A Good-for-Nothing

93. The Shadow Sword Acknowledged Him as Its Master (1)

Translator: Dragon Rider

Li Zong swiped his card, gained entry into the building and took those behind him to the training field on the rooftop. As the elevator door slowly opened, the couple of people inside were having a conversation, but suddenly, glare of thunderbolt flashed into the elevator through the opened door. Old Master Zhu didn’t have time to say anything. The woman standing beside him furrowed her brow. Li Zong was the first one to react. Out of his palm flashed a ray of firelight, followed by a fiery sword which instantly turned into a beam of light and deflected the lightning that was about to take He Zheng’s life.

The thunderbolt, with unstoppable momentum, violently impacted onto the Luminous Firelight Sword of Li Zong. Remarkably, the firelight enveloped the lightning and flew it to the other side of the magic barrier, reducing all green grass to ashes on their way.

Shock rooted the girl to the spot. As her eye fell on those in the elevator, her lips quivered and with that she buckled at the knees, slumped to the ground and called the woman who was trotting into the training field from the elevator, “Mother…”

Old Master Zhu, seeing his dear grandson narrowly escape death, was nearly reduced to heart attack by the thrilling scene. At an unsteady pace, the poor old man trotted towards He Zheng who was falling to the ground. “My dear grandson! You are scaring me!”

He Zheng was indeed within an inch of being struck by lightning for a second time. A golden light had flashed out of his forehead, hit the light of Li Zong’s sword and parried the thunderbolt, and with that he had had a warm feeling in the middle of his forehead before his whole body went limp and fell into a familiar embrace.

Drained of all his energy, He Zheng lay helpless in Li Zong’s arms. After a while, Li Zong slowly helped him to his feet. Recalling the near miss he had just had, He Zheng uttered a four-letter word through gritted teeth. “Fuck.”

Seeing He Zheng was fine, others heaved a sigh of relief.

The girl pitifully walked up to her mother and called helplessly, “Mother.”

The middle-aged woman knitted her eyebrows. She was nobody else but Tan Lubai, a director of the Wuwei-shizi Counter-demon Committee.

“I’ll decide how to punish you for this after we get home.”

The girl lowered her head, afraid to say another word.

The sword, which had been sent flying sideways by the lightning and the firelight, fell down from mid-air and stuck into a rock on the side. Its shiny blade vibrated constantly, singing intermittently.

“My dear grandson, are you okay?” Old Master Zhu had come here to check on his grandson after handling a couple of matters. It had never crossed his mind that he would be greeted by such a thrilling scene.

“I’m fine.” He Zheng shook his head and then turned his face to ask Li Zong, “Why am I hearing the sound of the sea?”

“You are mistaken. That’s the sound of water. Tilt your head to one side, let the water flow out and the sound will be gone.”

It took He Zheng a few moments to realize what Li Zong had really meant. The corners of his mouth involuntarily twitched. (In Chinese, “water in the head” means “soft in the head”)

He was annoyed.

“Fortunately we got Li Zong with us. Otherwise you would definitely have been struck by lightning.” Old Master Zhu was still experiencing a carry-over of fear.

The girl appeared flustered. “How did this come to take place? He was just trying to draw lightning with a common lightning spell. Never once has an occurrence of this kind happened to me.”

Director Tan flicked a glance at the girl and replied, “You’ve been cultivating both Fu-craft (Fu is a piece of rectangular paper on which magical figures are drawn by Chinese Taoist priests to invoke or expel spirits and bring good or ill fortune) and swordcraft for a long time, but He Zheng was practicing it for the first time, which means a lapse of accuracy was almost inevitable. It was unbelievably reckless of you to have given your sword to He Zheng.”

“I…” The girl felt terribly aggrieved, appearing as if she had been wronged but didn’t dare to defend herself.

“She’s not the one to blame. I asked her of my own accord to lend me her sword,” He Zheng explained in a hoarse voice after shaking his head.

“Don’t you pull a stunt like that again.” Li Zong kneaded He Zheng’s numb hand. Though his tone was stern, his hand movements were gentle. After kneading for a while, He Zheng felt that the numbness in his arm was gradually eased and he was regaining sensation in it.

Others were somewhat surprised to hear He Zheng give an explanation for this incident on his own account. Since He Zheng had said so himself, Director Tan didn’t lay any more blame on her daughter.

He Zheng gave a fit of coughing. What happened just now had made his face pale, and he was feeling somewhat uncomfortable.

“Mother… Look at that sword. Ho–How did it come to sharpen?” The girl widened her eyes and stared fixedly at the sword sticking in the giant rock, shocked.

“What are you talking about…” Though saying this in a reproachful tone, Director Tan still twisted her head aside.

The blade of the double-edged sword sticking in the giant rock was shiny, bearing no similarity whatsoever to the simple and unadorned sword it had been a while ago. The cutting edges of it were emitting a silvery white gleam, the blade vibrating and singing constantly. The hilt of the sword was trembling, as if it was trying to rid itself of the restriction of the rock.

At first Old Master Zhu was startled, but then his fingers involuntarily twitched and a smile lit up his face. “Oh, it turns out that my grandson has just got himself a stroke of rare fortune!”

Without disclosing any details, he gave He Zheng a push, face full of delight. “Go pull that sword out of the rock, dear.

Go. Your grandfather will never do you any harm.”

He Zheng could barely walk, let alone pull out a sword, but his grandfather had instructed him to, so he had no choice but to obey.

Director Tan’s brow corrugated in a frown. “Old Master Zhu, are you saying… ”

Old Master Zhu smiled but didn’t say anything.

Li Zong patted He Zheng on the shoulder and, strangely enough, He Zheng felt that he regained part of his strength. He slowly struggled up to the giant rock, a brief pause after each pace. However, every time he took a step closer to the sword, he could feel a force drawing him forward. He had just reached out his hand when the sword, which had been vibrating and singing in the rock all along, automatically flew out of the rock and landed on He Zheng’s hand. Drained of energy, He Zheng propped himself up with the sword.

The sword gave another peal of ring, as if extremely happy.

“It never crossed my mind that the Shadow Sword had been in your hands, Director Tan.” A dismayed look flashed across Li Zong’s eyes as he saw the wicked-looking sword that had shed its plain previous image.

Clearly Tan Lubai was also amazed by the fact that the training sword she had given her daughter was none other than the Shadow Sword. She gasped in astonishment.

“I really didn’t know this.” Her tone was somewhat resigned. “A few years ago, I accommodated local authorities with a major case of forgery and confiscated a batch of high-quality imitations of ancient famous swords, one of which fell into my hands as the result of serendipity. I never did any research into its authenticity, so I didn’t know this was the Shadow Sword.”

Legend had it that Ou Yezi, a master swordsmith, had once forged ten famous swords. The Longyuan Sword, the Chunjun Sword and the Zhanlu Sword were all locked in a cabinet used for storing precious magic treasure in the Supernaturalism Management Bureau (SMB). The other seven swords had been unaccounted for all along. No one could have foreseen that the Shadow Sword would be among a batch of forgeries and coincidentally fall into Tan Lubai’s hands.

After hearing the story, all others were amazed.