Chapter 712 — The Pill-Boy’s Second Bout

CHAPTER 712

The Pill-Boy’s Second Bout

“A rematch?” Shi Feng asked. “I’ve never fought you.”

“You fought my friend,” Kuai Shan said. “That makes it a rematch.”

The crowd around platform sixty-three, which had started to drift away, came straight back.

The grey-haired judge checked her register. A call was legal at any time, as long as the platform was free and the caller staked his own tally. She held out her bamboo rod for Kuai Shan’s tally, wrote both numbers down, and bowed.

“A called bout,” the judge announced. “Tally five hundred and eight against tally one thousand one hundred and seven. Both tallies at stake.”

“Late Deity Transformation against mid,” somebody in the crowd said. “That’s a full stage.”

“The newborn calf doesn’t fear the tiger.”

Kuai Shan climbed onto the stone and drew the weapon from his hip. It was a single long hook of dark iron, as long as his arm, with a curved blade at the end like a heron’s neck. Frost crept along its edge as soon as it came out.

He turned to Zhong Tianci’s circle in the front row. Zhong Tianci was sitting on a bench with a wet cloth pressed to his chest, not looking at anyone.

“Ten thousand silver,” Kuai Shan said. “Three exchanges. Who takes it?”

The friends exchanged uneasy looks. Zhong Tianci had made them confident once already. The broken pride on the bench beside them made this wager much less amusing, even with Kuai Shan standing a stage above his opponent.

“I’ll take it,” the thin friend said.

“So will I,” said another.

“Done!” Kuai Shan said, and laughed.

Shi Feng climbed back up onto the west side.

“Begin,” the judge said.

Kuai Shan didn’t step in. He swung from where he stood, and the Cold Iron Hook came round in a wide, flat arc at the height of Shi Feng’s knees. The hook’s reach was nearly three paces.

The hook’s wide arc was the strength of Cold Iron Hook. Caught at its outer edge, an opponent would be pulled into the blade and the cold carried through it. Retreating along that same arc only kept him in reach. Shi Feng watched where the shaft moved instead.

Shi Feng stepped back half a pace, and the hook passed a finger’s breadth from his shins.

That was the first exchange.

Kuai Shan laughed and pulled. The hook came back toward him in the same arc, behind Shi Feng now, curving in at the back of his neck. That was the real stroke. The first swing only set it up.

Shi Feng didn’t step away from it. He stepped toward Kuai Shan.

Riverless Step carried him smoothly across the stone. He reached the inside of the swing before the hook could return, close enough to make Kuai Shan pull his head back. The blade swept past the place he’d left. He hadn’t raced its tip; he’d taken a shorter path.

At this distance the hook was useless. The blade was three paces out, and its owner was right here.

That was the second exchange.

Kuai Shan wasn’t slow. He let go of the swing and yanked the hook straight back at his own chest, to cut Shi Feng off him from behind.

Shi Feng drew the grey Sword from his ring.

He laid the Sword’s flat against the returning shaft. Iron River Sword Art at Perfection redirected its speed instead of stopping it. The hook dipped as Kuai Shan pulled, carrying the force of the recovery stroke down into the stone.

The curved tip hit the stone and stuck.

Shi Feng turned his wrist once more and cut.

Clang!

The hook’s tip broke off and spun away across the platform. Kuai Shan was left holding a bent iron bar with a jagged end. The point of the grey Sword rested lightly against his throat.

“Third exchange,” Shi Feng said. “Do you yield?”

Kuai Shan stared down at the sword. His face went from red to grey.

“…I yield,” Kuai Shan said.

“Tally one thousand one hundred and seven,” the judge said, and raised her rod. Then she added, very politely, “Tally five hundred and eight is forfeit.”

The crowd broke into noise.

“Three exchanges! He said three exchanges!”

“It was three exchanges.”

“Late Deity Transformation, and he lost his hook!”

“A full stage up, and he couldn’t even touch him!”

“…”

The thin friend in the front row cleared his throat.

“Brother Kuai,” the thin friend said carefully. “About the ten thousand.”

Kuai Shan didn’t answer. He climbed down with his broken hook and walked straight through the crowd.

Shi Feng put the grey Sword back in his ring. The tip of the hook was lying by his foot. He picked it up and handed it to the judge.

“It’s his,” Shi Feng said. “Good iron. It just needs a better smith.”

The judge took it with a bow, and her mouth twitched once.

A ripple of silence passed through the crowd behind him. Shi Feng turned.

A young man in red-gold robes was walking past the platform, coming from the direction of the centre stones. A tall attendant walked a step behind him. There was a little smoke still rising from the young man’s right sleeve.

“Qu Ming finished his in one flame,” someone whispered. “One. They’re still putting out the other man’s robe.”

“Sixty-fourth on the Tianxing. Peak Deity Transformation.”

“He’s Qu Hanshan’s grandson. What did you expect?”

Qu Ming didn’t stop walking. As he passed platform sixty-three, his eyes went to the stone, then to the broken hook in the judge’s hand, then to Shi Feng.

Qu Ming looked directly at him. There was no amused dismissal this time. Shi Feng let him inspect the platform and broken hook without speaking. The young lord had seen enough to reconsider what sort of alchemist stood in his way.

Then he walked on.

“That’s the Azure Sun young lord,” Ji Yuanhe said quietly at the rail.

“I know,” Shi Feng said. “He came to see what I cook.”

Across the yard, on the steps of the Talent Hall, Chief Steward Ke Lianshu stood with his long register open. He had been watching platform sixty-three for some time.

He dipped his brush and wrote nothing beside tally one thousand one hundred and seven. He only made a single small dot.

Ji Yuanhe saw it too.

“He made a dot,” Ji Yuanhe said.

“Then somebody’s counting,” Shi Feng said. “And it isn’t only you.”