Chapter 250 — Whose Foot Slipped

CHAPTER 250

Whose Foot Slipped

“The real ring,” Shen Kui said again, louder, as if the market hadn't heard him the first time.

Warden Gui checked the written rules and hesitated. They hadn’t named which ring a challenger must stake. He clearly wanted someone else to settle the argument before the crowd grew louder.

“The rule says 'a ring',” Shi Feng said. “It doesn't say which.”

“Rule four says it's legal. So it's legal for me to ask.” Shen Kui jabbed a thick finger at the grey ring on the stool. “That one belongs in a pawnshop. Put down the one you won at the tournament, or admit you're a coward.”

The Palace side woke up at once.

“Put it down!”

“He's hiding behind a fake!”

“Afraid, champion?”

“Pulling his head in like a turtle!”

“Let's see what's in the ring!”

On a tea stall's roof across the lane, Lin Langtian sat with his legs dangling and a sweet potato halfway to his mouth. He caught Shi Feng's eye and shook his head, slowly, once. Then he mouthed three words, which Shi Feng understood perfectly. Don't. Be. Silly.

Shi Feng thought, Of course I won't. The ring holds everything I own, and it is not going on a stool for a man who breaks arms for fun.

“My deposit is on the stool,” Shi Feng said. “Yours is not.”

Shen Kui scowled. He pulled a ring off his own finger and slapped it down beside the grey one. Warden Gui jumped.

“Then fight!” Shen Kui said.

“Begin,” Warden Gui said weakly.

Shen Kui charged.

Shen Kui had watched the other two lose. He decided they’d given Shi Feng too much time. The mid Foundation Establishment disciple charged straight in, striking with the same vicious palm snap that had broken Ge Shun’s arm.

Shi Feng blocked the first one with his left forearm.

[Devoured: iron palm | Gain: small | Note: same hand. Same snap.]

He felt the strike go through the golden bone and vanish. Shen Kui felt it too, in the shape of a bruised wrist, and his eyes went wide.

“It didn't break!” Shen Kui said. “Your arm didn't break!”

“Your palm slipped,” Shi Feng said.

Somebody on the Hall side snorted. Somebody on the Palace side coughed into his hand.

Shen Kui attacked again, alternating his palms. Shi Feng took two blows on his shoulder and one on his ribs while watching the feet below them. Each strike drove Shen Kui’s weight forward. His left foot always planted too wide.

The ground inside the ropes was dry and loose, packed down by two days of fighters. There was a flat stone beside the left stake, half buried, that Shi Feng had noticed on the first morning.

He stepped back onto it.

The stone rocked. Shi Feng wobbled, one arm flung out, his sword hand wide open as if he were falling.

“He's slipping!” the Palace side screamed.

“Finish him!”

Shen Kui lunged with both palms and every ounce of his weight.

Shi Feng's open hand closed on a fistful of dust and flung it into his face.

Shen Kui yelled and clawed at his eyes. His lunge was still going. Shi Feng stepped inside it, hooked a boot behind Shen Kui's planted left heel, and drove the other heel hard into the side of his knee.

The knee folded the wrong way. Shen Kui went down on it with a cry. Shi Feng caught the right wrist as it came past, turned the arm over his own forearm at the elbow, and leaned.

Pop.

It was not a loud sound. It was wet, and short, and the whole market heard it.

Shi Feng let go. Shen Kui dropped onto his side, clutching his arm, and began to scream.

The border market went quiet.

Not for long. A baker dropped his tray. Somebody on a roof forgot to hold on, and slid down onto an awning. A tea cup shattered.

“That was dirty!” Warden Gui shouted, finding his voice at last. “That was a dirty move!”

“There’s no rule against it,” Shi Feng said, standing beside the fallen man. “You posted the rules. Read them.”

“He threw dust!” Warden Gui said.

“It was on the ground,” Shi Feng said.

“Then…” Warden Gui looked at his clipboard. “Then…”

The Hall side finally burst.

“HE THREW DUST!”

“An arm for an arm!”

“His foot slipped!”

“Did you hear it pop?”

“Whose palm slipped now?”

A Palace disciple in the front row said, in a small clear voice, “He did the same thing he did to the junior.”

“Exactly the same.”

“…”

On the ground, Shen Kui lifted his tearing eyes and stared up at the man who stood over him with dust on his sleeve.

“You,” Shen Kui gasped. “You've kicked an iron plate! Elder Wei will hear of this!”

“I hope so,” Shi Feng said. He knelt, took the dislocated arm between his hands, and set it with one firm push.

Shen Kui howled once more. Then the pain faded to a dull ache, and he lay there gasping.

“Setting fee,” Shi Feng said, “is five stones. Zhu Liu will take it from the deposit.”

Zhu Liu opened the second ring with shaking hands. On the roof, Lin Langtian held his potato motionless. He watched Shi Feng finish setting the arm, pleased and surprised by a lesson his junior brother had worked out himself.