The wooden bench in the eastern spectator stands was hard. Not the polished, forgiving hardness of aged ironwood, but the cheap, unyielding rigidity of raw pine.

  Wei Tian shifted his weight. A splinter snagged the hem of his white scholar’s robe.

  He ignored it. He pressed his left heel flat against the stone flooring beneath the bleachers. The boiled ox-hide patch held perfectly. The freezing dampness of the mountain stone didn't penetrate to his skin. It was a small, satisfying structural victory.

  Down in the central courtyard, a boy was screaming.

  The 'Friendly Exchange' had begun twenty minutes ago. The main plaza had been stripped of its decorative pillars, leaving a massive, flat expanse of white jade. Ten thousand disciples ringed the arena, their combined body heat creating a foul, humid microclimate that smelled of sour sweat and fear.

  On the jade floor, an inner sect disciple of White Jade lay curled on his side. His right knee bent inward at an angle that human anatomy did not support.

  Standing over him was a man wearing the dark crimson armor of the Iron Blood vanguard. He wasn't panting. He wasn't even sweating. He looked like a butcher evaluating a particularly disappointing cut of meat.

  The crowd was dead silent. The screaming stopped when the Iron Blood cultivator casually kicked the boy in the temple, knocking him unconscious.

  "Match to Iron Blood," the referee called out. His voice shook.

  Up in the stands, Wei Tian sat with his knees apart, resting his elbows on his thighs. He held his worn, blue-covered book open in his hands.

  He didn't look at the unconscious boy being dragged off the jade. He looked at the Iron Blood cultivator. Specifically, he looked at the man's hands. The knuckles were stained with a dark, almost black metallic sheen—a localized hardening technique.

  Wei Tian looked down at his book.

  Rustle.

  He turned forty pages forward. He stopped. His eyes scanned the left-hand column. He nodded once, a microscopic dip of his chin.

  Standing two steps behind him, holding a ceramic thermos of hot water, Xiao Mei swallowed hard. Her throat clicked.

  She had spent her entire month's allowance stealing the Iron Blood combat profiles. She had expected Wei Tian to study them. She had expected him to panic. Instead, he had insisted on sitting in the mid-tier viewing section, surrounded by anxious junior disciples, reading the same dusty book he always read.

  "Next match," the referee's voice echoed off the high mountain walls. "Iron Blood Vanguard, Xu Fang. White Jade Inner Sect, Chen Lin."

  A new pair stepped onto the jade.

  Chen Lin drew a standard longsword. His hands were trembling. The blade vibrated, catching the midday sun in erratic flashes.

  Xu Fang didn't draw a weapon. He sank into a low, impossibly wide stance. The crimson qi around his shoulders flared, smelling of rusted iron and hot blood. It wasn't a standard opening form. It was a predatory crouch.

  The gong struck.

  Chen Lin lunged. It was a desperate, adrenaline-fueled strike, burning seventy percent of his core qi in a single downward arc.

  Xu Fang didn't block. He stepped directly into the arc, shifting his weight with a sharp, violent twist of his hips. His right arm snapped upward, the heel of his palm slamming directly into the flat of the descending blade.

  The steel shattered.

  Metal shards exploded outward. Before Chen Lin could even register the loss of his weapon, Xu Fang’s left hand struck the boy’s chest.

  A dull, wet thud carried all the way to the stands.

  Chen Lin flew backward, skidding across the jade tiles for thirty feet before slamming into the boundary ward. He coughed up a thick mouthful of blood and didn't move again.

  The crowd groaned, a collective sound of despair.

  In the stands, Wei Tian did not groan.

  Scrape.

  Xiao Mei looked down.

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  Wei Tian had grabbed a handful of pages. He flipped backward. He bypassed the dried leaf he used as a bookmark. He stopped near the beginning of the book.

  He traced his thumb down the page, stopping halfway. He looked at the ink. Then he looked back down at the arena, where Xu Fang was currently cracking his neck.

  "Too much weight on the back foot," Wei Tian murmured. It wasn't meant for Xiao Mei. It was a private observation, spoken to the paper. "Bleeds kinetic force into the ground instead of the target. Inefficient."

  Xiao Mei stared at the back of his head.

  The cold realization started in her stomach and crawled slowly up her spine.

  She watched the next match. An Iron Blood cultivator used a sweeping leg technique that generated a localized vacuum, pulling the White Jade defender off-balance before crushing his ribs.

  Flip. Flip.

  Wei Tian turned two pages forward. He read a paragraph.

  Match four. An Iron Blood sword cultivator deployed a rapid, seven-strike sequence that left scorch marks on the jade flooring.

  Wei Tian closed the book completely, looked at the spine, opened it to the exact middle, and found a specific line.

  He wasn't reading.

  Xiao Mei forgot to breathe. The heavy thermos in her hands felt like it was filled with lead.

  You read a history book sequentially. You read a poetry book by chapter. You only jumped around a book like that if it was a catalog. A reference index.

  But what kind of index was it? The Iron Blood Sect’s martial arts were absolute, closely guarded secrets. They were ancient, refined techniques forged in border wars over centuries. They were the reason Mo Zheng was currently holding the entire mountain hostage.

  And the mortal husband was tracking them in a frayed blue book he had brought in a wooden box.

  "Senior..." Xiao Mei whispered. She didn't know she had used the honorific until it was out of her mouth.

  Wei Tian didn't turn around. "The water is fine, Xiao Mei. I don't need a refill yet."

  "What are you reading?" she asked. Her voice was so thin the wind almost stole it.

  "Just a history text."

  "History of what?"

  "Mistakes."

  Down in the arena, the gong struck for the fifth match.

  This was the final bout of the morning session. The crowd had thinned out mentally, traumatized by the unbroken streak of brutal losses.

  Stepping onto the jade was Luo Jian. He was the vice-captain of the Iron Blood vanguard. He wore no shirt under his armor, exposing a torso heavily scarred by beast claws. He was a Peak Sage-layer cultivator, standing on the absolute threshold of the Core realm.

  The ambient temperature in the courtyard rose.

  The White Jade disciple facing him was one of their best. A senior core disciple. He didn't look terrified. He looked resigned.

  "Begin," the referee shouted, stepping back hastily.

  Luo Jian didn't assume a stance. He simply walked forward.

  The White Jade disciple unleashed a heavy, condensed wave of sword qi, a brilliant blue arc designed to sever a boulder in half.

  Luo Jian raised his bare right hand.

  He didn't hit the sword qi. He caught it.

  His fingers clamped down on the condensed energy. The air shrieked, a high-pitched sound like tearing metal. The crimson aura surrounding Luo Jian’s hand flared to a blinding intensity, shifting from red to a deep, bruising purple.

  He crushed his fingers together.

  The sword qi shattered like glass.

  The crowd erupted into panicked shouts. Catching a physical blade was one thing. Catching and crushing pure, projected qi with a bare hand violated the basic foundational laws of their cultivation path. It meant his physical body was denser than their spiritual energy.

  Luo Jian grinned, showing teeth. He closed the distance in a single, explosive step.

  Up in the stands, Wei Tian leaned forward.

  He didn't look at the crushed qi. He looked at the deep purple aura wrapping Luo Jian’s fist.

  Wei Tian grabbed a large chunk of pages. He flipped to the very back of the blue book. He scanned the text. He flipped one more page.

  He stopped.

  The arena erupted into fresh screams as Luo Jian buried his fist in the White Jade disciple's stomach, lifting the man entirely off the floor with the force of the blow.

  Wei Tian didn't watch the impact. He was looking at a specific line of text at the bottom of the page.

  His jaw shifted. A microscopic tightening of the muscle.

  He reached into his sleeve. He bypassed the lint ball. He pulled out a small, blunt stick of charcoal.

  Xiao Mei leaned closer, completely abandoning her fear of the crowd, her eyes glued to the book over his shoulder.

  The text was still written in that impossible, headache-inducing script. But she didn't need to read the words to understand what he was doing.

  Wei Tian pressed the charcoal to the paper.

  He drew a single, hard line through the center of a paragraph. He crossed it out.

  "Sloppy," Wei Tian murmured. He brought the charcoal down to the margin. He wrote three new characters. They were small, sharp, and angular. "They forgot the tertiary rotation in the wrist. The original art didn't stop the kinetic flow at the knuckles. It routed it back to the earth."

  He blew a speck of charcoal dust off the page.

  "They degraded the technique," Wei Tian said, shaking his head with genuine, mild disappointment. "No wonder this realm is so noisy. They have to yell to compensate for bad engineering."

  He closed the book. He tucked the charcoal back into his sleeve.

  Xiao Mei stood completely paralyzed.

  The man named Luo Jian, a monster currently terrorizing three thousand seasoned cultivators with an invincible martial art, was using a broken, degraded version of a technique.

  And Wei Tian had the original version written in his book. And he was currently grading the Iron Blood Sect's performance like a bored tutor correcting a child's arithmetic homework.

  Wei Tian stood up. His knee popped.

  "The morning session is over," he announced, brushing a peanut shell off his thigh. He looked back at Xiao Mei. Her face was the color of old paper. "You should eat lunch. Your qi is stuttering. Your blood sugar is low."

  "You..." Xiao Mei started. She couldn't finish the sentence.

  "I am going to take a nap," Wei Tian said.

  He turned and began walking up the wooden stairs of the stands, moving against the flow of the panicked disciples rushing for the exits. He didn't hurry. He didn't look back at the bleeding bodies on the jade.

  Xiao Mei watched his white robe disappear into the crowd.

  She looked down at the empty wooden bench where he had been sitting. She looked at the arena floor where an Iron Blood captain stood roaring his victory to the sky.

  He isn't going to die in the final match, Xiao Mei thought, the sheer absurdity of the realization making her dizzy.

  He's going to fall asleep.