Standing Alive, How Free It Is

Zhang Yuan seemed to stand before Yu Lin, facing the saber blade chopping down at his head.

Dodge.

Retreat.

Meet it head-on.

Draw his saber and strike back.

After Yu Lin finished all eighteen forms of the saber technique, he took a deep breath, turned around, and looked at Zhang Yuan.

"How many did you remember this time?"

Zhang Yuan stood where he was, pale-faced and drenched in sweat.

His clenched fists slowly loosened. Zhang Yuan closed his eyes and said unwillingly in a low voice, "Eight moves."

Delight filled Yu Lin's face as he asked again, "You mean you remembered eight moves?"

When he had first cultivated this saber technique, he had remembered three moves on his first viewing, and only made it to the fifth move on the second.

By that measure, Zhang Yuan's Martial Way talent was even stronger than his own!

Was it because his legacy was not meant to end?

Zhang Yuan opened his eyes, looked at the saber in Yu Lin's hand, gently shook his head, and said softly, "Not that I remembered eight moves."

"I was defeated by the eighth move."

Perhaps because his mind had been depleted and his injuries had yet to heal, Zhang Yuan's steps were somewhat unsteady when he walked out of the small courtyard.

Watching Zhang Yuan leave, Yu Lin remained where he was, the calm expression on his face turning into excitement.

He had known Zhang Yuan was talented, but he had never imagined that his talent would be so monstrously high!

While watching him perform the Mountain Yue Saber Technique, Zhang Yuan had actually placed himself in the opposing position and comprehended the saber through battle.

Yu Lin had only heard of such cultivation talent among the direct descendants of the greatest aristocratic clans, among the renowned prodigies of the world.

"If I can pass down the Mountain Yue Saber Technique, I will have no regrets."

He murmured softly, then narrowed his eyes as he looked beyond the courtyard gate.

He had not told Zhang Yuan where he had inherited the Mountain Yue Saber Technique from, nor had he told him how profound this saber technique truly was.

"It seems Zhao Changming's proposal is worth considering."

Zhang Yuan returned to the wounded soldiers' camp and fell asleep the moment he lay down.

In his dreams, Insight Beads shattered one after another, turning into phantoms that endlessly circulated through his mind.

He did not wake until the slanting sun was sinking in the west.

The Chaos Screen rose within his mind.

Zhang Yuan

Identity: Ninth-rank Black Robe Guard of Luyang Prefecture, Great Qin; Crimson Scale Army Conscript

Cultivation: Mid Houtian Realm; advancement requires twelve Vitality Beads

Martial Way Cultivation: Cape Saber Technique at Great Perfection, Ironclad Fist at Great Perfection, Mountain Yue Saber Technique at beginner level (must become proficient before further comprehension)

Battle Formation: Azure Wolf Formation, minor mastery

Chaos Space: three Vitality Beads, seven Insight Beads

Chaos Auxiliary Battle: Not Activated

He had used three Insight Beads.

The eighteen forms of the saber technique seemed engraved in his heart.

He had learned the Mountain Yue Saber Technique.

"Kid Zhang, you're awake?" Chen Wuxiong, who was sitting beside Young Master Tao's wooden cot, shifted over and leaned in front of Zhang Yuan. After glancing around, he lowered his voice. "How's your recovery? If we leave the city, can you still move?"

Leave the city?

While Zhang Yuan had been unconscious in the wounded soldiers' camp, Crimson Scale Army Commander Yu Lin had gathered the officers and announced a decision.

They would find an opportunity to send the wounded soldiers and remaining civilians out of the city, while the soldiers left behind would defend Fengtian County City to the death and share its fate.

There were nearly a hundred wounded soldiers in the city at present, along with more than two hundred civilians.

Food was scarce in the city. These people would become a burden in the coming defense, so it was better to send them out first and have the remaining soldiers hold the city to the death.

"The Commander has assigned our battalion to escort the civilians out of the city."

According to Chen Wuxiong, their battalion had already been formed from locally recruited martial guards, constables, and some death-row prisoners. They were familiar with the surrounding terrain.

Sending them to escort the civilians and wounded soldiers out of the city gave them a better chance.

Leave the city.

Zhang Yuan lay on his cot, staring blankly at the roof tiles leaking shafts of light.

After defending Fengtian County for three months, he had long stopped thinking of leaving alive.

But now, he wanted to live.

If he had enough time, his future would be not just the Houtian Mid-stage.

"Zhang Yuan, did you meet the Commander?" Young Master Tao, reclining on the cot beside him, turned to look at Zhang Yuan.

Zhang Yuan nodded.

With some difficulty, Young Master Tao pulled out from beneath his wooden cot the roll of hemp cloth stained with blood, on which the military merit and wishes of their battalion's soldiers had been recorded. He held it out to Zhang Yuan.

"I don't mean anything by it." Young Master Tao forced a faint smile and said softly, "Your chances of taking it out are greater than mine, aren't they?"

Young Master Tao's injuries would keep him from fighting for at least two or three months.

Even if he healed, his future in the Martial Way would basically be ruined.

Zhang Yuan hesitated for a moment, then reached out and accepted the roll of hemp cloth.

The bloody scent on the cloth made Zhang Yuan unconsciously clench his hand.

Could he take this roll of hemp cloth out with him?

Night insects murmured softly.

Unable to sleep, Zhang Yuan walked out of the wounded soldiers' camp and practiced his saber beside the broken wall behind the courtyard.

He had already memorized the eighteen forms of the Mountain Yue Saber Technique. Now, he needed to practice the moves until they became proficient, then use Insight Beads to deduce them further until they reached the level of Great Perfection.

Clang—

As the long saber left its sheath, the light and shadows that had lain dormant in Zhang Yuan's mind emerged.

Stepped forward, drew his saber.

With one slash, his edge was fully revealed.

The saber's edge seemed like mountain peaks stretching endlessly, layer upon layer, lush and verdant; it also seemed like mountains encircling him, their magnificent grandeur contained within a single slash.

First form of the Mountain Yue Saber Technique, Mountain Peaks Lush and Verdant.

His saber in hand and his feet never stopping, Zhang Yuan gave a low shout as his second slash was already cutting out.

This slash continued the endless sweep of the first. The blade flickered beneath the moonlight, as though the waters of rivers rushed onward without cease.

This slash possessed not only the unbroken stretch of mountains, but also the aura of a mighty river surging forward—vast and fierce.

Second form of the Mountain Yue Saber Technique, Rivers Rushing.

With the saber edge before him, Zhang Yuan Stepped forward, his body suddenly advancing a full zhang as he swept his saber sideways.

Third form, Distant Mountains and Rivers.

A journey of a thousand miles began beneath one's feet. Once this form was mastered, one slash could span ten zhang; kill one man in ten steps, travel a thousand miles without leaving a trace.

After going through the saber technique three times in succession, sweat covered Zhang Yuan's forehead. Only when the vitality and blood throughout his body surged did he finally stop.

The Mountain Yue Saber Technique was not yet proficient, but it was already not far from proficiency.

"If you kept going, this old man would have had to tell you to stop." Hu Chunniu strolled over from not far away, his hands clasped behind his back as he sized Zhang Yuan up. "Your wounds haven't split open, have they?"

This small courtyard was Hu Chunniu's medical clinic to begin with, so naturally he knew the surrounding area extremely well.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. I learned a technique today, and my heart was itching. If I didn't practice it a few times, I wouldn't be able to sleep." Zhang Yuan sheathed his long saber, wiped the sweat from his head, and sat down beside a pile of rubble.

Hu Chunniu chuckled and sat beside him. "That's true enough. Back when I studied medicine under my master, whenever I came across a new prescription, I always felt off if I didn't use it on a patient."

A new prescription, used on a patient?

Seeing Zhang Yuan look at him, Hu Chunniu grinned. "Don't worry, it won't kill anyone."

Fengtian County bordered Yan State, and war had raged there year after year without end.

The county city had once held more than twenty thousand people, but death, injury, flight, and dispersal had brutally reduced it to only a few hundred households.

Hu Chunniu had been born and raised in Fengtian County. What he spoke of sounded like stories, but most of it was no story at all.

"From my great-great-grandfather's generation onward, Marquis of Yanbei rebelled, and this war has never stopped."

"Sometimes I wonder, the Nine Provinces have all collapsed, and everyone who was supposed to die before the Northern Border Great Wall has died. What are us old Qin people still fighting for?"

He reached out and patted Zhang Yuan on the shoulder, a faint smile appearing on his face.

"Not until you shared out that half pot of meat soup did I understand."

"Who says we have no clothes? With You as My Brother."

"As long as us old Qin people still have one breath left, as long as we have brothers and comrade-in-arms, family and country, then we are still people."

"Upright and honorable people."

"We can live standing."

"Those Yan dogs, those living beings from the former lands of the Nine Provinces, can only be the running dogs of Gods and Devils."

Hu Chunniu stood up, spread his arms, raised his head toward the scattered stars in the heavens, and took a deep breath. "Living standing—how free that is..."

Living standing.