For a heartbeat after the light on the ring faded, the yard forgot how to breathe.
Then the noise returned all at once.
Applause. Shouts. A hiss of disbelief that came from the people who knew what they had just seen was not luck at all.
Luo Kai stood very still. He reached for his spear, and for a moment his fingers did not close the way he told them to. He picked it up anyway, set the butt on the boards, and bowed to Ye Tian with the brittle dignity of a man who knew how to lose and did not want to learn it twice in one day.
Ye Tian returned the bow.
Inside him, the Origin System settled like rainwater finding old riverbeds.
[Acquisition confirmed]
[Note: target owned Low grade Weapon Mastery]
[Status: duplicate functions detected]
[Action: consolidation complete]
[Result: Weapon handling proficiency advanced, recovery windows shortened, stability improved]
So… even when the prey carried what he already owned, nothing was wasted. Steel learns in the fire. A second forging only makes it truer.
The staff felt lighter in his hands. Not in weight, but in the way it listened.
[Devotion +9]
[Witness count high, belief rising]
[Advisory: avoid immediate overexposure, hostility forming in circles above your reach]
Ye Tian set the staff back on the rack. The steel caps touched wood with a soft sound that only people who cared about tools would notice. The crowd's edge broke into small currents. Faces turned away, then back again. The whispers changed shape, the way a river changes when a rock is moved.
"He did it again…"
"It was clean, too clean…"
"Who is teaching him…"
"No one is teaching him…"
A figure moved through the loose ring of bodies. Plain robe, hair bound with a strip of white cloth. Mu Qing stopped two paces away and met his eyes without wasting extra words.
"You made a list longer," she said.
"You keep one," Ye Tian said.
"I do," she said. "And some names are moving upward on other lists that do not belong to me. Come."
He walked with her toward the board under the cloister. The cedar smell held steady. The wet grain of the platform glimmered like the back of a fish. They passed Zhou Ren, who had the kind of smile that could sit on a face all day without getting tired. He did not step aside. He did not need to. People moved without him asking.
"Mu Qing," Zhou Ren said lightly. "The archive must be empty if it lets you wander so far."
"The archive is full," she said, without looking at him. "It is the people who forget that are empty."
The corner of Zhou Ren's mouth dipped for a breath, then lifted again. He glanced at Ye Tian. His eyes did not hold anger. They held calculation, and something like patience.
"Sparring Day," he said. "It seems the outer court has a festival."
"The outer court remembers how to breathe when it is forced to," Ye Tian said.
Zhou Ren's smile stayed. He turned his head toward the walkway where elders were gathering like gray clouds. One of them had a gentle frown etched into his face as if it had been carved there long ago. Another elder stood with hands tucked inside sleeves, thin, neat, and quiet. His eyes did not move much. When they did, things moved with them.
The quiet elder's mouth made the smallest suggestion of a smile.
"Watch him," he said to no one in particular.
The Sparring Day board hung under the eaves. Ink shone wet where a scribe had just finished the last line. Names were grouped by halls. Times were written like marching steps. The rules were simple. Show a form. Take a strike. Survive a whistle. Do not bleed on the steps.
Mu Qing put a finger to one row, then another, her nail not quite touching the ink.
"Here," she said. "The first hour after noon. Three rings open, outer court only. They will test you with something they can justify as fair. A shield, perhaps. A skin that hardens. Something that lets the blow fall without leaving a mark. The man who collects systems watches from the inner rail. If he decides he likes what he sees, the people under him will move."
"Which one," Ye Tian asked.
Mu Qing laughed once, not kindly. "Which one of the elders collects systems, or which system will you take."
"The first question is a waste of time," he said.
"Good," she said.
From the board, a boy's name looked back, written in a hand that did not want to be noticed.
[Target: Bai Shen]
[System: Minor Qi Shield]
[Function: A thin veil of spiritual force that reduces impact for a short span when called]
[Integrity: 71 percent]
[Seizure chance: variable]
[Optimal trigger: strike during activation peak, body contact layered over shield surface]
[Note: public use common, witnesses expected]
Ye Tian let the letters sink into him and vanish.
The bell at the main hall struck once, a clean tone that made the banners stir. The crowd changed direction the way a flock of birds does when a hawk moves its shadow.
Mu Qing's voice stayed low. "You looked at the iron fans," she said. "You meant it."
"Their weight is honest," he said. "They open when asked, and they close when told."
"Then do not hide them," she said. "If you want the outer court to learn a new word, you must say it where they can hear."
He turned to go. Mu Qing remained in the shade, her eyes moving along names that were not his.
"Why do you help me," he asked, without turning.
"Because history forgets the people no one writes," she said. "I am tired of watching the wrong names in the wrong ink."
He did not answer. He stepped back into the yard.
The weapon racks did not look different. The iron fans waited on the lower shelf like two patient hands. He took them up. Cool metal sat against his palms, the hinge whispering as he tested the open and the close.
Open, a thin ribbed crescent that caught light along each spine.
Close, a clean click, a promise that a movement could end exactly where it should.
[Weapon Mastery consolidation in effect]
[Observation: armament handling elevated, recovery windows shortened]
[Advisory: Minor Qi Shield counters blunt force, does not counter placement, does not counter rhythm]
The yard had not emptied. It had simply flowed from one circle to another. Faces that had cheered a breath ago now turned to watch, ready to cheer again or turn away as quickly if the lesson asked it.
"Fans," someone said, with a thin attempt at laughter. "A lady's toy."
"Watch," someone else said. "He will make you swallow that word."
The elders took their rail. The quiet one stood with his hands still hidden, his chin turned the smallest amount. The gentle frown elder looked as if he would rather be anywhere else and had chosen here so that no one would be alone when the trouble came.
Bai Shen climbed the steps to the nearest ring. He was broad across the shoulders in the way of boys who carried buckets and stone and did not complain about it. His face was plain, his eyes steady. His robe was clean but old at the elbows. He breathed as if he had taught himself to breathe without effort and had not always succeeded.
He looked at Ye Tian, then at the fans, then back at Ye Tian.
"You can still step down," he said. There was no mockery in it. Only a plain statement, like a man telling another that the road ahead had mud on it.
"I came to walk," Ye Tian said.
The ring lit. The ink on the board dried. Three rings opened, and a hundred eyes narrowed to one ring only.
Bai Shen placed his feet with care. He lifted his hands, palms open, fingers loose, the way people do when they intend to catch something heavy that will try to break them. A faint shimmer breathed across his skin and went away.
[System activity detected]
[Minor Qi Shield ready]
[Activation spike likely in first exchange]
[Seizure chance rises with direct contact during peak]
[Projection: shield sustains two clean impacts before loss of shape]
The click of the fan opening made a small sound that the ring swallowed and still everyone heard.
Ye Tian did not rush. He let the right fan open a thumb's width, then half, then fully. He let the left fan stay closed, its weight centered in his palm. He stepped once, twice, heel to toe, then drifted sideways so that Bai Shen had to adjust his stance or offer the wrong angle.
The first pass was a measure. Ye Tian's open fan swept out and up, a light test that gave the eye something to follow while the closed fan drew the guard. Bai Shen raised his hands, breath steady. The shimmer breathed across his chest again, brighter now, held a moment, then faded.
[Activation spike confirmed]
[Peak in next breath]
[Optimal contact: wrist, collar bone, or sternum through shield]
[Note: blunt force provides little data. Placement determines success]
Ye Tian stepped in. The open fan curved toward Bai Shen's shoulder. At the last fraction, he let the metal ribs roll and kiss the wrist instead, a touch that looked like a miss to anyone who wanted to laugh and was not paying attention.
Bai Shen's eyes flicked. His breath stayed steady.
The closed fan tapped low at the same heartbeat, not hard, not soft, a weight placed where the body carries balance.
The shimmer flared. The air between palm and metal thickened like heat above stone.
The crowd made a sound. Half victory, half doubt.
Bai Shen pushed forward. His hand caught the open fan and tried to bind it. His other forearm moved to catch the closed fan on the outside, to push it away and open the lane to Ye Tian's chest.
It might have worked against the boy this body used to be.
[Seizure window forming]
[Alignment, fifty seven percent]
[Hold placement, build rhythm, strike on the breath]
Ye Tian did not fight the bind. He gave the open fan into Bai Shen's hand for the length of one inhale. The closed fan rose, its ribbed edge gliding along the forearm as if he meant to trace the path of a river in winter.
The shield breathed again. Brighter. Closer to the skin.
"Now," someone shouted.
"No," another said softly. "Not yet."
Ye Tian stepped off line the smallest amount. Enough to turn Bai Shen's next weight into empty air. Enough to make the shimmer curve the wrong way and show the flat place where current has to run.
The ring watched without blinking.
Mu Qing's face in the crowd did not change. She did not clap or call. She watched like a scribe who had found a line that did not belong and wanted to see if the ink would admit it.
The quiet elder's head tilted a finger wider.
[Alignment, sixty nine percent]
[Devotion rising]
[Advisory: structure of shield thins at joints, wrists and elbows, under left clavicle, centerline above the heart]
Bai Shen drove his shoulder forward. The open fan tore free from his grip like water leaving a cup. The closed fan rode the line of his forearm and touched the hollow above the heart without striking.
The shimmer answered, a pale light that had decided it could be strong if it had to.
"Again," Ye Tian said softly, to the metal, to the ring, to the breath that counts and the breath that waits.
They moved. The fans opened and closed. The sound was not showy. It was a metronome. It taught the ring how long a second can last when it holds a choice.
Bai Shen did not panic. He tried different angles. He fed the shield a steady stream of weight. He tried to change the count.
Ye Tian changed it back.
[Alignment, eighty two percent]
[Seizure chance improving]
[Optimal contact in two more cycles]
[Warning: mis-timed contact will drain energy with no acquisition]
The ring had filled with a quiet that did not belong to peace. It belonged to people forcing themselves not to speak so that the person beside them would be the first to be wrong.
"Strike him," someone hissed.
"Wait," someone else said, without meaning to say it.
Ye Tian let breath move through him. The fans opened and closed. He tasted metal on the air, and the faint dust the boards threw when feet whisper over old wood. The world had narrowed to a man with a simple shield and a crowd that wanted to see whether patience could be a blade.
Bai Shen drew in a breath and called the light without hiding it. The shimmer gathered quick and bright across chest and throat and wrist. The ring saw it. The elders saw it. The quiet elder's hands under his sleeves might have moved or might not have. The gentle frown elder pressed his lips together and said nothing to no one.
[Activation peak forming]
[Alignment, ninety one percent]
[Contact required at wrist or under left clavicle]
[Seizure window, one breath only]
Ye Tian stepped once. The open fan made a wide arc that told a lie. The closed fan slipped in where lies cannot live.
The shimmer flared.
The ring leaned in.
Mu Qing's eyes narrowed, the smallest amount that means a person has decided to remember everything that happens next.
The quiet elder's chin lifted the width of a nail.
[Alignment, ninety seven percent]
[Seizure window begins on the next inhale]
[Proceed when ready]
Ye Tian could have smiled. He did not. He let both fans close in his hands, the metal clicking once, twice, a simple sound that drew the attention of people who had never cared about fans before today.
He timed the breath.
He stepped into the place the shield believed it could not be touched.
The world narrowed to the span of a wrist, the line of a collar bone, the sound of a hinge that was about to open.
The shield bloomed like heat on stone.
The Origin rose like a tide.
[Proceed?]
The ring held its breath.
The elder who collects systems, the one with the neat hands and the quiet smile, watched without blinking.
Ye Tian moved.
And the chapter ended with the click before the cut, and the light that had decided it could be strong meeting a will that knew how to take.