Chapter 1047 — Foreseen Path

CHAPTER 1047

Foreseen Path

Yun Zhiwei stopped at the white line and bowed, deeply and correctly.

“Master Shi,” Yun Zhiwei said. “You’ll forgive me for not waiting my turn. I’ve wanted to stand across from you since your name came onto the frames at twenty-eighth. I read your fate on the way down the steps. I’ve already read the first hundred moves.”

“All of them?” Shi Feng asked.

“All hundred,” Yun Zhiwei said politely. “I’d tell you, but I don’t think it would help.”

The stands murmured. The Mansion disciples didn’t. They looked as if they’d heard this before.

“Senior Brother Yun hasn’t lost on this mountain in six years,” someone said behind the scribes.

“He doesn’t need to win. He just needs to be there first.”

Shi Feng stepped into the middle of the ring. His bones still ached from Murong Tuo’s fists. The pain in his collarbone hadn’t eased. It wasn’t the best way to start a second fight. But he’d agreed to stand on Appeal Day, and the Mansion was watching to see what it printed.

“We’ll keep to pointers,” Shi Feng said, acknowledging the warning with a nod.

“Pointers,” Yun Zhiwei agreed, and drew.

His sword was plain steel with a grey grip. He held it low, point down, and didn’t move.

Shi Feng moved first. He went left with Void-Crossing Step, ten paces in a single step through the void, and came out at Yun Zhiwei’s right side.

Yun Zhiwei’s sword was already there.

It wasn’t that he was fast. He’d started moving before Shi Feng stepped. The blade waited at the exact place where Shi Feng came out of the void, and Shi Feng had to twist away from his own landing to keep his throat.

“First,” Yun Zhiwei said courteously.

Shi Feng tried again. He came out behind. The sword was there. He came out above, dropping. The sword was rising to meet him before he’d left the ground.

“That’s the Foreseen Path Sword,” someone in the stands breathed. “It doesn’t strike where you are. It strikes where your fate says you’ll be.”

“How do you fight that?”

“You don’t. You lose politely.”

Shi Feng gave ground. He gave it for ten exchanges and then twenty, across the whole ring and back. He stopped using Void-Crossing Step and tried Riverless Step, going with the line of each cut. It helped a little. Riverless Step answered a blow. It didn’t decide anything ahead of time, so it gave the Foreseen Path less to read. But Yun Zhiwei only had to read one breath further, and the sword was there again.

At the thirtieth exchange it opened his ribs.

It was a clean cut across the right side, not deep, but long. Blood ran down his robe and dripped onto the stone. Up on the top terrace, Taishi Xu set his teacup down.

“There,” Yun Zhiwei said quietly. “That was the thirtieth. I’m sorry. It was going to be there either way.”

Shi Feng stepped back to the line and put his hand on the cut. He didn’t look at Yun Zhiwei. He looked at the place where he’d been standing when the blade arrived.

Shi Feng thought carefully. Yun Zhiwei wasn’t guessing his movements or simply drawing faster. He had to understand what the art actually followed.

The Foreseen Path Sword didn’t read his mind, and it didn’t read his eyes or his shoulders. It read karma. A man’s fate put him somewhere in space at every moment, and the Mansion’s chief disciple could see that place a breath before the man got there. So it didn’t matter what kind of step he took. Riverless Step moved through space. Void-Crossing Step came out in space. Wherever he arrived, he had to arrive somewhere, and the sword had already read where.

Any step taken inside space, it could follow.

“Master Shi,” Yun Zhiwei said, lowering his sword a little. He sounded sincere. “The bout is pointers, and you’ve already fought once this morning. You’re bleeding, and your shoulder isn’t right. Would you like to stop? Nobody on this mountain will think less of you. The seventh place stands either way.”

The stands went quiet, waiting.

“Is he going to stop?”

“He should stop. Senior Brother Yun has read him to the end.”

“…”

Shi Feng took his hand off his ribs and looked at the blood on it.

He thought about Void-Crossing Step. He had always thought of it as a way of going from one place to another. Ten paces, the short way, through the void.

But in between the two places, for the time it took to cross, where was he?

“No,” Shi Feng said slowly, and wiped his hand on his sleeve. “Thank you. I’d like to try one more thing.”

Yun Zhiwei hesitated. He was puzzled by Shi Feng’s confidence; the reading had given him no reason to expect another approach.

“Then I’ll read it,” Yun Zhiwei said, and raised his sword.