Night.
Ye Chen awoke in an unfamiliar room. It wasn't the stinking stable strewn with dry hay, but a clean room with warm blankets and the pungent scent of medicinal herbs.
His shoulder throbbed as though it had been scorched by fire. He struggled to sit up and saw a middle-aged man in blue sitting by the table with his back turned, silently examining the blackened iron shard in his hand beneath the oil lamp.
It was Chief Escort Master Li Qingshan.
"You're awake?"
Li Qingshan's voice had grown much hoarser. In a single day, the escort agency had nearly been wiped out, and he himself had been wounded.
Ye Chen hurriedly knelt on the floor. The wound in his shoulder split open, blood seeping through the bandages. "This lowly one... this lowly one deserves to die. I brought disaster upon the escort agency."
Li Qingshan said nothing. He placed the broken iron shard on the table with a dry clack.
"Where did you get this iron shard?"
Ye Chen trembled and clutched his shoulder. "It... it was given to me by Old Man Sun. He found me in a pile of corpses..."
Li Qingshan rose and walked closer. He stared intently into Ye Chen's eyes. How could those eyes look so much like the eyes of someone he'd met twenty years ago?
Twenty years ago, when he was still a young escort guard running an escort through Blackwind Ridge, he'd been surrounded and hunted by more than a dozen bandits. He'd thought he was sure to die. Then a man in white, a broken sword strapped to his back, happened to pass by.
The man said nothing. He merely flicked his sleeve. The swords in the hands of more than a dozen bandits snapped in two, and they collapsed, unable to rise again.
Only after the man had left did he dare raise his head. All he saw was a lonely back and half a blackened broken sword that seemed to swallow the light of the setting sun.
The martial world called that man the Sword Saint—Ye Gucheng.
"Your surname is Ye?" Li Qingshan suddenly asked.
Ye Chen froze, then nodded.
"Is your village Ye Family Manor, at the foot of Mount Qingyun to the north?"
This time, Ye Chen didn't merely freeze. His entire body began to shake violently. For ten years, he hadn't dared remember that name. Every time he did, it brought a nightmare drenched in blood.
"How... how does Chief Escort Master know?"
Li Qingshan let out a long, deep sigh, his breath seeming to carry ten years of wind and frost.
"Back then... I was nearby as well. I arrived a step too late. The entire village... not a single person survived."
He recounted what had happened. That night, while running an escort through the area, he had seen flames fill the sky over Ye Family Manor. By the time he reached it, corpses lay scattered everywhere. The killers had been highly professional—a single sword to seal the throat. It was the signature method of the Iron Sword Sect.
"The Iron Sword Sect..." Ye Chen ground his teeth, two streams of bloody tears running down his face. "So it really was them!"
Li Qingshan placed a hand on his shoulder. A warm current of internal force flowed into him, easing his pain. "Chen'er, Zhao Gang's side sword was cut in two by your sword today. He won't let this go. He's already gone back to report. Within three days, the Iron Sword Sect's true experts will arrive. When they do, it won't be just you—the entire Azure Dragon Escort Agency will be wiped out as well."
Ye Chen's head snapped up. "This is all because of me. I'll leave at once! I won't let them find the escort agency!"
"Leave? Where can you go?" Li Qingshan smiled, though there was a trace of sorrow in it. "You don't know any martial arts. The moment you leave the city, you'll die. Besides, do you think they'll spare the place that sheltered you?"
The room fell silent.
Outside the window, the northern wind continued to howl.
Li Qingshan looked at the thin youth before him, then at the Broken Sword fragment on the table. At last, he seemed to make a momentous decision.
He dropped to one knee and performed the fist-and-palm salute of the martial world.
"Ye Chen, are you willing... to take me as your adoptive father?"
Ye Chen was stunned. He was only a stable boy, a servant. He had never dared dream that one day the lofty Chief Escort Master would accept him as an adopted son.
"I have no son, only a daughter, Muwan. From this day forward, you'll be the young Chief Escort Master of the Azure Dragon Escort Agency. I'll teach you martial arts and how to wield a sword. With this identity, you can openly and honorably pursue your revenge. Your blood debt is also the blood debt of my Azure Dragon Escort Agency!"
His final words rang out as hard and sharp as iron striking steel.
Ye Chen looked at the middle-aged man before him—the man who, for the past ten years, had given him a home and a bowl of food, even if it was only leftovers. Now, he was giving him a way to live, an identity, and hope for revenge.
Thud!
He dropped to his knees and slammed his head against the blue brick floor three times. Blood began to flow from his forehead.
"Adoptive Father! I... I, Ye Chen, swear by Heaven and Earth: if I betray you in this life, then let me end up like this sword—with my bones shattered and my body broken!"
Li Qingshan helped him up, his own eyes reddening. "Good! Good! From now on, your name is Li Chen! No, you'll remain Ye Chen! You bear the Ye surname, and this surname must once again resound throughout the martial world!"
He picked up the Broken Sword fragment from the table and placed it back in Ye Chen's hand.
"I wasn't mistaken about this sword. It is the Sword Saint's side sword from years ago. It chose you—that is fate. But remember this: before you attain Lesser Internal Mastery, you must not use the sword technique you used today again. That sword intent is too powerful. With your body as it is now, using it once will cost you a year of your life."
Ye Chen gripped the Broken Sword tightly. The cold iron shard had somehow become strangely warm, as if it possessed a spirit of its own.
A white shadow glided past the door. It was Li Muwan. She had been standing outside, listening for a long time. When she heard her father take the stable boy as his adopted son, she didn't object in the slightest. Instead, the corner of her mouth lifted faintly.
"Idiot. At least you don't have to sleep in the stable anymore."
She turned and walked away, but in her hand she carried the escort agency's finest Golden Wound Medicine.
Inside the room, Li Qingshan began teaching Ye Chen his first lesson in martial arts.
"The martial path begins with stance training. Starting tomorrow, you won't need to tend the horses anymore. Every day at the fifth watch, go behind the compound and hold the Horse Stance for me. Once you can stand for three watches without trembling, I'll teach you your first technique!"
That night, the Azure Dragon Escort Agency blazed with lamplight. No one slept.
Everyone knew that the real storm would arrive three days later.
Far away, in a secret chamber within the Iron Sword Sect, Zhao Gang knelt on the floor before an old white-haired man who held half of Zhao Gang's broken sword.
"The Broken Sword... so it has finally appeared?" The old man laughed, his voice hoarse as an owl's cry. "Pass down my order. Summon the three Elders from seclusion. This time, I want to flatten Qingyang Town!"