《The last petal》星野无尘

1、Introduction The n

　　The night of Gusu was steeped in blossoms.

　　It was late spring, the last days of the third month. The entire city lay sleeping in the embrace of a tender, languid wind. Petals, swept by the breeze from peach groves a hundred li away, drifted down in a ceaseless, shimmering rain—fractured crimson falling like sleet.

　　Upon the moat floated a thin layer of rouge-hued clouds—the remnants of blossoms discarded by daytime wanderers. Now they drifted slowly with the current, like the tipsy breath of the city itself.

　　The water-clock struck the third watch.

　　In the profound silence, a white figure alighted noiselessly upon the highest point in Gusu—the ridge of the Wangxian Gate, atop its chiwen roof-beasts.

　　He was a youth of seventeen. His robes were white as snow, unstained by a single mote of dust, yet his sleeves and hems flared wildly in the wind, like a night-blooming cereus suddenly unfolding in the deep dark.

　　His name was Zhuo Yuan'an. His sword was called Wuchen—"Dustless."

　　Three feet seven inches long, the blade was narrow and thin. When drawn, it gave no dragon's roar nor tiger's growl—only a whisper-soft sigh, like spring ice cracking for the first time. Moonlight ran along its edge, and the blade drank the light until it turned colder than the moon itself.

　　At first, the movements were slow—each stance clear and deliberate, the most common form in the martial world: "Willow-Caressing in Spring Breeze."

　　But gradually, the sword's rhythm shifted. The trails carved by its tip began to weave and overlap, faster and faster...

　　And when the blade reached its utmost speed, it caught the moonlight, the starlight, the distant warm glow of lanterns—all of it, shredding and blending and bursting anew into a halo of light. Within that halo, a searing bright line would flash and vanish in an instant—the true edge of Wuchen, glimpsed and gone.

　　Then, the wind changed direction.

　　The night breeze, which had blown from west to east, now began to swirl around Wangxian Gate as its center. A vortex rose, sweeping up the fallen blossoms of the city.

　　Petals lifted from the water's surface. Fragments tucked in crevices of stone-paved streets. Spring's once-crushed colors now broke free from the dust—one by one, they unfurled and soared aloft.

　　Gusu awoke.

　　Windows along the riverfront swung open one after another. Sleepy-eyed townsfolk poked out their heads—and their eyes went wide.

　　"What... is that?"

　　No one could answer.

　　Above the entire city of Gusu, petals had become an ocean. All the fading splendor of late spring was reborn in that moment, flowing, spinning, rising through the night air in a slow-turning hurricane of blossoms over a hundred zhang across.

　　And at its eye, that white figure grew clearer.

　　Zhuo Yuan'an's sword had reached its zenith.

　　With every stroke of Wuchen, every strand of sword-aura seized a petal, drawing it into the dance of his intent.

　　At last, he leaped—stepping upon empty air as if ascending invisible stairs, straight into the ninth heaven.

　　The sea of blossoms surged upward with him.

　　Thirty zhang above the ground, Zhuo Yuan'an abruptly changed his stance. Wuchen thrust straight down into the heart of the churning floral vortex below.

　　A billion petals of every hue scattered at once—like a blizzard of impossible gentleness, blanketing long streets and short alleys, tiled eaves and latticed windows.

　　Zhuo Yuan'an descended lightly, his toes alighting upon the ridge of Wangxian Gate. His white robes were undisturbed, his breath steady.

　　Why must fallen blossoms always return to mud? Why could one not defy heaven's course, and let what withers shine anew?

　　Today, he answered with his sword.

　　"Spring runs deep in the jianghu..." He murmured those four words, and at last a faint smile curved at the corner of his lips—like the first clearing after snow. "So this is how it is."

　　Over Gusu, a rain of flowers fell.

　　When the last pear-white petal came to rest upon the moat's heart, rippling the water into rings, the eastern sky had begun to pale.

　　On the ridge of Wangxian Gate, the white-robed youth was already gone.

　　Only the fragrance of a thousand blossoms remained—and a tale passed from mouth to mouth, a legend that would soon shake the martial world:

　　Last night, an immortal came to Gusu. With one sword, he stirred ten li of spring.

　　---

　　A single petal drifted out from the shadows of the city wall's battlements.

　　It was black—the kind known only to Shu, called "night-tanhua," which blooms at midnight and withers by dawn. The dark petal spun on the air, drifting down toward Gusu still lost in its floral reverie, indistinguishable among the countless hues of pink and crimson.

　　Then—a needle pierced through the blossom.

　　The wind rose.

　　Yet the undercurrent it signified had already begun to stir.

　　Two years later, in Shu—a poisoned needle through the eye.

　　Two years after that, at a medicine manor south of the Yangtze—a blind physician named Xiao Bura would take in a youth who called himself "A Cuo."

　　And now, the moonlight remained serene.

　　Gusu lay dreaming in the greatest festival of flowers it had seen in a decade. No one knew—

　　That this single sword had stirred more than ten li of spring blossoms.

　　It had stirred the beginning of a story—half a lifetime in the weaving—of enmity and redemption, of Bura and Qiance.

　　Like a single drop of ink, fallen into waters about to boil.

　　The spring of the jianghu had deepened.