Shao walked straight to the village blacksmith. The forge was on the opposite side of the village, so Lin Shao walked past most of Bluecrest on his way there.
The buildings of Bluecrest Village were mostly made from the redwood trees that grew natively in north Haishan, though some were made of heat-treated clay bricks. Most of the buildings had thatch roofs made from thick dry straw. The only buildings of note were the shops built near the center of town and the clan patriarch’s home.
All told, about eight hundred people lived in Bluecrest Village, and nearly all of them were either fishermen or farmers. The farmers stayed in the village proper in the winter, but they were all out working the fields at that time. When the harvest was done and the farmers returned to the village, the Harvest Festival would be held. A major part of the Harvest Festival was the tournament where all the men in the village would compete to see who could lift the most rocks at once or run the fastest.
Every family offered something at the beginning of the Harvest Festival, and the winner received a wagon filled with all of those offerings at the end. Shao was convinced that he could win if he really tried, but Granny Daiyu would disapprove.
Lin Shao reached the western side of the village where most of the farmers lived. That part of Bluecrest was sparsely populated, and the only people walking around were the shop owners and artisans who stayed in the village all year round.
The forge was the only building in eastern Bluecrest that had any significant activity at that time of year. The village blacksmith, Gongsun Bolin, was working at the forge while his wife, Gongsun Xin, was speaking with a member of the town guard. Quite a few spears were lined up on the walls of the forge, so Lin Shao assumed that Du Bolin had recently forged some weapons for the militia.
Seeing that Gongsun Xin was busy, Lin Shao walked up to Gongsun Bolin, who was hammering a red-hot piece of metal on his anvil. Based on its size, Shao figured it was a horse shoe. Shao stood there in silence for a few moments until Yang Gongsun Bolin dropped the piece of metal into a basin of water. With a sharp hiss, steam rose from the basin as the bright red of the horse shoe swiftly returned to a dark gray.
With his current task complete, Gongsun Bolin looked up at Lin Shao with his customary glare and said, “Hey, kid. Do you need another harpoon made?”
Frowning, Lin Shao said, “Yes, but that’s not why I’m here. I can make my own harpoons out of materials in the forest at this point. I want to buy a weapon.”
“A weapon? Now, why would you need that?”
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“Self-defense, I guess. You never know when you’ll run into some thieves on the road or a hungry bear in the woods.”
“Uh huh. Well, I’ve got some extra spears and swords after I finished that order for the town guard, but I better not hear from Lin Daiyu that you were carrying a sword around the village.”
“I understand,” Lin Shao responded absentmindedly as he began to look around the forge.
Various crude straight swords and long spears leaned against the walls of the forge. Everything there would be moved to the shop where Gongsun Xin worked eventually, so Shao knew that they must have all been forged recently. Shao picked up a straight sword and tested its weight.
Lin Shao imagined himself fighting a cultivator with that sword. In his mind, the cheap iron blade snapped in half the moment it met the cultivator’s powerful body. The sword’s brittleness and the fact that Lin Shao didn’t actually know how to use a sword made it the wrong choice for a weapon to use against a cultivator.
He moved on to the spears. Though the spears’ points were made of iron, their shafts were made of wood. In his mind’s eye, Lin Shao saw the cultivator shatter the wood with a casual motion of the hand.
No, he would need something sturdy, like a club or a hammer. Those weapons could barely handle Shao’s strength. They could certainly not handle the power of a cultivator.
As Lin Shao looked around the forge, something caught his eye. Out of sight in the far corner of the forge was a long metal rod about the height of a man. It was clearly not for sale based on its position in the forge. He had carried that metal staff in his hands several times during past harvest festivals, and he knew that it would be the perfect weapon against a cultivator.
“What about that?” Lin Shao asked, pointing at the heavy metal staff in the corner.
“The barbell? It can’t be used as a weapon. The damn thing must weigh more than sixty jin. You’re supposed to put heavy weights on each side to see how much you can lift.”
“Well, uh…” Lin Shao quickly thought of a lie. “Maybe I can use it to train for the Harvest Festival. Can I buy it?”
A look of skepticism crossed over Gongsun Bolin’s face. He said, “Fine. I’ll sell it to ‘ya, if you insist. It won’t be cheap, though. It takes a lot of iron to make one of those. You can have it for…” he paused for a moment to come up with a good price, “eight silver tael.”
Lin Shao handed Gongsun Bolin eight small silver coins without taking a moment to haggle. Minutes later, Shao was on the road out of the village, holding a long metal staff over his shoulder. He passed by some people on the way toward the forest, and he acted like staff was a great weight that he could barely carry until they were out of sight.
Once the dirt road leading to the village was out of sight, Lin Shao began holding the sixty jin staff in one hand. He felt the weight of the staff, turning it over several times, and smiled. The staff had some heft to it, and he would need both hands to swing it, but he would certainly have no trouble using the staff as a weapon.