Chapter Five: The Flower Pattern Sword

  Yang Fusan and the others came out to the courtyard, basking in the warm sunlight of the afternoon. Lei Ming said softly to Yang Tian, "You just relax here and enjoy the sun, your new apprentice will be arriving soon."

  Yang Tian was also full of expectation, because his martial arts were all from Leihong Jiao, and not even comparable to Leihong's level, so the usual losers were him being abused, he wanted to find some balance on Yang Erwu's body.

  So, Yang Tian gave a crisp OK gesture to Lei Meng, and then walked in circles under the sunlight, planning in his heart how to train this disciple - although he didn't acknowledge this title with his mouth.

  Lei Meng followed Yang Fu into the forging room, and Yang Fu excitedly introduced the forging process, saying that attention must be paid to controlling the fire temperature, the metal must be heated to a certain degree before being taken out for hammering, and the sequence of hammering, the force used to hammer the metal, and the time required for quenching...

  Lei Meng walked in the door and became absorbed in his own thoughts, not hearing a word of Yang Fu's explanation. He was thinking about how to make his knives and swords even better, as hard ones were prone to brittleness, while tough ones lacked hardness, and he didn't have any tough materials on hand, nor did he have alloy steel... Suddenly, an idea struck him - he could use the method of carburizing and quenching to solve the problem of toughness and hardness. The only thing was that this required good quality iron, which could be achieved through repeated forging... Hmm, it seemed like he could also add multiple layers on top of this, okay, so that's settled then.

  Lei Meng had just figured out how to improve the sword, when he looked up and saw that he had already walked in front of the furnace. Yang Fu was looking at him seriously: "Lei Meng, if you want to learn forging, you must listen carefully, or else you will have to spend a lot of effort groping around."

  He then went on to say that set again, and Leiming listened carefully, nodding from time to time to confirm his understanding. However, as Leiming listened, he found that Yang Fu's set was for forging farm tools, and the material used was still the metal of the past. After observing for some time, he saw that the farm tools used by the villagers had a greenish tint, guessing that they were mainly made of bronze, but Yang Fu had discovered new materials in the small valley when they arrived and gradually changed to use them.

  After listening to Yang Fu's careful instruction, Lei Ming put forward his own idea: "Old man, I understand what you said, but I have some ideas and don't know if they are feasible."

  Yang Fuyu was surprised, the things he just said were the experience of his two or three generations, and it was understood so quickly. He asked with a hint of doubt: "Did you really understand everything I just said?" Seeing Leiming nodding, he continued: "Then tell me your thoughts." He didn't want to directly test Leiming, but rather see if his ideas were truly based on understanding what was said. If they were, then he had truly understood; if not, then other plans would be made - after all, there was still Yang Tian over there.

  Lei Meng rubbed his head, combed his thoughts and said: "I want to fold the materials of several knives together and forge them into one. In this way, the toughness of the knife may be better; then soak the forged sword embryo in carbon and quench it. This way, the knife will be both hard and tough." Yang Fu was stunned, he had never heard of such a forging method before, let alone soaking in carbon, after all, he was just a blacksmith who made farm tools. "Ah, folding and forging is easy to understand, we can try it out. But what's this 'soaking in carbon'?" Yang Fu asked hesitantly.

  Lei Ming slapped his forehead, dizzy. The people here don't even know what quenching is, and even if they did, it's not something a small village craftsman would know about. So he explained: "It's using refractory materials, like bricks, to wrap some carbon and other things around the sword blank and burn it for a while, then quench it in water just before it melts. After doing this many times, the knife will be very hard." Of course, there was no way to measure temperature here, after all, there were no thermometers yet.

  Seeing Yang Fu still pondering, without any other reaction, Lei Meng continued: "Old man, why don't we try folding and forging? The materials here are still usable." Lei Meng observed the things in the forge room and found that the hammer and anvil had been replaced with new ones, leaving only six metal bars.

  With a loud "clang clang" and "ding ding dong", Lei Meng pulled out the metal strip, which was two feet long, one inch wide, and half an inch thick, from the furnace when it was almost melted. Yang Fu folded it in half and hammered it, then put it back into the furnace to heat... After repeated hammering and reheating, each metal strip was folded twice and returned to its original length, but became much smaller, only about the thickness of a finger. Later, under Lei Meng's guidance, five metal strips were heated together in the furnace, melted, and then hammered repeatedly until they merged into one piece, slowly forming a sword that was two fingers wide, half an inch thick, and two feet long; at Lei Meng's request, the last metal strip was wrapped around the hilt and hammered into one piece, with the sword guard and pommel basically taking shape. After being quenched in mud twice and then tempered, the sword body turned dark gray, and after being ground with a whetstone, it presented a grayish-white color with a hint of wavy patterns like distant mountains.

  Lei Meng saw Yang Fu grind the sword, and before he could wipe away his sweat, he hastily took over the sword, wrapped a piece of hemp cloth around the hilt, and carefully examined it. Under the firelight, the sword body reflected a cold glow, and the patterns on it were also faintly visible, apparently this had become a true flower-patterned sword, its performance should be much better than before. As he looked at it, Lei Meng's smile spread from the corners of his eyes to his entire face, and then he let out a "heh heh" laugh - only that as a person was too small, the sound of his laughter was somewhat comical.

  Hardworking Yang Fu wiped the sweat in eager anticipation and asked, "How is it?" Lei Ming said excitedly, "We've forged a flower-patterned sword!" Seeing Yang Fu's confusion, he continued confidently, "This one is much better than before. It should have no problem cutting through my previous sword."

  Then, Lei Meng and Yang Fu walked out of the forge. The sunset was setting behind the mountains, with clouds scattered across the sky in a deep red hue. The surrounding green hills were gradually darkening. In the courtyard, a child-like figure, Yang Tianzheng, was calmly instructing Yang Erwu in his fist practice, while Yang Erwu's face was contorted in exhaustion, his horse stance trembling as he swung his fists and palms in a weary manner - practicing martial arts wasn't that easy after all.

  Lei Meng drew his sword and came out the door, but before he could even lament how fast time had passed, Yang Tian heard footsteps and turned around to see Lei Meng's sword gleaming with a layer of red light in the fading glow of sunset, looking exceptionally majestic. Thinking of his own knife, he hastily asked: "Where is my knife?"

  Lei Meng glanced at him and said, "Your knife can wait, I'm testing a new method of forging. This is just forged, I want to try it with the previous sword." Yang Tian suddenly rushed to Lei Meng's side, just wanting to stretch out his hand to take the sword and take a look, but as soon as he stretched out his hand, he found that Lei Meng had flashed two meters away, holding his hand awkwardly, and asked angrily, "Just let me take a look, why are you flashing around!" Lei Meng sneered, knowing that Yang Tian was embarrassed in front of his apprentice, and said, "You want to see it, just say so, I won't refuse. But if you don't say anything, how am I supposed to know?" He gave Yang Tian a white eye, then turned his hand over and inserted the sword into the ground, where it sank halfway in with a "swish". Yang Tian chuckled and jumped forward to pull out the sword, admiring its floral pattern. When he looked up again, he saw Lei Meng take out the old sword from the house, and Yang Tian's interest was piqued. He raised his sword and took a step forward, stabbing at Lei Meng. Lei Meng saw Yang Tian's attack and swung his sword to lightly deflect it to the right rear, causing the two swords to scrape against each other with a "clang" sound. Yang Tian stumbled forward, taking a small step before regaining his balance. Just as Yang Tian was about to withdraw his sword and strike again, Lei Meng flowed like clouds and water, standing up straight and crossing steps to chop down at Yang Tian's right wrist with his left palm. Yang Tian felt his wrist go soft, and quickly withdrew his right hand, allowing Lei Meng to smoothly take back the floral-patterned sword. Yang Tian's face was filled with frustration, having only practiced internal skills before coming to this world, and although he had learned techniques after arriving, he was still far from mastering them, and thus lost his sword in an instant.

  Yang Tian said: "Can't you give me some face?"

  "It's better to keep you sober, otherwise, even if I gave the knife to someone else, it would still be broken. Luckily last time it was a wild boar, if it were an expert, that would be troublesome." Lei Meng didn't give him any face at all. Yang Yuwu stood on one side, secretly laughing, and Yang Fu also stood by, stroking his beard and laughing "heh heh".

  "Let's see how this flower-patterned sword works." Lei Meng immediately held the flower-patterned sword in his left hand and lightly chopped at the blade of the sword in his right hand. With a "ting" sound, the two swords separated, and the old sword had a mouthful of damage, while the flower-patterned sword was intact. Lei Meng was satisfied, and with some internal force in his left hand, he swung the flower-patterned sword with great force at the old sword again. Once more, there was a "ting" sound as the two swords clashed, and the old sword broke off a section. The broken section fell to the ground with a "pu" sound. Upon seeing this scene, Yang Fu stroked his beard and chuckled, Yang Tian burst out laughing, Yang Erwu was shocked and couldn't close his mouth, while Lei Meng merely smiled slightly - everything was going as expected.

  Yang Tian Cang had previously seized the Flower Pattern Sword from Lei Ming's left hand, carefully examining it for injuries. He only saw a small notch on the sword's edge and felt a slight joy in his heart, smiling: "There is a notch, the level still needs to be improved, let me come and perfect this forging method."

  "Ahahahaha! Alright, I've been waiting for that line from you. You're a genius scientist after all, don't disappoint everyone!"

  "Definitely, definitely, we'll start work tomorrow. By the way, how much material is left?"

  "Hmm..." Lei Meng hesitated for a moment before saying, "There's still some slag left."

  "What?! Yang Tian was stunned, it turned out he had been deceived, all the materials needed to be re-done, and it was another physically demanding task..."

  Watching the two extraordinary children, Yang Fu's heart was filled with affection and he went into the house to cook; Yang Erwu admired them in his heart and looked forward to practicing his skills to venture out into the wonderful world outside.

  It's dark now, Yang Erwu has gone home, and Yang Fu took the two kids to eat and rest.