The King's Mate - Part 1: Banyue

Chapter 5

The next day saw Xie Lian and Hua Cheng getting up early, in order to prepare for the tournament. Xie Lian was under no false impression that Hua Cheng would be able to spend the whole day with him, and thus didn't waste any time getting ready to spar.

However before that, Hua Cheng led him to his very own private armoury. It was in a room underground, and they'd only gotten there after walking through a hidden door in Hua Cheng's private banquet room. They had to descend a seemingly endless stone staircase, and walk through a maze of several doors, which had Xie Lian wonder what else could possibly be down here, but once they'd stepped inside it, Xie Lian understood why it was so well hidden.

It was a dream of an armoury!

There were all sorts of weapons; swords, scimitars, bows, crossbows, spears, broad knives, battleaxes, daggers, and even whips. Xie Lian's eyes widened at the sheer size of the room, fully stacked with weapons upon weapons.

"Wow", he said, unable to hold his awe in. Hua Cheng chuckled.

"Gege may look around as much as he likes, and choose whichever weapon we'd like to fight me with. Of course you can try out several weapons as well, before you choose which one to use for the tournament".

With that, Xie Lian was left speechless, but he did start to take the weapons in from a more practical standpoint. Xie Lian knew a sword was the weapon best suited for him, and so he forced himself to disregard the other weapons for now.

Still, even if he solely focused on the selection of swords, the amount Hua Cheng owned was nothing to laugh at. But not only was the amount impressive, all of the swords were made with great craftsmanship, without exception, and obviously of very high quality. However there were two that stuck out to him. He picked up one of them, in order to examine it more closely.

"Oh, that's a good choice", Hua Cheng stated, walking over to him. "That used to belong to the country of Yushi, before it became a part of WuYong. Apparently the empress was rather fond of it."

Xie Lian hummed, and put it down again. It was certainly a very good sword, no doubt about it. Then, he picked up the other one that had caught his attention. It had a peculiar black blade, as if made of black jade, but it was incredibly sharp, and polished to perfection.

"Ah... gege has a keen eye, indeed. This used to be one of Jun Wu's three treasured swords."

"I'll take this one. The weight and handle are very similar to the one I used to have. It should be easier to fight with this", he grinned at Hua Cheng. His alpha smiled back at him, and grabbed a scimitar off its display without even looking. At first Xie Lian thought Hua Cheng wouldn't care which weapon he chose, but a closer look on the way out told him that it was probably the one he used most frequently, judging by the marks on the wooden stand.

They used the inner court of the king's quarters as their makeshift sparring grounds, simply because they could have more fun in their privacy this way.

Xie Lian was honestly excited to go against Hua Cheng in a sword fight. He knew his own skills were on a very high level, and he knew that Hua Cheng's skills should be around that same level, and they had promised not to hold back. It had been ages since he got to fight for fun, and he only realised just now how much he'd missed it.