The figure that had leaped over the southern wall had barely landed when Chen Wuya rose to his feet, dragging the iron poker diagonally along the ground. He planted his foot hard and headed straight for the camp gate.
The wooden barricade creaked open. He stood beneath the wooden sign reading "Misaligned Energy Training Institute," the wind tugging at the hem of his clothes, yet he did not spare the person on the ground a glance.
"So you're the first one here to pay the tuition?" he said, his voice neither high nor low. "What a pity—we don't accept dead customers here."
The man froze, the short dagger in his hand still pointed at the center of the open ground. Clearly, he had not expected his opponent to speak first instead of attacking.
"Let me ask you." Chen Wuya took half a step forward, tapping the iron poker against the ground. "Are you a foreign-spy agent, or a cur working for them? If you're truly a hero of the jianghu, give me your name."
The other man's lips moved, but no sound came out.
"Not going to say?" Chen Wuya smiled. "Then I'll speak for you—you're a desperado who slipped over from Qingyang Town last night. You lost all your money at the gambling den, heard there was a bounty here, and decided to cut off my head in exchange for silver. But you didn't dare come in broad daylight. You specifically chose to climb the wall at night, which means you know perfectly well that what you're doing is a shameful business."
Before his voice had even faded, dust billowed along the distant official road. Dozens of figures approached one after another, their weapons glinting coldly in the sunlight.
Old Wu Tou quietly retreated behind the woodpile. The young man led several people into formation on either side of the sign, while the women tightened their grips on their bamboo spears and stood in a row. The older man discreetly memorized the faces of the people in front, his pen scratching over the paper.
The newcomers stopped ten paces from the camp. A bearded man strode forward with a saber and shouted angrily, "Chen Wuya! You slaughtered spies indiscriminately, secretly kept the Canglang Art, and colluded with the northern border! Your crimes are unforgivable! Today, we have come in the name of Jianghu justice to take your life!"
Chen Wuya swept him a glance, then suddenly raised his hand and pointed toward the camp behind him. "You say I killed people? Fine. Then tell me—are these commoners people or not?"
No one answered.
"Those spies poisoned wells, forced people to sell their sons and daughters, broke into homes at midnight to rob them, and chopped off the legs of refugees before throwing them into ditches." His voice gradually turned cold. "Where were you when they were killing? That 'Jianghu justice' you keep talking about—why didn't I see you go chop off their heads? Yet now you have the nerve to stand here, raise your saber, and accuse me of 'slaughtering indiscriminately'?"
The bearded man's face flushed red. "You... you're clearly taking the opportunity to establish your might and mislead the people!"
"Mislead them?" Chen Wuya sneered. "I taught them that taking two steps backward while walking could let them stomp on an enemy's toes. Is that misleading them? I told them that tilting their shoulders while carrying water would actually save strength. Is that misleading them too?"
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the crowd. "How many of you have practiced martial arts? How many understand internal breath? But do you know what it means to strike force back against force? Do you know why the harder you struggle when being thrown, the easier it is for someone to pin you down?"
A sheet of silence descended.
"You don't, do you?" he said with a soft laugh. "Then what gives you the right to say that what I know isn't a skill? Just because you're holding sabers, I'm supposed to kneel and confess?"
Someone muttered under his breath, "He's from some crooked, evil school..."
"Evil school?" Chen Wuya spun around and fixed his eyes on the speaker. "Who are you calling evil? Did your master teach you that a sword must always come straight at an opponent, or did your patriarch decree that you can't lean your body when attacking? Have you ever seen an ox plow a field? The plowshare has to pull at an angle for the soil to turn deeply. Martial arts are alive. They aren't dead words carved into a monument!"
The man gripped his saber hilt in anger, but a companion beside him pulled him back.
At that moment, a young man in white stepped out from the crowd. A new sword hung at his waist, and his expression was haughty. "Chen Wuya, you've used your words to mislead the masses, incited civilians to take up weapons, and disrupted the order of the martial world. How is such conduct any different from that of the Demonic Cult?"
Chen Wuya narrowed his eyes and studied him for a moment before suddenly smiling. "That sword of yours cost three taels of silver, didn't it? You bought it the afternoon before yesterday, at the eastern corner of the black market, from a one-eyed old man."
The young man's pupils contracted.
"Don't believe me?" Chen Wuya continued. "Then let me tell you this—the old man had a patch on his right cuff, with stitches crooked as a crawling earthworm. His left leg was lame, and he always stepped forward with his right leg first. When you bought the sword, he counted the silver with his left hand, even though he was clearly right-handed. Did you notice any of that?"
The young man stood frozen in place.
"He was an accomplice of the spies." Chen Wuya's voice suddenly dropped low. "I captured one of his fellow conspirators and questioned him. You don't go suppress the bandits—instead, you come to suppress me? Is the 'order' you speak of really just letting a man like that live, sell swords to people in the martial world, and then lure them here one by one to their deaths?"
He suddenly strode forward, slamming the iron poker into the ground and sending a ring of dust billowing up.
"Anyone who wants to make a move today, I won't stop you. But don't use 'justice' as a fig leaf! If you came for money, then say openly that you came for money. But if you reach for the reward silver with one hand while calling me a villain with the other—then you're the truly filthy ones."
The crowd began to stir.
Some lowered their heads in silence, some exchanged glances, and several quietly retreated half a step.
The bearded man roared, "Stop making excuses! You refuse to hand over the Canglang Art, which proves you have a guilty conscience!"
"Oh?" Chen Wuya raised an eyebrow. "Then tell me, how many volumes does the Canglang Art have in total? What is the first sentence of its opening? Which meridians must the circulation of energy pass through?"
The man was left speechless.
"Can't say?" Chen Wuya pressed forward a step. "Then you haven't even seen the complete manual. What makes you certain I have it? Or is it that you don't even know what I'm supposed to practice, yet you still dare come kill me?"
He looked around the entire gathering, his tone suddenly turning mocking. "At last night's gambling match in town, the odds were one to five that I wouldn't survive three moves. How many of you standing here placed bets? Has anyone already decided where to exchange my severed head for money?"
Everyone wore different expressions.
"Since you all came for silver," he said, spreading his hands, "then let's put a clear price on it. My head is worth five hundred taels. But there's one rule—if you want to cut it off, you'll first have to ask whether these people agree."
He stepped aside, revealing the commoners behind him standing silently with crude weapons in hand. The elderly leaned on canes, the women gripped cooking pots, and the youths clenched sharpened bamboo poles. There were no shouts and no trembling, only a silent line of defense.
The sunlight struck the iron pots, reflecting a painfully dazzling glint.
The bearded man gritted his teeth. "You think a rabble like this can scare us away?"
"I'm not trying to scare you." Chen Wuya spoke calmly. "I'm telling you that the people you want to kill aren't just one person. They're everyone in this camp. Every time you swing a blade, a hundred pairs of hands will raise firewood cleavers, iron forks, and stones. How many can you kill? Ten? Twenty? But as long as even one survives, they'll remember who made the first move."
He slowly raised the iron poker and pointed it at the other side. "If you want to fight, I'll take you on. But don't talk about eliminating evil in the name of justice—you're not worthy of those three words."
The young man in white finally spoke. "You're nothing but a good-for-nothing expelled from an academy. What gives you the right to teach people martial arts?"
"A good-for-nothing?" Chen Wuya laughed. "Then tell me, what counts as 'proper martial arts'? Do you have to memorize formulas, strike set poses, and move rigidly for it to count? Then let me ask you—on a battlefield, will the enemy wait for you to finish taking your horse stance before attacking?"
He suddenly turned around and shouted at the young man, "Demonstrate Inverted Step to Break a Direct Charge!"
The young man, who had trained for many days, immediately moved. His steps were as erratic as a drunkard's, yet in an instant he shifted three feet sideways, dodged the imagined lunge, and thrust out a palm with his counterattack.
"See that?" Chen Wuya pointed at the young man. "He used to be a spy who only knew how to follow orders. Now he has learned to be wrong—to walk crooked, and live longer because of it."
He looked back at the crowd. "You say my logic is crooked? Yet it's precisely this crooked logic that lets a man tending a fire unleash a shock of force, and lets someone carrying water tread through a blade's edge. What you fear isn't me. It's this—you thought only you understood martial arts, and now even the mud-legged commoners can practice it."
The bearded man was enraged. He pointed his saber at Chen Wuya. "Enough nonsense! If we don't take you down today, the people's anger will never be appeased!"
"The people's anger?" Chen Wuya scoffed. "How many of the people behind you truly want me dead? How many are merely here to watch the excitement and wait to pick up the scraps? You shout 'the people's anger,' but where are 'the people'? You're the only one who's angry, aren't you? Because you've discovered that your intimidating act doesn't work here."
He leaned on his iron poker beneath the wooden sign. The wind tousled his hair, yet he stood as steady as a rock.
"The institute officially begins classes today." His voice rang out. "Today's lesson is called—How to Use Twisted Logic to Overthrow the So-Called Righteous Path."
He raised his left hand and made an inviting gesture.
"First student, step forward."
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