Faxian neither dodged nor evaded.
The palm struck squarely against his back, pressing a deep hollow into his tattered kasaya.
Lu Aping's expression abruptly changed.
He felt as though his palm strike had plunged into a vast, fathomless ocean. All his true qi vanished like clay oxen entering the sea, swallowed utterly in an instant.
A gentle ripple spread across the tattered kasaya as though over water. Then an irresistible recoil surged backward through Lu Aping's palm, wrist, and arm.
Lu Aping grunted and was flung away, his back slamming into the great vermilion pillar before the hall. He crashed to the ground with a thud, sending accumulated snow flying everywhere.
He lay sprawled in the snow. The hand that had struck Faxian trembled faintly, its knuckles bent at grotesque angles.
At the very instant Lu Aping fell, the surrounding temperature abruptly rose.
The icicles hanging beneath the eaves of Purple Dawn Hall began quietly melting. At first, only a drop or two slid slowly down their lengths.
But before the droplets reached the ground, some invisible force suddenly stretched them into transparent little swords, slender as willow leaves and sharp as bee stingers, suspended in midair.
Ten, a hundred, a thousand...
These ice swords were clear throughout, gleaming with a crystalline chill in the refracted twilight and snowlight. Their points all aimed at Faxian, trembling slightly with a fine, dense hum.
The temperature around Purple Dawn Hall continued rising. The snow sank and melted at a visible speed, exposing the wet blue bricks beneath.
Faxian slowly turned, transferred his bamboo staff to his left hand, and held his right palm upright before his chest, his five skeletal fingers slightly spread.
He looked toward the deep shadows at the corner of the hall. His voice was unhurried, as though he