Long Blade Without Trace - (Complete Four Volumes)

Author: Kuang Sha
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features:
Zhao Lie satly on the roadside in a dilapidated pavilion, with withered leaves helplessly drifting in the cold wind. The distant mountains still held patches of snow-white beauty. It was hard to believe that just a few days ago, he had been so charming and spirited, full of vigor. He couldn’t understand why things had turned out this way. His heart was filled with too much unwillingness and anger. After years of hard struggle, he had gone from having nothing to living a life of luxury, elegance, and comfort. Yet suddenly, he found himself back to having nothing again.
The rare winter sunlight fell on the desolate yet somewhat enchanting forest, where large groups of people often rushed past in a hurry, their iron hooves kicking up clouds of dust. No one noticed the of him by the roadside. The world outside was in chaos, with war raging and heroes emerging. Zhao Lie’s disheveled hair was piled on his head as he slowly walked along the long, dusty road to a bustling market. He had been walking and thinking about his future ever since.
The teahouse was packed with people, most of them armed with swords and daggers, exuding an air of confidence and extraordinary demeanor—outlaws and heroes from the martial world. They drank like water in large bowls, and the air was filled with a mix of the strong aroma of wine and the scent of dust. People from all over the country discussed the thrilling stories of the martial world, while outside, the cold wind raged. Inside the teahouse, the martial artists were burning with passion. Several burly men even unbuttoned their chests, revealing their powerful muscles, completely unfazed by the cold.
Zhao Lie sat quietly in a corner, listening silently. The stories that stirred the blood did nothing to affect his indifferent expression. Yet, he noticed something strange among these earth-shattering tales: the swordsmen and daggersmen, the heroes and geniuses of the martial world, seemed to spend money freely, never lacking funds or worrying about it.
When Zhao Lie lay alone in the tangled grass of the roadside forest, he kept thinking about these martial heroes who never lacked money. His heart felt colder than the biting wind. He looked up at the blue sky and the drifting, beautiful clouds. The clouds swayed and changed with the wind, just like the unpredictable nature of life. Suddenly, a fierce battle sound came from the distance. Zhao Lie carefully peered through the gaps in the yellow grass.
Before him stretched an endless expanse of wilderness, undulating with hills. The desolation of winter was tied together by leaves of various colors—yellow, red, light, and dark. Only withered reeds stood weakly in the cold wind, while the forest hidden among the yellow grasses was painted in slow, blurred strokes. Under the winding, shadowy trees, a dozen burly black-clad men wielded strange weapons, surrounding a masked white-clad woman. Zhao Lie only saw the woman’s figure flicker, graceful and elegant. Her white figure spun like a dazzling butterfly, soaring into the sky. Her long sword seemed to cast circles of shimmering, transparent ripples, glowing with rainbow hues under the sunlight. In an instant, everyone around fell, and the air echoed with.
The white-clad woman didn’t even glance at the bloody corpses on the ground. She turned and gently sheathed her sword, drifting up silently to the slender branches of a tree, where a few withered leaves clung. Like a white cloud, she vanished without a trace, as ethereal as a fairy. A few leaps later, she had disappeared into the air, leaving no trace behind. Watching the woman’s ghostly, ever-changing figure, Zhao Lie in the tall grass widened his eyes, unable to believe what he had seen.
But Zhao Lie finally understood something: if someone had such great martial arts skills, why would they worry about money? When Zhao Lie was twenty-three and lying in the grass, he made the second important decision of his life—to abandon commerce and pursue martial arts.
From the bodies on the ground, Zhao Lie picked up a few swords and daggers, along with some silver. To his surprise, he also found quite a bit of jewelry and several internal martial arts manuals. Clutching the heavy silver, he faced the biting winter wind and strode forward with determination. His disheveled hair fluttered in the wind, and he soon disappeared into the endless road.
Zhao Lie gently touched the jewelry in his arms, feeling overwhelmed with emotion. It turned out that every martial artist in the world was so wealthy. Thinking was as good as doing, Zhao Lie thus began his journey in the martial world.
The winter sun above the village was like a ripe, orange-yellow apricot, shrouded in a light mist. Zhao Lie followed a winding ancient road, climbed long mountain paths, and entered the misty, lush Black Tiger Mountain. Thanks to his silver, the tall Zhao Lie easily joined the Black Tiger Gang nearby. The Black Tiger Gang was actually a small organization, with only two or three hundred members, but it had some reputation in the martial world. The gang leader, Black Tiger Tiger, had spent a few years in Wudang and was quite skilled. He was quite shrewd, avoiding conflicts with major martial arts factions and instead focusing on "robbing the rich to help the poor." As a result, the Black Tiger Gang lived a prosperous life, constantly recruiting and expanding its strength.
After enduring so much hardship, Zhao Lie learned to protect himself. To stand in the martial world, one had to have skills to save themselves. During the day, Zhao Lie trained with the gang members, and at night, under the brilliance of the moon and stars, he silently studied the internal martial arts manuals he had found. Although these were not secret martial arts manuals, they were pure internal martial arts techniques. For experts, they might be ordinary, but for Zhao Lie, who had never learned martial arts before, they were supreme martial arts treasures.
Zhao Lie studied tirelessly, and whenever he couldn’t understand something, he asked the gang members during the day. Every night, he immersed himself in this magical martial art, feeling a sense of wonder. Before him lay a vast, new world where he could soar freely. In the boundless, deep night sky, Zhao Lie entered a completely new, mysterious realm.
Day by day, time passed. Life in the martial world was extremely dangerous, and he lived with his head in the air. But Zhao Lie was no longer the he had been when he first started. He had endured too much hardship and suffering. In the days of fighting and killing, he quietly studied and observed others’ techniques, turning them into his own.
In every battle, Zhao Lie was neither at the forefront nor at the back. In practice, his martial arts skills improved unconsciously. Every day, he had new discoveries, and each discovery brought him unprecedented joy. No one taught him; he relied entirely on his boundless imagination to grasp the vastness and depth of martial arts. Whenever he had free time, he would immerse himself in the magical realm of martial arts, constantly pondering, his gaze as profound as the mysterious night sky.
With the pure internal martial arts manual and his relentless practice day and night, Zhao Lie quickly found that the ordinary members of the Black Tiger Gang were inferior to him in martial arts. But the shrewd Zhao Lie never boasted about his skills. He simply practiced hard every night, never forgetting the burning fire in his heart. The biting cold wind at midnight, the bright crescent moon in the sky, the brilliant and mysterious night sky, the torrential rain at night, and the bleak autumn wind in the evening all became part of Zhao Lie’s life. It could be said that in the Black Tiger Gang, aside from the leader, Black Tiger Tiger, Zhao Lie was the best.
Zhao Lie would never forget the feeling of leaping onto a tree branch with his internal energy, floating lightly. Standing on the branch, he swayed left and right, his hair fluttering. He also wouldn’t forget running wildly across a vast expanse of water, the softness of the surface bringing him unprecedented joy through his feet. When he first broke a tree with a punch, watching the flying leaves, he couldn’t help but roar. In that moment, he felt an unprecedented sense of strength and confidence—feelings he had never had before. He truly loved this feeling of being full of power. In this chaotic world, only the strong could reign supreme.
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