Jianghu Rumors, Background Gradually Exposed

Old Wu Tou's hand was still suspended in mid-air, his fingertips trembling slightly, the long-lost radiance on his face not yet faded. Chen Wuya stared at him, as if seeing for the first time what lay in the old man's eyes—not gratitude, nor shock, but a kind of almost stubborn confirmation.

The wind, whistling through the trees, stirred the teacup between them, causing the surface of the water to ripple.

Old Wu Tou slowly lowered his hand, a low sigh rumbling from his throat. "In my life, escorting goods, healing injuries, avoiding trouble, I've only believed in three things: horses don't lie, knives don't lie, and the flow of energy doesn't lie." He paused, his gaze falling on Chen Wuya's face. "This 'misaligned energy' you taught me, it shouldn't exist."

Chen Wuya didn't reply, merely picked up the teacup and took a sip of the cold tea.

"Thirty years ago, I heard a dying traveler mention a martial art," Old Wu Tou lowered his voice. "He said that sect didn't train according to the righteous path of meridians, but specifically chose methods of breaking meridians, reversing energy, and counter-current flow. They called it the 'Azure Waves Counter-Current Art.' Not many people mastered it, but once they attacked, ordinary moves encountering their energy would shatter like waves crashing against a reef."

Chen Wuya's fingers traced a circle along the rim of the bowl.

"And then?"

"Then, that night, the entire sect was slaughtered," Old Wu Tou's eyes darkened. "Their mountain gate was washed in blood, not even infants in swaddling clothes were spared. But some say a baby was carried out and escaped, clutching half a tattered page. Later, no one in the Jianghu ever mentioned this sect again."

Chen Wuya looked down at his own palm, its lines clear, like some unsolved map.

"You say... that's a legend?" he asked.

"I don't know," Old Wu Tou shook his head. "But last night, when I practiced the energy you taught me, a force pushed up from my Jianjing acupoint, exactly like the 'reverse energy surge' the traveler described. This isn't a coincidence."

Chen Wuya smiled. "Perhaps I was just messing around, and it happened to align?"

"Messing around?" Old Wu Tou stared at him. "You can make an old bone like me, crippled for half my life, circulate true energy three inches in reverse overnight? Where in the world is there such a coincidental 'messing around'!"

Silence fell between them.

The sound of chopping wood drifted from the distance. Several refugees were chopping at a wooden stake. Children chased each other nearby, their laughter occasionally scattering into the woods.

Daybreak.

As the morning mist dissipated, the camp resumed its daily bustle. Chen Wuya squatted by a stone platform, wiping an iron rebar with a coarse cloth. Old Wu Tou sat beside him, rubbing his date-wood cane, his gaze occasionally sweeping over Chen Wuya's profile.

"Did you hear?" a hunter, carrying a wild rabbit, returned from outside, his voice loud. "That young man who shattered seven knives in the refugee camp was actually a dropout from the Academy!"

Another chimed in, "Really? A bookworm can beat seven Jianghu fighters?"

"Absolutely true! Someone saw it with their own eyes. They said the moves that kid used didn't look like proper martial arts at all; he didn't even touch their weapons, just shattered them all."

"Tsk, a nobody becoming a master, fate is truly strange."

Chen Wuya continued to look down, the cloth moving back and forth on the iron rebar. His movements didn't stop, nor did he look up.

Old Wu Tou, however, suddenly spoke. "Were you really expelled from the Academy?"

Chen Wuya grunted. "Couldn't pass the imperial exams, and I talked back to the teachers."

"What a shame," Old Wu Tou said softly.

"What's a shame?" Chen Wuya looked up at him, the corners of his mouth lifting. "If I had stayed at the Academy, I'd still be reciting the 'Book of Rites.' How could I be here teaching you how to survive with crooked logic?"

Old Wu Tou didn't smile, only sighed softly.

"You certainly take it in stride."

"My background can't be changed," Chen Wuya stuck the iron rebar into the dirt and clapped his hands. "Since others call me trash, I'll be trash to the end. The result is there anyway—they broke their knives, I didn't."

Old Wu Tou stared at him for a moment, then suddenly said, "This energy of yours, it doesn't seem self-created."

"Oh?"

"It's too complete," the old man shook his head. "Even crooked logic can form a system, which means there's a root behind it. You say you're just messing around, but your energy flow is more precise than anyone's. This isn't accidental."

Chen Wuya smiled, not refuting him.

He stood up and walked towards the center of the camp.

A few children were gathered around the woodpile, watching the adults work. Chen Wuya walked over and casually picked up an axe. The crowd parted to make way.

He didn't chop directly, but instead took half a step back, his footwork shifting lightly, his body angling to avoid the flying wood chips. His steps were as light as treading on water, yet so fast that no one could react.

"Brother Chen, where did you learn that footwork?" a young boy couldn't help but ask.

"I figured it out myself," Chen Wuya smiled, swinging the axe in a wide arc. With one chop, the woodpile split in two. "You study characters, I study how not to die when getting beaten."

Laughter erupted around them.

"So, you specifically practice getting beaten?"

"That's right," he wiped his sweat. "The more you get hit, the more you naturally know where to dodge, where to brace, and where to let the energy rebound."

The crowd laughed again.

Old Wu Tou stood in the distance, watching the scene quietly. He leaned on his cane, his fingers unconsciously tracing arcs on the head of the staff, as if replicating the sensation of the reverse surge from last night.

Until someone approached him and asked in a low voice, "Old man, do you think this Brother Chen really came up with these strange moves all by himself?"

Old Wu Tou didn't answer, only gazing at Chen Wuya's retreating back, and murmured, "He's not walking a wild path... he's walking an old path that was broken for thirty years."

At night, the camp fell silent.

Chen Wuya leaned against the wall, eyes closed, regulating his breath. The discussions from the day echoed in his ears—"Academy outcast," "Dropout's comeback," "Heretical martial arts"... He heard them clearly but paid them no mind.

Footsteps approached from afar.

Old Wu Tou walked over, leaning on his cane, and sat down beside him.

"I can't sleep," the old man said, his voice hoarse. "I toss and turn, always thinking about one thing."

Chen Wuya opened his eyes.

"Thirty years ago, I was escorting a shipment and passed through the Southern Ridge," Old Wu Tou said slowly. "That night, I stayed at a ruined temple and met a severely injured Taoist priest. He was dying. Before he passed, he grabbed my wrist and said, 'Azure Waves endure, Misaligned Meridians Connect to the Divine. If you see one who goes against the current, you must seek their origin.'"

Chen Wuya's breath hitched.

"I didn't understand at the time, I just thought he was raving. But thinking back tonight, could this 'one who goes against the current' he mentioned... be you?"

Chen Wuya didn't speak.

"You said you found tattered pages in a mass grave?" Old Wu Tou stared at him. "Who would throw half a cultivation manual in a place like that? And why would you be the one to find it?"

"Maybe it was a coincidence."

"There are no such coincidences," the old man shook his head. "The Azure Waves Sect was destroyed back then because someone was after their 'misaligned' methods. It's not martial arts, it's forbidden. Few people practice it, and even fewer understand it. But once it appears, it inevitably brings a deadly disaster."

Chen Wuya finally spoke, "So you believe me now? I'm not a good-for-nothing, I'm... a survivor of a destroyed sect?"

"I don't know who you are," Old Wu Tou's voice deepened. "But I know this energy in you shouldn't exist in this world. It should have been burned to ashes along with that great fire."

The wind rustled through the treetops, making the campfire crackle.

Chen Wuya looked down at his hands, as if realizing their origin for the first time.

"What if that's true?" he asked softly. "What if I'm not Chen family's son, but a successor of the Azure Waves Sect? What if what I'm learning isn't crooked logic, but a forgotten righteous path?"

Old Wu Tou didn't answer.

He slowly raised his right hand and drew that twisted trajectory in the air again—palm down, then flipping up, like twisting hemp rope, like untying a death knot.

Just as his fingertips were about to complete the last circle, a familiar flow of energy rose from the inside of his forearm, rushing up his shoulder blade against the meridians!

His body trembled, and he suddenly opened his eyes.

Chen Wuya also sensed it and immediately sat up straight.

Old Wu Tou's hand was still shaking, but there was no pain on his face, only a realization that was almost ecstatic.

"So that's how it is..." he murmured. "Wrong isn't wrong, it's another kind of right. Against isn't reversed, it's a different path."

He turned to Chen Wuya, his gaze intense. "You didn't inherit something from the Azure Waves Sect... you are the one they chose."

Chen Wuya's heart trembled.

"That massacre back then might not have been to silence them," Old Wu Tou's voice was so low it was barely audible. "Perhaps it was to wait for someone to appear—someone who could walk a crooked path, yet still walk it successfully."

A corner of the campfire died down, and embers floated up.

Chen Wuya slowly raised his hand, facing Old Wu Tou.

They both turned their wrists simultaneously, their palms pushing outward then rotating inward, their intent clashing in the air.

An invisible ripple spread from their palms, startling the night birds roosting under the eaves.