There was still a little time before the second watch. The spectators, brimming with curiosity, let their eyes flit from one fighter to the other without lingering, and kept their comments fairly restrained.
Even Western Regions Protectorate Official Pang Jing sat much more formally. But the person he was most interested in was still the Dragon King. Suddenly turning toward him, he said, "The Princess loves this sort of thing. If she knew about this match, she might have come with me."
Pang Jing's tone was calm, as if he were merely making idle conversation. There was no hidden meaning in it.
Gu Shenwei, however, was accustomed to reading too much into things. He found it puzzling that Princess Huaping, so favored by the old emperor and wielding such great power, would marry Pang Jing and willingly accept a marriage in name only. As far as he knew, Pang Jing came from the imperial in-law clan but stayed clear of court struggles. He had held no important post before; his trip to the Western Regions was his first service to the state.
"The Western Regions are no place for people from the Central Plains. The Princess made the right choice by staying away," Gu Shenwei said.
Pang Jing laughed twice, then his expression suddenly darkened. "'The Western Regions are no place for people from the Central Plains.' If you said that at court, those ministers would drown you in spit. Luo Qikang didn't believe it. He was always saying that martial arts were the same throughout the world—that on the surface they changed a thousand ways, but in truth there were only a few fixed types, perhaps no more than ten. As long as you identified the type, you could always find a way to counter it. Hah, but he