When Shi Lei lifted the heavy saber, the first thing Chen Xiuyuan saw was the old patch of wear, rubbed black along its spine.
The saber had not been given a sharp edge, and its hilt was longer than the short saber's. It sat comfortably enough in Shi Lei's hand, but the moment it passed into Chen Xiuyuan's palm, its front end sank.
"Don't swing yet."
Shi Lei held his hand down and told him to put his other hand on it too. The two stood inside the old hunting shelter. Outside, the patrol members who had accompanied them were checking the warning markers along the nearby mountain paths.
They had not come out to pursue anyone. The hunting shelter was once again available for people entering the mountains to rest in, and several old implements that were seldom taken away were stored inside. Taking advantage of the patrol party's company, Shi Lei had brought him here to fetch the saber. The rear wall that had once come loose had already been repaired, but broken timber still lay beside the door, and the drop board in the stone trough had been moved.
Standing before the old threshold, Chen Xiuyuan reached out and felt the narrow gap he had once squeezed through with his body pressed tight against it.
Shi Lei glanced toward the rear wall. "You and Elder Shi got out through there?"
"It was even narrower then. I moved the stones away before crawling out."
Chen Xiuyuan set the heavy saber down securely and took a small, curved piece of metal from the cloth bag he carried. The fragment had remained wrapped in cloth. Its pointed corners had been worn dull, but the folded edge of the original adjustment buckle was still visible.
Shi Lei held out his hand to gauge it without touching the sharp edge.
"You could cut rope with this?"
"I cut my own bag strap. If it had been that vine on the door, my hand probably would've been rubbed raw before I cut through it."
As he spoke, he remembered how he had been unable to steady his hand when the Fang Wolf's nose pushed into the gap between the stones. Now the piece of metal felt almost weightless in his palm. A slight shift of his fingers was enough to support it steadily.
Chen Xiuyuan did not use it to cut anything else. He wrapped it up again and tucked it back into his bag.
Shi Lei explained the saber loan to the shelter keeper. The two waited until the patrol had finished checking the nearby roads, then returned to the village together. On the way, Chen Xiuyuan carried the heavy saber on his back, wrapped in thick cloth. Shi Lei only adjusted the knots for him; he did not carry it for him along the way.
By the time they reached the training ground, red marks had been pressed into Chen Xiuyuan's shoulders. He unloaded the heavy saber and rested for a while before taking the opening stance of the Bloodstone Saber Technique.
His first diagonal slash went past the point where it should have stopped.
The second hooking return was worse. The tip dragged outward, pulling his elbow down with it. He had no choice but to release his rear foot and let the saber drop to the ground with its momentum.
Shi Lei stood well clear and only approached once he had steadied himself.
"Still trying to turn it any way you like with one hand, like your short saber?"
Chen Xiuyuan looked at his grip. The heavy saber's center of gravity lay farther forward. He could bring the short saber back with a small adjustment of his wrist, but this saber first dragged his hand downward. If he forced his wrist to twist, he would only hurt himself.
He summoned the panel.
[Bloodstone Saber Technique: Perfection, 6%.]
The words had not changed. He still understood clearly why he had lost control just now and which path he should have taken to recover; it was simply that a different saber required different force and distance.
Chen Xiuyuan shifted his front hand a little closer to the guard and steadied the end of the hilt with his rear hand, starting with only a short half-motion. Instead of letting the saber fall outward first and chasing after its dragging weight to salvage the movement, he positioned his waist and both hands from the opening stance so they could bring it to a stop together.
The saber's spine passed along the marked empty space. Though it still wobbled at the end, he no longer needed to brace its tip against the ground.
"Now that looks like you borrowed a saber to practice," Shi Lei said. "That last swing looked like you'd borrowed it to throw it on the ground."
Chen Xiuyuan smiled and took the opening stance again.
That afternoon, he only worked through the six blade paths slowly. Several times, he tried linking them at his familiar rhythm, only for his shoulders and back to tighten. When Shi Lei told him to stop, he stopped. After resting, he switched back to the short saber and tried once, and his formerly smooth finishing movement returned at once.
The heavy saber rested beside the rack. The short saber turned once in his hand and stopped exactly where it should.
Chen Xiuyuan laid the two sabers side by side, reassured. What he needed to learn was how to make this particular saber obey him. The complete set of moves he had already mastered was still there; he did not need to wipe away all his past effort with a single stroke.
When Elder Shi came that evening, he first had him move his wrists to confirm that he had not injured the tendons, then examined the grip marks on the heavy saber.
"You're pushing too much with your rear hand."
Using his wooden staff in place of a saber, the old man guided with his front hand while his rear hand merely supported it. As the staff's tip sank, his waist drew back with it. After one demonstration, Elder Shi planted the staff on the ground again, sat on a low stool, and let Chen Xiuyuan try it himself.
Chen Xiuyuan adjusted accordingly, and the wobble at the end of the blade path did indeed lessen. But as he turned back, he again tried to use the short saber's old distance. The blunt edge scraped the old hide rack beside him and shaved off a layer of wood.
Elder Shi looked at him. "Repair the rack yourself tomorrow morning. You borrowed the saber. How you use it and what you damage are all yours to keep track of."
After repairing the hide rack, Chen Xiuyuan first cleared a larger area for saber practice.
The heavy saber needed different distances when linking moves. He drew two marks on the ground, one for the short saber and one for the heavy saber. After practicing, he erased them and moved somewhere else to judge the distances anew, so his feet would not learn only fixed positions.
For the first two days, his progress at Perfection advanced slowly. A stopping movement he could perform with the short saber still lacked a turn of the waist when he used the heavy saber. If he forced his waist far enough around, the edge would veer half an inch as his hands loosened and tightened unevenly.
Chen Xiuyuan divided each swing into several sections rather than chasing the satisfaction of making one complete sweep. Only once the start was steady did he add the middle section; only when he could draw back at any point in the middle did he connect it to the end. Once he could execute all of them, he linked them from the beginning again, checking whether the position left by one stroke gave him enough room for the next.
On the fourth day, when Shi Lei came to the training ground, Chen Xiuyuan could already perform a complete set with the heavy saber and remain where he was after the finishing movement, without taking an extra step.
Shi Lei told him to rest a moment, then suddenly tossed him a section of hollow bamboo.
Chen Xiuyuan instinctively raised the saber, then immediately realized the distance was too short. He drew the saber to his side at once and caught the bamboo tube with his left hand.
"Why didn't you cut it?" Shi Lei asked.
"It won't bite me. And you'd be there too if the blade went through."
Shi Lei took the bamboo tube back and tapped a wooden post at the edge of the ground with it. "You judged that distance correctly. What about a little closer?"
He had Chen Xiuyuan back up beside the post and slowly work through the finishing movement in the narrow space with the blunt saber. Following his earlier knot practice, Chen Xiuyuan let the edge pass only through the gap it was meant to follow. The spacing of his hands shifted slightly with the saber's movement, and the hilt turned back from outside his elbow without touching the post.
His progress at Perfection reached forty-two.
Several more days passed before the latter half of the Bloodstone Saber Technique truly became smooth. What took the most time was not bringing the saber down, but linking the diagonal slash into a hooking return and then a thrust. The short saber passed through easily, but the heavy saber carried any unchecked force into the next step. If the thrust went even slightly off course, the entire turn afterward had to change.
Chen Xiuyuan practiced until he could judge, before thrusting, whether he had time. He would rather draw up short than force the blade farther out. Elder Shi set bundles of grass at different distances for him, occasionally moving away the farthest bundle to make him switch to a nearer target.
On the sixty-ninth day, the panel stood at Perfection, ninety-six.
He had not neglected his morning cultivation these past few days either. His accumulation toward the second Heavenly Meridians had reached ninety-two, and his application of force through the Savage Elephant Art was steadier than when he had first reached Minor Accomplishment. Yet his shoulders and back still ached after prolonged use of the heavy saber. He had to keep track of how much strength remained in his hands himself.
Elder Shi proposed one final test: he was to follow the original method's requirements and perform the whole set from the opening stance to sheathing the saber, while Shi Lei changed the gaps between the wooden posts and the positions of the hide bundles. The blade could fall only where test cuts were permitted, his finishing movements could not strike the racks, and he could not muddle through by stopping midway and starting again.
Chen Xiuyuan first sat down and ate. Only after his arms had recovered did he carry the saber into the training ground.
Shi Lei moved the nearest hide bundle away, leaving an empty space.
He could no longer send the first stroke forward as before. Chen Xiuyuan turned his toes slightly, letting the saber pass diagonally through the empty space. He used the finishing movement to bring his center of gravity back and catch the second blade path. The distant hide bundle swung toward him immediately afterward. His front hand guided the saber while his rear hand steadied the hilt. He cut only into the layer of scrap hide set aside beforehand, then drew the blade back along its momentum.
Shi Lei lowered the crossbar again.
Chen Xiuyuan did not raise his elbow and force the saber around it. He turned sideways and drew the blade back beneath the crossbar, its edge passing less than half a palm's width from the wood. Hearing Shi Lei shift his feet, he had already placed his rear foot where he could turn. He shifted past the next swinging hide bundle and cut back to sever its suspension cord.
The hide bundle fell to the ground, while his saber remained in front of him.
On the final straight thrust, Shi Lei suddenly moved the target backward. Chen Xiuyuan stopped at the position he could originally reach, his front foot following only a short step. Once he confirmed that the target was no longer within effective range, he drew the saber back and turned to guard his other side as the original method required.
"Why didn't you pursue it?" Elder Shi asked.
"If I chased any farther, my rear foot would have to leave the ground. I wouldn't be able to pull back."
The old man raised a hand and told him to finish the remaining closing movements.
When the saber returned to his side, the words before Chen Xiuyuan's eyes finally changed.
[Bloodstone Saber Technique: Perfection, 100%.]
That line immediately changed again.
[Bloodstone Saber Technique: Great Perfection.]
Chen Xiuyuan stood holding the hilt for a moment before slowly lowering the blunt edge. From his stumbling steps at Initiation, he had practiced all the way to linking the complete saber technique amid changing conditions. Now, as he recalled each move, he could clearly distinguish what the original method required from what differed because of the weapon.
Elder Shi told him to switch back to the short saber.
The moment he set the heavy saber down, his arms felt so light that it was a little unfamiliar. He first tried a half-motion to reacquaint himself with his old saber's center of gravity, then performed the Bloodstone Saber Technique before the same row of wooden racks. The shorter edge passed through the narrow gaps and stopped steadily as he drew it back, even avoiding the wooden staff Shi Lei suddenly extended toward him.
"You've put everything I can teach you about this set into practice," Elder Shi said.
Standing behind the rack, Shi Lei felt the severed cord. Only after a long while did he say, "From now on, when I feed you moves, I'll have to treat you as someone who's truly learned it."
Chen Xiuyuan sheathed the saber and bowed earnestly to them both. Elder Shi waved a hand and told him to clean the borrowed heavy saber first, rather than leave dust in the crevices of its hilt.
He did as instructed, put the saber away, then went to the meat shed to find Shi Yuan and ask whether there were any old pieces of hard armor he could use to test his blade.
Shi Yuan picked a small piece out of the scraps and explained that it was a fragment of thick armor brought back by the hunting party. The center was hardest, and only the edges were easier to break. He warned him not to curl the borrowed saber's edge.
Chen Xiuyuan brought the armor fragment back and secured it to an old chopping block. Still using the short saber that had handled so smoothly just now, he aimed at the edge of the armor and brought it down.
The blade rang out with a clang and slid aside.
A new gash marked the chopping block, but the hard armor bore only a faint white streak.