The next morning, the rain still had not stopped, but it had eased considerably, pattering down as though someone were sifting sand in the sky.
Qin Tiexin rose even earlier than usual. When he reached the mess hall, steam had only just begun rising from the bun steamers. He bought four buns and gulped them down with the lump of pickled vegetables left over from last night. He tucked another two inside his robe before heading toward the Craftsmen's Camp.
The fine, dense rain felt cool against his face. As he neared the shed, he saw firelight shining from within-the furnace was lit.
Zhou Cang sat on a small stool before the furnace, stirring the coals with iron tongs. Hearing footsteps, he spoke without raising his head. "Here?"
"Mm." Qin Tiexin walked inside, took out the buns wrapped in oilpaper, and set them on the wooden block beside Zhou Cang. "Breakfast."
Zhou Cang glanced at them without speaking and continued stirring the fire. Qin Tiexin noticed his left leg-his trouser leg had been lowered, covering his knee, but his gait was still stiff, slower than usual. At least he could stand now.
The day seemed no different from any other. Hammers clanged, the bellows wheezed, and the coals crackled softly. Zhou Cang remained a man of few words, only occasionally swearing when Qin Tiexin made a mistake. "Too light!" "Overheated!" "Wasteful brat!"
But today, Zhou Cang took more breaks. Whenever he stopped, he did not go drinking. Instead, he leaned on his tongs and stood beside Qin Tiexin's anvil, watching. He watched closely, eyes narrowed, as though examining some rare curiosity.
Qin Tiexin was repairing a spear shaft. It was delicate work-the hardwood shaft had been split under a horse's hoof. He had to align the two halves and bind them tightly with new iron hoops, but not too tightly. There had to be room for the wood to swell.
He measured, cut a strip of iron, heated it red-hot, and bent it into a ring. Just as he was about to slip it over the shaft, Zhou Cang spoke. "Stop."
Qin Tiexin's hands froze.
Zhou Cang took the hoop and held it to the light. "Half a li too thick."
Qin Tiexin paused, then took the hoop back and rubbed it between his fingers-sure enough, it was a hair thicker than what he usually used. Without feeling carefully, he would never have noticed.
"Too thick, and once you fit it on, the wood has nowhere to go when it swells. It'll split again." Zhou Cang spoke slowly, each word like a hammer striking an anvil. "That's how the one you repaired yesterday split."
Qin Tiexin remembered-there had been a spear shaft yesterday that looked fine when he fitted the hoop. This morning, a narrow crack had opened beside it.
Without speaking, he tossed the hoop into the scrap pile and cut another.
Zhou Cang watched him finish cutting, heat it red-hot, and bend it into a ring. He took it for another look, then finally nodded and returned to his own work.
It went on like that all day. Zhou Cang seemed like a different man. Instead of merely telling him to "watch," he offered a word of guidance at crucial moments. Sometimes it concerned material selection, sometimes judging the heat, sometimes the rhythm of hammer blows. Every remark was brief, but each struck at a hurdle Qin Tiexin had failed to understand while teaching himself.
By day's end, Qin Tiexin felt as though his scattered scraps of experience were loose beads threaded onto a string. His hands were steadier when repairing spear shafts, his control of the heat more precise when forging arrowheads. Even the angle for sharpening blades seemed to have clicked into place.
When work ended that evening, the rain had stopped completely. A streak of dark red showed in the western sky, and gold edged the clouds.
Qin Tiexin did not return directly to the barracks. He detoured to the little street and bought a gourd of liquor-the cheapest, strongest kind the one-eyed old man sold, the kind Zhou Cang often drank. He also bought half a jin of air-dried beef, cut into thick slices and wrapped in oilpaper.
Only then did he head for the shed.
Inside the shed, Zhou Cang was tidying his workbench. He arranged his tools one by one, gathered the scrap in a corner, and swept the iron filings from the anvil. Hearing footsteps, he turned.
The old man paused when he saw what Qin Tiexin was carrying.
A liquor gourd and an oilpaper parcel. Just two simple things.
Zhou Cang said nothing. He remembered many years ago, when his first apprentice had come to become his disciple, bringing an entire pork leg and two jars of good liquor. His second apprentice had brought a bolt of fine cloth and a box of pastries. His third...
He waved a hand. "Told you there was no need."
Qin Tiexin set the liquor and dried beef on the wooden block. "It's not an apprenticeship gift. It's... my duty."
Zhou Cang studied his expressionless face for a long while, then suddenly smiled-a faint, almost imperceptible smile. He picked up the gourd, pulled out the stopper, and took a long swig. The liquor burned, so fiercely that his eyes narrowed.
"Boy," he said, wiping his mouth, "save your money from now on. For food and a wife. With that appetite of yours, an ordinary family couldn't afford to feed you."
It sounded like a scolding, but there was something else in his tone.
Qin Tiexin murmured his assent.
Zhou Cang took another drink, set down the gourd, and grew serious. "I have three secret formulas. Today I'll teach you the first-the Battlefield Quenching Technique."
He walked to the corner of the shed, where several wooden buckets stood covered with lids. Zhou Cang opened them one by one.
The first bucket gave off a pungent smell-horse urine. It was a clear yellow, with foam floating on the surface.
The second held a grayish-white powder with the sharp smell of saltpeter.
The third contained some viscous black liquid, like boiled tung oil.
The fourth held cloudy muddy water, with grit settled at the bottom.
"On the battlefield, armies break camp and move all the time." Zhou Cang pointed at the buckets. "What do you do when your quenching medium runs short, gets lost, or spills? Wait to die?"
He picked up a freshly forged short-blade blank that had not yet been quenched and heated it red-hot in the furnace. The blade glowed orange-yellow, radiating oppressive heat.
"Horse urine," Zhou Cang said. "Contains salt. Quenches fast. Makes the blade hard, but brittle. Good for emergency weapons when you're short on time-something you throw away after a few cuts."
He plunged the blade blank into the bucket of horse urine.
Hiss!
White vapor billowed up, carrying an unpleasant ammoniac smell. The blade instantly turned black. When Zhou Cang lifted it out, its surface was covered in fine cracks-like ice struck by a stone.
"See?" Zhou Cang handed the blade to Qin Tiexin. "Hard, but it'll snap the moment it meets a heavy weapon."
Qin Tiexin took the blade and ran his fingers over the cracks. They were very fine, but densely packed, running through the entire blade.
Zhou Cang picked up another identical blank, heated it red-hot, and plunged it into the bucket of saltpeter earth.
This time, the hiss was gentler, with less white vapor. Once the blade turned black, Zhou Cang took it out and tapped its spine with the tongs-the sound rang clear, carrying the resilience of steel.
"Quenching in saltpeter earth is slow, but gives toughness. Good for blades meant for long use," he said. "The drawback is that they rust easily. You have to wipe them often."
Next came the black liquid-Zhou Cang said it was a kind of oil sometimes found on battlefields, mixed with plant ash. Blades quenched in it had moderate hardness and better rust resistance, but their edges were not as sharp as those produced by the first two methods.
Last came the muddy water. The quenching sound was muffled, and the blade turned a deep, dull black. After taking it out, Zhou Cang rubbed it a few times against a whetstone, and its edge actually shone with a cold blue gleam.
"This one's the most trouble," Zhou Cang said. "The mud has to contain alkali, and you have to let all the sand settle out. The blade comes out tough and sharp, but it takes work. You won't always have the time."
When he finished, he looked at Qin Tiexin. "On the battlefield, you don't get to choose. You use what's at hand. But you have to know what you'll get afterward-don't expect a blade quenched in horse urine to block a heavy axe, and don't use muddy water when you're racing against time."
Looking at those blades, Qin Tiexin felt as though something had struck him inside.
This knowledge was so simple, so straightforward. There were none of those mysterious notions of "three turns of heat" or "seven-tenths from the spring's eye." Just horse urine, saltpeter earth, black oil, and muddy water.
Yet these simple things had been worked out bit by bit by countless craftsmen on battlefields, through snapped blades, shattered swords, and perhaps their own lives.
And Zhou Cang had simply laid it all bare before him.
Qin Tiexin's throat felt a little dry. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end managed only two words. "Thank you."
Zhou Cang waved a hand. "Try it."
Qin Tiexin picked up a fresh blade blank and heated it red-hot. He tried horse urine first-the instant he submerged it, the pungent smell rushed up. The blade contracted violently in the liquid, giving off faint, almost inaudible cracking sounds.
He took it out and held it to the light. Cracks, densely packed.
"Remember it?" Zhou Cang asked.
"Mm."
"Next."
Qin Tiexin heated another blank red-hot and submerged it in saltpeter earth. This time, he listened carefully-the hiss was indeed more drawn-out, and the white vapor rose slowly. The blade also blackened more slowly.
After two hours, he had tried only two methods. Zhou Cang called a halt.
"Bite off too much and you can't chew it." The old man put away the remaining blanks. "Go back. Sleep. We'll continue tomorrow."
Qin Tiexin nodded, put the tools in order, and turned to leave.
"Wait." Zhou Cang stopped him and pointed at the dried beef on the wooden block. "Take that with you. My teeth aren't good enough to chew it."
Qin Tiexin looked at the parcel of dried beef, then at Zhou Cang. Finally, he picked up the oilpaper parcel and tucked it inside his robe.
"See you tomorrow, teacher."
"Get lost."
By the time he returned to the barracks, the other craftsmen in his room were asleep. Qin Tiexin lit the oil lamp in the dark and pulled a little notebook from beneath his bed boards-he had bound it from paper he had saved since coming to the Craftsmen's Camp, and it held all sorts of scattered notes.
He opened to a fresh page and began writing by the dim yellow lamplight:
"Ninth day of the third month. Rain. Battlefield Quenching Technique, one. Horse urine: fast, hard, brittle, fine, dense cracks. Saltpeter earth: slow, tough, clear tone, prone to rust..."
He wrote very slowly, and his handwriting was ugly, but every stroke was painstakingly neat. He recorded everything he had seen and heard that night, along with what he had felt through trying it himself. When he finished, he studied those few lines for a long while before blowing out the lamp and lying down.
He closed his eyes, and his consciousness sank into the Void Realm.
Within the Illusory Realm Hall, the illustrated scroll floated quietly. Qin Tiexin did not look at the existing entries. Instead, he recalled those wooden buckets from tonight-the smell of horse urine, the saltpeter earth powder, the viscosity of the black oil, the cloudiness of the muddy water.
He tried simulating the quenching process in the Void Realm. The first time, he overheated the blank, and it snapped straight in two in the horse urine. The second time, it was not hot enough, and the quenched blade came out soft. The third time, the fourth...
After every failure, he left the Void Realm, made a note in his notebook, then entered again to retry.
Like a dry sponge dropped into the sea, drinking in water furiously.
At that same moment, in the central command camp.
Candles blazed brightly. There were only two people inside the tent.
Li Xun sat in the seat of honor. He was around fifty, his temples already graying, but his eyes were frighteningly bright-not the clear brightness of youth, but a seasoned gleam, like a tiger fixing its gaze on prey. He was the Northern Army's commander-in-chief and a great general of the current court, a godlike master of warfare who had kept the Northern Di pressed so hard they could barely breathe all these years.
Standing before him was Li Zhenwei.
"Have you thought it through?" Li Xun asked. His voice was low, but every word carried weight.
"I have." Li Zhenwei stood ramrod straight.
"Let's hear it."
"I wish to form a special unit. It would have no formal establishment and would be called the Formation-Breaking Second Camp publicly. Its treatment would match the Formation-Breaking Camp's, but its duties would differ." Li Zhenwei spoke evenly, as though discussing something he had long since thought through. "I'll select from a hundred men and keep fifty in the end. They won't fight on the front lines. They'll specialize in decapitation strikes."
Li Xun tapped his fingers lightly against the desk. "Your reasons."
"Yelü Hongshan is old," Li Zhenwei said. "He can't afford to wait. Undercurrents have been surging through the Northern Di Royal Court these past few years. Not one of his sons can command everyone's allegiance. He has to carve out a foundation while he still has prestige-otherwise, once he dies, the Northern Di will fall into internal strife, and marching south again will be difficult."
He paused. "So I judge that a decisive battle is certain within six months to a year. Yelü Hongshan will commit everything he has and settle it all in a single campaign."
Li Xun watched him for a long while, then nodded. "Go on."
"The battlefield will inevitably be chaotic. In a head-on clash, victory will be uncertain. But if an elite force can exploit that chaos to thrust straight into the heart of the enemy formation, find Yelü Hongshan's royal banner, and slay the commander and seize his flag..." Li Zhenwei's gaze sharpened. "The battle can be decided."
Silence fell inside the tent. A candle crackled, its wick bursting into a little flower of flame.
"Will fifty men be enough?" Li Xun asked.
"Yes. More men would draw more attention and be harder to conceal," Li Zhenwei said. "But those fifty must be the elite of the elite-capable of long-distance raids, concealment and disguise, and close combat. They'll also need some knowledge of the Di language and familiarity with the northern terrain."
Li Xun rose and walked to the center of the tent. He was not tall, but every step seemed nailed into the ground.
"Six months," he said. "I'll give you full authority. Choose anyone below squad leader. You may take men from the Formation-Breaking Camp too-but only those willing to follow you."
Li Zhenwei dropped to one knee. "I accept your orders."
Li Xun took a token from inside his robe. It was dark, heavy iron, engraved with a ferocious tiger's head. He handed it to Li Zhenwei. "This is my token. To see it is to see me. If anyone obstructs your selection, show them this."
"Thank you, Great General."
Li Zhenwei accepted the token, cold against his hand. He rose, then took a roster from inside his robe and presented it with both hands. "I've drafted a preliminary selection list. Please review it, Great General."
Li Xun took it and unfolded it. Names crowded the parchment, each followed by brief notes on the man's affiliation and specialties. He read down the list, line by line, very slowly.
At the end, his gaze stopped.
The last name: Qin Tiexin. The note after it read: Craftsmen's Camp, Third Section, Seventh Group. First-rank blacksmith. Great strength, skilled at forging, creator of the new armor-piercing spike.
Li Xun looked up at Li Zhenwei and suddenly smiled. "You certainly came prepared."
Li Zhenwei smiled too, with the keen edge of a hunter who had discovered fine prey. "He's a promising seedling. Strong enough to carry heavy armor and weapons; knows smithing, so he can repair weapons if something goes wrong on the road; steady by nature, not rash. Most importantly-he hasn't been here long, his background is clean, and Northern Di spies won't have their eyes on him."
Li Xun folded the roster and handed it back to Li Zhenwei. "Go. In six months, I want to see a sharp blade capable of tearing open Yelü Hongshan's central army."
"I will not fail you."
Li Zhenwei bowed and withdrew from the command tent. The night wind blew into his face, carrying the biting chill peculiar to the wilderness beyond the pass. He tightened his grip on the token, the roster rustling faintly in his sleeve.
The wind swept past the tent flap, lifting one corner.
On the desk, candlelight flickered, illuminating that name on the slightly curled edge of the parchment-
Qin Tiexin.