Old Wu Tou's hand was still suspended in midair, his fingertips trembling faintly. The long-lost brightness on his face had yet to fade. Chen Wuya stared at him, as though seeing clearly for the first time what lay in the old man's eyes—not gratitude, nor shock, but an almost stubborn certainty.
The wind swept through the woods, stirring the teacup between them. The water's surface rippled.
Old Wu Tou slowly lowered his hand, and a low sigh rolled from his throat. "All my life, I've escorted caravans, nursed injuries, and dodged calamities. I've trusted only three things: horses don't lie, blades don't lie, and force paths don't lie." He paused, his gaze settling on Chen Wuya's face. "This 'Misaligned Force' you taught me shouldn't exist."
Chen Wuya said nothing. He merely lifted the teacup and took a sip of cold tea.
"Thirty years ago, I heard about a martial art from a wandering traveler who was on the verge of death." Old Wu Tou lowered his voice. "He said that sect practiced by abandoning the orthodox meridian paths, deliberately choosing severed meridians, reversed qi, and countercharging methods. They called it the 'Azure Waves Counter-Current Art.' Few people mastered it, but once they struck, when ordinary techniques met their force, it was like waves crashing into reefs—the waves shattered themselves."
Chen Wuya's finger traced a slow circle around the rim of the cup.
"What happened afterward?"
"Afterward, that entire night, the sect was slaughtered." Old Wu Tou's expression darkened. "Their mountain gate was drenched in blood. Even the babies in swaddling clothes were spared nothing. But some said an infant had been carried out by someone who escaped, half a tattered manuscript tucked against its chest. After that, no one in the martial world ever mentioned the sect again."
Chen Wuya lowered his head and studied his palm, its lines clear as some unsolved diagram.
"You're saying... that was only a legend?" he asked.
"I don't know." Old Wu Tou shook his head. "But when I practiced the force you taught me last night, a power surged upward from the Jianjing Acupoint. It was exactly like that traveler's description of 'reversed qi charging through the barrier.' This isn't a coincidence."
Chen Wuya smiled faintly. "Maybe I was just messing around and happened to stumble onto it?"
"Messing around?" Old Wu Tou glared at him. "You made the ruined old bones of someone like me draw true qi three inches backward through his meridians in a single night? How could the world contain such a coincidental bit of messing around?"
The two fell silent.
Several sounds of chopping wood came from the distance. A few refugees were gathered around a log, splitting firewood. Children chased and played nearby, their scattered laughter drifting into the woods.
Dawn broke.
The morning mist had just dispersed, and the camp had returned to its usual bustle. Chen Wuya crouched beside the stone platform, wiping an iron skewer with a rough cloth. Old Wu Tou sat beside him, rubbing his datewood cane, his eyes occasionally sweeping over Chen Wuya's profile.
"Did you hear?" A hunter returned from outside with a wild rabbit slung over his shoulder, his voice loud. "That young man who smashed seven blades in the refugee camp was actually a scholastic failure kicked out of the academy!"
Another person chimed in, "Really? A bookworm could beat seven martial artists?"
"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 never even touched the weapons—he shattered them all with vibrations."
"Tsk. A loser turning into an expert. What a strange fate."
Chen Wuya kept his head lowered, the cloth moving back and forth over the iron skewer. His hands did not stop, and he did not look up.
Old Wu Tou suddenly spoke. "You were really expelled from the academy?"
Chen Wuya hummed. "I couldn't pass the civil examinations, and I talked back to my teacher."
"What a pity," Old Wu Tou murmured.
"What's a pity?" Chen Wuya looked up at him, the corners of his mouth slightly raised. "If I'd stayed at the academy, I'd still be memorizing the Book of Rites. How could I be here teaching you how to stay alive through crooked logic?"
Old Wu Tou did not laugh. He only sighed softly.
"You certainly take things in stride."
"Your origins can't be changed." Chen Wuya thrust the iron skewer into the mud and clapped his hands. "Since everyone says I'm a loser, then I'll be a loser to the very end. The result is right there anyway—their blades broke, and I didn't."
Old Wu Tou stared at him for a moment before suddenly saying, "This force of yours doesn't seem self-created."
"Oh?"
"It's too complete." The old man shook his head. "Even crooked logic forming a system means there's a root behind it. You claim you practiced blindly, but your force paths are more precise than anyone's. This isn't chance."
Chen Wuya smiled but did not refute him.
He rose and walked toward the center of the camp.
Several 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 did not chop immediately. Instead, he retreated half a step, lightly turning his foot as his body slid diagonally aside, avoiding the wood chips that flew up. His step was as light as treading on water, yet so swift that no one had time to react.
"Brother Chen, where did you learn that footwork?" a youth asked despite himself.
"I figured it out myself." Chen Wuya grinned as he swung the axe in a full arc and brought it down. The log split in two with a crack. "You study books and characters. I study how to take a beating without dying."
Laughter erupted around them.
"Then did you specialize in getting beaten?"
"Exactly." He wiped away his sweat. "After taking enough beatings, you naturally learn where to dodge, where to collide, and where to let the force rebound."
Another wave of laughter swept through the crowd.
Old Wu Tou stood in the distance, quietly watching the scene. Leaning on his cane, he unconsciously traced arcs along its head with his finger, as though recreating the sensation of last night's countercharge.
Only when someone approached him and asked in a low voice, "Old sir, do you really think Brother Chen came up with all these strange moves by himself?" did Old Wu Tou respond.
He only gazed at Chen Wuya's back and muttered, "He isn't walking some wild path... He's walking an old path that's been severed for thirty years."
At night, the camp quieted down.
Chen Wuya leaned against the base of the wall, eyes closed as he regulated his breathing. The daytime discussions echoed repeatedly in his ears—"academy outcast," "scholastic failure's comeback," "unorthodox martial arts"... He heard them clearly, but paid them no mind.
Footsteps approached from far away.
Old Wu Tou came over with his cane and sat down beside him.
"I can't sleep." The old man spoke in a hoarse voice. "I keep tossing and turning, always thinking of one thing."
Chen Wuya opened his eyes.
"Thirty years ago, I escorted a shipment past Southern Ridge." Old Wu Tou spoke slowly. "That night, I stayed in a ruined temple and encountered a gravely wounded Daoist. He was at death's door. Before he died, he grabbed my wrist and said, 'The Azure Waves shall not perish; Misaligned Meridians Connect to the Divine. If you encounter one who wields counterforce, you must seek its source.'"
Chen Wuya's breath caught faintly.
"I didn't understand at the time and took it for the ravings of a madman. But thinking back tonight, could the 'one who wields counterforce' he spoke of have been... you?"
Chen Wuya said nothing.
"You said you found those tattered pages in a mass grave?" Old Wu Tou stared at him. "Who would throw half a martial manual into a place like that? And why did it happen to be you who found it?"
"Maybe it was a coincidence."
"There aren't that many coincidences." The old man shook his head. "The Azure Waves Sect was destroyed back then because someone had their eyes on their Misaligned Meridians method. It wasn't martial arts. It was a taboo. Few practiced it, and even fewer understood it. But once it appeared, it was certain to bring disaster and death."
Chen Wuya finally spoke. "So you believe me now? I'm not a loser. I'm... a remnant of some sect that was wiped out?"
"I don't know who you are." Old Wu Tou's voice sank. "But I know that this force in you shouldn't exist in this world. It should have been burned clean long ago, together with that great fire."
The wind passed through the treetops, making the fire crackle.
Chen Wuya lowered his head and looked at his hands, as though realizing their origins for the first time.
"What if that's true?" he asked softly. "What if I'm not the son of the Chen family, but a successor of the Azure Waves Sect? What if what I learned wasn't crooked logic, but an orthodox path that had been forgotten?"
Old Wu Tou did not answer.
He merely slowly raised his right hand and once again traced that twisted path through the air—palm facing downward, then turning upward, like twisting hemp rope, like untying a dead knot.
Just as his fingertip was about to complete the final circle, a familiar current of air rose from the inside of his forearm, surging against the meridians toward his shoulder blade!
His whole body trembled, and he abruptly opened his eyes.
Chen Wuya sensed it as well and immediately sat upright.
Old Wu Tou's hand was still shaking, but there was no pain on his face—only an almost frenzied epiphany.
"So that's how it is..." he murmured. "Wrong isn't wrong. It's another kind of right. Reversal isn't opposition. It's opening a different path."
He turned toward Chen Wuya, his gaze blazing. "You didn't inherit the Azure Waves Sect's legacy... You're the one it chose."
Chen Wuya's heart jolted.
"That massacre back then may not have been meant to silence them." Old Wu Tou's voice was so low it was almost inaudible. "Perhaps it was meant to wait for someone to appear—someone who could walk the Wrong Path, yet make it through."
One corner of the fire died down, and embers drifted upward.
Chen Wuya slowly raised his hand, facing Old Wu Tou.
The two turned their wrists at the same time, their palms shifting from an outward push to an inward spiral as the intent of their force converged in the air.
An invisible shockwave spread from their palms, startling the night birds roosting beneath the eaves.
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