Duan Ling has already turned a full circle on the daybed in his sleep; by the time brilliant sunlight is streaming directly into the room he finally runs out of room to hide and wakes from the heat.
“Lang Junxia!” Duan Ling calls out.
Beyond the window lattice, Lang Junxia stirs, but Li Jianhong shakes a finger at him, and while he does so takes Duan Ling’s birth certificate. Without even looking at it, he folds it properly and hands it back to Lang Junxia, indicating that he should put it away.
Inside the room, Duan Ling recalls that in the morning Lang Junxia told him he had to go out to run some errands. Thereupon he gets down from the daybed on his own, gets dressed, wraps an outer gown around himself properly, washes his face, and pushing the door open he comes out of the room, yawning as he walks through the courtyard.
“As you instructed,” Lang Junxia explains. “I sent him to the Illustrious Hall. He’s had quite a bit of schooling. His young highness is very bright and can already compose essays.”
Li Jianhong makes no reply, hurrying through the corridor chasing Duan Ling’s footsteps. He halts behind a door to watch Duan Ling’s figure as he goes looking for something to eat in the kitchen, coming out soon afterwards carrying the food box Lang Junxia prepared for him.
“Has he studied the martial arts?” Li Jianhong asks.
“He’s always pestered me about learning to fight, but I dared not teach him for fear of it interfering with his studies.”
For a long time, Li Jianghong doesn’t speak a word, his eyes somehow overcome with a touch of red. He watches Duan Ling the whole time, his gaze never leaving him.
Lang Junxia asks, “Your Highness?”
Li Jianhong takes a single step, but he feels a slight urge to shrink back; there behind the door he’s momentarily lacking the courage to move forward. He has never been afraid before, not even when there’s a whole army in front of him, but now he’s unexpectedly immobilised before his own son.
“Does he hate me?” Li Jianhong asks.
“He never has,” Lang Junxia replies. “He has been waiting for you all along. I told him that Your Highness will return when the peach blossoms bloom.”
Li Jianhong is quivering down to his very breath. With a door between them, he raises one hand, but for a long time he dares not push it open and go through the door.
Duan Ling’s attention is all on eating his lunch. A bird comes over to him; he picks up a few grains of rice with his fingers to feed it. Watching all this behind the door, Li Jianhong begins to smile.
“He’s already read some of the four books and five classics in advance, but he took in the information without digesting it with much analysis, so a teacher will be needed to lecture him on them once he goes to Biyong College. His calligraphy is pretty good — he practised from copying from the Lady Wei2 copybooks. He’s read Sun Tzu’s Art of War, The Wuzi, and The Methods of the Sima for fun; he’s also partial to the classic poems in the Book of Songs.3 He picks up a lot of different subjects. On his days off he’s also read medical texts and herbalogy books.
“Princess Duanping will like my son.” Li Jianhong says quietly, “Astrology, divination, study every school of thought, skim through a wide range of subjects.”
Once Duan Ling finishes eating, he puts away the food box himself, stretches, and sits down in the courtyard with his head in the clouds. Sunlight falls onto his face, illuminating his adolescent features as neat and refreshing as a thriving spring plant overflowing with life.
Yet even as he lets his mind wander Duan Ling’s head is still busy with myriad thoughts; one moment his mind is on reading and writing, another he’s thinking about his garden — that little world of his own.
"He likes spicy food.” Lang Junxia adds, “Rather like the way you do. He also likes to grow flowers and such, skills he picked up from the Duans in Runan. His interests are truly too broad. I dared not teach all of it, and picked some of my knowledge to share with him. Most of the time I urged him to focus on his studies.”
“Does my son have a girl he likes here in Shangjing?” Li Jianhong asks.
Lang Junxia shakes his head.
It’s rare of Lang Junxia to be out all day so that no one’s here to tell him what to do. Duan Ling decides to take care of his garden first.
In the courtyard, the peach tree has blossomed.
“Wow!” Duan Ling exclaims, sounding elated. The peach tree has bloomed wonderfully this year, with many more branches than the year before; some petals have even fallen onto the ground. Duan Ling rushes inside to find a wooden box, collecting the fallen petals inside it before watering his medicinal plants.
As he sets down the watering can, Duan Ling suddenly feels the presence of someone behind him.
“Didn’t you go out?” Duan Ling turns around to find a stranger. He’s immediately taken aback, but not afraid. He thinks to himself, is this our new gardener? Did Lang Junxia really hire a gardener? He doesn’t look like one, though.
He’s taller than Lang Junxia, and stronger too; the contours of his face are sharp and hard, and his skin is just a little darker in tone than people in Shangjing. He has deep set eyes like twinklings stars, a soft mouth, tall nose, jet black pupils that shines brightly like lacquer. Though he appears unkempt he’s more handsome than any man Duan Ling has ever seen in Shangjing, with a sturdy figure exuding an aura that makes one feels safe.
The man takes off his conical bamboo hat. His eyes are like deep pools of ink brimming with a lustrous vitality, but there’s a slight red tinge to them as he gazes fixedly at Duan Ling.
But Duan Ling just thinks that this man feels strangely familiar, like someone he’s met in a dream.
“Did you grow all of these?” Li Jianhong asks.
Duan Ling nods, and Li Jianhong slowly walks over to him. Duan Ling is sitting low on a little stool, looking at the plants in the flowerbed and looking back at Li Jianhong. Li Jianhong kneels down next to Duan Ling so their eyes would be more level. He turns his attention to the flowerbed, but it’s only a short while before he turns his gaze back to Duan Ling’s face.
“What kind of flowers are these?” Li Jianhong asks.
“This is peony, this is chicken blood vine, hulan grass, basil …”
Duan Ling introduces his little corner of the world to Li Jianhong, but Li Jianhong’s eyes never move away from Duan Ling’s face. Soon he starts smiling at Duan Ling. Duan Ling has no idea why that is, but he smiles back.
“Why are you crying?” Duan Ling asks.
Li Jianhong shakes his head, unable to say anything at all. Duan Ling wipes his tears with a sleeve and leaves room for him to sit. Li Jianghong sits down cross-legged behind Duan Ling.
Duan Ling continues turning the soil with a spade. “Do you have any earthworms? It’s spring now so I’d like to get some earthworms and keep them here.”
“I’ll go catch you some tomorrow,” Li Jianhong replies.
“I have to go study now.”
Duan Ling returns to the study, but Li Jianhong follows him. At first Duan Ling thought he was their new gardener, but now he doesn’t think he looks quite like one.
“Are you Lang Junxia’s friend? He’s not back yet. He went out to get some stuff done today.”
Li Jianhong nods, so Duan Ling invites him into the study and steeps him a cup of tea. “Seaside Burgeen.”4
“You can tell?” Duan Ling says, smiling, “I bought it in the city. Here, wipe your face.”
Duan Ling hands him a moist towel, and Li Jianhong asks him, “What have you been reading lately?”
“Three Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals.”
“Which one are you at?”
“I skipped The Zuo Tradition.” Duan Ling opens a book, answering, “I’m reading The Commentary of Gongyang right now. The headmaster says I don’t dig deeply enough for proper understanding.”
Li Jianhong gives him a smile. “You can read it alongside The Explanatory Notes of the Thirteen Classics.”
Duan Ling rummages through his stacks, finds a book underneath, and shows it to Li Jianhong. “I borrowed it from the Chengkeng shop. Did you study too?”
Li Jianhong takes a sip of tea. “Not much. Didn’t manage to finish the four books and five classics, can’t really write essays all that well. One mustn’t neglect the ancestors’ knowledge. You’re doing quite well.”
“Are you Han?” Duan Ling asks curiously.
Li Jianhong is sitting beneath the sun; the light spilling in radiantly over him. Though his clothes are ragged there is something ineffably dignified and noble about his person. He looks at Duan Ling solemnly. “Yes. My family has even produced a sage in the ancient past.”
Duan Ling is shocked. “Which one?”
“Take a guess?”
“What’s your family name, sir?”
Li Linghong begins to smile. “It’s Li.”
“Wind does not last through the day, rain does not last through the morn,” Duan Ling says.
Li Jianhong nods. “There is no permanence even to nature, so let alone people? That’s right. It’s Li Er.5”
Duan Ling stares at him, absolutely astonished. Li Jianhong says, “I have three brothers, and out of the four of us I studied the least. I often feel as though I’ve let the ancestor down.”
Duan Ling smiles. “You must be really awesome at everything else. Was that a sword you were carrying on your back?”
Duan Ling turns his attention to a long box sitting next to Li Jianhong, and so Li Jianhong picks it up and sets it on the desk, opening it to show Duan Ling. Duan Ling has never been so awestruck. “This is your sword?”
“Do you like it?”
There’s a heavy sword inside the box. It’s all black, nearly as tall as Duan Ling, with a yin-yang diagram carved into its hilt. The blade itself is engraved with strange hieroglyphs as though it is very old, yet its edge is gleaming and sharp from frequent use. Duan Ling wants to touch it, but Li Jinghong grips his wrist with two fingers so he can’t budge, then he changes his grip to hold Duan Ling’s fingers and takes his hand. He warns, “It’s a heavy sword of meteoric iron that weighs forty catties6, but it’s so sharp a hair thrown at it will be cut in half. It goes through iron like it’s made of mud. One false move and you’ll lose a finger.”
Duan Ling laughs. Li Jianhong takes Duan Ling’s hand and presses his palm onto the sword hilt. The sword lets out bouts of trembling as though it’s alive.
“What’s its name?”
"Some call it the ‘Zhenshanhe’. I call it ‘Nameless’, because its previous incarnation was a sabre called the ‘Nameless Sabre’.7 When the empire fell it also fell into foreign hands. The blacksmiths of the Ruoran Khaganate reforged it into five weapons and assigned them to each of their tribes.
Duan Ling is utterly entranced by the tale.
“Then later, Great Chen breached the Kingdom of Loulan and took them all back, reforging it again into this sword. It represents the mandate of heaven, cutting lines through the mountains and across rivers. It was made from the finest metals of the west through a hundred smeltings and beaten a thousand times. It’s the Han heirloom sword of the realm.”
Duan Ling nods, closing the sword case. “Lang Junxia has a sword too. It’s also very sharp.”
“His sword is named Qingfenjian.” Li Jianhong explains, “Lang Junxia’s Qinfengjian, Wu Du’s Lieguangjian,8 Chang Liujun’s Baihongjian9, Zheng Yan’s Zidianjinmang10, Xunchun’s Zhanshanhai11 and Buddhist Master Kongming’s Duanchenyuan12 are all famous swords passed down from the previous dynasty. And among these people, Zheng Yan, Chang Liujun, Wu Du, and Lang Junxia are all assassins.”13
“What about you? Where are you from?” Duan Ling is very curious about this wandering swordsman. “Are you an assassin?”
Li Jianhong shakes his head. “I came from the south. Have you been?”
“I only lived in the city of Runan before, and after coming to Shangjing I haven’t really been anywhere else.”
“It’s now all former homeland. I lived in Xichuan once. Xichuan’s affluent streets go on for miles, with jade-green rivers winding around like ribbons. Cloud-topped Mount Yucheng is perpetually surrounded by a coiling mist, and extravagant, decadent Jiangzhou never sleeps.”
Duan Ling’s mouth is hanging open. Li Jianhong continues, “Jiangnan is not like Shangjing at all. The trees are deep green, not this fresh sprout colour you have here. When spring comes, peach blossoms are just everywhere. There’s the ocean too; the ocean goes on forever.”
“Have you been to all those places?”
Li Jianhong nods, giving him a smile. "There’s also Diannan14 — Diannan is so beautiful it’s like paradise; it’s spring all year round and never snows. The lakes there are like mirrors, and the water is clear, cold, and continually fed by snowmelt from Mount Xue. Then there’s Yubiguan. When autumn comes to Yubugian, as far as the eyes can see it’s all blood red maple.”
Duan Ling’s expression is full of longing. “I wonder if I can see all these places someday.”
Li Jianhong says, “If you want to go, I’ll take you tomorrow.”
Surprised, Duan Ling goes quiet for a moment. “Really?” He says incredulously.
“Of course.” Li Jianhong tells Duan Ling, perfectly serious. “With the sky as a coverlet and the ground as a bed, you can go anywhere you want.”
“But I have my schooling.” Duan Ling doesn’t know what to feel and says awkwardly, “I have to …be placed high on the imperial exam. Lang Junxia won’t let me go.”
“He can’t control you. I can give you whatever you want on earth.” Li Jianhong says, “I can let him know tonight and wherever you may want to go, we can leave by tomorrow. You want to learn the martial arts, right? I can teach you that too if you do. If you don’t want to go to school then you won’t have to anymore.”
Duan Ling is dumbfounded — his first instinct tells him that this man is just fooling around with him, yet the way he’s said it all so seriously makes it impossible to doubt him. Even though he’s already thirteen, Duan Ling is still a youth, and it is only youthful nature to want to have fun, so how is he supposed to sit still?
“Um … oh forget it.” Duan Ling puts an end to the idea. He knows he can’t possibly walk away.
“Why?” Li Jianhong stares at Duan Ling.
Duan Ling says, “I still have to wait for someone. Lang Junxia told me that he’ll come.”
“Who are you waiting for?” Li Jianhong asks.
Duan Ling thinks for a second. “I’m waiting for my dad. Lang Junxia says that my dad is an extraordinary man.”
The sun slants across the sky as it travels west, but in this very moment time seems to freeze. Outside the window, a peach blossom leaves its branch, spinning as it drifts toward the pond. The water makes a noise. It is the sound of a fish breaking the surface.
From a sack tied to his waist, Li Jinghong removes something exceedingly slowly, setting it on the desk, making a quiet clink of jade on wood. Then he gently pushes it across the table to Duan Ling.
“Have you been waiting for this?” There is the slightest suggestion of tears in Li Jianhong’s voice.
Duan Ling finds himself holding his breath. It is a half ring-shaped jade arc, clear and translucent like ice, engraved with two words.
Trembling, Duan Ling takes off the red string from around his neck with the embroidered pouch and carefully takes out the other half piece of jade, joining them into a single, flawless jade torus with a relief of eagle feathers, coiled dragon on clouds, joining the four words together.
Prosperous realm; glorious empire.
I do not monetise my hobby translations, but if you’d like to support my work generally or support my light novel habit, you can either buy me a coffee or commission me. This is also to note that if you see this message anywhere else than on tumblr, do come to my tumblr. It’s ad-free. ↩︎
Lady Wei refers to Wei Shuo. ↩︎
Sun Tzu’s Art of War, The Wuzi, The Methods of the Sima, Book of Songs. ↩︎
Burgeen is a rare green tea, Bianhai can either mean seaside or an actual place. ↩︎
Li Er is Laozi’s real name. This is a line from the Tao Te Ching, though what’s here is a common misquote. The original actually has the ‘morn’ and ‘day’ reversed. ↩︎
If this was the Song dynasty, that sword weighs around 25kg. (This is technically an imaginary dynasty) ↩︎
For the entire story on the Nameless Sabre and its owner Zhang Mu, go read Yingnu by Fei Tian Ye Xiang. ↩︎
Literally “sword of ardent light”. ↩︎
Literally “halo sword”. ↩︎
Literally “purple lightning, golden point”, but supposed to represent the purple robe of a high-rank official’s robe and the gold silk band worn around the waist. ↩︎
Literally “cut-mountains-oceans”. The same word for beheading is used for the word cut here. ↩︎
Literally “cut ties to samsara”. ↩︎
Too much information? Check the ref page. I keep track of all named swords, characters, and locations. ↩︎
Diannan is in Yunnan province right by the modern Vietnam border, southwest China. ↩︎
Duan Ling has already turned a full circle on the daybed in his sleep; by the time brilliant sunlight is streaming directly into the room he finally runs out of room to hide and wakes from the heat.
“Lang Junxia!” Duan Ling calls out.
Beyond the window lattice, Lang Junxia stirs, but Li Jianhong shakes a finger at him, and while he does so takes Duan Ling’s birth certificate. Without even looking at it, he folds it properly and hands it back to Lang Junxia, indicating that he should put it away.
Inside the room, Duan Ling recalls that in the morning Lang Junxia told him he had to go out to run some errands. Thereupon he gets down from the daybed on his own, gets dressed, wraps an outer gown around himself properly, washes his face, and pushing the door open he comes out of the room, yawning as he walks through the courtyard.
“As you instructed,” Lang Junxia explains. “I sent him to the Illustrious Hall. He’s had quite a bit of schooling. His young highness is very bright and can already compose essays.”
Li Jianhong makes no reply, hurrying through the corridor chasing Duan Ling’s footsteps. He halts behind a door to watch Duan Ling’s figure as he goes looking for something to eat in the kitchen, coming out soon afterwards carrying the food box Lang Junxia prepared for him.
“Has he studied the martial arts?” Li Jianhong asks.
“He’s always pestered me about learning to fight, but I dared not teach him for fear of it interfering with his studies.”
For a long time, Li Jianghong doesn’t speak a word, his eyes somehow overcome with a touch of red. He watches Duan Ling the whole time, his gaze never leaving him.
Lang Junxia asks, “Your Highness?”
Li Jianhong takes a single step, but he feels a slight urge to shrink back; there behind the door he’s momentarily lacking the courage to move forward. He has never been afraid before, not even when there’s a whole army in front of him, but now he’s unexpectedly immobilised before his own son.
“Does he hate me?” Li Jianhong asks.
“He never has,” Lang Junxia replies. “He has been waiting for you all along. I told him that Your Highness will return when the peach blossoms bloom.”
Li Jianhong is quivering down to his very breath. With a door between them, he raises one hand, but for a long time he dares not push it open and go through the door.
Duan Ling’s attention is all on eating his lunch. A bird comes over to him; he picks up a few grains of rice with his fingers to feed it. Watching all this behind the door, Li Jianhong begins to smile.
“He’s already read some of the four books and five classics in advance, but he took in the information without digesting it with much analysis, so a teacher will be needed to lecture him on them once he goes to Biyong College. His calligraphy is pretty good — he practised from copying from the Lady Wei2 copybooks. He’s read Sun Tzu’s Art of War, The Wuzi, and The Methods of the Sima for fun; he’s also partial to the classic poems in the Book of Songs.3 He picks up a lot of different subjects. On his days off he’s also read medical texts and herbalogy books.
“Princess Duanping will like my son.” Li Jianhong says quietly, “Astrology, divination, study every school of thought, skim through a wide range of subjects.”
Once Duan Ling finishes eating, he puts away the food box himself, stretches, and sits down in the courtyard with his head in the clouds. Sunlight falls onto his face, illuminating his adolescent features as neat and refreshing as a thriving spring plant overflowing with life.
Yet even as he lets his mind wander Duan Ling’s head is still busy with myriad thoughts; one moment his mind is on reading and writing, another he’s thinking about his garden — that little world of his own.
"He likes spicy food.” Lang Junxia adds, “Rather like the way you do. He also likes to grow flowers and such, skills he picked up from the Duans in Runan. His interests are truly too broad. I dared not teach all of it, and picked some of my knowledge to share with him. Most of the time I urged him to focus on his studies.”
“Does my son have a girl he likes here in Shangjing?” Li Jianhong asks.
Lang Junxia shakes his head.
It’s rare of Lang Junxia to be out all day so that no one’s here to tell him what to do. Duan Ling decides to take care of his garden first.
In the courtyard, the peach tree has blossomed.
“Wow!” Duan Ling exclaims, sounding elated. The peach tree has bloomed wonderfully this year, with many more branches than the year before; some petals have even fallen onto the ground. Duan Ling rushes inside to find a wooden box, collecting the fallen petals inside it before watering his medicinal plants.
As he sets down the watering can, Duan Ling suddenly feels the presence of someone behind him.
“Didn’t you go out?” Duan Ling turns around to find a stranger. He’s immediately taken aback, but not afraid. He thinks to himself, is this our new gardener? Did Lang Junxia really hire a gardener? He doesn’t look like one, though.
He’s taller than Lang Junxia, and stronger too; the contours of his face are sharp and hard, and his skin is just a little darker in tone than people in Shangjing. He has deep set eyes like twinklings stars, a soft mouth, tall nose, jet black pupils that shines brightly like lacquer. Though he appears unkempt he’s more handsome than any man Duan Ling has ever seen in Shangjing, with a sturdy figure exuding an aura that makes one feels safe.
The man takes off his conical bamboo hat. His eyes are like deep pools of ink brimming with a lustrous vitality, but there’s a slight red tinge to them as he gazes fixedly at Duan Ling.
But Duan Ling just thinks that this man feels strangely familiar, like someone he’s met in a dream.
“Did you grow all of these?” Li Jianhong asks.
Duan Ling nods, and Li Jianhong slowly walks over to him. Duan Ling is sitting low on a little stool, looking at the plants in the flowerbed and looking back at Li Jianhong. Li Jianhong kneels down next to Duan Ling so their eyes would be more level. He turns his attention to the flowerbed, but it’s only a short while before he turns his gaze back to Duan Ling’s face.
“What kind of flowers are these?” Li Jianhong asks.
“This is peony, this is chicken blood vine, hulan grass, basil …”
Duan Ling introduces his little corner of the world to Li Jianhong, but Li Jianhong’s eyes never move away from Duan Ling’s face. Soon he starts smiling at Duan Ling. Duan Ling has no idea why that is, but he smiles back.
“Why are you crying?” Duan Ling asks.
Li Jianhong shakes his head, unable to say anything at all. Duan Ling wipes his tears with a sleeve and leaves room for him to sit. Li Jianghong sits down cross-legged behind Duan Ling.
Duan Ling continues turning the soil with a spade. “Do you have any earthworms? It’s spring now so I’d like to get some earthworms and keep them here.”
“I’ll go catch you some tomorrow,” Li Jianhong replies.
“I have to go study now.”
Duan Ling returns to the study, but Li Jianhong follows him. At first Duan Ling thought he was their new gardener, but now he doesn’t think he looks quite like one.
“Are you Lang Junxia’s friend? He’s not back yet. He went out to get some stuff done today.”
Li Jianhong nods, so Duan Ling invites him into the study and steeps him a cup of tea. “Seaside Burgeen.”4
“You can tell?” Duan Ling says, smiling, “I bought it in the city. Here, wipe your face.”
Duan Ling hands him a moist towel, and Li Jianhong asks him, “What have you been reading lately?”
“Three Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals.”
“Which one are you at?”
“I skipped The Zuo Tradition.” Duan Ling opens a book, answering, “I’m reading The Commentary of Gongyang right now. The headmaster says I don’t dig deeply enough for proper understanding.”
Li Jianhong gives him a smile. “You can read it alongside The Explanatory Notes of the Thirteen Classics.”
Duan Ling rummages through his stacks, finds a book underneath, and shows it to Li Jianhong. “I borrowed it from the Chengkeng shop. Did you study too?”
Li Jianhong takes a sip of tea. “Not much. Didn’t manage to finish the four books and five classics, can’t really write essays all that well. One mustn’t neglect the ancestors’ knowledge. You’re doing quite well.”
“Are you Han?” Duan Ling asks curiously.
Li Jianhong is sitting beneath the sun; the light spilling in radiantly over him. Though his clothes are ragged there is something ineffably dignified and noble about his person. He looks at Duan Ling solemnly. “Yes. My family has even produced a sage in the ancient past.”
Duan Ling is shocked. “Which one?”
“Take a guess?”
“What’s your family name, sir?”
Li Linghong begins to smile. “It’s Li.”
“Wind does not last through the day, rain does not last through the morn,” Duan Ling says.
Li Jianhong nods. “There is no permanence even to nature, so let alone people? That’s right. It’s Li Er.5”
Duan Ling stares at him, absolutely astonished. Li Jianhong says, “I have three brothers, and out of the four of us I studied the least. I often feel as though I’ve let the ancestor down.”
Duan Ling smiles. “You must be really awesome at everything else. Was that a sword you were carrying on your back?”
Duan Ling turns his attention to a long box sitting next to Li Jianhong, and so Li Jianhong picks it up and sets it on the desk, opening it to show Duan Ling. Duan Ling has never been so awestruck. “This is your sword?”
“Do you like it?”
There’s a heavy sword inside the box. It’s all black, nearly as tall as Duan Ling, with a yin-yang diagram carved into its hilt. The blade itself is engraved with strange hieroglyphs as though it is very old, yet its edge is gleaming and sharp from frequent use. Duan Ling wants to touch it, but Li Jinghong grips his wrist with two fingers so he can’t budge, then he changes his grip to hold Duan Ling’s fingers and takes his hand. He warns, “It’s a heavy sword of meteoric iron that weighs forty catties6, but it’s so sharp a hair thrown at it will be cut in half. It goes through iron like it’s made of mud. One false move and you’ll lose a finger.”
Duan Ling laughs. Li Jianhong takes Duan Ling’s hand and presses his palm onto the sword hilt. The sword lets out bouts of trembling as though it’s alive.
“What’s its name?”
"Some call it the ‘Zhenshanhe’. I call it ‘Nameless’, because its previous incarnation was a sabre called the ‘Nameless Sabre’.7 When the empire fell it also fell into foreign hands. The blacksmiths of the Ruoran Khaganate reforged it into five weapons and assigned them to each of their tribes.
Duan Ling is utterly entranced by the tale.
“Then later, Great Chen breached the Kingdom of Loulan and took them all back, reforging it again into this sword. It represents the mandate of heaven, cutting lines through the mountains and across rivers. It was made from the finest metals of the west through a hundred smeltings and beaten a thousand times. It’s the Han heirloom sword of the realm.”
Duan Ling nods, closing the sword case. “Lang Junxia has a sword too. It’s also very sharp.”
“His sword is named Qingfenjian.” Li Jianhong explains, “Lang Junxia’s Qinfengjian, Wu Du’s Lieguangjian,8 Chang Liujun’s Baihongjian9, Zheng Yan’s Zidianjinmang10, Xunchun’s Zhanshanhai11 and Buddhist Master Kongming’s Duanchenyuan12 are all famous swords passed down from the previous dynasty. And among these people, Zheng Yan, Chang Liujun, Wu Du, and Lang Junxia are all assassins.”13
“What about you? Where are you from?” Duan Ling is very curious about this wandering swordsman. “Are you an assassin?”
Li Jianhong shakes his head. “I came from the south. Have you been?”
“I only lived in the city of Runan before, and after coming to Shangjing I haven’t really been anywhere else.”
“It’s now all former homeland. I lived in Xichuan once. Xichuan’s affluent streets go on for miles, with jade-green rivers winding around like ribbons. Cloud-topped Mount Yucheng is perpetually surrounded by a coiling mist, and extravagant, decadent Jiangzhou never sleeps.”
Duan Ling’s mouth is hanging open. Li Jianhong continues, “Jiangnan is not like Shangjing at all. The trees are deep green, not this fresh sprout colour you have here. When spring comes, peach blossoms are just everywhere. There’s the ocean too; the ocean goes on forever.”
“Have you been to all those places?”
Li Jianhong nods, giving him a smile. "There’s also Diannan14 — Diannan is so beautiful it’s like paradise; it’s spring all year round and never snows. The lakes there are like mirrors, and the water is clear, cold, and continually fed by snowmelt from Mount Xue. Then there’s Yubiguan. When autumn comes to Yubugian, as far as the eyes can see it’s all blood red maple.”
Duan Ling’s expression is full of longing. “I wonder if I can see all these places someday.”
Li Jianhong says, “If you want to go, I’ll take you tomorrow.”
Surprised, Duan Ling goes quiet for a moment. “Really?” He says incredulously.
“Of course.” Li Jianhong tells Duan Ling, perfectly serious. “With the sky as a coverlet and the ground as a bed, you can go anywhere you want.”
“But I have my schooling.” Duan Ling doesn’t know what to feel and says awkwardly, “I have to …be placed high on the imperial exam. Lang Junxia won’t let me go.”
“He can’t control you. I can give you whatever you want on earth.” Li Jianhong says, “I can let him know tonight and wherever you may want to go, we can leave by tomorrow. You want to learn the martial arts, right? I can teach you that too if you do. If you don’t want to go to school then you won’t have to anymore.”
Duan Ling is dumbfounded — his first instinct tells him that this man is just fooling around with him, yet the way he’s said it all so seriously makes it impossible to doubt him. Even though he’s already thirteen, Duan Ling is still a youth, and it is only youthful nature to want to have fun, so how is he supposed to sit still?
“Um … oh forget it.” Duan Ling puts an end to the idea. He knows he can’t possibly walk away.
“Why?” Li Jianhong stares at Duan Ling.
Duan Ling says, “I still have to wait for someone. Lang Junxia told me that he’ll come.”
“Who are you waiting for?” Li Jianhong asks.
Duan Ling thinks for a second. “I’m waiting for my dad. Lang Junxia says that my dad is an extraordinary man.”
The sun slants across the sky as it travels west, but in this very moment time seems to freeze. Outside the window, a peach blossom leaves its branch, spinning as it drifts toward the pond. The water makes a noise. It is the sound of a fish breaking the surface.
From a sack tied to his waist, Li Jinghong removes something exceedingly slowly, setting it on the desk, making a quiet clink of jade on wood. Then he gently pushes it across the table to Duan Ling.
“Have you been waiting for this?” There is the slightest suggestion of tears in Li Jianhong’s voice.
Duan Ling finds himself holding his breath. It is a half ring-shaped jade arc, clear and translucent like ice, engraved with two words.
Trembling, Duan Ling takes off the red string from around his neck with the embroidered pouch and carefully takes out the other half piece of jade, joining them into a single, flawless jade torus with a relief of eagle feathers, coiled dragon on clouds, joining the four words together.
Prosperous realm; glorious empire.
I do not monetise my hobby translations, but if you’d like to support my work generally or support my light novel habit, you can either buy me a coffee or commission me. This is also to note that if you see this message anywhere else than on tumblr, do come to my tumblr. It’s ad-free. ↩︎
Lady Wei refers to Wei Shuo. ↩︎
Sun Tzu’s Art of War, The Wuzi, The Methods of the Sima, Book of Songs. ↩︎
Burgeen is a rare green tea, Bianhai can either mean seaside or an actual place. ↩︎
Li Er is Laozi’s real name. This is a line from the Tao Te Ching, though what’s here is a common misquote. The original actually has the ‘morn’ and ‘day’ reversed. ↩︎
If this was the Song dynasty, that sword weighs around 25kg. (This is technically an imaginary dynasty) ↩︎
For the entire story on the Nameless Sabre and its owner Zhang Mu, go read Yingnu by Fei Tian Ye Xiang. ↩︎
Literally “sword of ardent light”. ↩︎
Literally “halo sword”. ↩︎
Literally “purple lightning, golden point”, but supposed to represent the purple robe of a high-rank official’s robe and the gold silk band worn around the waist. ↩︎
Literally “cut-mountains-oceans”. The same word for beheading is used for the word cut here. ↩︎
Literally “cut ties to samsara”. ↩︎
Too much information? Check the ref page. I keep track of all named swords, characters, and locations. ↩︎
Diannan is in Yunnan province right by the modern Vietnam border, southwest China. ↩︎
