Xinyang Pass's southern gate looked like the slowly closing maw of a giant beast in the dusk.
Only when he drew closer did Qin Tiexin realize that the fortified city was far larger than he had imagined from a distance. Its walls were built from enormous blue-gray stone blocks, with some unknown gray-black adhesive poured into the joints, making them exceptionally sturdy. The walls stood well over five zhang high, their battlements closely spaced, and he could faintly make out soldiers patrolling with dagger-axes. The gates were heavy, iron-clad wooden doors, currently half open. Two lines waited outside-one of soldiers like themselves or people involved in military affairs, the other of commoners pushing handcarts or carrying shoulder poles, all undergoing inspection.
The moat was wide, its water gleaming darkly in the twilight. The drawbridge had already been lowered. Its thick wooden planks had been worn smooth by countless carts, horses, and feet, and barricades and a checkpoint stood at its entrance.
"First identity check," Commandant Sun told Qin Tiexin quietly, then led them toward the soldiers' line.
Four fully armored soldiers guarded the bridgehead, only their eyes exposed, long halberds in hand. Beside them, a man in a junior officer's uniform sat behind a small desk, checking documents with his head lowered. At the sight of Li Zhenwei, the officer immediately stood and cupped his hands in salute. "General Li! You're back!"
"Old Xing, thanks for your hard work." Li Zhenwei nodded, took his identity token and an official document bearing a red seal from inside his robe, and handed them over.
The officer surnamed Xing accepted them with both hands, carefully examined the patterns and lettering on the token, and held the document up to the firelight to check its seal. He also had Li Zhenwei recite several secret identification numbers known only to military personnel before returning the items with a smile. "All in order! Please go ahead, General!" His gaze swept over Commandant Sun, Qin Tiexin, and the ten veterans behind Li Zhenwei. He held out a hand. "Brothers, your identity tokens or travel permits."
Commandant Sun and the ten veterans were clearly accustomed to this, each producing either an identity token or a sheet of paper stamped with an official seal. When Qin Tiexin's turn came, he paused before remembering the "enlistment papers" General Li had given him back in Ink City, along with a hastily forged pig-iron identity token engraved with his name and a number. He hurriedly took them from an inner pocket against his body and presented them with both hands.
Officer Xing accepted them and, by the light of a nearby torch, carefully examined the Ink City government seal and the Northern Army camp's acceptance authorization on the papers. He weighed the crude iron token in his hand, then asked, "Name? Place of origin? Assignment?"
"Qin Tiexin, from Ink City, assigned to the Craftsmen's Camp." Qin Tiexin answered as General Li had taught him.
Officer Xing nodded, returned his belongings, and waved him through. "Go on. There's another checkpoint at the inner gate across the bridge."
Qin Tiexin put away his papers and identity token and followed the group across the broad drawbridge. The planks sounded dully beneath his feet, and damp air from the moat washed over his face, mingling with the chill of the early spring night.
Beyond the bridge lay a broad stretch of hard-packed open ground without a single blade of grass, clearly intended to prevent enemies from creeping close under cover during a surprise attack. Only at its far end stood the actual inner gate, slightly smaller than the outer gate but seemingly even heavier. Barricades and another checkpoint stood before it, brightly lit.
"The second," Commandant Sun said quietly.
The inspection here was stricter. Besides checking their tokens and papers, the guards required them to take off their bundles, open them for a brief inspection, and answer questions about what they carried. Qin Tiexin's enormous bundle and the Edgeless Saber tightly wrapped in coarse cloth naturally drew attention. The inspecting officer motioned for him to unwrap the cloth.
Qin Tiexin complied, undoing one corner to reveal the dark, lusterless blade.
The officer paused and reached out to lift it and test its weight. His expression changed the instant he took hold of it. "This heavy?!" Only by straining with both hands could he barely lift it a little. He hurriedly put it down again and gave Qin Tiexin a suspicious look. "You carried this? What kind of saber is it?"
"I forged it myself. I carry it for protection," Qin Tiexin answered honestly.
The officer looked at his unusually large frame, then at the saber, and asked no further questions. He waved him through, merely muttering, "Craftsmen's Camp? What's he carrying that great thing around for..."
Only after passing through the inner gate had they truly entered Xinyang Pass.
The scene inside somewhat surprised Qin Tiexin. He had assumed a military camp would consist entirely of orderly barracks, drill grounds, and grim soldiers. Instead, before him lay a fairly broad main street of dirt and stone, lined with quite a few low timber-and-earth houses. Some bore crude signs, apparently identifying eateries and general stores, and there was even a blacksmith shop's banner. Though it was already late, many people remained on the street. Aside from those in uniform, even more were men and women, old and young, dressed as ordinary commoners, either hurrying on their way or bargaining with street vendors carrying shoulder poles or displaying their wares on the ground. Cooking smoke and the smells of food, livestock, and dust mingled in the air. It even possessed something of the noisy bustle of everyday life in Ink City's evening markets.
But on closer inspection, those shops and stalls were all extremely rudimentary. Most passersby bore the weathered marks peculiar to the frontier on their faces, their eyes wary and tired.
Li Zhenwei reined in his horse and told Commandant Sun, "Old Sun, take Tiexin to report to the Craftsmen's Camp and get him settled. I'm going to the central command tent to report back to the general-in-chief." He then looked at the ten veterans who had already rejoined their units. "Return to your respective camps and report to your squad leaders to end your leave."
"Yes!" they answered, dispersing into the stream of people inside the pass.
Li Zhenwei glanced at Qin Tiexin once more and nodded. Without saying anything else, he rode deeper into the fortified city, toward the more densely clustered lights.
"Come on, Brother Qin," Commandant Sun called. Leading two horses-his own and Black Cloud-he guided Qin Tiexin northwest along the main street.
"Brother Sun," Qin Tiexin could not help asking, "why... are there so many commoners here?"
"At first, there was only the army," Commandant Sun said as they walked. "Later, the fighting became less urgent, and we spent more time facing off against each other. With tens of thousands of troops and their horses needing to eat inside this pass, we couldn't rely entirely on supplies shipped from the rear. It took too much time and effort. So the general-in-chief ordered the southern gate opened for two days in every ten-day period, on the fifth and tenth, allowing people from the surrounding villages and towns to come sell things. Grain, vegetables, meat, pelts, handicrafts-everything. The soldiers could also use their pay to buy what they needed. Little by little, it became like this."
He pointed at the shops. "Most of these people live here permanently. Some are military dependents, others fled here years ago and received permission to stay and run small businesses. But the rules are strict. They can only enter or leave when the southern gate is open, and they can't wander around otherwise. And the moment there's an alarm, the area is cleared and sealed off. Not a single unauthorized person can remain."
Qin Tiexin recalled the strict three layers of inspection just now-the bridgehead, the inner gate, and reportedly a third checkpoint when entering certain areas inside the city-and nodded. Indeed, this was a place where lives were at stake. No amount of caution was excessive.
They walked along the main street for a while before turning into a somewhat narrower lane. Here, the barracks grew noticeably more orderly and densely packed. The familiar smells of coal smoke and heated metal began to fill the air, and the faint clang of blacksmithing reached them.
"Almost there," Commandant Sun said.
After passing through two more simple fences guarded by soldiers-the third identity check, where a glance at their tokens was enough to let them through-the view suddenly opened up.
Before them lay an open space several times larger than the iron market in Ink City's western market district. Rows of crude but sturdy sheds lined its edges. Furnaces burned inside or outside many of them, illuminating bare-chested figures swinging hammers. Coal, firewood, and ore rose in little mountains in the center of the clearing, alongside piles of iron ingots, unfinished spearheads, and saber blanks. Farther away, several enormous kiln chambers had been dug into the mountainside, their pitch-black openings flickering with firelight and steaming with heat. The clamor of forging, the whoosh of bellows, the hiss of quenching, and the craftsmen's harsh shouts blended into a rough symphony brimming with power.
This was the Northern Army's Craftsmen's Camp.
The air was scorching, and a layer of black ash covered the ground. Several craftsmen wearing ragged leather aprons, their faces and bodies covered in coal dust, pushed wheelbarrows piled with scrap past them. They glanced at Commandant Sun and Qin Tiexin with numb eyes, then lowered their heads and continued working.
Clearly familiar with the place, Commandant Sun headed straight toward a somewhat larger shed on one side of the clearing, its lower walls built of stone. A crooked wooden sign hung by the entrance, the word "Clerk" scrawled on it in charcoal.
An oil lamp burned inside. A thin clerk in his forties, dressed in a worn military uniform, bent over the desk writing something, with an abacus set beside him.
"Clerk Wang." Commandant Sun knocked on the open door.
Clerk Wang raised his head and pushed up the homemade spectacles slipping down his nose-two crystal lenses tied together with fine cord. Recognizing his visitor, he hurriedly stood. "Commandant Sun! What brings you here? Has General Li returned too?"
"The general has gone to central command. I've brought a newcomer to report." Commandant Sun stepped aside to reveal Qin Tiexin and handed over his papers. "Qin Tiexin, from Ink City. He's been assigned to our Craftsmen's Camp."
Clerk Wang took the papers and leaned close to the lamp to examine them carefully. Then he looked Qin Tiexin over, his gaze lingering briefly on his unusual height and broad, thick shoulders, and nodded. "Mm, all the paperwork is in order. Ink City... the Qin Household Blacksmith Shop?" He walked to a wooden shelf piled with files, searched through them, and pulled out a thick register. Dipping his brush in ink, he began recording the details. "Qin Tiexin... place of origin, Ink City... mm, we'll assign you to 'Third Section, Seventh Group' for now."
After finishing, he closed the register and told Qin Tiexin, "The supervisor of Third Section, Seventh Group is Master Zhou Cang, known as 'Lame Tiger.' He happens to need an assistant to help out. Go find him and follow his arrangements." He pointed outside the shed. "Follow this path all the way to the back. You'll see a shed with lots of oddly shaped scrap iron piled outside and a constant smell of liquor drifting from it. That's his place."
Qin Tiexin committed this to memory and cupped his hands. "Thank you, Clerk Wang."
Commandant Sun nodded to Clerk Wang. "I've handed him over to you. I still need to settle the horses and report back to the general." He turned to Qin Tiexin. "Brother Qin, this is as far as I'll take you. Work hard here in the camp. If anything comes up... you can find me with the vanguard, but try not to come too often. There are a lot of rules." He patted Qin Tiexin's shoulder, turned, and led the horses away.
Qin Tiexin saw him off, then followed Clerk Wang's directions deeper into the Craftsmen's Camp, carrying his enormous bundle and the Edgeless Saber on his back.
The farther he went, the more scattered the sheds became, but the sounds of forging seemed deeper and more forceful. The coal smoke in the air grew thicker, mingled with the smell of cheap liquor and an indescribable stale odor, like rust mixed with sour sweat.
At last, in a corner near the mountainside, he saw the shed Clerk Wang had described.
This shed was more dilapidated than the others, half leaning against the mountainside, haphazardly assembled from rough timber and old canvas. Sure enough, a large heap of oddly shaped iron scraps lay outside. Some looked like broken spear shafts, others like flattened helmets, along with all sorts of bent and twisted remnants of sabers and swords, as though this were a dumping ground for battlefield salvage. A cloth curtain so dirty that its original color was impossible to tell hung across the entrance. Firelight flickered within, and rhythmic hammering rang out.
Qin Tiexin drew closer but did not enter immediately. Instead, he stood in the shadows by the entrance and looked inside.
The shed was small, with a blazing furnace at its center casting everything within in a red glow. A short but exceptionally stocky old man stood with his back to the entrance, his upper body bare, swinging a heavy hammer down on a piece of red-hot iron on the anvil. His disheveled gray-white hair was tied loosely behind his head with a ragged strip of cloth. The knotted muscles of his exposed shoulders, back, and arms were covered in scars and burns, bulging with every swing of the hammer, full of strength. His left leg seemed somewhat awkward as he stood, turned slightly outward, with more of his weight resting on his right.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The hammer rang deep and full. Its rhythm was not fast, but every strike landed solidly and precisely. The old man's movements were not showy, and were even somewhat rough, but they were extremely efficient. With just a few blows, the iron quickly spread out, taking on the rough shape of a saber. Then he switched to a smaller hammer, rapidly refined the edge line and adjusted the curve, before gripping the saber blank with tongs and quenching it.
Hiss- White vapor rose.
The old man set the quenched saber blank aside, then straightened and let out a long breath. Casually picking up a blackened liquor gourd from a tilted wooden stump nearby, he pulled out the stopper, tipped back his head, and took a great gulp. His Adam's apple bobbed vigorously, and he let out a satisfied "Hah."
By the furnace light, Qin Tiexin saw his profile. He was around sixty, his dark-red face covered in deep wrinkles, like rock long eroded by windblown sand and furnace flames. His eyebrows were short and thick, and his eyes were small but sharp as an eagle's. At the moment, they were half closed, as though he were immersed in the liquor's effects and the brief relaxation of finishing a piece of work. An old scar slanted across his left cheek from the corner of his eye to his jaw, lending his whole face a somewhat fierce look.
This was "Lame Tiger" Zhou Cang.
Qin Tiexin waited until he put down the liquor gourd before stepping forward and cupping his hands at the entrance. His voice was quiet but clear. "Master Zhou, recruit Qin Tiexin, sent by Clerk Wang to report as your assistant."
Zhou Cang paused, then slowly turned his head. Those keen eyes swept over Qin Tiexin, from his clearly youthful yet sharply defined face to his towering frame that nearly blocked the entrance, then to the enormous bundle and the long object wrapped in coarse cloth on his back. There was no welcome in his gaze, only scrutiny, and a trace of undisguised... impatience.
After a few looks, he turned back, picked up his tongs, and shoved another piece of iron into the furnace. His tone was as flat as though he were remarking that the weather was not particularly good today:
"I don't keep freeloaders here. Go back where you came from."