Chapter 170: An Inch from the Throat

No one on the stone plaza called for a start.

This fight was not like the ones in the Grand Tournament ring. There, you had a three-zhang circle, a lime line, an incense stick, a ring judge standing outside the circle, and a call of "Such-and-such sect wins." Here there was nothing. The stone plaza was this wide, and nowhere was it written who lost by retreating how far, or whether falling counted as a loss. Victory and defeat could only be spoken by the person inside.

Xu Yan stood at the stone chamber door, both hands empty. He had no ledger to show anyone.

The Heavenly Sword Sect people had withdrawn to the far end of the stone plaza. Their nine disciples stood in a row, and no one sat. One still clutched a water flask. A younger one rested his hand on the hilt of the sword across his back, held it there a while, then let it drop. They stood in perfect order, the way they would stand in their own courtyard.

The Qingya people had withdrawn to the stone chamber side. Cheng Banshan stood by the door, Jiang Wan sat on the stone block at the entrance, Shi Po, Qi Qi, and Shao Ming crowded the doorframe on either side, Qian Duoduo squatted against the wall hugging the bundle of flatbread, and Du Xiaochuan still gripped the water flask he had just filled.

The empty stone plaza between them was bleached white by daylight. A crack cut diagonally across it, fine dust packed into the seam.

Wei Changge walked over. His sword was in his right hand, tip down. He raised it level only when he was a dozen paces from Huo Qing. The wrist that lifted it was straight, the blade a foot from his own shoulder, held there without a waver. Left foot forward, right foot back, the dust under his feet pressed into a print. Since stepping out, he had not said a single word—he had already said everything he needed to in the middle of the plaza.

Huo Qing stood on the side of the plaza nearest the pool, sword in his left hand, held across his body. His right arm hung at his side.

Xu Yan watched that hanging right arm. These past days on the second level, Huo Qing had risen before dawn every day to thrust at the stone by the water's edge—thrust, withdraw, thrust again—his right arm hanging just like that, never moving at all.

The first sword came straight in. The whistle of splitting air was only audible when it was already on him. The iron of the two blades met with a low sound, muffled inside. Huo Qing turned his blade sideways to press down, his sole scraping the stone as he gave half a step, leaving a white mark on the surface.

Shi Po stood by the doorframe, lips moving, counting.

The second sword came lower. When it pressed down, Huo Qing's left wrist sank half a palm. He turned his wrist, let the strike slide off the spine of his blade, and gave another half step back. The third was heavy, the fourth faster. Wei Changge advanced one step and struck once, and where his blade passed, the loose dust on the stone was pushed to both sides, fanning out.

Huo Qing blocked one strike at a time, gave one step each time. The little spiritual power he had never went into the sword—it all went into his wrist and the soles of his feet. Xu Yan could see it clearly: he was pressing his power into his wrist, into his feet, holding the blade crosswise for the other man to hammer.

Xu Yan was watching Huo Qing's sword too. The mouth of the wooden scabbard was worn white in a ring. There was a crack in the blade, sealed with oil years ago. Every time it took a blow, that crack flashed along the sword's spine, then went dark again.

From the fifth sword on, Wei Changge changed his approach. He stopped pressing down from above and switched to short thrusts—at Huo Qing's left wrist, at the hollow of his shoulder. Each thrust went in only half a foot and came back with terrible speed, leaving almost no gap between one and the next. The dust on the stone was churned to chaos.

Huo Qing retreated faster than before—half a step, a shuffle, another half step. His breath came out through his nose, audible now. His left wrist was numb from the pounding; he shook it once and kept blocking.

Shi Po counted to seven, stopped, blinked, then started over from one.

"Stop counting if you can't keep it straight," Qi Qi whispered, leaning close. "Miscounting makes it worse."

"I can count," Shi Po said, eyes still fixed on the plaza.

When the ninth sword fell, a disciple on the Heavenly Sword Sect side shouted, "Right side!"

He meant Wei Changge's right—which was Huo Qing's right.

Wei Changge's blade changed direction, slashing diagonally down from Huo Qing's chest toward his hanging right arm. Huo Qing did not defend it. He dropped his left shoulder and shifted half a step left, letting the blade pass outside his right shoulder. The edge grazed his sleeve and flipped up a corner of the cloth.

Someone by the doorframe sucked in breath. Qian Duoduo pressed the bundle tighter against his chest.

Wei Changge pulled his sword back and stood still. He glanced at Huo Qing's right arm, then said nothing. The strikes after that never went there again. Each one came back to Huo Qing's left hand and his chest.

Bai Xiaoman stood at the edge of the stone steps, both hands twisting the hem of her robe. Her voice was very low. "Senior Sister, Senior Brother Huo, he…"

"Watch his left hand," Jiang Wan said. She sat on the stone block by the chamber door, hands on her knees, and did not stand.

Bai Xiaoman stared at that left hand through a few more exchanges, still confused. "He just keeps retreating."

"He only has that one thrust," Jiang Wan said. "He'll use it at the very end."

"What if he retreats into the water?"

Jiang Wan did not answer. Her eyes followed Huo Qing's feet.

Cheng Banshan stood beside Jiang Wan, his empty sleeve tucked behind his waist, the fingers of his one hand hooked onto the cord of the medicine pouch at his belt, not loosening.

The tenth through fourteenth swords were Huo Qing's ugliest. He retreated to the edge of the plaza on the pool side, where the ground was no longer level and loose stones dug into his soles. He blocked at an angle now. Once he misjudged a block and the blade slid down past his shoulder; he had to bend forward at the waist to push it off course. A short laugh came from the Heavenly Sword Sect line, cut off quickly.

"He's counting." Shao Ming spoke low from the other side of the doorframe, eyes never leaving Huo Qing's shoulders. "Counting the other man's strikes."

Xu Yan was counting too. From the middle of the plaza to the pool's edge—he had walked it earlier—twenty-some paces. Every step Huo Qing retreated, the number in his mind decreased by one.

Fifteenth sword: Huo Qing moved forward for the first time. After blocking, he did not wait for Wei Changge to recover his force. He stepped half a pace forward with his left foot. All nine of the Heavenly Sword Sect disciples stirred; someone coughed. Wei Changge gave half a step back, but his blade never stopped.

Xu Yan filed that away. He had seen Huo Qing yield like this in the tournament ring: retreat from the center to the edge, until there was nowhere left to retreat, while he read the opponent's sword paths, force, and the intervals between strikes, waiting for the break. That time, the opponent had borrowed power from a spirit-surging elixir, and when the incense burned out, the strength ran dry. This time, Wei Changge had nothing borrowed. The power was grown from his own dantian, inexhaustible.

But between a swordsman and his sword, there is always a breath. The strike goes out, force presses into the blade, the blade comes back, the force presses again—and between two strikes, that breath returns. It is very short, shorter than the blink of an eye.

Huo Qing was counting that return.

Seventeenth sword: his left wrist took a solid hit, and Huo Qing's left hand was driven back against his own chest. He did not resist. He let the blade slide down with the force, shedding most of it, and retreated a step and a half.

"Keep taking blows on the wrist like that, it'll swell," Cheng Banshan said, low enough that only those nearby could hear.

"Swollen, he can still grip a sword," Jiang Wan said.

Xu Yan's count dropped by two more. He was not watching Wei Changge's blade now, only Huo Qing's feet: the ball of the foot landing first, then the heel, each retreat scraping a faint white line across the stone. When the left wrist pulled back, the left sleeve twitched. The right sleeve hung still, never moving once. The stones by the water were darker, wet, and they were getting closer and closer to his heels. Counting down from the middle of the plaza, there were fewer than five paces left.

Nineteenth sword: Wei Changge dropped his waist and brought the blade down from high, all his spiritual power pressing into the sword's back. Huo Qing met it crosswise, his knees bending low, both heels retreating to the limit, his heels sinking into wet stone.

The water was right behind him. The pool's surface had no wind, no sound.

Shi Po shifted half a step forward. Shao Ming put a hand on his arm, and Shi Po moved back.

"There's water at his heels," Cheng Banshan said.

Jiang Wan's hand lifted slightly from her knee, then settled back down.

Xu Yan stood unmoving. This fight had no ring, no incense, no judge. Retreating into the water counted. Falling on the stone counted. No one could call a stop for anyone else. There was nothing he needed to do, and nothing he could do. All he did was count that twenty-some-pace distance down to its end: one step left.

Wei Changge did not press the advantage in that moment. He raised his sword—slowly, so slowly it seemed he was deliberately leaving his opponent an entire breath of space.

That was when Huo Qing's left hand moved.

That thrust was the one he had practiced from before dawn until now. A flick of the left wrist, and the sword tip went out level—not fast, but straight. Wei Changge shifted sideways. The blade passed along his right sleeve, the cloth splitting open to reveal a white line beneath, without touching skin.

In the same moment, Wei Changge's sword tip stopped one inch from Huo Qing's throat.

Every sound on the stone plaza cut off.

Huo Qing's blade was still extended, its tip aimed at Wei Changge's right shoulder. He did not pull it back, and he did not push it forward.

"I lost," he said.

Wei Changge withdrew his sword, the tip leaving that inch. He stood still, looked down at his own right sleeve. The tear ran along the outside of the sleeve, the cloth gaping, a single thread hanging from the edge. He did not reach to touch it.

Huo Qing pulled his sword back, tip down. His left hand was still steady—only the wrist trembled, very faintly, visible only to those closest. He did not step back, and he did not walk toward the stone chamber.

Shi Po's lips moved once, then stopped counting. He turned to look at Xu Yan. Xu Yan did not look at him.

Qi Qi brought his hands from behind his back to his front, then put them back. Du Xiaochuan clutched the water flask tighter; a drop leaked from the mouth and fell onto the stone.

Jiang Wan took her hand off her knee and braced it against the stone block. The joints of her fingers picked up a layer of dust.

On the Heavenly Sword Sect side, no one cheered, and no one spoke. The younger disciple stared at Huo Qing's left hand for a long while before looking away.

The nine people at the stone chamber door—sitting, standing—none of them moved first.

Wei Changge turned his sword crosswise and unwound the cloth strip from his left wrist, coil by coil. When it was free, he wrapped it around the blade, bound it tight, and tied two knots. He did it as slowly as he had done everything when he arrived.

The disciple who had shouted "Right side!" stepped half a pace closer, called "Senior Brother Wei," and pointed at his right sleeve.

Wei Changge did not answer. He slung the bundled sword across his back and turned.

The nine disciples followed him.

The middle of the stone plaza was crossed with white scars, slanting from one side to the other. The stone by the water where Huo Qing's heel had sunk was still wet, but the wet patch was shrinking.

Wei Changge crossed the plaza. The tear in his right sleeve hung open, the cloth edge fluttering with each step. He walked from one end of the stone plaza to the other, at a pace neither fast nor slow. He did not look back, did not glance once more at the stone chamber, and left not a single word behind.