Chapter 63 — Reincarnation

"A name for the spear." Teng Xuanji looked at this divine weapon, then at his father and his grandfather beside him, who had gone eighteen hours without rest to forge it for him, and all at once he was overcome with feeling. In his last life he had been alone; in this one he had parents who loved him, a little sister he doted on, and a whole clan of plain, honest folk.

Past life and present life—it was as though he had come full circle, this life making good all that the last had lacked.

"This spear," Teng Xuanji said, "shall be called Reincarnation."

"Reincarnation?" Teng Yuning and Teng Zhaoxian exchanged a glance. They had thought of plenty of names themselves—Cold Iron Spear, Purple-Veined Spear, Cold Star Spear, and a good many more—but Reincarnation had never once crossed their minds. After a moment's thought, his grandfather Teng Zhaoxian burst out laughing. "Reincarnation! Reincarnation! The moment this divine spear of hellish rebirth comes out, it will plunge our enemies into the nightmare of the eighteen hells. A fine name—there's poetry in it. This boy Qingshan here is a good deal sharper than you! Even his naming is better."

"If he weren't sharper than me, his own father, wouldn't that mean each generation comes out worse than the last?" Teng Yuning laughed heartily too.

Teng Xuanji had only been sighing over past and present, marveling at the fickleness of fate, when he settled on the name Reincarnation—never imagining his grandfather and father would read so much into it.

"Qingshan, try it out. How is the spear?" Teng Zhaoxian urged.

Teng Yuning's eyes lit up as well. If his son could wield well the spear he had poured his heart into forging, then he, as father, would have not a single regret left.

Feeling the cold radiating from the shaft, Teng Xuanji flicked his right hand and gripped the butt end, bringing the one-hundred-and-eight-jin spear level. "Father, Grandfather, step back a few paces, if you would." Even as he spoke, he was feeling out the force that lived in the Reincarnation spear itself.

Because spears differ in material, the difficulty of reading their force differs too.

This Reincarnation spear weighed a full one hundred and eight jin, its shaft dense and solid, and reading its force was correspondingly harder.

But Teng Xuanji had long since reached the realm where man and spear are one. A few moments' grip and a few moments' feel, and he had the Reincarnation spear's force entirely worked out.

"Whoosh—"

Teng Xuanji gave the spear a sharp pull, lifting it with his left hand and spinning it with his right; in an instant the whole spear dissolved into ring upon ring of phantom circles, like a shell caging him in. Then it snapped to a dead stop, the whirling spearhead still quivering. At once his right hand drove forward, and the head stabbed three times in quick succession.

Thup, thup, thup.

So fast that the air cracked.

In the spear lore of his past life there was a saying: the staff fears the nod, the spear fears the circle. An ordinary expert, performing his spear art, sets the head whirling so that no one can trace its path, and kills with a single thrust. But once a man reaches the realm where man and spear are one, what he seeks is steadiness—precision down to the last hair.

Seeing a mountain as a mountain, seeing water as water; seeing a mountain not as a mountain, seeing water not as water; and then again seeing a mountain as a mountain, seeing water as water—these three levels applied to the spear as well.

The spear's fear of the circle is what the ordinary spearman pursues.

The true expert wants absolute control. If I mean to pierce exactly half the depth of a block of tofu, I will not pierce a hair deeper. If I mean to kill a fly on a pane of glass, I will not chip the glass.

That is precision.

When Teng Xuanji put the spear through its paces, it was swift as lightning, and at the very last instant he could abruptly change its course. Strike where he wished, force and feint interwoven—that was the true master of the spear, against whom no defense availed.

"Poison Dragon Drill!"

Carried away by his own momentum, Teng Xuanji gripped the middle of the shaft and poured his inner force into the spear, at the same time imparting a spiraling twist. As a drill bit bores through a wall, the whole spear spun and bored, and in a flash became a bolt of lightning; the air around it fell into chaos, and the spear's shadow blurred.

At the instant the spear began to spin—

"Boom!"

A screeching blast of air burst out, like a peal of spring thunder from flat ground, startling Teng Yuning and Teng Zhaoxian half out of their skins. The whole of Teng Rongjun broke into an uproar; many of the clansfolk shouted, "The furnace has blown!" and came running pell-mell toward the smithy.

The instant the spear shot from his hand, Teng Xuanji clamped down on the butt end and took two quick steps after it before he had it firmly in hand again.

The Poison Dragon Drill was a tremendously powerful move, with a boring force to it. It also left a brief instant when the spear escaped his control—though with Teng Xuanji's skill he could recover it in a heartbeat and turn attack into guard.

"Good lad!" Teng Zhaoxian cried. "What sort of move is that? It would blow a whole hill apart!"

"Ha ha, Qingshan, listen outside—the clansfolk are all running over," Teng Yuning said, laughing too.

Hearing the clansfolk outside shouting that the furnace had blown, Teng Xuanji did not know whether to laugh or cry. Yet his heart was racing as well. This Reincarnation spear is truly extraordinary, he thought. It can bear my force of a hundred thousand-plus jin and my inner force at full burst—and it is nowhere near its limit.

With the refined-iron spear of old, Teng Xuanji could feel the stuff of the spear trembling, as though timber pressed past bearing and about to split.

Every time, he had to shore the iron spear up with his inner force, terrified it would burst, and so could never bring out his full strength.

"Now the power comes out whole, and the Poison Dragon Drill really is a mighty move. If I had had this Reincarnation spear that day against the flood dragon, I doubt it could have won so easily—if it won at all." Teng Xuanji still remembered: that day, using the Poison Dragon Drill with the refined-iron spear, he had only managed to break the surface scales.

He could not even pierce through to the muscle beneath.

With the Reincarnation spear he should be able to drive deeper. But to kill a demon beast like that flood dragon, Teng Xuanji still had no confidence. After all, its strength, its defense, and the black mist it spat out all made his heart quail.

"Come, let's go out and tell the clansfolk it wasn't the furnace," Teng Zhaoxian said with a laugh, heading for the gate.

Teng Xuanji and Teng Yuning, caught between laughter and tears, could only follow him out.

To a true martial artist, a divine weapon is his own flesh and blood, his own brother. In the days after he got the Reincarnation spear, Teng Xuanji worked at his spear practice every day; but each time he used only a tenth of his strength, for fear of making too much noise and startling the clansfolk.

Half a month later, in the woods west of Teng Rongjun.

Teng Xuanzheng came looking for Teng Xuanji, who was practicing his spear art.

"Qingshan, my father has talked it over with the folk of Dali Village—the wedding is set for the sixth of the third month," Teng Xuanzheng said excitedly at his side. "Ha ha, less than a month away. Qingshan, you'll have to come with me then. Haven't you always wanted to see what your sister-in-law looks like? You'll find out then."

"Look at you, so pleased with yourself," Teng Xuanji said, laughing.

"Heh heh, getting married—I've already made up my mind. This life, I'll marry only this one," Teng Xuanzheng said blissfully.