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Wang Anfeng mingled in the crowd, passing through the thoroughfare of Fufeng County City.
On both sides of the thoroughfare, there still stood the Great Qin Iron Guards clad in armor and wielding repeating crossbows, their cold gleam piercing and their eyes sweeping over the passersby. After passing through the thoroughfare, one would be faced with the towering presence of the Wind Character Tower. On the face directly facing the city gate hung an enormous cloth banner of unknown material—neither gold nor jade.
Written upon it, in ancient script, was a single, large character.
Wind.
The wind that the Kunpeng rides upon.
This scene still elicited bursts of amazed exclamations from foreign merchant caravans nearby, its towering grandeur and ancient silence like that of a giant. Yet, the thoughts in Wang Anfeng’s heart were completely different from the first time he saw it. His face wore a nostalgic smile, but it was tinged with something different—as if reuniting with a long-lost friend, his smile laced with complex emotions.
He had lived through too many stories here.
His gaze swept past a nearby stele.
Engraved upon it were the words "Fewer than a Hundred," proclaiming a piece of humility to all passersby, to nations far and wide.
Around the stele gathered a few pedestrians, bodily more towering than the average citizens of Great Qin, with broader shoulders, high noses, ruddy eyes, and strange tattoos on their exposed skin—clearly foreign visitors, marveling at the "Fewer than a Hundred" inscription with gestures of amazement.
The people of Great Qin are truly wild.
Wang Anfeng overheard someone murmuring softly in a not-so-fluent Qin official language, chuckled to himself without taking it seriously, and collected his suddenly emerging thoughts. Following the clean and orderly road, he made his way towards Fufeng Academy.
Lifting his eyes, the Wind Character Tower seemed to be just before him.
Yet he knew that the Academy was still some distance away from here.
I hope Brother Chuan is doing well.
And Baili, Tuoba Yue, Brother Xiaode, Su the Gambler...
And...
That name cautiously surfaced in his mind, like the thin mist that drifts through a mountain brook at dawn, like the first plum blossom to bloom in winter.
Like the bright and clear moonlight at the horizon.
Wang Anfeng’s heart began to beat uncontrollably faster.
........................
Two astonishingly sharp blade lights slashed through thin air.
They collided fiercely, rotating at high speed.
The wielder, relying on the strength of his waist, slightly loosened his grip, letting the lengthy handle slide through his fingers and palms, which paradoxically increased the speed, adding an even more sharp Qi Force to the blade’s edge.
It was like thunder tearing through dark clouds.
Finally, the two blades struck each other, like the sudden flash of lightning, the sonorous whistling sound no less intense than the roaring of a thunderstorm, the vigorous Qi infused into the blades dissipating, creating a fierce state from their mutual repulsion and tearing several marks into the ground.
Suddenly, one of them exerted more force.
The blade trembled, showcasing deep and intricate ’skill’ on the edge of an extremely strong ’intent,’ suppressing the other blade with a few moves, forcing a figure to stagger backwards.
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With a metallic ring, the blade was inserted into the ground, steadying the figure’s stance, both the handle and the edge far surpassing ordinary weapons, exuding an overbearing arrogance unique to the tools of war and conquest.
The Great Qin Mo Blade.
With one strike, both man and horse are shattered.
The other figure, a middle-aged man still standing, took a wineskin from his waist with one hand holding the Mo Blade, bit off the stopper with his mouth, opened it, and gulped the wine down greedily.
This was the potent liquor found only at the border pass.
Drinking it felt like swallowing blades, scraping painfully in the throat, but the rich fragrance shortly exploded in the chest and belly like a master’s Vigorous Qi, bringing warmth, comfort throughout the body.
Once accustomed to this type of drink, even the renowned Northwestern strong liquor seemed somewhat feeble by comparison.
In just a moment, a skin of wine was emptied.
The man seemed somewhat dissatisfied, smacking his lips and tossing the thing in his hand to the person in front, who caught the wineskin with a raise of his hand, his heavy and unkempt eyebrows furrowing slightly like two unsheathed Mo Blades.
He was dressed in the red-black Vigorous Attire typical of the Military Family’s students, and aside from the hefty Mo Blade in his hand, there was another half of a broken Mo Blade’s blade at his waist, its purpose unclear.
The man standing in place wiped the wine from the corner of his mouth and said:
"It’s yours now."
"Don’t disgrace me at the border pass. If you encounter the barbarians, don’t piss yourself! Do you hear me, Baili Feng?"
Baili Feng took the wineskin, his maturing face stern and resolute, showing the bravery unique to a Military Family leader. He grinned, hung the wineskin carelessly at his waist, and said nonchalantly:
"Heh, just watch, old man. I’ll make them cry without tears."
"I will become a General to guard the Qin, and then you can really boast about it!"
The middle-aged Master laughed it off, but then burst into hearty laughter, saying:
"Good!"
"I’m waiting for the day you get promoted and bestowed with noble ranks, your war achievements earning you a marquisate!"
At that moment, his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of a patch of red at the training ground not far off, seeing a sheath of a sword that was starkly different from the Great Qin Broad Saber. The smile on his face contracted slightly, adopting the composure characteristic of a Master, and he said:
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"Alright, you scamp."
"Save the big talk for another time, scram. Your sweetheart is coming. Stop showing off in front of me."
Baili Feng turned his head, spying the familiar figure, his lips almost instinctively stretching into a somewhat dazed smile. Hearing the middle-aged man’s words, without the slightest hesitation, he said decisively:
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"Alright then, old man, I’m off!"
"I’ll come find you again tomorrow."
He turned on his heel and secured the Mo Blade on the strap behind his back. Without any sign of hesitation and under the watchful gaze of the middle-aged master, whose mouth twitched slightly, he strode out laughing, a distance of ten meters yet to cover, when he already burst into laughter, saying:
"Ah Yue, what brings you here?"
Next to the training field stood a tall young woman whose age appeared similar to Baili Feng’s. Her black hair was tied up behind her head, and her facial features were not as soft and gentle as those of the typical Great Qin women, possessing more of a bold edge, but this did nothing to diminish her beauty—in fact, it added a heroic charm rarely found amongst the women of the Central Plains. She was dressed in red and had a curved saber resembling a crescent moon at her waist.
She lifted her eyes to glance at Baili Feng and smiled:
"Can’t I come to look for you?"
Baili Feng raised his hand to scratch his head, quickly pleading for mercy as he smiled:
"Of course, of course, you can."
"I was just thinking, with you heading home in a few days and me soon to report to the border pass, it might not be so easy for us to come back to Fufeng City afterward."
"We probably won’t see many people again. You’ve been here for over three years learning all sorts of things, and I thought you would spend more time with your classmates and friends."
Tuoba Yue pressed her lips together, a trace of worry in her eyes that she didn’t show, feigning nonchalance:
"I’ve already met with them."
"We are all martial artists; there’s no need to cry and wail like little girls. Plus, to be honest, there isn’t much left to say…"
Baili Feng paused, seemingly reminded of something, and smiled with a complexity:
"That’s true indeed."
"Anfeng left Fufeng two years ago, and a few days back, Brother Xue also departed... neither left any message behind. The Academy is so vast, yet with just the two of us, it feels somewhat joyless and empty, with nothing much to gather for."
"Once we both head to our respective postings at the border pass in the Northern Lands, Brother Xue’s family is in the south of the Central Plains, and Anfeng, that fellow is the worst; he just left without leaving any trace… The world is so vast, who knows if we’ll ever have the chance to meet again."
Tuoba Yue’s lips pressed together again as memories from over two years ago involuntarily filled her mind. She had studied at the Academy for three years, yet it was the memories of those few months that stood out the clearest.
The gentle and peaceful blue-robed swordsman, the brash and fervent Baili Feng, and the dazzlingly splendid Xue Qinshuang, like the sun in the sky.
These people had defined the years of her life.
She raised her right hand, brushing over a piece of white jade at her waist. The moment she thought of that name, Tuoba Yue’s normally calm expression became somewhat distant.
"Aren’t you waiting for him anymore?"
Under the round moon, she asked the young girl in white robes and a red shawl. Nearly three years had passed since that first meeting when the girl was similar in height to her own, but now she seemed a bit smaller, disguised in men’s attire, clothed in white with a red shawl overtop. Her long hair was pulled up into a high ponytail with red bands interwoven through her black locks, dancing in the wind.
She tilted her body slightly, her face serene.
"I can’t wait any longer…"
It was as if she was speaking of something that had nothing to do with her.
"My stay here was a three-year agreement made with my family, and now that three years have come to pass, family members will soon come to fetch me."
"However, there’s still one thing I don’t understand. It looks like I’ll have to leave it for the future."
Xue Qinshuang smiled, seemingly indifferent, and reached out to hand over a white jade plaque, saying:
"Take this jade plaque. If Anfeng comes back, smash it."
"They’re a matched pair—one with you and one with me—so I can rest a bit easier on my side."
Tuoba Yue pursed her lips.
She had always thought that Miss Xue was like the dazzling sun in the sky, but at that moment, when her family was mentioned, the girl in front of her seemed to be carrying a sense of detachment and a subtle loneliness, as if she had fallen into a dark abyss, vast and cold, with hardly any presence visible.
Just then, Baili Feng beside her gently patted Tuoba Yue’s shoulder and whispered:
"Let’s go. We can continue talking as we walk, otherwise, we’ll make the old man grumpy again."
Tuoba Yue snapped back to reality, gathered her scattered thoughts, smiled, and replied:
"Alright."
The two walked side by side, slowly leaving the premises. Both had completed their studies at the Academy and were now living outside. The rooms that once held their memories now belonged to the new students who had entered the Academy that year. The burly man stood in the middle of the Military Family training ground, grasping the Great Qin Mo Blade in one hand.
The blade’s edge traced little by little over the fine white sand underfoot.
His gaze shifted from Baili Feng’s retreating back and settled on Tuoba Yue, pausing briefly on the scabbard of the curved saber at her waist, before it finally withdrew.
"The Border Pass General? Tuoba Yue, Tuoba…"
"Heh…"
With a cryptic chuckle, the middle-aged master raised his left hand towards his waist to grab his wine flask for a swig, but caught air, suddenly remembering he had given that ’treasure’ to Baili Feng.
He irritably scratched his hair, his dark locks becoming disheveled, and spat to the side, muttering a couple of curses under his breath.
Meanwhile.
Wang Anfeng stood still, looking up.
Surrounded by young academy students, the towering and imposing Wind Character Tower was now in front of him.
PS: Offering the first installment…