The first time I killed someone, the blade was dull.
I was fourteen that year. It was winter, and the north wind whipped against my face with a stinging bite.
Three bandits had scaled the wall of my grandfather’s courtyard, intent on stealing the last half-sack of millet he had hidden in the cellar.
My grandfather was blind. Hearing the commotion, he called out my name: “Shen He, Shen He!” He was using my alias.
My real name is Shen Heyi, and I am a girl. But the bandits didn’t know that, and Grandfather pretended not to know either.
He just kept calling, his voice urgent and hoarse, sounding like an old crow being strangled by the neck.
I fished out that Bone-Cleaver from beneath the stove.
Its edge was curled and nicked, so dull it couldn’t even slice through sheepskin cleanly.
But a human neck is softer than sheepskin.
I didn’t think about that day again for a very long time-not until I met Xie Changgeng.
