The night passed in bitter cold, but Huang Ming never slept deeply.
He lay on a thin straw bed beside the smooth, dark-brown piece of wood his brother had carved for him. The faint scent of pine resin still lingered in the air. He counted his breaths and listened to the falling snow outside the thatched roof, while Huang Long's words from the previous night echoed in his mind: “Get up one watch earlier tomorrow.”
He didn't know how long one watch was, but when he saw that the darkness outside remained whole, still thick as ink, he sat up.
The stove was cold, and the ashes had gone completely dead. He sat before the pile, fed a shred of pine bark into it, and blew gently until a red spark began to glow. The flame flared up, illuminating the little house and revealing his breath mingling with the air like a thin veil of mist.
He picked up the piece of wood and gripped it tightly.
Then he stepped into the yard.
The snow was still falling, but it was so dark that he could only see white flakes streaking across his line of sight as they passed before him. The old plum tree stood desolate, its branches bare, heavy clumps of snow gathered on them like mushrooms. Huang Ming stood before the tree, closed his eyes, and tried to recall what he had seen.
Huang Long practiced with his sword every morning. What did he do first?
Stand straight. Feet spread wide. Sword tip pointing forward. Then swing.
Huang Ming stood straight. His feet spread wide. The piece of wood pointed forward. He swung.
It felt completely different from practicing during the day. In daylight, he saw the broken branches and felt awkward. But now, in the darkness, no one was watching him. He didn't have to care about anyone's gaze. He swung the wood more naturally, his hands no longer stiff as they had been while shoveling snow in the streets.
The first swing—a diagonal slash from left to right. The second—from right to left. The third—from top to bottom.
He remembered Huang Long practicing those three directions, not once, but again and again, until sweat soaked the back of his shirt. Huang Ming didn't sweat because the weather was too cold. But he followed along.
The first time. The second time. The tenth time.
By the twentieth, his arms had begun to ache. The piece of wood wasn't as heavy as a real sword, but to a pair of thin, weak arms that had never held anything heavier than a broom, it had already become a burden. He kept holding it. He didn't let go.
He stopped when a red glow flared beside the doorframe.
Mo Xue stood there with a small oil lamp in her hand, her breath turning white in the air. She said nothing, only stood and watched him. The lamp trembled in her hand, its small warmth mingling with the freezing air.
Huang Ming looked at her without stopping.
He continued.
She sat down on the doorstep, set the lamp beside her, wrapped herself in an old padded coat, and silently watched.
Huang Ming raised the piece of wood, brought it down, turned, and swung again. Three basic movements. Repeated over and over. He wasn't graceful or fast, and he looked nothing like Huang Long when his brother practiced with a sword. But he was doing it.
After a while, another set of footsteps sounded from behind the house.
Huang Long appeared with his sword in hand, his dark eyes showing no trace of sleepiness. He had been awake for a long time, silently watching from the darkness. He stepped into the yard without a word and stopped three paces away from Huang Ming.
Then he raised his sword and began.
Huang Ming stopped and watched his brother.
Huang Long performed three movements—diagonal left, diagonal right, downward slash. Slow. Clear. Then he stopped, stood straight, and looked at Huang Ming.
He didn't say, “Follow me.” He simply demonstrated, then watched.
Huang Ming gripped the wood and followed. Diagonal left. Diagonal right. Downward slash.
When he finished the first set, Huang Long studied him for a moment, then began again. This time, he added another movement—a low horizontal sweep. Huang Ming followed.
And so it continued, one movement at a time. Huang Long demonstrated, and Huang Ming imitated.
Huang Long didn't correct him. He didn't say “wrong” or “right.” He simply completed a series, then stopped. Huang Ming corrected himself. The first time, he turned incorrectly; the next time, he turned a little farther. The first time, his downward slash veered left; the next time, he tried to keep it straight.
They practiced that way until the sky began to brighten—a pale gray spreading from the east and blending with the white snow like water mixed with milk.
Huang Long sheathed his sword, said nothing, and turned back toward the house.
Huang Ming remained where he was, the piece of wood in his hand. He exhaled a long breath, and the mist that came from his mouth was thicker than usual.
He lowered his head and looked at the wood. Where he had gripped it, a faint damp mark from his palm remained, even though the weather was cold. It was the warmth of his body, the first sign that he had truly given it his all.
Mo Xue had been awake for a long time and was cooking porridge. She said nothing about that morning. She only ladled out a bowl fuller than usual and set it in front of Huang Ming.
“Eat before it gets cold,” she said, her voice gentler than the falling snow.
Huang Ming picked up the bowl. Steam rose from it, warming his face. His hands were still trembling, but he held it steady.
Breakfast was as quiet as always.
But this time, when Huang Ming stood up, picked up his broom, and went to shovel snow, his legs no longer felt as heavy as before. His shoulders ached, and his arms felt ready to fall off, but something inside him felt lighter.
He walked down the hill. Mo Xue stood in the doorway, watching him go. Huang Long sat on the steps, wiping his sword as if nothing had happened.
Huang Ming walked into town.
On the way, he met Old Wang. The old man looked at him and frowned. “Your face looks different today. Did something happen?”
Huang Ming shook his head. He gripped the broom and began sweeping, but this time every stroke carried a rhythm—horizontal sweep, vertical sweep, downward slash. Three movements. Repeated. Shoveling snow was the same.
His arms hurt, but the pain felt better than any pain the children in town had ever inflicted on him.
At noon, he finished his section and sat down to rest beside a dead tree. He pulled the small piece of wood from his pocket—he had hidden it beneath his padded coat so no one would see. He raised it and swung, but this time he moved more slowly. He tried to remember Huang Long's posture that morning—his arms not too straight, his wrists not tense.
He tried adjusting himself. Once. Twice. Three times.
A figure appeared in front of him.
Zhao Shanghang.
This time, he had come alone. He wasn't carrying any pastries, and he wasn't smiling. He looked at the piece of wood in Huang Ming's hand, then at Huang Ming himself.
“I saw you on the hill last night,” Zhao Shanghang said. His voice held none of its usual mockery, only a flat curiosity. “Standing in the dark with a stick, doing who knows what?!”
Huang Ming didn't answer, but his hands didn't stop. He continued swinging—diagonal left, diagonal right, downward slash.
“You don't even have a dantian. You can't condense spiritual energy, so where are you supposed to get spiritual power to cultivate?!” Zhao Shanghang sat down on a nearby stone as though watching a show. “Everyone knows this. I know it, and you know it too. So why keep stubbornly going?”
Huang Ming stopped. He looked at Zhao Shanghang and slowly set the piece of wood down. “Do you think I don't understand what you're saying?”
Zhao Shanghang raised an eyebrow.
“But have you ever truly poured yourself into doing anything?” Huang Ming asked. His voice wasn't loud, but neither was it weak. “All this time, I never really tried. Everything I did was give up and accept that I was a cripple without a dantian. But this morning, I started trying. For the first time in my life, I truly tried...”
Zhao Shanghang stood and looked at him for a while. Then he turned away, but before leaving, he said in the same flat voice, “You won't get anything out of it. But I won't stop you anymore. I want to see how far a cripple like you can go down this path.”
His silhouette gradually vanished into the snow.
Huang Ming watched him for a while, then picked up the piece of wood again. He didn't know what Zhao Shanghang was thinking, but he didn't need to know. He only needed to know what he was doing.
When he returned home that evening, he saw Huang Long standing before the porch with a scrap of cloth in hand, wiping his sword. Fresh blood had dried into brown streaks along the blade. It seemed he had hunted something large that day.
Huang Ming set down the sack of rice and the turnips, then sat beside the stove and started a fire.
Huang Long came in afterward and sat down across from him. He didn't look at his younger brother. He only said:
“This morning, there were nine movements you practiced incorrectly.”
Huang Ming looked up.
“I counted,” Huang Long said. “You got them wrong nine times. That number needs to be lower tomorrow.”
Huang Ming said nothing. He only nodded.
That night, after Mo Xue had fallen asleep, Huang Long sat beside the fire with his iron sword in hand. He laid it across his lap, stared at the flames for a while, then said:
“Practicing the sword isn't for killing people. You practice the sword to protect what you cherish.”
Huang Ming sat across from him. He didn't fully understand, but he remembered.
“Protect what?” he asked.
Huang Long didn't answer. He stood, took his sword, and walked into the yard. In the darkness, he began to practice—the sword strokes tearing through the air. They were no longer a few scattered slashes, but a smooth, flowing chain, as soft as running water.
Huang Ming stood in the doorway and watched.
Snow fell around Huang Long like petals blown from a branch. He turned, swung his sword, drew it back, then swung again—all in a single breath, without stopping or repeating, as though his entire body were merely an extension of the blade.
In those movements, Huang Ming saw something he had never seen in his brother—not strength, but wholeness. It was as if the sword and the man had become one, like snow and wind in a blizzard.
After a long while, Huang Long stopped and exhaled a long plume of white breath. He turned back toward the house and walked past Huang Ming. He didn't look at his younger brother, but as he passed, he said:
“One day... you'll understand.”
Then he entered the bedroom.
Huang Ming stood at the door for a while, looking at the yard covered in Huang Long's footprints and the swirling marks in the snow where the sword tip had cut through. He looked at the piece of wood in his hand, then at those footprints.
He didn't understand everything. But he remembered.
He understood enough to know that the road ahead would be long and cold, and that tomorrow he would have to get up even earlier.
He went back inside, added more firewood to the stove, then lay down beside the old blanket, the piece of wood within reach of his hand.
In the darkness, he thought about Huang Long's words: “Practicing the sword isn't for killing people. You practice the sword to protect what you cherish.”
He didn't know what he needed to protect. But he knew that if one day he had to protect something, he wouldn't let it be taken away easily.
For some reason, when he thought of that, Mo Xue's face suddenly appeared in his mind.
He closed his eyes.
Outside, the snow continued to fall. Tomorrow, the sky would brighten again, and Huang Ming would rise early once more, take up the piece of wood, and continue.