So this was the game her grandfather was playing. Qiao’s entire group had been stacked up with disciples from the pillar families. Specifically, with the younger ones amongst those who had qualified. She didn’t expect any difficulty from fighting any of them.
The outliers that were the two outer disciples had confused her at first, but with the reveal of the fight order, their purpose had been made clear to her. She would start of fighting one of them in the very first duel from their group. By feigning hardship, she would undersell her actual strength only to completely demolish the pillar families’ disciples. The last fight would be against another outer disciple, reminding the audience of her supposed weakness.
While the outer disciples would of course also fight against the others directly, it didn’t really matter. The audience only ever clearly remembered the first and the last fight anyways, the between would be more of a general feeling. And Qiao would make absolutely sure that she was the center of attention during that time.
That’s a good way to bring as much humiliation as possible upon the other families. They must have really hurt grandfather’s pride.
Having made a general plan for the event, Qiao turned her attention back to the outside. She didn’t have to focus in order to present the elegant and graceful demeanor that she always put up when in public. Through hundreds upon hundreds of hours of training, it had become second nature to her. Still, before an audience like this, it couldn’t hurt to make sure her etiquette was on point.
As the other disciples moved back to make room for her and her opponent, Qiao drew her sword, all the while keeping her expression cold and aloof. She wasn’t the kind of person to pander to an audience by throwing them false smiles or faking insecurity. She would win their hearts through action.
As the signal to start was given, Qiao had to hold herself back from rushing forward immediately. While she liked taking the initiative in fights, she could not know for certain if an outer disciple would be able to take even a single serious attach from her. The last thing she wanted was for this fight to end before it had even started.
As it turned out, that was an unnecessary worry though. Before Qiao could even make up her mind on how to start the fight instead, the boy was already directly in front of her, opening with a running stab. Qiao instinctively stepped to the side while already bringing her sword down in a counter.
This would have been the end of the fight and as such a huge blunder from her side, had the boy actually been the reckless beginner that Qiao still took him for. Instead, he threw his sword upwards, deflecting her attack while simultaneously creating a sideway spinning force that he used to throw his overextended body out of her reach, landing firmly on both feet, guard already up.
Qiao was baffled. She had never seen anyone use momentum that way before in all of her swordsmanship lessons. It wasn’t as if his sword was an extension to his body, it was more like his body was an extension to his sword.
While she was reasonably certain that she could reproduce the move without much difficulty, which she would most definitely try once she was back home, she couldn’t think of any explanation for where the boy had learned it.
One thing was certain though: This boy – Zixin, as she now remembered – hadn’t made it into the second round by dumb luck, as she had previously assumed. He possessed some serious skill. This suited her purposes.
Ending their standoff, Qiao rushed forward to attack. Her attacks rained down on Zixin, one after the other. He didn’t retaliate, entirely occupied with keeping up his defense against her onslaught. That was what he it looked like, at least. Now that she was paying more attention though, Qiao noticed that his muscles were still partly relaxed and his strained expression was a facade. He was still holding back.
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Slowly driving him back, she noticed several openings in his defense, all of which would need her to step further in, if she wanted to exploit them. These were baits. Zixin wanted her to get closer to him. Naturally, Qiao did him the favor.
As soon as she had done so, Zixin’s pattern changed. From purely defending, he went into an aggressive exchange, dodging her attacks by mere centimeters while mercilessly raining down attacks. Qiao prevented herself from gasping in surprise: he was fast.
As she retreated step after step, her mind raced: how had she underestimated her opponent this much? And how was someone of this skill still an outer disciple. This sort of speed would be enough to defeat most inner disciples his age. Qiao’s attempt to play up his skill had been totally unnecessary.
That meant that she could now end the fight though. Ramping up her speed to match his while standing entirely still, Qiao locked eyes with Zixin. Once he had noticed, she gave him the faintest of smiles, impossible to perceive from the outside, only just visible to him. Then she sped up again.
Now, Zixin was the one being pushed back. Qiao kept steadily increasing the speed of her attacks, soon driving him completely into the defensive again. As both his expression and his moves became more and more desperate, the most difficult task was actually not the fight, but keeping the grin that wanted to creep to her face back.
It was a side of her that she rarely gave in to, since it was so difficult to keep is from showing to the outside, but crushing the boy’s confidence like this – Qiao loved it. It wasn’t a feeling befitting of someone of her status, but Qiao absolutely reveled in being superior to others. Already knowing she would win while the opponent still clung onto a last sliver of hope – delightful.
Before her emotions could get out of hand even more, Qiao delivered a quick chop to her opponent’s hand which flung away his weapon. Then, she simply put her sword to his neck.
“I yield.”
Zixin’s breath was heavy as he stammered the words that ended this duel. Only now was it, that Qiao noticed the roar of the crowd. Whether it was her beauty, the strength of Zixin despite being an outer disciple, or something else, the crowd’s attention had rested entirely on them.
Qiao returned her sword to its scabbard before acknowledging the crowd with a simple nod. Then, after readjusting her pose, she returned to the other disciples of the group who were seated on wooden benches of to the side.
…
Liu Wei leaned back into his chair. Though Zixin had fought well, his defeat had regrettably been set in stone from the moment the fight had begun. The girl that had been his opponent was visibly more skilled than him in any aspect.
Not only was she quicker and stronger than him, she also possessed an overwhelming amount of skill, compared to the boy who, for all of its effectiveness, had only ever received a single month of proper, individual training. Even in the end, she had still been holding back, never bothering to dodge a single attack and instead simply deflecting all of them.
Zixin wasn’t to blame for his defeat, none of the other disciples Liu Wei had trained would have been able to win against her. The boy had accomplished more than enough, much more than Liu Wei had been expecting from him. Even so, seeing his trainee be outmatched like this somehow still stung a lot more and a lot deeper than expected.
His recent experiences had taught Liu Wei to listen more closely to his feelings than he had ever done in the past, which was why he wouldn’t just be dismissing this sting. Still, now was not the time to ponder on it. Seated in between his fellow elders, as he was, he needed to focus his attention on surveying them instead of giving them something to survey. Information was power and even tiny emotional reactions could serve to give away some of it.
On top of that, there were a lot more fights in which his disciples would partake. Liu Wei wouldn’t dishonor their efforts by diverting his attention from them.
The crowd was still in ecstasy from watching the first duels, Zixin’s had actually pulled a special amount of attention. There was no doubt in his mind that people were already talking about the exceptional strength of the outer disciple. With many more fights to come, his announcement at the end of today’s battles would hopefully be met with great interest.