Before the fifth-year bouts began, Wei Quji and Dong A — sorely pressed for time as both were — arrived at the scene.
To them, the fights between the Dao Academy's students held little worth watching. But the bouts between fifth-years mattered greatly to all three cities.
For one thing, fifth-years by and large represented the ceiling of a city Dao Academy's martial strength. For another, the Three-City Dao Debate offered a single place that led straight to the National Dao Academy — no need to sit the great examination next month, no need to go to the commandery seat; one went directly to Zhuangdu!
That place, of course, could only go to the fifth-year champion of the Three-City Dao Debate.
As Wei Quji and Dong A took their seats on the viewing stand, the field visibly quieted.
It had to be said that a power such as Dong A did wonders for the overall strength of the academy.
In this Three-City Dao Debate, the first-year champion was Jiang Wang of the Fenglin City Dao Academy, while the third-year contest had all but become an internal affair of the Fenglin City Dao Academy.
That Dong A, a power of the Fifth-Rank Inner Prefecture realm, anchored the Fenglin City Dao Academy, was beyond question a blessing for the academy as a whole.
Now, if Fenglin could only take the fifth-year champion as well, there could be no doubt that it would sweep the other two cities, and would claim the lion's share in this year's resource distribution by the Royal Court of Zhuang.
And so Zhang Linchuan nearly rubbed a hole into his own forehead.
"Heavy, the pressure..." He murmured to himself.
Of the three bouts on the field, the one that drew every eye was naturally Lin Zhengren against... Sun Xiaoman.
One was the calm, composed number one of Wangjiang City's Dao Merit Roll; the other, a tiny, adorable girl who looked as though a puff of wind would knock her over.
"This little girl... is she even ten?" Zhao Rucheng clucked in wonder.
Not far from where the Sanshan City cultivators sat, Sun Xiaoyan — who had once again donned his hooded black robe at some unknown point — turned in fury and shouted: "Wuh ohre thrice awwready! Thut wuhh the witch-end uv mah sut-tuh!"
Zhao Rucheng could not quite make it out, so he edged a little closer — then abruptly shrank back, drawing in a sharp breath.
For what he saw beneath that hood was a fat, battered face, swollen purple and green. This little fatty of formidable defense — who knew what had happened in the short time since he had left the field — had a face so puffed up that his eyes had vanished into it, and he could no longer speak plainly.
Could it be some aftereffect of that Kun Skin Drum? Zhao Rucheng wondered.
Over there, seeing that even his face could frighten people, Sun Xiaoyan had also shrank resentfully back, tugging his hood down hard with his chubby hand. Her elder sister had felt the need to give him a beating in a corner before the fight — where in the world was a man to go to plead his case?
Jiang Wang kept his face impassive, but a thread of unease gathered in his heart.
This little fatty was only thirteen, while he was seventeen. The girl on the field was the fatty's elder sister, and to represent Sanshan City as a fifth-year fighter, she could only be stronger.
On the opening stretch of the cultivation road, had he already fallen too far behind?
...
The barefoot girl hopped lightly onto the field, the little silver hammer ornaments hanging on her wrists swaying as she went. She wore too innocent and harmless a face, one so darling that by comparison the genuinely handsome Lin Zhengren won but little support.
Nearly half the audience below wished for Sun Xiaoman to win. The remaining fraction wished that she would win without growing too tired.
"I heard that Chu Ping died at Xiong Wen's hands, his heart carved out. I grieve for him." Before the fight began, Lin Zhengren said unhurriedly.
"Life and death are the will of heaven." Sun Xiaoman's face was expressionless.
Jiang Wang could feel, plainly, that the mood among the Sanshan City cultivators beside him had turned markedly colder.
Some time before, Xiong Wen had shown himself at Sanshan City, and the students of the Sanshan Dao Academy had hunted him down — yet not only had he escaped, he had killed ten cultivators, the eldest senior brother of the Sanshan Dao Academy, Chu Ping, among them, carving out each one's heart to go with his wine. The whole commandery had been shaken.
It was for this that the Office of Inquiry had mustered the full strength of the Qinghe Commandery to hunt him down.
That Lin Zhengren should bring it up now was, of course, not out of grief.
Looking at the little girl before him, Lin Zhengren smiled: "Last year he lost to me by a single move. I wonder whether you, this year, can win it back?"
Chu Ping was dead; naturally, he could not win it back.
But the living — did they yet have such a chance?
Sun Xiaoman stepped forward on her bare feet, stepping, stepping, those white, translucent jade-like feet crossing one before the other.
And so the battle began.
Lin Zhengren pulled his right hand back and drew a green long whip out of his left sleeve.
The whip flowed like water, but its tip suddenly extended, piercing the air in a stab at Sun Xiaoman — as viciously cunning as a venomous snake!
His left hand pushed, and a swell rose from level ground, in an instant rolling into furious waves that closed in around Sun Xiaoman. This barrage of angry surf was swift beyond compare.
At the same time, those with keen eyes could notice that something was pushing up through the ground before Lin Zhengren, bursting through the tiles and boring its way out.
To face such a little girl, he would still wage a campaign of psychological aggression first. It might draw the contempt of many. But it also made all the more evident Lin Zhengren's steadiness.
The steadiness of one who lets no advantage slip, who gives an opponent not the smallest opening.
And in the course of this battle, that steadiness was on fullest display.
Lin Zhengli's fighting style might be modeled on him, but his strength fell far short.
Sun Xiaoman rose from the ground, her toes touching down once to sidestep the sudden lash of the whip's tip with ease, and then she planted herself upon the incoming waves and walked atop them as though striding across the tide.
Zhao Rucheng raised a sharp eyebrow, surprise in his eyes.
That was Dao-art power of considerable harm, yet not a scratch could be seen on her bare feet. Above all, no trace of her releasing any Dao art could be felt.
Either she carried, like Sun Xiaoyan, a permanently fixed Kun Skin Drum on her person; or else her body-tempering had already reached a certain intensity.
At this stage, one would have said that only those reckless martial artists could cut off Dao-art harm with sheer flesh and bone.
The barefoot girl strode along the waves, riding the very power of Lin Zhengren's arts, and in a few strides leapt into the space before him.
Lin Zhengren's hand relaxed, and that green long whip lashed its tail in a single resounding crack against the air. Then — in mid-air, it transformed into a great python, jaws spread to bite at Sun Xiaoman.
That whip had been forged from a living demon-beast serpent, a treasure handed down through the Lin family of Wangjiang City; its name was the Jade Python.
At the same moment, the ground before Lin Zhengren exploded, and countless vines burst forth like a nest of snakes! This Dao art was instantaneous — it was the one Lin Zhengren had engraved within his Heaven-Access Palace upon completing his minor circulation for the first time.
Arts of this sort were seldom revealed lightly. For a cultivator of low grade could only engrave two instantaneous Dao arts within his Heaven-Access Palace, one after completing the first minor circulation, the other after completing the full circulation of Heaven, Earth and Man. Such arts were a cultivator's trump cards, guarded from common knowledge.
Sometimes in battle, even when an art was truly instantaneous, a cultivator would still put on a sham performance of seal-forming, purely to throw others off the scent.
And Lin Zhengren seemed to feel some pressure, for he did not hesitate to turn out his hidden card.
Those snake-like vines wove and interlaced in the air, and in a trice twisted into an unbreakable wall of greenery before him.
A wood-element Dao art — the Entangling Wall of Vine-Snakes!
And Sun Xiaoman, soaring before Lin Zhengren, facing the great python chasing at her back and the wall of vines barring her way, simply raised one small hand high.
That little silver ornament, hanging from her wrist, grew and swelled against the wind.
Everyone saw — the tiny barefoot girl floating in the air, in her two hands now gripped a pair of silver great hammers, each nearly as tall as she was, and she swung around a single hammer-stroke!
The great hammer roared through a full circle, smashed against the Jade Python at her back, and went on spinning with the python hooked around it.
Sun Xiaoman revolved a full turn in the air, and that great hammer, dragging the green python with it, howled down and struck the Entangling Wall of Vine-Snakes with an unquestionable momentum.
At the instant of contact, the whole Entangling Wall — a Dao art of mid-grade Grade-B strength — burst apart.
One hammer-stroke, and the mountain mounds fell!