A Clash of Gods - Chapter 89

Chapter 89 The Swordsmanship in the Pictures
Yang Ning pondered for a while and then carefully packed the long vertical flute with the black silk fabric before putting it in the drawer of the dressing table. Then he went to the opposite room.

He thought there might be something in this room. After entering, he found that it was empty, with only a plank in the corner and a pile of hay next to it.

He walked over and finally found that in the corner there were two brush pens and an inkstone. The ink in the container was congealed. He picked it up and found it was a common container, and the ink in it was as hard as a stone.

He was astonished and thought that a woman lived here. Were the brush pens and the inkstone left by that woman?

He looked around and suddenly found there was a piece of yellow paper on the floor. He picked it up and had a look. The paper was broken, but it seemed to be a picture on it. The paper was incomplete, so he couldn’t see clearly what was in the picture. He was confused but then saw a half piece of paper under the hay. Then he pushed the hay aside and saw many pieces of paper randomly.

Yang Ning picked up a piece of complete paper and stood up to check it carefully by the window under the moonlight, to find a picture of a little man.

The drawing skill was not good, but he could clearly see that the little man in the picture seemed to have a long sword slanted upward in his hand, but he bent his legs slightly, which looked weird.

Yang Ning was astonished and wondered if the woman who used to live in this courtyard knew swordsmanship.

This picture obviously showed a strange movement of swordsmanship.

He turned around in a hurry and moved the hay away. Then he picked up all the paper scattered on the floor. There were forty or fifty pieces in total unexpectedly in a stack.

More than ten of them were broken, but most of them were complete and just withered and yellowish. Yang Ning held the stack of paper and went out, sitting on the threshold in front of the door. He wasn’t afraid that somebody would see him as all the people in the old house took it as a courtyard with a ghost and nobody dared to get close to it, let alone jumping over the wall to enter suddenly.

He checked one by one and found that they were pictures of movements of swordsmanship on all these paper as expected.

The little man in each picture was drawn randomly and only his hands, legs and body were outlined roughly, and even the long sword in his hand was just a long and thin line, but the movement of swordsmanship was drawn vividly.

On only a few pieces of paper, the movements in the pictures were common, but most of them were weird. The man lay on the ground or lay on his stomach or squatted or jumped, and changes of swordsmanship were also strange.

Before the time travel, Yang Ning had practiced fighting bare-handed and with weapons. Although he had never used such a long sword, he had practiced with a stick. Both the long sword and stick were long weapons and had a lot in common although there were great differences in movements.

But many movements in the pictures were beyond his knowledge.

He even thought that some movements couldn’t be finished and went against the human body’s mechanism. For example, one movement was to grab the sword in the right hand, which was above the head but the sword was at the back and slanted down to the left hip. This movement looked weird, and normal swordsmanship couldn’t have such groundless movements. Moreover, in his opinion, such a movement couldn’t cause any lethality to the enemy seemingly.

He suddenly thought that a kind of swordsmanship wasn’t used to hurt an enemy but to perform. Many noble families kept a lot of dancing girls in their mansions. Although many dances showed women’s gentle beauty, some dances were special, and the sword dance was one of them.

Such a dance showed women’s force and swiftness as well as their gentle beauty. They danced with swords and showed their softness and toughness, with a unique charm.

However, after all, the sword dance was created for dancers and sought for special and beautiful movements, but it was not practical.

Yang Ning had seen the strange movements, and it was a woman who lived in this house, so he instantly thought that these pictures might be movements for a sword dance. Perhaps that woman felt lonely and bored here, so she drew the movements of the sword dance when she was free.

He pondered for a while and picked up a stick conveniently in the courtyard to imitate that movement. Then he raised his right hand to a height above his head and tried to move the stick from the top of his head to his back before slanting it to his left hip. As soon as he moved, he felt uncomfortable and unnatural. It would take some time to make this pose, let alone finishing this movement easily.

When he made this pose, he felt that he was like an idiot and shook his head with a bitter smile, thinking that he was a man and if this was a sword dance, it must be for women. A woman’s soft body might make this pose in a beautiful way, but a man couldn’t show the beauty.

He threw away the stick and sat back, checking a few more pieces of paper. Then he suddenly frowned and realized something unusual.

The drawing in the pictures was forceful. It was a casual sketch, but it showed an unrestrained feeling.

Yang Ning couldn’t help but furrowed his brows.

He knew that men’s handwriting was greatly different from women’s. Women’s style of drawing was careful and soft, but these pictures of movements were full of a freehand style and power, with weight. The brush pen was not the same as the pen. The brush pen with hair was soft. If a person didn’t have enough strength or couldn’t control the strength freely, he might make the handwriting out of shape with more strength.

These pictures were casual but weren’t out of shape. While checking, Yang Ning thought they were drawn by a man. He was curious and wondered if a man lived in this courtyard, too.

Since Gu Qinghan said that a woman lived here, he could be sure about it. The one who lived in this courtyard must be a woman. Even if some people served her here, there could only be maids. It was impossible that a man served her. What did that man have to do with the mistress of this house?

While pondering, Yang Ning turned the pages. In no time, he had a brain wave and found a rule in these pictures.

Among the dozens of pictures, seven or eight of them were about a man lying on the floor, and five or six of them were about a man squatting. The movement of the long sword slanted backward he had seen earlier was not alone. One of them was similar to that one, with the right hand above the head but the sword was not backward after passing the head. Instead, the sword was slanted to the left in the front, while the left hand was vertical in a palm, close to the forehead.

He thought it over and then classified the dozens of pictures. He put the ones with the man lying together and then put the similar movements aside. After he sorted them out, there were six types.

He had a gut feeling that these movements of swordsmanship were strange and couldn’t be as simple as the sword dance. He was afraid that there was something odd.

Although there were incomplete pictures, Yang Ning tried to recover them. If he couldn’t recover them, he had to guess according to the remaining drawings.

After dividing them into six parts, Yang Ning saw that the eight pictures about a man lying on the floor were the most complete, so he checked them carefully.

When he sorted, he had found that the movements in these eight pictures were a whole with different orders, but there was no number on them to show which one was the first.

He pondered and guessed the order of the eight pictures. The one which could be estimated most easily was the first picture. The man lay on the floor with the sword in his right hand. The sword tip was upward slightly and there was no other movement. It could be seen that it was the start.

Yang Ning had practiced fighting with hands, so he was clear that sometimes the most important part of a series of movements was the first move of the start. Only if he didn’t make a mistake when he started, he could continue the following movements. Otherwise, once he made a mistake from the start, the second movement would be inaccurate, and he would continue to make wrong moves.

After confirming the first move, Yang Ning felt it difficult to arrange the next ones because each of the following moves was odd, not the movement of swordsmanship that ordinary people could imagine. One of them was to raise the left leg slightly while the long sword passed under the leg and was slanted upward, which was a strange posture.

He hoped to find the connection of the movements in the pictures. For example, there should be a natural transition from this movement to the next, but the only same point of the eight pictures was a man lying on the floor. It was challenging to find the connection of them.

Yang Ning ran to grab that stick again and lay on the stair in front of the door. He grasped the stick and raised it as the start. At the same time, he thought about the movements in the other seven pictures. After thinking for quite a while, he couldn’t make any move in a natural way. Then he closed his eyes and remained unmoved, lost in thought. A long time later, he suddenly raised his arm and turned his wrist to the left. Before the stick got close to his body, he abruptly moved it down. He made the movement, like drawing an arc.

He opened his eyes and slightly raised his head to look at his posture, to see that the stick in his hand was almost at the same level as his right leg, only a little higher. He hurriedly sat up and checked the pictures, to find that one of the pictures showed the posture he made, but in the picture, the long sword was parallel to the right leg.

Although there was a little difference, Yang Ning was still excited, thinking that he pondered for a long time and finally figured out how to interchange between two movements. He didn’t know if it was right, but at least he had a try. The transformation of the movements looked simple, but if he couldn’t go deeper to think about how to make the hand and sword cooperate better, he might not be able to make it.

In fact, Yang Ning didn’t know if the movements in these pictures were valuable or somebody just drew these strange movements intentionally to kill time, and even the painter might not be able to make the movements. But he thought that this courtyard was weird and mysterious, and all the paper was yellow and old after many years. Since they were still left in the room, maybe there was something unique.

He had got the Skills of Six Directions from the God of Wood and learned the Easy Travel from the skeleton in the past. He got them by chance. It was needless to say the Skills of Six Directions, but the Easy Travel was magic. Since he was lucky every time in the past, if these pictures were a kind of swordsmanship but he gave it up and missed the chance this time, it would be a waste.