Also known as: Chopsticks vs Lotus Arts
The moon was full.Mount Chaos… quiet.Goats asleep. Dumplings steaming. Stars watching.
Wei Long was lying on the roof, staring at the sky.
Shen Ruo stood below, eyes focused.
"Let's spar," she said softly.
Wei Long rolled over. "I'd rather not move."
Shen Ruo stepped forward. "Not to fight. To learn."
She summoned her qi — silent, cold, beautiful.
With a single breath, lotus petals formed around her in an orbit of divine precision. Each one a blade. Each one a movement.
"This is the Lotus Path.It follows no master. Only balance."
Wei Long sat up, yawning.
"Alright, alright. Give me a moment."
He picked up his chopsticks.
No sword.No armor.Just two cooking tools and a sleeping expression.
Shen Ruo bowed.
Wei Long scratched his head."…Do I bow too?"
"No need," she replied. "Chaos doesn't bow."
And so, the battle began.
The first strike was beautiful.
Lotus blades danced in a perfect spiral, rotating like clockwork.
Shen Ruo stepped once — five petals moved.She blinked — three more struck out.
Wei Long held up his chopsticks and… poked a rock.
The rock bounced. Hit a kettle.The kettle spun and clanged.That sound bounced off a spiritual gong, triggering a burst of wind.
That wind lifted a leaf.
The leaf spun sideways into the path of all five petals.
clang, clang, clang, clang, clang
Blocked.
Shen Ruo froze.
"…That wasn't planned."
Wei Long blinked. "What wasn't?"
Shen Ruo smiled for the first time in her life.
"This really is chaos."
The battle escalated.
Petals flew. Chopsticks twitched. Ducks took cover.
Shen Ruo unleashed her ultimate form —
Thousand-Lotus Requiem, a move so fast and delicate it could split atoms and reassemble them into haiku.
Wei Long dodged it by sneezing.
She launched twelve lotus shards with soul-locking resonance.
Wei Long tried to fix his sandal mid-duel.
The shards redirected — and hit themselves.
Shen Ruo panted.
Wei Long stretched. "You good?"
"…You're fighting me by accident."
"Yeah, but with intention this time."
He twirled his chopsticks.
Qi surged through them — actual cultivated intent, no longer just coincidence.
Chopstick Flow: First Form — Twin Taste of Destiny.
He moved.
For the first time, on purpose.
Two precise strikes, one to deflect, one to flip Shen Ruo's blade-lotus backward into the wind — using her own qi flow to cancel her next move.
She landed softly, smiling.
"You've grown."
Wei Long fell backward into a bush. "I also sprained something."
They sat together under the moonlight.
Quiet.
Calm.
Shen Ruo said, "The Spirals were never meant to meet. But I think… you're the reason they should."
Wei Long opened his mouth—
BOOM.
The Enlightened Radish exploded again.
Lin Qian screamed from inside, "NOT AGAIN!"
Wei Long winced. "Ugh… I forgot to deactivate the tea defense formation."
Far away, in a desert of glass and silence…
The Fourth Spiral sat alone.
Eyes closed. Not asleep — just uninterested.
But when Wei Long struck with intent…
One eye opened.
And something shifted.