The sword tip stopped three inches away, its chill making Chen Wuya's throat tighten. He did not blink or retreat. He merely slowly drew his hand back into his sleeve, though the warmth of that heat still lingered on his fingertips.
He gave a soft chuckle. His voice was not loud, yet it was like a pebble dropping into stagnant water. "The way you two draw your swords is pretty impressive, I'll give you that."
The sword-wielding disciple's pupils contracted. His wrist sank slightly, and the sword edge advanced another half-inch. "Stop showing off with your tongue! The energy in your body is in disarray, and there's movement in your chest. You're clearly refining a forbidden object. Hand over the fragment, and perhaps you can still avoid the agony of a soul-searching technique."
Chen Wuya tilted his head, a dimple appearing in his left cheek. His tone suddenly turned serious. "If I'd really stolen your stuff, would I have stood here waiting for you to find me? I'd have run, hidden, or burned it to buy myself a meal. But I didn't—because I genuinely don't know what this is."
He raised his hand and pointed at the compass hanging from the other man's waist. "You tracked me here with that copper trinket, which means it can only sense people who've 'come into contact with' it, right? Then let me ask you this—if this art is so precious, why wasn't it locked inside the mountain gate? Why did it end up in the hands of bandits instead?"
The two men's expressions shifted slightly.
The disciple holding the compass instinctively tightened his grip on the copper disk, his knuckles whitening. "That's a sect matter. It isn't your place, an outsider, to comment on it."
"An outsider?" Chen Wuya spread his hands. "But just now, you said there were fluctuations in the energy on me, and that I was 'refining' it. If I'm merely a commoner passing by who never even touched this thing, how could it react? Unless..." He paused, his gaze sweeping over the two men. "You're not even sure yourselves who triggered the change."
Wind swept through the treetops, carrying several withered leaves spiraling to the ground.
After a moment of silence, the sword-wielding disciple sneered. "Specious sophistry. You think you can muddle through with a few wild words? The Canglang Art is one of Azure Edge Sect's guardian arts. Every generation of inheritors has been personally verified by the sect master. How could a rustic brat like you, barely literate in the classics, presume to criticize it?"
"A guardian art?" Chen Wuya retorted. "Then why is there only half a sheet left? Was it torn off by someone? Or... was it incomplete to begin with?"
"Shut up!" the other man shouted. He abruptly raised the compass, its needle trembling violently. "If you dare slander the sect's inheritance again, don't blame me for showing no mercy!"
Chen Wuya did not panic. Instead, he stepped forward.
That single movement made both opponents tense their muscles at once.
But he merely raised a hand to press against his chest and frowned. "Have you ever considered this—some things are easier to see in their original form precisely because they're incomplete? Like a piece of broken porcelain. You can't see the cracks in an intact vessel, but once it shatters, every fissure spells out where it came from."
He stared at the half-unsheathed sword. "You practice a complete art. It emphasizes gradual progress, with energy following the proper meridians. But what I got was a fragment. The words are broken, the sentences incomplete. If I want to practice it, I can only guess blindly. And what happened? Didn't you feel an unusual kind of energy just now?"
The sword-wielding disciple's eyes flickered.
It was true—at that moment, the energy emanating from Chen Wuya had been neither the agitated disorder of an evil-path deviation nor the steady flow of orthodox internal power. It had been something... impossible to describe. It was like a chaotic chess game suddenly taking a new path. It clearly violated the rules, yet faintly revealed a certain underlying order.
"Ridiculous!" the compass-holder gritted out. "Martial arts have their established forms. How can you distort them however you please?"
"Distort them?" Chen Wuya laughed. "But don't you often say that comprehension matters more than bitter cultivation? Some people study for ten years without understanding a single word, while others grasp an entire text at a glance. Perhaps this art doesn't need to be 'complete.' Perhaps what it needs is... someone who doesn't understand the rules."
After saying that, he suddenly closed his eyes and murmured a sentence that neither man could understand.
The next instant, the heat within his body rose once more.
It still traveled upward against the spine, split after winding around his neck, but this time, the route was somewhat clearer. A faint tremor spread from his dantian to his limbs, and warmth bloomed in his palm again.
The fragment inside his clothes gave a light hop.
The two men opposite him sensed the abnormality almost simultaneously.
"He's circulating it!" the compass-holder growled. "Subdue him quickly! Don't let him fully activate the forbidden technique!"
The sword edge abruptly slid three inches from its sheath, and a burst of cold light flared.
Chen Wuya opened his eyes and looked straight at them. "Are you scared?"
"Impudent!" The sword-wielding disciple was furious. His wrist shook, and the sword tip hummed. "If I don't capture you today, how am I supposed to answer to the steward when I return?"
"Answer?" Chen Wuya shook his head. "You still haven't asked who I am, or checked whether I mean you any harm. You're relying on a sheet of paper and a compass to seize someone and drag him back to the mountain gate. You're not enforcing the law. You're blindly obeying."
He retreated half a step, spreading both palms and taking up an awkward, unorthodox starting stance. "I can return this thing to you right now. But first, you have to answer me one question—if one day you discovered that the art passed down by your founding master was actually wrong, would you keep making the same mistake, or would you find someone bold enough to make mistakes and change it?"
Silence settled over the woods.
Even the wind stopped.
The sword-wielding disciple's face turned livid. "This isn't you seeking to survive. It's provocation."
"I'm only telling the truth." Chen Wuya's voice was flat. "You think I'm a thief because I touched something I shouldn't have. But have you ever considered this—perhaps it was the one that chose me?"
"Demonic nonsense!"
Before the words had even faded, the sword was already out of its sheath!
A streak of silver light tore through the dim forest, shooting straight for his throat.
Chen Wuya did not dodge. Instead, he raised his right hand into the sword's momentum, spreading all five fingers with his palm facing the sky.
Just as the sword tip was about to touch his skin, the heat within his body abruptly stalled. Then it surged against the flow toward the Jianjing Acupoint, racing down along a meridian that had never existed before and merging into the Lung Meridian.
A strange force burst from his palm.
It was neither the release of external energy nor the dismantling of a technique, but a kind of... warped pull.
The long sword thrusting toward him actually veered slightly when it was only an inch from his throat.
The shift was minuscule, but it truly happened.
It was as if invisible threads hung in the air, gently plucking the metal from its course.
The sword edge skimmed past the side of his neck, shearing off several strands of hair before embedding itself in the tree behind him with a metallic clang.
Chen Wuya stood motionless, breathing a little heavily as a sheen of sweat gathered at his temples.
He knew he had not done this.
It was the system—once again, it had completed an impossible route.
At that moment, both Qingfeng disciples stood frozen in place.
"This... is impossible." The compass-holder stared at the crooked sword. "He didn't move. How did the sword veer?"
"Witchcraft!" The other man abruptly pulled the sword free and turned around, murderous intent surging in his eyes. "What method did you use to interfere with the weapon?"
Chen Wuya slowly lowered his hand, his palm still tingling slightly. "I didn't interfere with it. I merely... used the wrong method."
"Wrong?" His opponent laughed furiously. "You still dare mention the word 'wrong'?"
"Yes." Chen Wuya nodded. "Because you practice what's right, so you'll never imagine that sometimes, being wrong is the key that opens the door."
He looked at their faces, still brimming with shock, and suddenly asked, "When you practice the Canglang Art, have you ever felt that something was off? For example, does your energy pause when it reaches the Shanzhong Acupoint? Or does it always feel sluggish when you turn through the Guanyuan point?"
The two men froze in unison.
Those details had indeed appeared during the early stages of their training. Their masters had later explained them as "an unstable foundation," saying that diligent practice would resolve them.
Yet this youth, who had never even entered their sect, had actually described them with a single sentence.
"How do you know?" the compass-holder blurted out.
Chen Wuya smiled. "Because you practice the 'complete version.' I practice what it was supposed to look like in the first place."
"Arrogant!" the sword-wielding disciple shouted, raising his sword again. "Even if you're a genius, don't think you'll leave here alive today!"
The sword's momentum rose again, faster and fiercer than before.
Chen Wuya finally took a step back, crossing his palms before his chest as the heat inside him surged wildly.
He knew this sword would not veer again.
He had to take it head-on.
But just as he prepared to endure the blow, the fragment against his chest suddenly grew scorching hot, as if it had been set alight.
At the same time, that cold voice rang out in his mind:
"Accumulation of erroneous perceptions detected. Secondary reconstruction of the route complete."
A force he had never felt before exploded through his tangled meridians.
Before you continue