Blade Technique

The two dilapidated wooden doors, clearly weathered by years, were bolted shut from within. Chen Mu knocked on them and called, "I'm back," only then hearing movement and a delighted voice from inside.

Thump, thump.

It sounded like bare feet hitting the ground in a hurried run, drawing closer all the way, followed by the door bolt being pulled open.

"Brother!"

A little girl in a coarse floral cotton jacket appeared in the doorway. She was only as tall as Chen Mu's chest, her bare feet on the ground as she looked up at him with an innocent, adorable smile.

Chen Yue was already fourteen this year. For an ordinary girl, she ought to have reached the age of a flower bud about to bloom, but she had been somewhat malnourished since childhood and was still thin and frail, not looking like a girl of fourteen. Her complexion was slightly yellowish as well.

In times like these, it was obviously impossible for an ordinary commoner's family to raise some peerless beauty. Still, Chen Yue's natural features seemed quite good to Chen Mu. If they could become better off in the future and nourish her properly, she would most likely grow into a pure lotus rising from clear water. For now, though, she could only follow him in living a hard life.

"Why are you running around barefoot again?"

Chen Mu affectionately rubbed the little girl's head. He had never had a younger sister in his previous life, but after coming here, he had gained a sweet, obedient, lovable little sister. She was the only sliver of comfort he had in this chaotic, cold city.

Chen Yue looked up at him and said with a grin, "I'll put them on when I go out. If I wear them too much at home, they'll wear out. That would be such a waste."

Chen Mu picked Chen Yue up and set her on the heated brick bed in the inner room. Reaching out to touch her little feet, he found them icy cold and could not help scolding her, "Winter's almost here. What if you get frostbite? If they wear out, we'll patch them."

He knew why Chen Yue was reluctant to wear them. Her previous pair had been completely ruined, and her feet had grown a little, so even if they were repaired, she could no longer wear them. Chen Mu had therefore bought her a new pair. The little girl had been overjoyed and treasured them like precious jewels, naturally reluctant to wear them day after day, especially since she did not leave the house anyway.

"Alright... okay."

Chen Yue answered somewhat conflictedly.

Indeed, if her feet got frostbitten, they would have to buy medicine. That would be spending money for nothing.

Chen Mu handed her a steamed bun and sternly told her to wash her hands before eating. But when the little girl tried to run off barefoot to wash them, Chen Mu simply brought the wooden basin over.

After washing her hands and feet, Chen Yue accepted the steamed bun with a rosy little face and began eating. Her eyes were full of affection and admiration as she looked at Chen Mu. He had not been so good to her before. Ever since he had fallen seriously ill, however, he had suddenly begun treating her better and better. No matter how he treated her, he was still her only brother, but of course she liked her life now much more. Even if she had to stay home every day and could not go out, even if she ate only the most ordinary white-rice steamed buns, she was still happy inside.

"It's been a long time since I took you out to play, hasn't it?"

Seeing Chen Yue's expression, Chen Mu thought for a moment and spoke.

Ever since he had come to this world and discovered the chaos and dangers outside, he had strictly forbidden Chen Yue from running out. He had even frightened her by saying that if she dared go out, he would not want her anymore. The little girl had cried for half the day before he finally managed to soothe her.

"Four months."

Chen Yue counted on her fingers as she ate her steamed bun.

Chen Mu smiled faintly. "Alright. After a little while, I'll take you out to play once."

He could not bear to keep a little girl of her age shut indoors forever. Taking her out was not entirely impossible. They only needed to smear up her face a little, mess up her hair, dress her in worn and ragged clothes, and have him carry her on his back. Ideally, he would go with familiar colleagues such as Liu San and Li Liu. The last time, he had taken her around like that for a while.

There was still some risk, but if she was kept inside forever, how was such a life any different from prison?

"Really?"

Hearing Chen Mu's words, Chen Yue immediately revealed a delighted expression.

But after the delight passed, she looked at Chen Mu cautiously and hesitated. "If... if you let me go out to play, will it cause trouble for you, Brother?"

Chen Mu rubbed her little head without answering. "Stay in the room after you finish eating. I'm going to the woodshed."

"Okay."

Chen Yue nodded obediently.

The woodshed was quite spacious.

That was because there was barely any firewood in it, only a small amount scattered about. Firewood had gradually become more expensive these days. He had heard that a group of woodcutters who gathered in the mountains west of the city had disappeared, frightening many other woodcutters away from the place as well.

Now, only the bolder ones, hoping to risk their lives and earn more while firewood prices were high, left the city to chop and carry wood. The supply had dwindled, so ordinary households saved wherever they could.

Chen Mu carefully took the small booklet he had found earlier from his pocket.

The booklet's cover was already somewhat tattered. He could only make out the three characters, "...wind blade technique." After scrutinizing the first character for a while, Chen Mu thought it ought to be "whirlwind." Put together, it should be called the Whirlwind Saber Technique.

"A saber technique..."

Chen Mu fell into thought as he looked at the saber technique in his hand.

In truth, stories about obtaining a manual of moves, practicing behind closed doors, and becoming an expert simply did not exist in this world. Even this kind of battered manual was not worth much if taken out to sell.

The reason was simple. To learn martial arts, whether fist, palm, leg, finger, saber, spear, staff, or cudgel, one had to receive instruction from a genuine practitioner. Picking up a random manual and trying to train alone could easily injure one's muscles, tendons, and bones, and no one would take responsibility for that.

As a yamen runner.

Chen Mu also practiced saber work in the City Guard.

But the leader in the City Guard only taught some basic Horizontal Chop and Vertical Slash Freehand, not any profound saber techniques. So although Chen Mu had trained for two and a half years since coming to this world, he could at most deal with ordinary people who knew no proper fighting forms.

Chen Mu had once asked Liu Song, Li Tie, and the others. Their answer had been the same: getting hold of some saber technique manual was not difficult or expensive. At a pawnshop, one could generally buy one for a dozen or so taels of silver. But hoping to master it based solely on a manual and a few fixed diagrams of moves was a fool's dream.

He had to go to a martial arts hall in the Inner City and receive instruction from a Martial Master on stances, methods of exerting force, and the rest. That was the proper path.

But the problem was...

The fees charged by martial arts halls were anything but cheap.

They started at dozens or even hundreds of taels of silver, and medicinal powder for bruises, sprains, and other injuries had to be paid for separately.

As the saying went, poor scholars, rich warriors. Even Liu Song and Li Tie, whose families were fairly well-off, could not afford to spend money training in the Inner City, let alone him. Right now, he could not even scrape together two taels of silver.

"If I sell it at a pawnshop, I could probably get two or three taels of silver. That'd count as an unexpected windfall."

Chen Mu pondered inwardly.

Yet he was still somewhat unwilling to resign himself to it.

In such a chaotic world, intelligence and cleverness meant nothing. Playing tricks could instead cost one's life. Only being cautious in every word and step allowed one to survive. But he had no money and no influence. If he wanted to break free from the bottom rung, there was almost no hope in sight.

If he could learn a saber technique and possess martial strength, things would be entirely different. Not to mention that local gentry and powerful families would be willing to hire him as a guard, and gangs would give him status, even in the City Guard, he might earn the appreciation of his superiors and rise from a lowly yamen runner to become a head runner.

A head runner was different from an ordinary yamen runner. Strictly speaking, yamen runners did not count as officials at all. They were merely hired by the authorities to handle daily patrols. But head runners were an entirely different matter.

Head runners promoted by the Runner Office of local City Guards were genuine clerks. They could even be regarded as minor officials of Subordinate Ninth Rank, worlds apart from ordinary commoners and completely different in status from yamen runners. Some weaker gangs even had to offer head runners silver to smooth over relations, lest the head runners make trouble for them.

"I'll still give it a try."

After thinking it over, Chen Mu opened the small booklet before him.

At any rate, practicing an external saber technique like this poorly would at most strain his muscles and tendons. After resting for a few days, he would recover. Nothing too serious could go wrong. If it truly did not work, he could memorize the contents and sell it to a pawnshop for silver.

—The Whirlwind Saber Technique belongs to the Xun Wind Lineage among the Eight Branches of Qiankun. Its form is chaotic, but its intent is not; when a thousand winds have passed, they coil around tendons and scrape bones. If cultivated to Perfection, it can forge a wisp of "whirlwind" Saber Force.

There were no illustrations on the first page of the manual, only this passage of text.

Thoughtfully, Chen Mu turned to the next page. A figure standing with a saber seemed to leap from the yellowed paper, the blade in its hand guided by a dotted line as though it slanted crookedly upward from below. The small text at the bottom read: "First Form of Chaotic Wind."

Chen Mu studied it carefully for a moment, then stood, drew his yamen saber, and swung it according to the illustration.

He had practiced Horizontal Chop and Vertical Slash Freehand for two years, so the swing looked fairly convincing. Yet it felt extremely strange to him, and the force he exerted was not even as good as in his usual straightforward horizontal and vertical chops.

"As expected, Li Tie and the others were right. With only a manual, at most I can learn the posture. As for how exactly to apply force, how to shift and transform, without a Martial Master from the same lineage teaching me hand in hand, figuring it out on my own is far too difficult."

Chen Mu sighed inwardly.

Though it was difficult, since he had decided to try, he would not give up at the first step. Chen Mu continued flipping through the booklet and found that the next three pages contained follow-up variations of the First Form of Chaotic Wind. There were three in total: different diagonal upward cuts, horizontal slashes, and downward chops, depending on how an opponent responded.

After memorizing each variation, Chen Mu began practicing them. After a while, he had managed a preliminary grasp of the movements. He had only vaguely figured out a little of how to exert force, and he had no idea whether it contradicted the proper method.

Thus, he muddled through the First Form and its three variations for half the day. Afterwards, he vaguely felt that they did not seem as useful as the horizontal and vertical freehand chops he usually practiced. If he used these half-baked moves in a fight, not only might he gain no advantage, he could even suffer badly at someone else's hands.

"It should still be a problem with how force is applied and directed. A single page of a booklet really doesn't provide much information."

Chen Mu pondered inwardly.

This bout of practice also confirmed that he clearly was not some martial arts genius who understood everything at a touch, capable of grasping all the key points of a set of moves from a few diagrams and mastering them out of thin air.

If the moves that followed were all this half-baked, then even if he barely became proficient in them, they would not differ much in use from ordinary horizontal chops and vertical slashes. This saber technique might only be worth trading for two taels of silver to buy meat.

"Brother, have some water."

Just as Chen Mu stopped practicing and sighed, a voice came from beside him.

Chen Yue came tiptoeing over in a pair of spotless floral shoes, carrying a rough earthenware jar filled with water.

She looked up at him with her adorable little face. "It's boiled."

Chen Mu smiled warmly and took the jar. He had warned Chen Yue several times that she could not drink water carelessly; it had to be boiled until it rolled. In this backward world, the length of one's life was practically directly tied to what one ate and drank.

He held the earthenware jar, drank a few mouthfuls, then handed it back and patted the little girl's head.

"Is Brother practicing martial arts?"

Chen Yue saw the little booklet Chen Mu had placed on the stove and the diagrams of the moves inside, and asked curiously.

"Mm."

Chen Mu nodded.

He had thought this might be an opportunity to change his fate, but now it seemed he had been somewhat optimistic. To truly master Martial Arts, perhaps he still had to save silver bit by bit, gather enough, then go to a martial arts hall in the Inner City to study under a master.

However.

Just as Chen Mu was about to put away the small booklet, he suddenly froze.

Several lines of text had appeared in his vision at some unknown moment, floating in midair. He blinked blankly, but the text did not disappear. It simply hovered before his eyes.

Martial Arts: Whirlwind Saber Technique (Uninitiated)

Experience: 2 points

After confirming that this was not an illusion, Chen Mu finally smiled.