Qingmang Tempered Sword

Mortal bones The setting sun is like blood, splashing on the rocky slopes at the western foot of the Qingmang Mountains. Li Yan carried half a basket of herbs on his back and moved down the mountain with his rickety body. His coarse cloth jacket had long been soaked with sweat and clung tightly to his thin back. His exposed arms and calves were covered with fine scratches, which were scratched by thorns and gravel in the mountains. There were faint drops of blood, which mixed with dust and formed dark red scabs. "Cough... Cough..." A violent cough suddenly hit him. Li Yan subconsciously covered his chest and bent his body into a shrimp. The cough was hoarse and dry, like the sound of an old bellows being pulled, and it took a long time to stop. He let go of his hand, and there was a trace of dark red blood on his palm, which glowed dazzlingly in the sunset. "I'm coughing up blood again..." Li Yan smiled bitterly and wiped his palms with his sleeves, his eyes dimming a bit. He is sixteen years old and an orphan from Lijia Village under Qingmang Mountain. When he was three years old, a plague killed his parents, and he barely survived with the help of his neighbors in the village. Since he was fourteen years old, he has followed the old medicine farmers in the village to collect medicines in the mountains, exchanging some scraps of silver to buy medicines. He has been frail and sick since he was a child. If he stopped taking medicine, he might not be alive today. Qingmang Mountain stretches for eight hundred miles. The herbs at the foot of the mountain are ordinary, and the valuable ones grow in the deeper mountains and forests. There are not only ferocious beasts there, but also legendary...