Chapter Seventy-Seven: The Gun

The viewers in the stream were the ones who heard it. The senior disciples’ voices were not loud, but the audience had already turned up the volume. And there were plenty of die-hard fans of Chen Bo in that room.

Someone cursed the others for mocking their beloved streamer to his face, others flew into a rage, and the chat quickly became a storm of insults, jokes, sarcasm, and wild speculation. A few insisted the streamer should simply claim the technique as his own. Others argued about whether anyone in this world might recognize the method. More than one person accused another of being some kind of time traveler. A long stream of absurd promotional spam and trolling followed, with people pretending to advertise everything from photographs to clothing to anime and schoolgirl-style cosplay, only to be mocked in return for ruining the mood.

At last, Chen Bo brought the final hammer down. His whole body seemed to go limp, and he let out a long breath. A smile finally appeared on his face.

He had nearly worked himself to death, but at last the forging was done.

His mind had returned fully to his body. He hurried to the side, took up a pair of heavy tongs, ignored his own weakness, and eagerly moved to clamp onto the weapon.

Beside him was a pool filled not with ordinary water, but with a liquid known as Silver Geng Ice Spring. It was ideal for quenching, if that was indeed the right word.

With a single motion, he plunged the glowing red weapon into the icy liquid.

A sharp hiss rang out, and a thick column of white steam surged upward, quickly spreading through the entire forging chamber.

Ye Shifei frowned slightly and waved a hand. The steam vanished at once.

Only after a long while did Chen Bo lift out the weapon he had just forged. Using a special carving knife, he added a few patterns and engraved several characters on it, making it at least look less plain.

The first thing Ye Shifei said was not praise, but confusion. She stared at the weapon in his hands, utterly baffled.

One senior disciple squinted at it and spoke with the air of someone who had finally seen through the truth. It looked to him like an arrow enlarged beyond all reason.

The others exploded at once, asking why anyone would forge such a massive arrow, what sort of bow could ever shoot it, and why it did not look like an arrow at all. It lacked the graceful lines of a true arrow. Some suspected he had simply hammered it out at random. Others concluded that must be the case, and worried that since Ye Shifei herself had supervised the forging, such carelessness was all but courting disaster.

Then came the thought that perhaps a terrible storm was about to break. Maybe they should slip out and hide for a while.

Hide from what? Did they not see how calm Ye Shifei looked? No, that was the calm before the storm, they said.

And indeed, they had not guessed wrong.

In a blur of motion, Ye Shifei seized Chen Bo by the ear and twisted hard. The pain nearly brought tears to his eyes.

He yelped and protested in great grievance. Hadn’t she asked him to forge a usable weapon? Hadn’t he already forged one? Why was this crazed woman still hitting him? Truly, female hearts were like deep waters, impossible to fathom. Whoever had said that had been absolutely right. It might be ugly, but surely that did not warrant violence without a word. Was she judging by appearance? How shallow. How vulgar.

Then she snapped back at him in fury, saying she had told him to forge a weapon that could be used, and he had instead made her this enormous arrow. Did he think it was funny? Did he have any idea how much energy she had spent helping his spirit leave his body?

Seeing that he still refused to admit fault, she only tightened her grip.

Chen Bo hurriedly denied it. Who on earth forges arrows? This was a spear. Could she not even tell the difference between an arrow and a spear?

The spear he spoke of was the king of ancient Chinese polearms. As the saying went, a blade takes a year, a staff takes a month, a spear takes ten years. It showed just how difficult spear mastery truly was.

In the old days, men like Tong Yuan, Zhao Zilong, and Yue Fei had all used spears.

He did not know why modern firearms were also called guns in this world, and he did not care. Right now he only felt wronged and miserable, his eyes brimming with tears as he stared helplessly up at the ceiling.

A spear? What was a spear?

Ye Shifei suddenly blurted out the question, her curiosity about it instantly piqued, and her grip on his ear loosened a little.

Chen Bo stared at her in disbelief. Was she joking? As a weapon crafter, she did not even know what a spear was? That was not funny at all.

Yet her expression was blank enough that she truly seemed not to know.

How could that be? A weapon crafter who had never heard of a spear?

He searched his memory, and then all at once he was stunned.

The knowledge in his mind told him that this world really did not have spears at all.

To be precise, aside from wooden clubs, every other long-handled weapon was a blank void.

Good heavens. Was this world too insane, or had he simply opened it the wrong way?

Many thanks to all readers for your generous tips. Earlier today, I went to look around at another site and found that people there were also reading my books.

Some readers may not know this, so let me explain. That site and this one belong to the same publishing group, and the books are synchronized between them.

In other words, books from one can be searched on the other, and vice versa. That is roughly how it works.

Recently I have been a little blocked, so there should still be two more chapters tonight. If the writer's block gets too severe, there may only be one chapter. I will do my best, since I still owe one from yesterday.