The Child of Blacksmith Village

When the darkness receded, the first sound Nan Feng heard was crying.

His own.

Shrill and full-throated, it made his still-developing eardrums buzz. His newly gathered consciousness shattered again.

A pair of rough, large hands lifted him, supporting his back. The palms were covered in calluses and small burn scars. The hands were trembling.

"Boy, don't cry, don't cry..."

A man's voice. Rough, low, with the tang of rust.

He tried to speak. His mouth opened, but all that came out was crying. His tongue was as clumsy as someone else's. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids were heavy. His whole body was curled up, wrapped in coarse cloth, and it was cold all around.

The smell of iron filings and charcoal fire filled his nose. Strong and familiar. The old things he had collected from old smithies in his previous life had all smelled like this.

The man carried him a short distance and set him down on something. Smooth and cool, like a tabletop.

A bowl came to his lips. Its rim was warm, and the aroma of rice broth drifted into his nose. He opened his mouth, and the broth flowed down his throat, hot enough to make his stomach spasm.

"Drink slowly, slowly... Old Chen, this child of yours has a tough life. He was covered in blood when you picked him up, and somehow he didn't die."

An old woman's voice, hoarse and surprised.

"Mm."

Old Chen gave only that one sound in reply. It was squeezed from deep in his throat, muffled and awkward, as if he didn't know how to express himself.

He walked off to the side. Iron tongs struck the anvil with a crisp clang. Then came the sound of bellows fanning the charcoal fire.

Nan Feng stopped crying.

He lay on the table, his eyes still closed. His body was light, so light it frightened him. His fingers were too small, like tender lotus shoots, and he couldn't put any strength into them. He raised an arm, only for it to fall limply back halfway up.

This body wouldn't obey him at all. He shouted Get up in his mind, but by the time the command reached his limbs, everything had slowed to a crawl. It was like walking through mud in a padded coat too big and heavy for him, sinking with every step.

In his previous life, he had dealt in antiques, relying on steady hands, a sharp eye, and tireless legs to visit three villages in a day. Now he couldn't even roll over.

But his mind was clear.

His memories returned. The rented room, the desk lamp, the bronze tower, the cyan light in its crack, the robber, the searing pain in the back of his head. Then endless darkness, and the tower's final words.

After three thousand years, you've finally returned.

Nan Feng took a deep breath. His lungs were too small; the air he drew in was less than a puff of smoke in his previous life. But the smell of charcoal fire and iron filings told him one thing for certain.

He was still alive. Alive in a different way.

He was still called Nan Feng. Exactly the same name, given to him by Old Chen. For a long time, the coincidence made him feel that something was arranging things behind the scenes.

Old Chen was a blacksmith in Blacksmith Village. The village fell under the jurisdiction of Fasinuo Province in the Heaven Dou Empire. Its twenty-odd households made their living by smithing and farming a few mu of poor land. Most houses had mud-brick walls and thatched roofs; the occasional blue-brick house belonged to a family that had produced a Soul Master among its ancestors.

At the eastern end of the village stood an old scholar tree with a crooked trunk. Several large bluestones lay beneath it, where the men squatted after supper, smoking their pipes and shooting the breeze. Now and then, they mentioned Spirit Hall, Soul Masters, and Soul Beasts.

Nan Feng first heard those words while being fed rice paste in Old Chen's arms.

It was evening. Old Chen was sitting with him at the entrance to the smithy, while a peddler passing through squatted beneath the tree to rest and chatted with Old Chen.

The peddler said that a man named Tang Hao had returned to neighboring Holy Soul Village with a child who hadn't yet awakened his Martial Soul. But one look at Tang Hao's build and bearing was enough to tell he was no ordinary man.

Old Chen grunted and asked no further questions.

Nan Feng pricked up his ears. Rice paste ran down the corner of his mouth, but he didn't even bother wiping it away.

Holy Soul Village. Tang Hao. The two names collided in his mind.

In his previous life, he had flipped through plenty of webnovels to pass the time at the antique shop. He had read Douluo Continent twice. There was a Holy Soul Village in the book, and a protagonist in the village named Tang San, whose father was Tang Hao. Tang Hao, Haotian-a homophone pun.

Nan Feng swallowed the rice paste in his mouth and clutched Old Chen's collar with his little hand.

He needed to confirm something.

At three, Nan Feng could finally walk steadily.

Life in Blacksmith Village was slow, so slow that even the village dogs couldn't be bothered to bark. Every day, he followed Old Chen around, passing him tools, working the bellows, and sweeping up iron filings at the smithy.

Old Chen didn't talk much. But Nan Feng could feel him watching. If he handed over the wrong tool or got the rhythm of the bellows wrong, Old Chen would tap him on the head with the iron tongs. It didn't hurt, but the message was clear. Nan Feng said nothing and got it right the next time.

The work at the smithy wore a person down, and it tempered their character too. He learned to control the heaviest hammer with the least strength, judge the temperature by the color of the forge fire, and deliver the crucial blow when the iron was at its most brittle. Old Chen took three days to make a cleaver: forging, quenching, sharpening, never rushing a single step. Nan Feng squatted beside him and watched, committing the details to memory.

But what he really cared about was something else.

Every evening, he walked to the dirt road at the village entrance and looked east. Holy Soul Village lay beyond a hollow in the eastern hills. From high ground, he could make out the silhouettes of its rooftops, a dull gray patch wrapped in cooking smoke.

He looked many times, hoping to see a figure emerge from that direction: a black-haired little boy, or a tall man.

He never went over.

A mountain ridge separated the two villages, and the footpath took two hours. His body was too small to make the journey. Besides, he couldn't let anyone discover he was paying attention to Holy Soul Village. He had a feeling that in this world, any unusual behavior could draw unnecessary attention.

Not until the summer he turned four.

That day, he went to fetch water from the mountain stream behind the village. Carrying a wooden bucket, he walked a short way downstream along the bank. In the shallows, he could see pebbles and little fish swimming back and forth.

He squatted and dipped the bucket into the water. There was movement at a bend in the stream.

Someone was skipping stones. A stone bounced across the water once, twice, three times. The rhythm was even, the force precise.

Nan Feng stood up with the bucket and looked that way.

A black-haired boy about his age squatted by the stream, wearing blue cloth clothes that had been washed pale. The boy picked up a flat stone, turned sideways, and flicked his wrist. The stone skimmed over the water, bouncing once, twice, three times... It bounced more than twenty times before sinking at the bend.

Nan Feng's grip tightened on the bucket handle.

He had seen that technique before, in a book in his previous life. A hidden weapon technique, precise down to the angle and spin of every stone. A four-year-old skipping a stone more than twenty times in a row couldn't be explained by talent alone.

"Are you from Blacksmith Village?"

The boy looked up.

Nan Feng nodded. He opened his mouth, his voice still babyish.

"Nan Feng. Are you from Holy Soul Village?"

"Tang San."

The two children looked at each other across a dozen or so paces of stream. Nan Feng's heart thundered like a drum in his little chest.

Tang San. The name came out lightly, but it struck his ears harder than a blacksmith's hammer.

The four-year-old boy before him would one day become the Sea God and the Asura God, and face Bibi Dong and Qian Renxue at Jialing Pass.

He would become the most dazzling genius on the Douluo Continent. Right now, Tang San was just a child in old clothes, squatting by a stream and skipping stones.

"You're pretty good at skipping stones," Nan Feng said.

"I practiced."

Tang San stood and patted the dirt off his hands, his gaze falling on the bucket in Nan Feng's hand.

"Do you come to fetch water every day?"

"Mm. We use a lot at home."

Tang San nodded and turned toward Holy Soul Village. After a few steps, he glanced back at Nan Feng, said nothing, and ran off into the distance.

Nan Feng stood in the stream. The bucket tilted, spilling water onto the legs of his trousers.

He didn't sleep well that night.

He lay on the earthen kang, listening to Old Chen's snores drift in from the next room, rhythmic as a working bellows. Outside the window, moonlight fell on an iron plowshare in the corner, glinting coldly.

He held out his right hand, palm up, and stared at its lines. The hand was small, its lines not yet fully formed. But deep in his palm, a warmth pulsed, unlike a heartbeat, much slower and heavier.

The tower was still there.

Ever since the day he became conscious, he had been able to feel its presence, deep within his body, drifting up and down in some corner of his soul.

When he closed his eyes, he could see the tower's faint image. Nine stories, bronze, its surface mottled with age, a thread of cyan light seeping from the crack at its base.

A ring of invisible, intangible power surrounded the tower. It was light and gentle, like a layer of gauze soaked in warm water, enveloping him at every moment.

He later learned what it was. Gravity Field. The tower's innate passive ability had been there ever since blood splashed onto it, constantly remolding his body. His meridians were wider and tougher than those of others his age, his bones denser, and his Soul Power purer.

The power was so faint that even he couldn't feel it. But it worked every moment, like a silent craftsman polishing his body.

There were other things inside the tower.

Nan Feng closed his eyes and sank his consciousness into it. In a dark void, the nine-story bronze tower hung suspended. The cyan light in the crack at its base flickered, as if someone inside were breathing.

He brought his consciousness close to the crack. An extremely faint sound came from within the tower. It was like distant footsteps, or a low whisper.

He wasn't afraid. He had a feeling that whatever was inside the tower wouldn't hurt him. It was like walking into his own old family home, knowing someone was inside, and knowing that person was family.

He stayed in the darkness for a while, then opened his eyes.

The same patch of moonlight still lay on the earthen kang. Old Chen's snores continued. Now and then, the dying charcoal in the smithy crackled.

Nan Feng rolled over to face the wall and pressed his palm to his chest. The warmth in his palm passed through to his ribs. One pulse, then another. Deep and steady.

He was four this year. Two years remained until his Martial Soul Awakening.

In two years, he would push open the tower's first level. Only later did he learn that the door to the first level couldn't be pushed open until level twenty. He didn't even have Soul Power yet, but the Gravity Field was already working, and his foundation was better than anyone else his age.

Two more years. Once his Martial Soul awakened, he could formally set foot on this path.

Before closing his eyes, the image of Tang San squatting by the stream and skipping stones flashed through his mind.

More than twenty skips. That child had already practiced hidden weapon techniques for several years. Tang Hao had already begun teaching him: the Mysterious Heaven Skill, Controlling Crane Capturing Dragon, Hundred Solutions of Hidden Weapon. Those skills he had read about in the book were being passed down bit by bit in that ramshackle smithy in Holy Soul Village.

Nan Feng felt neither jealousy nor anxiety. He moved his right hand from his chest and rested it on the pillow. The warmth in his palm seeped through the coarse cloth, spreading into a small warm patch.

He had his own path. A path different from Tang San's.

The night in Blacksmith Village was quiet.

A gust of wind blew from the distant mountain hollow. The leaves of the old scholar tree rustled for a while, and then everything fell silent.