With the Little Moon Sage staking her name, Lingcai’s heart eased like a silk ribbon loosening in the wind.

Still, worry pooled cold as night dew. Cheating was a thorn; if someone spotted it, the bloom would be wasted.

She thought a beat, then tugged the Little Moon Sage aside, whispering like rain against a leaf:

“Grandmaster, when you move, make it fast. As soon as I lift my hand, you drop her. Faster is safer; slow invites eyes. Fast makes me look fierce.”

The Little Moon Sage answered unhurried, like a crescent drifting through clouds: “I know. I’ve got it.”

Lingcai finally let her breath out, a long stream like smoke from a brazier. She climbed the stone steps and stepped into the chalk-drawn ring, a white moon on the floor.

She faced Witch Nonona, who was showing off her figure like a blade catching torchlight.

Seeing Lingcai enter the arena, Witch Nonona snorted low, veins rising like blue vines coiling round her arms.

She drew in force like thunder under a lid, then shouted. A visible gold aura wrapped her, flaring like sunrise from her skin:

“Ha—!”

It was straight out of a Super Saiyan.

Witch Nonona, draped in that gold fighting qi, strode into the chalk circle and stomped barefoot. The floor swallowed her foot like damp earth; only her ankle showed.

She sank the other foot too, planting herself like a nail hammered into a board.

Even if beaten for a breath, as long as she didn’t leave the ring, it wasn’t a loss. That rule clung like moss to stone.

She checked her footing one more time, then folded her arms and leveled a confident stare at Lingcai, cool as starlight.

Viola saw Nonona ready and confirmed Lingcai stood proper within bounds, no tricks. She lifted her voice like a bell:

“Now I announce! ‘No-Limits Sumo Push-Off’—Du-el—be-gins!”

Dong!

The bronze bell in the Main Hall answered, a heart thumping in metal. That was the signal.

The duel began.

Pa!

In the next blink, Witch Nonona, along with the slab of floor nailed under her, flew. Her forehead slammed into the back wall, stone biting deep; half her body vanished into it.

The duel ended.

No one saw it coming. Not Nonona. Not Viola. Least of all Lingcai.

Lingcai’s mind went white like snow. Then grief and exasperation rose, and her eyes slid toward the Little Moon Sage below like arrows.

At least let me raise my hand before you insta-KO her, okay?!

While Viola and the others still stared, stunned, at Nonona embedded in the wall like a skewered carp, Lingcai rushed down the steps, her feet quick as sparrows.

Noting the storm on Lingcai’s face, the Little Moon Sage smiled, warm as tea. “What’s wrong?”

You have the nerve to ask?!

Lingcai sputtered, words tangling like fishing lines, then forced them low and tight: “You could’ve just knocked her out of the ring. Why make such a racket?”

The Little Moon Sage spread her hands, innocent as a child with clean palms: “Doesn’t it make you look stronger?”

“I hadn’t even moved. Why toss her already?” Lingcai pressed, heat under her breath.

“Shows you’re too fast to see,” the Little Moon Sage said, as if it were the most natural moonrise.

Lingcai truly saw stars. She kept her voice down, anger like a red thread: “Aren’t you afraid people will spot we’re cheating?”

The Little Moon Sage flicked her fingers and blew on them, casual as wind through bamboo: “Even if they spot it, do they dare say it?”

What kind of crooked logic was that.

After a long beat, Viola finally came back to herself. She looked at Witch Nonona lodged half into the wall and shook her head, silent as snowfall.

Lingcai hadn’t even moved, yet her opponent flew. Suspicion rose in Viola like smoke: staged, surely staged—yet no evidence.

She pinned hopes on BloodRose’s shadow behind her, wanting steel at her back. She didn’t announce Lingcai’s win. She stepped back, drifted to the obediently seated BloodRose, smoothing words like oil while shoving the mic toward her:

“The match ended in a blink! Too fast! Fast enough to make one suspect the newcomer used cheap tricks! But none of us saw clearly. Let’s invite our powerful Lady BloodRose to explain! Please!”

Viola didn’t expect BloodRose to shake her head like a rattle, retreating from the mic, fingers pleading for silence.

Heat crept up Viola’s face. Awkward as a cat in rain, she extended the mic again:

“Just say a few lines. Anything. The juniors are watching.”

BloodRose screamed inside, her heart a drum:

—It’s not that I won’t! I can’t! Viola, you dimwit! Read the room!

BloodRose had seen it. The one who lifted Nonona, floor and all, was the Little Moon Sage standing below like a pale moon on water.

Because of that, her tongue was nailed shut. Viola’s babble had BloodRose already mapping escape routes like chalk lines.

If the gawking juniors could hold the Sage’s hand for half a minute, BloodRose might slip away like a fish.

She feared they couldn’t last against even one hand.

Seeing BloodRose refuse and refuse, Viola was displeased, yet she swallowed it for rank. She raised the mic again, voice wobbling like a lantern:

“Uh… since that round was too sudden, with some hard-to-explain irregularities, we now decide…”

Right as she tried to say “decide to rematch,” BloodRose sprang up, snatched the mic, and carried the thread forward:

“—I now declare the rookie Alchemist Lingcai the winner! No need for a third round! Two are enough! We acknowledge your strength! If you have anything to say, say it quick! If not, let’s all return where we came from. Well water shouldn’t touch river water, please, I’m begging—”

By the end, her voice fell to a frayed whisper, her composure crumbling like wet clay.

Even if BloodRose folded in a heartbeat, Viola refused this result. She grabbed the mic back and pointed a burning finger at the Little Moon Sage behind Lingcai:

“You shove others forward while you hide behind them. That’s no skill. Fine, you win this one. But the third round, you go up yourself! I’ll fight you!”

We’re doomed.

BloodRose wanted to drag this iron-headed child back from the cliff, but there was no rope. The Little Moon Sage only waved Lingcai down, smiling like dawn, then answered:

“Alright. I’ll fight you myself. What do you want to play?”

“Odd-or-even wager!” Viola blurted, impatience crackling like sparks. “We each grab a handful of copper coins. Guess whether the other’s count is odd or even. First to three wins!”

BloodRose tugged Viola’s sleeve, trying to pull her from the abyss like a gardener yanking weeds. But Viola was already on tilt, blind to the signal.

BloodRose gave up and sank into her seat, despair heavy as rain-soaked cloth.

Dumbass. Go doom yourself.

I’m out.