An Atypical Victory

Around twenty people had gathered by the riverbank.

Qian Xiaohao stood in the middle with his arms folded, a short knife planted in the ground at his feet. When he saw Lu Yuan approach, he sneered. "You actually dared to come."

Lu Yuan didn't answer, sweeping his gaze over the crowd. Old Chen squatted beside a rock, smoking, while several children crowded into the front. Beneath a willow tree, the corner of a gray robe showed.

Zhao Shi had come too.

"Let's go over the rules again." Qian Xiaohao pulled up his knife. "No Soul Skills, just hand-to-hand fighting. I can't say whether that lousy grass leaf of yours will hold up against a stroke of my knife."

A few low chuckles came from the crowd.

Lu Yuan nodded. "Let's begin."

Before his words had faded, Qian Xiaohao moved.

He kicked off and charged, level-four Soul Power coating his blade. Its edge glimmered pale white, and it cut through the air with a whoosh.

Lu Yuan retreated half a step to the right and back, turning slightly sideways.

The blade skimmed past the fabric over his chest, missing by half an inch.

Qian Xiaohao froze in surprise and couldn't stop his momentum, stumbling forward. The onlookers let out a murmur of surprise.

Lu Yuan had already backed away three or four steps. He raised his right hand, and Blue Silver Grass appeared. The faint light around the edge of its leaf was a tiny bit more solid than yesterday.

He stirred it with a thought.

Slender vines darted forward along the sand like several grass snakes.

Qian Xiaohao steadied himself, his face flushing. "Why are you dodging?" he roared, swinging his knife again.

This time, he held back three parts of his strength.

Lu Yuan still didn't meet the blow.

He shifted his feet, always turning and gliding aside just as the blade was about to reach him. Shallow footprints marked the sandy gravel as he circled around a point.

Qian Xiaohao slashed seven or eight times in succession, every stroke missing.

The onlookers fell silent.

Old Chen tapped his pipe and narrowed his eyes.

Qian Xiaohao's breathing grew heavy. His level-four Soul Power gave him strong stamina, but swinging with all his might exhausted it quickly too. Worse still, he hadn't even touched his opponent.

"Is dodging all you can do?" he snarled through clenched teeth. Changing his attack, he swept the knife sideways instead of chopping, cutting off escape to either side.

This time, Lu Yuan didn't retreat.

He suddenly ducked, and the blade swept over his head. At the same time, the vines that had been creeping along the ground sprang up behind Qian Xiaohao's heel. Pathetically thin though they were, they caught him precisely on the side of his ankle.

They exerted very little force.

But Qian Xiaohao was putting all his strength into the horizontal slash, his weight entirely on one leg. The trip immediately sent him tilting sideways.

He cried out and flailed.

Lu Yuan moved.

Still crouching, he lunged forward and rolled along the ground, sliding past Qian Xiaohao's tilting leg. He pressed the index and middle fingers of his right hand together, Soul Power rapidly gathering at their tips-

His fingertips jabbed swiftly at a certain spot on the inside of Qian Xiaohao's right wrist, the hand holding the knife.

A nerve.

Qian Xiaohao's whole arm felt as if a current had run through it, going numb and weak in an instant.

The short knife clattered onto the sand and gravel.

Deathly silence fell over everyone.

Lu Yuan rolled to one side and got to his feet, dusting the sand off his hands. The Blue Silver Grass vines silently withdrew into his palm.

Qian Xiaohao stood there blankly, his right hand still curled as if gripping the knife, his wrist too numb to move. He looked down at the knife, then up at Lu Yuan, his face turning red and then white.

"You..." His throat was dry. "You cheated!"

Lu Yuan looked at him. "Which rule said I couldn't trip you?"

Qian Xiaohao was left speechless.

The crowd buzzed with discussion.

"Was that Blue Silver Grass just now?"

"That skinny little thing? It can trip someone?"

Old Chen tucked his pipe back into his waistband, gave Lu Yuan a few looks, then shook his head and walked away.

Under the willow tree, Zhao Shi didn't move.

He folded his arms, tapping his fingers lightly against his elbow. His gaze fell on Lu Yuan's right hand, then shifted to Qian Xiaohao's numb wrist.

After watching for a long while, he gave a twitch of his lips.

Interesting.

Qian Xiaohao recovered and bent down to pick up his knife. His wrist was still numb, and the hand holding the knife trembled a little. He glared fiercely at Lu Yuan.

"That doesn't count!" he said through clenched teeth. "You didn't fight me head-on at all! You just used cheap tricks!"

Lu Yuan said calmly, "Your Soul Power is level four, and mine is level two. You had a knife, and I used grass. Fighting head-on, I wouldn't have lasted three moves."

Qian Xiaohao was taken aback.

"So," Lu Yuan continued, "why should I fight your way?"

His words were so blunt that the onlookers fell silent again.

Qian Xiaohao's face flushed bright red. After struggling for words, he suddenly raised a hand and pointed at Lu Yuan. "Just you wait! Once we get into the Soul Master Academy and have Soul Skills, I'll see how you pull your tricks then!"

With that, he turned and left, pushing through the crowd without looking back.

The onlookers drifted away in twos and threes, talking as they went and glancing repeatedly at Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan stood where he was, waiting until everyone had gone some distance before slowly letting out a breath.

His right palm was slightly hot. Controlling the grass just now hadn't consumed much Soul Power, but it had demanded an extremely high degree of precision. In particular, when he tripped Qian Xiaohao at the end, the timing and angle of the vines' spring couldn't have been off by the slightest bit.

Blue Silver Grass was still too weak.

He shook his head and turned to leave.

"That was quite practiced."

The voice came from the willow tree.

Zhao Shi walked over at an unhurried pace, the hem of his gray robe brushing the tips of the grass. He stopped in front of Lu Yuan and looked him up and down. "Have you trained?"

Lu Yuan shook his head. "I read about it in a book."

"A book again." Zhao Shi laughed. "What book teaches you to strike nerves?"

"'A Brief Analysis of Human Body Meridians.' I found it at the secondhand bookstall by the general store for five Copper Soul Coins." Lu Yuan's tone was steady. "It had diagrams of acupoints and said that being struck in certain places would cause numbness. I tried it, and it happened to work."

Zhao Shi stared into his eyes.

Lu Yuan met his gaze openly.

After a few breaths, Zhao Shi looked away, toward the river. "The Qian boy holds grudges. You made him lose face today. Once he gets into the academy, he'll definitely come looking for trouble."

"I know."

"Aren't you afraid?"

"Being afraid won't help," Lu Yuan said. "What's coming will come sooner or later."

Zhao Shi raised an eyebrow and turned his head to look at him. "You're only six, aren't you? You talk like an old man."

Lu Yuan didn't reply.

The river breeze blew past, carrying the fishy smell of water. Roosters crowed and dogs barked in the distance, in the direction of town.

Zhao Shi suddenly asked, "Did your father really break through that bottleneck on his own?"

Lu Yuan's heart tightened slightly, but his expression didn't change. "Mm. He said it was luck. He gathered up a burst of strength, and suddenly broke through."

"Luck..." Zhao Shi repeated, smiling. "Then is that fighting ability of yours luck too?"

"I learned it from books."

"Books really are useful." Zhao Shi's words carried meaning. "Could you lend me that one to look at someday?"

"I burned it," Lu Yuan said. "We were short of kindling when we made a fire a while back."

Zhao Shi froze, then burst out laughing. "Good, it's good that you burned it." When he had laughed enough, he wiped the corners of his eyes. "All right, go on home. Things haven't been peaceful in town these past couple of days, so don't run around outside so much."

He waved a hand, turned, and walked toward town.

Lu Yuan stood where he was, watching Zhao Shi's back disappear at the end of the dirt road before heading home.

The faint heat in his right palm hadn't completely faded. He opened his hand and stirred with a thought, and Blue Silver Grass appeared. The faint light around the edge of its leaf seemed a tiny bit brighter than it had been that morning.

During the fight just now, at the instant the vines had grown rapidly and sprung up, the "node" at the core of the Blue Silver Grass had warmed slightly, and the Soul Power flowing through it had sped up a tiny bit.

It was very faint.

But it was there.

He put away his Martial Soul and quickened his pace.

When he got home, the courtyard gate was ajar. Lin Xiu was drawing water by the well, and she let out a breath of relief when she saw him. "I heard you went to the river to fight someone?"

"A spar," Lu Yuan corrected her. "We didn't come to blows."

"That's dangerous too." Lin Xiu lifted the bucket. "That Qian boy's Soul Power is higher than yours. What if you'd gotten hurt..."

"I didn't." Lu Yuan walked to the corner of the back courtyard and crouched to check the soil beneath the tile.

The Soul Condensing Grass seed hadn't sprouted yet.

But he could feel that the faint gathering of Soul Power deep in the soil was a tiny bit stronger than yesterday. It was like a hibernating insect slowly waking up.

He extended a finger and pressed it gently against the soil. Soul Power seeped from his fingertip, simulating a certain, slowly oscillating frequency-a fluctuation of earth-vein Soul Power mentioned in the knowledge base that Soul Condensing Grass would occasionally absorb in its natural state.

It was a very crude Simulation. His Soul Power was too weak, and the amplitude of the fluctuation was less than thirty percent of the theoretical value.

But the instant he pressed his finger down, the gathering of Soul Power deep in the soil paused.

Then, ever so slightly, it gave a tiny tremor, as if responding.

Lu Yuan held his breath.

There was a response.

Though it was so faint as to be almost negligible, there was indeed a response.

He withdrew his hand and stared at the patch of damp soil for a long time.

Footsteps came from behind him. Lu Qinghe had returned with a hoe over his shoulder, mud clinging to his trouser legs. "Little Yuan, your mother said you got into a fight with the Qian boy?"

Lu Yuan stood up. "Mm. I won."

Lu Qinghe put down his hoe and looked his son over carefully. "You didn't come off worse?"

"No."

Lu Qinghe was silent for a moment, then patted him on the shoulder. "Good that you won." He paused. "But the Qian family... I'm afraid they'll bear a grudge."

"It was bound to happen sooner or later," Lu Yuan said. "Father, how's your cultivation going?"

"Not bad." A hint of a smile appeared on Lu Qinghe's face. "I'm getting more and more used to that 'vortex' force. My Soul Power is circulating quite a bit faster, but I get hungry quickly."

That was a good thing. The increased consumption of Soul Power meant his cultivation efficiency was improving.

Lu Yuan nodded. "Eat more."

Lin Xiu walked over. "Shopkeeper Liu came asking about Energy Soup again today. He said he wanted more, and that the price was open to discussion."

Lu Yuan frowned. "What did you tell him?"

"I said the herbs were hard to find, so we couldn't make much." Lin Xiu lowered her voice. "But he didn't seem to believe me. There was something strange about the way he looked at me."

Lu Yuan said nothing.

Shopkeeper Liu was a shrewd businessman. Though the effects of Energy Soup were weak, word had already spread among laborers at the bottom. He had surely smelled the profit in it.

And with what had happened by the river today on top of that...

Trouble really didn't come alone.

He looked up at the sky. The sun was high, and its light was dazzling.

The soil beneath the tile lay still, the Soul Condensing Grass seed sleeping deep within it.

Soon.

Just a little more time.

He turned and walked toward the house. As he passed the stove, he caught sight of several green-veined stones piled in the corner. The pale green lines on the stones seemed to flow faintly in the dim light.

The simplified Spirit-Nourishing Formation still needed three core stones.

He would have to go back to the river and look for them.