Chapter 55: TO MATCH-UP

CHAPTER

55

TO MATCH-UP

JIEYUAN

—∞—

Jieyuan poked at the rough, jagged line to the left of his stomach. He was sitting on a large, white bed, his back against the wall. He’d undone the upper half of his robes—he’d woken in a new set of inner disciple robes, outer robes topaz, inner robes white—baring his chest and abdomen.

A gemstone light in the ceiling lit up the room, white and sterile. He was in the Gleaming Stone Palace’s medical wing, a collection of large but mostly bare suites where patients were attended to by the palace’s physicians. It was his first time seeing physician cultivators—he hadn’t even known they were a thing. But apparently they were necessary, as they were charged with handling conditions pills couldn’t fix on their own. Not Redsoul pills, at any rate.

He’d only been up for a while. The physician who’d been in charge of him—an elderly man, all white hair and wrinkles, one of the oldest cultivators Jieyuan had ever seen—had just left, but not before subjecting Jieyuan to a rather lengthy explanation of how impossibly lucky he’d been.

His sullen physician hadn’t been particularly forthcoming, but best as Jieyuan could tell, he’d been taken here straight away from the Radiant Gold Palace after Palace Head Yiming dosed him—something that didn’t fail to spark a spike of indignation in him—where the palace’s physicians had learned what he’d known all along.

That he’d only suffered a flesh wound, and that everyone else was making a ridiculously big deal out of spare change. A grisly wound, to be sure, but nothing that couldn’t be healed overnight by pills. As had clearly happened. His side did ache a little, and certain movements that were fine before now sent up little jolts of pain. But he was a cultivator—the only pains that he cared about were the Pains.

As far as he was concerned, he was good as new. Or, well—good as refurbished, at any rate.

“Hmmm.” His newest scar sat just above his waist, pretty much the same length and width as a little finger. A corona of whisker-thin white marks surrounded it like a halo, whirlpool-like. He ran a finger over it. Looks a tad worse than I thought it’d be.

As it turned out, he’d forgotten to account for the cutting wind currents wrapped around Caoluan’s sword—that was where the halo of scratch-scars had come from. All things considered, though, it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. And it was hardly his first scar, or even the worst of them.

His gaze drifted over to the multitude of patches of warped, milky skin that littered his upper body. Little reminders of the lengths he’d gone to, all those years ago, to prepare himself for becoming a cultivator. His body had always come second to his goals.

There were also the other two scars he’d gotten from the cuts Caoluan had managed to land on him, both of them running across his chest. One larger, spanning his entire chest, the other slightly thicker and shorter. But the two of them were pale, subtle things, barely noticeable.

“You’re finally awake— What happened to you?”

Jieyuan looked up and saw Meiyao standing at the doorway, eyes wide. Staring at his exposed skin—at not just his latest scar, but the whole lot of them.

“Good morning to you too,” Jieyuan said. He assumed it was morning, at any rate. The room had no windows, and the physician had referenced his duel as yesterday’s event. If it weren’t morning—if it were afternoon, and he’d missed the day’s duels—there would be problems. Problems he’d start, because he didn’t get stabbed just to drop out of the tournament because he didn’t show up for his match today.

Meiyao drew closer, approaching his bed, eyes narrowing. “You— Were you tortured?”

“It depends.” He cocked his head. “Does it count as torture if you do it to yourself?”

She stopped dead, halfway to him. “You did what?”

“Not all of us had a steady Cultivator’s Agony supply growing up.” He shrugged. “I had to make do with what I had. Also, it is morning, right?”

“I… You know what? Never mind. I see that I came here for nothing.”

“And what did you come here for?”

“To see if I could get you to understand how getting yourself stabbed and putting yourself wholly at your opponent’s mercy is a terrible plan,” Meiyao said, even as she kept eyeing his scars. In a no less sharp but quieter voice—there should be guards nearby—she added, “Even if you do have that ability, which at least you had the sense not to use.”

Meiyao’s frown deepened, taking on an admonishing quality—with a touch of exasperation. “But clearly whatever I had to say would fall on deaf ears. You have absolutely no regard for your body, do you?”

“I’m pragmatic,” he said, simply, starting to draw up his robes. “I won’t risk maiming myself or anything permanently debilitating, of course, but scars? That’s just cosmetic.”

Her frown didn’t ease up. “But why go that far? It makes no difference whether you win.”

“It’s the same for you, but aren’t you fighting too? You and Daojue.”

“Yes,” Meiyao allowed, “but unlike you, we’re not taking potentially mortal wounds to advance.”

“That’s because you don’t need to. But I do—and I’m not about to gleam copper to someone else. Not if I can help it.” The look on Meiyao’s face made him realize he might have revealed more than he’d intended. “Look, matters of pride and envy aside, this is good for me. I work best under pressure. You have to admit, I’ve improved quite a bit these last few days.”

And I have to take every opportunity I can to improve myself if I want to keep up with you and Daojue, monsters that you are.

“Now,” he said, in a tone that made it clear he wanted the subject changed. “Morning. Ye or nay?”

Meiyao looked distinctly unamused. She let out a sigh that seemed to come from the soul, and Jieyuan knew then that she’d let the matter drop. At least for the time being, at any rate. “Yes. It is morning. There are still a few hours before we have to leave for the Gleaming Stone Palace.”

“Great.” Jieyuan finished folding his inner robes into his outer robes and tucked both of them neatly into his belt.

His glyph-stretch pouch was attached to his belt, as usual, and he’d checked it discreetly with his soulsense during the physician lecture. Everything was just as he’d left it, except the Shifting Feathers had been thrown inside, sheathed.

He looked back over to Meiyao. “What did I miss? You were up after me. How did you do?”

Meiyao’s opponent in her first duel, the one from the Xiyunfeng Clan, might have thrown the match, but all the ones after that had fought her properly, be they from the Xiyunfeng Clan or the Radiant Gold Palace.

“I won, of course,” Meiyao said dismissively as she settled herself back against the wall, arms crossing. Her opponent for the fifth round had been a sixth-sign redsoul, and she made her victory sound trifling. Never before had casual arrogance looked so lovely. “So did Daojue and Yunzhu.”

“So out of the eight competitors to make it to the fifth round, five are from our sect?” Jieyuan asked, surprised—only to realize that this wasn’t that much of a surprise. Or even a surprise at all, really. He couldn’t see Meiyao or Daojue losing, and Yongyi and Yunzhu were overwhelmingly talented in their own right. And he’d certainly done his level best and then some more to stay in the running, himself.

But still, this was probably the first time a single sect had dominated the Summit tournament’s top ranks to this extent.

That got a little smile out of Meiyao. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the elders so excited.”

“No doubt,” Jieyuan said. “What about the other three? Houliao, Dayang, and Xianjun?”

“Exactly.”

How he wished there’d been a betting pool for this tournament. The damage he’d have done. “And the match-ups?”

There Meiyao’s smile dropped, a frown taking its place. “They… don’t look that good. The elders couldn’t negotiate good pairings—the other three cabals worked together, for once, to ensure most of us from the Gleaming Stone Sect would have to fight each other.”

“Ah.” Jieyuan sighed. Not much of a surprise there, either. And at least one match-up would have to be between two Gleaming Stone Sect members anyway, the way the numbers were split.

He got off the bed, turned this way and that, doing some light stretches, making sure everything was working properly. “What are we looking at, exactly?”

“Yunzhu’s against Daojue. I’m facing Dayang. Xianjun, Houliao. And you…”

“Yongyi,” Jieyuan finished for her, freezing in place mid-stretch. “I’m fighting Yongyi.”

“You’re fighting Yongyi,” Meiyao confirmed.

—∞—

Jieyuan and Yongyi made their way to the center stage in silence, walking side by side.

The walk felt longer than it normally did. It wasn’t his first time walking to the stage alongside his opponent—he’d done the same in the second round, when he’d been up against someone from the Radiant Gold Sect—but this was different. They weren’t just coming from the same direction.

There was tension there, between them. There hadn’t been any, originally. Up until a short while ago, it’d been business as usual. They’d both known what was coming, but neither commented on it. Theirs was the second duel of the day, the first one having been Xianjun against Houliao, Xiyunfeng Clan versus Viridian Death Cult, ending in Xianjun’s victory, and he and Yongyi had commented on the fight as they usually did.

But then their names were called, and tension had settled between them, sure as a spell. Starting small, insignificant, but growing with every step they took.

Now they were most of the way to the stage, and the tension was like a tangible thing, heavy and hanging.

Jieyuan sneaked a glance to his left, at Yongyi. He’d had most of the morning to think about the upcoming duel, and he was still torn over the way he felt about it. On the one hand, it meant that either he or Yongyi would be getting kicked out this round. But on the other hand, he was looking forward to fighting Yongyi properly, on the big stage.

Yongyi’s head shifted slightly to the side. Their eyes met.

A smirk came to Jieyuan, unbidden—and then Yongyi was smiling back, yellow eyes bright, gleaming. And the tension vanished on the spot, as if it’d never been there.

Jieyuan nodded to the stage, now just a few yards away. “Ready?”

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking that?” Yongyi sounded amused. “You are the fourth-sign.”

“Sure. But you are the sixth-sign who’s about to lose to a fourth-sign.”

Yongyi snorted. “We’ll see.”

They jumped onto the stage. Yongyi nodded at him, then walked off, toward the opposite end. Jieyuan stayed put. The proctor was the same woman who’d overseen his earlier matches, and she was already on the platform, at the center, watching on impassively as Yongyi crossed the stage.

Once Yongyi got into position, the Radiant Gold Sect elder started to recite the rules of engagement. Jieyuan had barely paid it any mind the first time he’d heard them, and five repetitions later, he was even less interested.

He used this little interlude as he usually did, grounding himself and considering his opponent and the fight ahead.

He slowly slid both Shifting Feathers out of their sheathes, taking his time, feeling for their weight and balance. Yongyi presented a different problem to everyone he’d faced so far. He knew Yongyi’s abilities well. Better than anyone else here did—and better than he knew anyone else’s.

Jieyuan had sparred plenty with Meiyao these last few weeks—about as many times as he’d sparred with Yongyi—but Meiyao had kept as many of her cards in her sleeve as she’d revealed, if not more. With Yongyi, though, Jieyuan knew all of his tricks. Realmskills, prime skills, techniques, moves—he’d either faced them himself or seen Yongyi use them in spars against other disciples and elders.

Jieyuan could tell that Yongyi was eyeing him back, from the other side of the stage. He had drawn his sword. The blade was gear-shrouded, but in this case, Jieyuan knew exactly what it could do, and there’d be no room for surprises like what happened last time against Caoluan, with those air bursts. He’d been there when Yongyi bought the weapon in the Radiant Light Atelier, and he’d seen Yongyi use its prime gear-skill several times in some of the more serious spars he’d had with Palace Head Yiming. He’d even faced it himself more than once.

The problem was that as much as Jieyuan was familiar with Yongyi and his abilities, Yongyi would also know him better than any of his opponents had so far. Better than just about everyone else, really, or at least as good as. Meiyao knew more of Jieyuan’s powers—the ones that he wasn’t supposed to have, the ones he kept secret—but both Absolute Will Command and the Fatebloom Heart remained off the table for the tournament.

All in all, this promised to be a straightforward fight. No tricks, no underhanded strategies, no far-fetched plans. Jieyuan probably could’ve come up with something if he’d abused Absolute Will Command like he had against Caoluan, searching for the one scenario he could steal a win from, but he felt he owed Yongyi a proper fight. One that came down to a simple matter of power and skill.

And also wits, of course—because fair fight or no, if Jieyuan saw an opportunity to pull off something inspired, he had no intention of letting it go to waste.