The next morning, Tai Buzhou stared straight into Wu Hao's eyes before offering him the bag. There was very little attempt to hide the shuffle, this time; things clicked as the bag shifted.
Wu Hao had, in a moment of distraction, figured out how the trick worked. It was pretty simple, and all it actually consisted of was a spatial array printed on the inside of the bag. Using some qi allowed the user to switch the insides of the bag with those of a prepared, separate compartment. Offering the bag or really shoving it into his face as if he had the plague and it was a cure-all allowed Tai Buzhou to mask the shift in weight.
It didn't matter. There were only four fighters left, of which he could only face three.
One was Hua Lixin, the so-called monster of the Hua Sect. Another was Bi Shifeng of the Kunlun Sect, who had scrapped his way through to the semifinals. The final entrant was Du Linglong, technically of the Diancang Sect.
Honestly, Wu Hao just hoped he didn't have to face Du Linglong. He still wasn't sure how to act around her, which was why he had been dodging her. Not that she'd come looking for him, at some point.
But when his hand withdrew from the bag, the stone that he drew carried the symbol of a bright, shining, sun.
"The semi-finals, the first round," Tai Buzhou proclaimed. "Hao Wu, the dark horse, will face Du Linglong, granddaughter of the only other man ever to scale the steps to greatness from the most humble beginnings!"
What Tai Buzhou had said wasn't strictly true, though. Wu Hao had done a little bit of digging on the Sword Sovereign, who had apparently died a few years after defeating the Second Heavenly Demon. No one had been able to tell him when exactly, and other parts of that explanation didn't quite sit right with him for reasons he couldn't quite explain, but the point was, the Sword Sovereign had started from a minor martial arts family before he'd started his climb to the top.
The family hadn't fared well since his death, hence why Du Linglong had been sent to grow up with the Diancang Sect, headed by the Ke family that descended from one of the Sword Sovereign's oldest friends.
Wu Hao would, if put to the question, admit that he did admire the Sword Sovereign. The fact that the man was dead helped, disrespectful as it may have been to say, because then it was impossible to meet him and be disappointed.
He imagined Du Linglong felt the same.
Saber in hand, he glanced at the spear that he'd left behind. The spear might work, too. He'd never had the chance to test Du Linglong's defenses, having been a full grade below her in every fight. Defense didn't really matter considering that difference in strength.
The spear just didn't speak to him in the way that the saber did right now, though. It was the difference of having a real Heaven-tier technique for a weapon versus not having one.
While he was lost in thought, Tai Buzhou grinned down at Wu Hao. His qi tweaked, the sound of his voice suddenly distorting until Wu Hao could hear nothing except the self-satisfied sound of the man whispering directly into his ear.
"This is how your story ends," Tai Buzhou told him. "You will be crushed under the weight of legacy, boy. You should have taken the deal."
Wu Hao grunted, and meanwhile his opponent ascended the steps.
Du Linglong wasn't quite like he remembered her. She was his age - or at least the same age as he thought he was, physically - so he supposed that made her fourteen. In his memories of the future she had been a young woman, with a bright expression, several hairpins strewn through her messy hair and several other distracting bits.
She had a lot of growing left to do, he thought to himself. She was still rather tamed, at this point: her hair had been carefully combed so it was less of a tangle, and instead of being allowed to spill carelessly over her shoulders it was instead tied into a ponytail that hung behind her head.
At least the scent of her qi hadn't changed. The warmth of it was like a warm summer day, which was an odd sensation considering it was the heart of winter at the moment. It felt comforting, in a way that somehow made Wu Hao even more uncomfortable.
Her eyes met his as he stood there, saber hanging from a relaxed arm.
"So you're Hao Wu," she said.
Wu Hao simply raised his saber, feeling that same spark of potential begin to jump wildly. Fine. He'd face her.
"Do you know me?" Du Linglong asked.
The saber dipped slightly as Wu Hao stared.
"What?"
"You avoid my gaze whenever we're in the crowd," she told him. "And that look in your eyes makes it look like -"
"We've never met," Wu Hao interrupted.
"Then..." She hesitated, though, and he got a bad premonition. "It's not because you like me, is it?"
Tiny spots of color appeared on her cheeks. The crowd's cheers died in Wu Hao's ears as he stared down at his saber, lost for words.
"No," he said, unsure what else to say. "I - no?"
Could he maybe kill himself before the match had even begun? For the first time, he wondered what the crowd was saying. Gossip had to have spread through it like waves, though. Half of Chongqing had turned out already, which meant the other half might hear about this by tomorrow.
Fuck. If this was a tactic to push him off guard, then it was working.
He sent a pleading glance at Tai Buzhou, begging him to start the match. The man was as perplexed as he himself had been, though, and stood there with his arms still clasped. When he caught Wu Hao's look he just grunted something, apparently unsure how to handle this.
Wu Hao raised his saber.
"Fight me," he declared.
"Fine," Du Linglong said. She straightened herself to her full height - which was still not a lot, she'd never be very tall - and then her sword came out. It was a beautiful sword, crafted out of a metal that had been polished to such a sheen that Wu Hao could almost count the individual rays of the sunlight it reflected.
Tai Buzhou snapped out of his spell and raised a hand. Thoughts had begun to percolate in that pompous head of his, though, and Wu Hao didn't like it one bit. Mercifully, the hand at least came back down quickly, together with what Wu Hao had been waiting for.
"Begin!"
They met in the middle of the arena. Du Linglong's movement technique left blazing imprints of light wherever she went that were so bright they hurt the eyes to look at, though they vanished as quickly as they had come. That wasn't the movement technique he remembered her using, but it didn't matter.
Sword clashed against saber. Wu Hao's wrist flicked out, following a line that faded even as he went through it, interrupted by Du Linglong stepping back slightly in an instinctive reaction. The line that he'd gone out of a limb to follow up on turned brittle and cracked.
Another resounding ring of steel on steel.
Wu Hao grimaced as she nearly landed a fight-ending slash along his arm. He had to focus, and he had to focus on the girl in front of him. If he got caught up fighting the Du Linglong of the future, then he might actually lose against the Du Linglong of the present.
His eyes locked into hers. They were still a deeply normal brown, though occasionally as they caught the light they revealed a deeper red inside.
They were only a single step apart. Wu Hao launched attack after attack, the lines growing surer and longer as he shed old assumptions. Du Linglong managed to block some.
She wasn't as strong as she would become, but she was strong, at the very least the equal of anyone else in the tournament. Except him. He was overwhelming her with blow after blow, strike after strike barely kept from ripping through her defenses through frenzied blocks and dodges.
Tracing one particularly thick line, his saber lanced out. She had been caught unaware, the line extending through her sword arm. As his saber came carving down through the air with a shrill shriek, he finished the loop of qi.
Only a desperate fall to the ground and an undignified donkey roll over the cold stone saved her from defeat. Wu Hao lowered his saber slightly, watching her pick herself up off the ground.
A storm of emotions stirred up in him at the sight, but he bit them all down.
Time to finish this. He gathered his qi, but at the same time the warmth of the sun that he'd felt the entire time suddenly concentrated, the peach-scented qi spiking as Du Linglong clutched her sword with blood from a dozen little cuts running down her arms.
"Congratulations," she wheezed. "I didn't think I'd have to use this yet."
Her sword raised into the air, Wu Hao's eyes watered at the sight of nearly all of her qi bunching into a single thread that was sent into her sword. The Heaven-tier technique that he'd expected was coming.
"Nine Suns," she spoke, voice cracking from the strain. "Chasing Sun."
Wu Hao dodged out of the way, instincts and half-remembered memories forcing his body into motion before his conscious mind even had the idea to give orders to his feet. He flung himself away from the long crescent of sun-kissed qi that tore through where he'd stood, before it even had a chance to rear up.
But... when it arrived, it was far less than he'd expected. Slower, too. He stood there, still cringing, as the crescent plowed a long furrow into the stone before dissipating. But whereas the future Du Linglong's attack could have cleaved the entire arena in two with ease, now it was just a thin score, as if some divine sculptor had dragged a fingernail through the clay he was shaping by accident.
That didn't mean it was any less deadly. Fingernail-thin or shovel-thick, applied in the right place and from the right angle, it could kill. He'd felt its bite before and knew that it was a serious technique.
Du Linglong puffed up with pride, seeing that Wu Hao was staring speechlessly at the ground, despite the fact she was wheezing.
"How's that?" she shouted. "Feel the might of my grandfather the Sword Sovereign's invincible technique!"
"Incredible!" Tai Buzhou roared. Smugness dripped from his voice. "Lady Du, representative of the Diancang Sect, has just demonstrated the Nine Suns technique, created for her specifically by her grandfather! Is this the end of the unlikely hero, Hao Wu?!"
Wu Hao's head turned slowly. His excitement faded.
Why was it so... lacking? Compared to the attacks she had launched in the future, her stance now was better - more steady, for one thing. Her grip on the sword was tighter, but not so tight that it would hinder her attacks.
He didn't realize that he'd spoken out loud, but he had.
Du Linglong's face went confused, to flat, then to sour. Her eyebrows bunched together, her hands gripped the handle of the sword tightly.
"What did you just say?"
Silence hung in the air. If Du Linglong's cheeks had colored slightly red during that conversation earlier, then now they were cherry-red. Wu Hao stopped talking, feeling as if a cloud had just floated in front of the sun.
Then the sun gathered its power to retaliate.
"Nine Suns," Du Linglong shouted. "Chasing Sun!"
Another crescent of pure qi tried its best to run rampant through the arena, but its edges shrunk inward even as it flew forward. Little pebbles were carved off the stone at first but, as Wu Hao dodged, he saw that the technique had lost its ability to bite at all.
Du Linglong huffed. Breath came short and in irregular rhythms, and her face was pale. Her qi was mostly gone, and while the warmth of the summer hung across the arena and lingered in the trenches carved into the stone it was the fleeting warmth of a summer evening that was quickly cooling away into nothing.
Qi deprivation. Wu Hao was familiar enough with the symptoms. Her case was light, though, so she probably wouldn't fall unconscious unless she really overdid it.
"You jerk," she said furiously, between deep breaths. Could she attempt another strike? "Who the he... heck are you?"
She couldn't even curse yet, Wu Hao thought. Then again, had he ever heard her curse? He supposed he hadn't, come to think of it.
He said nothing in response, though.
"Tell me," she demanded. "Tell me, or else!"
Tai Buzhou nodded furiously next to his seat in the arena, his qi signalling deep agreement and even deeper frustration.
"Will you surrender?" Wu Hao asked. He raised his hand, the saber in it pointing at Du Linglong.
She grimaced, but then she began cycling the last of her qi. Little dregs of sunlight drifted through her core, trying to form into something cohesive.
"Nine Suns," she bellowed, the effect undercut by her panting from breath between words. The clumps of qi were all crushed together into one thick lump, which she was about to send through her meridians to reach her sword arm.
Wu Hao threw himself into a blurring movement and placed his saber at her throat. They were close enough now that the scent of peaches tickled his nose something fierce. He had distant memories of something like this having happened, but then again, she had been the winner then.
Her eyes fell to the tip of the saber, which hadn't cut her yet. It could, though. Wu Hao could see a line, growing and diminishing in irregular instants as she breathed and her throat moved.
"Surrender," he repeated, more softly this time.
She couldn't have nodded, not without injuring herself, but she did lock eyes with him. The qi that she'd gathered convulsed, as if wondering what to do, but then she let her sword arm drop and let her control over the qi go.
"You win," she said at no more than a whisper.
Wu Hao glanced at Tai Buzhou, who was staring at them open-mouthed. He might have caught a fly. In the end, though, he sputtered to consciousness again and jumped up on the stage.
"Winner," he roared, as much due to unwillingness to acknowledge reality as anything else. "Hao Wu!"
The saber was withdrawn. Du Linglong didn't feel at her throat, but thin tears had begun to spring at her eyes. Wu Hao tried not to feel bad about that. He hadn't felt bad about Su Biao, had he? Not that he really recalled.
He told himself it wasn't like they had a connection or anything.
Securing the saber back into its sheathe, Wu Hao walked away from the stone stage, back to his lonely corner. People were already gathering at Du Linglong's corner, most of them clad in the orange of the Diancang. A few of them looked as shocked as anything else, a few looked sourly proud, and a few others were glaring so hard at Wu Hao that he wondered if they might know an ocular technique to kill.
"This isn't over!" Du Linglong shouted, even as she allowed herself to be led away. He hadn't been mistaken about those tears earlier. "I will find out who you really are, Hao Wu!"
Wu Hao sighed.