The brass bell barely ceased humming before Fang Bo took five rapid, dancing cross-steps, his Damascus dress sword weaving seven silver phantom blossoms in the freezing air.
To the eight hundred spectators packed into the seventh gallery, the display was a breathtaking test of high-born swordsmanship. The dress sword’s blade was folded cold-steel, polished to a spotless mirror sheen that fractured the grey winter daylight into dazzling arcs. Fang Bo’s azure silk robe fluttered like the wings of a swallow, his kidskin boots executing nimble, circular pivots that drew delighted gasps from the noblewomen in the upper boxes.
“Look at that footwork!” a young merchant apprentice shouted, leaning over the wooden stone railing. “The Nine-Wind Drifting Leaf Steps! The commoner won’t even be able to see where the thrust comes from!”
Down on the stone ring, Pei Jing didn’t look at the sword tip.
He didn’t track the shimmering silver blossoms, nor did he shift his weight to follow Fang Bo’s circular outer edge dance.
To an eye conditioned by Bone Cleansing and washed marrow, human movement was not an artistic performance. It was an open system of clockwork compromises.
Every time Fang Bo carried out an ornate crossover step, his balance point rose three inches higher than optimal balance demanded. His left ankle twisted outward at an inefficient twenty-two-degree angle, bleeding eighty percent of his leg drive into decorative lateral driving force. To generate those seven silver phantom blossoms, his shoulder girdle had to rotate through a wide, exaggerated…
