Chai Sang stumbled his way to the general’s mansion. The general’s son was extremely arrogant, pointing at him and sneering: “I killed your daughter? Who saw it? Do you have evidence? Don’t randomly slander people. Your daughter died in disgrace, and you want to pin it on this young master? Dream on!” He suddenly lowered his head, his gaze full of malice, and whispered in Chai Sang’s ear: “So what if I did kill her? It’s her fault for not knowing her place. This young master just thought she was pretty and wanted to play with her. She insisted on resisting, so we had to get rough.”

He stared down at the craftsman from above, his tone as if crushing an ant, insignificant, without a trace of guilt, mocking: “When she was dying, she kept calling for her papa to save her.”

Chai Sang let out a tragic wail.

He was beaten nearly to death by the general’s household servants and dragged out like a dead dog. Those watching the excitement surrounded him, some sympathetic, some pitying, but not one person dared step forward. Finally, it was a familiar neighbor who couldn’t bear to watch and helped him back to his own home.

On New Year’s Day, every household was filled with joyful laughter and harmony, but his home alone was cold and deathly quiet.

Chai Sang lay on the bed, buried his face in his palms, and whimpered in pain.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried to report to the authorities, but when those officials heard it involved the general’s mansion, they were too frightened to even take the case. The witness who had seen the general’s carriage simply hid away. He had beaten the drum of grievance, blocked carriages, and even caused a disturbance at the general’s gate, but all of this was useless.

The people from the general’s mansion didn’t kill him, seeming to take pleasure in watching his helpless predicament. The anger of such a lowly commoner was like tiny grains of sand thrown into the ocean, unable to even create a splash.

How tragic.

Even more terrible was that rumors began to spread.

They said Wuyou had been involved with men inappropriately and was thus killed by her lover. They speculated about what Wuyou had encountered on the night before her death. She quickly transformed from a pitiful victim into a topic of relish, becoming gossip for people’s after-dinner conversations. Not respected, not sympathized with, but repeatedly trampled upon over and over again.

The family that had been betrothed to Wuyou quickly declared they had no relationship with the Chai family. That gentle, refined fiancé never came to the door again. Their former affection was like tracks in snow – gone without a trace in just one night.

Indeed, for a deceased fiancée who had lost her purity, offending the general’s mansion with power that could topple a kingdom was truly not a wise thing to do.

But…

But that most beautiful wedding dress from the city hadn’t been finished embroidering yet.

To gather the betrothal gifts, he had busied himself daily hammering iron and forging swords, even dragging his sick body to complete more work. Now the silk satin had been bought and placed on the desk in his daughter’s boudoir, but the girl who would massage his knees and scold him for not taking care of his body was gone.

She had died in terror.

The memory was so dim, always shrouded in vast gray fog overhead. Chai Sang buried his daughter in the back mountain next to his wife’s grave and bought dozens of jars of spring wine to sit before the tomb.

He didn’t speak, just silently drank, seemingly hoping to drink himself to death here. This short, ugly man had nothing left and no courage to continue living.

He couldn’t take revenge, nor could he seek justice for his daughter. He was so incompetent, just like trash.

Before his eyes seemed to float memories of accompanying his daughter to temple fairs when she was young, seeing people dressed as ghosts and spirits at the fair. The little girl was so frightened she hid in her father’s arms, screaming continuously.

“Don’t be afraid, Wuyou. These are fake. Even if they were real, it wouldn’t matter – Papa will protect you.” He clumsily comforted his daughter in his arms.

“Liar! Papa only knows how to forge swords; you don’t know martial arts. How can you protect me?”

“Papa’s ancestors were the most famous swordsmiths in the Yuezhi Kingdom. Papa will forge you a sword that can drive away bad people in the future. With this sword, you won’t be afraid of anything.”

“Papa thinks I’m a three-year-old child. How can there be swords in the world that can drive away bad people?” The little girl pouted in disbelief. “Papa is fooling me again.”

“There are. Um, Papa’s great-great-great-grandfather once said that as long as a sword develops a sword spirit, it can protect its master.”

“Sword spirit? What’s that?”

“A sword spirit is when a sword has its consciousness, just like us people, with its own emotions…”

The voice gradually faded. The man sitting before the grave looked dazed and kicked away an empty wine jar.

He had broken his promise. He hadn’t made a divine sword that could protect his daughter. He was just an ordinary swordsmith – ugly in appearance, average in talent. After losing his father, mother, and wife, he had only one daughter as his precious treasure, but even his last bit of light in this world had been brutally taken away. He wanted revenge, but he couldn’t even reach his enemy’s front door before being dragged out.

He couldn’t become the world’s greatest swordsmith, nor could he become the world’s most ordinary father.

Fate was unpredictable, not at all under human control.

The wind blew coldly from a distance, making the flowers and grass before the grave sway, as if spirits had emerged, gaining their consciousness in confusion.

The tipsy craftsman watched and watched, his expression suddenly changing.

Sword spirit…

Sword spirit – that was a spirit artifact existing in legends. Mortals couldn’t forge swords with sword spirits. Spirit artifacts with sword spirits were mostly born naturally from heaven and earth, different from ordinary materials from the very beginning.

Let alone his average talent – even if he had exceptional talent, it would be impossible to forge such a divine sword with ordinary iron.

But perhaps there were exceptions.

It seemed as if all the alcohol in his body sobered up instantly. Zanxing saw Chai Sang as if he had thought of something, suddenly standing up and running home desperately.

The house was still covered everywhere with New Year’s peach wood charms, but the tables, chairs, and floor were covered with a thick layer of dust – ever since Wuyou’s death, this place had lost its vitality.

Zanxing followed behind him and saw him rush back into the house like a madman, dragging out several boxes from under the bed. These boxes contained books and documents left by Chai Sang’s father, said to be swordsmithing diagrams passed down from their ancestors. Wuyou used to often burrow in and browse through them when she was young, but later gradually lost interest. Some of the diagrams inside were already very old and completely unusable now. Some were even incomplete scrolls, messily piled together like a heap of waste paper.

Chai Sang almost buried his entire body among these books, not knowing what he was looking for.

Zanxing watched him curiously.

He finished flipping through one book and threw it aside, then opened another volume. Time passed – the sky changed from daylight to pitch black, then from night welcomed the sunrise.

The morning light shone through the small courtyard’s window onto the floor inside the house.

“Found it.” A hoarse voice suddenly rang out in the room.

Zanxing’s whole body trembled as she turned to look into the room.

Chai Sang knelt on the ground. A small ray of sunlight shone on his face, clearly illuminating his bloodshot eyes. In those eyes now emanated a strange fanaticism.

The craftsman’s hands tightly gripped a book scroll, murmuring: “Found it.”