Zhang Chulan had been practicing with the saber for quite a few years, but strictly speaking, his truly qualitative leap forward had happened only in the past two or three years. At first, even he felt he was just a hair's breadth away from mastering the saber technique completely. Yet that single hair's breadth seemed impossible to find, let alone bridge.
It was not until one day when Wu Xie's father, Wu Yiqing, watched him practice such a fine saber technique so wretchedly that he finally could not help asking, "Why is your handwriting so good, yet your saber technique is so terrible? And after practicing for seven years, it's still utter nonsense!"
At the time, Zhang Chulan muttered to himself that he had practiced under his nose for seven years, but if they were really counting from childhood, it was well over seven years. He fancied he understood the inner workings of this craft fairly well—it was hardly the utter nonsense Wu Yiqing made it out to be.
Chapter 216