Chapter Thirty-Four Heaven and Earth Are Equal in Size

  (Thanks for XX's reward, heartfelt thanks, please collect)

  The March on the grassland can't be considered warm spring, let alone blooming flowers. The wind from the northwest is still sharp like a knife, and the frozen snowflakes blown by the wind hit people's faces like they could cut through skin. Although there are strong little grasses that have broken through the frozen soil the size of a grain of rice, after a night of cold wind, the tender leaves will be frozen and withered. If the snowy white wind blows for another day, those new greens won't survive until the wind stops.

  Due to the strong wind, the whole sky was a dull yellow color, so the plan to rush to Weak Water to find Ye Huai Shou had to be postponed on the second day.

  The weather is so terrible that even war horses can't open their eyes.

  The line of sight is no more than ten meters away, and if you force your way out, even if you don't get frostbite, you'll still get lost on the grassland and end up as a few ice sculptures.

  Li Xian knew that he would definitely not be able to go out today, but he still held onto hope and went to ask Da Xi Chang Ru. After getting a definite answer, Li Xian did not return to his own room to continue sleeping.

  He stood in the empty space of the camp, tearing off a strip of cloth to cover his eyes so as not to be blinded by the wind. Against the wind, he took off his upper garments one by one, eventually stripping bare-chested.

  The wind cuts like a knife, and snowflakes fall like arrows.

  He stood stubbornly in the wind, slowly drawing out his horizontal sword.

  Daxi Changru had never taught him the routine of knife skills, so Li Xian didn't even know a basic set of knife skills. The so-called most basic knife skills were those practiced by the soldiers of the Great Sui Fu during their daily training. It was unclear whether Daxi Changru was lazy or thought that those standardized things were useless to Li Xian. In any case, after Li Xian had grasped the basics of holding a knife firmly, he would send people like Chao Qiuge and Tie Langlang to take turns sparring with him, sometimes even joining in himself. Of course, every time Li Xian's supposedly firm grip on his horizontal knife would be knocked away by Daxi Changru.

  So Li Xian knew his own gap, he never thought that he had really mastered the use of knives.

  In the cold wind, Li Xian's upper body was bare, his movements of stabbing and chopping were unpredictable. If someone saw him, 99% would think he was a madman who had lost his mind. In such cold weather, going shirtless and frantically chopping, either he was crazy or he had some unspoken intention to seek death.

  Only Li Xian himself knew that his seemingly irregular and unstructured sword strikes were actually highly targeted. With his eyes closed, he couldn't see the empty courtyard in front of him, but his mind was constantly imagining enemies coming from all directions, with different weapons attacking his upper, middle, and lower body. His seemingly absurd and even insane sword strikes were actually all about resolving the imagined enemy's killing moves.

  The enemies in his fantasy were varied, and as Li Xian's knife got faster and faster, he himself could no longer see the faces of those enemies in his fantasy, only seeing various weapons constantly attacking. The shadows of these enemies were very vague, but the weapons and moves in their hands were clear and visible.

  These "enemies" include Choushuu Song, who had sparred with him countless times, Tetsuhai Ryuu, and the big brothers from back in the days of the Iron Pagoda.

  He repeated the killing moves of these people in his memory one by one in his mind, and then broke those killing moves one by one with a knife.

  Half an hour later, the knife-like wind blowing on his body could no longer affect his body temperature. A layer of fine sweat appeared on his body, and occasionally, sunlight broke through the dull sky and shone on him, giving those sweat beads a golden coat.

  "What's the point of this!"

  A voice sounded behind Li Xian: "Practicing alone is boring to the extreme, and it just so happens that I'm also feeling tight, let's practice together to loosen up our muscles!"

  It is Iron Wolf.

  Li Xian was familiar with this voice and could feel a faint warmth in the words amidst the cold wind.

  "Alright! This time I'm definitely going to beat you."

  Li Xian removed the cloth covering his eyes, turned around and held his horizontal knife flat.

  Tie Lang laughed loudly: "Beat me? When did your ambitions become so low!"

  He spoke while his hands moved at an incredible speed. The wind did not stiffen his body, and the knives that pierced through the sandstorm seemed even more sinister and swift.

  Two people quickly crossed hands, the sound of horizontal knives colliding together tore through the clear and crisp wind.

  In the soft whispers, the movements of the two people became faster and faster.

  It's also unknown when it started, but the Blood Knights who had been avoiding the wind and were somewhat idle in the room pushed open the door and walked out into the courtyard to watch. Slowly, over a hundred people formed a circle in the courtyard. They were all real warriors who had experienced bloodshed and killing, decisive and cold-blooded, they were real men, and they also admired strong and tough masculinity. So although Li Xian was still a young boy who hadn't grown up in their eyes, this boy's persistence, hard work, and progress made them truly respect him from the bottom of their hearts.

  No one applauded, although the two men's exchange was becoming increasingly brilliant, but this wasn't some opening act by a street performer showing off his fancy swordplay, the Blood Knights weren't watching for excitement, they were watching two people who had reached the limits of their knife skills, that was truly lethal knife work.

  Engaging in a fierce battle with sharp blades, one careless move could lead to injury. However, the two men, one big and one small, moved swiftly like lightning, yet their control over their strength was astonishing. No one worried that they would accidentally hurt each other; for them, stopping at the slightest touch was not a difficult task.

  Li Xian's sweat slowly spread throughout his body, and in the half-hour practice session, he had at least "killed" Tie Lang Wolf three times, and was also "killed" by Tie Lang Wolf seven times. After that kind of refreshing sweat, a hint of fatigue gradually mixed in.

  "Stop!"

  Daxi Zhangru suddenly appeared among the Blood Knights, his eyes wide with anger as he cursed: "Get out of here and take a bath, drink some wine! Damn it, do you think you're all made of iron or something?"

  Daxi Changruo was right, if the two people continue to fight, as the feeling of fatigue becomes more intense, their body temperature will actually drop. With the cold wind blowing, it won't take long for the sweat on their bodies to freeze into a layer of ice. At that time, the injury won't just be skin-deep, both of them might even suffer from frostbite in their lungs.

  Li Xian and Tie Lang Wolf slapped each other's palms and laughed, then hopped back into their own rooms like rabbits.

  Without waiting for Da Xi's order, the Blood Cavalry took the initiative to send hot water over to the two lunatics.

  Li Xian rushed into his room and jumped onto the bed, then pulled over the quilt to wrap himself up.

  "I want to die!"

  Daxi Zhangru followed behind and walked in, swinging the wine pouch that could hold four kilograms of strong liquor at Li Xian's waist. Li Xian stretched out his hand from under the quilt to untie the wine pouch, then poured it into his mouth in one gulp. The spicy wine flowed down his throat with a gurgling sound, also overflowing from the corner of his mouth and wetting the quilt. His Adam's apple moved up and down, looking as if it was moving with a heroic spirit that stirred people's hearts.

  A flame of fire seemed to have ignited in his stomach, burning all the way up to his throat before finally subsiding. He put down the wine pouch and gave Da Xi Chang a silly grin, chuckling to himself for a couple of seconds.

  "It's really fucking great!"

  He smiled very silly and foolish.

  "Give me a reason."

  Da Xi Long Rong picked up the wine jug and took a sip, then sat down in the chair.

  "What reason?"

  Li Xian tilted his head and asked.

  Daxi Changru glared at Li Xian: "You're not calm in your heart, just now when you and Tie Lang were practicing swordplay, it seemed like a fierce battle with each move faster than the last, but actually your mind was all over the place. If it were really a life-or-death struggle, by the third move Tie Lang would have already chopped off your head!"

  Li Xian smiled: "The third knife? I thought he should have died from the first one."

  "It can't be that the mere fact of not being able to go out due to strong winds has affected your mood. I understand your character, even if it's said that you wouldn't change color even if a mountain collapsed in front of you, you definitely wouldn't become so flustered that your hand holding the knife would shake!"

  Li Xian sighed: "Master, you really are a perceptive person, can't hide anything from your eyes. I think we should change our profession and open a medical clinic to comfort those lonely young girls and wives."

  "Shut up!"

  "Spit it out quickly, or I'll strip you bare and throw you outside right now!"

  "You see... girls like you just love men who are so domineering."

  Li Xian smiled, took the wine pouch from Da Xi Chang Ru's hand and poured another big mouthful. His facial expression didn't fluctuate, his eyes shining like the brightest star in the night sky.

  "It doesn't matter."

  "He smiled and said, 'It's just a little inferiority complex.'"

  He glanced at Da Xi Chang Ru: "A man's inferiority complex."

  "Inferiority?"

  Da Xi Chang Ru furrowed his brow: "Speak clearly."

  Li Xian looked down with some disappointment: "I'm a bit short."

  Da Xi's eyes widened in surprise, and then he burst out laughing: "An Zhi, what's always on your mind? You're not even thirteen years old, how can you be so mature?"

  Li Xian was also taken aback, and then he too burst out laughing: "Master, you've misunderstood me. The 'small' I mentioned isn't that 'small'..."

  He pulled the quilt tightly, leaned on the bed and said: "I told you yesterday that I met Miss Ye in Youyang County. We had a brief conversation, and there were a few words that I remembered in my heart. At that time, I thought she was a courtesan, but I didn't know she would be an authority on making weapons. So at the time, her words gave me quite a shock, but it wasn't as unsettling as it is now."

  "Little guy, whether a man is great or not depends on his future prospects."

  Li Xian sighed and shook his head: "It's been a year and a half since I left Youyang County, and I found that I haven't made any progress at all. To be honest, I'm even afraid of being ridiculed when I see her."

  He said very seriously: "I think I'm still really 'small'."

  Daxi Changru was silent for a moment, looking into Li Xian's eyes and said: "I always thought you were a very heartless guy, completely indifferent to all difficulties and setbacks. Now it seems that you also have times when you can't withstand the blow."

  He stood up, patted Li Xian's shoulder: "She doesn't know who you are, of course, if she knew maybe she would still say that, but there is one thing you need to remember, if... If she couldn't see your uniqueness, why bother talking nonsense with you?"

  He smiled, and the scars on his face didn't seem so hideous: "How great your future will be, no one can predict. But I can tell you very seriously that at your age, I've never seen anyone better than you. If you let a woman's careless words affect your mood, I'd say you're disappointing me. She doesn't judge people superficially, and neither are you a superficial person. Let's wait for two or three years and see how many people can stop you from rising to the top?"

  Li Xian smiled: "Master, don't ever use the word 'flirt' on a woman, it's quite uncivilized."

  He smiled wryly: "I just want to grow up as soon as possible, and then pat my chest and ask that woman, 'Hey girl, do you think I'm big enough?'"

  "Then she was convinced: It's big, really big!"

  Daxi Changru burst out laughing: "Then don't be so reserved and act like a girl, be more open-minded. When you grow up to be as tall as me, you will be as great as the sky and earth!"