Night Whispers (2)

The amazement in Su Miaoxi and Lin Mumu's eyes had yet to fade, but now it was joined by greater understanding. Song Zhiyi nodded slightly, as though weighing the gains and losses within it.

Shen Yuxi lowered his eyes to the tea leaves drifting in his cup. The helpless grumbling in his heart had long since dispersed. Looking at it this way, his elder brother had been completely targeted... Mm, his defeat truly had not been undeserved.

It was just... that the one being used had actually been himself. No wonder that after his elder brother lost, the look Shen Yucheng had given him was so complicated. Beneath the grievance and frustration lingered an indescribable resentment.

So that was it. It was because I lost.

This realization inevitably made Shen Yuxi feel somewhat guilty.

Chu Shihan stood still with his sword in his arms, his cold, stern profile steeped in the clear moonlight, betraying not the slightest emotional fluctuation. Yet his mind was rapidly calculating: if he had stood in Shen Yucheng's place and encountered this technique, how would he have responded? How would he have broken the deadlock?

But he quickly realized that the premise itself stood on shaky ground. As a sword cultivator, he was not the sort to plan everything out before making a move. Even if his attacks could not be called a furious tempest, he would never grant an opponent the time and space to calmly set up such an exquisite illusion technique.

Seizing the initiative at the very start and using speed to overcome slowness was precisely the most direct way to break techniques that required prior conditions.

But... what if?

What if, for some reason, he lost the initiative? What if the opponent possessed some special means to delay him or create that