One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

After walking around the factory, Liu San brought out a set of old-fashioned forging tools from a closed workshop—a forging hammer, a pair of long-handled iron pliers, and a flat cast iron anvil. The tools were covered with a thin layer of dust, but there was no rust. The handles had been worn smooth by years of hands, creating a concave contour that fit perfectly in the palm.

"These used to belong to my master." Liu San placed the items on the workbench, taking a half-step back as if to make room for them. "He passed them on to me after he retired. I haven't used them in a long time, but the blade should be in good condition."

Nie Lingfeng picked up the forging hammer and weighed it in his hand. The weight of the hammerhead and the center of gravity were evenly distributed, and the curvature of the handle was smooth. When he gripped it, the space between his thumb and forefinger naturally fit into the groove that had been ground out. He put the hammer back on the anvil and then began to feed ore into the furnace.

When the first piece of ore was thrown into the furnace, the color of the flame changed noticeably. The original orange-red flame of the Sky-Piercing Furnace, upon contact with the ore surface, instantly developed a bluish-green halo around its edges, like the fine lines spreading out after a few drops of water were added to a pan of oil, breaking the surface tension. Wang Ye stood to the side of the furnace opening, his hands forming the ignition seal. A layer of sweat appeared on his forehead, but under his control, the furnace temperature did not fluctuate greatly, instead steadily climbing to a stable range.

Nie Lingfeng used pliers to clamp the ore and adjust its position so that its thickest side faced the core of the furnace flames. The surface of the ore slowly changed color under the high temperature—from dark blue to light gray to a whitish orange-red. Throughout the process, the silver-gray texture never disappeared; it simply sank from the surface to a deeper layer.

Zhang Chulan squatted beside the furnace, his arms resting on his knees, watching the stone in the furnace turning red, and suddenly blurted out, "Brother Nie, have you ever forged a sword before? I mean—have you ever forged a sword like this, made from raw materials yourself?"

"I've done it before." Nie Lingfeng's attention was on the furnace, but his answer wasn't perfunctory. "But not often. Previously, we used pre-forged blanks to shape them. This is the first time we've started smelting from ore."

"Such a complicated challenge for your first time?" Wang Zhenqiu walked over from the other side, carrying a tin bucket filled with cooling water. "Aren't you afraid of ruining your health?"

"There are only three pieces of ore. If they're ruined, there won't be any left." Nie Lingfeng adjusted the angle of the tongs to observe the evenness of the heating of the ore. "So it has to be done in one go."

Wang Zhenqiu didn't ask any further questions. He placed the bucket on the ground two steps away from the anvil, straightened the rim, and then stepped aside to watch quietly.

The ore was heated for nearly an hour. When the ore emitted a uniform incandescent light in the furnace, Nie Lingfeng used tongs to remove it and placed it on the cast iron anvil. After the ore left the furnace, its surface temperature began to drop rapidly, and the incandescent color faded to orange-red within a few breaths, then transitioned to dark red. He raised the forging hammer during that transition window.

When the first hammer fell, everyone in the factory felt the vibration. The moment the hammerhead struck the ore, it wasn't a simple, crisp sound of metal colliding, but rather a deep, muffled roar, like the sound of iron surfaces being rearranged. Sparks flew from the edge of the hammerhead, tracing a dozen bright lines in the air before fading away. The side of the ore that had been struck regained its shine from its dark red, and the silvery-gray veins spread out and then gathered again around the hammer marks, like shattered ice slowly refreezing.

The second hammer blow landed slightly to the left. The third blow went to the right. Nie Lingfeng's rhythm was not fast, but the interval between each blow was almost fixed, and the landing points were evenly and orderly distributed. He first cut the ore from lumps into flat strips, and then used repeated heating and cooling cycles to fold, twist, and repress the strips.

Throughout the afternoon and evening, the workshop echoed with the sounds of hammering and the roar of furnaces. The light outside the skylight faded from the brightness of daytime to the golden-red of dusk, then to the deep blue of twilight, before finally being completely enveloped by darkness. Zhang Chulan lit several emergency lights in the factory, bathing the entire work area in a warm yellow glow, casting elongated shadows on the cast iron walls and floor.

Wang Zhenqiu changed the water several times. Each time he took the sword material out of the quenching barrel, a very thin layer of dark scum would float to the surface, which Nie Lingfeng would skim off with iron tongs. Wang Ye's fire control gesture never loosened. His lips were a little lighter in color at night than during the day, and his breathing rate was slightly faster, but he always maintained the narrow steady-state range of the furnace temperature.

As midnight approached, Nie Lingfeng made the final fold. He took the slender sword blank from the furnace and quickly completed the final shaping on the anvil—the thickness of the spine, the bevel of the blade, and the reserved width for the guard. Then he immersed the sword blank in the quenching barrel.

The sound of rising steam was more intense than ever before. White mist surged from the surface of the bucket, spreading rapidly beneath the low ceiling of the workshop, briefly enveloping everyone in the mist for a few breaths. When the mist dissipated, Nie Lingfeng had already lifted the sword blank from the bucket with iron tongs. The surface of the sword was a uniform dark bluish-gray, with an extremely thin, gleaming white hard edge line along both sides of the spine.

He placed it on the anvil to cool, then put down the tongs and ran his thumb along the blade from the middle of the spine. There were no scratches.

"It's done," he said.

Lu Linglong had been sitting on a wooden crate in the corner of the workshop ever since he struck the first blow. She didn't make a sound, didn't move, just sat there quietly, watching the firelight, hammering, steam, and changing colors of the metal throughout the afternoon and evening. She clutched the scroll of the "Holy Spirit Sword Technique" in her hand the whole night, but didn't open it.

Nie Lingfeng picked up the sword from the anvil. The three-dimensional contours of the blade were even more regular than he had expected—the width of the hilt was just enough to accommodate a hand and a half of grip space, and the arc that narrowed from the hilt to the tip was symmetrical and natural. When the light from the emergency lamp fell on the blade, the silver-gray texture faintly emerged, like fine ripples pressed into the metal, ending at the edge of the blade.

He took the sword and handed it to Lu Linglong.

"Let's test the feel."

Lu Linglong stood up and raised both hands to receive the sword. The way she held the hilt was still the basic starting stance that Nie Lingfeng had taught her—her right hand was against the base of the hilt, her left hand lightly supported the lower edge of the guard, and her shoulders were slightly lowered.

The moment the sword entered her palm, she felt two things happening simultaneously: first, the weight distribution—the sword's center of gravity was further forward than she had expected, but it landed precisely on the fulcrum where her wrist naturally rotated when she practiced the first move of the Holy Spirit Sword Technique, "Sword Emerging from Spring Water"; second, the temperature—the hilt had a faint warmth, warmer than room temperature, but not hot enough to burn her hand, like a small, just-extinguished lamp leaving residual heat under the hilt's wrapping.

She gently swung the sword, following her instincts. The movement was slow and the amplitude small, but the path the sword tip traced left a very faint, silvery-gray afterglow in the air, like a fine needle drawing a delicate mark on dark paper.

Lu Linglong sheathed her sword and looked down at her hands.

"It recognizes me," she said. Her voice wasn't loud, but there was a sense of reassurance in her tone, a feeling that had been confirmed and was no longer wavering.

Zhang Chulan peeked out from behind the side worktable: "Have you chosen a name yet?"

Lu Linglong held the sword horizontally and gently ran her fingertip along the dark pattern on the middle of the spine. She thought for a moment, then looked up from the sword and glanced out the window—the winter night in the Yimeng Mountains had no moon, but the starry sky filled the heavens. After the clouds dispersed, the deep blue-black expanse at the top resembled the color of metal that had been repeatedly forged and was slowly cooling.

"Qing Shuang," she said.

Wang Ye leaned against the edge of the worktable, his hands tucked into his sleeves. After hearing her name, he nodded slightly without saying anything.

Zhang Chulan asked, "Why Qing Shuang?"

Lu Linglong turned the sword tip downwards, stood with her hands at her sides, and the starlight and lamplight cast a faint shadow on her face: "Because this morning, just before dawn, I saw that the frost on the windowsill outside was bluish-gray. Not white, but that kind of color—like a thin sheet of iron with a hint of dark blue. When I saw it, I thought, 'If only there were a sword that color.'"

She glanced down at the Azure Frost Sword in her hand.

"Then my master struck it out."