The Sword of Love and the Sword of Protection

Tian Wenjin was twenty-eight years old when she fell in love with someone for the first time in her life, only to be mercilessly dumped by him. If she were an ordinary person, this would have been nothing more than her first heartbreak as a young maiden – painful yes, but not extremely serious. She would have cried for a few days, moped around for some time, and eventually gotten over it.

But she was no ordinary person; she was a cultivator, so things were not so simple. To put it bluntly, this was tantamount to a collapse of her Dao Heart. For days on end, she was like a walking corpse, completely devoid of vitality... Her cultivation level even showed signs of decay.

Early in the morning, Qin Ran was sitting by the lakeside willows, whittling a piece of wood into a carving. To be more precise, he was carving a wooden sword – one of the tokens he had promised Li Shiyin for entering the guardian mountain great formation.

In Qin Ran’s eyes, if Li Shiyin could use stone to carve a cat tree, then using wood to whittle some cartoonish toys should have been no problem for him at all. But to his surprise, these supposedly extremely simple wooden pendants and figurines had completely stumped him.

He had planned to finish making all the tokens in a day, but... four days had passed now, and he was still carving the simplest wooden sword.

To save face, he told himself that carving a wooden sword really wasn’t difficult; the hard part was engraving the spell formation runes on it...

He was holding a small carving knife, painstakingly etching the runes, when his hand trembled ever so slightly, throwing the runic engraving off-kilter and ruining the structural integrity of the entire spell formation. Another failure for this little wooden sword then.

"Sigh!"

Qin Ran’s state of mind took a small hit. He tossed the faulty wooden sword to the side to join two other failed works from today alone.

Leaning back in his chair, he gazed at the unmoving lake surface and started questioning his life choices. Was carving a simple wooden sword really so difficult?

Just then, someone approached. Looking over, he saw it was Tian Wenjin.

Expressionless, Tian Wenjin walked over and stopped not far away at the lake embankment, also staring out at the water.

Seeing her like this, Qin Ran could not help feeling that she had come here to commit suicide by drowning.

He picked up another piece of wood and resumed carving a new sword, all the while keeping an eye on Tian Wenjin, wary that she might really try to end it all in a moment of despair.

For a long while, Tian Wenjin just stood there in silence. Then suddenly, she asked, "Are all men like this, or is it only him that’s this heartless?"

The lake surface remained still and tranquil, while the willow branches swayed gently in the breeze.

Qin Ran’s carving hand paused briefly. He looked up at Tian Wenjin, sorely tempted to give the classic response that all men were heartless scumbags.

But he could not presume to speak for all men, so after a moment’s thought, he replied:

"Emotions are the most unreliable thing in this world – too subjective. A man can declare his love for you in the morning, then turn around and kill you at night. His love in the morning would have been genuine, as would his hatred at night.

"Moreover, emotions are invisible and intangible. As such, they need not exist at all. Perhaps this world contains no such thing as emotions in the first place.

"...Or perhaps there do exist those in this world who can turn emotions into a tangible energy."

Tian Wenjin fell silent for a good long while, likely realizing in her state of heartbreak that all men were indeed heartless bastards.

"I don't need to have a Dao companion, right?" she asked.

"Right!" Qin Ran affirmed with an emphatic nod. "No one in this world is indispensable to anyone else. The same goes for Dao companions. You can still live a good life without one, just as you can survive without friends or parents or loved ones. To you, the only indispensable person is yourself."

"I understand now," said Tian Wenjin.

Qin Ran looked over to see her facing the lake with eyes closed.

He waited for a while, but Tian Wenjin did not continue. Sensing that she had gained some insight, Qin Ran stopped waiting for her to say more.

He lowered his head and resumed carving. Soon, his knife had shaped a chubby little wooden sword.

Glancing sideways, he saw that Tian Wenjin was now enveloped in an abstruse mood, sorrowful to behold. The water at her feet swirled as it retreated from her in small eddies.

Just as Qin Ran started engraving the runic spell formation, Tian Wenjin’s voice sounded in his ear.

"May I borrow that sword for a moment?"

Looking up, Qin Ran saw Tian Wenjin picking up one of the discarded wooden swords. Grasping it in her hand, she took flight and began to dance upon the lake's surface.

Strangely, despite not having comprehended Sword Qi, transparent, amorphous swords of energy could still be glimpsed shimmering along the length of the wooden blade she wielded.

Watching her dance, Qin Ran was struck by an inexplicable sadness. He very much wanted to weep, and reaching up, found tears already streaming from his eyes.

"Sword intent..." he murmured.

This was something he had witnessed once before, in the hands of Su Changqing.

But Li Shiyin had not comprehended sword intent, neither had Bai Ruoxi, and not even Dan Peak's First Elder Liu Boxian. Yet now Tian Wenjin had managed to grasp sword intent.

It wasn't that sword intent was necessarily superior to sword qi. Rather, sword intent was far, far more difficult to comprehend than sword qi. Moreover, it had nothing to do with one's aptitude, but everything to do with one's state of mind.

Sword qi could imbue attributes, whereas sword intent could imbue mood. Sword qi and sword intent did not conflict; on the contrary, their combined effect would be greater than the sum of their parts.

All the same, true sword intent remained extraordinarily difficult to attain.

Su Changqing's sword intent concerned the immortal and the Dao, and a single cut from him could send one's soul drifting beyond sensory awareness. As for Tian Wenjin's sword intent here, it was clearly focused on emotions – sorrowful emotions in particular.

"Master..." At some point, Li Shiyin had come to stand by Qin Ran's side. Tears streamed down her face as she watched Tian Wenjin's sword dance and cried, "Did Wenjin learn a new sword technique?"

"That is sword intent," Qin Ran told her.

"What is sword intent?"

"For what reason do you wield your sword... Ah–"

Before he could finish, Tian Wenjin concluded her dance and returned the wooden sword to Qin Ran. "Thank you for lending me your sword," she said.

"What emotion drove your intent?" Qin Ran asked.

After pondering deeply for some time, all traces of feeling had vanished from Tian Wenjin's face. She replied, "Oblivion."

"Oh..." Qin Ran sighed heavily in response.

Reaching into his cosmos pouch, he took out half a bovine horn and passed it to Tian Wenjin. "Since you have thanked me for my sword, I shall gift you one as well."

Looking at the horn in Qin Ran's hand, Tian Wenjin, possessing lightning-attuned spiritual roots, clearly sensed the violent thunder crackling within.

"What is this?" she asked.

"The horn of a Thunder Unicorn Ox."

The Thunder Unicorn Ox was a level seven demonic beast.

Tian Wenjin shook her head. "I cannot accept something so valuable."

"You should take it. You still lack a bonded sword of your own," Qin Ran pressed.

After a lengthy silence, Tian Wenjin looked deeply into Qin Ran's eyes before finally accepting the horn.

Her ties to Dan Peak grew increasingly profound.

Interestingly, while Qin Ran was preaching about emotions being the most unreliable thing, he was also using kindness and favors to draw Tian Wenjin in; and while Tian Wenjin had comprehended the oblivion sword intent, she nevertheless accepted another person's gift.

For free gifts were often the most costly of all.

Taking the Thunder Unicorn Ox horn, Tian Wenjin departed from Dan Peak.

"Master, was Wenjin's sword intent the oblivion sword intent?"

"Yes."

"If someone was stabbed by her sword, would they forget about emotions?"

"Most likely..."

"Then I don't want her to stab me," declared Li Shiyin. "Master, will I be able to comprehend sword intent?"

Qin Ran looked at Li Shiyin and asked, "Do you know your own reasons for wielding a sword and for cultivating?"

Li Shiyin thought hard but shook her head in the end. It seemed she cultivated the sword path simply for its own sake, and cultivated only to cultivate.

If pressed, she felt the underlying reason was protection.

She had come seeking immortality only for the sake of the longevity herb, so that her family would never die... That had been her protective instinct.

Before, she had wanted to protect her family's eternal life. Now there was also Dan Peak and her master to protect.

But she could not tell her master that.

"When you figure out and cement your conviction, then integrate that conviction into your swordsmanship – that may very well be the birth of your own sword intent," said Qin Ran.

Crouching down, Li Shiyin picked up a wooden sword Qin Ran had discarded on the ground. Holding it in her hand, she swished it about experimentally a few times. Breaking into an adorable smile, she chirped:

"Master, I will have sword intent one day too."