Chapter Sixteen: Are All Swordsmen Walking This Way?

  (Thank you for the very pure and violent reward, asking for collection)

  When Li Xian saw the great river appearing in the distance under the slanting sun, he shouted out involuntarily. After sixteen days, he finally got used to the unbearable 1,500 draws of his sword every day.

  This stretch of the Luan River is the dividing line between the territories of the Khitan and Jurchen peoples.

  Beyond the weak Luo River, further north is the pasture of the Xi people. The Xi people are indeed a relatively gentle nation among the prairie peoples. Their totem is not the wolf, but the swan. The territory of the Xi people is not as large as that of the Khitan people, and their population combined is also less than the eight tribes of the Khitan. The region governed by the Xi people is roughly north of the weak Luo River, bordering the Mohe to the east, the Wuluohou to the north, and the Turks to the west, with a maximum of over 40,000 households in the largest tribe. The so-called Mohe, after the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, was changed to Jurchen, which is also the Jurchen that later established the Jin Dynasty, and also the predecessor of the Manchu people.

  Weak Luohe River, also known as Huan Water or Xilamu Lun River.

  The northern border of the Khitan people is the Weak Luo River, and the southeast is the Liao River. The Khitan nation is a very frightening nation, to know that the territory of the Great Liao Kingdom is more than twice that of the Song Dynasty. Of course, this point is currently known only by Li Xian alone.

  "Liusha River, Third Brother, come out quickly and see me! Let's go to the Western Heaven together to visit our sister!"

  Li Xian was shouting like a madman.

  The Blood Riders had grown accustomed to this often bizarre and even maddening young man. The youth would casually utter many incomprehensible terms, such as when he was practicing drawing his sword, he would frequently say to Da Xi Chang Ru: "Requesting a temporary halt, I need to urinate."

  Later, Blood Knight found out that pee was actually urine.

  Li Xian patiently explained to the Blood Cavalry why urination is called "small convenience": "Urination and defecation are both conveniences, whether it's the front door or the back door, they're all convenient doors. Why is urination called small convenience and defecation big convenience? When you urinate, do you shake or not? When you shake, does your spirit lift or not? Of course there is, but compared to the feeling of relief when defecating, that one shake seems a bit petty, so it's called small convenience..."

  Li Xian jumped down from the increasingly tall black horse, scooped up the still icy river water and washed his face vigorously. Feeling the refreshing coolness of the river water wash away the dust, Li Xian suddenly had the idea to strip naked and swim. Although the river water was very cold, Li Xian saw many large fish swimming back and forth in the river. He didn't know why the grassland people were so wasteful, releasing so many fish without eating them, it was simply disrespecting those fish.

  "Today we can finally stop eating roasted rabbit and field mouse, let's roast fish instead."

  Li Xian muttered to himself: "Put it on the rack and roast, then sprinkle some cumin powder and chili flakes, delicious to the extreme!"

  "What is cumin powder? What are chili peppers?"

  Dugu Rui's interest in poison was piqued, and he had never heard of these two things before. Among the Blood Riders' Four Tigers, Dugu Rui was the weakest in terms of direct combat power. However, if they were to compare who killed more people, the other three combined would not be able to match Dugu Rui. In those years, on the Turkic people's territory, there was once a time when they were pursued by cavalry from a small tribe, and the Blood Riders lost several riders. That night, Dugu Rui sneaked into that small tribe alone and poisoned to death one-third of the tribe's population, over 600 people, in a very clean manner.

  The dozens of poisons that Red Buddha gave to Li Xian, Dugu Shaoye had carefully studied each one along the way. Li Xian made rapid progress in identifying and preparing poisons, and Dugu Shaoye's contributions were indispensable. Dugu Shaoye's catchphrase was: When you think of using a weapon to kill me, I'll definitely know. But when I use poison to kill you, you'll definitely be unaware.

  Thirty or so poisonous medicines' properties, effects, Dugu Ruhui clearly explained to Li Xian. If they caught a larger wild animal on the march, Dugu Ruhui would calmly poison it under the gaze of others who wanted to kill him, then give Li Xian a detailed explanation of its medicinal properties. When there was no meat to eat and his temper occasionally flared up, Tie Langlang would hold down Dugu Ruhui and beat him up. Dugu Ruhui would take revenge by secretly giving him a laxative when he wasn't paying attention, then Tie Langlang would cover his belly and beat Dugu Ruhui again.

  Yeah, Du Gu Rui Zhi grew up like this, and it's undeniable that Li Xian benefited a lot from it. For example, once Du Gu Rui Zhi poisoned a snow leopard to death, the iron wolf who had never eaten leopard meat before beat up Du Gu Rui Zhi. Then Li Xian gave the iron wolf a laxative, and the iron wolf beat up Du Gu Rui Zhi again.

  This is a very fun game, Li Xian thinks so.

  "Cumin...... chili pepper......"

  Li Xian fell silent for a moment before saying: "After my fleet is established, I will send someone named Zheng He to bring these two things back from distant overseas."

  "Those boring stories you made up again!"

  Du Gu Rui Zhi curled his lip and ignored Li Xian. He squatted by the river, watching the fish swimming freely in the water, and sighed: "Such a big river, how much poison do I need to put in to kill all the fish?"

  The iron wolf happened to walk by his side, and after hearing Du Gu Rui Zhi's muttering to himself, the iron wolf kindly advised: "Don't think about such ethereal things, because if we can't eat roasted fish today, I'll throw you into the river and drown you."

  "Could it be that I was intimidated into growing up?"

  "You must not have been scared big, you were beaten up by me."

  Li Xian rolled up his sleeves, barefoot and slowly slid into the river. He held a sharpened wooden stick in his hand, staring at the fish swimming back and forth in the water, muttering to himself as if he were a wizard.

  "A fish swims all day, a swordsman polishes his blade all day. The Buddha says saving one life is better than building a seven-story pagoda, I'm dying to eat fish, come and save me! Little fish, little fish, I've come to deliver you."

  A fish swam by Li Xian's leg, looking very comfortable and leisurely searching for food, unaware that it had already become someone else's food. When the fish swam in front of him, Li Xian quickly stabbed down with the wooden stick. Immediately, he felt a resistance on his hand. The wooden stick that pierced the fish's belly was quickly lifted up, and Li Xian tossed the stick behind him without looking back.

  A Blood Knight reached out and grabbed the bloody fish, then slammed it onto a rock. The poor fish met its demise, soon to be scaled by another Blood Knight using a dagger, before being skewered on an iron spit and set aside. The Blood Knight in charge of roasting the fish carefully retrieved some precious salt from their pack, sprinkling a small amount onto the sizzling fish. Salt was a luxury item that had to be rationed carefully while marching through the wilderness.

  The aroma of the roasted fish wafted out quickly, and Li Xian couldn't resist the temptation to stop fishing and run to the shore to grab the roasted fish. However, his foot stepped on something unknown, causing him to cry out in pain as he pulled it out to find a gash. He squatted down in anger to feel the rock, but what came into contact with his hand was a black metal chunk the size of an infant's fist. Placed under sunlight for closer inspection, the black metal emitted a thick, heavy metallic luster.

  "Master, what is this thing?"

  Li Xian handed the metal piece over to Da Xi Chang Ru on the shore.

  Da Xi Chang Ru took it and looked at it, saying lightly: "It's meteoric iron. You're lucky to have found this small piece. Melting it down and casting it into a horizontal knife will make the knife even more solid and sharp."

  He saw Li Xian's expression was somewhat suspicious, so he took out a dagger from his bosom and chopped it down on the meteorite with a loud clang, bursting out a cluster of sparks.

  Handing the dagger to Li Xian, Da Xi Chang Ru said: "Don't think this is something you can find anywhere. The preciousness of meteoric iron is beyond your imagination. The piece I found in Qing Niu Lake is at least a hundred times bigger than this one. If sold, it would fetch at least 3,000 guan. If sold to those aristocratic young masters who are eager for a treasured sword, even 10,000 guan wouldn't be a problem. And if traded with the Turks, we could get several hundred top-grade horses and a large pasture."

  "I have no thousands of taels, I have no hundreds of horses, and I also have no pasture, but that piece of meteoric iron is mine!"

  Li Xian looked at the deep gap on the dagger and said seriously.

  "Since I promised to make a long knife for you with that piece of meteoric iron, I won't go back on my word. What Da Xi Chang Ru says, he has never regretted. However, Qing Niu Lake is very large and deep. Moreover, the Khitan people live by the lake, so I'm not sure if we can still find that piece of meteoric iron. The Khitan people are too familiar with Qing Niu Lake, they also know the value of meteoric iron too well, so it's not certain that the meteoric iron is still there."

  "He paused for a moment and said: 'Most importantly, I forgot where I sank that piece of meteorite in the lake.'"

  Li Xian sighed: "I've seen Journey to the West before, how could I forget that Sun Wukong's master is the most capable of deceiving people!"

  Ignoring Li Xian's nonsense, Da Xi Chang Ru said: "Actually, what kind of knife is used doesn't matter. If you don't have the strength to even truss a chicken, even if I gave you the sharpest treasure knife in the world, could you win against me? It's like a three-year-old child holding a broadsword - they're absolutely no match for a strong man. Don't put so much emphasis on external objects. If your knife skills are strong enough, would you still care what kind of knife you use?"

  Li Xian nodded and said: "That makes sense. As long as one's cultivation reaches a certain level, any sword in hand is a treasured sword."

  "Very good, go eat now. After eating, I'll also teach you some other basic knife skills."

  Li Xian lowered his head to look at his hands, and in less than twenty days, they had become noticeably stronger. He could feel that his hands were more stable now. Especially... when he used a wooden stick to spear fish, for the first time he felt the benefits of the dull practice of drawing his sword every day. To become an exceptional swordsman, one must first cultivate a pair of hands as steady as a rock.

  Li Xian's cut foot still hurt, he dragged the knife as a crutch to walk, suddenly saw his strange shadow under the sunset, Li Xian involuntarily stopped.

  Fu Hongxue also walks this way?

  P.S: Actually there's nothing much to say, just want to ask, have you collected it?