Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Xie Changgeng stayed in Yaling for three months.

He didn’t leave immediately after his injuries healed. During the day, he helped the villagers repair roofs and chop firewood; in the evenings, he discussed the state of the world with my grandfather until late into the night.

Sometimes I listened from the side, and sometimes I sharpened my knife in the courtyard.

I had kept that Bone-Cleaver all this time. After six years of repeated sharpening, the blade had thinned considerably, but it remained peerlessly sharp.

Zhao Qi saw me and asked, “Young Master Shen, why are you always sharpening that knife?”

“Habit,” I replied.

Zhao Qi didn’t ask further. He was a smart man, and smart men don’t ask unnecessary questions.

At the end of March, Xie Changgeng came to find me.

He stood in the courtyard wearing coarse hemp clothes. His shoulders were broad and his waist narrow; though he had lost a lot of weight while recovering from his severe illness, he still stood as straight as a spear.

“I’m leaving,” he said.

“I know,” I replied.

He continued, “Your grandfather wants you to come with me.”

The whetstone in my hand paused for a moment. “He told you that?”

“He said you’re being wasted here. He said you possess the talent to govern the world and shouldn’t be trapped in Yaling, sharpening a Bone-Cleaver.”

I lowered my head and resumed sharpening the knife, remaining silent.

Xie Changgeng took a step closer. “I want to ask you to come as well, but not because of your grandfather.”

“Then why?”

“Because I need you,” he said directly, without any embellishment. “I have people around me who can fight wars, and I have people who can devise strategies. But I don’t have anyone who can see the entire chessboard clearly. Your grandfather sees it, but he cannot walk.”

So, he wanted to take away my grandfather’s eyes-me.

I looked up at him.

The spring sunlight fell across his face, illuminating an old scar that ran from the corner of his left eyebrow down to his cheekbone. He had gained it during his breakthrough from the siege.

“Xie Changgeng.” It was the first time I had called him by his full name. “Do you know who I am?”

“I do,” he said.

My heart skipped a beat.

“You are Shen Yuan’s granddaughter.” He looked into my eyes. “Not his grandson.”

The courtyard fell silent. Even the wind seemed to stop.

“Since when did you know?” I asked.

“Since the first day,” he said. “When you were feeding me medicine, your wrists were too slender.”

I gripped the whetstone tightly.

He smiled then-the kind of smile that made my chest tighten. “Shen Heyi, I don’t care if you are a man or a woman. I only care about one thing-whether you are willing to help me.”

Fate is likely something like this. You think you are hiding at the edge of the world sharpening a dull blade, yet some people can cross thousands of miles of a world in chaos just to stand before you.

They don’t come to invite you; they come to call your name.

As if this is the one thing you were meant to do with your life.