Under the gaze of Zhuge Su Yeon
Yu Jin's body was seated under the shade of the pavilion, while Yui Lan, with the silent precision of a spiritual physician, examined his arm and flank. Her fingers worked with firmness and care — enough pressure to align the flow of Qi and staunch the internal bleeding, but without turning the treatment into a spectacle.
The blood had already dried on his skin, stuck like a dark varnish over tense muscles. He did not complain. He did not frown. He did not look at the wound — he simply left his body where it was, as if the pain were no more than an inconvenient breeze unworthy of comment.
I could list every mistake he made in that arena. I could, with the coldness of an accountant, add the risks, subtract the defenses, and reach a simple calculation: there was no need to take that blow. None.
But that was the irritating detail: protagonists do not follow the arithmetic of common sense.
On that stage, Yu Jin had not fought merely to win. He fought as if victory needed to carry weight, even if that meant bearing scars in the process. To take a strike in order to create an opening… to grant an already breathless opponent another exchange of blades… to allow the other to believe, for an instant, that he might still overturn fate — all of this was waste under any martial logic.
And yet, it was exactly this waste that fed the kind of story that drags hot-blooded men to the edge of the arena. That silent theater in which the hero not only survives, but survives in the right way — with the bearing of one who faces the storm and, in the midst of it, still extends his hand to the enemy for one more dance.
This is the kind of absurdity that does not exist outside a stage. But it is also the kind of absurdity that builds legends.
There was something unsettling in it… and yet inevitable.
Protagonists carry a will that does not bend, even when it would be smarter to retreat. A will that measures not only strength, but what it means to be seen fighting.
And, watching my younger brother with his arm wrapped in the subtle glow of Yui Lan's healing, I had to admit — at least to myself — that this was perhaps the most refined of a protagonist's traits.
The unyielding will.
The herald announced the end of the qualifying round with the dragging voice of one who already knew that the real arena would only begin afterward. The crowd, still stirred by the last duel, took a few moments to disperse into conversations and wagers.
The pause before the finals always had that strange taste: not rest, but digestion. All, competitors and spectators alike, chewed over what they had seen and tried to predict what would come.
And yet, that day, there was something more.
The silence of the rival clans was not the silence of ordinary pauses. It was a different weight.
Morbid.
Dense enough to seep even into the backstage conversations, forcing some to speak lower, as if the air itself had become an accomplice to their thoughts.
I did not need to hear the words to understand. The mathematics was written plainly on the lists everyone held.
Twenty names had entered the qualifying phase. Now, only ten remained. And of those ten, five bore the surname Zhuge.
Half the list.
For us, it was merely the natural result of investment and method. For them… it was an insult.
The other clans did not want only to win the tournament — they wanted to reaffirm a narrative: that the "four greats" of Grey Heaven had, long ago, become only three. That the Zhuge clan was nothing more than an old name, preserved out of respect for tradition and nothing else.
Years of calculated suppression, of closed doors and veiled alliances, of keeping us outside the circles of influence, all to crystallize that idea. A slow work, done with the patience of one who digs a well to bury not only reputation, but memory.
And now, in a single afternoon, all of it had cracked.
Half the places in the finals carried our name.
Meanwhile, Yuan He, Han, and Tie Xuan — the three who were supposed to be the pillars of "supremacy" — held, each, one or two places at most.
I knew what they were thinking.
I knew because, in their place, I would think the same: it was not merely a partial defeat. It was a warning. And public warnings, in crowded arenas, cannot be ignored.
They would not let it pass.
It is not in the nature of families who build their power upon pride and history to accept such a blow and return home in silence.
Something would come.
Attempts to manipulate matchups. Veiled pressures on the judges. Backstage maneuvers to squeeze our youths into the first fights and make them bleed before reaching the podium.
But, honestly… it did not matter.
I did not enter this tournament to ask permission.
I let my eyes pass, one by one, over the five who would still carry the Zhuge name into the arena.
Fen was seated beside Rong, leaning in a nearly lazy manner, but with a hand quick as a market thief. Each time he was distracted by drinking or speaking, she stole another piece of meat from his plate. Rong pretended not to notice, but his eyes — trained to watch the battlefield — betrayed that he knew exactly what was happening. Even so, he did not stop her. This was the kind of war he accepted losing. Fen, in turn, chewed with the insolent calm of one who believes she will still be alive tomorrow.
Han, who had gone through the entire day without fighting, was leaning back against a bench, laughing at something Lin and Cai were saying. Cai gesticulated too much, as always, telling a story that certainly had more exaggeration than truth. Lin listened with that rare, discreet smile that did not appear easily. It was not hard to see: they had gathered to pull her back into balance after the previous fight. And, by the looks of it, they were succeeding.
Ren remained a little apart, conversing with Min. Both leaned forward, eyes fixed on the empty arena, as if reliving a specific strike or discussing details invisible to anyone who did not live inside a martial technique. Ren's posture was the same as always: feet firm on the ground, back straight, voice low. Min, on the other hand, leaned toward him with the eagerness of one trying to extract quick answers — and, inevitably, received calculated silence.
Yu Jin was still under Yui Lan's care, her hand firm on his arm, measuring pulses and Qi flows. The Lan sisters were close — the younger was seated beside them, speaking softly. The elder, seated at Yu Jin's other side, listened to something he was saying. It seemed the three had reached the practical harmony of those who share a single goal: keeping the brother whole until the next fight. He, naturally, seemed more concerned with listening than with answering, as if calculating the distance between pain and its usefulness.
And then there was Tao.
Lying on the bench, one arm over his eyes, his breathing too slow for someone who should be preparing to face cultivators who, most likely, wanted to see him dead. His head tilted slightly to the side, his leg stretched, taking up half the seat. To any observer, he could have been napping in a domestic courtyard, far from any tension. But it was not carelessness. Tao cultivated laziness the way others cultivate Qi — with discipline.
Thus were my five.
Five different pieces on the same board, each immersed in its own rhythm.
It did not take long for movement to return to the arena.
Hurried messengers crossed the courtyard, carrying lists still wet with ink. The sound of footsteps on the stone floor mixed with the sliding of doors being opened and closed by attendants, each trying to ensure their clan was in the right place to see the next act. The murmur of the crowd grew, like a tide announcing the wave before it appears.
The elders of the rival families adjusted their robes, feigning serenity, but with eyes fixed on the central platform as if expecting it to spit out some miracle. It was the collective breath before impact — the instant when even the oldest forget they have seen a hundred tournaments just like this.
And I, sitting there, had to admit… even I was beginning to feel something stir.
No matter how cliché the narrative — the protagonist who wins against the odds, the underdog who forces the heavens to look at him, the inevitable encounters that seem pulled from a lazy script… — seeing it unfold before my own eyes carried a different weight.
It was like watching an old play performed once more, but with actors who carried my blood.
And, against my better instinct, that was… thrilling.