Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 273: The Guiding Principle

Once his thinking cleared, Ding Songyan quickly saw more connections.

The Unified Way Sword should be an art of subtraction. Unifying all arts has to start by bringing the all arts down to Three, then from Three to Two, then from Two to One, and finally from One to the Way. That would be the true realm of the Celestial Thearch, which can no longer be reached since the heaven-earth severance.

The first step Ding Songyan needed to take now was from all arts to Three. That corresponded to the lesser mastery of the Unified Way Sword.

And what was ”Three”? To Ding Songyan’s own understanding, it was the principle that ”the opposition and transformation of yin and yang exist in all things.”

In short: Yin, yang, and change.

Yin and yang are isolated and static. Only their opposition, transformation, and mutual generation create all things. That is what ”change” means.

Within this framework, a sword art could be broken down at first into elements like ”fast and slow,” ”motion and stillness,” ”light and heavy,” along with ”the shift between fast and slow,” ”the contrast between motion and stillness,” and ”the evolution between light and heavy.” Then they could be sorted into the three parts of yin, yang, and change, each in its place, with clear priorities.

Ding Songyan immediately thought of computers and the internet, which he had dealt with most in his last life.

Their foundation was binary, the two states of yin and yang, using ”0” and ”1” to build everything. But it wasn’t only ”0” and ”1.” There were also ”definitions.” Without definitions, a plain string of 0s and 1s was only a meaningless run of numbers that couldn’t be interpreted.

That was exactly ”Three gives birth to all things.”

Merging the essence of the Faith-Slaying Sword into the Unified Way Sword worked the same way. As Ding Songyan’s mind turned, he already created a breakdown.

The move itself is yang, the corresponding state of heaven-and-earth qi is yin, and how they map onto and affect each other is change. Together they form a whole.

The more moves he mastered and the more fully he understood the states of heaven-and-earth qi, the better he could use Manifesting the Way and its Virtue to work out the patterns and principles of how the two map onto and influence each other. Once the model was built, he could work backward from it to infer more about moves, and even without the Celestial Heart, disrupt the trajectories and follow-up changes of others’ moves the way the Faith-Slaying Sword did.

But in the process of summarizing principles and building the model, Ding Songyan still had to rely on the Celestial Heart. Manifesting the Way and its Virtue alone wouldn’t carry him further until he reached the Heaven-Man Realm himself.

His successors, the next generation, could master only the model and the principles, knowing that it worked without needing to know why, and just learn to use it.

Creating an art had always been laborious and hard.

The more Ding Songyan thought, the more excited he became and the more insights came. He abruptly stood up, went to the desk in the main building, spread out paper, and, using the ink Twelfth Madam hadn’t yet put away, wrote two lines with a brush:

”Guiding Principle of the Unified Way Sword:

”The Way gives birth to One, One gives birth to Two, Two gives birth to Three, and Three gives birth to all things.”

Looking at what he had written, Ding Songyan was overcome with emotion.

He had always known this line by heart and understood its meaning, but before he had only found it somewhat philosophical, with no other use. Seeing it written out today, it felt completely different.

It had truly become the source and the skeleton of his own martial art.

Granted, he had only just gained a framework and a path, and still lacked more concrete algorithms and methods, but Ding Songyan was inexplicably thrilled and full of confidence, as if he could see where the Way lay.

Looking at the drizzling cold rain and the pitch-black sky outside, he couldn’t help cracking a joke with a theatrical sigh, ”The road of martial arts is a lonely one, cold as snow...”

”Oh?” Twelfth Madam Luo glanced at what Ding Songyan had written and, walking back to the tea table, said leisurely, ”Then don’t come asking me for advice.”

Ding Songyan immediately put on a smile.

”Twelfth Madam, that was only a joke!”

I was just feeling pleased with myself and wanted to strike a pose and say something that sounded cool...

Twelfth Madam Luo slowly sat down and said without turning her head, ”I was only joking too.”

She seems to be in a good mood... Is this like putting on a show to entertain my elders? Ding Songyan chuckled, sat back down across from the tea table, thought, and said, ”I plan to unify all arts into Three first, and take Three as my path for now...”

He told her his latest insight in full, leaving out only the knowledge from his last life.

Twelfth Madam Luo naturally understood ”Two gives birth to Three, and Three gives birth to all things,” but Ding Songyan’s angle of approach, his method of classification, and his direction of thought all differed from hers to some extent. That gave her new gains and new ideas, and she listened very attentively and discussed it seriously.

”In that case, the Way of Name and Reality can be reduced to ’Three’ too: ’name,’ ’reality,’ and the influence and transformation between them...” As the night deepened, Twelfth Madam Luo mused with feeling.

In their earlier exchanges, she had also told Ding Songyan a good deal about name and reality, in principle and in application. She hadn’t passed on any art directly, but once Ding Songyan had accumulated more and understood more deeply, with Manifesting the Way and its Virtue he could create some name-and-reality arts and secret techniques of his own.

Time flies. I’d love to stay up all night talking by candlelight... Thinking of how ”name” could harm ”reality,” Ding Songyan restrained his longing, helped Twelfth Madam tidy the desk and tea table, and took his leave of the back courtyard.

The sparse rain, with its piercing cold, was still falling. Ding Songyan opened an oiled-paper umbrella and slowly walked toward the estate’s corner gate, his thoughts naturally wandering again.

Now I have a framework and structure, and the core of Manifesting the Way and its Virtue. What’s missing is a more concrete algorithm...

On the one hand, I need to observe the Boundless Forms Art more to draw parallels. On the other, I need to keep seeing more martial arts and break them down within my own framework to extract more fundamental patterns...

Luckily Fourth Jiang and I get along well, and I sincerely did my best to help him...

Ignoring the teasing looks of the gate guards, Ding Songyan strolled back to the side courtyard with a clear conscience.

The next morning, before his shift.

After finishing morning practice and breakfast, Ding Songyan sat by the stone table and took all the martial arts he had mastered, studied, and witnessed, breaking them down and deducing them again under his current framework. Gradually, new gains came, and now and then he stood up to drill a few moves.

Li Baima, who had been practicing hard nearby, stopped, glanced over casually, and unconsciously frowned.

Ever since getting Brother Ding’s guidance and relearning the Qiezhi Fire-Commanding Sword, he had found he could vaguely make out the swordplay of this Brightnight Sect disciple’s daily drills. He could sense hidden depth and charm in it, and felt quite proud of himself, feeling that his own swordplay and eye had both improved a great deal.

But that was before. Today he couldn’t understand what Brother Ding was practicing again. Not a bit of it.

Has Brother Ding’s swordplay been transformed from the ground up again?

Isn’t he improving too fast and too often?

Li Baima didn’t dare watch much longer. He obediently went back to his room, changed into the estate guard’s uniform, and only then reminded Ding Songyan that it was nearly time for duty.

Ding Songyan looked at Li Baima in a daze, gradually shaking off his trance of martial obsession.

With the framework just set up, he wished he could train forty-eight hours a day.

He took Frostshade and went with Li Baima to the southeast corner gate they were to guard that day, where Wu Mo and Fan Chunlin were already waiting.

Seeing Ding Songyan, Wu Mo asked curiously, ”I hear you saved Young Master Jiang a couple of days ago?”

Unlike the Blossoms Mountain incident, many people had seen Jiang Lanting’s assassination at the Sang theater, and word had spread far and wide.

Before, Ding Songyan had had no great name, and no one knew who had blocked the second assassin for Jiang Lanting. After Young Master Brightstream came by the estate yesterday, the Flame Capital jianghu knew that the strength of the Brightnight Sect’s Ding Songyan was extraordinary and could stop an assassination by a Ghost Yu Way assassin of the same realm.

”I happened to be there, and our Brightnight Sect’s arts are good at countering the Ghost Yu Way,” Ding Songyan said modestly.

”No wonder Young Master Jiang counts you a close friend and doesn’t bother keeping his distance,” Fan Chunlin said, suddenly understanding.

Why would Young Master Brightstream need to keep his distance from a young hero? Is it about being into men? Ding Songyan found it funny.

Just then, Li Baima remembered something from a while back and asked, puzzled, ”Last time Young Master Jiang came to see you, he also mentioned repaying you for helping him. Did you help him another time?”

”I blocked the Ghost Yu Way’s first assassination attempt,” Ding Songyan said in a flat tone.

”Er...” Li Baima froze.

”What?” Wu Mo and Fan Chunlin were the same.

Brother Ding helped Young Master Jiang twice in a row?

So that’s why he gave you a Tiger-Leopard Dragon-Concealing Pill out of nowhere...

When they looked at Ding Songyan again, the three saw him differently.

They had long known Brother Ding was formidable and knew he had such a ”reality,” but now Brother Ding had a ”name” to match.

With ”name,” he would naturally have a corresponding standing.

After a few breaths, Fan Chunlin changed the subject and said with a smile,

”Come to think of it, the Cheap Wine Shop is a real magnet for talent, first Miss Zhang and then Young Master Jiang. No ordinary neighborhood shop has ever drawn visitors from both the Peerless Beauties of the Jianghu and the Martial World’s Jade Tree Rankings.”

That is... in its own way a kind of All Colors Under Heaven Gather Unto You... Ding Songyan, a guess forming in his mind, joked,

”You have to plant the parasol trees and dig the spring first, and then the phoenixes come to roost.”

Even as he said it, he couldn’t help worrying.

I just hope the jianghu crowd in the Flame Capital doesn’t turn the Cheap Wine Shop into a tourist attraction. If a few of Twelfth Madam’s old fellow disciples show up, I, Second Bull Ding, am in serious trouble.

As he thought, Ding Songyan suddenly tensed. He had spotted an oversight in something from before.

Before I sent Wu Zheng to the Phoenix Terrace Study, I only had a very vague, uncertain guess about Twelfth Madam’s real identity. I never considered this...

He Jin’s group knows the Cheap Wine Shop’s female shopkeeper is suspected to be a Heaven-Man Supreme Master. If they fall into the hands of the Five Saints Sect or the Jianwu Emperor and spill this, someone should come to confirm Twelfth Madam’s identity and eliminate any hidden threat...

If it’s Yu Chongyuan who comes...

If Twelfth Madam leaves the Flame Capital, won’t I be left completely at Little Sister’s mercy...

Ding Songyan’s expression changed slightly, and his left hand gripping Frostshade tightened unconsciously.

He didn’t know where He Jin and the others had gone or whether the Five Saints Sect had taken them. He could only confirm they had stopped searching the nearby streets.

If the Five Saints Sect hasn’t found them yet, I have to remove the threat first, mm, by avenging Wu Zheng... If they’re already in the Five Saints Sect’s hands, I can’t keep leaning on Twelfth Madam. I’d have to shamelessly cling to Brother Jiang and shelter under the Yin-Yang Order’s Heaven-Man, except the Yin-Yang Temple is too far from the estate to deter Sister Qingyan... If worse comes to worst, persuade Twelfth Madam to change her identity and look and open a different shop nearby? Ding Songyan’s thoughts raced.