and clothing for Wuyou. During the day, he would hammer iron while caring for Wuyou. At night, he would light an oil lamp and sit under it, making shoes and socks for Wuyou, mending small garments.

At first, he didn’t know how to do these things. Hands that gripped iron tongs felt clumsy and awkward when picking up embroidery needles, just as his daughter’s tender little hands in his rough palms always made him careful and at a loss. Later, he gradually became skilled. His needlework on clothes became even more delicate than the neighbor aunties’, and he could braid hair better than the most fashion-conscious girls in the city.

Everyone praised him for having skillful hands. Although Wuyou had no mother, she still lived carefree and beautifully.

The babbling infant quickly grew up, becoming a little girl with rosy lips and white teeth, then a graceful young maiden in her teens, then a beautiful young woman of eighteen with bright eyes and white teeth.

Chai Sang was hammering iron in the courtyard when a neighbor passed by and laughingly asked the girl embroidering at the door: “Wuyou, in the future, you must find a husband who treats you as well as your father does.”

The girl protested indignantly: “I don’t want to find a husband like my father. If I’m going to find someone, I want to find a talented young master who can read and write!”

“What, reading and writing – you just want to find a handsome one,” Little Tiger from the neighbor’s house made a face at her. “You just think your father is ugly!”

Wuyou angrily stood up from her stool and chased after Little Tiger to hit him: “Nonsense! My father isn’t ugly! My father isn’t ugly at all!”

Chai Sang hammered iron while watching them play and fight, smiling with relaxed eyes and brows.

He was naturally short and rough-looking, yet he had gotten such a beautiful daughter. Youth and age, beauty and ugliness, like spring shoots and withered wood, fresh flowers and rotten mud.

When Wuyou was seventeen, she was betrothed to a family.

The other party was a young master from a scholarly family, handsome and refined, gentle in appearance, indeed as handsome as the neighbors had said. Most importantly, he was modest and gentle in character, talented and brilliant, and would secretly buy apricot flower cakes for Wuyou.

Everyone said Chai Sang had gained a good son-in-law, but the craftsman privately found himself in a difficult position. Although the other party couldn’t be called a family of high officials and great wealth, they had no worries about food and clothing. Speaking truthfully, it was his family that was marrying up. The other party’s betrothal gifts weren’t small, so as a father, he naturally had to prepare a generous dowry for his daughter to prevent her from being looked down upon at her in-laws’ house.

After Wuyou fell asleep at night, the craftsman would put on his clothes and light a lamp, sitting at the table calculating how much silver their household could still produce. He really couldn’t afford houses or estates. Besides some silver, he also wanted to get Wuyou the most beautiful wedding dress.

A head poked out from the doorway: “Papa, it’s the middle of the night and you’re not sleeping. What are you doing?”

Chai Sang hid the account book behind his back and smiled: “Calculating how to make your dowry.”

“What dowry?” Wuyou’s face reddened. “Our family doesn’t have money for a dowry!”

“Even without money, we can’t shortchange our daughter’s dowry,” Chai Sang rarely joked with his daughter. “How about Papa forges you a sword to take to your in-laws’ house? If anyone bullies you there in the future, it can protect you.”

Wuyou mocked: “A sword forged by Papa would be about right for chopping firewood, but protecting me? I don’t want that.”

“Our family is a swordsmithing family,” Chai Sang pretended to be angry. “Tell me, what kind of sword do you want?”

“Hehe, then I want a beautiful one, preferably silver-white. If a frost flower could be carved on the sword hilt, that would be good. I don’t like ones that are too heavy, so if it could be lighter, that would be even better. It should look extraordinary at first glance… Papa, why are you walking away? I haven’t finished talking yet!”

The voice gradually faded away.

But the sound of hammering iron in the courtyard became increasingly frequent.

To prepare Wuyou’s dowry, Chai Sang began taking on more work. He was no longer young, and his physical strength wasn’t what it used to be. Working non-stop, hammering iron every day like this, his old chronic ailments gradually began to show. Whenever it rained, his knees hurt terribly.

Wuyou also noticed this and pulled Chai Sang back into the house, saying angrily: “This won’t do. Papa, you’re not a young man anymore. Don’t hammer iron in this kind of weather – go inside and rest!”

Chai Sang agreed on the surface, but when Wuyou went out, he secretly went back to hammering behind her back.

The silk satin at the cloth shop in the city cost three taels of silver and would be perfect for making a wedding dress. He was almost ready to gather enough money. Once he got the satin and gave it to Wuyou, she would be so happy.

The New Year was approaching. After the New Year, his daughter would be married. Though he had no great abilities in this life, he was already very content.

Up to this point, all the memories were peaceful. Those days when Chai Sang and Wuyou lived together seemed to fill every gap in the memory. Fragmentary yet warm, it tirelessly repeated the trivial daily life, as if reluctant to let go of this period of memory, causing time to flow very slowly.

Zanxing didn’t know what was happening outside. She couldn’t break free from this memory and could only patiently continue watching. This was perhaps what the Wuyou Sword wanted her to see.

She thought this might not just be the Wuyou Sword’s memory, but also the memory of the girl Wuyou.

The memory’s images began to gradually become blurred. The flow of time became unstable, as if for the memory’s owner, the following recollections were extremely painful, causing his heart to suffer tremendous torment.

During the Yuezhi Kingdom’s New Year, the earth was covered with accumulated snow. Every household hung lanterns under their eaves and pasted spring couplets and happiness characters on their doors. Wuyou finished pasting the last paper-cut flower on the window in front of the house door neatly, hearing passersby outside talking.

“Tianxiang Tower is selling spring wine again.” The passerby urged, “Hurry up, it’s twenty copper coins cheaper. If you go late, you won’t be able to buy any.”

Wuyou looked at the sky – it was already evening.

Tomorrow will be New Year’s Day. The merchants of the Yuezhi Kingdom wouldn’t open their shops, so with the intention of selling out early to return home, many vendors would sell their goods very cheaply. Spring wine bought at this time was twenty copper coins less than usual – most economical. Chai Sang liked wine but was usually reluctant to spend money on alcohol and rarely drank.

He was still busy in the house preparing tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve dinner. Wuyou tucked the copper coins into her purse and went out by herself.

The memory stopped here.

The surroundings became pitch black. Time no longer flowed. Although the snow of the Yuezhi Kingdom was heavy, that was just an illusion existing in memory that shouldn’t affect anyone’s senses, yet Zanxing felt cold.

It was a pervasive cold that seemed to drill into the bottom of one’s heart. Starting from the soles of her feet, it gradually spread and eroded, climbing up her limbs, climbing up her internal organs, cold to the bone marrow.

Wuyou didn’t you come back?

After a very long time, “Rumble—” Thunder crashed beside her ears, and the sound of pattering rain seemed to arise.

Zanxing saw Chai Sang dragging his sick body, searching everywhere for his daughter’s whereabouts. The wine vendor told him that Wuyou had bought wine in the evening and then left.

But she hadn’t returned home.

That short, unremarkable man searched for traces of his daughter on New Year’s Eve night. It wasn’t until the next day that someone saw a female corpse lying in the street of the marketplace.

The girl’s expression was terrified, her clothes disheveled, her whole body covered with wounds – a horrible sight.

She had died on the first day of the New Year.

Those warm-colored lights receded like a tide, and the memory began to become pale and dim. Overwhelming despair and sorrow instantly swept through the entire small courtyard. Zanxing saw Chai Sang collapse over his daughter’s body, crying without sound.

A man who had lived half his life in silence, crying with heart-rending despair and helplessness.

That extreme sorrow was almost transmitted through the memory to everyone. Zanxing also couldn’t help but have wet eyes.

A passing person told Chai Sang that the night before, when passing by the wine shop, they had seen a girl being pulled and dragged onto a carriage by several drunk men. From the looks of it, it was a carriage from the Yuezhi Kingdom general’s household.