“Heh.” Shen Yiren drew Yujing, casting a silver light on the ground. The design of Yujing fitted a woman’s hand like a glove, instilling a sense of tranquillity. For this reason, Shen Yiren always carried it with her to counteract her insomnia. “Since you’re better than me, I won’t hold back.”
Shen Yiren extended her arm in the same cadence as her lunge. She delivered all five thrusts of varying output to five different locations. If she had this sort of ability against Fu Xiang, she would’ve beaten him five times already.
“Nice!” Ming Feizhen stepped out of the five strike’s range.
Shen Yiren put the pressure on subsequent to her misses, raising her speed until it seemed as though the successive strike caught up to her previous attack.
All swordsmen must learn to attack so fast that successive attacks caught up to previous attacks in order to succeed as swordsmen. Had Ming Feizhen done his homework on Mount Daluo, he would fathom the work it took for Shen Yiren to achieve her current speed.
Whenever the pressure cut off his evasion path, Ming Feizhen would flick or poke Yujing’s tip off trajectory. Suffice to say, Shen Yiren felt her force dissolve each time her force vector was changed against her will, but for some reason, she felt her true qi purifying. To speak less abstractly, her true qi cascaded out via a route foreign to her. If Shen Yiren’s opponent was an ordinary swordsman, a unanimous victory would’ve already been announced.
In spite of missing all sixty-plus moves – not even being able to force Ming Feizhen to take her serious – Shen Yiren was convinced her calculations were correct. No, she didn’t believe she was faster than him by any stretch of the imagination, but she was confident in her ability to see openings and time her strikes.
“Catch this, shameless punk!”
Shen Yiren swung in a horizontal arc as though her sword was a hammer to capitalise on her surge in internal energy. The surprising alteration and weight stiffed Ming Feizhen backward.
Although Shen Yiren looked smug, the reciprocal force that went down her right arm and her need for air deterred her from continuing her offence. Accordingly, Ming Feizhen’s thumbs up rubbed her the wrong way.
“Where’d you learn that swordplay from, Boss? It’s wicked.”
Shen Yiren barely kept her straight face. She had to because her aim was to find out what Ming Feizhen was thinking, not to spar him.
“Don’t you have anything pertinent to say? What’s your evaluation of my skill?”
Ming Feizhen scratched his head. “Your broadswordplay should be good – at least I can’t tell what needs polishing. That being said, I hear Six Phenomena Heart King Style includes a move called Snow Makeup that a female prodigy of Shen Clan invented. The six is in the name because, each time the practitioner strikes, they unleash six strikes in the positions that make up the snowflake symbol. It’s supposed to be difficult to guard against owing to its ever-changing forms, but I haven’t seen it. Just now, you either tried a five-hit combo or a four-hit combo. When you tried to go for six, you increased the distance your sword had to travel, giving me an opportunity to beat you to the punch.”
Shen Yiren used Snow Makeup from beginning to end. She never pulled punches as Ming Feizhen could hang with Luo Ming. In saying that, she had yet to grasp the quintessence of Snow Makeup, which was why she couldn’t maximise its potential.
“Didn’t you just explain it in detail? Six Phenomena Heart King Style is my clan’s swordplay. Snow Makeup is the most difficult move to master. I was proficient with all the other techniques when I was fifteen. I still can’t master Snow Makeup after four years of focusing on it.”
Ming Feizhen found Shen Yiren cute as she beat herself up. “You know why?”
Shen Yiren cast her gaze up. “You know why?”
“I didn’t mention broadsword just once. Luo Ming would’ve dialled up the intensity if I said he was swinging a broadsword. Every time I call a swordsman’s sword a broadsword, they lose it, every swordsman but you. In all the years you’ve been training swordplay, have you ever genuinely valued a sword for being a sword?
“While I like poking fun at swordsmen, among all martial artists who wield weapons, swordsmen have always had a place at the top. They pursue swordplay at the beginning of their journey and constantly seek the perfect sword skills no matter the price.
“I’ve personally witnessed a sword maniac oppose his fate and resolve himself to make enemies out of armies if that was what it took. To him, his sword was his world. He’d gash, stab, repel and would continue to do so for as long as he was alive, even if he was a man who could live for a millennium. It’s not that I don’t respect people like him but that I don’t understand swordplay.
“In contrast, you wield a sword, yet your heart isn’t in it. Turning a sharp weapon into a blunt weapon proves you have talent as a martial artist. After all, there aren’t many mental cultivation disciplines that teach you how to change the nature of your weapon. In time, your creation would unquestionably become an esteemed tool.
“At the end of the day, though, a sword is a sword, and internal styles are internal styles. The leaves in this courtyard may not look bad when put together; however, the courtyard is a courtyard, and the leaves are leaves. They’re distinctly different; nobody mistakes one for the other, let alone anyone mixing them together.”
Glossary
Snow symbol – the same one you often see on air conditioners.
