Further beyond the ridge, two figures sprinted across the snow—one in desperate flight, the other relentless in pursuit.
Wu Qiong's pace faltered with each step. He clutched his right shoulder with his left hand, his gait uneven as pain dragged at him.
Tian Li slowed slightly. "How many times do I have to cut this bastard for him to die? Most of his essence was already spent. I can't attack anymore. I have to preserve what's left."
Wu Qiong suddenly hurled himself into a mound of snow, vanishing from sight and throwing off Tian Li's aim.
"WU QIONG! Your body is already at its limit. Do you really think hiding will save you?"
"Damn it!" Wu Qiong gasped. He crouched against an icy wall, breathing raggedly, occasionally peering out from its edge. His back was torn and mangled; an incomprehensible pain surged through him as the ice pressed against his wounds. He ripped strips from his clothing and bound them tightly around his right shoulder.
"I have to think—anything. Just something."
Blades of compressed air screamed through the air as Tian Li fired, shattering ice wherever they struck.
Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak—the Art of War.
"Tian Li doesn't have infinite essence. He's trying to intimidate me. I need to stay calm and assess the situation. What have I been doing this whole time? Running. I understand this terrain better than he does. There are countless variables that seem unrelated… but they're secretly connected."
Wu Qiong's thoughts formed into precise, interlocking chains as he tested strategy after strategy. Suddenly, his eyes flashed with brilliance, and a faint smile curved his lips.
"This is insane… can I really pull this off? Will I survive long enough?"
He rose and shouted wildly, deliberately drawing Tian Li's attention, then bolted toward what appeared to be a dead end—an area with no visible path forward.
The question from earlier resurfaced through Wu Qiong's actions: Human nature only became unpredictable once a person ceased to act human.
Wu Qiong came to an abrupt halt, breath heaving. He turned to face Tian Li, a completely unhinged expression etched across his face. There was no fear—no trace of emotional fluctuation at all. His eyes shimmered with light, his smile sharp and unwavering.
"Tian Li!!"
Tian Li stopped as well, standing some distance away as the two locked gazes. Something felt wrong. Why would he stop now? No—wait. Those reflections… what are those?
"Tian Li, do you understand now?" Wu Qiong said calmly. "Do you know why lightning strikes this place so methodically? Do you think it's just the weather?" He raised a finger and pointed upward.
Above them, a massive storm cloud spiraled, dense and churning.
Wu Qiong looked utterly transformed, as though his injuries no longer existed.
"What are you babbling about, you insane bastard?" Tian Li snapped.
"Do you know what attracts lightning most?" Wu Qiong continued. "Silver. Lightning is said to symbolize divine punishment, retribution cast upon the earth. Haven't you noticed the details around you?"
Tian Li froze. "Mirrors—damn you! When did you set this up? You didn't have any abilities! How did you trap me?"
Wu Qiong replied evenly, "Do you know why I kept leading you here? Because of your pride. You're Tian Xue's younger brother—yet you surpassed him. You've always resented him for that. Earlier, when you passed him, you whispered something I couldn't hear. But I saw Xing'Er's expression. She's close to Tian Xue."
"You love Xing'Er, don't you?" Wu Qiong continued. "That's why your resentment toward Tian Xue runs so deep. Even though you surpassed him in talent, she never held you above him in her heart. You broke a pledge—and you carry guilt for it, because it was you who stunted Tian Xue's growth.
"I kept asking myself the same question—why was Tian Xue refraining from speaking to his own brother? Because he, too, harbored resentment toward you."
"You value one thing above all else: standing above everyone. It's the only thing that's ever rewarded you.
"I was reading through the paper, although I've yet to understand its essence and have not solved it yet, but I understood a broader truth—contradictions!"
"I wondered why lightning never struck those who committed evil without restraint. It's because they never claimed to be righteous. Their nature held no contradiction. But you—your actions contradict the role you assigned yourself. You see yourself as the pride of the clan, as justice itself, yet inside you storms uncertainties.
Wu Qiong's interaction with Xuan Ren also aided in these strange thoughts, he radiated this killing intent which only someone with a sufficient degree of experience would have, the way he carried himself appeared to be carefree.
"The lightning crackled earlier—before I even arrived. Who was here first?" Wu Qiong smiled faintly. "Only you, it was then i realized that the lightning seems to strike in two different patterns"
Tian Li stood stunned, his mind reeling. Words failed him. After a moment, he forced himself to speak.
"But how? When did you set this up? You deliberately led me astray—to drain my essence. These mirrors… they're grounds."
Wu Qiong nodded. "Punishment grounds."
"I know you were the one who had Dang Tou collect the mirrors. You understood they attracted lightning—or that they could be used for your own ends. Thats why earlier you did not act and were supposedly waiting for something however one of them rashly attacked you rendering your hypothesis unable to be tested. These mirrors can also attract lightning, so i kept thinking what is something you would not forsee atall? It is by you being blinded by dominance and letting your guard down."
Tian Li again asked "How did you know the existence of these grounds?"
"As for how I knew these sites existed—simple. These were the only places not regularly struck by lightning. The conditions had yet to be fulfilled first, i observed your confrontation earlier and subsequently nothing happend despite you being confronted with your past actions, the place you were standing was just solid ground. I must say alot of these concepts seemed too disparate, however the truth was that, seeing beyond the surface would lead you to a surprising conclusion."
"You didn't expect to be trapped like this, did you? You never realized the mirrors existed naturally, your plan to manually plant them would only attract naturally occuring lightning from the sky, however once the conditions for the punishment grounds were established regardless of the state of the weather it would respond."
Tian Li fell silent. Then, suddenly, desperation surged forth.
"So what? Why should I be punished for striving for greatness? For sabotaging my own brother? Wouldn't you do the same? If Tian Xue had greater talent than me, I'd be the one living in his shadow!"
Wu Qiong answered quietly, "You're someone who doesn't understand what it means to live. Whether you die or not—have you ever truly lived?"
"Lived?" Tian Li shouted, his voice cracking. "Then tell me—what is living? Don't act like your all mighty than me, do you know the suffering I've underwent throughout my life?"
"Living means experiencing," Wu Qiong replied. "So tell me—what have you truly experienced, Tian Li?"
Tian Li froze. Then a bitter chuckle escaped him
"I've experienced weakness, although i never wished for my status as the Young Master, i simply wanted to be with Xing'Er. The responsibilites stacked up and solidified my cold personality in which i carry around like a burden, i am detached from my self however —she was keeping me intact. To think it would end like this. Truthfully, I never truly lived after my mother died."
Realization struck him all at once. Though he was the young master and his father's successor, he was the son of a concubine—chosen solely for his aptitude. Then, one day, his mother died under mysterious circumstances. The perpetrator?
His own father, he had to constantly mask his pain from the tragedy, look at the face of the man he called father.
Xing'Er became the warmth he had never known. His world had always been bleak. And only now did he realize—the one person who had always stood beside him was his elder brother, Tian Xue. He was truly tired of living like this, this place sort of symbolized Tian Li's inner conflicts and established a cleansing of his past.
He lifted his gaze to the sky, emotion finally breaking through—years of guilt laid bare. He looked at Wu Qiong one last time.
"Wu Qiong… take this."
He threw his bag of belongings.
Moments later, thunder roared as a javelin of lightning descended from the heavens, striking Tian Li directly.
The world flared white.
When the light faded, a massive crater marked where Tian Li had stood. Lightning still crackled within it. His body had been completely annihilated.
Wu Qiong stood silently, staring upward. A fragment of cloth drifted down through the air. He reached out and caught it—it was Tian Li's clothing.
There was no joy in his heart. Instead, something tightened painfully within his chest. This was the first life he had taken—not directly, yet undeniably. From the moment he awakened in this world, he had witnessed countless deaths. One might assume desensitization would follow, but taking a life was never so simple.
It meant stripping away the very qualities that defined humanity. A murderer was called a monster for his atrocities—yet some never recognized wrongdoing as something internally encoded. Even though Wu Qiong did what they would recognize as self defence on Earth, often regardless of ones motives the contradictions one started to feel would lead to sleepless nights.
Wu Qiong's humanity still lingered in his heart, he tried supressing that aching inside when he heard Tian Li's words
Death was unpredictable. Life was forgotten. Only the present remained. The indifference of the world swept you away on the very winds you sought to ride—
Tian Li.
The snowfall ceased, and a ray of sunlight pierced the gray clouds above.
Wu Qiong breathed out a mouthfull of turbid air and turned around, currently he was standing right infront of the entrance towards one of the three peaks, thats right this mountains upper layer consisted of three peaks which would then subsequently lead to the summit.
"Although i've yet to understand that paper, strangely enough it helped me intuiviely understand something. Firstly it was the fact regarding contradictions, the text itself contains conflicting meanings and then i thought to myself what other contradictions are able to arise if not pre dominantley in human nature."
"Secondly the fact regarding nuance there are lots of things in the world which seem disparate but through closer examination one would see correlations, not by neccecarily utilizing logic throughout the entire process but imaginative reasoning. This is how i was able to connect said disaparate ideas"
In Giambattista Vico's theory, Ingenuity or ingegno was the foundational cognitive faculty which allowed someone to create meaning or connect disaparate ideas, it means "To give birth to" this explains the minds inherent capacity to produce sort of generative arts interdependent of formal structures of reasoning such as deductive which are sequential and moves A to B and fits things into pre existing categories.
Wu Qiong walked past the entrance, and arrived at this flat area. At first glance he saw what appeared to be one neatly arranged table and chair, on the table there was a piece of paper with delicate words written as following.
"You have two choices, one is to jump off and the other is to wait until 10 minutes have passed to be struck to death by lightning"
"What?" Wu Qiong was rather shocked for a bit, thereafter he read that the following text was identical to the first, it simply switched it the other way around.
"You have two choices, one is to stay or jump off and die"
"A puzzle!" Wu Qiong's Eyes brightened up.