He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, still replaying every move Nie Li had just made.
The angles of his steps, the timing of his force redirection, the subtle fluctuations in his Soul Force circulation.
Every detail deserved careful study.
He knew he could no longer cultivate by simply following the usual routine. Nie Li was progressing even faster than he had expected. Unless he seized every moment, the gap would only widen.
He still had plenty of Soul-Gathering Pills left. Once he returned, he would have to intensify his cultivation. He also needed to hone his coordination with the Shadow Mantis.
The Demon Beast Tide was drawing ever closer. Every extra measure of strength meant another measure of certainty.
Xiao Ning'er sat beside him. Seeing his eyes closed, she did not disturb him.
The wind blew over from the Martial Arts Arena, carrying the smell of dust and sweat. Cheers and chatter rose and fell below the stands, but Shen Fei's heart was quiet.
He knew this Genius Tournament was only a beginning. The storms ahead would be fiercer than anything he had faced today.
The lingering excitement of the Genius Tournament slowly ebbed.
The spectators left in twos and threes, their conversations drifting on the wind toward the VIP stands. Every one of them was talking about Nie Li.
Some marveled at his uncanny footwork. Others speculated that he had concealed his cultivation. Still others were indignant, claiming his victory was dishonorable and relied entirely on cheap tricks.
Ye Ziyun had hurried after Nie Li, leaving only Shen Fei and Xiao Ning'er at the side of the stands.
Servants in the Martial Arts Arena began gathering the scattered weapons and sweeping dust off the platform. The cheers that had shaken the heavens moments ago had faded until it almost seemed they had never existed.
Shen Fei leaned against the railing, watching the busy figures below, then turned to Xiao Ning'er.
"We don't get out often. Want to take a stroll through the market up ahead while we're here?"
Xiao Ning'er had been gazing absently down at the arena. At his words, she turned her head slightly.
She wore a plain-colored dress that day. The wound on her left arm had long since healed, but her sleeve was still rolled up a little, revealing part of her slender wrist. After two seconds of silence, she nodded gently.
"All right."
They walked down from the VIP stands side by side. The stone steps were narrow, and they deliberately kept half a step between them, neither distant nor overly intimate.
They passed several scions of noble families along the way. At the sight of the two of them, amused looks appeared on their faces, but no one approached to speak.
Shen Fei pretended not to notice. Xiao Ning'er remained equally composed and continued on her way.
After they left the main gate of the Sacred Family estate, two turns brought them to the busiest main street in the city.
The afternoon sunlight slanted down onto the blue stone paving, pleasantly warm.
Stalls stood packed along the roadside. White steam rose from baskets of buns, clanging rang out from the smithy, and a vendor carrying medicinal herbs on a shoulder pole ambled over from the far end of the street, drawing out his calls.
The street was crowded, mostly with cultivators and ordinary citizens heading home after the tournament. With so many people and prying eyes around, some inevitably recognized them and pointed behind their backs.
"Isn't that the Sacred Family's eldest young master and Miss Xiao of the Winged Dragon Family?"
"They're engaged. Isn't it perfectly normal for them to shop together?"
"Still, it's a shame. Miss Xiao has such wonderful talent, yet she's being tied to an unfavored eldest son of the main line..."
The murmurs were quiet, drifting into their ears in fragments. Xiao Ning'er neither paused nor showed any expression, as though she had long since grown used to such remarks.
Shen Fei glanced at her without speaking. He merely slowed a little, positioning himself slightly ahead of her to block several passersby pushing toward them.
A short distance farther on, an herb stall stood beside the street, its assortment of dried herbs laid out on a piece of coarse sackcloth.
The stallholder was an old man sitting on a small folding stool, smoking a pipe.
Xiao Ning'er instinctively stopped. Her gaze swept over the herbs before settling on a small bundle of Purpleleaf Grass in one corner.
"This Purpleleaf Grass isn't mature enough," she remarked softly. "The leaves are too thin, and its medicinal potency is thirty percent weaker. It's no use for refining Soul-Nourishing Pills."
The stallholder looked up at her. Seeing her fine clothes and knowledgeable manner, he chuckled twice without arguing. Shen Fei crouched and casually sifted through the herbs.
He knew little about them, recognizing only a few ingredients commonly used in Golden Wound Medicine on the battlefield. After looking through them briefly, he picked up a small packet of dried blood-staunching grass, asked the price, and bought two packets.
"You know about this too?" Xiao Ning'er gave him a surprised look.
"I spent some time outside the city before. When I got hurt, I mixed my own medicine, so I know a few kinds." Shen Fei tucked the packets inside his robe, his tone matter-of-fact. "They're all crude methods. Nothing compared to people like you who properly study medicinal properties."
Xiao Ning'er said nothing more. They continued onward, passing a small stall selling sugar figurines. Figurines of every shape stood on the stall, coated in a thin layer of sugar frosting that glittered in the sun.
Several children crowded around it, clamoring for the adults to buy them some. Xiao Ning'er's gaze lingered for a moment before quickly moving away.
Without a word, Shen Fei went over, bought a simple rabbit-shaped sugar figurine, and held it out to her.
Xiao Ning'er froze briefly, then looked up at him.
"Take it," Shen Fei said casually. "Can't let this stroll be for nothing."
She hesitated for two seconds, then reached out and accepted it. The bamboo stick felt cool against her fingertips. She did not eat it, merely holding it in her hand as the frosting slowly melted a little, leaving sweet traces on the pads of her fingers.
They walked a little farther, and the crowds gradually thinned. Food and sundry stalls gave way to shops selling weapons and cultivation materials, and the street grew much quieter.
Looking at the street stretching ahead, Shen Fei suddenly spoke.
"There's something I've wanted to ask you for a long time."
Xiao Ning'er turned toward him, a hint of puzzlement in her eyes.
"Do you really hate this engagement?"
Once he spoke, their surroundings seemed to fall a little quieter. Wind swept along the street, lifting a few fallen leaves and sending them spiraling away. Xiao Ning'er's fingers tightened around the sugar figurine, but she did not answer immediately.
She lowered her gaze to the blue stone paving beneath her feet. Tiny weeds grew in the cracks, trampled flat against the ground.
She remained silent for so long that Shen Fei thought she would not answer. Then, at last, she began to speak slowly. Her voice was soft, as though she were telling someone else's story.
"Once, there was a little girl who really did have some talent. At three, she could identify medicinal herbs. At seven, she began studying inscriptions. At ten, she condensed her first thread of Soul Force.
The elders of her clan all said she was a talent the Winged Dragon Family might see only once in a hundred years. Someday, she would surely shoulder the family's burden and carry the art of inscriptions to greater heights."
"Back then, she believed it too. Every day, she rose before dawn to practice inscriptions. Even when calluses formed on her hands, she felt no pain.
She dreamed of going out into a wider world, seeing higher-level inscriptions, and making the Winged Dragon Family's name known beyond the confines of Glory City."
She paused there, the faintest smile tugging at her lips without a trace of warmth.
"Then the family stumbled in its trading ventures. Several trade routes were intercepted, and something went wrong with the medicinal herbs in the warehouses. They lost a great deal of money.
The clan couldn't keep its funds flowing and was on the verge of collapse. They begged every family they could. In the end, only the Sacred Family was willing to help."
"The condition was this engagement."
Shen Fei said nothing and listened quietly.
"Those elders who had once been so kind came to her, one after another. Some urged her to be sensible, saying that as the eldest daughter of the main line, she ought to share the family's burdens.
Some laid out the benefits and losses, telling her it was her good fortune to secure a connection with the Sacred Family.
Others patted her head and told her to endure a few years of hardship. Once the family recovered, they would never forget what she had done."
"She stood in the council hall then, looking at a room full of familiar faces, and suddenly they all seemed like strangers. The people who had praised her exceptional talent yesterday were pushing her onto the negotiating table today.
No one asked whether she was willing. No one asked what she wanted to do in the future. In everyone's eyes, she had gone from the family's promising rising star to a pawn they could trade for benefits."
"From the day the engagement was settled, hardly anyone mentioned her talent for inscriptions anymore. Wherever she went, the first thing people said when introducing her was that she was the Sacred Family's bride-to-be.
All those years she had spent practicing inscriptions, all the hardship she had endured, seemed to stop mattering. Whenever anyone mentioned her, that status was always the first thing they thought of."
When she finished, the street fell quiet again. The blows from a distant smithy carried over, one after another, dull and heavy.
Xiao Ning'er lowered her head to look at the sugar figurine in her hand. Almost half of it had melted, and syrup ran down the bamboo stick onto the back of her hand, sticky and clinging. She did not wipe it away, only stared at it, as though looking at herself from long ago.
After hearing her out, Shen Fei sighed softly.
He understood perfectly. A bird that should have flown freely had been forcibly shackled. Who could accept all of that without a ripple in their heart?
He sighed inwardly. A keen blade yearned to burst from its sheath, yet an old cage held it captive.
It was not a particular person she hated. It was this marriage over which she had never had any say, the elders who treated her as a bargaining chip, and the family interests that left her unable to breathe.
He knew better than anyone that the Sacred Family would never willingly dissolve the engagement. Shen Hong had arranged this marriage precisely to gain a grip on the Winged Dragon Family's inscription expertise.
In Shen Hong's eyes, the engagement had never been a marriage between two young people. It was business, a rope binding an ally to him. As long as Shen Hong remained the family head, as long as the Sacred Family still needed the Winged Dragon Family's support, this marriage would never fall through.
Xiao Ning'er's objections would mean nothing. Even if he himself opposed it, Shen Hong would merely see it as a junior's immaturity. It would not stir the slightest wave.
In the end, they lacked strength and a voice. In this world where the strong reigned supreme, without strength, one could not even decide one's own marriage.
"The Sacred Family won't give way easily," Shen Fei said quietly and frankly. "My father arranged this marriage because he values the Winged Dragon Family's inscription legacy. Getting him to dissolve the engagement willingly is impossible."
Xiao Ning'er raised her head, showing little surprise. Of course she knew all this. If it could be dissolved, she would have found a way long ago.
"I know," she said softly. "But I won't resign myself to fate."
Despite those words, her voice held a heaviness that would not lift.
As Shen Fei looked at her, a fierce resolve suddenly welled up inside him.
He had to become stronger. Not merely to protect Glory City, nor merely to fight the Dark Guild and the Demon Beast Tide.
He also needed enough strength and influence to have a voice within his family, to shatter this damned fate with his own hands.
He would not stand by as he had in his previous life, watching the people around him march one by one toward their destined tragedies.
He would not let Xiao Ning'er end up with damaged meridians, venturing alone into the Dark Forest and dying without even a body left behind.
He would not let the people of this city all perish beneath the claws of demon beasts.
Everything he could change, he would change, little by little.
"Don't dwell on it too much." Shen Fei offered no extravagant promises, but his voice was steady. "Things won't stay this way forever. Once I'm a little stronger and have a voice in the clan, there'll be a way."
Xiao Ning'er looked at him, a flicker of surprise crossing her eyes. She did not take it seriously, treating it as mere words of comfort, but she still nodded gently.
"Mm."
They walked a little farther and, before they knew it, reached the end of the street. The western sky had turned orange-red, and the sun was about to set. Shops along the street began lighting their lanterns, warm yellow light spilling through their doors and windows onto the paving.
"I should go home." Xiao Ning'er stopped and turned to Shen Fei. "If I'm any later, my family will start looking for me."
"All right." Shen Fei nodded. "Should I walk you to the alley up ahead?"
"No need. It's only a few steps." Xiao Ning'er shook her head. She glanced down at the sugar figurine, more than half of which remained, hesitated, then said softly, "Thank you for today. And... for the sugar figurine."
"It's nothing," Shen Fei replied evenly. "Be careful on your way home."
Xiao Ning'er murmured an assent and turned into the alley.
Her plain-colored figure slowly blended into the dusk. After a few steps, she glanced back.
Shen Fei still stood where he was, looking in her direction. When she turned back, he gave her a slight nod.
Xiao Ning'er looked away and quickened her steps.
Shen Fei stood at the end of the street, watching her. The setting sun lengthened her shadow, bringing him not warmth, but the ache of memories surging back.
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