Sacrifice

The courtyard.

Winter had passed, and the wind against the face had taken on a hint of early spring's warmth.

Brilliant sunlight spilled warm gold through the bare branches, illuminating the two figures facing each other.

Green Bamboo wore a green martial outfit, her index and middle fingers held together like a sword, her cuffs swaying faintly.

"Young Master, although I don't use a sword, the killing arts are already engraved in my heart. I can substitute my hands for a sword and still perform the Returning Wind Willow Dance...

"The so-called killing arts use the heat within the body to temporarily strengthen a certain part of it, greatly increasing its power and speed, and even producing certain peculiar traits.

"The killing move of my school focuses on the strength of the waist. In an instant, it can bend like a bow and twist and reverse, making the angle of attack strange and difficult to guard against.

"Please be careful, Young Master."

"Thank you for the reminder. I haven't learned any killing arts, so I'll still use battle techniques to fight. The Spirit Serpent Pathfinding Step has four routes and twenty-six steps, while the Spirit Serpent Hand has six routes and thirty-one hand techniques..."

A spar was not a fight to the death.

His mother's substitute maid had clearly stated her information, so Qi Yu did not hide his own.

After all, although his knowledge of stance techniques was now a hodgepodge, the only battle technique he knew was the Spirit Serpent Skill.

"Please."

"Please."

As their voices fell, Qi Yu had already assumed a boxing stance, his arm like a spirit serpent raising its head.

In the daylight...

The wind suddenly swept through the courtyard, shaking the branches...

Smack!

Green Bamboo moved.

Her movement was very "strange." She merely touched the ground with her toes, and her entire body became like a leaf caught up by the wind, floating forward neither hurriedly nor slowly.

Qi Yu lowered his shoulders and sank his elbows, his steps steady.

The Spirit Serpent... had always avoided confronting an opponent head-on. Thus, as soon as he moved, he swam to the side of the direction from which Green Bamboo drifted.

Green Bamboo seemed to be drawn along by the breeze stirred up by this "serpent's movement." Her body shifted slightly, changing its original direction and turning toward the other side.

The two sets of footsteps crossed, and before they knew it, they had traced a circle.

You were on this side of the circle, I was on that side. The two of them slowly paced along the circle, staring straight at each other, fully on guard.

Soon, both sides realized... If they kept circling like this, they might as well stop fighting.

Thus, the invisible circle gradually began to shrink.

When they entered within seven steps of each other, a surge of blood qi suddenly rose from Green Bamboo's body. Her toes struck the ground like an awl, and with a bang, her speed soared. Crossing her hands before her chest, she pounced at Qi Yu like a fierce wind.

For an Eighth-Rank martial artist, seven steps was already within arm's reach.

Qi Yu circulated his heat almost at the same time, and white mist roiled around his body.

Smack!

The two pressed close and exchanged their first blows, their arms colliding.

Green Bamboo felt as if a giant hammer had pounded the point of contact. Her arm instantly went numb, and her flesh began to tremble violently beyond her control.

She hurriedly borrowed the force to retreat, pulling away as she thought, How can Young Master's strength be so great? It's not as if I haven't sparred with people from the Spirit Serpent Martial Hall before, but if those people were venomous snakes... Young Master is practically a poisonous boa constrictor.

The moment Green Bamboo retreated, Qi Yu turned, like a spirit serpent wheeling around to bite. His fist shot from the side toward her neck.

At that moment, a bizarre scene unfolded.

Green Bamboo's waist seemed to have snapped as she suddenly folded backward, narrowly avoiding the incoming fist. Then, as if performing a magic trick, she spun rapidly through the air. Following the momentum of the rotation, her palm carved out a great arc and swept toward him in a waist-severing strike.

This technique was called the Returning Wind Willow Dance, a killing move of the Clear Wind Sword Hall.

The waist folded like a willow, while the swordplay was strange and uncanny.

Qi Yu's pupils contracted. I can't dodge it.

Yet when the hand-blade arrived, he instinctively used part of one of the eighteen ghostly postures of Hunyuan Contending Force. At an angle so incomprehensible it bordered on absurd, his abdomen instantly contracted like a spring. His body became like a full-moon bow, and he narrowly shrank away from the fierce slash. Then his missed fist came crashing down from above.

Green Bamboo's hand-blade missed. She hurriedly raised her left hand to block the swift, ferocious punch.

It would have been fine if she had not blocked it.

But the moment she did...

She felt a colossal force bearing down like a mountain.

Bang!

Green Bamboo was jolted by the force and slammed heavily onto the ground. Even her backside throbbed with pain and numbness.

But her reaction was astonishingly quick. The instant she landed, she became like a fallen leaf swept into a gale. Her waist twisted nimbly, and her long legs kicked forcefully. Like a leaf hesitating in the wind... she forcibly retreated half a zhang, then bent one leg and planted it firmly while the other stood straight and slanted upward. Her hands formed the defensive posture known as "Beauty Gazing into the Mirror."

Even so, her arms, body, and backside were all sore and numb to the extreme. She no longer dared clash head-on with Young Master...

After a single exchange, both sides could more or less tell the other's level.

Qi Yu had the advantage of Hunyuan Contending Force, which gave him greater strength.

Green Bamboo had the advantage of having learned killing arts in advance, which gave her superior technique.

Now, it came down to whether strength would overwhelm technique, or technique would overcome strength...

In the next instant, the two tangled together once more, though the sounds of their exchanges were few.

After a long while...

The fierce sounds of combat gradually ceased, and the two pulled apart again.

Several places on Qi Yu's martial outfit had been sliced open by hand-blades, the threads hanging down in wisps.

As for Green Bamboo, her arm had swollen high, mottled with blue and purple.

She looked at her Young Master with an expression of bewilderment and shock.

You've got to be kidding...

She had used an Eighth-Rank killing art!

Yet Young Master had not even learned any killing arts.

Everyone knew that killing arts were methods for mobilizing heat!

The difference between knowing and not knowing them was like heaven and earth.

Young Master... had actually managed to fight her to a draw like this?

What kind of joke was this?!

On the other side, Madam Liu promptly spoke up and said, "That's enough for now." Then she fixed her gaze on Qi Yu and said gently, "Let this battle wait until another day.

"As for A Bi... Mother won't try to transfer her away anymore.

"Mother now believes that you have enough ability to keep this household in order.

"And as for that Miss Qian, we'll drop the matter as well. You know the reason.

"From now on, Mother won't make matches at random anymore.

"Whichever family's daughter you take a fancy to, Mother will approve of her."

"Thank you, Mother."

As Qi Yu replied, he secretly marveled: The combat-power data truly did not deceive him. With both sides at forty-two, they really had fought to a perfectly even match.

Only, the way his and Green Bamboo's combat power manifested was still different...

It seemed that from now on, he had to trust the data, but he could not become blindly confident because of it and conduct no investigation at all.

After all, if Green Bamboo had known from the beginning that he possessed overwhelming strength, while he knew nothing of her fighting style, then under extremely harsh circumstances, he might even have been killed in an instant.

The matter of Green Bamboo came to an end.

Qi Yu, meanwhile, had to go to the Spirit Serpent Martial Hall to study killing arts.

As his mother, Madam Liu naturally began ordering people to prepare clean clothes, a visiting card, and funds for Qi Yu.

Once the room had quieted, she gently took her son's hand and examined him closely. Her eyes held satisfaction, but also a trace of heartache.

She knew of the undercurrents surging at the New Year's gathering that had just passed, and she also knew that her husband and that elder uncle had begun placing their bets on their son.

Such pressure... was difficult to bear.

Madam Liu felt deeply sorry for her son.

Qi Yu suddenly asked, "Mother, regarding the snowman and the earth-and-stone puppet, I asked you about them before.

"I also told you that on the way back from the outer city, it seemed as if something had been watching me...

"At the time, you told me to focus on martial arts, not to let myself be distracted, and not to go to the outer city.

"But now, you aren't stopping me from going to the outer city. Has the matter already been resolved? Am I qualified to know now?"

Madam Liu looked at him, her lips moving several times before she stopped herself. After a long while, she finally spoke, her tone carrying helplessness and caution. "It isn't that Mother deliberately wanted to hide this from you, nor is it that you lack the qualifications to know.

"It's only that this matter is tangled and complicated, involving far too many things.

"Quite a few of the guards and martial artists in our residence, especially those on your elder uncle's side, have already died unfortunate deaths. We simply never told you.

"The matter has not been completely settled. It's only that the outer city is temporarily safe now.

"Your father and I considered it again and again, and felt that it would be better for you not to know for the time being, lest it distract you and instead hinder your martial cultivation."

Qi Yu said, "Mother, since this matter is so complicated, I have no intention of knowing the details. Just tell me, what exactly was the thing that followed me that day?"

Madam Liu pondered for a long time before finally uttering a single word: "A sacrifice."

Qi Yu fell silent.

From that simple word, he could already deduce countless things.

What he had seen that day had clearly been a Paper-Grade demon.

And since Mother had called it a sacrifice...

Then... it seemed that in the darkness he had never seen, a certain kind of "entertaining the gods" blood battle had already begun.

After all, demons were the gods' most beloved sacrifices.

The carriage rolled slowly onward, crossing the shifting shadows on the city-protecting bridge before entering the outer city and stopping before the gate of the Spirit Serpent Martial Hall.

Qi Yu climbed down from the carriage. The person who came to greet him was not Hall Master Song Qinghong, but Song Xue.

The young Miss Song wore a plain martial outfit. Her almond-shaped eyes and high ponytail lent her a spirited, heroic air.

"Young Master Qi, have you gained some insight into the Spirit Serpent Fist and entered the Eighth-Rank realm, so you've come seeking the subsequent killing arts in hopes of winning the title of Martial Scholar in next month's martial examination?"

Qi Yu nodded.

The young Miss Song's voice fell into the clear snow.

"Killing arts aren't something you can master overnight. Young Master Qi, you'll have to come several more times."

Qi Yu smiled. "I've even brought my bedding. I plan to stay at the martial hall for a long time. Miss Song, will you take me in? If you don't... I'll have to sleep on the streets."

The young Miss Song was momentarily dumbfounded.

She had no idea how to respond to the youth's teasing.

She always felt that ever since this wastrel had begun learning martial arts, his temperament had changed.

Still, she was happy to teach him if he wanted to learn.

Even if no one cared about their arranged childhood betrothal anymore, she still remembered growing up with the youth before her...

Whether the marriage ultimately came to pass or not, she hoped that Qi Yu would be safe, well, and eager to improve.

"Fine. I'll arrange it for you."

The young Miss Song answered readily. Seeing Qi Yu look left and right, she added, "Father is currently in the secret chamber, teaching Junior Brother Chu with all his strength. As for Young Master Qi's killing arts, I'll have to teach you in his place."

Qi Yu sighed with emotion. "Uncle Song is putting so much effort into teaching Junior Brother Chu. It seems he has high hopes for him."

The young Miss Song said, "Some time ago, Junior Brother Chu was beaten up, and the reputation of our Spirit Serpent Martial Hall suffered quite a bit along with him. But Junior Brother Chu will personally reclaim what he lost in the Provincial Examination of the martial test, along with the reputation of our Spirit Serpent Martial Hall."

Qi Yu smiled faintly and said nothing.

He naturally knew about Han Yan brutally beating Chu Xiao, and he faintly suspected that Wang Yuan might be manipulating things behind the scenes.

Thinking back carefully on that gathering, every arrangement had been extraordinarily ingenious.

Qian Fu's appearance had resolved his hidden danger, while Han Yan's appearance had sparked a new dispute.

Han Yan's grudge against Qian Fu that day seemed to have been part of Wang Yuan's calculations, beginning with the words, "This is the peerless genius of the Black Bear Martial Hall."

Later, Wang Yuan had mentioned that the thing he was about to do would conflict with him a little. Now that he thought about it, could Wang Yuan be planning to bring down the Spirit Serpent Martial Hall?

As for the reason, it probably involved many complicated matters...

After the meal...

Qi Yu and Song Xue sat in silence, facing each other.

The young Miss Song suddenly rose and said, "Follow me." She then led Qi Yu into the courtyard beneath the moonlight and said calmly, "Killing arts are methods of mobilizing explosive blood. White Serpent Throat Seal and Azure Serpent Entwining Kill are the two great killing arts of our Spirit Serpent Martial Hall. They can be used with both hands, and also have accompanying spear techniques. I'll teach them to you now."