Gan Jiang and Mo Ye: Yu's Reincarnation (Part 2)
Continued from Gan Jiang and Mo Ye：Yu's Reincarnation (Part 1)
Gan Jiang shared his thoughts with his senior fellow disciple Ou Ye Zi. Ou Ye Zi agreed with his junior's reasoning — here was truly a man who placed virtue and character above all else — and Ou Ye Zi's admiration for Gan Jiang grew even deeper.
Ou Ye Zi laid out Mo Ye's situation to Gan Jiang in full: after meeting the King of Yue, Mo Ye would be compelled by the king to enter the palace. Beyond losing her freedom, this would gravely hinder her path of cultivation. Only by marrying her off quickly to the person he trusted most could Mo Ye continue on her path.
At that moment, Gan Jiang finally understood his senior fellow disciple's intent. This was not about forcing a second wife upon him — it was about helping Mo Ye, and keeping her cultivation path intact.
Gan Jiang agreed. The very day his divorce from Sheng Xie was finalized became the day of his wedding to Mo Ye.
Mo Ye was not afraid of what others might say. Her heart was firm and unwavering in her devotion to the path of cultivation through smelting. As for who her husband would be — so long as her father had arranged it, she accepted.
With his youngest daughter's marriage settled, Ou Ye Zi set off without a trace of worry to meet King Gou Jian of Yue.
At the time, King Gou Jian was seeking to ally with the state of Chu against Wu. The King of Chu had mentioned to the King of Yue his desire for two swords representing yin and yang, as a symbol of the deep friendship between their two kingdoms.
In his eagerness to secure the alliance with Chu against Wu, the King of Yue readily agreed and entrusted the task to Ou Ye Zi.
At first, Ou Ye Zi invited his most admired junior fellow disciple, Gan Jiang, to forge the swords together. Yet for reasons unclear, the results were consistently unsatisfactory.
Mo Ye reflected on it: the King of Chu's request was for two swords — one yin, one yang. She and her husband were themselves a pairing of yin and yang, female and male. Should it not be the two of them, as husband and wife, who forged these swords together?
She brought this proposal to her father, and Ou Ye Zi agreed.
Mo Ye had workers bring copper ore and iron ore — copper to represent the yang sword, iron to represent the yin sword. Husband and wife then threw themselves into the work together, spending their days beside the furnace, absorbed in the study of smelting.
Yet strangely, no matter what they tried, the furnace would not melt the iron ore. If the ore could not be reduced to molten iron, it could not be forged into a sword.
As the deadline drew near, the couple had still been unable to forge the yin and yang swords. Faced with this difficulty, Gan Jiang and Mo Ye resolved to sit in meditation beside the furnace and search within themselves for answers.
For they had suddenly come to understand: unless they could elevate their own level of cultivation, they would not be able to smelt the iron ore. And all of this was bound up with their cultivation, their character, and their marriage.
Mo Ye reflected on the whole course of their marriage and realized that, deep within her heart, she had harbored resentment toward Gan Jiang — her former brother-in-law.
Sheng Xie was not particularly beautiful, her temperament was both impulsive and selfish, and she had not treated Mo Ye well. Yet their father had given her to Gan Jiang in marriage!
Gan Jiang was tall and handsome, and an accomplished swordsmith. Mo Ye was the most beautiful girl in the family, and she too understood the craft of smelting. By all reasoning, she and Gan Jiang should have been the perfect match.
Yet her father had given her elder sister Sheng Xie — the sister she had always been compared against — to the man Mo Ye had quietly loved for years. And Gan Jiang, knowing full well that Mo Ye cared for him, had not refused the match. This had left Mo Ye heartbroken, and she had come to see Gan Jiang as a coward who dared not take responsibility for love.
Mo Ye immediately understood: her attachment stemmed from resentment toward her husband, jealousy toward her elder sister, pride in her own appearance, and grievance against her father.
In his meditation, Gan Jiang too came to understand his own failing — his obsession with forging a legendary sword, and his irresponsibility toward their marriage, which had caused Sheng Xie's loneliness and suffering, and had also betrayed the trust his senior fellow disciple Ou Ye Zi had placed in him.
And in doing so, he had also failed Mo Ye.
He had known all along that the two of them loved each other. Neither had spoken a word of it, yet love had allowed them to understand each other's hearts without words.
But when Ou Ye Zi had asked him to marry Sheng Xie, Gan Jiang had simply gone along with his senior's request, giving no thought to Mo Ye's feelings. The pain and regret he had caused her — all of it was his fault.
Husband and wife apologized to each other, and then fell into each other's arms and wept.
Together, they went to Ou Ye Zi and Sheng Xie, acknowledged the wrongs they had done, and offered their sincere and heartfelt apologies. Then they cut off their hair, shaved their beards, and trimmed their fingernails, casting everything into the furnace.
In doing this, they were renouncing their attachment to appearance and vanity, and treating all that had passed as a profound lesson.
Beside the furnace, they made a vow to each other: no matter what arose, they would always communicate openly, speak their minds fully, and never let grievances or secrets fester between them.
Only when the two were truly of one heart — genuinely working together to elevate their character — could the work of smelting be done well.
Suddenly, lightning split the sky and thunderclaps rang out, as fire from the heavens struck straight down into the furnace. The flames leapt up several feet high, and countless sparks showered down upon the two of them — yet they felt no pain, and not a single wound appeared on their skin.
When the flames settled and the sparks ceased their wild scattering, husband and wife stepped closer to look — and turned to each other in astonishment.
The iron ore that had stubbornly refused to melt was now fully liquefied. They added fresh ore into the furnace, and it too dissolved into molten iron. And so, with husband and wife truly of one heart, they forged the legendary yin and yang swords that would become known throughout the world — the Gan Jiang sword and the Mo Ye sword.
As for the tale of revenge involving their son that has been passed down in legend — this can only be described as a story distorted beyond recognition in the retelling. This couple, who cultivated the Way through smelting, placed virtue above all else. How could they ever have pursued revenge and diminished their virtue in doing so?
There is also the legend that Mo Ye threw herself into the furnace to forge the sword with her soul. Yu considers this an even greater fabrication: if a sword were truly forged through the sacrifice of a soul, it could only be an evil blade — and whoever wielded it would be met with misfortune.
The earliest historical record of the Gan Jiang and Mo Ye swords appears in The Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue. The original text reads:
King He Lu of Wu commanded Gan Jiang to forge swords.
*Gan Jiang was a man of Wu, who together with his wife Mo Ye was skilled in the art of sword-forging.*
*They gathered the finest iron from five mountains and the purest gold from the six directions,*
*and forged two swords — one called Gan Jiang, and one called Mo Ye.*
The forging of the swords took three years to complete.
*The king, in his anger, said: "I commanded you to forge swords — why has it taken so long?"*
*Gan Jiang replied: "I have heard that the transformation of sacred things must await its proper time."*
As one can see, in this original account: first, there is no storyline of Gan Jiang being killed and a son taking revenge; second, there is no storyline of Mo Ye throwing herself into the furnace.
The truth is that the two yin and yang swords, the Gan Jiang and Mo Ye, were forged when dragon deities from the celestial realm, moved by the sincerity of the couple, descended into the furnace and gave form to these sacred blades.
The purpose for which these swords were originally forged was for the royal court to cut down evil, establish authority, and govern through virtue — not to be used as instruments of slaughter.
But as the ages passed, those who came after no longer understood the moral standards and character of their predecessors. As the swords passed into the hands of those who delighted in killing, the blades became stained with the karmic weight of bloodshed.
The two dragons within the swords felt that the character and virtue of the people of the world no longer merited the possession of these sacred blades. And so they departed from the swords, took on their dragon forms, and flew together back to the celestial realm.
As for Yu — his Secondary Soul, in that lifetime, was none other than the master swordsmith Ou Ye Zi.