Elder Shi got stuck on his very first cut.
The old man sat on a low stool, his short saber caught in a gap in the armor. His elbow had already yielded inward, but the edge was still trapped inside. Rather than wrench it free, he first asked Chen Xiuyuan, "Which side did you prop up with that block underneath?"
Chen Xiuyuan went over to look and realized he had placed the support too far forward. Standing, he could follow through with a step, but sitting here, Elder Shi's knees blocked the space he needed to turn.
He moved the wooden block a little farther out and secured the support again.
"I set it up for where I stand just now. I didn't account for you sitting."
"Then change it. When you teach someone, don't assume he has your hands and feet."
Chen Xiuyuan agreed. He first put away the real saber, then used a strip of wood to slowly demonstrate that short section where the blades lay against each other. After watching, the old man did not simply copy the movements. Instead, he pointed the tip of his cane at Chen Xiuyuan's wrist and asked why he could turn here, yet had to yield his elbow at the next point.
Chen Xiuyuan brought out the armor plates he had tested and found the corresponding cuts on them one by one.
When he reached the back of an armor ridge, he had casually said, "Draw back along it," but Elder Shi asked which surface he meant. He stopped and demonstrated for quite a while before he could clearly explain the position of the saber's spine before and after the obstruction. Words he thought he already understood could not, it turned out, let a listener see it from those few words alone.
People passed outside now and then, and Elder Shi told them all to leave any medicine pouches that were not urgent beside the door. Chen Xiuyuan explained and revised as he went, finally breaking that section down slowly enough. He also left out the sharp turns that did not currently suit the old man, practicing only the short advances and retreats he could complete while seated.
Switching back to the old short saber, Elder Shi first laid it against the armor without rushing to press downward.
Before the saber reached the raised ridge, the old man yielded his elbow in the direction Chen Xiuyuan had indicated, and the edge turned with it. He withdrew a little more slowly than Chen Xiuyuan, but it no longer caught in the gap.
A continuous, fine groove remained on the armor.
Elder Shi set the saber down securely and turned the plate over to examine its back himself.
"This part wasn't in what I learned when I was young."
Chen Xiuyuan sat beside him, still wanting to explain that he had only revised the old method bit by bit, but Elder Shi had already handed the armor back.
"Remember whoever taught you the old method. What you changed was your own work. Don't push that onto me either."
He took the armor plate and nodded.
Elder Shi rested for a while, asked exactly how to withdraw the saber at the end, then tried twice more on his own. The first attempt succeeded; on the second, he laid the blade too flat, and it slipped straight off. The old man stopped on his own and turned to the diagram, without asking Chen Xiuyuan to finish that cut for him.
Chen Xiuyuan did not reach out to correct every finger either. Only when the old man asked did he point out the instant the saber touched the armor ridge.
Before noon, Shi Lei came to collect medicine. Seeing the two gathered around the wooden block, he stood in the doorway and laughed. "So the teacher's changed today?"
Elder Shi pushed the saber toward Chen Xiuyuan.
"You come learn. I've been sitting too long. My legs need moving."
Shi Lei had originally only intended to take a look, but once called over, he fetched a wooden saber and learned the footwork Chen Xiuyuan had practiced yesterday. He had plenty of strength, and his strikes were faster than Chen Xiuyuan's. His very first cut sank deep into the test hide.
But Chen Xiuyuan pointed at the cut. "You're still forcing your way through here."
Shi Lei turned the saber's spine over. "Isn't cutting it open enough?"
"If you cleave with the original method, you can cut deeper than me too. What you're learning now is where you don't need to push so hard."
Elder Shi chuckled beside them, and Shi Lei stopped arguing. He lowered his force and obediently started again. Once he held back his strength, the flaws he had previously forced his way past immediately showed. The saber stopped halfway along the curved surface, and his withdrawal dragged half a beat behind Chen Xiuyuan's too.
Shi Lei stared at his hand and finally became willing to ask where he should start correcting it this time.
Following the method he had just used to teach Elder Shi, Chen Xiuyuan first had him see clearly which way the armor surface turned, then explained the small amount of room the saber's spine could yield. One taught and the other learned, their positions completely reversed from a few months ago, yet the wooden saber was still the same one. The butt of its hilt retained the dark marks Chen Xiuyuan had worn into it by gripping too tightly at the start.
"Was this how I explained it when you first learned to bring the saber back?" Shi Lei suddenly asked.
"What you said was, if I stuck my arm out again, I wouldn't need to practice the next move."
Shi Lei thought for a moment, then laughed so hard he lowered the wooden saber.
"That still applies now. Just wait. This afternoon, we'll try it a different way."
When they reached the training ground that afternoon, Shi Lei did not set up the armor frame.
He separated the two wooden sabers and first ran through three lines of attack at his usual speed for feeding moves. Chen Xiuyuan met and blocked them with the Bloodstone Saber Technique. He held steady against the first two; on the third, the sabers met, and he tried to use his newly practiced blade path to shed the pressure and hook back in the same motion.
Shi Lei withdrew to the side, and his saber suddenly broke contact.
Chen Xiuyuan's movement followed into empty space, while the other man's wooden edge had already stopped before his shoulder.
"Armor doesn't run away on its own," Shi Lei said.
Chen Xiuyuan looked down at his feet. He had already shifted his position as he would against the moving armor frame, but he was still slower than someone who actively withdrew his saber while stepping in.
"Again."
The second time, Shi Lei did not withdraw, but pressed down continuously. Chen Xiuyuan first yielded the saber's spine, then his elbow, finally directing the other blade to his side. But Shi Lei's other hand had already reached in and pinned his forearm.
"This isn't armor either."
Pinned and unable to move, Chen Xiuyuan could only retreat first. Once clear, he did not get annoyed. Instead, he laid the wooden saber across his knees and smiled.
"You were deliberately waiting for me to use that section."
"Of course. Someone who really wants to cut you will also think about how to make you use it wrong."
After speaking, Shi Lei slowed down that last exchange and showed him at which step he had freed his empty hand. Chen Xiuyuan tried withdrawing his saber earlier, and the opening before his shoulder narrowed, but he could no longer smoothly connect the next diagonal slash. He had to fall back on the familiar old method to retreat and defend.
The two stopped and traced their crisscrossing footprints, examining each point.
He could already reliably use the isolated movement of keeping blade contact and shedding force. But working it into a sparring bout with constantly changing moves-when to use it, when to switch immediately back to the original method-still required new advances, retreats, and transitions. Hard armor would not withdraw its blade to lure him in, nor would it suddenly reach out another hand. All the problems he had previously solved remained solved, but now more had appeared that he had never encountered before.
Chen Xiuyuan asked Shi Lei whether shortening the step before the returning hook would let him avoid the empty hand in time.
Shi Lei told him to try.
The first time, he shortened it too much, drawing the saber against his chest and making it harder for himself to strike again. The second time, his heel blocked his turn. After several attempts, he found a narrow path that worked, but in the next round, Shi Lei switched to pressing from above, and the transition they had just worked out no longer fit.
Chen Xiuyuan backed away, panting, and sat at the edge of the ground to drink water.
The Panel still recorded both the original version and the completed limit breaking in full. He focused on the saber technique entry. Thinking up a new name for the improved method had not given him a second progress track he could immediately train to completion.
I have to actually work out these transitions.
Shi Lei sat down beside him and asked about a certain elbow turn from earlier, demonstrating it again himself. Chen Xiuyuan used the wooden saber to check it for him. Halfway through their discussion, they both stopped, realizing that shortening this section slightly would make it easier for Shi Lei to withdraw his hand while also easing the burden on Chen Xiuyuan when he was pinned.
They rose and tried again. Only once that route could connect to the next cut did they each note it down.
When the sun was about to set, Elder Shi came to call them to dinner. Seeing them still holding their wooden sabers up, he stood motionless by the path.
Chen Xiuyuan lowered his first. Shi Lei still wanted another try, but the old man tapped the shadow beside his feet with the tip of his cane.
"You teach him not to get greedy, then forget it so quickly yourself."
Shi Lei put away the wooden saber and admitted it with a laugh.
Back inside for dinner, he brought up what he had learned that day again and asked Chen Xiuyuan whether he could keep the diagrams to continue studying after returning from his trip.
"Take them and make copies. I'll mark anything that still isn't reliable beside it, so you don't think it's all finished."
"What if someone else asks?"
Chen Xiuyuan thought of Elder Shi's beast-hide diagram, worn glossy with use, then looked at the old saber on the wall.
"If I can explain it clearly and you can perform it reliably, you can teach it. Anything we haven't tested thoroughly yet, don't let new learners take it out to stake their lives on."
Shi Lei nodded, committing those words to memory even more earnestly than the blade path from earlier.
After hearing them, Elder Shi only told them to eat first. The old man had practiced along with them several times that day, and his leg had grown a little stiff again. When he rose, he braced himself on the corner of the table and paused a while before standing steadily. Chen Xiuyuan moved the small stool from farther inside over so the old man could sit while getting more soup, and went to fetch the pot himself.
He could now repay his teacher and friends with a new blade path, but he still lacked the ability to stop that old leg from hurting. While filling the second bowl, he saw Elder Shi draw the hand rubbing his knee back into his sleeve, so he served a little less soup, sparing the old man from having to rise to pour some out.
Auntie Sang came after dinner.
She carried the newly repaired large basket on her back, with several bundles of dried medicinal herbs lining its bottom, and Shi Yuan followed behind her. Thinking they had come to return the small basket, Chen Xiuyuan rose to take it, but Auntie Sang set the herb bundles on the table and first asked Elder Shi about their quality.
The old man opened a bundle, felt the roots and leaves, and nodded, saying this batch had been dried well.
"We've already set aside enough for Blood Stone," Auntie Sang said. "We want to take the surplus to Red Sand Small Market to trade. The cart from there offered less yesterday than last month, saying that with the trouble at Broken Stream, guarding the road takes more people."
Shi Lei frowned at that. "Du Huai's locked up, and the road's been checked again. He still has an excuse."
"Broken Stream wasn't all he mentioned. You have to pass Stone Slope to get to Red Sand. They have an escort, and if they're willing to deliver the goods, naturally he gets to name the price."
Auntie Sang divided the herbs on the table into two piles. If she handed over the good roots together with the inferior ones as a single lot, what she received would not be enough to trade back for the wound medicine she needed. But if she delivered them herself, cart hire, road guards, losses along the way-not one of those could simply be wished away.
Chen Xiuyuan crouched to inspect the two piles of medicinal roots, without immediately agreeing to escort the whole shipment.
"Is Shi Lei going?"
"I'm traveling with the caravan," Shi Lei said. "The tribe has things to trade too. Several people are going together this time. We're not asking you to take her out alone."
Shi Yuan placed a blank wooden slip beside the table and said they were still short of someone who could stay with the cart without running about when trouble arose. If he only carried baskets, he would be paid for carrying baskets; if he could hold his assigned position, he would receive a separate share for escorting the shipment.
Chen Xiuyuan looked toward the short saber on the wall, then at Elder Shi.
"I want to try."
The old man did not agree on his behalf, but looked at Shi Lei. Shi Lei first told him to come to the cart yard inside the gate tomorrow morning with a wooden saber. They would discuss taking the job only after testing him at guarding a cart.
"Their medicine baskets will be right behind you. You need to be confident you can hold your ground. You can't take one newly mastered cut as a reason to accept any job."
"Understood."
Auntie Sang wrapped the herbs up again, but when she left, she left that blank wooden slip with Chen Xiuyuan.
"Once you've tried it, keep a clear account of what you should earn. If you go out to guard everyone's medicine, we can't count it as just carrying baskets again."