The day after Su Qingyue’s victory arrived without alarm.

Lin Xuan opened his eyes to the new room he had been sleeping in since the night of the tea house, the cup at his ribs full, and a certainty in his chest that today was the day he had been waiting to study since the brackets had been drawn.

Yan Wuji fought today. The principal obstacle to the quest of taking the regional crown. The man stood at the peak of Qi Gathering, a single breath from breaking into Foundation Establishment, and that single breath was the difference between everything Lin Xuan was and everything he was not.

’I want to see him properly. There is a real chance I end up across the stone from him in the final.’

[ A real chance, yes. The tournament seems to be steering you in that direction whether you ask it to or not. Although I have to remind you that your road there crosses Su Qingyue first. ]

’I have not forgotten her. I am not in the habit of treating opponents the way Lin Kai treats them. We saw what Yan Wuji is yesterday, and Wen Liyang has not stopped seeing it either, judging by the way Yu Lan is going to spend the next week consoling him. By the way. It has been quiet.’

[ It has. ]

’After what I said to her in the tribune, I expected something. I dropped the tea house in the conversation on purpose to see if she registered the word. If she understood that I had her, she might have walked back what she set in motion. If she did not, my father will catch her with her hands wrist-deep in the dough.’

[ If anything she ordered comes to light, the punishment will be severe and entirely outside the ordinary register. ]

’I know. And I am not the charitable type, Mira. She has tried to kill me twice now. If she goes for a third and I find a clean way to remove her from the board, I take it. One less obstacle to the climb.’

[ You surprise me sometimes. I did not have you marked down as a person who calculates that way. ]

’Kill or be killed, Mira. I do not enjoy it. But if someone walks toward my throat with intent, I will return the gesture and consider it polite.’

The morning passed at the pace of a morning that had something it wanted to get to. Breakfast, robe, sword, the corridor, the residence gate, the streets of Yuncheng already thick with the foot traffic of a public that knew what they were lining up to see. Lin Xuan walked with the unhurried pace of a Young Master who had learned not to spend energy on the road when the road was not the contest.

By the time he reached the Arena, the rings were closer to full than they had been any day of the tournament so far. The invited disciple was fighting. A spectacle that arrived once every five years, and the city of Yuncheng had cleared its kitchens and its workshops to attend.

Lin Xuan took an aisle seat in the principal sector. Lian arrived behind him and slid onto the cushion at his right with the small bundle of his afternoon meal under her arm. Wei Tianming arrived a moment later and took the cushion at his left, pulling his new Skyedge robe straight at the shoulder before he sat.

"Young Master." Wei Tianming’s voice carried a quiet that had not been there the day before. "Today’s opponent is a different sort of cultivator. I do not think I would land a blow on him even if he allowed me three attempts."

Lian leaned across the cushion, hand braced on her knee. "It is a fair admission, Wei, on account of you being you. But the Young Master is the Young Master. He will win when his round comes. Yes?"

She turned the question toward him with a small smile, expecting the small confirmation he always gave her.

He did not give it.

His attention had pulled flat across the lower ring and locked on the figure walking across the stone of the fighting floor. Yan Wuji moved with the loose composure of a man who had been told by everyone in his life since he was a boy that he was a problem the world would have to solve, and had quietly agreed.

Lian followed his line and let her sentence go.

Across the Arena, in the patriarchal tribune, Lin Zhen was sitting with his cushion a hand’s width further from Madam Mei’s than it had been the morning before. The space was small enough to read as accident if a person was looking for an excuse and clear enough to read as deliberate if a person was looking honestly. Madam Mei held her cup at the height of her chin without drinking from it.

’Mira. Is that real, or am I seeing what I want to see?’

[ It is real. He has placed measurable distance between himself and his own wife in front of the regional sects. Something has shifted, Xuan. He may have arrived at his own conclusion. ]

’That would save me a headache. I would rather he take her down himself than have to bring proof.’

The Master of Ceremonies climbed onto the polished stone, parchment in hand, and the rings quieted by degrees as the announcement rose through the air.

"Principal Bracket. Third combat of the first round. Young Master Yan Wuji of Heavenly Sword Pavilion, against Young Master Wen Liyang of Phoenix Mirror Sect."

Yan Wuji walked to the center of the floor without rushing and stopped. The straight blade at his hip stayed in its scabbard. He did not draw.

Wen Liyang climbed the eastern stair with the bearing of a man who had spent the last twelve hours preparing himself for the fact that the next two minutes of his life were going to be discussed at every Phoenix Mirror banquet for the next decade.

The two of them bowed at the formal angle.

The Master of Ceremonies stepped back.

"Begin."

Wen Liyang committed in the first heartbeat.

He had clearly decided on the walk up that there was no future in waiting. His entire reservoir poured into the opening cut. Phoenix Plume Strike, the signature opener of his sect, the technique that had carried him through the regional rankings to the principal seat. The blade rose with a long red plume of Qi extending from the spine, the feather widening as it traveled, the heat of it visible in the air as a soft red haze.

Yan Wuji exhaled.

The blade left the scabbard.

What happened next was a single motion.

A diagonal cut from the lower right toward the upper left, drawn through the air with the calm of a man brushing a strand of hair off his shoulder. There was no flare of Qi at the edge.

The space the blade traveled through went a pale shade of silver for the breath the cut occupied, and the air along that line turned thin enough that the dust on the polished stone lifted in two parallel ribbons on either side of the path.

The plume of Phoenix Plume Strike unraveled.

The red Qi that had been gathering itself into a feather across the space simply forgot how to be a feather and dispersed into the air as ordinary heat, the way a candle forgot how to be a flame the moment a hand closed around the wick.

The cut continued.

It met Wen Liyang’s blade an arm’s length from his guard, and the steel of Phoenix Mirror’s principal sword bent. The full length of the edge curved twelve degrees out of true, the metal whining once as it reshaped under a pressure that had no visible source.

Wen Liyang’s wrist gave.

The blade slipped from his grip and rang once against the polished stone before sliding two paces along the floor.

Yan Wuji was already returning his sword to the scabbard.

The whole sequence had taken about as long as a sneeze.

Wen Liyang stood very still, one hand half-extended toward the spot where his blade no longer was, the other pressed against the front of his robe where his cup had emptied itself in the same instant the cut had passed.

The Master of Ceremonies stepped onto the platform and lifted his hand.

"Victory. Young Master Yan Wuji of Heavenly Sword Pavilion."

Wen Liyang did not yield. There was nothing left to yield.

A breath of complete quiet held the Arena.

’Wow. He just dismantled my ex-fiancée’s betrothed with one swing.’

[ You mean your love interest’s betrothed. ]

’Mira, I am not gay. I blew the kiss at him to crack his focus, and even that did not seem necessary in the end. I might be looking at this thing across the floor in the final. How am I supposed to beat something like that.’

[ First, defeat Su Qingyue. Then we will revisit the question. ]

’And if Lin Kai makes it through tomorrow, he is the one drawing this thing in the semifinal. I am not missing that combat for the world.’

[ It sounds like you have already written the result. ]

’They are going to grind my brother into powder. That is exactly why I want to watch it with my own eyes. I want to remember every detail, and then I want to tell him about every detail when he is old enough to hear it.’

The Arena finally found its applause.

It came louder than the noise that had filled the rings the day Lin Xuan had cut Lei Yan’s blade into three pieces, which made a certain sense. Winning a combat in a single motion was a rarer commodity than winning one in seven.

Lin Xuan rose with the rest of the principal sector. Lian rose with him, hands folding in front of her at the careful angle she always used when she was about to say something she did not entirely believe.

"...The Young Master will still beat him."

She delivered it to the empty seat in front of her, which was the only piece of furniture in the row that was not going to call her on the lie.

Wei Tianming, on the other side of Lin Xuan, nodded with a vigor that suggested he was working harder on the agreement than the agreement deserved.

"Yes. Yes, the Young Master will. It is what the Young Master does."

Lin Xuan let out a small sound through his nose that was not quite a laugh.

[ You have people who believe in you, Xuan. (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ I think. ]

’You think?’

[ I am being generous with the punctuation. ]

He let his shoulders ease. The applause kept going. Down on the floor, Yan Wuji had already crossed to the western stair, his blade resting in the scabbard as if it had never left it, and Wen Liyang was bending stiffly to retrieve the bent sword from where it had stopped.

Lin Xuan watched the invited disciple disappear down the stair.

Tomorrow was Lin Kai.

Then after that, Su Qingyue.

Then, somewhere on the far side of those two combats, the man walking off the floor today was waiting for him at the end of the bracket.

He had a great deal of work to do.