That night passed without incident.
The next day, the second round of matches also went off without much surprise. Feng Baobao won simply by beating up a strange guy whose qi seemed to affect other people, and advanced. As for Annie, she let an Inhuman who played with fire burn her for several minutes. Then, while her opponent and countless spectators stared in disbelief, she kicked him out of the ring without a scratch and easily won, advancing to become one of the sixteen seeds in the next round.
As for that idiot Zhang Chulan, there was even less to say!
His opponent, the "Azure Talisman Deity" Dan Shitong, had already been bribed handsomely by Annie. So the other man simply never showed up that morning!
Amid the boos and insults from countless spectators—"fixed match," "shameless," "low-down," "vile," "disgusting," and "utterly without shame"—Zhang Chulan, the "Lotus That Won't Sway," smoked like Xu San and Xu Si and looked cool. He won without throwing a single punch, advancing once again.
Why the "Azure Talisman Deity" Dan Shitong hadn't shown up was something only he and a handful of others knew. At any rate, the Tianshi Mansion judge, who wore an exasperated expression and watched Zhang Chulan with a meaningful look, certainly had no idea.
In any case, when Dan Shitong showed up in the afternoon, looking positively radiant, he refused to say a word about Zhang Chulan despite everyone's questions. He was even less willing to admit that Zhang Chulan had threatened him or that there had been any sort of backroom deal. He merely said that something had come up at the last minute, so he had withdrawn from the match, and that he had already notified the Tianshi Mansion.
Even so, quite a few Inhumans who knew Dan Shitong