The Silent Sword Soul

At the age of seven, Gai Nie huddled among the carcasses of dead horses, watching a girl in plain white bind his broken wrist with bloodstained cloth. Twenty-three years later, the Sword Saint shattered the world-famous Yuanhong Sword. People saw only the plain wooden sword in his hand, never knowing that the old strip of cloth wrapped around its hilt concealed three thousand strands of the healer's silky hair.

From the waterfall in the Valley of Ghosts to the peak of the Mirage Tower, he had cut down the royal banners of Chu and driven back the Yin-Yang Guardians. Yet he could never cut away the bitter sophora scent lingering in his sleeves whenever he drew his sword.

This was a wordless riddle that lasted thirty years:

She copied his youthful sword techniques onto the pages between chapters of her medical compendium, while he recreated her routes for gathering herbs by following the patterns of morning dew;

She used golden needles to seal the meridians around his heart, keeping him from descending into a path of slaughter, while he used his sword energy to nurture the life frozen within her.

When the thirty-third blood-red mark appeared on the wooden sword, Gai Nie finally understood Guiguzi's last words: the pinnacle of the sword path meant keeping the sharpest inch of the blade sheathed forever.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.