Qingshi Daolu

The late spring sun slanted into the blacksmith shop, and the rhythm of Chen Qinghe's hammer was mixed with the tinkling of the copper bells on the eaves. The charcoal fire in the furnace made the young man's eyebrows shine, and beads of sweat hit the dark red iron block along his chin, causing a wisp of white smoke to rise. "The seventy-sixth hammer..." He gritted his teeth and counted, and blood oozed from the old wound at the tiger's mouth. These are the hundred ring-shou knives requested by Zhendong Prince's Mansion, and they have agreed to deliver them before Guyu. My father's rheumatic legs were so painful these days that he couldn't get out of bed. Qinghe quietly simmered the pottery pot for boiling medicine by the stove. The smell of herbs mixed with the smell of iron floated in the room. Clang! The hammer suddenly struck the anvil with a strange trill. Qinghe let go of the hammer handle in a daze, his palms numb from the shock - he was very familiar with this sound. He heard it once when he forged a knife for Zhao Biaotou three years ago. It was the aftermath of the monks' fighting. Sure enough, a blue-purple thundercloud exploded in the northwest sky. The young man picked up the raincoat behind the door, folded it back before going out, and took out an oil paper bag from the ashes of the stove. Half of an old wild ginseng was wrapped inside, and the beard was still stained with yellow mud from last year's winter snow. This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.