Lu Qian is a puppet automaton. Since the day he was created, he has always been by the Sword Sect Immortal's side.
The Immortal taught him to read and write, and to practice martial arts and cultivation. Lu Qian was not very intelligent and had no real heart. It took him three months to learn to write three characters.
When everyone looked down on him, the Immortal used the precious extraterrestrial meteorite iron to make him a stone heart.
Gradually, something went wrong with Lu Qian's stone heart. Whenever he saw the Immortal, it would race wildly. Frightened, he secretly told the spirit of the Immortal's natal sword.
The sword spirit laughed at him and said he had fallen for the Immortal.
Lu Qian thought, the Immortal is such a wonderful person. Who wouldn't like him?
Later, he met someone who didn't like the Immortal: the Immortal's white moonlight, who looked exactly like Lu Qian.
After the white moonlight returned, Lu Qian became a stain on the Immortal's reputation. He was locked in a storeroom, where he spent his days without seeing the light of day.
The sword spirit secretly let him out and sat with him on the jade steps in the courtyard, asking what he planned to do.
Lu Qian foolishly said that once the Immortal was in a good mood, he would be allowed out. Then he wanted to go for an outing at the foot of the mountain with the Immortal and the sword spirit, and fly the most beautiful kite.
The sword spirit looked at him and softly said, "All right."
When Lu Qian was let out of the storeroom again, he was met with a sword thrust straight into his chest. He fell to the ground, staring blankly at the Immortal's cold, unfeeling face.
The sword lodged in his chest shook violently. Lu Qian heard the other man say he wanted to use extraterrestrial meteorite iron to forge a sword for his white moonlight.
The Immortal also said that a puppet didn't deserve to have such a precious treasure for a heart.
Lu Qian reached into his chest, struggled to pull out the stone heart, and tossed it at the Immortal's feet.
"I don't owe you anything anymore," he said.
He grasped the sword embedded in his chest. The spirit who lived in the sword was his best friend.
"I'm leaving, Zhelang."
It wasn't the right season to fly kites, but Lu Qian still wanted to go down the mountain.
As the Immortal looked on in panic, Lu Qian scooped up a handful of mud, stuffed it into his chest, and, relying on that heart of mud, stood up.
"I'm coming with you."
Amid increasingly dazzling swordlight, the sword spirit suddenly appeared, and he and the Immortal both spat blood.
The sword spirit severed his blood pact with the Immortal, but that didn't matter. As Lu Qian pulled the divine sword from his chest, the spirit took his hand, and a contract slowly unfolded from their palms.
"From now on, I am at your command."
*
That day, Lu Qian fled the Sword Sect with the Immortal's natal sword.
Sword spirit X puppet
Theme: Escaping the environment you were born into can be agonizing. Sometimes it takes a painful, life-changing price to break free, but once you take that first step, brighter days will come.
