The Blade-Wielder’s Jianghu

The story I’m about to tell takes place in the dream of an ordinary middle-aged man, in a world of martial arts where he is accustomed to calling people like himself “swordsmen.” Those who imagine themselves roaming the martial world with a blade are mostly rather stubborn. They are neither as smugly aloof as sword-bearers nor as blunt and straightforward as spear-wielders, and they are nowhere near as skilled at disguising themselves as archers. They tend to pride themselves on being no more than the most ordinary members of that vast, boundless martial world! These people are usually easy to pick out of a crowd. They are as single-minded and rigid as a blade’s edge, as heavy and unyielding as its spine, and fond of quietly building up their strength before striking, just like a blade. Many people in the martial world call them fools; some call them stubborn. Yet there will always be a small handful who think they are actually not so bad.