"1466..."
"1467..."
Snow reflected the moonlight, creating a serene glow as Yang Ge stood in a snowy field, dressed in loose robes, repeatedly practicing the powerful strike called ’Splitting Mount Hua.’
Step forward, swing the saber.
Sheathe the saber, parry.
Step forward, swing the saber.
Sheathe the saber...
The movements were simple, yet he performed them very slowly.
There was none of the lightning-fast ferocity of facing an enemy!
But the pure essence of the saber was present in his advance and retreat, in the tension and relaxation, in the inhale and exhale.
There’s a saying in boxing: practice a move a hundred times, and the movement technique will appear.
The same is true for practicing with a saber.
When first handling a long saber, there was neither rhythm nor a feel for the blade.
Swinging at air, twisting at the waist, even being knocked back by the saber’s reaction were all common occurrences.
After tens of thousands of swings, the technique became defined, and a feel for the blade developed.
With each swing, his entire body’s strength flowed as smoothly as silk.
Where the blade’s edge passed, it increasingly felt like an extension of his limbs, as natural as directing an arm.
And the cold, long saber seemed to gradually develop a warmth...
As long as he held it, he felt familiarity, he felt support.
After swinging the saber over a hundred thousand times, the moment he grasped the handle, his spirit seemed to flow through his arm to the blade’s edge; what cut through the air was not just force, but also his own intent.
By then, the saber was no longer an external object,
and the spirit and energy of the saber were no longer unfathomable figments of imagination.
Swinging the saber three thousand times a day might be tiring...
But for someone like Yang Ge who had experienced a whole year of 996, drinking with leaders until his stomach bled, and chased by KPIs even in his dreams... etc., this task hardly counted as suffering.
On the contrary, this simple and pure practice immersed him in a comforting, unique charm.
Especially when this simplicity and purity were linked with his childhood dream of martial arts, the charm was magnified many times over.
This content is taken from freёwebnovel.com.
Yang Ge did not know his own talent in saber techniques.
But he liked this purity.
He still believed in diligence compensating for dullness.
"Three thousand!"
"Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!"
As the final count coincided with the night watchman’s bamboo clapper, Yang Ge sheathed his saber, slowly exhaled a foot-long hot white breath, and immediately sweat poured down his body.
Even with his physical strength, such practice was not easy...
He walked around, moving his shoulders and neck to rest for a quarter of an hour, before starting to perform the Hunyuan stance to recover his spent physical energy and inner Qi.
About half an hour later, he finished his practice and carried his saber back inside.
Shortly, he changed into night attire and a nine-pipe mask and came out.
He mischievously adjusted the nine-pipe mask onto his face, ran to where Huang, who was sleeping soundly, lay, and woke him: "Time to pee!"
Huang lethargically lifted his head, sighed heavily in a very human-like manner, turned over, and stretched out his paws to cover his large ears, continuing to sleep soundly.
Yang Ge chuckled mischievously as he petted the dog’s head, then stood up and leapt, his tall figure soaring over the wall like a large bird.
However, he did not notice that in the neighboring yard, a pair of bright, glistening eyes followed his figure as it soared across the bright moon...
"Miss."
The girl in the flowered dress with a red headband tiptoed over with a handwarmer, whispering, "Yang Ge has left. Shall we go inside too?"
The person extended a fair palm from beneath her fur coat to receive the handwarmer, softly speaking, "Have Wu follow him to see if he can lend a hand."
Her voice was gentle, yet slightly hoarse, like a smoker’s.
"Eh..."
The flowered dress girl giggled and affectionately clung to her arm: "And you say you’re not smitten with Yang Ge?"
The person tapped the girl’s smooth forehead irritably: "I think it’s you who are smitten with him, isn’t it?"
The flowered dress girl nodded boldly: "Yes, I’m your maid after all."
The person holding the handwarmer slowly walked towards the inner room, softly responding, "Marry him yourself then. Such an upright and decent man should not be dragged into our murky affairs..."
The flowered dress girl followed closely, not daring to reply.
...
Yang Ge moved through Luting County under the moonlight, swiftly reaching the outside of the Fengyu Rice Shop warehouse. Before he could leap onto it, he noticed a dim light inside.
After a moment’s thought, he leaped to the top of the wall.
He saw in the open yard outside the warehouse, a lantern burning.
A burly man, whose arms were thicker than most men’s legs, guarded a boiling pot while drinking alcohol and eating meat, with a dark eight-foot copper rod leaning against the table beside him.
"Zhang truly trusts people!"
When Yang Ge recognized the man, the man also spotted Yang Ge on the wall, and immediately laughed and greeted with a fist salute from afar: "It wasn’t in vain that Yu waited for a long time!"
Yang Ge chuckled: "How does the taste of human blood and flesh suit you?"
Yu groaned and replied with a bitter smile, "Zhang flatters Yu too much. Yu is merely a humble house guardian. The food I eat is licked off the blade, and the drink I drink is the bitter beverage of labor. I am not fortunate enough to taste human flesh."
Yang Ge shook his head: "Don’t be so humble about yourself. In a world of countless professions, you chose to be part of the Fengyu Rice Shop, isn’t that a skill?"
Yu also shook his head: "Yu only knows to consume the employer’s bounty and be loyal. I concern myself with nothing else, and I wish to manage nothing further!"
"Straightforward!"
Yang Ge switched the willow leaf saber to his left hand: "So tonight, unless I get past you, I cannot obtain the grain, correct?"
Yu grabbed the copper rod and rose to his full height: "Taking it is possible, but Yu cannot simply wait for Zhang all night for nothing, can I?"