They say faces lie; don’t read a soul from its skin.

Though the dark-skinned youth looked nothing like a villain, Lingcai’s guard rose like dawn frost. That pleading voice still threaded her thoughts.

He seemed to work here as a blacksmith. The shop breathed furnace heat and coal scent, tools glinting like teeth.

The walls were crowded with iron wares, a forest of steel—blades, swords, arrowheads for bows, chains sagging like snakes.

"Even if it doesn’t need repairs—it’s fine! Please, miss! Let me see that blade!"

Since they stepped in, his gaze clung to the Crimson Cherry Blossom Blade like a moth to flame.

No wonder. Any blacksmith could tell that blade wasn’t some market knockoff.

It was a premium close-combat weapon and an arcane device that could trigger defense and riposte. In any hands, it shone.

Scarlet Leaf felt a prickle of reluctance, a thorn under silk. But his fevered stare needled her back, so she passed it over.

He took the Crimson Cherry Blossom Blade with boyish zeal. He skimmed the scabbard, then drew the steel with a sigh like rain.

Purple temper lines flowed along the edge like moonlit waves. His eyes flared open, lantern-bright, his whole face coming alive.

"Oh... ohhh...! This is..."

He rapped the blade gently with his knuckle—tink. The clear note rang like spring water, bragging softly about its worth.

His gaze slid to the hilt and the Scarlet Leaf family crest. He seemed to place it all, and he chatted easily with her.

"Didn’t expect someone so young to have such sword skill. Never would’ve guessed from your looks."

"Eh? I don’t know swordplay."

She truly didn’t see how he got that idea. Confusion fluttered across her face like a startled sparrow.

He blinked at her reaction, stunned in place.

Huh? No swordplay?

Then he decided she was just being modest. He waved it off with a teasing laugh.

"No need to be that humble..."

He knew the blade’s lineage. The Scarlet Leaf mark, and the hilt inscribed, "By moonlight, the heart knows itself," all spoke of its honor.

He knew a bit of the trade. Blades forged by Scarlet Leaf almost never received names. By his temperament, named blades were gifts.

He only entrusted them to renowned swordsmen. Ordinary buyers couldn’t get one, even with coin like a river.

If you weren’t famous, how could you ever hold the Crimson Cherry Blossom Blade?

That’s why the youth took Scarlet Leaf for a master swordswoman, a craft legend walking.

What he never imagined was that the soft, plush beauty before him was Scarlet Leaf herself, the idol he revered.

He slid the blade back into its scabbard and returned it. Then he folded away his heat, sat upright, and faced her, grave.

"Miss, since you carry such a named blade, you must be no common swordsman. I have a bold request. Please look at something."

Scarlet Leaf tried again, weary as a sigh. "I keep saying, I’m not a swordsman..."

He still took it as modesty. He tugged open a hidden door toward the courtyard and beckoned them, eagerness like wind at his back.

"I want to show you a famed blade. If you can make it submit, I’ll gift it to you!"

As the words fell, Lingcai heard that faint cry again, a child’s voice like a thread in the dark.

"...Mama... where... are you..."

The sound tugged straight from behind that hidden door, a chill pulling at her nape.

"There’s a girl in there calling for help! I heard her!" Lingcai’s nerves snapped taut like a bowstring. She pointed past the door.

She squared up to the youth, storm brewing in her eyes. "What’s going on? Talk straight! If you don’t, I’m taking you for a trafficker!"

Her fierce move left the other two baffled, like birds in sudden rain.

"Uh... miss, what’s wrong?" The dark-skinned youth frowned in puzzlement, as if no cry had touched his ears.

Lingcai bristled. "Don’t play dumb! That voice was clear as a bell—"

Scarlet Leaf spoke too, amazement lifting her brows.

"Lingcai? What are you saying? ...I didn’t hear anything."

Huh...? What...?

Lingcai was sure now. Only she could hear it. But why?

While she worked through the riddle, the youth seemed to wake to a thought. He clapped, a spark in his eyes.

"I think I get it. What you heard might be the demon blade’s voice!"

...A demon blade?

At "demon blade," Lingcai and Scarlet Leaf both froze, breath held like reeds in wind.

Since the ancient Brunkia era, towns have traded such tales. The demon blade is one of the loudest whispers.

Some say a demon blade brings misfortune to every master, a razor whose malice only the strongest can smother to wield.

Others claim a demon blade has its own mind, steering weak-willed swordsmen into slaughter to prove its edge.

But in every version, anyone who touches a demon blade meets a grim end, tragedy written in iron.

Lingcai asked the dark-skinned youth, steadying her voice like a lamp in dusk. "Tell me more. About the demon blade."

He nodded readily and led Lingcai and Scarlet Leaf through the hidden door into the yard. A lantern bloomed, amber in the gloom.

On the way, he spun the tale, words falling like coals from a shovel.

"An Alchemist left that demon blade here years ago, just for a while. My father handled its repairs back then.

"Once the work was done, that Alchemist never returned. I heard he was swept into a war and died.

"After that, the blade sat in the storeroom, untouched. And then the strange things began."

"What kind of strange?" Lingcai watched him light another lantern. Keys chimed in his pocket like little bells.

He fished out a heavy ring of iron keys and tried them one by one in the lock, patience ticking like rain.

Soon he found the right one. He turned it—click—then kicked the door open with a thud, dust puffing like gray smoke.

He brushed his hands and answered Lingcai.

"Ever since we put the demon blade in there, at night we hear movement inside, something prowling the dark.

"I tried giving it away or tossing it out, more than once. But the next morning, I’d open the storeroom, and it was back.

"It’s never caused real damage, but... too many oddities. Sitting in there, it makes me uneasy."

He seemed to realize how it sounded, a grown man saying "afraid" before two girls. He shook his head and hurried on.

"...Not fear, exactly. I think the blade might recognize its master. And novels say it often goes like that, right?

"Only a truly skilled swordsman can tame a demon blade. So I hoped you’d try—see if you can take it away."

Scarlet Leaf couldn’t help cutting in again. "But I really am not a swordsman... I don’t even know any forms..."

The youth grew anxious, words tumbling like pebbles. "For a sword hero like you, one more blade won’t matter, right?

"And if I’m not wrong, your Crimson Cherry Blossom Blade was forged by Scarlet Leaf himself, right?

"If you’ve earned Scarlet Leaf’s approval and still act modest, no one else on earth dares call themselves a swordsman!"

Scarlet Leaf drew a long breath, calm washing in like evening tide.

She finally understood why he kept mistaking her for a famous sword master.

In the end, she chose to bite the bullet and speak the truth.

"...Actually, I am Scarlet Leaf."

"..."

"..."

Silence stretched like cold silk. Then Scarlet Leaf reminded him of the important part.

"...For the record, I really don’t know swordplay."

"Ah, uh. Mm... I know... Um, Master Scarlet Leaf, I’ve idolized you for years, hahaha..."

At a loss, the dark-skinned youth resorted to stiff small talk, his smile creaking like a door hinge.

"...Oh... th-thanks...?"