he dust on the village road did not settle. It hung in the air, suspended by the heavy, aggressive Qi radiating from Sun Hao.
Sun Hao was not a complex fighter. He followed the Crushing Bull Method, a low-tier technique favored by the Sun Family because it required zero intelligence—only mass and momentum.
He lowered his shoulder. His skin took on a faint, metallic sheen as he circulated his Qi to the surface.
"I'm going to break your legs," Sun Hao announced, his voice thick with confidence. "Then I'm going to crush your seeds."
Chu Feng looked at his bag of seeds. They were winter wheat. Very expensive.
"Please don't," Chu Feng said, shifting his weight. "It's almost planting season."
The crowd held its breath. Han Bo, watching from the side, leaned forward. He wasn't interested in Chu Feng getting beaten—that was routine. He was interested in how a Mid-Stage invalid would fall.
"Die!"
Sun Hao exploded forward.
It was a clumsy charge, but fast. The ground shook. Sun Hao aimed a sweeping backhand at Chu Feng's head—a blow meant to concuss, humiliate, and possibly kill.
Chu Feng's brain screamed: RUN.
But his legs didn't run.
Deep in his marrow, beneath the fear and the farming instincts, a dormant sequence of blood awoke.
It wasn't a voice. It wasn't a calculation. It was a sensation of absolute clarity.
The world didn't slow down, but Sun Hao's movement became transparent. Chu Feng didn't see a terrifying fist; he saw a crude, jagged line of force. He saw wasted weight. He saw a center of gravity leaning too far forward. He saw a mistake.
Chu Feng didn't think. He didn't decide. His spine simply snapped straight.
As Sun Hao's fist tore through the air, Chu Feng didn't cower. He didn't block. He simply... stepped.
It was a half-step. Three inches to the left. A subtle rotation of the hip.
Whoosh.
Sun Hao's fist passed two millimeters from Chu Feng's nose. The wind of the punch ruffled Chu Feng's hair, but the blow hit nothing.
"What?" Sun Hao grunted, his momentum carrying him forward.
He pivoted, enraged. He swung again—a downward hammer blow.
Crushing Bull: Iron Hoof.
This time, Chu Feng didn't just dodge. His body, reacting to the threat of death, sought stability. His left foot planted into the dirt, gripping the earth like a root. His right shoulder dropped.
He didn't attack. He just occupied the space Sun Hao wanted to move into.
Thud.
Sun Hao's forearm slammed into Chu Feng's shoulder.
By all logic, Chu Feng should have collapsed. Sun Hao was heavier, stronger, and using an offensive art.
But Chu Feng was standing correctly.
His skeletal structure was perfectly aligned with gravity. The force of Sun Hao's blow didn't hit soft tissue; it traveled down Chu Feng's spine, through his hips, and dispersed harmlessly into the ground.
Crack.
The sound didn't come from Chu Feng.
Sun Hao screamed. The recoil of hitting an immovable object had traveled back up his own arm, jarring his elbow.
"My arm!" Sun Hao howled, stumbling back. He flailed, his balance destroyed by the failed impact. He tripped over his own feet and crashed face-first into a pile of donkey manure.
Silence.
The villagers blinked.
To them, it looked like Sun Hao had swung too hard, missed, and slipped.
"Clumsy," someone whispered.
"Too much fat, not enough muscle," another agreed.
Chu Feng stood there, rubbing his shoulder. He looked terrified.
"Ouch," Chu Feng hissed, wincing. "He hit me really hard. I think I'm bruised."
He wasn't bruised. He felt fine. But he knew that if he didn't complain, people might get suspicious.
Han Bo, however, was not looking at the manure. He was staring at Chu Feng's feet.
The footprints were shallow. Even though he had absorbed a heavy blow, Chu Feng hadn't sunk into the mud.
'He grounded the force,' Han Bo thought, a chill running down his spine. 'How? That requires perfect meridian control. He's supposed to be leaking.'
[The Rooftop]
The watcher in the gray robes didn't blink. He had seen everything.
He didn't see a clumsy slip. He saw something that didn't belong in a backwater village.
"That stance..." the watcher whispered, his hand drifting to the dagger at his waist.
It was a stance of absolute, imperial stability. It was the kind of movement found only in the oldest war manuals—the kind that required a bloodline of conquerors to execute instinctively.
"It wasn't luck," the watcher murmured. "He didn't learn that from a farmer. That is an inheritance. And if he is allowed to grow..."
The watcher made a decision.
His orders were "Observe," but his organization's creed was "Eliminate Threats Early." An anomaly like this could not be left alive.
He stood up. His silhouette dissolved into smoke.
[The Road Home]
Chu Feng walked quickly, clutching his bag of seeds. His heart was still pounding from the fight.
"That was close," he muttered. "If he hadn't slipped, I'd be lying in the dirt right now. I really should avoid crowds."
He turned onto the narrow dirt path leading to his shack. The village noises faded behind him, replaced by the quiet rustle of leaves and distant night insects.
The shadows beneath the trees deepened.
A figure dropped silently from a branch behind him.
The gray-robed assassin moved like mist, his presence folded inward, his Qi suppressed to almost nothing. The dagger in his hand glistened faintly with paralytic toxin.
One strike.
No sound.
No witnesses.
He closed the distance in two steps.
Then—
A second shadow appeared.
It was already there.
The assassin's pupils shrank.
He never sensed the approach.
Never heard the movement.
Never felt killing intent.
A hand like iron clamped over his mouth.
A thin blade slid across his throat with clinical precision.
No struggle.
No sound.
The assassin's body went limp before it could fall.
The second shadow caught him and lowered him gently to the ground, as if handling a sack of grain.
A brief pause.
Then the shadow produced a small talisman and pressed it against the corpse.
The body dissolved into ash, scattered silently by the night wind.
No blood remained.
No scent lingered.
No trace was left behind.
The second shadow glanced once in Chu Feng's direction.
There was no interest in him.
No curiosity.
No hostility.
Only dismissal.
The shadow melted back into the darkness, leaving the path empty.
Chu Feng felt a faint breeze brush the back of his neck.
He scratched absently.
"Huh," he muttered. "Cold tonight."
He continued walking home, thinking about what to cook for dinner.
Behind him, the dirt path remained undisturbed.
He won the fight by standing correctly.
Someone else died for seeing it.