The cold winds of the twelfth lunar month grew fiercer by the day.
Qin Tiexin felt that the alley seemed quieter than usual. Aunt Wang, Uncle Li, and the others still occasionally brought vegetables over, but they always put them down in a hurry, their eyes evasive, and left with an excuse about being busy before exchanging more than a few words. Sometimes, he even saw unfamiliar faces at the mouth of the alley, leaning against the wall, their gazes sweeping over his shop with seeming casualness.
The rumbling of the "Divine Forging Furnace" across the way seemed louder. Especially at night, its rhythmic "clang-clang-" traveled faintly through the walls and ground, as though striking at the heart. The furnace's red glow never ceased all night, bathing his little shop in a dim crimson. Even when he closed his eyes to sleep, he felt as though a wavering wash of blood-red lay beyond his eyelids.
Business grew even slower.
Occasionally, an unfamiliar customer came in, picked up a kitchen knife or hoe he had forged, examined it, and invariably asked, "This of yours... it won't rust, will it? I hear hand-forged things rust easily." Or, "Young master smith, how does your craftsmanship compare with old Master Qin's?"
Qin Tiexin only answered, "Good iron, oiled often. It won't rust." Or, "I remember everything my master taught me."
But the customers often remained doubtful. They put the items down, said, "I'll look around some more," and walked out. Some went straight across to the Heavenly Craft Workshop.
Iron stock became his greatest difficulty.
He went to the market in the west of the city twice more. Old Sun's familiar stall was completely bare. Seeing him, the old man merely shook his head with a bitter smile. "Tiexin, there really isn't any left. It's not that I won't sell to you. It's... there really is no stock. The iron coming out of the mines up above already has its destinations fixed. Only a tiny bit makes it onto the market, and even that..." He lowered his voice and pointed at a man in a short blue jacket taking delivery of goods diagonally across from him. "...goes to the highest bidder."
Qin Tiexin watched cartload after cartload of iron ingots, gleaming with the bluish sheen unique to good iron, being hauled away. Silently, he tightened his grip on his increasingly light money pouch. He searched the entire market and managed to buy only some scraps and offcuts, along with pig iron of extremely poor quality, at prices thirty percent higher than usual.
On his way back, he passed the teahouse at the street corner and heard several patrons holding forth inside:
"...If you ask me, the Heavenly Craft Workshop's goods are still the best. Bright and shiny, no fuss! I hear that furnace is an immortal treasure. The iron it forges has all its impurities removed!"
"Exactly! Old Qin had good skills, sure, but he's gone now. How old is that little apprentice of his? Hasn't even grown all his hair yet, has he? Can you trust anything he makes?"
"Ah, he is pitiful. But business is business. What matters is genuine goods at a fair price. You can't keep going for long on old neighbors' affection alone..."
Qin Tiexin lowered his head and hurried past. Those words were like fine, densely packed needles piercing his ears.
He carefully sorted the inferior iron he had bought. He forged the usable portions with even greater care, trying to remove more impurities through repeated hammering. But with some things, once the foundation was poor, no amount of effort could easily bring about a fundamental change. Even he found the farming tools he produced barely acceptable.
The rice jar at home finally ran empty. He cooked the last half bowl of coarse rice into a pot of gruel so thin it reflected his face. The pickled radishes had long since been eaten, and only a few crumbs of dried tofu remained. The taste of meat? That was a memory from long ago. His belly often felt hollow and weak. He no longer grew hungry as readily as before; instead, it had become a constant sense of powerlessness that drained his spirit.
Early morning, the fifteenth day of the twelfth lunar month.
Dawn had yet to break, and the cold bit into the bones. As always, Qin Tiexin stood punctually in the open space in the backyard, bare-chested, and began his unshakable routine of the "Old Qin Household Body Tempering Method."
Opening form-Furnace Fire First Ignites. As he breathed in and out, his breaths were not as long and sustained as before.
Hammer Swinging Form. The sensation of force flowing up from his feet seemed a little sluggish.
Wind Listening Form. His skin's perception of the air currents became somewhat indistinct.
Iron Gripping Form. When his fingers closed around the stone weight, for the first time, that familiar weight actually felt a little heavy in his hands.
Quenching Form. His muscles tensed instantly, then relaxed. After several cycles, he actually felt a faint, aching tremor.
Sinew Stretching Form. As he stretched his sinews and bones, a faint stiffness arose, unlike what he usually felt after training.
He gritted his teeth and repeated the movements again and again. Sweat still emerged, yet it felt somehow weak, unlike the steaming hot sweat of before. Instead, it carried a hint of chill.
At last, he reached the final form, the closing form-Residual Warmth Returns to Origin.
He overlapped his hands and pressed them against the Dantian in his lower abdomen. Closing his eyes, he struggled to focus, trying to guide the "heat" throughout his body, now plainly much weaker, to sink slowly and return to the "furnace fire" in his Dantian.
Yet his concentration was somewhat scattered, and the paths along which his Qi and Blood circulated were indistinct. The full, warm sensation of strength held within that he used to feel after forging was slow to come. In its place were a hollow exhaustion and a chill seeping out from the crevices of his bones.
He persisted, but more and more sweat seeped from his forehead, running down his temples, the tip of his nose, and his chin, falling in large drops onto the cold, dry earth.
His body began trembling slightly beyond his control. It was not a shiver from cold, but a deep-seated trembling like utter exhaustion.
His breathing grew heavy as well, his chest heaving violently. Every breath he drew seemed to demand all his strength.
He snapped his eyes open!
He tried to make his gaze as calm and sharp as usual, directing it into empty space, but the instant his eyes focused, he felt a slight wave of dizziness. The edges of his vision seemed to darken for a moment.
He shook his head and steadied himself.
Sweat drenched his body, rapidly turning icy in the cold wind of dawn. It clung to his skin, raising a dense layer of gooseflesh. His muscles ached with a long-unfelt soreness and weakness born of excessive exertion. His sense of strength... seemed to have faded somewhat.
He lowered his head and looked at his palms, still broad, but trembling slightly now. The calluses remained thick, yet his fingers felt a little stiff.
Across the way, the red glow of the Heavenly Craft Workshop's furnace shone stubbornly toward him through the brightening dawn.
His forge was cold, because little of the inferior iron stock remained either.
The rice jar was empty.
The alley was quiet, save for the ceaseless hammering across the way, which sounded almost mocking.
Qin Tiexin slowly raised a hand and wiped the sweat from his face, along with... something else wet. He drew a deep breath of bitter, bone-piercing cold. It stung his lungs, but also dispersed some of the darkness clouding his sight.
He turned, walked back into the shop, picked up his fire starter, and crouched before the cold, silent firebox.
"Hiss-"
A tiny, feeble flame sprang up on the oil-soaked cotton wick, and he carefully placed it beneath the dry firewood.
Slowly, smoke rose. Flames darted out and gradually gathered strength.
He crouched before the forge, silently watching the rekindled fire that belonged to him. The firelight danced, illuminating his face, its sweat not yet dry, slightly pale but still sharply defined, and those silent, dark eyes, in whose depths something still burned.
Outside the shop, daylight brightened fully, and the sounds of the marketplace gradually rose.
A new day descended just as the old pressures did, without the slightest difference.