Chang Wei's Plan

"Cross-Peak Martial Arts Academy will win! Director Huang will win!"

"Cross-Peak is invincible!"

The moment Chen Xu entered the preliminary venue, deafening cheers filled the entire area.

Yesterday had been the first day of the Martial Hall Exchange Tournament, with the student sparring preliminaries held then. Today was for the hall director championship preliminaries and the student sparring qualifiers.

Both competitions were divided into four stages: preliminaries, qualifiers, semifinals, and finals.

Taking the hall director championship as an example, during the preliminaries, each director fought ten matches. A win earned ten points, and the top hundred by score advanced to the qualifiers.

The qualifiers changed to randomly matched battles. Those eliminated immediately lost their eligibility to continue, unlike the preliminaries, where there had been so many chances.

Round after round of battle continued until the final victor was decided.

The rules in most county-, prefecture-, commandery-, and commandery-level cities were this simple and brutal. Don't ask why—ask, and the answer was saving money.

Only martial arts events held by provinces, the capital, or several cities jointly would come up with flashy competition formats.

After the city-level competition ended, the top ten martial arts academies from each city could also take part in higher-level tournaments. For instance, a county's top ten could enter the prefecture-level tournament, while a prefecture's top ten could enter the commandery-level one.

This was also an opportunity for many martial arts academies to climb higher.

Once one had even participated in the capital-level contests, congratulations—only competitions jointly hosted by several major cities or outright national martial arts tournaments remained ahead.

Any martial arts academy that reached that level could receive corresponding support when opening branches throughout Great Abyss.

However, of ten major martial arts academies, eight basically belonged to Great Abyss in name. Their hidden big boss might even be some imperial relative or powerful minister.

Whenever the Martial Pavilion was short-handed, they occasionally had to moonlight as temporary workers.

Ignoring the mocking taunts from the opposing academy's students, Chen Xu stepped onto the arena and faced the director of Cross-Peak Martial Arts Academy.

After the two exchanged martial arts salutes, the referee retreated to the edge and reiterated the rules.

"Until one side falls off the arena or voluntarily surrenders, the battle will not be considered over. If neither side makes a move within one minute, both will be judged defeated. Let the battle begin!"

Director Huang of Cross-Peak let out a thunderous roar. By himself, he actually drowned out the noise from their small division's venue.

"Oohhh!"

The students of Cross-Peak Martial Arts Academy had their blood stirred by their director's roar.

Just as Director Huang raised his fists, his vision blurred.

A tall body instantly blocked all his sight. Chen Xu grabbed the Cross-Peak director by the shoulder and hurled him off the arena.

The cheers and shouts abruptly fell silent. Everyone present—whether students of Cross-Peak Martial Arts Academy, passing spectators, or reporters—stared wide-eyed.

Last year, Director Huang of Cross-Peak Martial Arts Academy had made it into the top twenty. Who would have thought he would suffer such a crushing defeat in his very first match this year?

Then, tsunami-like cheers drowned out the startled cries of the Cross-Peak students.

"The winner is Chen Xu, director of Chen Martial Arts Academy!" Only then did the referee come to his senses and announce loudly.

Chen Xu stepped down from the arena. The screen beside it had already displayed the location and opponent for his next match: Arena Thirty-Four, Great Abyss Women's Martial Arts Academy (Jinning Branch).

This academy had branches in all the larger cities of Great Abyss. It admitted only female students and mainly taught women's self-defense techniques.

Declining the reporters' interviews, Chen Xu headed straight backstage and took a shortcut toward Arena Thirty-Four.

Chang Wei stared fixedly at the rear entrance. Upon seeing Chen Xu emerge, he tossed the cigarette butt from his mouth into a trash can and hurried over before he even had time to tidy himself up.

"Boss Chen, you have to save me." Chang Wei looked somewhat haggard. He had not slept well for several days.

"What happened?"

Chen Xu raised an eyebrow, secretly guessing, Could it be that he was too weak and someone stole the director's position from him again?

"Xu Yeping returned to Jinning Commandery today. The people who had only outwardly submitted immediately turned on me. If my strength hadn't improved recently, I probably wouldn't even have had the chance to come find you, Boss Chen."

"Xu Yeping?" For a moment, Chen Xu had no idea who that was.

"Xu Yeping!" Chang Wei was practically about to cry from anxiety. "The other deputy pavilion master of Jinning Commandery, Xu Lie's elder."

"Ohhh." Chen Xu drew out the sound to show he understood. "And then?"

"Once he returns, if he discovers Xu Lie is dead, he'll definitely investigate by every means possible. Boss Chen, what do we do?"

"What do you mean, what do we do? I'm warning you, don't talk nonsense. Xu Lie disappeared after wandering around outside at night on his own. What did that have to do with us?" Chen Xu spoke casually, completely unconcerned.

Even if Xu Yeping turned all of Jinning Commandery upside down, he could never find evidence that Chen Xu had killed Xu Lie.

"No, Boss Chen, you don't understand Xu Yeping. Evidence isn't that important to him. He'll torture and interrogate everyone who has come into contact with Xu Lie recently.

"The Xu Family has long been infiltrating Jinning Commandery. To put it bluntly, at least a third of Jinning Commandery's upper ranks have unclear ties to the Xu Family. Their influence is far greater than you imagine."

Chang Wei wore a miserable expression, feeling as though the future before him was pitch-black.

Yet even now, he did not regret the decision he had made that night. More precisely, it was not a question of regret—if he had dared refuse, he would not have had the chance to regret it.

After thinking seriously for a moment, Chang Wei made a decision that might be enough to change his life. "Boss Chen, I'll leave Jinning with my family today. You should leave as soon as possible too.

"No matter how strong martial arts are, they cannot stand against those who hold Jinning Commandery's fate in their hands.

"Your martial arts talent is the best I have seen in all my decades of life.

"You may have a chance in the future to make martial arts shine once again. Don't stubbornly fight those who hold power. Dying like that would be utterly meaningless.

"As long as you're alive and haven't abandoned martial arts, wherever the academy is rebuilt, won't it still be Chen Martial Arts Academy?"

After speaking, Chang Wei's thoughts drifted back to their first meeting at the iron gate.

If the Chang Wei from back then had known that this brat he looked down on would later help him become a hall director and make him hold his head high—

And that he would use the Refining Liquid Chen Xu had given him to break through the martial arts bottleneck that had stalled him for two or three years—who knew what he would have thought.

Chen Xu patted Chang Wei on the shoulder, feeling that those two bottles of Refining Liquid had not been wasted.

The information Chang Wei brought was important. At the very least, it let Chen Xu know that the potential threat was not limited to martial arts experts; enemies carrying firearms might come after him as well.

Of course, he was not as panicked as Chang Wei. There was only one reason: he was strong.

Besides, he still had several dozen points of spiritual energy saved up. At a critical moment, he could raise his strength several more levels.

Besides, could Jinning Commandery's powerful figures really mobilize a proper modern army? If they could, Chen Xu would turn around and run without a second word.

Unfortunately, no one in this commandery had enough influence to do that. Since there was no threat from the military, Chen Xu saw no reason to be scared shitless.

Watching Chang Wei leave, Chen Xu headed for Arena Thirty-Four.