From Zhuge Su Yeon's Perspective
The echo of Zhuge Wen's footsteps was still fading on the cold stone when a Han elder stormed into the arena, his face dark as scorched iron. He knelt beside Han Zhi Feng, checking wounds with quick hands and a rage as palpable as the Qi trembling in the air. The boy was still breathing—raggedly, but breathing—yet that seemed far from enough to soothe the old man.
"Cruel! Despicable!" his voice thundered, thick with staged outrage. "Is this how the Zhuge clan trains its youths? To strike without mercy, even in a tournament among peers?""The defeat was already clear, yet you chose to humiliate and cripple!" he went on, jabbing his finger like a spear. "There is no honor in your lineage!"
No answer came from the Zhuge pavilion. Not a sigh, not a clenched jaw. Only silence—the kind of silence that infuriates more than a thousand insults.
From my seat, I merely looked at him, as if his words were dry leaves blown by the wind. Perhaps he expected me to blink, frown, reveal something… but contempt cannot be disguised, and mine was so open even the blind could feel it.
On his improvised throne, Han Yun Zhe leaned forward, his firm, grave voice booming through the arena:"From this moment on, members of the Han clan… show no mercy in your fights against the Zhuge."
I couldn't help but find the whole performance amusing.
When the Han boy struck with killing intent—and then, half-crippled, tried to rise to keep fighting even after defeat—no one said a word. Now suddenly, all pretended it hadn't happened, as if the arena were filled with the blind.
Classic.
Moral outrage always arrives only after the wind has changed.The privilege of those who believe themselves in power.
Soon enough, the drawing resumed. The elder of our clan descended the steps with the calm of one who had seen too many battles to be shaken by shouts. Before touching the jade urn, he glanced my way—a subtle question: "Do we play their game… or let it run its course?"
I shook my head.
We had no reason to join in such games.
In the end, it didn't matter. I glanced sideways at my brother, Yu Jin, sitting like an ember buried in ash. Cheat? What for? Fate itself was already cheating for us.
The Zhuge elder placed his hand on the urn. Unlike the others, he did not "season" the vessel with Qi, nor redraw fortune with subtle pushes of spirit. He simply spun it once, sharp and clean. Two bamboo slips tapped against jade and fell into his palm. His voice rang firm, without flourish:
"Yuan He Lin, eighth stage of Body Refinement.Tie Xuan Yan, eighth stage of Body Refinement."
The arena breathed in a single murmur. I saw Zhao Ming, patriarch of Yuan He, lift a brow—just slightly.
On the Tie Xuan side, Bao folded his arms, his hard satisfaction plain—the joy of iron meeting steel.
Yuan He Lin rose first. Her dark-blue robes with golden spirals rippled like a contained tide.
From the opposite gate came Tie Xuan Yan. Young, square-shouldered, fists bound in iron bracers from the mines.
Between them, the judge—this time a Han elder—took his place. Flags cracked in the cold wind; the crowd leaned forward. In the Han pavilion, I caught glimpses of smiles—their patriarch's order had restored their mask of power and justice, at least for now.
The fight began without haste.
Yuan He Lin advanced with the grace of a drifting veil, her dark-blue robe tracing soft arcs in the air.
She did not hold the soft beauty of Yui Lan. Nor the innocent aura of Lan Xue.
But hers was a more dangerous kind of beauty. The kind that seduces at a glance.
Like a painting that seizes the eye at first sight and refuses to fade.
As a scion of the Yuan He clan—lords of gambling halls and teahouses—her style was refined. She moved in a rhythm almost hypnotic, her technique Steps of Enshrouding Mist turning each step into an invitation to lose sight of her. Her palm or elbow always emerged at the exact blind spot, her sleeves' swaying drawing the eye away. Each strike, though soft, carried an inner vibration that drained vigor bit by bit.
Tie Xuan Yan, by contrast, was a tempered block of iron—dense muscle, heavy strikes, no flourish. Every swing threatened to split the air like an axe felling timber. But Yuan He Lin did not meet force with force.
She danced around him instead—spinning, yielding half a step only to return with a quick touch to the arm's side, or a strike to the ribs' base, before his guard could close.
The crowd might not see it, but each touch was part of a greater game. Tie Xuan Yan's body began to falter, his steps weighed down as though the floor had turned to mud. His steady breath shortened into gasps. When at last he tried to corner her, his legs refused to answer.
Then she stopped retreating. Her final turn brought her open palm against his chest. The impact was not brutal, but enough to snap his last thread of strength. Tie Xuan Yan dropped to his knees, and a moment later his raised arm signaled surrender.
The arena erupted in murmurs. Yuan He Lin bowed lightly, eyes half-lidded, as if none of it had demanded effort. From my seat, I merely followed with my gaze. Another act closed. The stage remained set.
The third fight could only be described as weightless.A skinny Yuan He boy—his name already forgotten—versus a Han youth equally unremarkable.
Even before the judge stepped in, they were trading insults, as if words could cut sharper than blades."Hope you said goodbye to your pride…""And I hope you brought a spare robe—you'll need it…"
What followed was no refined dance of techniques, but a sloppy brawl of predictable moves and poorly linked strikes. A clumsy punch here, a baseless kick there—and every so often the dull flicker of low-grade spiritual techniques, used more to impress the crowd than to harm.
Still, raw strength soon told. The Han boy, broader in shoulder and sturdier in trunk, forced his foe back step by step until a kick to the gut sent the Yuan He stumbling three paces, nearly falling. The Han pressed at once, hammering a string of punches, the last cracking against the boy's jaw.
The opponent rolled on the granite, rasping, and did not rise. The judge declared the Han victor, and their clan roared with applause—not for the quality of the fight, but for the pride any victory stoked.
I remained seated, fingers at my chin.
Simply waiting for the next act of this show.
The Yuan He elder drew a slip from the urn and read the name with ceremonial clarity, like one lighting rare incense:"Zhuge Yu Jin, ninth stage of Body Refinement!"
The arena, until then a steady hum, turned into a rookery of excited crows. Comments shot through the air like stray arrows."Ninth stage?!""Since when could the cripple get that far?""Must be another Zhuge trick…""Or some cheap scheme—he barely survived last time."
Truthfully, Yu Jin understood their shock. Three months ago, he couldn't even cultivate. Now he had raced to the peak of Body Refinement. It was insane. But how could they grasp that this was only the faintest glimmer of a protagonist's light? In the end, nothing would matter—not for our opponents.
Because the protagonist was rising.
Yu Jin descended the steps unhurried, shoulders straight, eyes locked on the arena. His face bore no taunt, no childish excitement like so many displayed before fighting.
From the opposite side, a Tie Xuan youth already waited. Gray robe bound by leather sash, his confident smile far too assured for one facing an opponent with a higher realm.
Yu Jin stepped onto the granite floor for the first time. I watched with a flicker of anticipation. This was the main act beginning. If this world was like all the others I had read—and deep down, I was almost certain it was—this step marked the start of the chapter that would shift the entire plot.
Not for the others, of course. They remained blind in their noise.But for me, seated in the Zhuge pavilion's shadow, it was already clear: from here on, the story no longer belonged to the tournament.
It would revolve around Yu Jin.