In a noble residence,

Far north of Fujian province.

Sixteen years later.

…

The State of Qin was a prosperous nation. Like the other nations in the lands of Ren, its people were envied by the Beastkin in the Northern Lands and were rivalled only by the Daemons in the south and the Fey of the west.

The season of fall was here and the weather was neither cold nor hot. Light winds caressed the land, playing tranquil, calming notes as they blew over Jinxiu Valley.

The pass was enormous. In the morning light, one could see the incredible sight of towering hills rising all around, a few mortal villages at the valley’s bottom and a gentle river slithering through its bosom.

Under the crimson light of dawn, the morning winds lifted the fog, swirling and twisting up the valley until it reached the peak. The fog snaked into a courtyard and past a group of exquisite buildings before settling on a black-haired youth, sleeping on a mattress by an open window.

Xiao Xue stirred, his face contorting into a faint frown. He turned in his sleep as the frown on his face grew deeper.

Stop. It burns, he muttered unconsciously, curling his prone form tighter around the pillow in his embrace.

Stop.

Please!

PLEASE!

With a violent start, his eyes shot open as he sat up, panting heavily.

The young master sat motionlessly for several moments, his eyes staring blankly out the window. Glazed.

...Oh, he thought to himself with a relieved sigh. It’s just that dream again.

“Gege(1), are you ok?” a voice asked behind him. Xiao Xue turned around to see a white-haired youth standing by his door.

The lean fellow stood with his hands folded behind his back, a slightly concerned expression gracing his face. Wearing a pristine white scholar’s robe, he appeared to be about sixteen or seventeen years of age. He was tall, his calm gaze held a spark of intelligence and his fair skin glistened lightly in the morning light.

Beautiful was this youth who bore an uncanny resemblance to Xiao Xue.

“I am fine,” Xiao Xue said blandly as he turned back to lie on his mattress.

“Oh,” Bai Xue said, the expression of concern on his face clearing up in the light of Xiao’s nonchalance. “That’s great. Let us get going then. We are going to be late if we don’t leave now.”

“Just five more minutes.”

“Nope,” Bai Xue said walking towards his twin before tapping him lightly on the buttocks with on foot. “Get up!”

Xiao stirred lightly, peeking one eye open to glance at his brother stepping on his backside.

“Dee(2), please don’t bother me,” Xiao Xue murmured, curling away from the offending foot in a staunch refusal to get up.

“Just five more minutes, and I will be up. Is that too much to ask of you? And could you please close that heaven-damned window for Tao’s sake, it is chilly in here.”

“It is fall and you are a cultivator, so what do you mean by ‘it’s chilly’?” Bai Xue asked blandly. “Also, you said the same yesterday and we got there forty minutes late. No more. Get up we are leaving now!”

Xiao Xue ignored his brother, facing away, grumbling incomprehensibly under his breath.

Words like ‘naggy’, ’hen’ and ‘woman’ popped up among the list of incomprehensible things that escaped Xiao’s lips.

A vein popped on Bai Xue’s forehead.

“What did you just call me?” he asked balling his hands into fists, before sticking them into his side, his face reddening in annoyance. Outside the room, a small crowd of passing maids stopped to watch the spectacle.

With a weary sigh, Xiao curled tighter into his mattress. A somewhat despairing expression on his face.

Xiao felt his brother grab him by a leg before dragging him towards the exit. The young master just held his pillow tighter and kept his eyes shut. Eventually, his troublesome sibling would give up… Like he always does in regards to matters like this.

And as expected Bai Xue stopped halfway to the exit.

He looked back to see his sibling still hugging a pillow, his mouth hanging open and legs splayed out in an undignified pose even as he was pulled across the floor. Various scrolls and jade slips lay scattered haphazardly across the wooden floorboards, littering the place.

With another sigh, Bai dropped Xiao Xue’s foot and watched, irked, as Xiao slowly, but surely, crawled back towards his mattress.

“Ge, please get up,” Bai said, pleading.

“...”

“Please.”

“...”

“What’s the matter?” a voice said behind the two. Xiao stiffened upon recognising the owner of the voice.

“Ma,” Bai said to the newcomer, quickly resorting to betrayal as he pointed an accusing finger at Xiao’s prone form, “Xiao Xue is attempting to play truant again!”

The accused lay frozen on his mattress in a vain hope to evade detection. But alas, the heavens were not so merciful.

Yu Xue walked into the messy room with a neutral expression. Behind her, the gaggle of maids stood, frightened motionless. They watched wide-eyed as she sauntered past them into the room, her oppressive aura preventing them from fleeing the scene.

Yu Xue regarded the mess that was her son’s room appraisingly. Her gaze travelled the Dao diagrams, meditation scriptures and cultivation manuals that made up the majority of the mess on the floor before settling on a particularly scandalous sketch of a young woman dressed in a revealing maid’s attire.

With a gust of Xuan, Yu Xue lifted the sketch paper into her open palm. She stared at the drawing for a moment before turning around to glance at the maids gathered at the entrance.

There, standing in a corner to the right stood the culprit—a young woman appearing to be in her early twenties with an egg-shaped face, large brown eyes, and a soft lithe figure—oblivious to the fate that now awaited her.

The stoic mother committed the maiden to memory but said nothing, noting her face for a later date before turning back to address the issue of her truant son.

“Xiao Xue(3),” she called walking up to stand beside Xiao Xue’s prone form, towering over him.

“...”

“Xiao Xue, Playing dead won’t get you out of this,” she said lifting him up by one ear, before giving it a little twist and a shake for good measure. “Get up!”

“Aiyo, aiyo, aiyo(4)!” Xiao Xue squealed as his eyes shot open.

“Ma—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Yu Xue interrupted in a mildly annoyed tone. She released Xiao Xue from her death grip, watching exasperatedly as he rubbed his reddish ear with a distracted look in his eyes.

Bai Xue stood contently behind their mother, a hint of schadenfreude in his gaze.

“Your father is waiting for you on the holy grounds, don’t keep him waiting any longer,” Yu Xue sighed again.

“But ma,” Xiao Xue murmured still rubbing his ear, “I haven’t eaten or cleaned up yet.”

“That is none of my concern,” Yu Xue replied blandly, her eyes half-lidded as she gazed at her slothful spawn.

“If you wanted to eat you would have gotten up much earlier.”

...

Outside the residence, the two brothers walked down a rugged, winding and arduous path towards a garden nestled in a cliff on the side of the hill. There in the distance, underneath an ancient bonsai tree, the silhouette of a sitting figure hidden underneath its shade could be seen.

As Xiao and Bai approached, the meditating figure became more recognisable.

Feng Xue’s gaze flashed open to observe the twins. His sweeping gaze lingers on Xiao Xue’s messy state for a short moment before turning to his brother behind him.

“You are late,” their father said as soon as they got within earshot.

“Gege delayed us, Pa,” Bai Xue replied before Xiao Xue could provide an excuse.

So petty, Xiao Xue sighed to himself before looking up to meet his father’s even stare.

Feng Xue eyed Xiao Xue contemplatively for a moment before shaking his head with a sigh, opting to ignore the lazy troublemaker in favour of attending to more pressing issues.

“You both have finally achieved True Xuan and have stabilized your internal energies. Congratulations,” Feng Xue said, a hint of pride leaking from his tone. “I believe it’s time we progressed your training in the way of the sword.”

The patriarch gestured to the ground in front of him. Esoteric runes glowing in a purplish light appeared on the surface of a ring adorning his right index finger, the fabric of space above the ground rippling slightly as an array of swords appeared on the floor before him.

“Prepare your hearts, for the Dao of the sword, is very profound,” Feng Xue said, watching his son’s stare at the swords with a hint of fervour in their eyes… Well, at least one of his sons did.

Xiao Xue’s gaze appraised the weapons for a moment before wandering elsewhere. A twirling leaf falling from the bonsai seemed to have caught his attention, his gaze staring contemplatively as the object was carried by the wind into the nearby stream.

Feng Xue sighed again. Once more opting to ignore Xiao Xue, he continued his speech.

“A true swordsman fights with the spirit as well as with the sword for to him they are one and the same. The spirit is the sword and experiences the sharpening stone. The only path to becoming a peerless swordsman is through diligence and perseverance in training.”

Feng Xue paused to stare at both his sons. The twins noticed his silence and redirected their wandering gazes to their father.

“But remember,” Feng Xue continued, “a sword’s honour is its idleness, and its purpose is to keep the peace of the land. May the Great Dao grant you both good swords and no use for them.”

Xiao Xue glanced at his brother who glanced back at him, understanding flashing in their gazes. With permission from their father, both boys walked forward to select a weapon.

Xiao Xue’s picked the first weapon in his reach. A Duanjian.

The shortsword was crafted from purple iron and was just barely long enough to not be considered a dagger. It had a lobe-shaped guard pointing backward(having an “ace of spades” appearance) and the end of the handle was finished with a pommel for balance. The pommel was peened onto the tang of the blade; thereby holding together as one solid unit the blade, guard, handle, and pommel.

Xiao Xue examined the weapon intently, hefting it lightly into the air and practising swinging slashes at the empty air. He shook his head after a moment of consideration.

Too short, he thought, dropping the weapon back on the floor. His gaze moved to back to the pile as he picked a Yanmaodao a moment later.

It felt... Comfortable.

Xiao Xue ran a finger over the sabre’s unsharpened spine in thought. Its blade was much longer than the Duanjian at about three to four Chi(5) long and had was gently curved inwards along its spine and was mostly single-edged; with a few inches of the back edge of the tip sharpened as well.

Its hilt was scanted, curving in the opposite direction of the blade, with tassels dangling from it and a length of the cord was wrapped over the wood of the handle. The weapons guard was disc-shaped and cupped with the lower half of the cup protecting his knuckles.

Xiao Xue hefted the weapon a few times in his hands before dropping it in favour of examining another. His gaze flitted from the Dadao to the Zhanmadao but he didn’t even bother motioning to pick either weapon.

Although both weapons looked cool, the cleaver blade of the Dadao was felt somewhat offputting while the Broadsword looked like it would be a pain to wield for extended periods of time. Wisely considering how long he practised with the training swords before his father even allowed him to touch real weapons, Xiao Xue steered clear of the blades.

He turned his attention to the Piandao and quickly dismissed it. To him, the blade just looked like a Yanmaodao with a reasonable amount of extra curvature along its spine and frankly, Xiao Xue just prefered the straighter blade.

He looked up to check what Bai was up to and was surprised to see him wielding a Ruanjian(6) with surprising deftness. The soft sword slithered menacingly in his grip like a serpent, its tip flicking hypnotically from left to right with malicious intent.

Xiao Xue shook his head at the sight thinking. That’s definitely not for me.

He turned his gaze back to the arrayed weapon and picked up the last weapon. A Jian.

The blade looked like an elongated Duanjian, at about the same length as the Yanmaodao. And that was it.

Nothing more.

He wielded the weapon for a moment before returning back to the pile, unimpressed.

“You do not like the sword,” his father asked, watching as Xiao Xue picked the Yanmaodao along with it sheathe from the pile.

Xiao Xue nodded.

“Why?” Feng Xue asked, seemingly curious. It was rare, even among experienced warriors, for one to pick the plain, utilitarian Yanmaodao over the noble, elegantly crafted Jian.

Xiao Xue paused, considering the question for a moment replying as he strapped his new blade to his waist.

“The Jian looks like a pain to train in. I would rather not deal with that much stress for no good reason.”

Feng Xue paused for a moment in thought before nodding stoically. A hint of schadenfreude in his gaze.

“But does that really matter?” the patriarch asked.

“What is that supposed to mean, pa?” Xiao Xue asked looking up from the blade by his waist to glance suspiciously at his father.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose.

For some reason, he didn’t feel comfortable with the blank stare Feng Xue directed at him.

Glossary

Duanjian- Shortsword

Jian- Double-edged straight Sword

Ruanjian- Softsword[see author’s note]

Yanmaodao- Goose-quill sabre

Piandao- Slashing sabre

Zhanmadao- Broadsword

Dadao- Cleaver