Chapter 123: A Meek Façade, A Strong Strike
Lan Sheng stepped forward, moving in between Shan Huai and me with a sharp breath. “I’ll serve as witness and mediator for this spar,” he declared, his voice clear and commanding as his eyes flicked over to Shan Huai. “Kai Liu’s task is to land a single hit on you, while your goal is to make him yield.”
He barely acknowledged Lan Sheng’s words, raising a hand to pick his ear as if the whole affair were beneath him. “Yeah, yeah,” Shan Huai muttered dismissively, clearly unconcerned. His eyes flickered back to me, filled with the same smug confidence he had worn since the moment he arrived.
Lan Sheng, however, wasn’t having it. I could see the way his jaw clenched, how he gave Shan Huai a pointed stink eye that lingered just a second too long. He then turned back to me, his posture subtly shifting as he planted himself firmly in the space between us, almost as if he was positioning himself to jump in the moment things went wrong.
For a second, I caught the second-class disciple's eye. It was a fleeting moment, but the message was clear.
I’m watching. If this gets out of hand, I’ll stop it.
There was comfort in that, but at the same time, I couldn’t afford to rely on him. This was my fight, my wager. If I wanted to win, I had to do it myself. Windy and Tianyi had their roles to play, but the burden ultimately rested on my shoulders.
Shan Huai’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. “Hurry up and begin,” he sneered, tapping his foot impatiently on the ground. “I’ve got better things to do than waste time playing games with an alchemist.”
Lan Sheng looked at me, giving me a brief, sharp nod, his expression all business now. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said quietly, stepping back to give us room.
The older disciple smirked, his posture shifting as he clasped his hands behind his back, adopting a stance of complete and utter arrogance. “I’ll even give you the first three moves. Consider it a form of mercy,” he declared, his voice oozing with condescension. His eyes gleamed with self-assuredness, the assumption that this fight would be over before it even began.