He Was Mistaken for the Sword Saint's Heir, So His Strictest Senior Trained the Fake novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Rule One Is Dawn

Shouyi sets his terms and a dawn lesson shows Mian copies any form perfectly with no force, flaw included; the Inspector demands the Test of Three Forms by noon.

"Why?" said Mian.

He had put the pork down.

It felt like the polite thing to do when a man tells you he is about to ruin your sleep.

"The lease," said Shouyi.

"That's the sect master's reason."

"It is also mine. A lie told for the sect, and kept well, is a duty."

"That sounds like something you made up on the walk here."

"I wrote it down on the walk here," said Shouyi, and he tapped the ledger.

Mian laughed, and Shouyi's mouth did something very small and then stopped doing it.

"Rule one," Shouyi said. "Dawn."

"Dawn is a rumor."

"It is the fifth bell. I will be at this door."

"What if I'm not behind it?"

"Then I will be in the plum tree," said Shouyi, "and I will know where to look."

He left, and the door shut so precisely that the latch made no sound at all.

Mian lay back on the bed and stared at the dripping ceiling.

"He's going to be unbearable," he told it.

The ceiling dripped on his forehead, which seemed like agreement.

At the fifth bell the pavilion yard was blue and freezing and Shouyi was already in it.

He held two wooden practice swords.

He gave one to Mian.

"Stand."

Mian stood.

"Not like a scarecrow."

"I'm trying to stand like a scarecrow that's awake."

Shouyi walked around him once, slowly.

He took Mian's wrist between two cold fingers, and a thin line of qi went up Mian's arm.

His grey eyes narrowed.

"Qi Gathering," he said. "Third layer."

"Is that bad?"

"I have seen kitchen cats with denser qi."

"The kitchen cats are very well fed."

"Song Mian."

"Yes, Senior Yan."

"Hold the sword."

Mian held it.

It slid in his hand.

"Other way."

"Which way is the other way?"

Shouyi closed his eyes for exactly one breath.

Then he stepped back and set his feet.

He drew his wooden blade through a slow, clean arc: up, across, and a short thrust at the end.

"Opening the Gate," he said. "The first form of any sword school. Do not try to copy it. Watch the weight first."

Mian watched.

Then he did what he always did, which was to stop trying and let his body remember it.

He stepped, rose, cut across and thrust.

Shouyi lowered his blade.

It was perfect.

It had the same angle at the wrist, the same drop of the heel, the same clean line from shoulder to tip.

It had no force behind it at all.

The wooden sword went through the air.

"Again," said Shouyi, and his voice had gone odd.

Mian did it again.

This time he caught something in the middle of the thrust.

There was a half-breath held, and a tiny tension in the left shoulder before the point went out.

It was just a habit, and Mian copied it because it was part of the shape.

"Stop," said Shouyi.

"That was good, wasn't it?"

"You do not do that."

"Do what?"

"The shoulder."

"That's how you do it."

"It is not how the form is done," said Shouyi, very quietly. "It is how I do it. Do not copy it again."

"Why not? It looks nice."

Shouyi didn't answer.

He stood in the blue light with his jaw tight and his wooden sword hanging from his hand.

For a moment he looked completely exposed.

"You copy everything," he said at last.

"If I see it once. I can't do anything with it. It's like wearing someone's coat."

"A coat," Shouyi said. He seemed to be turning the idea over. "A coat that fits."

"Is that useful?"

"Possibly."

Mian beamed at him.

Shouyi looked away, at the sky, at the dripping roof, anywhere else.

"Three hours of footwork," he said. "Then breakfast. Then footwork."

"Is there a point at which the footwork stops?"

"No."

By the second hour Mian had learned that Shouyi was never going to raise his voice and never going to let him sit down.

By the third he had learned that Shouyi corrected him with two fingers.

It was a touch at the elbow or the hip, there and gone.

At the end of the third, he sat down in the middle of the yard anyway.

Shouyi stood over him with a very faint look of wonder.

"There is a rule against that," he said.

"There is a rule against everything."

"Yes."

"Which one am I breaking?"

"Fifty-one," said Shouyi. "Sitting in a yard without leave."

"Write it down."

Shouyi took the ledger from his sleeve and wrote it down.

Then the gate bell began to ring at the foot of the ridge.

It rang hard and fast, the way it rang only for a fire or an official.

A disciple came running up the stone steps with his robe half off one shoulder.

"Senior Yan! The Inspector's back!"

Shouyi's pen stopped.

"He said," the boy gasped, "that he has been awake all night with joy, and he sees no reason to wait.

"He wants the Test of Three Forms in the courtyard at noon."

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