Yunli Meets Her Match

The training ground was not far from the general's residence. The sun had bleached the flagstones pale, and they felt faintly hot underfoot.

When Jingxing followed Yunli inside, several groups of Cloud Knights were already sparring, the sharp clacks of wooden spears colliding rising and falling across the field. As soon as Yunli appeared, the noise thinned considerably. Someone whistled, only for an older squad leader beside him to smack him on the back of the head.

"Miss Yunli is taking the field herself today?"

"Who's that following her? How come I've never seen him before?"

Jingxing stood in the middle of the training ground, pretending not to hear their comments. He surveyed the surroundings through his lenses. The energy levels of these Cloud Knights looked no different from those of ordinary people. Then he looked at Yunli in the middle of the field. Old Iron rested quietly on her back, and she was like a furnace with its damper just opened, a striking contrast to the Cloud Knights around her.

Even among the Xianzhou celestials, not everyone can become a Pathstrider, Jingxing muttered inwardly.

He figured that as soon as he stepped onto the field, he would lose face. But Huaiyan had spoken, so there was no running away. His only choice was how to lose with a little dignity.

"Seriously... General Huaiyan, I've only learned a little military hand-to-hand combat."

Military hand-to-hand combat versus "Flaming Wheel, Eight Leaves"—could he win?

"Take your pick." Yunli walked over to the weapons rack and tilted her chin toward him. "Sabers, spears, swords, staffs, whatever you like."

Jingxing looked over the row of training weapons. He didn't know how to use any of them. But at least he remembered an old saying: an inch longer, an inch stronger. With a longer weapon in hand, he could at least keep her three paces away.

"Then I'll take this." Jingxing pulled out a wooden training spear with a rounded tip.

The wooden shaft felt heavy in his hands, heavier than he had expected. Imitating what he had seen in television dramas, Jingxing gripped the middle of the shaft with both hands and assumed a stance that even he thought was awkward.

Yunli had no intention of using Old Iron to bully him, either. She casually propped the edgeless greatsword against the weapons rack, then bent down and picked out the most ordinary training sword. She tested its weight and flicked the blade with a fingertip, drawing a clear hum from it.

"Here I come." The moment the words left her mouth, Yunli moved.

Fast!

Jingxing barely had time to see her shoulder dip forward before the flash of her sword swept toward him just above the ground. He instinctively stepped back, holding the spear shaft across his body to block. The wooden sword struck the shaft, jolting the web of his hand numb. He staggered back three or four steps before regaining his footing.

Yunli didn't pursue him. She stood where she was and tilted her head. "Should I hold back a little more?"

Jingxing said nothing. His hands trembled around the spear. Someone in the crowd of spectators laughed.

The second strike came.

This strike was even faster than the first, slashing diagonally down from the upper right. Jingxing didn't dare meet it head-on and turned sideways to dodge. But the instant he shifted his gaze, the Imaginary Energy around Yunli suddenly came into focus in the view filtered through Light-Severing Sea.

The energy flowed like water along her arms, waist, abdomen, and thighs. The instant she struck, it all surged toward her left shoulder.

Then a spot of light appeared below her left ribs.

It was as though Yunli herself had become a painting in his eyes. The flowing energy was the movement of the brush, the spirit of the work, the rhythm running through every line. And that point, bright enough to burn, was the painting's only flaw.

Jingxing had no time to think. Acting on instinct, he thrust the spear tip straight out.

Yunli's pupils contracted.

The timing of the thrust was uncannily precise. Before stepping onto the field, she had been planning to get through this fight "without taking a hit." Now she had no choice but to forcibly pull back her half-finished slash and knock her wooden sword downward, deflecting the spear tip.

Both of them retreated two steps. The laughter at the edge of the field stopped too.

"Even Yunli was forced back? Seriously?"

"Luck, right?"

Yunli shook out her wrist, and her gaze abruptly changed. The last of her laziness vanished, and the smile faded from her lips, replaced by the fighting spirit of someone who had found a worthy opponent.

"Not bad," she said. "Then I won't go easy on you."

In the sparring that followed, Jingxing learned through his own body what "not going easy" meant.

Yunli's sword strikes came as thick and fast as a downpour. Every strike aimed for a vital spot. But Jingxing's eyes were adapting quickly too. Every time Yunli swung her sword, the Imaginary Energy "painted" the move for her beforehand. Where the force began, where it flowed, where it was thick and where it was thin—all of it was clear at a glance to him.

The sword came, and he moved half a step to the side. The sword turned, and he flicked up the butt of his spear, striking the "thin" part of the blade exactly.

Yunli's force felt as though it had struck cotton, eight or nine parts out of ten dissipating. Growing somewhat anxious, she simply wielded the training sword in her hand with the imposing force of Old Iron.

Her shoulder dipped and energy surged toward her right arm, but the flash of her sword came from the left—a feint. A veteran at the edge of the field let out a low "Oh."

Jingxing paid the flash of the sword no mind.

In his eyes, the "sword" slashing toward the right was empty. No Imaginary Energy surged along with it. It was like a brush sweeping across paper without ink: no matter how pretty it looked, it was still a dry stroke. The real force remained contained in the left half of her body. He lowered the tip of his spear and struck firmly on the left.

Yunli's eyes lit up.

She withdrew her sword, stepped back half a pace, and lunged again. This time, her swordplay was three parts feint and seven parts real. But no matter how she changed her moves, Jingxing's spear always landed where the force was "real." Her feints were full of openings in his eyes; she couldn't fool him with a single stroke.

"You really are uncanny," Yunli said through gritted teeth as she attacked.

Yunli had always been proud of her swordsmanship. Even when it came to the beloved disciple of the Divine General of the Xianzhou Luofu, she didn't think they could do what Jingxing was doing before her eyes.

Jingxing had no time to answer. Every ounce of his strength was going into making his body keep up with his eyes.

Even so, every Cloud Knight at the edge of the field had stopped practicing and gathered in a circle, their eyes wide.

"Where did this kid come from?"

"He's blocked every one of Miss Yunli's strikes?"

Jingxing was simply responding according to his sense of the "painting." Wherever it was empty, he filled it; wherever it was bright, he avoided it. This was an instinct he had developed over decades of painting in his previous life and this one. Only now, these eyes had carried it unchanged onto the training ground.

What was more, Yunli's swordplay was extraordinarily beautiful in his eyes. Her strikes were as dense as a downpour, yet not a single stroke was disorderly. As he watched, the Imaginary Energy deep within his body unexpectedly burned a little brighter of its own accord and seeped out through his limbs, making his numb arms feel much better.

So beauty wasn't confined to paintings.

But although Jingxing had gained a little insight, he had never learned any martial arts, and all he could do now was defend.

After blocking he didn't know how many strikes, Jingxing tried to counterattack. The spear tip had barely advanced half a foot when Yunli's sword was already against the shaft, pressing down along it toward his wrist.

Jingxing swung upward, and Yunli used the motion to leap back. She landed lightly thirty feet away and drove the wooden sword into a crack between the flagstones with a snap.

"I'm done, I'm done." She folded her arms and turned her face aside, cheeks puffed out in a huff. "There's no fun in fighting someone like you who only defends and never attacks."

Jingxing stood where he was, panting heavily and leaning on the spear shaft. Sweat dripped from his chin, striking the flagstones and leaving little dark spots. The crowd was quiet for a few seconds before someone started clapping, and then applause spread through the spectators.

"Nice work, young man!" someone called out. "Want to join the Cloud Knights?"

Yunli turned and glared at the speaker. The applause immediately died down, turning into a burst of laughter that people tried hard to suppress.

She walked back with her sword planted there and stopped in front of Jingxing, lifting her face to study him. Her gaze was complicated: unwillingness to concede, curiosity, and a trace of approval so faint that even she didn't notice it.

"Hey," she suddenly said. "You really don't know how to fight?"

"I really don't," Jingxing said honestly. "Before today, I'd never even touched a spear."

Yunli clicked her tongue. "Your first time holding a spear, and you blocked every one of my strikes. That kind of instinct... Don't tell me you follow the Path of the Hunt too."

Jingxing couldn't explain the images he saw, so he could only smile and shrug.

Yunli didn't press him. She scratched her head, sighed, and turned to leave the field. "Come on, I'm starving. Let's eat first. I can't believe I didn't beat you, so I'll treat you."