Soon, the red carp flicked its tail and dove into the water. On the surface, only ripples remained, spreading in circles, with nothing else unusual.

After a while, Sanlang Brooks finally regained his senses a little, gazing at the ground, where he saw what the red carp had brought.

It was pitch-black, about three inches long, slender throughout, and looked like an oversized embroidery needle.

He bent down to pick it up, and his hand felt a sudden heaviness—he almost couldn’t lift it.

This object was unexpectedly heavy, far beyond imagination.

Examining it closely in his hand, he found that its shape resembled a miniature sword. Unfortunately, it was rusted all over, making it hard to distinguish the hilt from the blade, and it had no sharpness to speak of.

“Ouch!”

As his fingers rubbed the tip, he accidentally pricked himself, and a drop of fresh blood rolled down.

The blood touched the sword’s tip and was instantly absorbed.

With the heart connected to the ten fingers, Sanlang Brooks cried out in pain, feeling the wound on his finger still bleeding continuously, the blood being devoured by the little sword. Panicked and helpless, he gradually grew dizzy and lightheaded, and collapsed to the ground in a daze.

He had a strange dream—

In the dream, there was another self, standing in a bizarre, dazzling, and colorful new world. This world was filled with unimaginable things: iron lumps with four wheels racing by, countless people, endless gigantic buildings... So dense that just looking at them made it hard to breathe. Standing there, it was impossible to tell east from west, north from south, everything was chaotic and confusing.

Scene after scene, seemingly familiar, flashed by, like rivers flowing backward, displaying impressions of the course of history: the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States, Qin, Han, Tang, Song, Ming... ancient writings, poetry, songs, and prose...

So many things, never heard of before.

A long dream, as if living a whole lifetime.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when a dull pain struck. Groaning, he slowly opened his eyes. What he saw immediately told him he was lying in his own room.

“Yuan’er, you’re awake?”

A caring voice, tinged with a tremor, was followed by a tense face appearing before his eyes, brows furrowed, crow’s feet at the corners, showing that her youth had long since passed.

Mrs. Brooks, mother of Ethan Brooks.

Since Mr. Brooks passed away early and his two elder sisters married off, Ethan Brooks had always lived with his mother.

Mrs. Brooks had her son late in life, giving birth to Ethan Brooks when she was nearly forty, and doted on him dearly. But as she gradually approached her sixtieth year, her greatest worry was what would become of her son, who still acted like a child absorbed in his studies, after she was gone. Would he be able to maintain their modest family estate?

“It seems I must hurry up with that marriage arrangement. Although the Liu family is asking an outrageous bride price, if Yuan’er can settle down after getting married and become steady, even if he doesn’t succeed in his studies, he can learn the ways of business, and that would be good.”

With this thought, she felt a little more at ease.

Sanlang Brooks’s gaze drifted as he asked, “Mother, how did I get back?”

“Yuan’er, I waited at home for a long time and didn’t see you return, so I anxiously went out to look for you. Heaven be praised, I was lucky to find you under the Wanqing Bridge. You had fainted on the ground and scared me half to death. I quickly called for help to carry you home... I was just thinking of going to fetch the doctor...”

Mrs. Brooks held back from asking why Sanlang Brooks had gone over there; in fact, she didn’t need to ask, as she could more or less guess. Her son must have seen the sunset at dusk, the rippling river, and the beautiful scenery, and gone to the riverside to enjoy the view and compose poetry. As for why he fainted, that was a bit odd. But as long as he was fine, that was enough.

Sanlang Brooks asked suspiciously, “When you found me, did you see any blood?”

Mrs. Brooks was startled: “Blood? No, why?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

Sanlang Brooks brushed it off vaguely, then paused and said, “Mother, today is your fifty-ninth birthday. I bought two fish at the market, but lost them on the way...”

Hearing this, Mrs. Brooks felt a warmth in her heart: her son’s life experience was as blank as a sheet of paper, yet he had the filial piety to go to the market himself to buy food. She feared those slick and cunning vendors must have taken him for an easy mark, using every trick to cheat him out of his money.

As for the “lost fish” Sanlang Brooks mentioned, she could imagine that perhaps he dropped them by accident, or maybe a cat or dog snatched them away on the road.

No matter what, her son remembered her birthday and had this intention, and that was enough. She quickly said, “It doesn’t matter, if they’re gone, they’re gone... You’ve been unconscious for a long time, you must be hungry. I’ll go heat up the food and bring it over.”

After she left, Sanlang Brooks propped up his pillow, half lying on the bed, stretched out his right hand, and opened the fist he had been clenching. In his palm, the tiny sword was still there. Compared to its original rusty dullness, it now faintly emitted a cold gleam, perhaps because it had absorbed so much blood.

“Wenxin nourishes the sword, gall and liver moisten the brush...”

He muttered arcane words he should never have known—the incantation of the “Haoran Silk Book,” just over a thousand words, simple and ancient, had appeared together with that dream, suddenly branded into his mind, as if it had taken root.

After such an absurd dream, his body was still the same, but his spirit was completely renewed, as if he had become a different person, like the “sudden enlightenment” of Zen Buddhism, instantly seeing his true nature, never again muddled as before.

He took a deep breath, struggled to throw off the covers, and got out of bed.

After the little sword had absorbed his blood, his frail body was even weaker. He barely managed to stand before a wave of dizziness swept over him.