About an incense stick's worth of time later, the little door in the Heavenly Craft Workshop's rear courtyard creaked open again.
Scarred Eye and Yellow Hair came out one after the other. The vicious looks on their faces had vanished, replaced by expressions that were almost fawning, with a touch of smugness. Scarred Eye clutched a rather weighty little cloth pouch, hefting it now and then with a faint clinking of metal.
The crowd gathered outside to watch the commotion had not entirely dispersed. At the sight, they drew a little closer again, studying the two curiously, especially the clearly empty scabbard in Scarred Eye's hand and Yellow Hair's saber, which still bore that conspicuous chip.
"What're you looking at?" Yellow Hair glared around, though his voice was no longer as aggressive as before. Instead, there was something of an empty bluff to it. "A misunderstanding, all a misunderstanding! Us brothers remembered wrong. That broken saber wasn't bought at the Heavenly Craft Workshop!"
Scarred Eye cleared his throat and chimed in, "Right, right! It was... it was made across the way, at the Qin shop! Broke after barely two days of use! Young Master Zhao's a decent man. He didn't hold it against us, and even... even gave us a little travel money for our trouble, so we wouldn't go shouting nonsense and spoil his grand opening!"
As they spoke, their eyes involuntarily flicked toward the tightly shut doors of the Qin Household Blacksmith Shop diagonally opposite, then hurriedly shifted away, an unmistakable trace of apprehension flashing within them. Just remembering that young man's silent figure, towering like a mountain, and those dark, fathomless eyes sent a chill down the backs of their necks. Money was good, but you had to be alive to spend it, didn't you?
A few stifled snickers and murmurs rose from the crowd. Nobody was a fool. Their story had taken a stiff, clumsy turn and was riddled with holes. Before the New Year, these two thugs had been cursing over a broken saber from the Heavenly Craft Workshop, and now, in the blink of an eye, it was the Qin shop's fault? But seeing how they looked to have profited and were eager to slip away, along with the workshop assistants' subtle moves to block the way, nobody wanted to stick their neck out and make trouble.
Scarred Eye and Yellow Hair dared not linger. They squeezed through the crowd and, pocketing that heavy pouch of "hush money," slipped away as though their soles were greased, even their retreating backs betraying their guilty consciences.
Zhao Ming stood at the Heavenly Craft Workshop's entrance. The smile piled on his face collapsed the instant the pair disappeared, his gaze so gloomy it could have dripped water. He stared at the alley mouth where they had vanished, clenching his teeth until they ached. The money was gone, and the matter had been suppressed for now, but the anger bottled inside made his chest hurt. Two lowlife street thugs had dared to extort him? Once this storm blew over, he would make them spit out everything they had swallowed, principal and interest alike!
While he was silently nursing his vicious resolve, he caught sight of a figure entering the shop out of the corner of his eye.
The newcomer was a middle-aged man in a somewhat worn navy-blue padded robe, with an unremarkable gray squirrel-fur vest over it. He was not particularly burly, but his shoulders and back were straight and his steps steady. The north wind had roughened his face, and his features held a weather-beaten toughness. His eyes in particular were calm when he looked at someone, yet somehow possessed a penetrating quality unlike that of an ordinary townsman.
Already irritated, Zhao Ming had not intended to attend to him personally, but the man's bearing made him instinctively put aside his dismissiveness. Restoring the warm smile customary to a merchant, he approached. "Good fortune in the New Year, honored customer! What would you like to see? Here at the Heavenly Craft Workshop, we have sabers, spears, swords, halberds, farm tools, and kitchen knives-everything you could want, all fine iron from the Divine Forging Furnace!"
Li Zhenwei did not answer. His gaze swept across the weapon racks inside the shop. The sabers and swords were indeed eye-catching, uniform in design and gleaming coldly, the flowing-water patterns along their edges shining with a chilly luster beneath the lamplight. He casually picked up a standard waist saber, tested its weight, then flicked the blade with a finger and tilted his head to listen to its ring.
"Well balanced. The tempering is passable." He put the saber down, his tone indifferent. "It lacks a little 'sinew and bone' compared with work from veteran military smiths, but it has consistency in its favor. If the price really is what you're calling out outside, it's reasonably affordable."
Hearing this, Zhao Ming became even more certain that the man had some background, perhaps a retired veteran. He quickly smiled. "You have a discerning eye, honored customer! I wouldn't dare call the products of our furnace the finest under heaven, but here in Ink City, they're absolutely this!" He raised a thumb. "Rest assured about the price. For today's opening, all ironware is another ten percent off! Satisfaction guaranteed!"
Li Zhenwei neither agreed nor disagreed. Turning, he gently laid the old, sheathed saber he had been holding all along on the counter.
"I won't be buying a saber. Shopkeeper, take a look at this one. Can it be repaired?"
Zhao Ming paused, then looked down. The scabbard was terribly old, its leather worn until its original color was gone. The copper fittings were dull, with patches of green corrosion in places. Its design was the most ordinary military pattern, utterly unremarkable. Most of the regard that had just risen in his heart immediately faded. So he was merely a poor soldier attached to the past, unable to bear throwing away his old weapon.
"Repaired? Of course it can!" Zhao Ming thumped his chest. His tone remained enthusiastic, but now carried a measure of casual condescension. "You've come to the right place, honored customer! Whether it's forging something new or restoring something old, our Heavenly Craft Workshop's craftsmanship is first-rate! Old Zhang, Old Zhang! Come take a look for this customer!"
A master smith in his fifties answered the call and came over, wearing the Heavenly Craft Workshop's standard gray tunic. His face held that expression peculiar to craftsmen, somewhere between confidence and arrogance. He picked up the old saber and drew it halfway.
The gleaming blade stood in stark contrast to the battered scabbard, but the savage crack near the guard and the closely scattered chips around it immediately made the master smith frown. He scraped the edge of the crack with a fingernail, then held the blade to the light, carefully examining its grain and wear.
"Honored customer," the master smith said bluntly, setting down the saber and shaking his head, "this saber... is finished."
Li Zhenwei's expression remained unchanged. He had heard that conclusion far too many times.
The master smith continued, "Look at this crack. It's already damaged the very foundation. As for the material..." He paused, considering his choice of words, but the disdain in his eyes for "ordinary military iron" still showed through. "It's just ordinary hundred-refined steel. The heat control during forging was nothing special either, so its toughness was mediocre to begin with. Damaged like this, even if the finest craftsmanship were used to join it back together and barely polish it bright, it could absolutely never be taken into battle again. Use the slightest force, and it will break without question."
Zhao Ming chimed in from beside him. "The master smith is right. Honored customer, if the old doesn't go, the new won't come. Look at our new sabers. Which one isn't better than this? Why cling to a broken..."
"Unless," the master smith went on, ignoring Zhao Ming. Perhaps it was an occupational habit, perhaps he thought this "soldier" before him did not understand, or perhaps he wanted to show a little of his own expertise. He pointed at the crack. "Unless you're willing to spend the money. Melt this saber down and reforge it with high-quality refined iron or even profound iron, then have an expert craftsman hammer it repeatedly. But that would likely cost more than making three or five fine new sabers. Forgive my bluntness, but for a saber like this, it isn't worth it."
It wasn't worth it.
Those words were like a fine needle, lightly pricking the lake of Li Zhenwei's heart, which had remained calm until now.
He understood the smith's judgment. From a purely practical, utilitarian perspective, the conclusion was not wrong. This saber's material was ordinary, its damage fatal, and the cost of repair enormous. It truly "wasn't worth it."
But some things could not be measured by whether they were worth it.
The dusky yellow sunset beyond the frontier flashed before his eyes. He seemed to hear again the dull sound of a blade splitting leather armor and cutting into flesh and bone, along with a comrade's hoarse final request. Every scratch on this saber held a memory carved at the edge between life and death; the blackish red around that crack, which no washing could remove, was blood and fire that could not be wiped away, nor needed to be.
It was not merely a saber. It was a promise, a stretch of the past, one of the few traces of warmth left in this world by a group of people who would never return.
The calm on Li Zhenwei's face finally broke. He did not fly into a rage; his gaze merely darkened abruptly, like a deep pool sealed in ice. He reached out, his movement unhurried yet carrying an unquestionable force, and took his saber back from before the master smith.
"Thank you for your trouble." That was all he said, his voice quiet but cold and hard as iron.
He slid the saber back into its battered scabbard, gripped it tightly, and turned to leave. He did not spare another glance for the gleaming new sabers on the counter, nor did he heed Zhao Ming's calls behind him: "Please stay, honored customer! We can discuss the price!"
His retreating back was straight, yet carried a suppressed, heavy disappointment and... the anger of having been insulted.
The master smith and Zhao Ming exchanged looks, both sensing that something was amiss. Wasn't this soldier a little too touchy?
Li Zhenwei went straight back to his private room on the Drunken Immortal Pavilion's second floor. The wine and food on the table had long since gone completely cold. He sat down and laid the old saber across his knees, slowly stroking the almost worn-smooth name on its scabbard with his fingers, remaining silent for a long time.
About an hour later, someone knocked softly on the private room's door.
"Come in."
A lean, capable man, also dressed in civilian clothes but moving with unmistakable military crispness, slipped inside and closed the door behind him. He was Li Zhenwei's personal guard, surnamed Sun, and had accompanied him on this trip home.
"General," the guard surnamed Sun said quietly, "I've confirmed it. There was indeed an incident outside the city before the New Year. Two thugs from the southern part of the city, Scarred Eye and Yellow Hair, tried to rob a hunter of his deerskins, and a fight broke out. The hunter was using a new billhook he'd just had made at... the Qin Household Blacksmith Shop diagonally opposite."
Li Zhenwei raised his eyes.
The guard continued, "During the fight, the hunter's billhook cut through the saber in one of the thugs' hands-and that saber was a product of the Heavenly Craft Workshop. The other was knocked flying as well. Several mountain folk witnessed it at the time. Quite a few people know about it."
Li Zhenwei's fingertips stopped on the name on the scabbard.
A billhook... cut through a saber from the Heavenly Craft Workshop?
He recalled what he had just seen at the Heavenly Craft Workshop: those bright but somewhat "thin" blades, and the master smith's assessments of "ordinary hundred-refined steel" and "mediocre toughness." And the steady, solid hammer blows that had once sounded from the silent shop opposite.
He slowly rose and walked to the window.
Diagonally opposite, the Qin Household Blacksmith Shop's doors remained closed. The wooden sign beside them advertising farm tool repairs swayed slightly in the cold wind rising with the evening. From the alley came the faint cries advertising the Heavenly Craft Workshop's opening sale, carrying a restless bustle.
Behind those doors, however, lay an almost frozen stillness. Only an exceedingly faint wisp of blue smoke rose straight from the chimney into the cold dusk, like a silent, unyielding sigh.
Li Zhenwei watched that wisp of smoke, then lowered his head to look at the old saber on his knees.
The saber remained silent, its crack unchanged.
Perhaps there were some things in this world that "weren't worth it," yet someone was willing to do them all the same.
Perhaps beside some roads that seemed to have reached their end, there was still a narrower, less noticeable path that might lead in a different direction.
He tightened his grip on the scabbard.
"Ready the horses," he told his guard, his voice regaining its usual steadiness. "And make some more inquiries. Find out the name of that young smith at the Qin shop, and what sort of person... he usually is."
He needed to know whether the hands that could forge a billhook capable of cutting through the Heavenly Craft Workshop's sabers also had a pair of eyes that could read the stories behind this old saber's scars.
Even if it was only the faintest hope.