"No matter how powerful firearms are, there are times when they miss! If an assassin gets close, Second Brother doesn't even have the right to block a blade for you now!"
Xu Zhan knelt on one knee on the yellow earth in the backyard. His left hand gripped the battle saber tightly, the blade covered in blood scraped from his own leg.
A patch of dark red seeped through the right pant leg of his unlined garment, spreading wider and wider.
Xu Qinghuan stood outside the moon gate, her steps halting abruptly. This was the first scene she encountered upon returning from the Commander-in-Chief's Manor.
Half an incense stick of time ago, the carriage stopped outside the relay station. Xu Qinghuan had just stepped off the shaft, the document granting her overall authority over the border trade still tucked in her sleeve. Before she could even steady her footing, she heard the intermittent sound of something slicing through the wind coming from the backyard.
Xu Qinghuan raised her hand, suppressing the words Li Sheng was about to say. "All of you, step back."
She bypassed the corridor, walked through the passageway, and came to the moon gate of the backyard alone.
She saw Xu Zhan bare-chested, his severed right shoulder wrapped in layers of white cloth. Sweat soaked the strips of cloth, sticking to his flesh.
Holding a standard battle saber in his left hand, he was fiercely hacking at the hitching post in the courtyard.
However, his movements were extremely awkward. Generating force with his left hand was completely contrary to his habit with his right hand. With every swing of the saber, he seemed to be stiffly wrestling with the muscles in his waist and abdomen.
The first strike missed by half a foot, hitting the edge of the wooden post. The blade bounced back sharply, nearly slipping from his grasp.
For the second strike, he gritted his teeth and forcefully corrected the angle, turning his wrist. The blade managed to hack onto it, but it went less than half an inch into the wood and got stuck tight.
The flesh on the purlicue of his left hand had long been worn raw. Blood and sweat mixed on the handle, making it slippery and hard to grip. He pressed his entire body weight onto it and fiercely yanked backward.
Only then was the saber forcibly pulled out.
But the force completely went out of control. The blade slanted, and the back of the saber smashed hard against the shinbone of his left leg.
With a muffled thud, Xu Zhan fell forward.
Seeing this, Xu Qinghuan nervously gripped the doorframe, fighting back her heartache and stopping herself from rushing in.
Because she saw that Xu Zhan's shoulders were trembling.
An iron-blooded man who hadn't even let out a groan of pain when he lost his arm in a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood was now kneeling on the yellow earth, gripping a battle saber that couldn't chop into a wooden post, his shoulders trembling.
Xu Zhan seemed to sense something and turned his head.
Their eyes met. His eyes were red, revealing a desperate unwillingness.
Xu Qinghuan's eyes immediately grew moist.
Second Brother, your little sister thanks you.
She was just about to step forward.
"Miss!" Li Sheng's voice came from the front courtyard, his steps hurried. "Zhao Hu from the Commander-in-Chief's Manor requests an audience, saying he brought a congratulatory gift from General Tie!"
Xu Qinghuan let out a deep breath of relief.
When she opened her eyes again, that bit of sourness had been forcibly swallowed back into her stomach. She looked at Xu Zhan and dropped a heavy sentence: "Wait for me."
...
The main hall in the front courtyard.
Zhao Hu, with two personal guards from the Commander-in-Chief's Manor, carrying a waist-high black iron box, was waiting under the corridor.
Seeing Xu Qinghuan come out, he immediately piled on a face full of amiable smiles, his back still bent to just the right degree.
"Imperial Envoy, after parting ways at the manor just now, General Tie thought it over and felt that just treating you to a cup of cold tea was truly a breach of etiquette."
Zhao Hu raised his hand and patted the iron box.
"So, he specially dug out a treasure from the storehouse as a meeting gift for you, Imperial Envoy."
He waved a hand backward, and the two personal guards stepped forward, working together to lift the lid of the iron box.
As the lid flipped open, Xu Qinghuan's gaze slightly condensed.
The box was lined with thick sackcloth, and right in the middle sat a piece of dark gray metal the size of a fist. Its surface was uneven and covered with burn marks.
But its weight was terrifyingly heavy—when those two burly personal guards lifted the box just now, sweat beaded on their foreheads, and their steps were unsteady.
Meteoric iron! A star fallen from the sky.
Xu Qinghuan had seen records of this thing in ancient texts and scrolls in the capital. This item had an extremely high density, far exceeding the refined iron produced by any mine in the Great Qian Dynasty.
The fire in an ordinary blacksmith's forge couldn't melt it at all. It had to be continuously burned in a specially made crucible for three days and three nights before it could barely be softened for forging.
Zhao Hu smiled with a face full of sincerity, but testing was hidden in the depths of his eyes. "This piece of meteoric iron from outer space was accidentally obtained by General Tie in his early years when he was wiping out bandits at the northern foot of the Yan Mountains. It has been sitting in the storehouse for over a decade."
He changed the subject, his tone taking on a bit of testing.
"However, although this item is a supreme treasure, ordinary forge fires can't forge it."
"If you want to use it, Imperial Envoy, I'm afraid it will take some effort. If it can't be melted, it will instead become a stubborn stone kept at the bottom of a chest."
Gifting meteoric iron was a gesture showing his willingness to cooperate. But this was also a test question—if you, the Imperial Envoy, couldn't even melt a piece of iron or forge a single weapon, what would you use to turn things upside down in this tiger and wolf's den of the Northern Frontier?
If she showed the slightest bit of timidity, Tie Lanshan would conclude that she was nothing but a paper tiger who only knew how to talk the talk.
Xu Qinghuan sneered and didn't even take half a step forward.
"I appreciate General Tie's good intentions." She slightly turned her head, her gaze bypassing Zhao Hu and falling on Li Sheng beside her. "Li Sheng, accept the gift."
Seeing this, Zhao Hu hurriedly bowed and saluted, then led the personal guards and turned to leave, his footsteps more than twice as fast as when he came.
The main gate slammed shut heavily behind them.
Xu Qinghuan turned around. "Take the thing and come with me."
Immediately, several personal guards lifted the meteoric iron together.
It was a good thing.
The few of them returned to the backyard one after another.
Inside the moon gate, Xu Zhan had already managed to stand up by leaning against the wooden post.
The bleeding from his left leg had temporarily stopped, and he had haphazardly wrapped it a few times with a torn corner of his clothes. That battle saber was stuck in the muddy ground, the blade still trembling slightly in the wind.
Xu Qinghuan walked over and signaled Li Sheng to place the meteoric iron on the bluestone table in the courtyard.
"Bang!"
Black iron striking bluestone let out an extremely muffled, loud noise, and a trace of a crack was directly smashed into the edge of the stone table.
Li Sheng bowed and withdrew, guarding outside the courtyard.
"Second Brother." Xu Qinghuan sat down on the stone stool with a bold and unconstrained posture, looking straight at Xu Zhan. "Firearms are sharp weapons for long-range attacks. I never expected them to block close-range blades for you."
"So I ask you." Xu Qinghuan sat down on the stone stool with a bold and unconstrained posture, looking straight at Xu Zhan. "If I were to forge an exclusive weapon for you from scratch, what do you want?"
Xu Zhan fell silent.
He lowered his head and looked at his left hand, which had gripped the saber handle. The blood on the purlicue hadn't dried, and the distribution of calluses on his palm was completely different from that on his right hand.
The silence lasted for a long time. The night wind in the courtyard swirled with yellow sand, scraping across the top of the wooden post and letting out a whimpering sound.
"Little Sister." Xu Zhan's voice suddenly changed.
Shedding the dejection from just now, it carried a bit of self-deprecating calmness. "There's something I've never mentioned to anyone in the Northern Frontier."
Xu Qinghuan listened quietly.
"I was born a left-hander."
Xu Qinghuan was slightly startled.
"I eat with my left hand, write with my left hand, and when I was young, picking up pebbles to shoot birds in Taoyuan, it was also with my left hand."
He paused, his eyes gradually becoming sharp.
"But in the military camp, battle formations emphasize unified force. Spear phalanxes and saber-and-shield walls are all drilled according to the right hand. A left-hander standing in the formation can't match the rhythm of others. At best, weapons clash; at worst, the formation falls apart."
Xu Zhan lowered his head, staring fixedly at that left hand.
"The drillmaster at the recruit camp whipped me with a leather whip dipped in salt water for half a month, forcing me to switch to my right hand."
"Only then did I desperately grind out a set of right-handed saber skills."
He raised his head, his gaze locked on that piece of meteoric iron on the stone table. "But now, the right hand is gone."
Xu Qinghuan looked into his eyes.
In the depths of his eyes, the lifelessness from moments ago was being burned away bit by bit. A certain instinct, long suppressed by military discipline, was resurfacing, carrying with it the heavy scent of blood.
Xu Zhan strode forward, reached out his left hand, and pressed it firmly against the piece of meteoric iron. The cold, rough texture pierced through his palm, reaching straight into his marrow.
To hell with this damn sword. I don't want it anymore.
Xu Qinghuan raised an eyebrow.
A one-handed sword relies on the explosive power of the wrist. Relearning it with my left hand would be far too slow, and I cannot afford the time, Xu Zhan said, his words tumbling out faster now. But a mace is different! A mace is all about absolute, overwhelming force!
A mace relies on arm strength, on the brutal swinging and smashing of the entire arm. It does not require the delicate, precise movements of the wrist. It is purely about raw power, smashing right through their defenses!
He clenched his left fist and slammed it heavily onto the stone table.
Meteoric iron is incredibly dense. A mace forged from this will be thirty percent heavier than an ordinary iron one! Xu Zhan's eyes lit up with a fierce light. A sword cannot cleave through the barbarians' triple-layered heavy armor, but a mace does not need to cut at all. It is meant purely for blunt, crushing impact!
No matter how thick their armor plates are, the internal organs inside will never be able to withstand it! With one swing of the mace, even if the outer iron shell remains intact, the bones inside will be pulverized into mush!
The dispirited, broken soldier who had just been kneeling in the yellow dirt was finally gone.
Xu Zhan suddenly raised his head, meeting Xu Qinghuan's gaze.
Little sister, forge a single mace for your second brother!
His left hand remained pressed against the meteoric iron. His five fingers suddenly clenched, his knuckles popping and cracking with the force.
If any assassins ever get close to you...
Xu Zhan grinned, his smile wild and unbridled.
Your second brother will finally have what it takes to shield you from their blades.
