The old craftsman walked out of the thatched hut halfway up the mountain.

Blackened little finger carries a flask.

Empty.

Descending the mountain alone.

The sky was bright.

In June, on the west bank of the butterfly, the air before dawn was wet and cold.

The old craftsman tightened the narrow-sleeved sackcloth.

Wearing this rough linen clothes, in the sword furnace room, it was hot, and out of the sword furnace room, it was cold.

Every day at this point, I walk out of the hut and go down the mountain, and I feel like this.

It gave him the feeling that he was like a sword, freshly taken out of the furnace and thrown into the icy stream with a clatter, tempered by heat and cold.

The old craftsman likes this temperature difference.

Even if he is very old, his body is about to collapse.

But the old people are becoming more and more resistant to cold and heat.

It's like a piece of iron that has been tempered for thousands of years.

But this is not the reason why the old craftsman leaves the sword furnace and walks down the mountain every day.

The old craftsman carried an empty wine jug with his little thumb and went all the way down the mountain.

On the way, there are occasional acquaintances who get up early to say hello:

"Hey, old Wu Tou."

And so they called him.

Because someone was curious to ask the old craftsman his name before, he always replied "Wu name", not the surname Wu, what is the surname?

After a long time, everyone called him Old Wutou.

In fact, in the entire Guyue Sword Shop, few people know how long this old Wu Tou has been in the Sword Shop.

Few people even knew what he was doing and weren't interested.

But all the veteran swordsmiths here knew him.

Just like the old man walking downstairs, you don't know where his family lives or what his identity is, but you are familiar with him, and then he is accustomed to it, and then he is still a stranger.

This is how the old craftsman works in the eyes of everyone.

He was never seen day or night.

Every morning, at the second quarter of the first month, I walked down the mountain on time from the sword furnace room on the mountain, which had been extinguished for many years, and went to the market in the sword shop to drink.

Day by day, month by month, year by year, year after year, it is like this.

In the eyes of everyone, he is an old craftsman with a withdrawn temperament and a bad temper.

Why do they say that this 'old Wu Tou' is a craftsman?

Needless to say?

There is a division of labor in the Guyue sword shop, and there are no idlers, and there are also three, six, nine and so on among the craftsmen: craftsmen, swordworkers, swordsmiths, and famous craftsmen......

The hierarchy is strict and harsh, and it all depends on ability.

To cast swords for the nobles of Luoyang, only the ability is the most unfake.

Craftsmen are the lowest craftsmen, who can only produce works that lack character and spirituality.

There is also an unspoken rule in the Gu Yue Sword Shop.

The closer the sword furnace room is to the Butterfly Creek, the higher the status of the craftsman.

The sword furnace room guarded by the old craftsman, in the remote halfway up the mountain, has been extinguished for many years, and it has obviously been half-abandoned.

Moreover, after guarding the furnace for many years, this sword furnace has indeed not been forged into a sword.

So......

A craftsman is indeed a craftsman.

The old craftsman who went down the mountain to drink again admitted in his heart.

Today, someone on the road called him and quipped:

"Old Wu Tou, are you going to go to the little girl for a drink again?"

The old craftsman ignored it, as if he didn't hear it, and ignored the passing.

Whoever speaks, he ignores.

If he encountered someone who was in the way, the old craftsman frowned and waved his hand quickly, without looking at it, and drove away with a disgusted face.

The old craftsman didn't want to make any noise.

I also hope that others will see this and bother him.

It's not because he's dumb, it's that every morning he's in a terrible mood:

The old craftsman didn't sleep all night.

His routine is reversed.

Sleep during the day and work at night.

So every morning, the old craftsman is in a state of fatigue after a night of hard work.

In this state of staying up late.

He hated the noise of the morning when everything came to life, the glare of the rising sun, and even any early morning energetic guy talking to him.

The old craftsman just wants to be autistic.

Don't fucking bother him.

The old craftsman walked into a morning market at the bottom of the mountain on time.

This morning market is not strictly a bazaar.

Rather, it is an open-air breakfast shop where some of the women workers working in the sword shop and the families of the craftsmen gather.

They make some breakfasts and provide them to a large number of low-level craftsmen who get up early in the morning to work.

Because craftsmen are not allowed to go out at will, they need to apply to go out, and outsiders who are not from the Guyue Sword Shop cannot enter the West Bank Sword Shop at will to buy and sell.

And only the famous craftsmen, swordsmiths and other senior craftsmen have three meals a day provided by the Liu family, and the other low-level craftsmen are paid their own wages, but the canteen meals operated by the sword shop are too expensive.

And many craftsmen are bachelors, who will buy their own vegetables and cook.

As a result, this kind of breakfast shop was opened by the diligent female workers who brought breakfast from outside every day.

The Liu family also turned a blind eye to this.

The old craftsman was in a good mood, because he went all the way down the mountain today, and few people disturbed him.

Everyone seemed to know that he had a bad temper, and most of them ignored him.

The old craftsman likes this feeling of being alone and quiet in the middle of the city.

It's like a sword with an ice bar stuck in a blazing furnace.

He walked to the familiar breakfast shop again and found the familiar seat in the back.

As soon as she sat down, she didn't even squeak, and a little girl in a cloth skirt with the word "Yue" engraved on her forehead and big eyes put down her work as a female worker, jumped off the stool, and trotted to the back kitchen to bring a pot of prepared wine, which was placed on the table made by the old craftsman.

The old craftsman stared at the oily and dirty black tabletop, and didn't look at the little girl in the cloth skirt next to him, he silently put the empty wine bottle he brought on the table, and then took out eight copper plates from his arms and lined them up.

The little girl in the cloth skirt stood on tiptoe, brought her little hands to the edge of the table, and carefully gathered the eight copper plates into the palm of her hand.

She collected the money, left the jug full, and picked up the empty flask.

The head does not go back.

didn't say a word, and the two didn't make eye contact.

One old and one young, this set of processes is very tacit.

The other female workers and guests at the breakfast shop were not surprised by this, and seemed to be accustomed to the withdrawn old man.

The old craftsman opened the seal of the new flask, and sniffed it.

Familiar taste.

He nodded pleasantly.

This breakfast shop was opened by several handful female workers who weaved sword spikes, and the leader was an older and capable female spike worker, and the little spikelet worker in the cloth skirt who had two big spiritual eyes just now was one of them, and the quietest one.

There are few things, don't quarrel with him.

So the old craftsman chose her and went to an old wine shop in the county to drink.

Take eight cents a day.

Five cents to beat three taels of rice wine.

Two pennies are presented as a plate of steamed rice cakes.

A penny to reward her for running errands.

Day in and day out.

Except that the last time he couldn't find anyone for a while, he was very irritable in the mornings of those days.

This very delicate-looking cloth skirt spikelet worker has helped him bring rice wine for almost two years.

And once I didn't mention the increase in errand fees.

But the old swordsmith, who is particularly impetuous every morning, thinks that the most important thing is ...... Less talkative sensible.

She only timidly opened her mouth when she bought wine for him for the first time, what did she say?

It seems to say what her name is......

Forgot.

The old craftsman was not interested in the slightest.

Some days, he saw that the little spikelet worker in the cloth skirt was bullied by other older female spike workers, robbing them of money or fabrics, and the old craftsman did not react, and continued to eat the food that was called breakfast but was actually dinner, and he was old, so he had to chew slowly.

The old craftsman felt that he was running out of time, and that he had to finish that thing quickly before he died. I don't have time to worry about these things.

In the breakfast shop, the old craftsman sat on the seat in the back to avoid the early sun, took a sip of rice wine, and squinted his eyes to wait for the breakfast in the back kitchen.

At this time, there were still few guests, including the cloth skirt spikelets, and several female tassel workers sat down on a row of stools on the right, bowing their heads and carefully weaving various sword spikes.

The old craftsman quietly looked at their ingenious weaving skills.

These sword spikes are very beautiful, and there are all kinds of patterns that are extremely comfortable in his eyes, especially the strange arcs woven by some spiritual female spike workers on a whim, which can sometimes bring a lot of inspiration to the old craftsman.

The exquisite sword spike artwork was born from the hands of these ordinary and humble little female workers who are struggling to make a living.

But this is not surprising.

Just like who would have thought that the top swordsmanship in the world was actually in the hands of a small group of Wu Yue female cultivators who lived in seclusion in Daze?

The old craftsman suddenly remembered that someone had told him such a sentence.

Myths are born from the earth.

The old man tilted his head and poured the pot, this sentence was worth another sip of wine.

The old craftsman is in a good mood.

But at this time, on a breakfast table next door, a group of swordworkers came and sat down in the conversation, and some of them turned around and told the proprietress about meat, which naturally caused a burst of lively laughter and scolding.

It's noisy.

The old craftsman put down the wine jug, and the wine was prosperous.

And the next hot topic of this group of noisy swordsmiths made the old craftsman feel bad.

The old man silently put away the wine jug and turned his head to look back at the direction of the county government on the east bank of Butterfly Creek.

There is a new young county commander who wants to build a new waterway called the Folding Wing Canal in Longcheng to completely cut off the water of Butterfly Creek.

How do you forge a sword when the water is broken?

For the first time in his life, the old craftsman had heard of such a decision against his ancestors.

To be honest, in addition to being angry, there is also a little ...... Happy.

Laughed angrily.

What kind of strange thing is this?

It's coming, it's done. There will be two more in the evening, and the two watches will be restored!

(End of chapter)