Qin's Moon: Yang Shi's Long Song

On the third day after descending the mountain, Yang Hui rested in an abandoned beacon tower.

The beacon tower was a remnant of the previous dynasty; most of the rammed earth walls had collapsed, and the top was overgrown with withered grass. He sat on a broken stone in the corner, lit a small fire, and roasted some dry rations over it. The firelight cast flickering shadows on his face as he looked down at the flames, his mind churning with memories of the past ten years.

ten years.

He was taken to Ghost Valley by his master when he was eight years old. At that time, he remembered nothing—or rather, he didn't want to remember. His hometown, his parents, the village that had been razed to the ground, the days he spent crawling through piles of corpses for three days—all of it was locked away in an unopenable box. His master asked him his name, and he shook his head. His master asked him where he lived, and he shook his head. His master asked him if he was hungry, and he nodded.

The cook gave him half a bowl of porridge. His hands were trembling as he held the bowl—not because he was cold, but because it had been so long since anyone had asked him if he was hungry.

"From now on, your name will be Yang Hui." The master sat on the threshold of the thatched hut, his back to him, looking at the mist over Guigu Valley. "Hui means light. You must remember this name."

Eight-year-old Yang Hui didn't know what "Hui" meant, but he remembered it. For the next ten years, every time he practiced swordsmanship until he was exhausted, every time he was scalded by the water under the waterfall, every time he coughed up blood because of the "failure to merge the vertical and horizontal swords," he would silently recite this word in his heart. Hui. Like a spell.

Guigu's ten years were not "peaceful days" from day one.

Guiguzi's method of teaching swordsmanship was simple: first, observe. In the first year, he only allowed Yang Hui to observe—observe Gai Nie practicing swordsmanship, observe Wei Zhuang practicing swordsmanship, and observe the two of them occasionally sparring on the cliff top. Yang Hui squatted on a rock every day, observing to what extent Gai Nie's swordsmanship could be considered perfect in its "defense," and to what extent Wei Zhuang's swordsmanship could be considered complete in its "breakthrough." He observed for a whole year, without speaking, asking questions, or practicing swordsmanship himself.

The following year, his master gave him a wooden stick and said, "Go and train with Gai Nie. You don't need to win, just make him remember your moves."

He trained with Gai Nie for six months. Gai Nie's sword was as steady as a mountain; no matter what angle he attacked from, Gai Nie's sword was always in the right place. But he didn't give up—he changed his angle, speed, and rhythm every day. Six months later, Gai Nie told his master, "He's memorized all my defensive positions, but he still hasn't found a way to break through my defenses."

The master said, "No rush. He's not cut out for swordplay."

In the third year, his master handed him over to Wei Zhuang. Wei Zhuang was much more difficult to deal with than Gai Nie—he didn't teach, didn't speak, didn't explain, and just attacked without warning. Yang Hui caught three sword strikes from Wei Zhuang, and his hand was numb for three days. Wei Zhuang sneered, "You're lucky you could withstand three of my sword strikes."

Yang Hui didn't reply. After he went back, he wrapped his hands with strips of cloth and went again the next day.

"You can still take it?" Wei Zhuang raised an eyebrow.

"able."

"How many sword strikes can you take?"

"I'll take as many sword strikes as you make."

Wei Zhuang stared at him for three seconds, then drew his sword—the sword that day was faster and more ruthless than the day before. Yang Hui took five blows, collapsing to the ground, his right wrist swollen like a bun. Wei Zhuang looked down at him, uttering, "If you're not coming tomorrow, don't bother coming back."

He went the next day. He went the third day as well. On the fourth day—Wei Zhuang didn't kill him, but instead demonstrated the starting stance of the horizontal sword strike in front of him, saying, "Watch. Just once."

Yang Hui watched it once. Then he practiced for three months, mastering that move to the point where he could "walk without thinking." Wei Zhuang later told his master, "He learned faster than me. But it wasn't because he was smart—it was because he wasn't afraid of pain."

After ten years at Guigu, Yang Hui had no intact body. Shoulders, wrists, knees, ribs—each had been broken at least once. His master didn't care; he only said, "If it's broken, you have to set it yourself. If you can't set it, you're useless."

He has never been disabled. He has had his bones set more than ten times, and later he could tell whether it was a dislocation or a break by the angle of the misalignment. His bones are harder than ordinary people's, not because he has a good physique, but because he has broken them so many times that they heal more tightly than before.

But Yang Hui didn't find any of this difficult. What he truly found "hard to endure" were the three years from the fifth to the seventh year.

He spent those three years practicing "merging".

A vertical sword strike is a defensive stance, while a horizontal sword strike is an offensive stance. Gai Nie could defend to the point where "no one in the world could break through his defenses," and Wei Zhuang could attack to the point where "no one in the world could stop him." But what Yang Hui wanted to do was not to become "the second Gai Nie" or "the second Wei Zhuang"—he wanted to do both things as one.

It sounds mysterious. And it actually is.

In the fifth year, he tried for the first time to combine the "defense" of the vertical sword with the "offense" of the horizontal sword—and ended up tripping over himself. The sword flew three zhang (approximately 10 meters), and he fell onto a rock, cutting his forehead. He didn't cry; he sat up, wiped the blood, and picked up his sword again.

In his sixth year, he achieved half of it: he could launch a counter-attack while defending. But that wasn't "merging"; it was "defense first, then offense"—two separate things. His master looked at his sword and said only one sentence: "You're still using it piecemeal. You need to neutralize it."

What is "transformation"? He didn't know. In his seventh year, he locked himself under a waterfall for half a month, practicing his swordsmanship every day while being swept by the water. The water rushed down from a great height with tremendous force, and he had to maintain a defensive stance with his vertical sword in the water—if the current pushed him to the left, he would use the "break" technique of his horizontal sword to cut a slit in the water, and then return to his defensive stance. After repeating this countless times, one day he found that when he was in the water, he "no longer thought about whether to defend or attack."

The sword moves on its own.

He emerged from the water, soaking wet, and stood on the bank for a while, lost in thought. Then he knelt down and kowtowed towards his master's hut. A voice drifted from the crack in the hut's door: "It's done. Go down the mountain."

But he didn't leave the mountain immediately. He stayed for two more years—to learn the art of divination. It was his master who told him in the eighth year: "There is one more thing you need to learn. But listen to me first before you decide."

The master explained the full cost of the Heavenly Secrets Technique. After listening, Yang Hui said, "I'll learn it."

The master said, "Are you sure? If you learn this, you might not live past thirty-five."

Yang Hui said, "I never thought I'd live to be thirty-five."

The master looked at him for a long time. It was the first time in ten years that the master had looked at him with that kind of gaze—like looking at someone who had "reached the end." Then the master said, "Alright. Three years. I'll give you three years to learn it. If you can't learn it, you'll go down the mountain; if you can learn it, you'll still go down the mountain. But the day you learn it will be the first day of your countdown."

It took Yang Hui two years to learn the "beginner's" art of divination—to glimpse extremely short fragments of cause and effect, fragmented, blurry, like seeing lights on the opposite bank through fog. In the third year—the year he turned nineteen—he finished reading the last scroll of bamboo slips and saw a complete line of cause and effect for the first time.

That night, he sat atop the cliff, watching the line unfold before him like a luminous river. At the end of the line was a blurry light; he couldn't make out what it was, but he knew it was the "end." He silently withdrew his gaze and said to his master, "Master, I see it. But I don't see myself."

The master said, "The art of divination cannot see the person spying on you. This is the only exception."

"How do I know how long I can live?"

"You don't need to know. What you need to know is how much you're willing to use."

Yang Hui thought for a moment. "All of them."

The master didn't say anything more. The next day, he told Yang Hui to kneel down in front of the stone platform.

And that's how the scene in the first chapter came about.

The firewood in the fire crackled. Yang Hui snapped out of his reverie and realized that the dry rations had burned. He blew off the ash, took a bite, and continued chewing and swallowing.

He thought of Wei Zhuang. Wei Zhuang always said he was "not afraid of death," but Wei Zhuang didn't know—he wasn't fearless; he had died before. At the age of eight, he had climbed over piles of corpses and knew what death smelled like. He never wanted to smell that smell again in his life. So his way of living was different from others: others lived to "live longer," he lived to "do what he was supposed to do."

What about Gai Nie? Gai Nie is a different kind of person. Gai Nie's sword is steady because his heart is steady. Yang Hui knows that his senior brother's greatest wish in this life is "to find something worth protecting and guard for a lifetime." He doesn't know if Gai Nie has found it, but he hopes that Gai Nie has.

Wei Zhuang isn't looking for anything "worth protecting." What Wei Zhuang wants is to "crush everything that shouldn't exist." Yang Hui thinks Wei Zhuang can do it—if he wants to.

As for himself?

Yang Hui swallowed the burnt rations, drank some water, and stood up to stomp out the fire. A wisp of white smoke rose from the ashes, dissipating in the moonlight. He stepped out of the beacon tower and glanced at the sky—the moon was full, illuminating the official road ahead. Xinzheng shouldn't be far; he should arrive in the next day or two.

He remembered that half-eaten ration. Ten years ago, in a temple even more dilapidated than this beacon tower, a girl in red had handed him the ration. He asked her name. She said, "You don't need to know me."

He said, "I will come back to find you."

She smiled—not a smile of belief, but the kind of smile that comes from "a child's words."

"fraud."

She left after she finished speaking. He didn't know where she went afterward. He only knew that ten years later, on the first causal line of the Heavenly Secrets, he saw her "end point"—it was very blurry, but he saw that the red dress she was wearing was the same one she wore in the dilapidated temple ten years ago.

So he had to go to Xinzheng first.

He quickened his pace. The official road stretched ahead in the moonlight like a gray ribbon, leading to a city he had never been to before. In that city, someone was freezing in a dungeon. He had to rescue her—not for any grand cause, but simply to repay that half-eaten piece of dry rations.

and then?

Then he wants to build a world where an eight-year-old child no longer has to crawl through piles of corpses. He wants to ensure that "half a piece of dry rations" will never be the hottest thing a person in their life has ever eaten.

This is his "doing what needs to be done".

He walked all night. At dawn, the city walls of Xinzheng appeared on the horizon. The gray, tall walls were faintly visible in the morning mist, and the flag of the State of Han flew on the walls. There were queues at the city gate to enter the city, with people pushing carts and carrying loads, and merchants leading donkeys and horses. The noise of people and the atmosphere of daily life were overwhelming.

Yang Hui stood on the earthen slope outside the city, looking at the city.

He pressed the Heaven-Asking Sword at his waist.

"Xinzheng," he said softly, "I've arrived."

Then he stepped through the city gate.