Under the gaze of Zhuge Su Yeon
The fourth fight did not begin with trumpets. It began with the specific silence that the crowd saves for encounters the city already understands, beforehand, deserve respect. The herald raised the staff, and in the pause between the motion and the voice, I felt the entire arena hold its breath.
— Zhuge Fen!
The murmur that rippled through the stands had the texture of a blade dragged across stone. Fen rose like someone abandoning a game she had already fully understood, yet decided to play anyway. She passed by us with her usual light steps, her short shadow stitched around her ankles. Small, loose posture, two daggers strapped to her belt — the gleam of cold steel flickered and vanished, like a secret that does not need to be announced.
— Yuan He Lin!
The Yuan He heiress stood with the controlled elegance of one who has trained more years than she likes to admit. White robes without useless adornments, waist aligned, hips relaxed. The sister who had turned Min into a lesson. The audience looked at her as if watching water in motion: no one realizes the weight of the current until they are inside it.
Fen descended the steps first. She did not hurry her body; she hurried the air. Around her, that subtle displacement almost no one notices began to form: a bubble of wind flowing in and out without asking permission — the prelude to the Steps of Free Wind. The arena recognized the promise, and the murmur of the spectators gave way to attentive caution. Lin followed, without haste and without hesitation, her feet touching the floor with the lightness of someone adjusting a crooked painting, not killing.
Both bowed. The judge lowered his hand.
Fen moved first — not with an attack, but with a circle. The line traced by her feet was small, almost careless, like one measuring the reach of a table before pulling out the chair. Her right hand lowered, fingers touching the tip of the dagger, without drawing it. Her eyes did not search Lin's face; they searched her hips. Predators start with the axes.
Lin did not take the bait. She shifted her weight to the back leg, turned her shoulder a palm's breadth, and offered her profile. It was a "yes" that wanted to be heard as "maybe." The first step of water.
Fen vanished half a finger's breadth into the air, her entire body leaning left, reappearing to the right — the Step of Free Wind does not vanish: it displaces. The first dagger came clean, horizontal, seeking the soft strip between ribs and breast edge. A cut to demand truth, not to kill.
Lin's palm answered with irritating precision. She did not block. She touched. A single touch on the blade's face, the point where steel accepts advice, and redirected the line of the cut by a grain. The edge passed like wind across her robe's hem. Fen was already withdrawing her arm when Lin's counter rose: an ascending half-moon slash aimed at the base of the chin. Beautiful. Dangerous.
Fen retreated on her heel, her body folding at the center like a bow that refuses to snap. The tip of the ascending blade kissed a single strand of her hair — nothing more. The vortex behind her swelled just enough for my skin to sense it before my eyes: the air had chosen to accompany her.
The first minute was what it should be: study without courtesy. Fen made fox circles, touching the border of enemy territory and retreating, releasing small bites that demanded responses. Lin returned with contained displacements — not long steps, but subtle shifts of axis and brief turns of the hip. Her posture said: "I do not run; I reposition." In silence, I nodded. This was what she had done to Min — she did not oppose strength; she turned strength into a mistake.
Fen understood in the second minute. The smile that does not appear appeared inside her eyes. Her left hand finally raised the second dagger; not to strike, but to indicate. Blade tips, nearly parallel, carved a slit in the air. Lin perceived it. Two decisions rose at the same time: hers — to dress the attack with calm — and Fen's — to strip that calm away.
Steps of Free Wind
The air behind Fen spun visibly for an instant, like water sucked into a drain. A gust caught Lin's robe hem and pulled it a finger back. Just enough to steal the promise of her spin. The fox entered.
Two blades, two heights. The right descended for the tendon above the ankle; the left climbed for the flank under the last rib. A bite and a half. The crowd saw only the flash.
Lin closed her arm, forearm touching the low blade, and spun upon her leg and center. A short spin, ugly, perfect. The upper dagger grazed her robe and ate cloth; the lower scraped the shin bone with the sound of contained rage. Lin, in her way, paid the price of choice: she accepted scratched skin to save her structure. Her palm again found the dagger's back and pushed — not far, but downward. No one topples the fox from above. Lin tried to fold Fen's base.
Fen yielded a grain, the vortex swallowed the fall, and she returned. The trails of her daggers left two invisible half-moons in the air, which only my eyes would care to keep. The audience shouted late, as always.
From then on, neither side had the luxury of "play." Fen emptied her face — play is for warming hands, not winning. Lin lost the veneer of "all in order"; her left sleeve already bore a shadow of red that did not suit her elegance. The judge followed with sharp eyes but did not interfere. There was no foul play, only the honesty of styles.
Fen began stitching Lin's rhythm. For her, that is the same as opening a door without touching the handle. She struck not where the blade should enter, but where Lin's body liked to be a second later. Daggers dislike debating with swords; daggers prefer conversing with emptiness.
Lin noticed. She changed the conversation. She stopped spinning to yield. Abandoned two beautiful responses for two blunt ones. Short palms on the blade; low elbow guarding the house; hip locked for a micro-instant, like stepping on an uneven stone curve. Water turned to polished rock within. Rock learns to be water when it suits.
The following minutes were the day's most expensive. Fen won distance; Lin won time. Fen entered; Lin punished the precise instant the fox's foot had not yet landed. Fen's cuts began charging interest on her body: her left forearm gained a fine groove, top to bottom, where Lin's sword collected a small mistake. Lin, in turn, paid with strips of cloth and two shallow cuts on her flank. Blood without drama. But blood, in the end, is always an account the body demands.
The Steps of Free Wind changed shape — less circle, more funnel. The wind no longer followed her path but shoved her at the right moment. Fen "fell" into a void her own step had created. The fox slipped through a gap that did not exist three heartbeats earlier. Lin answered with the best card she had at the level Sky Gray understands: reading and misalignment. Her palm struck the base of Fen's wrist, shifting it a finger. The dagger slid slightly — just enough not to pierce. Lin's shoulder followed, punishing the approach with bone. Fen absorbed it with her scapula and let the pain pass, like letting a brief guest sit on the couch without offering tea.
Balance. Still. Costly balance.
Then the crowd, who love strong colors, learned to watch without paint. Because there was an exchange that had no brilliance, but had destiny.
Lin chose to cut the circle. Water needs a riverbed; she decided to become a dam. She advanced. For the first time, she advanced. Her sword came in a horizontal slash, not to kill, but to push Fen into the zone where steps lose conversation. Whoever attacks the fox with a straight line does not want to wound her; they want to force her to choose between two voids.
Fen chose the third.
She did not leap back, nor dive forward. She disappeared a palm downward, folding her body like wet silk, and the wind, obedient, did the ugly part: stealing from the enemy blade the half-finger of height that sustained its perfect design. The slash lost certainty. Fen entered under guard, left arm grazing cloth and blood, right dagger rising on a short diagonal, impossible for swords that love extension. A simple strike, that does not ask applause. Too simple to be beautiful, too beautiful to be avoided.
Lin saw — late, but saw. She turned her hip and lowered her elbow to give bone to the blade. Fen's steel sang, bit bone, and did not enter. The fox felt the music in her arm. Lin paid with skin — the cut opened a narrow mouth along her arm's back, from which a small, shy red line escaped. On paper, the exchange was hers. The math did not disturb me. A feline that tastes bone too early may bite with more haste than needed. Fen did not. She recovered axis. Two tiny steps. Vortex breathing at her heel.
Halfway, the fight turned into water stone. The judge had already shifted his feet thrice; the crowd burst and hushed in waves. At each of Fen's advances, someone remembered she was fourteen years old with two daggers; at each of Lin's counters, someone remembered experience does not need age: it needs insistence. Rival clans — and yes, I see their eyes like lantern lights in the dark — began counting possibilities too large for their pockets.
On the thirtieth useful attack, Fen erred. The mistake was not technical, but human. Hunger to close the flank opened a palm more of shoulder, and Lin, who collects details like jewels, landed a short thrust into the deltoid. Fen's body yielded a step. Did the dagger fall? No. Her grip tightened. Pain entered the place the fox reserves for long guests. Blood dripped — three drops and a stubbornness. The crowd groaned as if their own skin had split. Min, two rows above, pressed her fingers into her knee until the knuckles whitened. Rong stopped chewing. Yu Jin inclined only his chin. I remained as always: seated, mute, knowing fate loves to create problems exactly the size of our patience.
Lin sensed the moment and did what must be done when the wind shifts: she did not argue with it. She repeated the thrust, now for the space between biceps and rib. Fen dodged — too late. The blade scored her side and took skin. The fox retreated two lines. Lin, cold, advanced one. At this pace, stories change names.
The advantage, if it existed, lasted a held breath.
Fen did something off-script: she slowed down. Foxes do not slow to deceive; they slow to listen. The Steps of Free Wind shrank until they were nothing. The air behind her stopped. For two strikes, she moved like a common person.
That deceived water.
Lin returned to making beautiful spins. The absence of wind gave her home back. Her hip turned, her foot overcame the invisible friction that had hindered it, and her sword resumed the design the city had learned to respect. The adjusting cut came — neither high nor low, the mid-height that imposes sobriety. Fen received the blade's back on one dagger and, with the other, promised a reply that never came. At the third exchange of this new rhythm, when Lin believed she had regained her riverbed, Fen returned the world to what it had always been.
The funnel of wind opened at once.
Not behind, but to the right. Not constant, but abrupt. The air tugged Lin's sleeve at the exact instant her spin demanded continuity. Her shoulder locked for the fraction of a second eyes cannot measure. Her foot wanted to finish the circle; her robe's hem — damn robe hem — wanted to stay. Between one will and another, a narrow valley opened: the place where the fox passes.
Fen entered. Not with both blades, but with one. The left trapped Lin's sword at the base — not to hold, to delay — and the right vanished from my sight for an instant. When it reappeared, it was already above Lin's wrist, at the fold where elegance ends and anatomy begins. The cut came short and low, at an angle that refuses virtue. Lin's hand lost part of its command. The sword nearly fell; it did not because educated stubbornness also has strength.
Lin retreated two steps, and the water searched for the riverbed the wind had stolen. It found half. Fen did not chase immediately; one never runs after what is still water. She circled. The cut on her shoulder throbbed; the blood now threatened to turn into argument against her. Still, her breathing was whole. Her face, empty. Foxes do not brag. They kill or wait.
The penultimate exchange belonged to Lin. Perhaps out of pride, perhaps calculation, she chose to tell the audience that beauty does not require witnesses, but sometimes accepts a crowd. She delivered a sequence I could teach at a school: short diagonal, wrist sweep, low thrust, rise along the flank, return to center. Fen refused only what was necessary. A scratch on the hip, another on the forearm. The judge leaned forward. I counted: four cuts, none on bone. Fate held its breath.
The last exchange belonged to the one who, in fact, deserved it.
Fen began not with her foot, but with her chin — a half gesture promising left and delivering right. Lin bought the feint for a fraction, enough to align her hip the wrong way. The wind, obedient and ungrateful, blew not to help Fen, but to keep Lin where she was. It is good when the elements understand the secondary role they are meant to play.
Both daggers rose together; it looked like choreography. It was not. The left again sought Lin's wrist, not to cut, but to shove. The right disappeared into robe folds, entered through the window left by the aborted spin, and touched where the body changes its tune: the hollow between clavicle and neck, a finger down and inward, the narrow road to the heart. It did not pierce deep — Fen does not kill in tournaments — but entered enough to end the story at the exact point where stories should end.
Lin froze with dignity. The arm that held the sword yielded a grain. She gripped the blade with the other hand for an instant — educated stubbornness, still — and let go. The sound of steel on the floor was more discreet than the arena wanted; more elegant than I expected.
— Victory: Zhuge Fen! — announced the judge.
The crowd exploded late — explosions are always late when the final move uses more anatomy than drama. The Yuan He clan, in the seats of honor, kept the composure demanded of those who invest in reputations. No boos, no loud sighs. Only eyes that promised to remember this cut longer than they would like. Mei Lan clapped openly, showing the silly pride she always feels for Fen, and Rong, relieved, returned to chewing as if the meat on his plate depended on it. Han smiled a smile that could fit on a coin. Yu Jin did not smile — protagonists train their mouths for other uses.
As for me, I merely exhaled the weight heaven had insisted on pushing onto my chest during those costly minutes.
Fen returned slowly, her wounded arm hanging only as much as necessary to avoid granting pain ownership. As she passed me, she did not raise her daggers like someone asking for applause. She sheathed them with the care of one tucking small children to sleep. When our eyes met, I said nothing. She needed nothing. Foxes do not need praise; they need license to hunt tomorrow.
On the stage, two attendants respectfully escorted Lin away. The white sleeve stained red bore the serenity of things that do not apologize for existing. She walked straight, chin aligned, dignity intact — and that, in the end, is the difference between those who come to the arena to show clothing and those who come to learn where their own seams lie.
The fourth fight, at last, paid for the day. Not with applause, but with the confirmation of what I already knew: our enemies try to cut the roots; they forget foxes dig beneath. Fen won when she ceased being wind and became silence. When she abandoned haste and listened to the world complain. When she traded the beauty of trajectory for the truth of the target.
If that is only coincidence, then the heavens are writing fanfics full-time.
I, as always, preferred to call it method. And method, unlike applause, sleeps well.