In the darkness, the little figure in the courtyard was still thrusting hard, the spearhead cutting through the air again and again.
Back when he had shaped his Yin Spirit, he had taken a wrong turn and somehow recast bones and meridians for his primordial spirit. Even he had been bewildered by it, though it did make executing techniques easier. He imitated the moves he had seen, one by one, first striving for a likeness, then slowly adjusting them and pruning away the branches that did not suit him.
He had always been used to working from the outside in, learning the movements first. That was how he had worked out his swordsmanship.
The kitchen lamp went out, leaving only repeated flashes of cold steel.
As he practiced, the spearwork unknowingly began to change. He moved faster and faster, his strikes urgent and vicious, gradually departing from the burly man's form and veering back toward his own familiar style of fighting to kill.
As he thrust the spear, he calculated the next three or four variations in his mind.
He stopped abruptly, the spearhead frozen in midair.
He knew that continuing like this would probably lead his practice astray. He decided to sneak a look at the army camp tomorrow evening, understand the veteran soldiers' spearwork, then study how to blend it into his own. With a flick, the long spear silently vanished. He walked to the doorway, moved the wooden block beside the door back against the wall, straightened it, and turned it so the crack faced outward.
He glanced inside. The old man and the girl were sleeping soundly, their breathing even. He turned and returned to his cave on the Back Mountain.
His dark body crawled out of the cave and glided upward to the familiar mountaintop,