...

Elder Whitebrow stared at Zhao Zhan, who lay faceup and mangled, a ruin of blood like a smashed effigy under storm-dark skies.

His face tightened like a drawn bowstring, anger flaring and fading like lightning in cloud, yet words stalled in his throat.

What Nana Toki had said wasn’t without reason, a cool splash of water on hot coals.

Still, Zhao Zhan held a spiritual peak like a banner on a mountain ridge.

He was a one-in-ten-thousand prodigy, a blade honed bright in the Heavenly Ascent Sect’s forge.

He was also a personal disciple of one of the sect’s elders, a torch lit from the elder hall’s flame.

If the Third Elder came hunting Azure An for revenge, that would be a thunderhead rolling over the peaks.

Even from the sect’s broader view, Zhao Zhan being beaten like this felt like cutting our own roots.

A loss like this was frost biting new shoots.

He had been raised on the sect’s strongest resources, fed like a young pine with spring rain and rich earth.

Now this treasured sapling lay half-dead, felled by a brother from the same forest.

It was a slap to our own cheek, a gong struck wrong in our own hall.

Elder Whitebrow held Nana Toki’s gaze for a long breath, as long as a leaf’s drift on wind.

At last he exhaled, resigned as dusk settling over stone, and declared the wagered duel for Majestic Peak.

By the wager, Blue Magpie’s “ruining the Spirit-Gathering Flower” on Boundless Peak was void, a footprint washed by rain.

The price, though, was a knot tied tight with Boundless Peak, a grudge carved into bark.

Nana Toki shrugged like a willow in a light breeze.

Majestic Peak held only her and Blue Magpie, two lanterns on a quiet ridge.

If trouble came, it had to knock on her door, and she had the System like iron under silk.

She wasn’t about to flinch, not with thunder in her sleeve.

Sure enough, in less than a week after the wager, the System swept aside boundless waves of Boundless Peak disciples.

Dozens of batches came like moths to a flame and were flicked away like autumn leaves.

Another day broke bright and clear, a blue bowl of sky over green.

An uninvited guest stepped onto her spiritual peak, a lone shadow crossing sunlit stone.

Nana recognized him at a glance, as if seeing a familiar scar in mirror-glass.

It was Du Fei Yu, who’d fought Wargod Peak’s Shen Zhankuang on the arena platform.

“Peak Lord of Giant Spirit Peak, what brings you to Majestic Peak?”

Nana Toki’s mind held no friendly ink between their peaks, only blank paper.

“Here to make trouble?”

“Hahaha, Peak Lord, you’re too serious,” Du Fei Yu replied, grinning like sunlight off steel.

“I’m not here to stir the pot. I’m here for her.”

“Her?” Nana followed the line of his pointing finger, a thin spear toward the distance.

Under a lush, thick-crowned tree, Blue Magpie and the System crouched, poking an ant nest with a twig like two kids teasing sparks from ash.

“What do you want with those two idiots?” Nana asked, voice dry as sand.

Du Fei Yu froze, words choking like a fish on shore.

Which Peak Lord called her own sister and disciple idiots?

“I’m here to duel that little one,” he said at last, knuckles tight like stones in a river.

“Huh?”

Nana stared at the System he was pointing at, mind tripping like a foot on a root.

Did he just say he came to duel?

And he picked her white-label System?

“Don’t worry, Peak Lord,” Du Fei Yu said, mistaking her look like a traveler misreading stars.

“I mean no harm. I just want a clean match, a bit of sharpening steel on steel.”

That day on the arena, the System had erased a Boundless Peak Foundation Establishment Eighth Layer disciple with one move.

The scene burned in his mind like a brand on hide.

For days he’d lost appetite and sleep, wind in his chest and thunder in his bones, craving a true clash.

After much turning of the millstone, he’d come here.

Nana Toki deadpanned, a cloud refusing to rain.

What was there to brag about in a high-tier crushing rookies?

She, a mere Fifth Layer of Foundation Establishment, had beaten a Golden Core Stage cultivator fair and square on open ground.

Why did no one sing that song under the moon?

“You can challenge her, fine,” Nana said at last, voice even as level water.

“Tell her yourself. But before that, take a word of advice.”

He seemed straightforward, a good blade but a stubborn one.

She couldn’t bear to watch him walk into the saw on purpose.

“I’d suggest you go home and train a few more days.

At your current strength… tsk.

If it gets serious, the wind won’t blow your way.”

She’d put it as gently as down on a reed.

But Du Fei Yu took it as torch to tinder.

He clenched his fist, and flame leaped in his eyes like campfire in night wind.

A soldier before a cliff, he refused to step back.

“I understand you, Peak Lord,” he said, chest lifting like a bellows.

“Your Majestic Peak’s Ningyi is young yet fearsome.

At my current level—fifth layer of the Golden Core—it’ll be a real battle to split heaven and earth.

I’m not the kind to bully the weak and crush ants for sport.

Only a match where no one knows the deer’s fate can stir Du Fei Yu’s fighting heart!”

Nana Toki stared.

So he was a battle-mad hothead after all, a drum that only beats louder.

Her System slaughtered anything below Nascent Soul like a hawk through sparrows.

A peak Golden Core was a melon on a chopping block.

Marching in with hot blood to shake an old tree as an ant—was this not courting death?

“Well… all right. Suit yourself.”

He’d spoken with such iron that more words would bounce like pebbles off armor.

Some lessons must be learned by stepping into rain.

So.

As expected as winter frost, even after Nana whispered to the System to hold back, Du Fei Yu still got ground under heel all afternoon.

“How is it, Peak Lord Du?”

Nana walked over to where he lay, too sore to rise, like a fallen statue in sunset dust.

She looked at the slowly sinking sun, a coin sliding off the horizon, and couldn’t resist adding salt like sea spray.

“From this afternoon until now, you’ve challenged my disciple one hundred sixty-two times.

And without a single surprise, you achieved a flawless record of one hundred sixty-two straight losses.

Peak Lord Du, I’m not saying you’re bad.

But to lose that many and keep a straight face—you’re one stubborn hothead.”

Du Fei Yu stared up at the sky, silence like a held breath.

Was that praise or a knife wrapped in silk?

“Your disciple is monstrous,” he said at last, voice a dry laugh under dusk.

“I’m not good enough.

I bow my head.”

He watched the waning light, a smear of gold on edge of world, and smiled at himself.

He’d overestimated his blade.

Majestic Peak’s Ningyi was far beyond him, not by a hair but by a river.

Even that brute Shen Zhankuang might not stand a chance.

“Good. Since the match is done and you’re thoroughly convinced, let’s talk about the sparring fees you ran up on our peak this afternoon.”

“Eh? Sparring fees?”

His eyes widened like a startled deer’s.

A chill climbed his spine like ants in a line.

“What sparring fees?”

“Of course, the fees for dueling my disciple.”

Nana’s smile bloomed like a crescent blade.

“You didn’t think fighting my disciple was free, did you?

This costs money. Money.”

She even made a little pay-me gesture, fingers rubbing like crickets.

“But you never said that beforehand!”

He remembered clear as mountain water that she had not.

“I did advise you not to spar,” Nana said, smiling like a merchant counting coins under lamplight.

“You didn’t listen.

Don’t blame me.

Times have changed, Peak Lord Du.”

“...”

“So… how much is the bill?”

“Not much.

Two thousand per bout.

You fought one hundred sixty-two times.

I’ll wipe the tail and call it one sixty even.

That’s three hundred and twenty thousand spirit stones.”

She rattled off numbers like an abacus clacking, fast and smooth as rain on eaves.

“What! Three hundred and twenty thousand! Why don’t you just rob me? Hiss—”

The figure hit him like a hammer on a gong.

He almost sprang up from the ground, only to flinch as pain licked like fire.

“Peak Lord Du, be reasonable,” Nana said, voice gentle as silk and sharp as a hook.

“You insisted on sparring.

My disciple played tool-person for you all afternoon, gained nothing but fatigue like sand in sleeves.

Charging a fee isn’t too much, right?”

Du Fei Yu stared, words dying like sparks in snow.

A little fee?

Three hundred and twenty thousand in one afternoon?

You could build a house on that river of stones.

And she talked reason while spinning the net.

“Well, if you really can’t pay,” Nana said, changing tone like wind turning a page, “we can convert the stones to something else.

I’m not a heartless devil.”

His thoughts stumbled like hooves on wet rock.

“What do you want instead?”

“A favor.”

Nana’s eyes narrowed like a cat in sun.

She crouched beside him, expression unreadable as moonlight on water.

“I won’t ask you to kill or burn.

Just a small help when I call.

Then the three hundred and twenty thousand are wiped clean.”

“...”

Had she been eyeing this favor from the first step?

Du Fei Yu’s face shifted like clouds over a ridge.

He stared at her smiling face, teeth clenched like a locked gate.

After a long grind of thought, he yielded like a knee to stone.

“All right. I agree.

As long as it doesn’t break my principles, I, Du Fei Yu, will help you finish it.”

Under a low roof, a man must duck.

“Refreshing. You’ve got spine.”

Pleased, Nana clapped her hands, light as birds taking off.

Her smile brightened like dawn on snow.

“Then today’s business ends here.

Peak Lord Du, it’s getting late.

We’re heading back.

As for you… stay here a bit.

I’ve sent word to your Giant Spirit Peak.

In half an hour or so, someone will come carry you home.

Take care. Bye.”

Du Fei Yu: “...”