Chapter 59 Only One Sword a Day

Gu Liubai gently stroked the wood-chopping saber.
This prized possession was destined to keep him company for some time to come.
As Yu Cangming stepped out of the military tent, he heard the roaring crash of a collapsing wall.
Ordinary people could only see the dust rising from that location, but the ancestral cultivation technique of the Youzhou Jiedushi had the unique ability to observe Qi. Thus, his eyes captured the lingering echoes of genuine Qi belonging to two eighth-rank practitioners.
Those lingering traces resembled two rainbows after a rain, profound and untouchable, making his entire body tremble.
When he saw Chen Tu walking out of a nearby tent, he felt that Chen Tu, who had not seemed very terrifying the night before, suddenly became formidable indeed.
...
Old Madam Zou had been awake for a long time.
Her physical and mental stamina declined with each passing year; often, she would forget what she was supposed to do next. Yet her great-grandson, whom she had hesitated over for a long time before personally deciding to send beyond the frontier pass, became increasingly clear in her mind. More often than not, he occupied her thoughts entirely.
Young people always enjoyed longer sleeping hours.
When she woke up, Zhou Luer was still sleeping so soundly that he was drooling.
Dreaming of something delicious perhaps, he would smack his lips from time to time.
Thinking of how he had wept and howled the previous night, Old Madam Zou felt a slight ache in her nose, but the corners of her lips could not help curling upward.
In the faint morning light, the more she looked at Zhou Luer, the more she cherished and doted on him.
The sound of the collapsing wall startled Zhou Luer awake.
Seeing him sit up abruptly, she slowly rose and asked gently, "Are you afraid?"
Zhou Luer was still a bit dazed from sleep. It took him a moment to collect his thoughts, and then he grinned and said, "What is there to be afraid of? In the past, there were Fifteenth Brother and his mother, and now I have a great-grandmother and a cousin as well. What do I have to be afraid of?"
Old Madam Zou drifted off slightly in thought; her mind was, after all, a bit slow nowadays. "My dear great-grandson, what kind of person is this Fifteenth Brother who brought you here?"
Zhou Luer scratched his head and said proudly, "Fifteenth Brother is the kind of person who always does what he says he will do."
Old Madam Zou nodded slowly. "Then it seems his mother was no ordinary person either."
"Of course!" Zhou Luer's expression suddenly turned somewhat dejected. "But his mother died of illness a long time ago. When Fifteenth Brother passed through Yangguan this time, he looked back toward Mingbaipo for a very long time."
"Good child, you have suffered," Old Madam Zou rallied her spirits and slowly stood up. "Great-grandmother will vent your anger for you. Those who have wronged you, Great-grandmother will teach them a lesson."
Zhou Luer was somewhat bewildered.
I didn't even have any morning bad temper; where is this anger coming from?
...
Pei Yunqun also woke up very early.
Before sunrise, a fresh piece of military intelligence was delivered into her hands.
Two hundred Turkic Black Cavalry had raided a Saracen camp, slaughtering everyone inside.
Previously, the marching route of these two hundred Black Cavalry seemed to be heading toward Peshawar, but for some unknown reason, they had suddenly veered into Saracen territory.
What baffled some border generals was that the Turkic people had seemingly been doing business with the Saracens all along; no one understood why a rift had suddenly turned so absolute.
Turkic people, Black Cavalry, marching toward Peshawar.
These phrases converged in Pei Yunqun's mind into a clear and distinct clue.
This was the trump card Gu Liubai had mentioned to her at the time.
The deaths of Mangbuzi and Gesang might not have been enough on their own, but the sudden intervention of the Turkic people became the final straw that crushed the inherently suspicious Zanduo.
The incident at Peshawar had occurred too abruptly. Under those circumstances, Gu Liubai certainly would not have had time to contact the Turkic people. In other words, even before heading to Peshawar, Gu Liubai had vaguely sensed that there were certain matters he had overlooked, so this was a chess piece he had arranged long in advance.
The true objective of the Turkic people was undoubtedly that Saracen camp, but Gu Liubai must have calculated the timing, having them make a detour toward Peshawar first.
No matter what happened at Peshawar, these Turkic Black Cavalry would surely project a formidable deterrent force.
His cultivation was terrifying, and his strategic foresight was even more so.
How could those aristocratic scions she had known previously ever compare to Gu Liubai?
The difference was like that between clouds and mud.
They were simply not on the same level.
Yet the most crucial point was that she vaguely felt she, too, had overlooked something.
It seemed that back in Peshawar, Gu Liubai had also hinted at something to her, but she had never quite managed to figure it out.
Two hundred Black Cavalry, a trump card...
Suddenly, she understood something, and her face, already drained of color from her injuries, grew even paler.
...
Chen Tu had, of course, heard the loud crash of the crumbling wall.
In fact, the moment he saw Yin Shiniang standing guard, he understood that Granny Long was officially beginning to impart her saber techniques to Gu Liubai.
When Gu Liubai appeared before him carrying the wood-chopping saber, he immediately noticed the abnormality of the weapon, but a breath later, he noticed something even more wrong.
"Gu Fifteenth, your eyes."
He stared in disbelief at Gu Liubai's eyes, initially suspecting he had seen wrong, but facts proved he was correct.
The green hue in Gu Liubai's pupils had vanished; the color of his eyes had become identical to that of the Tang people.
"What's wrong with my eyes?" Gu Liubai asked, looking slightly baffled.
"Blue Yufeng has a very clear mirror. Go take a look and you'll see." Chen Tu had originally intended to go examine those captives alongside Hua Cangming, but at that moment, he felt that matters over there could be slightly delayed.
Could the color of one's pupils change just like that?
Could it be that after contracting the black-eye disease, he was suffering from some lingering aftereffect?
Seeing Chen Tu's doubtful and startled expression, Gu Liubai frowned. He knew his eyes must have indeed gone wrong.
Blue Yufeng's tent was right next to Chen Tu and the others'. When Gu Liubai walked over, she had just finished washing up. She wasn't deliberately dressed up, but she looked fresh and clean.
She didn't seem to look into Gu Liubai's eyes at first, but upon hearing Chen Tu ask her to fetch a mirror for Gu Liubai to look into, she glanced at his face and her eyes widened in shock as well. "Gu Fifteenth, your eyes aren't green anymore."
Chen Tu instantly breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed this was not some lingering root of an illness.
"Let me see for myself."
The mirror Blue Yufeng brought indeed reflected things very clearly, and Gu Liubai saw that the green color in his pupils had vanished.
The green in his eyes had originally looked like a layer of jade melted into them, but now that greenness had completely disappeared. The person in the mirror was indistinguishable from a Tang native; the color of his pupils was no different from that of an ordinary Chang'an youth.
"What is going on?" Chen Tu stared blankly at Gu Liubai, certain that just last night, Gu Liubai's eyes had still been green.
"Could it be from eating all that dog meat?" Gu Liubai frowned.
Chen Tu was taken aback.
Then he reacted. "Stop spouting nonsense. I'd sooner believe you turned this way from eating dog manure."
Gu Liubai remained silent for a moment.
Chen Tu was itching to drag Gu Liubai off to be interrogated along with the members of the Zou family's fourth branch.
However, Gu Liubai was not deliberately putting on airs.
He, too, needed time to accept this matter.
His reply was measured with caution.
"Didn't you always want to know what my mother left me as a keepsake? One of those items consisted of a few medicinal pills, telling me to consume them in several doses after crossing the Yangguan Pass."
Chen Tu's body gave a slight jolt. "You took those pills, and then your pupils changed color?"
Gu Liubai nodded.
An even more vital question instantly popped into Chen Tu's mind. "Was it the pills that forcibly altered the color of your pupils, or were your pupils never green to begin with, and the pills merely restored them to their original color?"
Gu Liubai sighed. "She didn't even tell me what the pills did. Do you think she would have mentioned that?"
"Your mother..." Chen Tu wanted to curse, but the words stopped at his lips and he changed them instead. "She really has quite a unique personality."
"Aunt Blue, let me ask you something." Gu Liubai returned the bronze mirror to Blue Yufeng, then looked at her as she visibly tried to dodge his gaze, and couldn't help smiling. "Was it you who took that Black Flood Dragon sword yesterday?"
Blue Yufeng's face instantly flushed slightly. "I took it. I only take one item a day."
"Aunt Blue, is Pei Yunqun's Shadow Cyan sword in your possession as well?" Gu Liubai asked softly.
Blue Yufeng looked even more embarrassed. "Yes."
"As expected..." Gu Liubai was caught between laughter and tears, yet he also felt a sense of sudden enlightenment.
Throughout various dynasties, many sword-forging workshops and blacksmith shops specializing in weapon crafting possessed unique methods, which included the understanding and utilization of special materials.
Many of these materials were extremely rare, fortuitous discoveries, one of a kind in this world.
For instance, the heavenly iron found here in the border wilderness was a gift from the Eternal Sky, fragments of extraterrestrial stars, with every single piece being entirely unique.
Any renowned saber or sword in this world possessed special characteristics in its material and forging techniques, displaying distinct individual personalities.
The defining traits of Pei Yunqun's Shadow Cyan were its lightness and extreme sharpness.
It wasn't heavy when worn on the body, making it ideal for a young maiden like Pei Yunqun to use as a decorative accessory during normal times. At the same time, it could easily cleave through hard wooden spear shafts and effortlessly slice open the leather armor of Tibetan warriors.
The Black Flood Dragon wielded by the Black Flood Dragon master was also a famous sword. Any fine weapon worthy of a sword master of the sixth rank and above possessed unique qualities within its blade body, and the vast majority of them would create special profundities when combined with the practitioner's genuine Qi. While this Black Flood Dragon sword lacked the sharpness of the Shadow Cyan, when combined with a practitioner's genuine Qi, it could naturally condense a unique sword Qi.
Although the seventh-rank Black Flood Dragon master had been blasted to death by He Huoluo's punch the previous night, that was due to an absolute gap in cultivation realms, not because the sword was inadequate.
Gu Liubai had originally intended to study this sword after the battle, but after taking a bath and changing into clean clothes, the weapon had vanished into thin air. Upon asking Yin Shiniang later, he learned that Blue Yufeng had passed by his tent, so he knew it must have been due to Blue Yufeng's peculiar quirk.
Yet he truly hadn't expected that she had taken the Shadow Cyan as well.
Following the fierce battle in Peshawar, he had tended to the wounds of Xu Tuibei and Pei Yunqun, and afterwards, the Shadow Cyan left by the side had disappeared.
At the time, Li Xixi had been lingering nearby, so he had originally assumed Li Xixi had picked it up for Pei Yunqun.
Thinking back now, given Li Xixi's personality, even if she were to take it back, she certainly would have given a heads-up.
To think it had also fallen into Blue Yufeng's hands.
Aunt Blue was truly an extraordinary being!
Leaving the Black Flood Dragon sword aside, she had actually managed to swipe the Shadow Cyan right under his and Li Xixi's noses without making a sound.
And that nonsense about only taking one item a day—this was clearly only taking one sword a day, wasn't it!