Chapter 32: The Axes and the Books

Before leaving Baoding, the young girl decided to visit the blacksmith’s shop to buy weapons.

The caravan leader had said axes could be bought there. He also said if the blacksmith didn’t have any, she could buy one from a farmer.

The blacksmith in Baoding clearly had stock. The shop was filled with farm tools.

There were no common weapons, nor any armor.

The leader had explained the reason. Those items weren’t allowed to be sold privately. Getting caught was serious.

As for how those Jianghu people got their weapons?

If asked, they said they made them themselves. It sounded ridiculous, but that was the official story.

Jianghu matters fell under the rule of ‘no one reports, no official investigates.’

The young girl didn’t intend to dig deeper. She just wanted to buy an axe.

She walked into the shop. The old blacksmith watched her while hammering iron. He wasn’t paying attention and hit his finger. The pain made tears stream down his face.

He jolted awake from the pain and quickly put down his work.

He started introducing the farm tools to the young girl. He also mentioned private orders. If she wasn’t satisfied with the items in the shop, she could commission a custom piece.

The girl didn’t understand and didn’t think much about it. Her attention was on the axes in front of her.

Noticing her interest in axes, the old blacksmith began explaining them.

They were a bronze axe, a bell-copper axe, and an iron axe.

The girl noticed the bell-copper axe and pointed at it.

The old blacksmith quickly picked it up. He struck the blade with a small iron piece, producing a clear, pleasant sound.

He explained that this one had average hardness, but it made a beautiful sound. He made it to satisfy some special customers. Not many bought it, so he didn’t make many.

The girl then pointed at the bronze axe and the iron axe. The old blacksmith explained their features one by one. He didn’t dare to be impatient.

So the girl bought all of them. Perhaps because the blacksmith’s attitude was too good, or because she really wanted these axes.

Three axes in hand. They would last a long time.

Seeing the weapons suddenly disappear, the old blacksmith shuddered. He was so scared he wet himself.

He wiped cold sweat from his forehead. He bent slightly, not daring to look down at the girl.

The girl took out a piece of silver.

The old blacksmith didn’t dare take too much. He only took a tiny sliver of silver.

Just as the girl was about to leave, she suddenly remembered what the blacksmith had said about custom orders.

She quickly pointed at the red-hot iron block and gestured with her hands.

The old blacksmith didn’t fully understand. He asked tentatively, “Immortal, do you… want to commission a weapon?”

He explained briefly what a custom order meant.

The girl nodded. Then she took out an axe from her storage space and pointed at it.

Old Blacksmith: “Does the Immortal want to make an axe?”

The girl nodded again.

Old Blacksmith: “What kind of axe does the Immortal want? This one will do his utmost.”

The girl spread her hands and gestured.

Old Blacksmith: “A big one?”

Shook head.

Old Blacksmith: “A hard one?”

Nodded.

Old Blacksmith: “I understand.”

But the girl was still gesturing.

Old Blacksmith: “Not hard enough? Harder, even harder?”

The girl nodded again. That was exactly what she meant.

How hard did she want it?

With a slam, the girl slammed a gold ingot onto the table.

Deal done. No problem at all. Guaranteed to be hard!

No matter how strange the client’s request, no matter how illegal the demand, as long as the silver was right, there was no problem.

Old Blacksmith: “When will the Immortal come to pick it up?”

The girl thought for a moment. She held up one finger.

The old blacksmith’s face became serious. “The time is a bit short, but no problem. I can do it. I’ll definitely satisfy the Immortal.”

It was settled.

The girl left the shop. As she was about to leave Baoding, she suddenly remembered something.

Books!

She looked around for a while. She saw some people who looked like scholars on the street and followed them.

She thought they must be heading to a bookshop.

She followed them for a while, scaring them into a cold sweat. They hastily left the street and entered an imposing building.

The girl looked at the sign. It was the Baoding Prefecture School. It didn’t seem like a bookshop.

Many people at the entrance were staring at her and shouting things like, “Unthinking, yet never forgotten…”

“I want to know you, to love you without decay…”

“My clothes grow loose, but I never regret. For her, I waste away in sorrow.”

Huh? She couldn’t understand. She had no idea what they were talking about.

Although she had read widely, she still couldn’t understand those reciting poems and scriptures. She felt it wasn’t anything good, because as they chanted, they laughed at each other.

Until an older man came out. He glared at the crowd and drove all the students back inside.

He bowed to the distant girl, an apology of sorts. Then he went back into the school.

The girl didn’t bother with them. She didn’t understand the meaning of the bow. She thought it was a greeting.

But after bowing, the man turned and left. It didn’t seem like a greeting?

The girl couldn’t guess his intentions.

She left that place and continued searching for a bookshop. After two streets, she found it.

Several people were chatting with the shopkeeper. As she got closer, she heard them talking about the Records of the Three Kingdoms.

They finally noticed the girl approaching and quickly stopped talking.

The ones who had been chatting happily scattered, making excuses to leave. The bookshop was left with only the shopkeeper.

After a stick of incense, the girl left. She had made a good haul. In Baoding’s bookshop, she had found treasures she considered quite good.

The cultural atmosphere here was strong. She could buy many new books, even ones published just two months ago.

She bought two sets of books. One on agriculture, one on arithmetic.

On her way to Caohe Village, she learned for the first time what ‘padding’ meant. The new agriculture book was far too similar to the ‘On Agriculture’ she had bought earlier. And the arithmetic book was very similar to the ‘Arithmetic Treasure’ she had before.

She felt cheated.

Only then did she realize that scholars of this era particularly liked summarizing the experiences of predecessors and then publishing books. You summarize mine, I summarize yours, you adapt mine, I adapt yours. One book could spawn hundreds of books with almost the same meaning.

She sighed. Consider it a lesson learned.

By evening, she walked to Caohe Village. At the village entrance, some farmers were still working in the fields. When they saw her approaching, they all stopped to watch.

Unlike Liaodong’s Tianqiao Village, Caohe Village was an inland settlement. It had land, and the people lived by growing crops.

This place had a natural geographical advantage. It could supply grain to Baoding, sell to places further away like Tianjin, and also send grain north to the capital.

This time, the young girl wasn’t here to observe the people’s livelihood. She was looking for someone.

Before reaching the post station in Liaodong, she had obtained two road guides from the corpses on the road. One was for Baoding, already delivered. The other was for Caohe Village, about twenty li away.

Now it was her turn to face the complex web of human family relationships alone.

After entering the village, a few old men chatting together stopped their conversation and looked at her.

A bolder old man came forward, struck up a conversation, and asked her purpose.

The old man didn’t seem afraid of her.

She showed him the road guide. The old man couldn’t read. He called over other old men, and they all stared at it together, picking out key characters.

‘It’s that child!’ they said, recognizing whose road guide it was from a familiar character.

The old men led the girl to a house at the back of the village.

This was the village head’s home.

An elderly man lay in bed. He half-opened his eyes and looked at the arrivals.

‘You… who are you? Son… son…’ the old man called weakly.

The old men accompanying her were used to this. They explained things to the old man in bed. After a while, he seemed to remember. He recognized these old men as his childhood friends, friends until old age, from the same village.

Seventy years of friendship.

****

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