Winter snow fluttered down, wrapping heaven and earth in silver.
Gusts of icy wind swept through the pass.
Inside the Hedge-Enclosed Courtyard.
Ren Qianqian practiced her sword in the snow. Her blade whistled, swirling the falling flakes around her. She moved with light, nimble steps, weaving back and forth like a butterfly, her sword movements equally graceful.
"Sword moves are only the outward form. You need to grasp the rhythm and true meaning of the sword's path."
Beside her, Li Hao crouched in the snow, carefully building a snowman.
He patted and shaped it, trimming it here and there, occasionally glancing up at the girl practicing her sword and offering a few pointers.
Ren Qianqian stopped when she heard him and asked in confusion, "The sword's path?"
"Yes."
Li Hao nodded. Noticing that his snowman needed two branches for arms, he stood and bent down to pick up a branch outside the nearby Firewood Room:
"Look. Like this."
Holding the branch, he gave it a gentle shake, dislodging the snow clinging to it. Then he lightly flicked it, and the branch swept back as though weaving through flowers, catching every bit of the fallen snow and returning to exactly how it had looked when he picked it up.
Ren Qianqian stared, stunned.
"Your sword needs to interact with its surroundings. Only then will its movements be tightly connected and sharp enough," Li Hao said.
He returned to the snowman, gently shook the snow off the branch again, and stuck it into the snowman as two little twig arms.
Ren Qianqian sank into thought, looking down at her sword. After a short while, she resumed practicing.
Over the past few days, besides Li Hao's occasional guidance, Li Hongzhuang and Song Qiumo had also offered her pointers in their spare time.
But