Tang Pidi was just moving to meet the charging enemy when from the side, out of a great tree, someone dropped in a dead straight fall — and before the figure even hit the ground, Tang Pidi saw that it was Li Chi.

The impact looked heavy. The thud when he landed was audible, and Li Chi lay there without moving, clearly unconscious.

Tang Pidi’s eyes went wide. Disregarding Shi Su coming at him, he ran for Li Chi.

At that same instant, a slight and slender woman drifted down from the tree. In her hand was an iron spike — a water-splitting spike, a weapon suited to fighting in water. She touched down and, without a heartbeat’s hesitation, drove it for Li Chi’s throat.

The apparently lifeless Li Chi suddenly seized Gongshu Yingying’s wrist, twisted, and pressed her down.

Gongshu Yingying’s expression shifted. The thrust she had made on the tree — she already knew it had failed. The water-splitting spike had simply not gone in. When she struck at the space between Li Chi’s shoulder blades, it had been clearly stopped by something resilient. But Li Chi had been knocked from the tree by her strike, and the fall had been hard enough, so she had pressed the advantage and followed him down.

Li Chi pinned Gongshu Yingying’s arm, twisted it to her back, and drove a fist at the back of her head.

Tang Pidi, still running, saw Li Chi was unharmed and let out a breath of relief.

But Li Chi had assumed that had been sufficient to control the woman — and was completely wrong. She rolled her shoulder and slipped her own arm free with startling ease, then turned over onto her back, and the moment her shoulders touched the ground, both feet drove upward at Li Chi.

Li Chi crossed his arms before him, but Gongshu Yingying’s kick was not meant to injure him — it was meant to disengage. She used the force of both feet slamming off him to slide backward and away, while simultaneously the left hand seized the right arm, twisted and reset it, and pushed the dislocated shoulder back into joint.

In the next instant, she plunged without hesitation into the forest.

In that single instant, Gongshu Yingying had assessed the situation and concluded: she could no longer kill by stealth here, and direct frontal combat was not her strength. Her best choice was to draw Li Chi into the forest, where alone in the trees, with the advantage of concealment, she had any number of ways to kill him.

But Li Chi did not pursue.

She ran deep into the forest and looked back. No one was behind her. That surprised Gongshu Yingying — this made no sense. Why would he not give chase?

Li Chi had not pursued because he had caught sight of Shici. He knew clearly who mattered and who did not — chasing that woman served no purpose.

Not far away, Shici stood looking at Li Chi, equally startled that Li Chi was still alive. Gongshu Yingying had never once failed, not in all her years. Shici knew exactly how terrifying this woman was — when she chose to strike, she never failed to kill.

Li Chi was the only person ever to have survived her hand.

Li Chi, too, was inwardly shaken. The woman who had just made her attempt had come up behind him without his sensing a thing.

If it had not been for Yu Chaozong’s visit — if he had not brought that serpent-scale armor — Li Chi would indeed have died just now.

He had sensed that a danger existed somewhere in his surroundings. But he had not expected it to materialize directly behind him.

Everyone who draws breath to strike undergoes some shift in their presence beforehand — even the most formidable of fighters. But this woman: her capacity to suppress her own breath was unlike anything he had encountered. From the slow climb up the tree to the moment she struck, the time she had held her breath far exceeded anything a normal person could sustain.

Shici looked at Li Chi. Li Chi smiled at him.

Li Chi said: “You see — it was your people who struck first, so the fault is yours. You still owe me the remaining two thousand taels.”

Shici was silent for a moment, then turned and ran.

Li Chi immediately gave chase. Cut off the head and the body dies — with Shici in hand, the fighting would stop. The woman assassin had retreated into the forest, and there was no point going after her.

Li Chi broke into long strides. A man of Shici’s sheltered habits was no match for Li Chi’s pace, and in a matter of steps Li Chi had closed the distance and closed his hand around Shici’s shoulder from behind.

He yanked backward. Shici was pulled around to face him — and in that instant, Li Chi saw the smile at the corner of Shici’s mouth.

*Crack!*

Shici’s palm struck Li Chi full in the chest. Li Chi’s body flew backward like a kite with a snapped string, traveling at least a zhang and more before he hit the ground.

Slowing the moment down would have revealed every detail: the instant Shici turned, Li Chi had already sensed something wrong and snapped both arms up to guard his chest. But Shici’s palm, though not particularly fast, hit with a force nothing could stop.

Shici’s palm landed on Li Chi’s guarding arms, and the arms could not hold — they were driven back into his own chest. In that same instant, Shici converted the palm to a fist and struck with close-range force — a short-power burst that threaded between Li Chi’s two forearms and hammered into his chest. Li Chi was sent flying.

To anyone watching, it looked as if Shici had simply slapped Li Chi away with one palm. No one could possibly have made out the short-power strike concealed within it.

Li Chi crashed to the ground, one hand braced on the earth trying to rise. But inside his chest came a seizing spasm that stole all the strength from his arm, and he went down again. Then he retched, and a great mouthful of blood came up.

Shici looked down at his own fist. He frowned slightly.

His knuckle was split, with some blood on it.

“How much do you fear death?”

He let out a sigh: “Soft armor I can understand. But you’re also wearing a heart-guard.”

Li Chi, still sitting on the ground, reached into his coat and pulled out the heart-guard to look at it. The heavy iron mirror had taken a single punch — not dented, but cracked. Split through.

Shici walked toward Li Chi, speaking as he came: “A man with your abilities surviving this long says a great deal about your capability. But you should not have made enemies of people on a different level than yourself. Ability, in front of standing, is never worth a thing.”

On the other side, Tang Pidi had swept Shi Su’s blade aside and glanced back. Li Chi’s injuries were clearly severe.

He had not anticipated this either — that the man who had looked so amiable, even slightly soft with age, could conceal such terrifying power.

What was concealment?

Shici’s concealment was the real thing. He had deceived everyone.

His real name was Xu Yuanqing. If the Xu family’s old patriarch counted as the first generation, Xu Yuanqing was the third, and all indications were that he would one day take over as the family’s new patriarch.

Though he was already fifty-three, his body had been maintained in a delicate balance all his life — one that made him look not particularly strong, and that slight softness of build would naturally suggest some weakness of constitution.

This way, in anyone’s eyes, he could not possibly be a genuine fighter.

But from his teens onward he had known: if he wanted to become the Xu family patriarch, his only chance was to outlive the old patriarch. Even then, his father had imagined he himself would be the one to inherit — but Xu Yuanqing had seen the old patriarch outlive his father’s hopes and known his father would never live to see the succession. The Xu family’s old patriarch, Xu Gengmao, was simply too vigorous: he had already outlasted Xu Yuanqing’s father into his seventies, and the old man still looked hale.

From his teens, Xu Yuanqing had trained. He had started a little late, perhaps, but he had iron will and absolute perseverance. To secure his claim to the patriarchship, he had to outlast the old patriarch and also outlast his own rivals.

From his teens to his fifties, he had trained without cease. Yet not even members of the Xu family had the first idea how skilled he had become — they assumed he practiced only to maintain his health.

He had deceived not only Li Chi and Tang Pidi but everyone within his own household.

By his age, the men who had once competed with him for the patriarchship had long since lost all competitive spirit. Even those who retained it had bodies that had started to decay — decades of wine, women, wealth, and pleasure, and now every one of them was showing the weight of their years.

But he was not like them. His age was performed.

“In truth, you were not worth my stepping in personally.”

Xu Yuanqing walked up to Li Chi, looking down at him. “Your standing was not sufficient to make me reveal my true capabilities. But… the people I brought along did disappoint me somewhat.”

He bent forward, one palm descending toward Li Chi’s face.

Li Chi’s feet kicked off the ground. By all appearances he should have had no strength left — yet off that single push he slid backward a great distance. Xu Yuanqing’s palm struck the earth.

*Crash!*

The ground erupted in a billow of dust.

Xu Yuanqing straightened and looked at Li Chi with a slight frown. “So you’re also good at pretending. At that moment just now, I thought even if I didn’t add another blow you could not have survived. At your age — why are you also this skilled at concealment?”

Li Chi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, struggled upright, stood swaying, but let a smile spread across his lips.

He looked at Xu Yuanqing. “If you had been just a little more patient, I’d be dead.”

Xu Yuanqing thought, then nodded. “You’re right. I was slightly too eager. If I’d struck after you had me restrained, you’d have died.”

Li Chi said: “But time doesn’t walk backward.”

Xu Yuanqing said: “It walks forward, and you die regardless. My greatest skill is not in how formidable my martial arts are — it’s in my capacity to wait. What is mine to me, sooner or later, makes no difference.”

With that, he stepped forward again. Li Chi let out a slow breath and raised his hand, reaching as if to draw the Shenshou saber from his back.

Xu Yuanqing was not about to give Li Chi the chance to clear his blade. A fist drove at Li Chi’s throat — Li Chi’s hand stopped mid-motion, and then swung forward.

A handful of dirt flew at Xu Yuanqing’s face.

He had crumpled to the ground, kicked off with one foot and slid backward — and in that same moment had already scooped up a fistful of earth.

Xu Yuanqing threw one arm up to shield his face and stepped sharply back.

Through the dust he could make out a shape charging at him. He let out a cold sound.

“Looking to die.”

Then he launched a palm into the shape moving through the dust.

*Crack!*

Through the dust, a palm met his palm. Both figures were driven backward. The drifting dust was blasted outward in all directions by the impact.

Xu Yuanqing retreated several steps, looked down at his right palm — and found it trembling, not quite under his control.

The dust settled. He saw clearly who stood across from him — and it was not Li Chi.

Yu Chaozong reached out a hand and helped Li Chi up. “Are you all right?”

Li Chi shook his head. “Nothing serious.”

Yu Chaozong acknowledged this, then turned back to face Xu Yuanqing. He was genuinely surprised that the old man had been concealing this kind of crushing palm strength.

He stepped forward. “Impressive force. Let me try.”

Yu Chaozong had agreed with Li Chi beforehand to keep his group concealed deeper in the forest so as not to tip off Shici’s people — once the fighting started they would move in. By the time they arrived, the area was already locked in full battle.

He had seen with a single glance that Li Chi was down on the ground, and had launched himself off his horse while still in the saddle.

In the moment Li Chi flung the dirt, Li Chi himself had already braced for a fight to the death — but in that very instant, a hand closed on his shoulder and pulled him backward, and Li Chi found himself completely unable to control his body as he fell back.

In the swirling dust, Yu Chaozong had met Xu Yuanqing’s palm.

Xu Yuanqing looked at the man before him. A moment of silence, then he suddenly called: “Yuan Qianshou — hold him!”

And his body swept backward through the air.