Skillful Mediation Resolves Internal Conflict

The wind whipped sand grains against his face. Chen Wuya stared at the three branching fissures ahead, blood from his palm seeping through the cloth strips and dripping onto the sand. He did not raise a hand to wipe it away. He merely slid his short sword gently into the edge of a crack, testing whether that familiar tremor remained.

The foreign cavalry had already pushed twenty paces ahead without authorization. Their centurion reined in his horse and looked back, challenge in his eyes. The Southern Suppression Camp immediately formed ranks, archers nocking and drawing their bows as the commanding officer shouted coldly, "What are you trying to do? Lead us all into a trap?"

"We're scouting the route." The centurion swung down from his horse and planted a foot beside a fissure. "You people of the Central Plains only know how to wait for orders. By the time you're done waiting, the enemy will have buried their blades."

"Who are you calling afraid to act?" The commander glared at him. "What we uphold is discipline, not cowardice!"

Chen Wuya slowly straightened, the meridians in his right arm twitching again. He said nothing. Walking over, he crouched and used his sword tip to draw two lines in the sand—one winding and heavy, the other straight and swift.

"I used to study swordsmanship," he said. His voice was not loud, yet both sides stopped moving. "Qingfeng Sect taught that 'the opening stance should be like clouds.' I said that was wrong—it should be 'the descending hand should fall like a smashing hammer.' My master said it was crooked reasoning. In the end, I won the match with that crooked reasoning."

Everyone fell silent.

He pointed to the two lines. "Your formations are like this curved one—steady, able to withstand pressure. Their