A New World

No matter how much they shouldn't have come, they were already here.

Since they were here, they might as well stay.

Qiu Wuji could only stare blankly at the dancer onstage as she twisted her snakelike waist around the pole, striking all sorts of astonishing poses.

Qiu Wuji had roamed the world for ten thousand years. What hadn't she seen?

Well, she had never seen this.

She had wiped out cultivators from depraved sects that practiced sexual harvesting before, and their antics had been far more outrageous than this. Some even went at it right out in the open. But who would stop to watch? One divine ability from a distance, and they were all ash. Besides, she had been there to kill them. Her mind had been on guard against traps and ambushes, not this sort of thing.

This really was her first time sitting up close and appreciating such a performance.

Qiu Wuji couldn't understand how the woman managed it. She was clearly dancing with an inanimate pole, yet somehow the sight seemed more seductive than an embrace with a man. Calling those sultry movements a charm dance from a dual-cultivation sect wouldn't have been much of a stretch. Apart from the lack of cultivation, her movements were already as alluring as they could possibly be. They didn't just make men burn with desire; even women found their mouths going dry.

Especially with a man sitting pressed close beside her.

Qiu Wuji hadn't even noticed when Chu Ge's arm had brushed against her again. Sitting this close, contact could happen at any moment. She could feel that his arm was stiffer than before, as though his whole body had tensed. His breathing had quickened too, and he was even hunching over slightly.

The dancer slowly undid another undergarment.

Chu Ge's mouth hung half open, his mind blank.

That's enough, miss. You're really stripping?

Our city actually has something like this? I've wasted the last twenty or thirty years of my life... No, I mean, I should've come to condemn this sooner!

No wonder everything here costs so much... So this is what we're paying for?

He stole a glance at Qiu Wuji, only to find that she had calmed down instead.

Just the three covered spots. I've seen plenty of that lately.

No matter how seductively she twists, it's nothing special once you've watched long enough. That's all there is to it...

Surely you wouldn't dare take it all off?

Her mind went completely blank.

You actually dared!

In front of all these people!

Something flashed before her eyes. The dancer casually flung away her black "headlight cover," and it happened to fly straight toward Chu Ge.

Chu Ge instinctively reached out to catch it.

A sharp pain shot through his waist. A delicate hand had already snatched the cover away.

The Cloudreach Sect's supreme combat techniques! Kunpeng's cloud-spanning wings, autumn sweeping ten thousand miles, Thousand Directions, Ten Thousand Illusions-formless sword qi!

The cover disintegrated into ash.

The cover: "..."

Chu Ge: "..."

The dancer had intended to follow the lucky flight of her "headlight cover" and come over to do something. But an icy flash of killing intent swept in from somewhere, and she inexplicably forgot all about it, continuing to dance onstage.

The other patrons cheered and howled wildly. As though they too had forgotten something, none of them paid any attention to this corner.

Chu Ge's shoulders slumped, and he let out a breath.

Qiu Wuji clenched her fist. "So this was the attraction you were looking forward to, was it? You asked about it the moment we came in."

"Uh, well, I was just pretending I wasn't a total rookie." Chu Ge was a little nervous, but for some inexplicable reason, he added, "With such a beautiful woman beside me, wouldn't you be the best attrac-"

Thump! A fist slammed into his head. Chu Ge's chin landed on the table. He departed this life in perfect peace.

The same words from anyone else would have been flattery. From him, they were a death wish...

Slumped over the table, Chu Ge muttered, "And you said cultivators were supposed to keep a calm mind..."

Qiu Wuji sneered. "Do you know why I can afford not to be calm, while you can't?"

"Huh?"

"Because I can beat you up, or even everyone here. What can you do besides make yourself miserable?" Qiu Wuji hauled him upright. "I found the hidden passage. Come on. How much longer were you planning to watch?"

The sizzling dance continued onstage, but those words seemed to shatter every trace of the seductive atmosphere.

Chu Ge no longer cared what the dancer would look like after removing her last piece of clothing. He too found the secrets of this place more interesting than the secrets of that place.

How could women be as much fun as an adventure?

Besides, I've got someone watching my back.

The two quietly left their seats and slipped around a corner amid the wild revelry. Where there seemed to be a dead end, a corridor unexpectedly opened up, looking like a staff passage. Two or three burly men patrolled inside, keeping a wary eye on the outside.

When one of them saw someone peering in, he immediately said, "Staff only. No unauthorized entry."

Chu Ge raised a hand to indicate that he had taken a wrong turn and backed away. He exchanged a glance with Qiu Wuji. They both felt that something was definitely off. What staff passage needed guards like that?

But it didn't seem entirely closed to outsiders either. Otherwise, they would have sealed the entrance. Installing and locking a concealed door, for instance, would hardly have been difficult. Why leave the corridor entrance in plain sight?

Qiu Wuji whispered, "In my experience, places like this in the martial world always have some special gathering inside. They wouldn't turn everyone away. As long as you have the password or some sort of token, you should be able to pass freely."

Chu Ge asked, "Can you sense any other passages?"

Qiu Wuji said, "There are other passages underground, but the places they lead to are more troublesome. We're better off finding a way through here." "What way is there...? You'll have to sneak in with an Invisibility Spell and bring me along."

Qiu Wuji fell silent.

Puzzled, Chu Ge asked, "What's wrong?"

Qiu Wuji's tone was chilly. "I thought your experience in this world would let us go wherever we pleased. So this is all you amount to... What did I bring you here for, then?"

Chu Ge: "..."

Why the hell did I write you as such a tsundere? Oh, right, I think I meant to write you as proud. Sorry, this unsuccessful hack lacked the skill and got it wrong...

Yet Qiu Wuji didn't use an Invisibility Spell. It wouldn't work here.

She simply strode into the corridor and waved her empty hand at the guards. "I can go in now, can't I?"

The guards all bowed. "Please, go ahead."

Qiu Wuji flicked her ponytail and marched deeper into the passage. Chu Ge trotted after her like a lackey, and no one stopped him.

Autumn waters, vast and misty-an illusion that made the guards see what they expected to see. Thus, they believed her empty hand held a membership card.

At the end of the corridor was an elevator heading down to some unknown depth underground. That was why invisibility wouldn't work: once the elevator descended, someone would certainly know it was occupied...

Feeling as though he had become an accessory, Chu Ge stood in the elevator. Qiu Wuji's delicate fragrance drifted toward him in the enclosed space. He didn't think his failure to contribute mattered much. Instead, a faint pride rose within him.

This is the woman I created.

Ding! After an unknown length of time descending, the elevator finally reached the bottom.

The instant the doors opened, an enormous wave of noise crashed into them. Not just Chu Ge-even Qiu Wuji's pupils contracted slightly.

Neither had expected such a vast area underground. It was about the size of a stadium, with a central fighting arena roughly half the size of a soccer field. Tier upon tier of seats encircled it. Though it didn't seem full, the place still gave the impression of a surging sea of people.

Every face was twisted as they shouted madly, their bloodshot eyes filled with violence. "Kill him! Kill him!"

Their voices mingled and reverberated through the enclosed underground space like thunder.

"Roar!" In the center of the arena, a burly man drove a fist toward the lower abdomen of the young woman before him.

Moon Shadow tried to dodge with an agile movement, but the moment she shifted, she suddenly felt her body grow heavy and sluggish.

Gravity manipulation?

The thought flashed through Moon Shadow's mind. She forcibly broke through the gravitational restraint, but it had slowed her nonetheless. The man's fist had already grazed her lower abdomen.

The blow sent Moon Shadow rolling several times across the floor. She coughed up a mouthful of blood, which caught against her mask and slowly dripped from beneath it.

The burly man pursued her with a vicious grin and lashed out with another kick.

Moon Shadow struggled to roll aside again, only to discover that she had reached the edge of the ring.

One more roll, and she would fall out.

"Fuck you, you goddamn bitch! I bet a million on you winning! Don't you fucking let me down!" An irate spectator had already risen to his feet, hurling his phone into the ring as though it cost nothing. "Get up!"

Someone else laughed wildly and shouted, "Kill her! Kill her! Hahahaha!"

The crowd seethed. Everyone was shouting abuse and throwing things, and no one could hear what anyone else was actually saying.

Chu Ge watched it all with a chill running through his body. He could scarcely believe this was his own city. It felt as though he had stepped into a fictional world.

Moon Shadow struggled to prop up her upper body, only to face a flying kick from the burly man.

Could she dodge it?

She didn't dodge.

Unnoticed, the shadow beneath the man's feet had curled into a mass. As he kicked, it caught his other, supporting foot and yanked it backward.

Caught off guard, the man pitched forward. Moon Shadow shifted to the side and landed a back kick squarely on his spine.

With his forward fall compounded by that kick, it was the man who was about to tumble out of the ring first.

Name: Moon Shadow (Note: obtained from the Wall-Passer's testimony. Information incomplete; suspected alias).

Identity: unknown. Has participated in Underground Boxing.

Ability: shadow manipulation.

Development level: unknown.

Nature: combat, assassination.

Potential rating: S.

Gu Ruoyan ran her finger over this entry in the roster and quietly told the subordinate beside her, "Find this Moon Shadow. If the Wall-Passer's testimony wasn't exaggerated, someone like her absolutely cannot be left to languish in an underground boxing ring."

(End of chapter)

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