Chapter Ninety: I Am a Sword Cultivator

Mr. Lu had not gone to He Changan’s house to freeload a meal for several days, and A Jiu found herself missing him rather badly. From time to time she would glance toward the gate, feeling an odd emptiness in her heart.

The old scholar was easy to get along with. His speech was gentle, his eyes warm, and one felt refreshed merely standing near him. Above all, every time he came through the door, he always carried bags and bundles of wine, meat, pastries, and other treats. The more A Jiu looked at him, the more pleasing he seemed.

Sir Zheng never came by either.

With nothing better to do, A Jiu could only wander the Yellow Mud Lane with the little spirit fox. Human and fox, idle and aimless, they looked for all the world like two no-good layabouts.

Every time she passed the bookshop, she would hesitate for a long while, tempted to buy a few lighthearted books to chase away the boredom, yet in the end she could never bear to spend even that little bit of spare silver.

So each time, she comforted herself by thinking that He Changan did not even like reading, and yet was he not living quite well enough?

The only thing she never failed to do, day after day, was her morning and evening "cultivation." She had already worn one Breath-Feeding Manual to shreds, yet she still had not produced even the faintest trace of spiritual energy.

But she did not care. So long as she believed she was cultivating, then she was cultivating.

Each time she finished "circulating" the greater and lesser heavenly circuits, she would take down the bamboo sword, hold it in her hand, and stare off into space for a moment.

Then she would always mutter irritably, "Best not bring disgrace upon Bamboo Sword Mountain's name. What he took away was Spring Dawn..."

...

For a full month, He Changan practiced his fists and nursed his injuries at Dragon Gate Falls. Once his wounds had recovered, he went right back to boxing.

Life went by neither fast nor slow, but it was rich enough.

From the very beginning, he had been in a sorry state, and now he was still in a sorry state. The only difference was that after each brutal strike from the waterfall's dragon of water, the time he spent unconscious had become much shorter.

At first it had been a day and a night; now it was about eight hours.

In any case, He Changan felt he had improved greatly, though he never said so aloud. He merely gritted his teeth and endured, doing his best not to provoke the sword cultivator Fei.

Fei was the most swaggering man he had ever met, and also the most gifted at hurling abuse.

The same insult, in his hands, could be turned through seventeen or eighteen dialects, mined from different angles and different contexts until each version carried its own distinct flavor.

The damage was high, the humiliation even higher. That was Fei’s standard of verbal warfare.

On this point, He Changan was fully convinced.

He had come from a poor family. His mother had died young, and his father was a hard man of few words. Deprived of proper upbringing, He Changan had once been the most viciously foul-mouthed youth in Weiyang County, without a close second.

After witnessing the verbal battles between A Jiu and Fish Young-Lady, he had already suspected he might not be their match.

But this Fei, who claimed to be a sword cultivator, had completely shattered He Changan’s understanding of the art of cursing. He felt that no matter what, he might never reach such a level in this lifetime.

What astonished He Changan, however, was that Fei had once told him in person that there was another person in this world he could absolutely not outcurse.

What made Fei even more miserable was that he could not beat that person in a fight either.

He Changan was deeply curious about this "master" who could leave Fei at a loss. He asked several times, but Fei only evaded the question and refused to say. In the end he grew angry and kicked He Changan flat on his face.

Overall, He Changan was still sincerely grateful to Fei.

There was no doubt that, in martial training—or, in Fei’s words, on the path of the sword cultivator—Fei was indeed an excellent teacher who could spot the crucial problem at a glance.

He Changan’s biggest issue was that his foundation was too shallow and too little tempered; he had not yet reached the peak and limit expected of a ninth-rank martial artist.

As for what that limit was, Fei tossed off a lazy remark: "Obviously the second-best in the world. What, you think you can surpass me, Fei?"

The image of a lofty expert that had only just been established immediately collapsed.

Every time he woke after fainting from his boxing beneath the waterfall, the first thing he did was swallow all sorts of pills, along with strange and bizarre things Fei somehow procured from nowhere.

For example, a golden snake gall, luminous fruit, and many venomous insects He Changan had never even heard of: iron-thread spiders, seven-star scorpions, ghost-faced ice silkworms...

He swallowed them raw, chewing so hard that half his cheek would swell up. One breath from him, and it probably could have stunk a bull to death.

For the sake of cultivation, He Changan did not even frown. He chewed with broad bites, letting red, yellow, and green juices run from the corners of his mouth, then scraped them up with his finger and licked that finger clean with great care.

Only at times like these would the sword cultivator Fei lavish him with praise, giving a silent thumbs-up and saying, "Not bad. That kind of nerve is a pity, though—it would be better if you were my Fei’s own flesh and blood!"

Or else: "What a pity. You still can’t curse worth a damn."

...

Day after day passed. Li Yishan, Shen Yan, and the others had long since headed north with the company, and He Changan was happy enough to enjoy the peace and quiet, spending his days either boxing or unconscious.

More than a month later, He Changan finally managed to complete an entire set of ancient fist forms under the tremendous impact of the waterfall’s water dragon. That made him secretly delighted.

Unexpectedly, when he hauled himself ashore, dripping wet all over, what greeted him was a kick to the face.

Fei looked down at the forlorn He Changan and said expressionlessly, "If you can’t last even the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, don’t think about climbing back up."

"Unless you’re just pretending to be dead and passing out."

He added that one line, raised his gourd, took a long swig of wine, clasped his hands behind his back in a languid pose, tipped his face toward the sky, and sighed. "Old fool, you’re ruining me. Rotten wood cannot be carved..."

He Changan turned silently and, forcing up a breath of true qi, walked into the waterfall...

...

He Changan awakened in a daze three days later.

This time, his meridians, internal organs, and dantian spiritual sea had not been torn apart, and none of his bones had broken. Yet what he had experienced in the lake of his mind was even more terrifying, more agonizing, and more unbearable than before.

He had thinned out by a great deal. His once clean and handsome face now showed high cheekbones and sunken eyes.

And yet what astonished He Changan was that his spirit, vital energy, and bearing were far more abundant than before. A force seemed to welled up from within, giving him the delusion that one punch of his could blow apart a mountain.

Within those deep-set eyes, his pupils were bright and black, clear and transparent, just like A Jiu’s eyes?

He had no mirror at hand, so He Changan could not be sure.

His hearing, sight, smell, touch, and all the rest had undergone a tremendous transformation. Even the slightest stir of wind and grass a hundred zhang away could be seen, heard, and sensed by him with perfect accuracy.

Faintly, He Changan felt that beneath the crown of his head there now existed a cool current of qi, as if a spring of clear water had appeared there out of nowhere.

After adjusting to it for a short while, he rolled over and got to his feet.

Fei was already approaching with a pottery jar of "tonic."

"Some progress. About half as fast as I was when I cultivated back in the day," Fei said, dropping to a seat. He gently pushed the pottery jar forward until it rested in front of He Changan, then smiled. "If not for a land immortal like me catching bugs for you, you’d still be trash even if you trained for three hundred years."

He Changan hugged the jar, was silent for a moment, then said very seriously, "Fei, thank you."

Fei froze, then slowly split into a broad grin.

He could tell that the young man before him had spoken that "thank you" from the heart, without the least impurity mixed in, and that felt very comfortable indeed.

But the moment He Changan’s second sentence came out, Fei’s expression fell.

"Fei, I know you’re not exactly wealthy either, and you probably don’t have much silver on hand. But for the sake of my cultivation, you still have to go to the apothecary to buy all these poisonous insects. That must be terribly hard on you."

As he spoke, He Changan took out several silver ingots from his storage pouch and held them out sincerely. "Take this silver first. If it’s not enough later, I’ll think of something..."

Before he could finish, Fei kicked him flying. With a splash, He Changan crashed into the water and swallowed several mouthfuls of river water.

"You little bastard, I’m a sword cultivator!"

Fei’s face turned livid as he jumped and cursed, "Damn it, He Changan, if I don’t grind you into a cripple this time, I won’t be surnamed Lu!"