Chen Wuya withdrew his fingers from the edge of the rotting leaves, the tips smeared with wet mud and crushed grass. He did not rise at once. Instead, he pressed his palm to the ground, sensing the tremors of footsteps approaching from afar. The two men had split up to search: one had gone deep into the forest, while the other had turned back along the valley path, his pace growing faster and faster.
He knew his trick of leaping onto a horizontal branch and advancing upside down could not fool them for long.
Especially not the one carrying the compass. He did not know how that thing worked, but its ability to sense aura was frighteningly precise. The false footprints he had left behind could delay them only for a moment. Once they noticed something was wrong, they would lock onto his direction again.
He slowly let out a breath. The remnant page against his chest was still slightly warm, like a coal that had just been lit and hidden beneath his clothes. The battle just now had drained too much from him. His true qi had yet to recover fully, his Kidney Meridian was still somewhat sluggish, and his left leg was faintly numb.
But this was no time to regulate his breathing.
He pushed himself up from the ground and moved toward the edge of the forest, his motions slow and gentle, using the bushes for cover. He deliberately slowed every step, placing his feet on the soft layer of fallen leaves to avoid making a brittle crack. Yet his ears remained tuned to three movements at all times—the pursuers behind him, that moon-white figure hidden among the shadows overhead, and the faint sound of water coming from ahead.
The river was near.
He did not look back, but he could feel that the person in the tree was still crouched there, perfectly motionless, like a Stone embedded in the night. She had not left or made a sound, much less warned the Qingfeng disciples. That was enough.
At least she was not an enemy for the moment.
He lowered his body and passed through the final row of low bushes. The view before him suddenly opened wide. The wilderness stretched ahead, the terrain sloping downward, weeds rising higher than a person and rolling like waves in the wind. A black line meandered in the distance, and the sound of water striking rocks came intermittently, sometimes strong and sometimes faint.
That was it.
Just as he was about to take a step, a muffled shout suddenly came from the valley: "There are tracks!"
It was the disciple carrying the sword. He had already charged out of the path and was standing on a rocky platform, looking around. His gaze swept across the edge of the weeds, his brows tightly furrowed.
Chen Wuya's heart tightened. He immediately crouched down, scooped up a handful of wet soil, and smeared it over his face and collar. Then he pulled off several long blades of grass and wrapped them around his arm. He had learned this trick as a child, watching street performers escape from petty officials at the market—disguise yourself as a vagrant laborer, the least conspicuous sort.
Then, instead of hiding, he suddenly sprang to his feet and leaped onto a nearby boulder.
"Your Qingfeng Sword Sect is such a grand sect, yet you can't even tolerate a passerby?" he shouted, deliberately raising his voice with a hint of mockery. "I picked up a scrap of paper, and you want to cripple my meridians? Shouldn't your Sect Master burn every book in the world, then, so no one can read anything wrong?"
The rock rose nearly a man's height above the ground. Standing atop it, he was completely exposed.
The pursuers halted, just as expected.
The sword-bearing disciple narrowed his eyes at him and slightly raised the long sword in his hand, clearly hesitating for a moment. Such an openly provocative remark was not something a person fleeing for his life should say. Either he was insane, or... he had another plan.
That instant of hesitation gave Chen Wuya his chance.
He pushed off with his foot, but instead of fleeing in a straight line, he leaped backward from the rock. When his right foot touched the ground, he deliberately slipped, his entire body pitching sideways into the weeds. The fall looked clumsy, but in truth it matched a new variation of the Universe Reversal Step—he no longer pursued speed, but instead threw off the rhythm.
Ordinary people fleeing for their lives would choose a straight line, but he took an arc. Others feared tripping, while he deliberately fell. One staggering step, two chaotic steps, then on the third he suddenly accelerated again, like a broken dance step forcibly joined to the next sequence.
The system seemed to sense his intention, and that cold voice in his mind rang out once more: "Unconventional displacement pattern identified. Path reconstruction initiated."
A warm current rose from his Belt Vessel Meridian and instantly coursed through both legs. The Kidney Meridian, previously blocked by his forced reversal of breath, quietly cleared as well, and the numbness in his left leg vanished in an instant.
Using the surging grass as cover, he disappeared into the hollow after several leaps.
An angry roar came from behind: "Cunning bastard! He's playing us!"
"Don't lose him! The steward gave orders—alive, bring him back; dead, bring back the corpse!"
But when the two men reached the rocky platform, all they saw was a trail of chaotic footprints stretching into the weeds. They varied in depth, their direction drifting unpredictably, making it impossible to tell which were real.
"This footwork... it doesn't follow any pattern." The compass-bearer crouched down with a frown and lightly touched the ground with his finger. "But the aura inside him clearly follows the route of the Canglang Art. Why is his footwork so strange?"
"Who cares what crooked method he uses? Just chase him!" The other man had already leaped from the rocky platform and charged into the weeds with his sword drawn.
However, after they had gone only a dozen or so yards, they suddenly realized that the terrain beneath their feet had grown complicated. Water had pooled into a marshy pond in the hollow, while reeds grew everywhere. If they were careless, they would sink into a mud pit. Farther ahead, cliffs and steep slopes crisscrossed one another, making the place wholly unsuitable for a coordinated attack.
"He lured us here... deliberately." The compass-bearer finally realized something was wrong. "This place isn't suitable for a two-man encirclement."
"Then we'll search separately!"
"No. Those words may not have been provocation. He was testing our reaction. This man may well understand sword principles."
The two exchanged a glance, each seeing the wariness in the other's eyes.
By then, Chen Wuya had already crossed a low slope and was crouched behind a dried riverbed, panting for breath. He leaned against a flat Stone, one palm pressed to his chest as he felt the remnant page's warmth. That string of movements had nearly wrung him dry, but clearer than the exhaustion was a new realization.
Misaligned Force was not reckless nonsense.
It was using an opponent's blind spot as a blade.
They believed a fugitive would inevitably seek speed, so he deliberately moved slowly. They thought an expert's footwork had to be orderly, so he deliberately overturned and muddled it. They relied on the compass to track his aura, so he used false movements to disrupt their judgment.
The more he violated common sense, the faster the system completed the pattern.
Just like water—it never traveled in a straight line to begin with.
He closed his eyes and recalled that leap, that fall, that slip. Suddenly, he understood. The so-called Universe Reversal Step was never meant to emphasize form. It only needed to emphasize the result. So long as it made the enemy misjudge, even crawling on his stomach would be the correct move.
He opened his eyes and looked ahead.
The riverbank was already at the edge of his vision. Black water rushed onward, its broken reflections shimmering. Jagged rocks sprawled along the shore, while several withered trees jutted diagonally outward like skeletons stretching out their hands to beg for life.
He braced himself against the rock wall and rose, preparing to continue forward, when he suddenly heard a faint scraping sound from above.
He looked up. A horizontal branch swayed lightly, and through the gaps between the leaves, a flash of moon-white clothing appeared once more.
It was her.
Chen Wuya stopped walking. He neither approached nor spoke. After a moment, he said quietly, "Do you also think... they practiced it wrong?"
The figure in the tree paused slightly.
Then the hand wearing the deerskin glove slowly rose and made a gesture for silence.
The corners of Chen Wuya's mouth lifted, and he did not press her further. He turned and walked toward the riverbank, his steps far steadier than before.
He knew that some people would not easily declare their stance, but neither would they easily strike to hurt others. She stayed there not to capture him, nor to save him.
She was simply watching.
Watching whether this young man whom everyone called a "madman of crooked logic" could truly walk a new road no one had ever taken.
The wind swept up his coarse linen tunic, and the faded blue cloth belt at his waist snapped loudly. Step by step, he walked toward the river, his feet making faint sounds against the gravel.
Just as he was about to step onto the riverbank, he suddenly stopped.
He lowered his head and looked at his right hand.
At some point, a thin sweat had seeped from his palm, and his fingertips trembled faintly. It was not fear, but some kind of premonition—as if, with one more step forward, the Misaligned Force inside him would completely awaken, leaving him no way to turn back.
He slowly clenched his fist, then opened it again.
Then he murmured, "The next step... where should I 'misalign' it?"
Before you continue