"..."
"Some sword strikes need a powerful desire to sustain them," Pei Ye said quietly. "Then my second question is: how did you execute that strike?"
"Wh-which strike?"
"The Three-Tower Sword. You broke through Yan Caiyue's [Piercing the Sun] with one strike and pierced his dantian."
"...I just thought of his weakness at that instant." Zhang Jingbi lowered his head in shame again. "I really wanted to win this match. I secretly looked into him and knew he had a flaw there, so I thrust at it."
"That was all?"
"...That was all," Zhang Jingbi said quietly. "I don't know how I just..."
"Did you feel any other power interfering with that strike, or anything wrong at all?"
Zhang Jingbi stared blankly. "...No. I just felt that strike...flowed very smoothly. Given another chance, I definitely couldn't do it again."
Pei Ye fell silent for a while, gently rubbed the space between his brows, then stood and looked at the dark mist beyond the peak.
Although his intuition kept denying it, every visible sign indicated that Zhang Jingbi had indeed delivered that strike in a flash of inspiration.
Of course, Pei Ye refused to believe in such a coincidence. He believed that Joy-in-Death Tower must have driven the incident that had befallen Yan Caiyue at this particular moment. They had brought it about through means no one could fathom; what purpose did they intend to achieve through it?
Pei Ye lowered his head, thinking it all over. With a thousand tangled threads and not a single conclusion, his lips gradually pressed together.
At last, he sighed softly. Even the lamplight had grown dim, and the chill of the autumn night had spread over him. Here on this solitary peak shrouded in thick mist, the lonely cold seeped through his clothes and