The Reticent Blade

"Lin Jiulao?" Shi Wufeng was stunned. "What? He found you?"

Ye Beizhi nodded. "I've fought him twice... he was working for the court."

Shi Wufeng let out a breath, shaking his head. "Just a blade-obsessed fool consumed by his desire to win. Why bring him up all of a sudden?"

Ye Beizhi frowned, pausing before answering, "He said... he cut off your arms."

"Ha—" Shi Wufeng raised an eyebrow. "That's what he said?"

Ye Beizhi nodded, then shook his head. "Looking at you now... he must have said it just to provoke me."

"That must be it," Shi Wufeng nodded in agreement.

"What really happened back then?" Ye Beizhi asked.

Shi Wufeng thought for a moment, then raised three fingers. "I fought him three times."

"I lost the first match," Shi Wufeng recalled, "but it allowed me to see through his technique. His blade work was grand and fierce with a hidden agility, but it lacked endurance. So for the second match, I changed my approach—I stopped meeting him head-on and focused on maneuvering. That threw him off balance. I won the last two matches with ease."

"This man is obsessed with victory and defeat," Shi Wufeng shook his head. "Even after losing two out of three matches, he still argued that my victory was dishonorable—that blade work should always face the opponent directly, and that my tactics were inferior. Back then, I told him that the purpose of a blade is simply to kill. All techniques exist only to serve that purpose. There are no superior or inferior forms—the highest form of swordsmanship is to wield no form at all.'"

Shi Wufeng let out a short laugh and continued, "I was a little too quick with my words back then. I told him that I only recently came to understand this truth because I met someone whose blade technique was truly unparalleled in this world.