Blade and Poetry

My life seems to have become unexpectedly full and busy.In the first three months, the intensity of exercise that Karajan set for me pressed me step by step, making my body float and sink in constant pain.

"Let's get started," Karajan told me one evening.

He is different from the sword tutors Mrs. Xiao En invited for me when I was a child. He only taught me the most basic chopping movements; but each of his chops seems to be accurate to the smallest range, the most powerful, and the most powerful. It can save power for the knife holder.He stood behind me, his fingers tightly wrapped around my arm holding the knife, and he didn't allow me to take the next step until my posture was completely correct.

When I was gasping for breath, he stopped me and made a request to see my hands.I handed him my hand; after a moment's contemplation, he wiped the thin calluses at the base of my palms with his fingertips.

"I guess you used to practice with both hands, right?" Karajan said.

"Yes." I replied, "I have been able to handle things equally proficiently since I was a child, and I am not sure whether my knife will appear in the left palm or the right palm-so I did basic exercises for both hands in advance."

"While magicians only use their right hand to write formations and runes."

"That's right. Because most formations rotate clockwise, and the runes often follow the order from left to right. If you use your left hand to do all these, it will inevitably lose precision and speed due to the occlusion of your hand." —By the way, I'm also a right-handed drawer."

"So," Karajan said, "do you want to practice left-handed swords with me?"

I looked into his eyes and saw in them the same joy of a bold idea.

I jumped back a step, bent slightly, and gave him a saber salute—only I replaced the right hand that was originally resting on my waist with the left.

"Fulfilling the mission." I replied.

Karajan began to correct my posture for each cut, following the basic knife technique.There are only sixteen basic sword skills, which are suitable for every swordsman, whether they are newcomers or veterans, and the rest only depends on their comprehension of their own set during the battle.He wanted me to master that precision so that one day I could combine them loosely.

So until the end of the semester, the middle of the summer, he didn't teach any of the sword techniques he had learned by himself, but only made me polish these sixteen moves in repeated practice and battles.I had a forged knife I rented from the East Yard, and he had his short knife "Molten Rose".I can naturally find some tricks in his movements, but in our battles, I am often the one who is embarrassed. Whenever he says he wants to knock me down within a few moves, he will definitely do so.

I guess he was sympathetic in the number of "several tricks", but not in strength.Every time I respond, I have to tense my nerves into a line, and use the greatest vigilance and keenest intuition to avoid his attack.His speed is also accelerating as I improve, and sometimes it is useless to dodge, and it can be regained by attacking instead of defending for a second.One of the most tragic times was that one of my ribs was broken by the back of his knife, and he carried me to the school doctor's room. The accountability of the school doctor can only be said to be caused by the impact of wild animals.

I don't blame him in the slightest; he is helping me remove the rust from the blade in the most correct way, so that it can reveal a sharp and bright edge.

The magic class has recently finished the last exam early, and there is a peaceful atmosphere in the classroom.Most of the electives are rote memorization of pharmacology. Basically, the whole class can pass the music class with high scores. Only gardening makes me extremely distressed. I am still thinking about how to grow lantern flowers with a three-month flowering period. Four of the five samples of the test have died.

"Magic is not allowed to be used on planting in the class, gentlemen and ladies." The horticulture professor Magison always said so with a hunched back.Although he said that this was to let us "understand the true meaning of plant growth", there were still rumors in the class that "he was once stabbed in the big nose by a feather grass spawned by some magical student when he bent over to check". rumor.

Unlike the magic class, the literature class has an end-of-semester exam, and it is still slowly finishing.The most difficult section of ancient text research in the middle has passed, and now Karajan just gave us a collection of poems, let us make an appointment after class, and choose a section to explain to him face to face.

Because the big exam has passed, the atmosphere in the classroom is very brisk, so we sat in a circle during the time left for discussion, intending to read poems and divination one by one, as a game.

Lan Duo turned to "A Leaf in the Rain", which is a small poem with a fairy-tale atmosphere. A witty story about a bird slipping out of its owner’s house unintentionally, and finally returning home after several twists and turns—it happened that this collection of poems was about to be passed on to the little flower and bird Francesco, so we couldn’t help laughing together; the little flower and bird got the "Song of the Sailor" , the content can be inferred from the title, and the meaning expressed is also very clear, but he claimed that this is a harbinger of his endless love, and he put the collection of poems on his lips, and spoke affectionately to the audience He blew a kiss, and finally winked at the last girl in a flashy way.

I took the book of poems from him, wiped the place left by his "Love's Kiss", and turned to "Fear".

The little flower and bird sat closest to me.He saw the title sharply, patted my shoulder and said with a smile: "Vicente, it seems that you will become a coward in the second half of the year."

"Don't worry," I shot back, "that's definitely farther than when some beautiful woman wants to grow old with you. And it's definitely not your preferred blonde."

Everyone was urging me to read it as a routine, so I started to read the song "Fear" quickly.It revolves around a story about a feared lord in a tower, and the narrator is the man under the tower.Because the poem is relatively long, I only excerpted a paragraph from it and read it out.

"

……

I look up to this tower during the day

Fingering and playing with them

because it is so far away

Only worth a smile from the dust

I wrote lines of poems for him in the dark night

The chest overflows with the madness of a clear-sighted person

sighing and flinging them to the dome

Just say it's a madman's dance

Some of their corners scrape my ears

Some hammered down on my face again

they fall into the dirt

Withered and old like the color of a beauty

only that one

Fly to the tower made of rock

His smile floats in the deep night

As if I can test it with my own eyes in a daze

......"

When I read this, I couldn't help but paused, touched my nose and said, "It's not over yet, but I think the theme is a bit strange."

"Doesn't this "Fear" belong to Goya's twelve suites?" someone asked. "They all use some kind of negative emotion as the theme, but also put on objects, very euphemistically refusing to get straight to the theme."

I looked under the title, "No Author Marked."

So the discussion turned to what the topic was——

"I think this poem is definitely very much like a love poem," I said. "The following paragraph is even more indescribable."

Then I continued to read the above part:

"

……

My life has been full of ups and downs

only truly survive in the dark night

If there are rocks in my path

It is also the monument that I carved for him every step of the way

If there are streams and mountains in my way

only become his eyebrows

......"

There was an exclamation all around.We lingered for a while on the unanimous comment of "this great love, isn't it?" and then collectively jumped out of the train of thought and decided that the lord must refer to something similar to an ideal or a dream.Only the little flower and bird said to me firmly: "In my opinion, Mr. Vicente, this indicates that your wonderful luck is coming."

"Are you sure it's him and not you?" Karajan said behind his back.

Resisting the urge to laugh at the tables around me, I said solemnly to Karajan, "He is different from me. His luck happens randomly every day."

"Is that so?" Karajan threw a pen into my hand from above, snatched the collection of poems from me, and threw it to the next person, "Vicente, write me the penultimate paragraph of the poem just now." Write the last sentence silently to me."

I tore a piece of paper casually, wrote on it "If there are streams and mountains on my way, I will only become his eyebrows", folded it and handed it to him.A whole circle of people were waiting for Karajan's response, but he didn't even look at it. He imitated the little flower and bird's initial movement, raised the note to the corner of his mouth, smiled and winked at me.

Amidst the laughter of the whole class, only Xiaohuaniao remained steadfast.He said to me seriously: "Look, what I said before-come when you say it."

I made an appointment with Karajan for the earliest time for an interview—that is, at noon today, but I suddenly remembered that I should go to Professor Ryan with Odd to spy on the grades at noon, so I went to him when class was over and said: "Karajan, I don't Can we move the interview time to between ten and eleven o'clock?"

I remember this period of time in the appointment form is empty.

His face sank for a moment.I have never read such obvious "displeasure" in his statement to me.

"Do you have anything to do?"

"Er, I guess—no?" I tongue-tied momentarily. "It's not very important, either."

The hesitation on his face disappeared a little.

"Then, at 12:30, the old place is waiting for you." He said to me.