Luo He tipped over his already-empty wine pouch and looked toward the end of the small path in the valley for the seventeenth time since he had woken that morning.

The drowsiness of an unsatisfied craving for wine washed over him. After some time — just as he was about to look away again — two figures at last emerged slowly through the blue-tinged morning mist.

He forced his eyelids open and was just about to complain loudly about their tardiness when the words rose to his lips and were swallowed back down.

He watched as the young woman lightly held the man’s hand and stepped, one step at a time, through the grove of pear trees heavy with pink-white blossoms, smiling as she walked into a patch of morning light.

They wore the most ordinary of clothes, like the most ordinary couple of travelers in all the world.

The wine that had accumulated over many years inside him stirred and fermented in that moment. Half-intoxicated, he drifted back to things from the past. Long, long ago, he too had walked out of this mountain like this, accompanying someone close to him, and walked back home along this same road, step by step.

Xiao Nanhui noticed Luo He sitting on the woodpile in a daze. She was about to raise the wine flask in her hand and call out to him when he suddenly stood, stumbled and staggered away.

She thought it odd, but did not go after him.

Fallen blossoms like snow, lingering tenderly in the heart. In such a beautiful moment, she had no wish to move even half a step away from the person beside her.

It turns out that when a person reaches the very heights of joy and happiness, they will find themselves thinking of death.

Only death can fix everything in place. They would not need to pass through those unknown trials of aging and illness, of bitter partings and resentments. They could remain forever in this flower-raining meadow.

A valley wind drifted past, carrying a wave of blossom fragrance.

Xiao Nanhui sneezed, and only then realized that the road had reached its end.

She still held his hand, unwilling to let go, and began casting about for topics of conversation of her own accord.

“So why exactly did you run out barefoot?”

This topic was, in truth, not a very good one. Yet the other party solemnly lowered his head to examine the mud and grass clippings clinging to his ankle.

“I got up in a hurry. I forgot to put on my shoes and socks.”

Her question was thoroughly pointless, yet he answered it with complete seriousness. She felt a sudden urge to laugh but suppressed it, feigning uncertainty.

“You were never like this before. I always felt there was nothing that could make you so hurried.”

She didn’t laugh, but he did. Only there was not much ease or pleasure in his expression.

“I wasn’t always this way. In the past I was often in a hurry too. Only later I came to understand — no matter how frantic and rushed you appear, those who are not going to wait for you will not wait for you, in the end.”

She had seen this kind of expression before and knew he was thinking again of something from the past. She had not originally intended to probe into it, yet the question that had been stirring restlessly in her mind now grew more and more insistent.

“I heard the villagers say this place was once called Zhongli. That’s not your mother’s…”

She stopped herself there.

Earlier, on the carriage to Huozhou, he had deliberately glossed over this part. Perhaps she truly should not ask about it.

But before she could figure out how to bring that line of conversation to a close, he spoke first.

“She and her clanspeople did indeed once live here. However, this was not their original home. The surname Zhongli derives from this place name. My mother’s family’s original surname was Hu — they were once one of the largest clans in Huozhou.”

He paused briefly at this and looked quietly toward her.

“But there is another bloodline’s shadow running through me. I was still very young at the time. My mother rarely brought it up, and she never disclosed the true cause of the clan’s extermination. But after all you and I have been through, even without complete certainty or proof, one can at least guess at some of it.”

The person before her was not, by nature, an honest man — yet in this moment he gave the most honest answer he was capable of.

Pu Huna, the great fire and wall murals in the Shen Family cavern — all of it flashed through her mind like lightning. She suddenly felt a pang of sorrow and had no wish to broach such a subject on such a beautiful morning.

He had slept such a long time. There should have been countless things she was bursting to share with him. But now she found it too difficult to start.

After a long silence, she could only look toward the empty woodpile and say softly:

“Let’s not speak of that. By the way, earlier I followed your instructions and went to look for that Luo He at the Cold Study. But he called himself your mother’s cousin or something, used that seniority to pressure me the whole way, and when I asked him questions he refused to say much — a hesitant, evasive manner, as though there were some secret he couldn’t disclose…”

“He is indeed a person from my mother’s family. When he was young he incurred a favor from my mother — one he has never been able to repay in a lifetime. If I ask, he would not dare be unruly.” He paused, then looked toward her with a smile. “As for secrets — that is not quite the right word. If you wish to know, I can tell you everything, point by point.”

That face, which he had just kissed a moment ago, now smiled with the ease of a spring breeze, drunk on peach blossoms. And yet Xiao Nanhui suddenly felt a little embarrassed.

Surely she was not overthinking this? Two families laying out their histories for each other, disclosing their parents’ affairs — that was the kind of scene in opera scripts that only happened during marriage negotiations.

She cleared her throat and affected a composed manner.

“It’s not that I’m so desperate to know… I was only worried he might not be entirely trustworthy. If you trust him, then naturally I have nothing to be uncertain about.”

“It has also been many years since I’ve seen him. What you said just now is not entirely without merit. Now that the time is right, I should indeed catch up with him properly.”

Having said this, he lowered his eyes to look at their joined hands.

She knew she could not be so shameless as to press further, and so she loosened her hand, then affected an easy wave of her arm.

“Of course, of course. I saw him head off that way just now. No hurry — go back and put your shoes and socks on first, then go find him.”

Su Wei gently stepped back and gave her one last quiet look, then turned and left.

Watching him walk away, she picked up the wine flask and headed toward the stone house in the distance, from whose chimney smoke was just beginning to rise.

It was only just now that she had realized — she was growing more and more averse to the feeling of parting from him. That was not a good sign at all.

Deep in thought, she walked forward. When she passed the chicken pen behind the woodpile, she instinctively stopped.

This chicken pen was built somewhat more securely than the one at the farmhouse outside the valley. It was also larger in scale, suggesting someone regularly tended to it.

Ding Weixiang was still in his usual blue robe, the hem hitched up and tied at the waist. Guarding the ceramic bowl with its remaining grains of millet, he was busy — covered in sweat.

Xiao Nanhui stood at the slatted gate and watched for a while. The more she watched, the more she wanted to laugh.

“I didn’t realize before, but it seems Adjutant Ding has such a deep personal passion for feeding chickens.”

Ding Weixiang said nothing. His expression was quite sour. He had clearly known she was standing there all along, but his hands dared not stop their work for even a moment.

She drew a few steps closer and looked at the half-mixed chicken feed in the ceramic bowl. She shook her head with an exaggerated sigh.

“Still too watery. At this rate, these chickens probably won’t last a few days.”

Ding Weixiang glanced at her. The skepticism in his gaze was unmistakable. But his hands stopped.

Xiao Nanhui said nothing more. She stepped forward, took up the chopper, and began skillfully dicing the chicken feed.

Raising chickens — in this she was an expert among experts.

Back in the day, in that village in Bijiang, she had waited on all manner of free-range chickens, silky fowl, and earth-scratching hens. If it weren’t for Hao Bai — that light-fingered physician who was always craving a bite — she might well have made a small fortune from chicken farming in Bijiang.

She mixed in some millet here, added some crushed cabbage leaves there, and stirred it all together. While her hands were busy, she thought back to the scene just now and asked casually:

“His Majesty just ran out barefoot — how do you still have the peace of mind to feed chickens? What if the Shen Family’s people come after us? You’d be full of regret.”

Ding Weixiang gave a light snort.

“The Shen Family won’t be able to reach this place.”

This reply seemed far too confident. But Xiao Nanhui was too lazy to press further for now, and moved on to what she truly cared about.

“What exactly did His Majesty eat before, and why did he have to sleep for so long? I was so frightened I didn’t dare close my eyes all night, and had to get up three or four times to check he was still breathing.”

Hearing this, Ding Weixiang’s tone softened a little, though his words remained somewhat terse.

“You think once the poison from the secret seal was resolved, everything would be fine? Have you forgotten what happened to Zou Sifang?”

So — he had indeed chosen simply to sleep in order to avoid ending up like that puppet Zou Sifang.

But then…

“So what’s to be done now? He can’t just keep taking medicine and sleeping indefinitely. Besides, he’s already awake — doesn’t that mean he could at any moment…”

“This is precisely why we had to come here.”

He stopped mid-sentence and left it hanging deliberately. She looked up again — and found that Ding Weixiang had already found a shaded spot, settled down comfortably with feet propped up, adopting all the airs of a landlord supervising her labor.

Xiao Nanhui felt a sudden surge of irritation.

“This is your work. I was being kind and helping you out, and now you’re taking your ease.”

Ding Weixiang laid the chopper across his waist with a self-righteous air.

“I can see those chickens are very fond of you. To those with ability, more is entrusted. A little more effort on your part is perfectly appropriate.”

Xiao Nanhui immediately slammed the chopper down into the chopping block, wiped her hands, and stepped aside.

“Looking at how obsequious and self-abasing you were before that old woman earlier — meekly enduring every indignity — I wonder if you’ve done something you couldn’t let others see and she’s got you by the collar.”

At these words, Ding Weixiang indeed could no longer sit still. His expression darkened somewhat.

“What are you talking nonsense about? I’m doing these things of my own free will—”

Ding Weixiang had always been proud and aloof. Aside from his supreme master, he rarely deigned to explain himself to anyone. He was also habitually selective about his tasks and would never touch anything he deemed beneath the dignity of a blade-master.

If someone had told her that Adjutant Ding Weixiang was voluntarily helping someone else feed chickens, she would have burst out laughing and called it utter nonsense.

And yet here she was, hearing him say so with his very own mouth. Her curiosity could no longer be held back.

“I went to the village outside the mountain gate this morning. There’s no inn, granted, but you still have some silver on you — enough to find a place to eat and rest. Why insist on holing up in this mountain valley, living under someone else’s roof and doing manual labor?”

“What do you know? This place is not something an inn or a common household could possibly compare to.” Ding Weixiang’s expression grew somewhat peculiar, and he wore again that look of having something to say but holding back. “Besides — it was His Majesty who told me to come here and wait for him. If I’m not here, where else would I go?”

In truth, once Ding Weixiang gave that last reason, she found the whole thing completely unsurprising.

She should have thought of it sooner. The only person who could make him endure such indignities and still do so willingly was that precious master of his.

But why had the Emperor arranged to meet here in this mountain? Or rather, why here in the old woman’s home?

She found herself thinking again of what the villager in Baishi Village had warned her. If this were merely a bad-tempered old woman who liked to seize people and make them feed chickens, how had she come to be described in such terrifying terms?

She was still pondering this when the gate to the chicken pen was pushed open, and the woman in question came strolling in, hands clasped behind her back.

“Is the wine fetched?”

Xiao Nanhui had not yet processed this, but Ding Weixiang heard that voice and shot up like a freshly boiled fishball from Laochengju, swiftly seized the chicken feed she had just mixed, and began working diligently.

Xiao Nanhui watched, clicking her tongue in astonishment.

Even if his esteemed master had instructed him to stay here, that was still no reason to be so scrupulously industrious and utterly devoted.

In the next instant, the bamboo flask was snatched from her hand.

“Is the wine fetched? Why are you still idling over there? I don’t keep people here who eat without earning their keep.”

A basket flew through the air with the force of something that could shake the very heavens. She scrambled forward with both hands to catch it, her heart nearly leaping out of her chest.

This old woman — was she truly seventy or eighty years old? Why did her movements and strength rival those of the strongest laborer in the village, one who went to the fields every day?

Xiao Nanhui hugged the basket. With a certain someone currently living under this roof, she truly did not dare be remiss.

“May I ask, Senior, what you need me to do?”

The old woman pointed outside without ceremony.

“The firewood by the stove got damp. Go cut some more. It looks like rain is coming the next day or two — you’ll need enough for two or three days.”

Xiao Nanhui nodded and, not daring to delay, shot a glare at Ding Weixiang, then hoisted the grass basket onto her back and headed out.

The path that wound behind the stone house toward the back mountain was half-hidden under wild grass and shrubs. She was too lazy to memorize the route and had not originally intended to go far, but worried that wood gathered nearby would not meet the standards of that fastidious old woman, and so went a bit deeper.

Walking and picking up firewood as she went, after roughly half an incense stick of time, the trees and shrubs that had been dense suddenly thinned. Looking down, she discovered that this was the result of someone deliberately cutting and pruning.

Dry fallen branches snapped and crackled under her feet as she stepped. She placed each foot with care and walked a few steps more, only to find that she had arrived at a small clearing. At the center of the clearing was a mound of earth — neither large nor small, standing alone. At the top of the mound was a half-withered tree trunk that had clearly gone many years without putting forth new branches or leaves. The soil around it, however, looked quite loose and soft — evidently someone had been tending to it regularly all along.

When she had earlier seen pear blossoms outside that bloomed all the way into the seventh and eighth month, she had assumed that nothing in this valley could fail to thrive. Looking at this now, she could see that was not the case.

Or perhaps: a willow planted without intention flourishes; a flower cultivated with care refuses to bloom.

Her curiosity was piqued and she walked a few more steps closer. Something at the base of the half-dead tree caught the light for an instant. She started, then realized something.

It was a sword, half its length thrust into the earth. The hilt was narrow. From a distance, it looked just like a branch growing out of the dead tree.

This, it turned out, was a sword mound.

Suddenly a hoarse old voice rang out behind her, making no effort to conceal its fury.

“Who gave you permission to come in here?!”

Xiao Nanhui turned in startled alarm and saw the old woman coming toward her with furious strides — feet swift as the wind, fast enough to frighten her.

She instinctively stepped back. But the woman only stopped beside the sword mound and carefully examined the plum tree. It was no longer necessary to guess who had been tending this place.

Xiao Nanhui collected herself from the shock and spoke carefully.

“Senior, are you here to mourn the owner of this sword?”

The old woman’s expression of sighing sorrow vanished in an instant, replaced by a fierce glare.

“I am the owner of this sword.”

Xiao Nanhui was taken aback, and could only give a dry laugh.

“I see.” She couldn’t very well press further about the sword, so she cast about for something nearby to talk about instead. “A friend of mine from Quecheng has many plum trees in his home. He once told me in passing that plum trees need to survive through winter to thrive and put forth blossoms. Here the seasons are like perpetual spring — I’m afraid this is not an ideal place to grow a plum tree. You might consider trying a different location, Senior.”

The old woman’s gaze suddenly sharpened as she looked at her.

“What is your relationship with the Mei Family?”

Now it was Xiao Nanhui’s turn to be taken aback.

Her instinct was to bring up the matter of Pingxian, but that felt a bit roundabout, so she simply mentioned Su Pingchuan directly.

“This friend of mine — his mother was from the Mei Family, and he was a colleague of mine in the military. When we were young…” Thinking of all that had passed, a smile touched her face involuntarily. “When we were young, we had something of a bond.”

She had only said it offhandedly, but the aspect the other party found interesting turned out to be something else entirely.

“Since you were colleagues, did you ever exchange pointers with each other?”

The image of a certain someone in undershirt and trousers, flailing a tree branch and shouting at her, floated to mind. Xiao Nanhui barely controlled her expression and replied with practiced seriousness:

“We did exchange pointers once. But midway through, something came up. We had to call it a draw and leave it at that.”

The old woman gave a cold snort. It was unclear whether she had detected the half-truth in Xiao Nanhui’s words.

“Then in your estimation — how is his swordsmanship?”

Xiao Nanhui turned the question over carefully, recalling the scene at the time, and gave an honest account.

“Unpredictable and inventive, but lacking in solidity and uprightness. A sword is a weapon suited for one-on-one combat. For a general who must go to war and face ten thousand enemies — that style of fighting is rather too narrow.”

She said all this in a rush, and immediately sensed that something was not quite right. She looked up to find the other party staring fixedly at her, which made that uneasy feeling even more pronounced.

Yet for some reason, the old woman suddenly shifted her gaze.

“Does everyone who has been to war come back as obtuse and thick-skinned and oblivious as you.”

The woman seemed to be addressing her, yet also seemed to be talking to herself, facing the bare sword mound. The words were harsh, but the tone carried no contempt or revulsion — only a few notes of sighing sorrow.

She also noticed now that the other woman’s head of salt-and-pepper hair made her look older than she actually was. That face only appeared fearsome because its expression was so tightly drawn — in truth, it did not look all that aged.

“A spear holds the courage of the masses; a sword holds the spirit of solitary valor. There is no definitive answer as to which is superior. Should they truly face each other one day, the outcome would still be unknown.”

These were words that only a true martial artist could understand. If she had still been wavering and uncertain before, now she was almost certain that this old woman was no ordinary village wife — she was quite possibly a peerless master of rare caliber.

“May I ask, Senior, do you know Pingchuan—”

“Ungrateful disciple!”

Before she could finish, a sudden bellow from the woman wiped her mind clean.

“After I made an exception to take on a pupil and spent five whole years training him painstakingly, the wretch never once told me there was so much to know about plum trees!” The old woman stomped down the slope in a fury, nearly crushing a branch as thick as a forearm underfoot with every step. “He truly takes after his mother’s temperament — ungrateful to the core!”

Xiao Nanhui was stunned speechless. She could not tell whether she had nothing to say or simply did not dare say anything.

She should have long since realized why the name Zhongtian had sounded so familiar. And now she understood — Su Pingchuan’s “Zhongtian Taozhi Mountain” had not been merely a sect’s name. There truly was such a mountain, and she was standing on it right now.

She thought a moment, then followed the woman and bowed carefully.

“This junior, Xiao Nanhui, pays her respects to the Master of the Sword-Breaking Sect.”

The old woman was still kicking at the fallen branches scattered on the ground, one foot here, one foot there, not even turning her head.

“The Six Killing Grounds has only one old woman left. Where is there a sect master?”

She followed along behind and picked up the fallen branches one by one, placing them in the basket on her back.

“Even with only one person, there is still a place where the sect stands. Senior has guarded this place for many years — does that not show you understand this very meaning?”

The old woman gave another cold snort.

“The reason I’m still here is simply that I’ve gotten old and can’t walk anymore.”

She smiled, and the earlier tension eased somewhat.

“I see Senior rushing about busily around this sword mound every day — vigorous and hale in body.”

“What do you know? Just a useless sword. Not even worth as much as this plum tree.”

“A useless sword?”

She looked half-skeptically at that exposed section of the blade and did not find it to be the work of an unexceptional hand.

“Have you ever heard of the Sword of Laying Down Armor?”

There were many famous swords in the world. She might not know a hundred, but she knew at least ninety-nine. And yet she had never once heard the name “Laying Down Armor.”

Xiao Nanhui shook her head.

“This junior’s knowledge is shallow. I have not heard of it.”

“It’s right that you haven’t. That is a legendary sword — no one has seen its true form. The sword before you was forged according to the legend. From the day it was forged, it has killed only one person. After that, it was buried in the earth.”

She looked at the withered plum tree and suddenly understood something.

“Senior, you are the owner of this sword, but not the owner of this plum tree — is that right?”

The old woman seemed to have grown tired at last. She finally stopped her moving feet, found a tree stump, and sat down on the spot. Her hands were still pulling at the wild grass around her. The expression on her face also seemed to have softened.

“When I first met her, she was barely taller than a tabletop. Yet her spear technique was already quite good. She held her ground against me without flinching. Our temperaments suited each other very well, and we quickly became close friends. I wanted her to join the Sword-Breaking Sect with me, but she looked down on my swordsmanship — she only thought her own spear was the best thing in the world.”

If all that had come before were only speculation, by now Xiao Nanhui was almost certain of the answer forming in her heart. Yet thinking of that person’s ending, she could barely bring herself to continue listening.

But the old woman seemed to have fallen deep into the past, and her voice never ceased.

“One day she came to me suddenly. She said she had found a record of sword-forging in some ancient text, saying that the sharpest weapon in the world was called the Sword of Laying Down Armor. It was formed from the obsession of two people in love, and could break through anyone’s defenses. She took it seriously, and day and night she yearned to forge that sword and give it to me as a birthday gift. I laughed at her for misreading a pedantic literary text — perhaps it wasn’t a sword at all, only the overwrought words of a lovesick fool.”

“But she didn’t believe it. She was determined to forge such a sword. Whenever she had time she would station herself beside the sword-forging furnace. When she needed my help, I would find one excuse after another to put her off. Yet heaven is my witness — I did not have a shred of insincerity toward her. I simply disliked the reason she had given the sword that name.”

“The most fragile thing in this world that cannot withstand any test is romantic love between men and women. Blades and swords are so solid and dependable — the very thing a martial artist can rely on for an entire lifetime. How can they be spoken of in the same breath as something so ephemeral as romantic affection?”

She stopped short at this. That air of distressed frustration, like clouds gathering into storm, returned once more to her brow.

“But what I scorned, she held precious. In the end she still put down her weapons and walked through those high walls and deep gates for the sake of someone she claimed to love. I was furious with her. I returned to the mountain and broke off contact with her. By the time I tried to find news of her, her spear was already broken, and she herself had become a handful of yellow earth.”

Xiao Nanhui fell silent. She reached for a bundle of kindling to put into the basket and found, only then, that the basket on her back was already full.

“I forged this sword solely for revenge. I spent five years studying the weapons of the one who killed her — forging this sword with the purpose of overcoming that enemy — and then spent another five years lying in wait in the western ridge. I finally found an opportunity and killed him. He did not know who I was, and I did not say a word to him. Everything I did required no one’s understanding, no one’s recognition. This sword was forged, even if only for this one moment of drawing it from the sheath. It was worth it.”

The other woman’s voice stopped abruptly.

For a long time, Xiao Nanhui heard no further sound. When she turned to look, she was startled to discover that on that cold, hard, fierce face, there was a streak of tears.

Any words of comfort would be empty at a moment like this. She did not know what to say, and so she only stood where she was, looking toward the lonely sword at the sword mound.

Perhaps there was some truth in that legend after all.

Only — the Sword of Laying Down Armor, whose defenses did it truly lay bare?