The medicine bowl sat beside the woodpile, its rim still smeared with half-dried mud. Chen Wuya leaned against it, his shoulder wrapped in fresh bandages. His fingertips trembled faintly, and the beads of blood seeping from his palm slid between his fingers, spreading into several dark-red stains on the coarse cloth.
He did not move. He merely closed his eyes for a while, and when he opened them again, a smile had already appeared. Several children crowded around him, holding steaming balls of coarse-rice rice. One of the bolder ones stuffed one into his hand. "Big Brother Chen, eat something! Old Wu Tou said you need to restore your strength."
He took the rice ball and bit into it. The coarse grains scratched his teeth, but he chewed with great seriousness. The crowd gradually gathered around, and laughter surged in from every direction. Someone brought out a jar of homemade rice wine, knocked off the sealing clay, and poured it into a bowl before offering it to him. "This bowl is to honor you for shielding us from disaster!"
He waved his hand and refused. "This wine packs a punch. If I drink it, I'm afraid I'll be laid up for three days."
Someone beside him laughed. "Then you have to drink it. Otherwise, who's going into the wilderness tomorrow to retrieve that black saber?"
Everyone burst into laughter. Chen Wuya laughed too, a dimple surfacing in his left cheek, though the corner of his eye gave an almost imperceptible twitch. The sluggishness in his meridians remained. The Misaligned Force was like sand and stones wedged in a river channel; every circuit tugged at a dull pain deep in his ribs. He kept his expression unchanged, using the motion of lowering his head to eat to force the remaining toxins toward his palm, then secretly wiping them onto the hem of his clothes.
Old Wu Tou came over leaning on his cane. He stood beside the fire without speaking, his gaze sweeping over Chen Wuya's bandaged shoulder before settling on his right hand, which had remained half-clenched the entire time.
"That palm strike of yours." Old Wu Tou suddenly spoke. His voice was not loud, yet it pressed down the surrounding din. "It wasn't luck."
The crowd fell silent.
"And it wasn't sorcery." Old Wu Tou stared at him. "It was the skill of surviving. Tell us—how exactly did you train it?"
Chen Wuya's chewing paused for a moment. He looked up at Old Wu Tou, then broke into a grin. "You all like walking straight roads, but I prefer taking detours. You train your martial arts by progressing step by step, but I insist on doing it backward—and what was the result? The person who took the wrong road ended up seeing the entire wilderness clearly."
Someone muttered under his breath, "You can accomplish things by fooling around? Then wouldn't anyone be able to become a master?"
Chen Wuya was not angered. He turned toward the speaker. "You farm. What do you do in a year of drought? Cling stubbornly to the old ways and wait for rain, or switch to planting drought-resistant millet?"
The man opened and closed his mouth but had no answer.
"Martial arts are the same." Chen Wuya patted his chest. "The orthodox ranks from ninth-grade to first-grade are the official road, steady and reliable. But what if my legs aren't up to it, and I can't walk that road? Then I'll stamp out a muddy path of my own."
The fire popped sharply, sending sparks flying.
"The Misaligned Force isn't reckless nonsense." He spoke slowly. "It's treating the 'impossible' as 'possible' and giving it a try. Try enough times, and it becomes your own path."
A young man squatted on the ground, a blade of grass pinched between his fingers. He listened intently, then suddenly asked, "But if everyone stops believing in rules and takes their own path, wouldn't the martial world fall into chaos?"
Chen Wuya glanced at him and smiled. "Do you think the martial world is very orderly right now?"
The young man was left speechless.
"Foreign spies in black robes come in and poison us—is that following the rules?" His voice softened. "They pick on the weak, wait until you're cut off from water and food, then burn the camp to the ground. When that happens, no one will discuss rules with you. My force may be crooked, but it protected people."
He paused, then raised his right hand and spread his palm. The wound had not yet scabbed over; streaks of blood crisscrossed it, while faint purplish patterns seemed to shift beneath the skin.
"Look at this. It resembles neither internal power nor true qi. It's wrong—wrong from the very beginning. But precisely because it's wrong, it can travel roads others dare not take and strike moves no one else can imagine."
Old Wu Tou nodded slowly. "Just as I used that step technique back then, and my fellow disciples cursed me for betraying the orthodox path. But in that battle, if I hadn't used that crooked step, the escort caravan would have been torn apart by the Northern Desert Wolf Riders."
"Exactly." Chen Wuya cut in. "So don't ask whether I walk an evil path. I only ask one thing—is it useful?"
Firelight flickered across his face, now bright and now dim. He swept his gaze over everyone. "The academy didn't want me, the sects wouldn't take me, and even practicing martial arts requires me to rely on 'wrongness' to survive. But as long as I can win, who still cares whether I use a crooked or evil path?"
The crowd fell silent for a moment. An old man murmured, "If the road can't be walked... then stamp out one yourself?"
"That's right." Chen Wuya nodded. "Stamp down a muddy path enough times, and it can become a great road."
The children crowded at the front, their eyes shining. A little girl tipped her head back and asked, "Big Brother Chen, can I learn too?"
He froze for a moment, then smiled and gently ruffled her hair. "You're still young. One day, when you discover that the methods others taught you don't work, while the one you came up with yourself does—that's when you'll understand."
She nodded, only half understanding.
Laughter rang out again. Someone raised a wine bowl and toasted him. This time, Chen Wuya did not refuse. He accepted it with his left hand and lightly touched its rim against the other bowl. "I'll drink one sip. Consider it my thanks."
He took a small sip. The sharp heat rushed straight down his throat, making him cough twice. Everyone laughed again.
Old Wu Tou stood there for a while without saying anything, then silently turned and walked toward his own shack. As he passed, he paused slightly and said in a low voice, "Don't sleep too deeply tonight."
Chen Wuya nodded, watching his back disappear into the depths of the lamplight.
The victory feast continued. People drank and joked, recounting how they had avoided being poisoned that night and how they had trembled with fear after hearing the sounds of fighting. Someone said they ought to erect a memorial tablet for Chen Wuya and worship it, provoking another burst of laughter.
He listened, occasionally joining in with a few words, but most of the time he simply sat there. His shoulder throbbed faintly, while the Misaligned Force circulated slowly within him like a winding little river, skirting blocked rocks and gradually clearing away the accumulated silt.
The night wind swept through the camp, making the fire sway unsteadily. A bird skimmed across the sky above, the sound of its beating wings clear to the ear.
He narrowed his eyes and stared at the bird's silhouette.
Its flight path was wrong—not a straight line, nor one of the usual arcs, but rising and falling erratically as if dodging something invisible.
His heart jolted.
That bird was flying to the rhythm of the Universe Reversal Step.
Without changing expression, he tapped his fingers lightly against his knee three times, stopped, then tapped three more times.
In the distance, at the entrance to Old Wu Tou's shack, a figure paused, then slowly lowered the bucket of water in his hands.
Chen Wuya withdrew his gaze and lowered his head to look at his palm. The purplish patterns beneath his skin slowly faded, and the temperature of his palm gradually returned to normal.
Someone brought over a bowl of hot soup and placed it beside him. He reached for it, but just as his fingertips touched the rim, he suddenly sensed a pair of eyes fixed on him from within the crowd.
He showed no sign of noticing, slowly lifted the bowl, and took a sip.
From the corner of his eye, he glanced over—it was an unfamiliar face, huddled at the edge of the crowd beneath a tattered cloak, head lowered, half a cold flatbread clenched in his hand.
But those hands were far too clean.
No one in the refugee camp had hands that clean.
He set down the bowl and quietly slipped a shard of broken pottery into his sleeve.
The fire crackled, and the laughter remained boisterous.
He leaned against the woodpile as if relaxing and closed his eyes.
The bird circled once, then suddenly dove downward and landed on the branch of a withered tree not far away. Its wings were slightly spread, and its tail feathers swayed gently.
The rhythm of their movement was exactly the same as the frequency with which he had tapped his knee moments earlier.
Before you continue