Once, someone had sighed in verse, "Mountains danced like silver snakes; plateaus galloped like wax-white elephants," praising the beauty of heaven and earth.
What did it mean for mountains to dance like silver snakes?
Snow blanketed the mountain peaks, making them resemble dancing silver snakes, winding and graceful.
Today, as Lin Ke danced with his sword, the reflected gleams of blade light shone like a silver snake's scales beneath the sun.
At the same time, Lin Ke's body displayed a gentle beauty and lightness.
His arms, torso, and thighs seemed to have become part of the sword. Every leap and bound evoked a silver snake striking at the heavens.
His limbs and waist also displayed astonishing flexibility, his backbends and other movements tracing sweeping arcs.
Dance had never belonged exclusively to women.
Still less should it become a skill women were required to master to please men. That was a shackle.
Dance sprang from the heart. Each movement and leap revealed not only the beauty of the body and its poses, but also a certain atmosphere, a scene, and more.
"Swish!!"
Beneath the moonlight, Lin Ke bent his elbow, then thrust his sword toward the moon.
His elbow bent with a softness that seemed boneless before he struck swiftly toward the moon, like a silver snake attacking it.
At this moment, Lin Ke's dance not only displayed the fruits of his three months of intensive practice, but also used his sword and arm to evoke a silver snake striking at the moon!
When had anyone present ever seen such a dance?
They were nothing like Lin Ke.
In his previous life, highly developed productive capabilities had shifted people's needs from primarily material ones to primarily spiritual ones.
With those spiritual needs came the rapid development of all kinds of culture