63. My Nascent Soul Blade Has Severe Abandonment Issues

I return to Wei Zheng’s shop while the sun is barely over the rooftops. The eastern district is still half-asleep, with stall stands folded like wooden skeletons as merchants drag baskets into place.

Wei Zheng is unlocking his door when I arrive, his key turning in the worn brass lock.

“I haven’t even opened.”

“Are you surprised I’m punctual?” I ask. “You’re holding my lifeline.”

He just sighs and pushes the door open, disappearing inside. I follow. The shop is colder than it should be. Frostbite rests on the workbench, wrapped in cloth, with a shallow bowl of water beside it. Thin ice has formed across the surface. Wei Zheng looks worse than yesterday. His face is pale. His eyes are sunken. The exhaustion in his shoulders is not the simple kind that comes from staying awake too late. But there is a flicker in him too. I have seen it in Ling’er when she finds a problem she cannot solve immediately.

He gestures to a stool.

“Sit.”

Wei Zheng makes tea with slow, precise motions. The cup he hands me is warm. I hold it between both hands. He remains standing for a while beside the workbench, looking down at the wrapped sword.

“The physical damage is significant,” he says. “Cracks through the blade. Old stress in the metal. Some parts have grown brittle.”

I look at the cloth.

“And the spiritual damage?”

Wei Zheng’s mouth tightens.

“Worse.”

He finally sits. For a while, he only turns his cup between his hands.

“It is grieving,” he says. “And it has retreated inward. It resonates with feelings of loss, grief, and abandonment. At some point, that cultivator you spoke of… they discarded this blade. For what reason, I don’t know.”

I think of Frostheart’s journal. The final entries. A man dying alone, still lucid enough to leave warnings, regrets, instructions.

“He cared about it,” I say quietly.

Wei Zheng glances at me.

“The senior who owned it,” I continue. “He was dying, his tribulation was coming. If Frostbite stayed with him, it would have been destroyed with him. I think he discarded it because he wanted it to survive. Because he wanted someone else to inherit it.”

“That may be what the man intended,” he says. “But it is not what the sword felt.”

The implication hangs between us. A parent can leave a child for protection. A master can send a disciple away for survival. A dying man can abandon a sword to preserve it. Intention matters, but pain does not always receive intention in the language it was sent.

His voice stays flat, but not empty.

“I have never worked on anything this high-level,” he says. “The materials alone are beyond anything I have handled. The craftsmanship is unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I… do not know if I can fix it.”

I close my eyes for half a breath.

‘I expected this, somewhat.’

Expectation does not make disappointment lighter. However, he speaks again.

“But I can try.”

My eyes open. The words land like stones dropped into still water. Wei Zheng drains his tea and sets the cup down with a small, decisive clink.

“I cannot fully restore Frostbite,” he says. “The physical damage is too severe. I do not have the tools, the materials, or the skill to remake what was lost. Not yet. Maybe not ever.”

He looks at the sword again.

“But the spiritual damage… that is different. I may be able to help it hear again. Pull it far enough from dormancy that it can begin a path to recovery.”

“Then what do you need?”

“Time, and materials connected to the blade. If the cultivator who carried this sword left anything behind, anything that feels like it belongs with it, I need to see it.”

I think for a moment, and reach into my storage ring. The frost crystals are still there, packed in a wooden box. I used some for formations, but most remain. Two and a half pounds, give or take. Cold gathers around my fingers as I take the box out and set it on the bench.

Wei Zheng opens it.

The temperature drops.

He unwraps a single crystal and holds it up to the morning light. Pale blue shines through his fingers.

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For the first time since I entered, his expression shifts into something close to approval.

“This will help.”

“And the price?” I ask.

“The price will be seen after I have done what I can.”

“That is not how craftsmen usually charge.”

“I am not repairing a door hinge.”

He sets the crystal back into the box and closes the lid.

“I do not know how long this will take. I do not know if I will succeed. I will not charge you for failure.”

I nod slowly.