I had no intention of entering the martial world.

Chapter 1 Sword Erosion

I had no intention of entering the martial world, but the martial world is indeed the human world.

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Lu Jinghong chose to practice swordsmanship at the waterfall in Zhongnan Mountain.

He said that in a place for sword practice, the sound of water should be loud enough to drown out the chaotic thoughts in one's mind. The water should be cold enough to make one's bones ache, so that one will not have wild thoughts.

Lu Chenzhou has been standing under this waterfall for seven days.

The water was snowmelt from the dead of winter, crashing down from the top of the hundred-foot cliff, striking the bare rocks and shattering into a white, icy mist. The force was so great that it could crush a person's shoulder. He was only wearing a thin pair of coarse cloth trousers, his upper body bare, his skin already blue from the cold, numb from being washed by the water countless times, now tinged with a deathly pale ashes.

He held a wooden sword in his right hand.

The sword was given to me by Lu Jinghong. It was made of ordinary poplar wood, unpainted, and with a rough texture. The blade was submerged in the water, and against the current, it was slowly and insignificantly lifted upwards.

He repeated this action 9,300 times over the past seven days.

Each time, the water flowed like an invisible giant hand, pressing down hard on the sword. The muscles howled, the bones groaned, and the tiger's mouth had long since split open, the blood seeping out but immediately being diluted and dispersed in the foamy water, leaving no trace.

On the thousandth time, he thought about the revenge for his parents.

By the third thousandth time, hatred had been ground into cold numbers—Zhao Wanshan, Qian Butong, and the shadowy, nameless backers behind them. One, two, three… the numbers arranged in his mind, like a roster of prisoners awaiting execution.

By the seven thousandth time, the numbers had become blurred. Only a surge of energy remained, a fierce determination to cleave the waterfall, the mountain, and the sky pressing down on him with a single sword stroke.

Now, more than nine thousand three hundred times.

The wooden sword rose inch by inch, just as it was about to break through the curtain of water—

"puff!"

It wasn't the sound of a sword breaking through water.

Lu Chenzhou suddenly bent over and spat out a mouthful of blood.

The blood wasn't bright red; it was a dark, almost inky red, mixed with viscous lumps. It splashed into the churning stream at their feet, spreading rapidly like a menacing yet silent fog.

The roar of the water continued, drowning out his suppressed groans.

He leaned on his wooden sword, knelt on one knee in the icy stream, and gasped for breath. His vision blurred, and besides the roar of the waterfall, there was a sharp, internal buzzing in his ears. His chest felt like it had been branded with a hot iron, or filled with ice shards; each breath was excruciatingly painful.

The footsteps were very light, stepping on the pebbles by the stream, and stopped not far behind him.

Lu Chenzhou didn't turn around. He could feel that gaze, calm and indifferent, as if observing a stone or a withering tree.

"How many days is it?" Lu Jinghong's voice came through the water curtain, not loud, but eerily clear.

Lu Chenzhou swallowed the metallic taste rising in his throat again, and said in a hoarse voice, "The seventh day."

"How many times did you vomit?"

"That was... the third time."

Lu Jinghong remained silent for a moment. Only the waterfall roared endlessly.

"Do you know why you vomited blood?" he asked again.

Lu Chenzhou stared silently at the fading blackish-red hue in the stream. He knew, but he wanted to hear Lu Jinghong say it aloud. It seemed that only then could the dormant, ever-growing, icy power within him be confirmed, tamed, or… utterly terrified.

"Azure Nether Sword Qi." Lu Jinghong uttered these four words, his tone as calm as if he were saying, "It's raining today." "It has taken root in your body. This is both a good thing and a bad thing."

Lu Chenzhou slowly stood up and turned his face.

Lu Jinghong stood by the stream, about three zhang away. He wore a faded blue cloth robe, the cuffs and hem stained with mud, as if he had just returned from the vegetable garden. His hair was casually tied up with a wooden hairpin, a few strands of gray hair falling across his forehead. His face was expressionless, his eyes weary and unfathomable, always seeming to look at people through a layer of mist.

He was holding a gourd of wine, uncorked it, and took a sip.

"The good thing is," he wiped his mouth, "you'll never get rid of it in your lifetime. It has recognized your 'Innate Sword Bone,' just like a leech recognizes blood. From now on, your breath is it, your heartbeat is it, and your dreams are it. Your sword will be so fast that people won't be able to see it."

Lu Chenzhou's fingertips unconsciously traced the rough texture of the wooden sword. Fast? He needed to be fast. Fast enough that his enemy wouldn't even have time to blink, fast enough that when blood spurted out, a smile would still linger on their face.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his voice taut like a fully drawn bowstring.

Lu Jinghong looked at him, and behind that layer of misty weariness, something extremely complex seemed to flash, so fast that it was impossible to grasp.

"The bad thing is," he took another sip of his drink, this time more slowly, "it's eating you up."

The sound of the water was deafening.

Lu Chenzhou stood still, water droplets dripping from his soaked hair. Eat? What does that mean?

Lu Jinghong didn't leave him wondering for long. With an almost cruel calm, he continued, "The Azure Nether Sword is a weapon of death. Its 'qi' is malevolence, killing intent, and the most restless element in the world. It chose you not because you are a good person, but because the hatred in your heart is strong and intense enough to be its best fuel."

He took two steps and crushed a pebble under his foot.

"But when this firewood is lit, it burns you first. Your emotions and desires, your humanity, are its fuel." Lu Jinghong's gaze fell on Lu Chenzhou's pale, almost transparent face, and on the faint, almost invisible dark red marks at the corners of his eyes—marks left by the sword energy flowing under his skin when it occasionally went out of control.

"At this rate," Lu Jinghong estimated, "you'll lose your sense of taste in three months at most. Everything will taste the same; even the finest delicacies will taste like chewing wax."

Lu Chenzhou pursed his lips.

"After about six months, the joys and sorrows will fade. You'll find yourself unable to laugh when you see something you should laugh at, and unable to shed tears when you should cry. Your heart will slowly feel empty and cold."

Lu Chenzhou's hand gripping the sword was so tight that his knuckles turned white.

"One year." Lu Jinghong paused, her tone finally carrying a very slight, almost sighing quality. "One year later, Lu Chenzhou, you will have completely forgotten what 'love' feels like. You may still remember Jiang Wan's name, remember what she looks like, but when you look at her, it will be like looking at a stone, a piece of wood. There will be no ripples in your heart anymore."

"Bang."

The tip of the wooden sword plunged sharply into the pebbles at the bottom of the stream.

Lu Chenzhou lowered his head, water streaming down his taut back. The sound of the waterfall seemed to fade into the distance, leaving only the hollow, heavy thumping of his own heart. Thump. Thump. Thump. Like the tolling of a bell gradually cooling.

What does love feel like?

He suddenly thought of Jiang Wan. He remembered her hair fluttering in the mountain breeze, the warmth of her fingertips as she handed him the water pouch, and the unwavering determination in her clear eyes when she looked at him and asked, "Who will avenge you if you die?" And the faded red string she tied to his wrist at their final parting.

Those images are still there, as clear as yesterday.

But what about "feeling"?

He tried desperately to recall those fleeting moments of subtle tremor in his heart—was it gratitude? Trust? Or something else entirely? Those feelings had once been real, like a silver fish flashing across a stream. But now, when he tried to capture them, to recreate them, all that remained in his palm was a damp emptiness.

Fear, like a cold snake, suddenly coils around the heart and tightens abruptly.

He was always afraid—afraid that he wasn't strong enough, afraid that revenge was hopeless. But he was never afraid of this—afraid that he would no longer be himself.

After a long while, he raised his head, his face expressionless, even the tremor he had felt just moments before had vanished without a trace. Only deep within his eyes, the cluster of embers from the ruins of Qixia Town still burned faintly.

He spoke, his voice hoarse from the steam, yet unusually steady:

"Is it enough to kill Zhao Wanshan?"

Lu Jinghong stopped drinking.

Slowly, he removed the gourd from his lips, and for the first time, his always weary eyes truly and carefully looked into Lu Chenzhou's eyes. There he saw a wasteland, and in the center of the wasteland, cold and stubborn embers.

"Enough," Lu Jinghong replied, his voice devoid of emotion. "Enough to kill ten Zhao Wanshans."

Lu Chenzhou nodded, as if it were just a trivial confirmation. He bent down and pulled the wooden sword from the icy stream. The water immediately enveloped the blade again, but he held it firmly.

"And then?" Lu Jinghong asked, her question seemingly casual, yet like a poisoned dagger hanging between the two of them.

Lu Chenzhou looked at the dripping wooden sword in his hand, and at the cracked and frozen wound on his hand.

He was silent for a long time.

The waterfall roared, blurring the passage of time.

Finally, he twitched the corner of his mouth, which was perhaps the beginning of a smile, but in the end it only formed a stiff arc.

"What happened after that," he said, his gaze passing over Lu Jinghong and turning to the waterfall, to the endless, misty mountains, and further south, towards a small town that had long since turned to ashes.

"We'll talk about it later."

He turned around, facing once more the ceaseless, roaring white torrent. He lunged forward, lowered his waist, and plunged his wooden sword into the rushing water once more.

Beginning the 9301st time.

Water splashed on his face, mixed with dark bloodstains that had not yet been wiped from the corner of his mouth.

Lu Jinghong stood there, taking another large gulp of liquor. The strong liquor burned his throat, but he couldn't taste much of it. He looked at the young man's thin but upright back, and watched the black bloodstains slowly meander across his pale skin.

After a long while, he muttered to himself, his voice barely audible amidst the deafening roar of the water:

"Foolish child."

Then, carrying his wine gourd, he turned around, stepped on the pebbles, and slowly, unsteadily, walked back into the depths of the mist. His figure in the green robe was quickly swallowed up by the dense, impenetrable green of the Zhongnan Mountains.

Only the waterfall roars eternally.

There was also the wooden sword stubbornly swimming upstream in the stream, and beside the sword, a faint, ominous dark red glow emanating from it.