The frost-and-snow edge refracted the sunlight, and a single point of brilliance pierced the sky.
The very opposite of that feather-light, lightning-dazzling edge was a posture that crashed forward like a raging tide — a clear, streaming sword-shadow, a heaven-rending, earth-splitting charge. One light, one heavy; one fast, one slow — utterly opposed, yet so perfectly harmonious. The sword arrived, the man arrived, killing intent in full flood, the edge light as a swan, the sword-qi sweeping like a dragon!
Graceful as a startled swan, vigorous as a roaming dragon!
This is... the Startled Swan Sword's Imperial dao-rhyme! And the Roaming Dragon Sword's too!
Impossible! How is he doing it?!
The middle-aged man felt as though he'd plunged into an icehouse, shock and terror bursting through him. But before he could think it over, layer upon layer of killing intent, beating down like a tsunami, had filled this small courtyard! He felt like a lone boat in a raging storm, toyed with between the palms of heaven and earth's natural might, liable to capsize at any instant. His sight, his smell, his hearing, his touch, his spirit-sense — every perception fed back to him nothing but boundless fear! This was a power he could not resist — no, he could not even raise the thought of resistance. In almost an instant, his martial artist's body, tempered a thousand times and brimming with limitless power, had betrayed him under this terrible menace!
The figure that had rushed in like onrushing death halted abruptly, a chill at his brow — the Startled Swan Sword's edge was already laid against his forehead.
"Cheap bitch, dumb prick, dipshit, retard, given face and refusing it, blind in your dog eyes." He heard the man say mildly. "I offered my name; you ignored it. I chatted about your line of work and its hardships; you gave me no face. I spoke to you nicely; you went on about 'your sort' this and that. I talked fairness with you; you said your dick's bigger. Well? Dumbstruck now, aren't you?"
Hair on end, skin drawn taut, muscles twitching wildly — he couldn't even squeeze out a drop of cold sweat. The master forced out, "You... who are you?"
"Didn't I just introduce myself? I'm Sun Lang." The errant said haughtily. "Known in the jianghu as One-Sword-Man... All right, that's a joke."
Though the Startled Swan Sword was an unawakened Imperial Arm, for sheer toughness and sharpness it remained a blade hard to find in all the world. With the edge now pressed to his forehead, even a child of seven or eight holding it could have parted his flesh with ease. The master felt the cold edge slide down from his forehead, along his cheek, tracing a circle around his throat. His skin prickled at the chill of it, hairs standing on end — he knew the keen blade never drew a hair's breadth away, always pressed tight to his flesh — and yet his body wasn't cut in the slightest, not a drop of his blood spilled... What terrifying swordsmanship!
"Your young mistress is a bit of a dimwit, but as a fool's instinct goes, hers is rather commendable..." Sun Lang unhurriedly ran the keen edge back and forth over the master's head and face, contriving never to wound a sliver of skin, his tone easy as he flexed with relish. "Imperial Arms come in grades too, you see, and this Startled Swan Sword is a defective specimen among the mass-produced lot... An Imperial Arm can grant a martial artist mysterious power beyond all reason, but in this world yin wanes as yang waxes — there's no gain without loss. Take this Startled Swan Sword: its Imperial dao-rhyme is 'Graceful as a Startled Swan,' which grants the wielder an ethereal body-art and greater speed. The trouble is, once a martial artist takes up the Startled Swan Sword and gains the Imperial Arm's power, all his later cultivation — his arts, his footwork, his techniques — must develop around that one dao-rhyme, because he has to draw out the Arm's effect ever better. Which is to say, his limitless possibility as a martial artist collapses into one single path... So your young mistress is very clever. Her instinct not to use the Startled Swan Sword, even to throw it away, is correct — because the moment she nurtures it along the dumbass line of thinking your clan's country-bumpkin masters prescribe, her future achievement in the Martial Examination would be that of a third-class also-ran, and no more."
"So you see, those old bastards at court are shrewd as death itself. The method of forging Imperial Arms, and very nearly all the Arms themselves, are in their hands; to get one, you basically have to take the Martial Examination." Sun Lang smiled warmly. "And to sit the Martial Examination means you've already boarded the empire's pirate ship. Gaining an Imperial Arm can hugely boost your combat strength, sure — but don't forget, there's nothing invincible in this world. However mighty an Imperial Arm, there's a way to counter it, and an empire that holds countless Imperial Arms and a mass of elite martial artists surely holds the power to counter every Imperial-Arm wielder there is. By this method they take the strongest, most elite martial artists of the age under their banner, forge the lawless martial artists into one orderly bloc of power, and then drive them to open frontiers and fight the nation's wars. A splendid stratagem, truly."
"An army of martial artists armed with Imperial Arms... In a cold-steel age where a few hundred heavy cavalry can shred a ten-thousand-strong infantry line to ribbons, a legion of martial artists wielding big treasured swords is all but invincible — which is how the empire has lorded its hegemony over the world for centuries, beating foreigners to their knees crying for daddy." Sun Lang smiled faintly, then slowly slid the sword back into its sheath. "Pity their good days are nearly at an end."
In that instant the sword-qi all around dissolved, and the chirring of insects and the bustle of the world returned. No one had noticed the brief anomaly. The master, his heart wholly seized by terror, stared with wide eyes, watching stiffly as Sun Lang sheathed the blade. Even with the edge gone from his throat, even with the killing intent dispersed, he couldn't muster the faintest thought of fighting back. This man... this man...
"Master, I'll admit your present expression gives me the satisfaction of a flex well landed, but I have to say..." Sheathing the sword, Sun Lang extended the hilt and rapped him on the head. The void-shattering, coldly merciless aura of a moment ago vanished without trace, replaced by a chattering, smack-worthy, nagging-auntie manner — yet the master still didn't dare move a muscle, couldn't even let anger show in his eyes. "You really are a pitiful, textbook bit player. I told you, didn't I — you'd get your face slapped by the protagonist, don't say you weren't warned, and you just wouldn't believe it. I told you to be rational and talk it out, and you still wouldn't treat me as a person. You know, it's exactly because this country's got pricks like you — who sit cross-legged practicing some art for two years, grow a few muscles, and decide they're above all mortals — that it's become such a foul, murky mess. Not that it's any of my business; even if this country burned in raging fire, I'd sit clapping and enjoying the show... You should understand now that the slightly long-winded me of a moment ago was, in fact, so very loving and patient, no?"
The hilt tapped the middle-aged man lightly on the head, and Sun Lang smiled. "Get it now? Your sort just can't understand plain human speech — really the product of a great clan, won't even hear the most basic reason. Have you understood my reasoning now? Don't be afraid, I won't do anything to you. I want you to go back and tell a lie, smooth this whole thing over. As for the Startled Swan Sword, I'll return it to that woman when I'm done. Believe me now?"
The man, not yet freed from the terror of being rigid head to toe and besieged by fear, could only manage a difficult nod.
"Good that you believe it... Then go back and lie. Don't let a soul know about today." Like beating a wooden fish, Sun Lang tapped the man's head with the hilt. "Friend, have you heard of the art of the face-slapping flex? A successful flex is making your enemy realize, in a few offhand strokes, the vast gulf between you. I just flexed successfully, and I think you've already grasped, quite easily, the gulf between us two. So you should understand that razing your whatever-it's-called Zhang family to the ground wouldn't be any great trouble for me, right?"
He cocked his head and smiled mildly. "So be sure to smooth the lie over. The moment I find your clan has learned of my affairs, not one of your several hundred household members gets to live."
Meeting the man's expression — terror with a sliver of buried fury — Sun Lang smiled. "Just as you said, friend: this is fairness. Fairness is that if I want to kill your whole family, not even a chicken of yours gets to flee, because between a petty errant like me and your Mingzhou Zhang family lies a gulf you can never touch. Fairness is that, facing a dumbass like you, I can either grin and talk reason and swap small talk, or, when you're given face and refuse it, impart to you a little life lesson. That is the bearing and ease of the strong — higher by I-don't-know-how-much than your good-for-nothing nose-in-the-air looking-down-on-people act."
"Now, a small lesson for you. Since you're so loyal to your clan, so full of collective honor, so proud of your birth, I'll bind your life and your clan's survival together. A master like me has suddenly appeared in Mingzhou City — able to awaken the Imperial dao-rhyme of a Startled Swan Sword only just acquired, wielding such earth-shaking swordsmanship. By rights, you ought to report this to your clan the first chance you get." Sun Lang smiled, very pleased. "But if you report it, and I happen to find out, then I'll kill your whole family. You can't be sure I'll do as I say, can't be sure whether I'll know you informed, can't be sure whether I really have the power to kill your whole family — which comes down to a question of probability. Where there's probability, there's agonizing and weighing. Since you fancy yourself one of the strong, then go experience the helplessness and shame of the weak, who, with the strong straddling their very souls, can't protect even their lives and the things they treasure. Truly, compared to killing you or just going and killing your family, this is the more interesting way..."
So saying, Sun Lang smiled at him. "And it saves me the trouble of killing anyone, too. Very tidy."
With that he turned and walked off, a smug smile on his face, like a child who'd thought up a marvelously fun game — delight tinged with a little anticipation. He laid the Startled Swan Sword across his eyes, studying it left and right.
The master watched Sun Lang go, a hand pressed to his chest. Having just faced death, he'd somehow taken not the slightest internal injury... because under that terrible menace, the true qi within him hadn't even qualified to go berserk and rebound through his organs. Face full of terror, he watched the man stroll back inside fiddling with the Startled Swan Sword, and faintly heard him say, "Damn, this really is a defective reject for fobbing off bumpkins. Never mind, it'll do... mass-produced or not, it's at least an Imperial Arm, far sturdier than an ordinary blade..."