Chapter 24: Blades Shatter Ten Thousand Armors

Life does not necessarily require a goal.

However, if one must have one, Gu Liubai has thought about it earnestly: at least for the moment, it is to become more formidable than his mother, or perhaps, to understand her world.

Yin Shiniang felt a sudden pang of regret.

She had previously regretted not meeting Liang Fengning, later regretted not crossing swords with Guo Beixi, and now she regretted not having met the woman Gu Liubai spoke of.

Too many regrets left her silent for a long time.

It was not until they had walked for several miles that she turned to look at Gu Liubai and asked, "The dark green sky-iron you specifically asked the Turks to help you find—does it have some special purpose?"

Gu Liubai looked at her in surprise. "I thought you had already guessed."

Yin Shiniang glanced at him and asked, "Are you planning to forge a sword or a saber?"

"I want to forge a saber," Gu Liubai answered frankly.

Yin Shiniang liked people who were direct and straightforward. She appreciated Gu Liubai’s current attitude.

"From the very beginning, it wasn't my Frost Sword you were most interested in, but the saber held by one of us?"

At this moment, Granny Long, who was following behind them, kept smiling. The hunchbacked old woman always appeared to walk slowly, yet she never fell behind. When Gu Liubai turned around, he saw Granny Long smiling at him, and he smiled back at her.

Yin Shiniang was not particularly surprised, but she asked earnestly, "You don't want to learn my Frost Sword?"

Gu Liubai explained sincerely, "The cultivation method I practice is not yet perfect; I will try to refine it further after I reach Chang'an. Based on my judgment, this saber will suit me better."

Yin Shiniang nodded. "It is rare for you to have such ambition, but I have never believed that things are preordained. I am beginning to think your mother started plotting against us a long time ago."

Gu Liubai nodded honestly. He felt that was highly likely.

Yin Shiniang, always direct, said, "Liang Fengning uses a saber, and Guo Beixi uses a sword. That they converged here is likely no coincidence. Since your mother was capable of bestowing both the Dragon-Nurturing Technique and the Buddhist sect’s arts upon one person, it is not entirely impossible for the 'Wind Saber and Frost Sword' to appear in one individual."

"Are you all willing to teach me?" Gu Liubai could hardly believe his ears. "Doesn't Chen Tu find me particularly eyesore?"

"If you want to stay in Chang'an, every member of the Yinshan Swarm must agree. That was the rule we set when we first gathered. If we part, we all part; we cannot leave anyone behind," Yin Shiniang said calmly. "But this does not conflict with teaching you saber and sword techniques. That is a matter between Granny Long and me."

Gu Liubai truly liked Yin Shiniang's personality.

*She really is something!*

He rubbed his hands in delight. "If you are willing to teach, I am not afraid of being too greedy to chew."

Yin Shiniang ignored his display of getting the upper hand while still acting coy, and asked casually, "Is that sky-iron very special?"

"Last month, a diplomatic mission from the Kingdom of Nepal was slaughtered, and the bandits who intercepted them also suffered heavy casualties. I paid a high price to get specific information from Nepal. That mission was specifically trying to tribute that piece of sky-iron to the Emperor of the Great Tang. Their master craftsmen confirmed that the material has unique properties; it can be forged into very thin blades, and even if bent or folded, it can snap back to its original shape immediately upon release," Gu Liubai explained. "My mother mentioned to me many times that I should find such a piece of sky-iron to forge a saber that suits me, so even without the Turks' help, I would have found a way to obtain it myself."

Yin Shiniang fell silent again.

The deduction she and Granny Long had made could now be considered fully confirmed. Gu Liubai had mentioned from the start that one of the members of the Yinshan Swarm possessed a very fast saber. Clearly, he had been coveting that style of saber technique all along. Thus, whether it was the Yinshan Guard instructor Liang Fengning, the renowned Guo Beixi of Luoyang, or the Yinshan Swarm guarding the Yin Mountains, their eventual arrival before Gu Liubai was certainly not an isolated event.

Gu Liubai said his mother was the type of person whose thinking approached that of the divine. This was no boast; it was a heartfelt realization. Even without ever having met her, relying only on Gu Liubai's fragmented words, she could not help but feel a sense of awe for this woman.

Many years ago, this woman had begun to scheme, and now everything felt like fate, sweeping in with this blizzard. It was as if she had known years ago that Granny Long wanted to find a satisfactory disciple but could not. So, she had prepared one here for her.

Chen Tu did not know that Yin Shiniang wanted to go to Chang'an, but this woman knew that one day, Yin Shiniang would go there.

...

At this moment, Gu Liubai was filled with a desire to pour his heart out. Perhaps it was the mischief of longing. Perhaps it was because he was about to leave the place where she was buried. Or perhaps... he simply hadn't spoken of her properly to anyone for many years.

He truly admired his mother. She was so incredible.

She was well-versed in Buddhist scriptures, historical records, the essays of great masters, and even the knowledge of craftsmen and the organization of intelligence. When she was alive, she had told him that a gentleman is good at utilizing external objects. A practitioner's own thinking and perception of the world are important, but a person's lifespan is finite, and one's own power cannot grow limitlessly. The use of external objects, however, is endless. In ancient times, people went hungry, didn't use livestock for farming, and only used sticks and stones to fight. A practitioner might kill a hundred or several hundred people with bare hands, but with a formidable weapon, they could kill thousands or tens of thousands.

She was also certain that the people of the Yinshan Swarm shared her way of thinking, because over the years, this group had spent most of their bounties on tools for killing. For those who survive by killing, such "belligerence" is actually the wisest choice.

The conversation with Yin Shiniang opened the floodgates. Yin Shiniang had fallen into deep thought again, leaving him feeling as though there was still much left to say. He turned to look at her from time to time, and by the fourth time, Yin Shiniang finally spoke, "You said the witch in Gumo cut off her own tongue the moment she saw your mother. She must have known your mother's true identity. Didn't you try to find out anything in Gumo over these past few years?"

Gu Liubai’s spirits lifted instantly, as if he had experienced a breakthrough in his cultivation.

"How could I not? But the result was terrifying. That witch killed all her attendants as soon as she returned. She cut off her own tongue, so who could ask her anything? Besides, no one in Gumo knows why she lost her tongue."

Yin Shiniang’s eyelids flickered. "How much do you know about the Wind Saber?"

"Many years ago, my mother discussed it with Liang Fengning. They shared the same view: the emergence of powerful armor has greatly squeezed the living space of practitioners," Gu Liubai said, not answering her question directly but explaining in detail. "Especially after the appearance of 'Dark Armor' that complements a practitioner's true energy, there has never been a truly invincible practitioner in the world. It seems no practitioner can survive being surrounded and killed by an army covered in heavy plate and Dark Armor."

"It is not that the practitioners have become weak, but that the tools have become stronger."

Gu Liubai said seriously, "So, in my mother's eyes, after the appearance of Dark Armor, there are only two types of arts in the world: one that can pierce through countless armors, and one that finds it hard to do so."

Neither Yin Shiniang nor Granny Long looked surprised. It seemed his answer was expected. Granny Long even smiled with gratification.

Gu Liubai’s mood improved as he recalled the many scenes his mother had described.

"Ordinary techniques and martial arts struggle to pierce through armor. Either you use your true energy to force it—but even for a formidable practitioner, shattering Dark Armor is very taxing on energy. If entangled by hundreds of Dark-Armored soldiers, you either flee in defeat or exhaust your energy and end up beheaded."

He smiled. "But my mother said there is a type of saber technique that is very effortless and can pierce armor. The blade is as pervasive as the wind; it doesn't hack hard, but slides into the gaps of the armor. That technique, when combined with a little true energy, is very strange. After the opponent is cut, their own surging true energy causes the wound to burst open, bleeding uncontrollably. I later saw records of your killings in military files and confirmed that some of you use a saber technique just like the one my mother described. But whether it is called the 'Wind Saber,' I didn't know."

Yin Shiniang nodded simply.

Gu Liubai felt proud. *Wind Saber and Frost Sword—it has a nice ring to it.*

And since this was the technique he was aiming for, he really hadn't expected Yin Shiniang to be willing to teach him her sword technique as well.

...

Was he aiming for true invincibility in the human realm? To set an example for all practitioners?

Yin Shiniang lowered her head slightly, pondering the intentions of the woman who had raised Gu Liubai. Among all sword users, she was already an absolute anomaly. Yet even she could not survive in the chaotic slaughter of an army. A hundred Turkish Black Cavalry could kill a Grandmaster; she could not survive being surrounded by a hundred of them. Perhaps all sword users only thought about how to avoid such situations, rather than solving the problem at its root.

But that woman seemed to want to tell all the practitioners in the world that there was a fundamental solution.

Granny Long's saber technique, her own sword technique, plus the true energy method she wanted Gu Liubai to complete—that would create true invincibility in the human realm, a blade that could pierce ten thousand armors.

Looking at Gu Liubai’s proud expression, Granny Long smiled until her eyes turned into wrinkles. She looked at Yin Shiniang and gestured a few times.

Yin Shiniang nodded, then looked at Gu Liubai and asked, "Did you know from the start that Chen Tu didn't use this Wind Saber?"

"His cultivation wasn't good enough," Gu Liubai said with disdain. "And he was so clumsy."

Granny Long laughed until her mouth opened wide.

Yin Shiniang was a bit skeptical. "I don't believe you saw he was clumsy right from the start."

Watching Granny Long laugh so happily, Gu Liubai felt happy himself, and couldn't help but grin.

"That fool Chen Tu walked around Mingbai Slope with me. Despite his attempts to conceal it, his eyes kept drifting toward places where it would be easy to set traps. While his saber skills are certainly good, I saw that he was better at setting traps and mechanisms, which matches the person mentioned in the military files."

"As for Granny Long, when she first came down the slope, I was afraid she might trip at any moment. But after we met and walked together, I realized she was somewhat similar to the method I practice—as if she lacked strength, but in reality, she wasn't wasting any. That was when I thought it wasn't a coincidence that my mother mentioned this type of saber technique. She gave me this kind of energy-refining method, perhaps to lay the foundation."

Yin Shiniang looked at Granny Long and Gu Liubai, both laughing uncontrollably, and felt something strange in her heart. She was the one closest to Granny Long in the Yinshan Swarm, because in many ways, Granny Long was very much like her.

Granny Long was not usually this easy to please. She was actually very lonely. She liked to watch the excitement only because she often lingered on the periphery of it. But it seemed that from the moment she met Gu Liubai, she was no longer so lonely. The two of them seemed particularly close, as if the more they saw of each other, the more they liked what they saw.