The Gold-Iron Hall.
It was the grandest weapons shop on East Street in Suining Prefecture, a three-story wooden building that towered into the sky, with a frontage wide enough for three carriages to stand abreast.
Two iron halberds as tall as a man stood crossed at the entrance. Their tips gleamed with a chilling white light in the morning sun, and that imposing display alone kept ordinary folk thirty feet away.
Yi Yang thought that this was certainly worthy of a prefectural city-even its weapons shops could be this big. He climbed the steps, pushed open the door, and entered.
Inside, weapons covered the walls in neat, orderly rows.
From three-foot sabers to twelve-foot spears, from sleeve darts to iron-backed longbows, weapons lined both side walls. The cold scent unique to metal greeted him, mingled with the faint fragrance of pine oil used for polishing.
Three or four martial artists were choosing weapons inside. Judging by their blood and qi fluctuations, they were all at the fourth or fifth level-the sort found everywhere in the prefectural city.
An attendant hurried over and looked Yi Yang up and down. His manner was warm, but there was a distinct trace of perfunctory politeness.
"Old sir, what would you like to see? Everything on the first floor is standard stock, reasonably priced-"
Yi Yang paid no mind to the attendant's attitude and said directly, "I want a long saber weighing at least seventy jin."
The towel spinning in the attendant's hand abruptly stopped. Shocked, he asked:
"How much did you say?"
"Seventy jin."
The attendant's expression shifted from perfunctory to bewildered, then from bewildered to something subtler, as though he were saying, "Has this old man gone senile?"
He rubbed his hands and offered an apologetic smile. "Old sir, an ordinary saber weighs