IS Chapter 107

Chapter 107

Later, the Swordsmith found Yun Xiangzhuo again. This time, Yun Xiangxi wasn’t there.

“Xiao Zhuo, that question you asked me before, I’ve been thinking about it again,” the Swordsmith said, “My answer was wrong.”

Yun Xiangzhuo: “Where was it wrong?”

“I said that a person’s cultivation is like forging a sword, and I also answered you that teaching a person is like forging a sword. This isn’t wrong in itself, but I was wrong in not explaining to you clearly what forging a sword really is.”

“A sword doesn’t become what the person forging it wants it to be. I’ve forged swords my whole life, and I still can’t make those materials turn into the shape I want at will. A material has its inherent gifts, and I’m just refining its true nature.”

“It’s for this that it’s worth it to temper it with ice and fire, and to refine it through a thousand hammers and a hundred refinements. Mortals say that jade that is not carved cannot become a useful object, but the highest realm of weapon refinement isn’t about carving at will, but about returning to simplicity, removing all impurities, and helping it radiate its own light. It’s the same with a sword, and it’s the same with people.”

“Swords have hearts, and people also have hearts. Xiao Zhuo, any forging is only to reveal the true heart of a sword, and all cultivation is ultimately to clarify your original heart.”

“So a sword isn’t forged, and a person isn’t carved. Just like that pine tree beside you, no matter how you trim it, it will always be a pine tree and will never become a cypress. Xiao Zhuo, do you understand what I’m saying?”

The Swordsmith didn’t know why he had to say so much in one breath. That day, after he went back, he tossed and turned, feeling a heavy stone in his heart. When he closed his eyes, he saw the look on Yun Xiangzhuo’s face when he heard his answer and suddenly looked at Yun Xiangxi. He had to say these words, and maybe he had to say them to Yun Xiangxi as well.

–But Xiao Zhuo is so young, how much can he understand?

Yun Xiangzhuo understood what the Swordsmith was trying to say.

He thought this was very interesting. So, swords have hearts.

So, people also have hearts. But what is the heart? The heart is the ruler of the form, the master of the blood vessels. But what the Swordsmith was talking about didn’t seem to be this kind of “heart.”

Looking into the Swordsmith’s eyes, he said, “Does Yun Xiangxi have a heart?”

The Swordsmith was stunned and didn’t answer.

Yun Xiangzhuo: “What about me, do I have a heart?”

There was a kind of sorrowful look in the Swordsmith’s eyes, a look that Yun Xiangzhuo had also seen in Ling Ye’s eyes.

The Swordsmith’s lips moved, but he didn’t say anything. The wind blew, and the first thing that rang out was Yun Xiangzhuo’s voice.

“If I have a heart,” he said calmly, “then there wouldn’t be a Yun Xiangxi.”

“What about other people?” the Swordsmith said softly, “Will there be me in Xiao Zhuo’s heart?”

Yun Xiangzhuo quietly sized him up, tilting his head as if in thought.

Maybe he was thinking of Ling Ye, of Old Manor Master, of his older martial brother and sisters, and also of the Swordsmith.

“A little bit,” he said.

The Swordsmith smiled.

“Xiao Zhuo,” he said.

Yun Xiangzhuo thought he was going to say something, but after a long while, the Swordsmith just said, “Xiao Zhuo.”

Boring. Yun Xiangzhuo planned to end this conversation.

“Xiao Zhuo, when you grow up,” the Swordsmith said, “I’ll forge a Life-Bound Sword for you. It will definitely be a very beautiful, very good sword.”

“Swords have hearts, so my Life-Bound Sword will also have a heart,” Yun Xiangzhuo said, “What will its heart be like?”

The Swordsmith, who had been holding Yun Xiangzhuo’s shoulder, let go and moved his hand down. His finger gently tapped Yun Xiangzhuo’s heart on the left side.

“That is your heart, Xiao Zhuo,” the Swordsmith said.

That night, Yun Xiangzhuo was on the bed in the quiet room, wearing snow-white, soft-sleeved long robes, preparing to meditate. He still had some thoughts about the heart and about Life-Bound Swords in his mind.

Maybe he shouldn’t think that way. A person can only have one Life-Bound Sword, not a second one. Maybe his relationship with his father wasn’t like that.

Yun Xiangxi was under the window, about to extinguish the lamp.

“Father,” Yun Xiangzhuo suddenly said.

Yun Xiangxi looked at him. The lamplight was like water, leaving a little bit of fine light on Yun Xiangzhuo’s hair.

“What is our relationship?” Yun Xiangzhuo asked.

Such a question was not in Yun Xiangxi’s expectations, nor in Yun Xiangxi’s world.

He looked at Yun Xiangzhuo silently, the candlelight casting his unmoving silhouette on the window.

“There’s no relationship,” Yun Xiangxi answered him.

“…Oh,” Yun Xiangzhuo got the answer.

“Then what about you and Xiangxi Sword?”

“I am no different from it.”

So that’s how it is.

Yun Xiangzhuo lowered his eyes and didn’t ask any more questions.

Yun Xiangxi quietly looked at him.

At the same age as Yun Xiangzhuo, he wouldn’t have asked such a question to others. A person who has the Way in their heart shouldn’t have questions in their heart.

Maybe it was time to enter the Dao.

Yun Xiangxi blew out the candle, and the night swallowed everything.

That extinguished candlelight was like blowing out the last bit of light in Li Yuan’s heart regarding the first few years of Ye Zhuo’s life.

This Heart Devil illusion was too quiet, so quiet that it almost made him forget that all of this was the Demon of his Heart.

And this kind of quiet was only because the person who experienced these things was Ye Zhuo.

What exactly did Yun Xiangxi regard him as? The same blood, a sword, a mirror, or something else? Li Yuan only knew that Yun Xiangxi never treated him as a child, as a living being who also had a heart, flesh and blood, thoughts and confusion.

Li Yuan remembered when he was still a young dragon. He traveled to many places and saw many things. He looked at the distant coast on the back of the Azure Dragon clan’s ancestor, and quietly watched the rise and fall of the sun and moon on the high platform of the Cloud Heaven Tower. No dragon told him what kind of black dragon he would become in the future, and no one taught him that he had to learn what kind of swordsmanship. The sky and the sea were boundless, and he wouldn’t see the same face every day when he opened his eyes.

If he annoyed the Golden Dragon Ancestor, he would go to the White Dragon. After learning the White Dragon’s spells, he would visit the Red Dragon. The Red Dragon clan’s elder sister was tricked emotionally by a Vermillion Bird in the Southern Flame Realm, and he and his elder brother went to overturn the Vermillion Bird’s royal court together.

What would happen if he was Yun Xiangzhuo? What would happen if Li Yuan experienced all of this?

Nothing would happen, because even the word “he” wouldn’t exist. He didn’t exist in this world from birth. Yun Xiangxi didn’t raise Yun Xiangzhuo, he killed Yun Xiangzhuo.

Every sword he taught him, every time they looked at each other, every time he called out his name, was a kind of torture to his heart. What he shaved off day after day was Yun Xiangzhuo’s innate heart and flesh, and then he made him grow a cold shell, a shell that was born for the sword, a shell that was exactly like his father.

What exactly did Yun Xiangxi want? Li Yuan couldn’t figure it out, he couldn’t understand any of Yun Xiangxi’s actions at all. A person is born with three souls and seven spirits, five aggregates and six consciousnesses. Yun Xiangzhuo was born as a lotus flower and a handful of snow, he wasn’t born to be ruined by Yun Xiangxi like this!

Swords have hearts, dragons have hearts, and Yun Xiangzhuo has a heart, but Yun Xiangxi seems to really not have that heart.

But if he really didn’t have that heart, if he never regarded Yun Xiangzhuo as a child, and never regarded himself as a father.

The hair ribbon he tied for Yun Xiangzhuo every day, the spiritual sword he forged for Yun Xiangzhuo every year, the hand he held to take him home at night, the drop of ink he bent down to wipe away for him–what were these then?

What did these things falling into Yun Xiangzhuo’s world count as?

Ye Zhuo said that he cultivated the Path of Emotionlessness. But Li Yuan never regarded him as a heartless and unfeeling person. Ye Zhuo was a person with emotions and preferences. He would push away things he didn’t like, and he would allow things he didn’t dislike so much to stay by his side. He could taste a cup of plum wine, and he didn’t like things that were too sweet.

Li Yuan never regarded him as a person who didn’t know the world, a person who only knew swords. On the contrary, he knew that Ye Zhuo actually had a heart as clear as glass, and everything would reflect its original appearance in it. He understood everything in the world, but he just didn’t care.

The Ye Zhuo of twenty years later understood everything.

So, the Yun Xiangzhuo of twenty years ago was also like this.

He was just soberly accepting the cruel torture of one sword after another. If that was Yun Xiangxi’s wish.

What time is it? Li Yuan thought blankly.

He turned his head to look at the waxing crescent moon outside the window, and looked at the stars in the sky. It was autumn, and this day was the first day of August when Yun Xiangzhuo was five years old.

On the night of August 14th, Ling Ye would tell Yun Xiangzhuo that she was leaving.

He wanted to see Yun Xiangzhuo’s face clearly in the night. He stretched out his hand, and the moonlight overflowed like water between him and Yun Xiangxi. He took a step and suddenly returned to the fog of that night on August 14th.

That day, Yun Xiangxi was still holding Yun Xiangzhuo’s hand as they returned to their residence.

“She said, she’s leaving,” Yun Xiangzhuo said.