"Brother Huang..." Dugu Sheng called several times before finally rousing Huang Xiao.
"Huh? Brother Dugu, what did you just say? Incomplete characters?" Huang Xiao asked after coming back to his senses.
Dugu Sheng frowned. Huang Xiao's reaction really was rather strange. For an expert of his stature to be so lost in thought was quite surprising and puzzling.
Still, he nodded and answered, "Yes, incomplete..."
And so he explained it all over again.
"That is what they look like," Dugu Sheng said. "What is it? Brother Huang, can you recognize these incomplete, peculiar characters?"
"You have studied them for so long without figuring out what they are. How could I know?" Huang Xiao said with a smile. "But speaking of incomplete characters, I have seen a secret manual like that too. It was full of incomplete, peculiar characters."
"Oh?" Dugu Sheng asked in some surprise. "What manual?"
"This one." As Huang Xiao spoke, he took the Broken Sword Scripture out of his robe.
"The Broken Sword Scripture?" Dugu Sheng read the three characters on the cover. "As far as I know, this Broken Sword Scripture should belong to an expert called Broken Sword. How did you come to have it? Or is this another copy?"
"No, this is the one. I obtained it from Broken Sword, He Jing," Huang Xiao said.
"Really? That expert rarely ventures into the Jianghu anymore. He is probably an expert in the Peerless Realm. His signature art is Broken Sword Swordsmanship, which he comprehended from the Broken Sword Scripture. This is an extraordinary manual. By the way, Brother Huang, how did you get it?" Dugu Sheng asked.
"Because he died," Huang Xiao said.
"Died? He died?" Dugu Sheng asked in great surprise.
"That is right. He died at the hands of an even more formidable