The autumn rain fell dense and unbroken; on the morning he was to attend the poetry gathering, it began to rain in Hangzhou.

Walking beneath the eaves in the endless drizzle, Ning Yi heard the swishing, rumbling sounds coming from over by the wall — he knew it was the sound of the woman named Liu Dabiao practicing with her blade. Every single day, rain or shine, this was the one thing that never stopped for her.

Greeting the guards, Ning Yi passed through the side gate and caught sight of the scene of her blade practice. In the heavy rain, the vast training ground held only the girl, alone. She still wore her wide-brimmed hat, wielding that massive blade as she ran across the ground, her movements shifting like a fierce and beautiful dance. The falling rain had already soaked her clothes through, and with nearly every swing and turn, she sent up a burst of water into the air like an explosion.

She had practiced internal martial arts since childhood, so there was no danger of falling ill from the rain — but every time Ning Yi watched this girl wielding her great blade, it stirred an odd sensation in him. The blade’s momentum as she swung it was fierce and untamed; the wooden stakes and saplings at the edge of the training ground snapped the instant they were struck, and sometimes the blade would tear gravel straight from the ground. Yet for most of the time, it looked as though the great blade were the one dragging the girl forward — sometimes her body would fly out with the motion, sometimes she’d stumble unsteadily, feet unsteady, as if she might fall, or be swept clean off the ground by the blade’s momentum. It made one wonder how she managed to wield that blade at all, and whether she was truly controlling its momentum, or whether her whole body was simply being flung about by its inertia.

And yet, though from beginning to end it looked like a young shepherd girl desperately hanging on, in tears, to a mad, runaway ox, she never once actually lost control of the blade’s momentum. As for the true power of this blade, perhaps only the countless souls who had died beneath its edge could offer a fair judgment — and in the battle at Taiping Alley, Ning Yi had once seen for himself: when the girl, carried along with that great blade, came spinning through like a cannonball, the force and momentum were unstoppable — few, he guessed, could truly withstand the crushing blow of that blade under such tremendous inertia.

Watching this scene from the sidelines were only an ugly maidservant who attended Liu Dabiao, and Liu Tiannan, the manor’s steward. Ning Yi exchanged a few words with him about the day’s business, and Liu Tiannan asked with a smile, “What does young master Ning think of the Manor Lord’s swordsmanship?”

“Too much force spent, too many wasted feints — look how unsteady Dabiao’s footing is, stumbling about — I think… uh, what’s she doing?”

In the distance, the girl wielding the blade seemed to glance this way, and then, suddenly, the blade’s momentum sank behind her, and dragging that massive blade, she charged forward.

Amid the curtain of rain, what erupted from the ground were bursts of splashing water, blossoming like lotus flowers with each footstep in the downpour — it was hard to imagine how such a slight frame could unleash such tremendous force. The distance between them closed swiftly; the girl and the great blade seemed to fuse into one, blade and body alternating and enlarging before Ning Yi’s eyes in a blur of motion, spinning through four or five cycles in an instant before the whole figure suddenly opened up right before him.

What appeared before Ning Yi’s eyes was the girl, both hands gripping the blade, her body stretched out to its fullest extent, the great blade pointed straight up toward the sky from below, accompanied by a tremendous crash — stone fragments flew; it seemed the stone railing at the edge of the training ground had been severed. Then came the shaking and rumbling from the eaves above.

Ning Yi barely had time to react; he felt the wind scrape burning-hot against his cheek and instinctively leapt to the right, while Liu Tiannan, almost simultaneously, darted to the left, his broad sleeve sweeping out and knocking the falling tiles and stones from the eaves back toward the wall with a great clatter.

By the time Ning Yi rolled and got back to his feet, the eaves along the walkway beside the training ground had been torn open with a large gash, and the great blade stood plunged into the ground not far to his side. Ning Yi turned his head to look and saw the girl’s figure now perched on the hilt of the blade — in that instant, her silhouette appeared dazzlingly tall and graceful, her sleeves and skirts, which had been in furious motion, suddenly still, as if even the falling rain had been forced apart around her for that moment. Of course, the next instant, the rain poured down as heavily as before. The girl looked down at him from atop the blade, her chest rising and falling, her breathing turned rapid — clearly, that last move had cost her no small amount of strength.

“Dabiao, what I mean is, that move would definitely catch an opponent off guard.” Ning Yi spread his hands. Behind the veil of her hat, the girl seemed to purse her lips and roll her eyes, then leapt lightly down from the hilt of the blade. Ning Yi laughed, raising the back of his hand to his mouth, and murmured to Liu Tiannan, “How did she hear that from so far away?” Liu Tiannan, never one to joke in front of the Manor Lord, kept his hands folded behind his back, smiling as he tilted his head up to inspect the torn eaves.

The girl reached out and pressed the blade’s hilt down, tilting the great blade over, then used both hands to pull the blade, now driven into the mud, free. Her practice was more or less finished for the day.

“The Overlord Blade wasn’t originally like this.” As they walked, Liu Dabiao began to speak. “The Overlord Blade of past generations was fierce, sure, but it still followed proper technique — the way Du Sha and A’Chang practice it is like that. But I can’t practice that way — if I did, I couldn’t even lift the blade. All I can do is swing it and follow its momentum — it’s less exhausting that way. Of course, at first I couldn’t even beat a few opponents, because I’d fall over after just a few spins. If you’re interested, I can teach you the proper form of the Overlord Blade — controlled force, few wasted feints — the only downside is it’s not much good for tricking people.”

The girl, still deliberately keeping her clear voice low, put the great blade away in its wooden case and said with a smile, “Well, that broken Six Paths technique of yours follows a fierce and forceful path anyway — it suits the Overlord Blade just fine.”

“Broken Six Paths?”

“That internal technique of yours. You never practiced any martial arts as a child, so you missed the best window for it — this broken Six Paths is about the highest-level technique still suited to you. It means to break the boundaries of the three realms and six paths… I only heard about it as a child myself, can’t be sure, is it not that?”

“No, no — I heard this was a second-rate technique…”

Ning Yi frowned. The girl looked at him for a moment, then turned her head away, muttering, “A scholar going off to practice martial arts, what a mess…” — probably thinking that whatever Ning Yi did, he never seemed fully committed; his interest in martial arts was likely just a passing whim, and taking it seriously with him would just make her feel foolish.

She was, after all, a woman, and the heavy rain had soaked her clothes through; she headed off toward a side door, while Ning Yi and Liu Tiannan took a different route. Before long, he was in his study, handling paperwork, when the girl came to find him. Nothing much was happening today, so the two chatted for a while, and the girl asked, “I hear you’re going to Four Seasons Studio tonight for the poetry gathering?”

“Mm, I hear the place is nice — thought I’d go check it out.” Ning Yi smiled. “Interested?” He knew the girl sometimes liked to put on airs of refinement, enjoyed reading books, and would talk in flowery language afterward — rather amusing — but she had never once attended a gathering like this. Since she wasn’t going, there was no harm in inviting her anyway.

Sure enough, after he finished speaking, the girl behind the curtain shook her head, looking rather troubled. “Not going — I’ve got something on tonight… and besides… I don’t know how to write poetry, um, don’t know how to write poetry…”

“Why not copy one down, have some other scholar write one, and Dabiao can just copy it out…” he said, “… and claim it as your own.”

The girl thought for a moment. “Could… that work?”

Ning Yi answered, “It could work.”

If any other scholar had overheard this exchange, they might well have burst out laughing uncontrollably — but between the two of them, this sort of thing suited them just fine. Liu Xigua nodded. “Alright then, write me one.”

“Huh?”

“For next time, to keep up appearances. You’re Jiangning’s foremost talent, aren’t you?”

“That title’s fake…”

“I know your real skill is martial arts. We’re friends, aren’t we — friends should help each other out. Much obliged in advance…”

“…Fine.”

Even though Fang La’s court was made up mostly of military men, there was still a fair number of scholars among them, and it had to be said — in this era, men of letters still carried themselves with a certain air of superiority. Liu Dabiao, though she generally projected a fierce, untamed image in public, wasn’t truly indifferent to poetry and literature — she also hoped, on occasion, to come across as refined. The two of them spent a while discussing it in the room, and Ning Yi wrote out several poems in different styles for her to copy. Among them, Li Qingzhao’s delicate, understated style she disliked, since she found some of it hard to understand — “The great Yangtze rushes eastward, its waves washing away heroes of old” she found overly melancholy; Liu Xigua liked it, but felt it didn’t suit her.

After writing out a few like this, there was one she was particularly fond of — a piece called “Laughing at the Rivers and Lakes,” because it was easy to understand and sounded very impressive. Though in one line — “discussing the grand imperial enterprise amid laughter” — Ning Yi changed it to “the grand and glorious enterprise,” pointing out that the original line might come across as overstepping. The girl, however, didn’t seem to mind either way. Then he more or less settled on another one she was fond of — “Ballad of the Chivalrous Knight” — though really, she only liked a single line from it: “Ten steps to kill a man, a thousand miles without leaving a trace.” As for the rest, mainly because the poem was so long and full of allusions, she didn’t quite understand it, and the first time she read it, she even mispronounced a character, asking Ning Yi, “Doesn’t this one rhyme a little oddly?”

After picking out these two, Ning Yi also gave her a pair of unmatched lines, well-suited to a woman of the martial world: “Peach and plum blossoms, spring wind, a cup of wine; the rivers and lakes, night rain, ten years of lamplight.” In truth, this line came from a longer poem, but he couldn’t recall the rest, and thought the two lines read like a couplet… though unfortunately he couldn’t remember the matching horizontal scroll. He told Liu Dabiao she could say, after reciting the two poems, that she had a couplet as well, and challenge everyone to guess what caption should go above it. The girl found this idea thoroughly agreeable.

Neither of them felt any pressure of conscience about what they were doing, though the girl called Liu Xigua couldn’t help stealing several extra glances at Ning Yi — she knew, after all, that these were genuinely fine poems.

“Tonight… might not be peaceful,” she said after thinking it over for a while. “If you’re going out, try to come back early, or maybe you could have A’Chang go with you…”

“Tonight…”

“Still hard to say,” she said, picking up the poems in her hand and shaking her head. “You’ll know when the time comes. I don’t know how things will turn out myself right now. But… maybe these poems will come in handy after all, heh heh…”

She was smiling, but it was clear the girl across from him didn’t have much real anticipation in her expression. Something big might be about to happen, but Ning Yi hadn’t received much information on the matter either; after chatting a while longer, things went back to normal as usual. After lunch, Liu Dabiao’s carriage drove out from Fine Willow Street. Whatever was about to happen didn’t seem to have much to do with Ning Yi, he thought. An hour or two later, before dusk had fully settled, the Lou family’s carriage arrived at the street corner. Ning Yi brought along his blade and firearm, tidied himself up briefly, and set out for the poetry gathering.