Tang San was about to fire his Sleeve Arrow when Ji Yuan forcibly caught his breath in his chest.
The mechanism clicked against his palm, but the arrow did not fire.
Anger rose in Tang San's eyes.
He did not understand why his body had seized up again at the critical moment, but the hidden arrows were already upon him. He could only wrench his waist aside and let one tear through the fabric over his arm.
Xiao Wu rushed straight to the edge of the arena from below. "Zhou Ming, you dare use a Hidden Weapon!"
The teacher's expression changed too. "Stop!"
Zhou Ming had no intention of stopping.
He had taken Xiao Chenyu's money and still had another trick up his sleeve. As long as he drew Tang San's blood, anything that happened after the poison took hold could be passed off as an accident.
The wind shifted beneath his feet as he circled behind Tang San, a second volley of hidden arrows already poised between his fingers.
Ji Yuan would not let Tang San kill someone in front of a crowd.
Nor would he let Zhou Ming walk away so easily.
Roots burrowed beneath the arena and threaded along its wooden beams. Their metal-hardened barbs concealed their presence as they surged toward the spot where Zhou Ming was about to land.
The moment Zhou Ming's foot touched down, a spike pierced his shoe sole.
"Ah!"
He screamed and dropped to his knees, the hidden arrows in his hand flying wildly off course.
Ji Yuan did not drive the spike too deep. He only delivered the poison.
Datura Snake venom sapped Zhou Ming's Soul Power, a hallucinogenic toxin nurtured from Xiao Wu's essence scrambled his mind, and a trace of the iron-mother metal aura Ji Yuan had just digested made the wound hurt to the bone.
Tang San split into three or four figures before Zhou Ming's eyes.
He could not tell one from another. All he heard was Xiao Chenyu shouting from below.
"Useless bastard! Get up!"
The poison twisted that voice into something hostile.
Zhou Ming turned and flung his wrist wildly. Three hidden arrows shot straight at Xiao Chenyu.
Xiao Chenyu's face changed. "Zhou Ming, have you lost your mind?"
His wolf Martial Soul Possession activated, and he tumbled awkwardly aside.
The first arrow struck the ground beside his foot.
The second grazed his trouser leg.
Liu Qiang blocked the third with a wooden placard. Black spots spread across its surface where the arrowhead sank in.
The surrounding students recoiled in an uproar.
The teacher charged onto the arena and barked, "Zhou Ming, stop!"
Clutching his foot, Zhou Ming rolled across the floor and shouted incoherently, "Stay back! Stay back! Tang San's behind me!"
Tang San stood where he was, his expression grim.
His Sleeve Arrow had not fired, and his Blue Silver Grass had not touched Zhou Ming. Yet Zhou Ming's foot had been injured out of nowhere, and he had turned and shot at Xiao Chenyu. No matter how Tang San looked at it, something was strange.
Xiao Wu leaped onto the arena and planted herself in front of Tang San. "Teacher, he used poisoned arrows first! Everyone saw it!"
Xiao Chenyu scrambled up from the ground, his face ashen. "Tang San did something!"
Tang San looked at him. "I stood here without moving."
Xiao Chenyu pointed at Zhou Ming's foot. "Then what happened to his foot?"
Before Tang San could answer, Xiao Wu shot back, "Can't he have tripped on his own? Aren't you older students the best at beating up your own people?"
Someone below the arena could not help laughing.
Her words struck the sore spot of Xiao Chenyu's humiliation the day before, and his expression darkened further.
The teacher crouched to examine Zhou Ming's foot. There was blood on the shoe sole, and the tiny wound had turned black.
He picked up the hidden arrow embedded in the placard. After smelling its tip, his face hardened.
"Poisoned."
Zhou Ming was still shouting. "Boss Xiao, save me! You're the one who sent me! You're the one who paid me!"
At that, the entire field erupted.
Liu Qiang hurriedly backed away.
Xiao Chenyu rushed over to cover Zhou Ming's mouth. "What nonsense are you spouting?"
Xiao Wu kicked his reaching hand away. "What, trying to silence him?"
Xiao Chenyu snapped, "Little girl, stop making vicious accusations!"
Tang San walked up to the teacher and raised his sleeve, torn by the hidden arrow. "Teacher, the arrow came from a blind spot beneath my ribs. If I'd dodged any slower, I would have been poisoned."
The teacher's expression grew darker still.
He could pretend not to notice the swapped roster, but poisoned arrows and a student naming Xiao Chenyu before a crowd were another matter. He could not bury this.
"Xiao Chenyu, Zhou Ming, come with me to the academic affairs office."
Xiao Chenyu gritted his teeth. "Teacher, Tang San must have done something too!"
Tang San looked at him. "Where's your evidence?"
Xiao Chenyu had no answer.
Ji Yuan had already withdrawn the wooden spike from Zhou Ming's foot. The gaps between the arena planks looked as they had before, with only an inconspicuous crack among the old damage. No one would think to inspect it.
Ji Yuan's roots retreated underground, swept away every trace of poison, and plugged the hole with wood dust.
Clean.
Tang San did not know what had happened. Xiao Wu thought Zhou Ming had reaped what he sowed. The teacher had seen only poisoned arrows and a student losing control.
Xiao Chenyu could suspect whatever he liked, but he had nothing to show for it.
Two teachers hauled Zhou Ming away. He was still shouting nonsense. "Boss Xiao, I didn't mean to shoot you! I saw Tang San standing beside you!"
Xiao Chenyu's chest heaved with rage, but he did not dare say another word.
Xiao Wu pulled a face at him. "Picking up a rock only to smash your own foot—that's you, isn't it?"
Xiao Chenyu turned to glare at Tang San. "Just you wait."
Tang San's expression turned cold. "I will."
Ji Yuan had no interest in empty threats.
The crowd was what mattered.
When chaos broke out, the students on the field had pressed together. Their Soul Power fluctuations tangled into a mess, while fear, anger, and excitement sent blood and vigor surging upward.
It was the perfect moment to cast a net.
Rather than act through Tang San, Ji Yuan released a cloud of spores fine as dust through the gaps beneath the arena.
Wind blew in from the far side of the field.
The spores drifted through the crowd, brushing hems, hair, shoes, and cuffs.
Junior students, the teacher handling registration, senior elites, even several instructors watching from the sidelines—Ji Yuan marked them all.
For now, the spores neither drank blood nor released poison.
They only hid.
When Tang San stepped down from the arena, Xiao Wu was still inspecting his sleeve. "Were you hurt?"
Tang San shook his head. "It only tore my clothes."
Xiao Wu frowned. "No. We'll have Grandmaster take a look later. You can't be careless around poison."
Tang San had concerns of his own.
Zhou Ming's injury was too strange.
He asked quietly, "Xiao Wu, did you see anyone make a move just now?"
Xiao Wu rolled her eyes. "You're still making excuses for them? Zhou Ming's done so many rotten things that he slipped on his own feet. Even the heavens couldn't stand him anymore."
Tang San did not ask again.
Ji Yuan gently withdrew the roots coiled around his Heart Meridian.
Good.
Xiao Wu would explain it as luck, Yu Xiaogang as rejection, and Tang San as an error with a Hidden Weapon.
They would all circle around the truth.
The tournament was suspended for the time being.
The teachers took Xiao Chenyu and Zhou Ming away, but the students remained gathered on the field, unwilling to leave.
Wang Sheng ran over, looking thoroughly delighted. "Boss, Xiao Chenyu's in trouble this time. His own man exposed him in front of everyone!"
Tang San shook his head. "Not necessarily. His father is the city lord, after all."
Xiao Wu bristled. "Does being the city lord's son mean he can use poisoned arrows?"
Wang Sheng lowered his voice. "You're right, but the academy might not dare punish him too severely."
Tang San looked toward the academic affairs office, his voice cooling. "If there's a next time, I won't hold back."
Ji Yuan heard him and found it laughable.
Hold back?
You might not even get to decide when you make a move.
Word soon came from the academic affairs office.
Zhou Ming was disqualified from the tournament and given a major demerit for using poisoned hidden arrows. Because Xiao Chenyu was implicated, the academy issued him a stern warning and suspended him from the remaining matches.
Xiao Wu slapped the table at the result.
"That's it?"
Wang Sheng gave a wry smile. "Sister Xiao Wu, that's already a heavy punishment."
Furious, Xiao Wu wanted to go argue with someone, but Tang San stopped her. "Making a scene now won't help."
"So we just let it go?"
Tang San looked in the direction Xiao Chenyu had left. "Remember it for now."
Ji Yuan was even better at remembering than Tang San.
Deeper spores had already settled inside Xiao Chenyu, Liu Qiang, Zhou Ming, and several other senior students.
They were not threats.
They were new sources of energy.
By evening, the tournament had ended in a rush. The residents of Dorm Seven were still discussing the day's events on their way back.
Xiao Wu cursed the whole way.
Tang San listened, but his hand remained on his belt. Clearly, he was still thinking about the wound on Zhou Ming's sole.
Ji Yuan did not provoke him further.
Suspicion was nothing to fear.
Without evidence, fatigue would slowly smother it.
Night fell, and lights went out one by one across the academy.
Ji Yuan's awareness awakened within the spores he had scattered that day.
Dozens of tiny points of perception lit up at once.
The senior dormitory, the teachers' duty room, the equipment shed beside the field, the outer wall of the academic affairs office—everyone he had marked lay within his net.
Xiao Chenyu lay in bed, quietly cursing Tang San.
Liu Qiang huddled on another bed, too afraid to respond.
Zhou Ming's foot was wrapped in a medicated bandage, and he still gasped in his sleep.
Ji Yuan did not devour them yet.
He merely sent a wisp of residual poison forced from Tang San's body along his underground roots toward the nearest spore.
The first dormant Poison Seed settled into Liu Qiang's meridians.
Then came a second, a third. More spores began to awaken in the dark.
Before you continue