Inconclusive

The duel began with Ge Shi suddenly leaping forward. The spearhead whipped across the air, dragging a blast of fierce wind in its wake. Zheng Mukai's sword had barely cleared its scabbard when the spear bore down upon his head. He had no choice but to push off hard and dodge laterally, evading the brunt of the assault. Yet Ge Shi's "Scorpion Tail Spear" was by no means a style of wide swings and brute force. Its essence lay in agile versatility—soft, swift, ingenious, and cunning, with endless variations. The instant he saw Zheng Mukai dart to his right, Ge Shi gave a cold sneer, for this played right into his hands. The next second, Ge Shi snapped his wrist, unleashing a follow-up move. The spear shaft whipped around just like a scorpion's tail. Under his control, its straight trajectory bent into an oblique angle, lashing straight for Zheng Mukai's chest. The red tassel blossomed like an early rainbow piercing a cloud. The sword's gleam erupted like a thunderbolt cleaving the sky. The "Three-Armed Sword of Kaifeng" was naturally no hollow title. Seeing that his opponent had skipped all probing and opened with such a lethal strike, an unnamed fury flared within Zheng Mukai. In that split second, he adjusted his stance and deployed the "Heavenly King Supporting the Pagoda." Parrying with his blade and relying on a breath drawn deep from his dantian, he forcefully held off the oncoming burst of spearhead glimmers. He was far from finished. Ge Shi had exerted two transitions in a single move; his spear's momentum was spent, and having just landed, his footing was unsteady. It was the perfect opening for Zheng Mukai to switch from defense to offense, and he was not about to let it slip. A heartbeat later, Zheng Mukai surged his internal strength. His blade lunged forth in three flashes of chilly gleam—a strike from "Three Wild Geese Crossing"—thrusting like lightning at Ge Shi's waist, abdomen, and ribs. With his stance yet unsettled, Ge Shi could not track the attack with his eyes. Fortunately, his ear-listening skills were formidable. From the rush of parting wind, he pinpointed where the sword was coming from. Lightly tapping his toes, he executed the stance "Revolving Heaven, Moving the Dipper." As the saying went: a spin sweeps the field, a sweep of the spear parries half the sky. Ge Shi's response was flawless. He turned away every trace of the incoming swordplay and skipped two steps backward, resetting his stance. After trading those few exchanges, both men broke into a cold sweat. Before stepping onto the arena, each had believed he possessed at least a seventy percent chance of victory, but now both felt it was no more than fifty. Yet having climbed onto this challenge arena, there was no turning back. They both understood that in the jianghu, defeat could sometimes be far more agonizing than death. A breath later, their gazes locked, and battle erupted anew. Shadows intertwined; spear and sword clashed with ringing peals. Meanwhile... "Brother Huang, how do you see the situation now?" Sun Yixie, having closed the betting pool, had climbed to a high vantage point with Huang Donglai and was watching the distant duel with keen interest. "Hard to say..." Huang Donglai's tone was no longer as confident as it had been before the fight. "This Zheng Mukai seems a bit fiercer than I expected." "Heh... so are you changing your prediction?" Seeing Huang Donglai lose his nerve, Sun Yixie maliciously stoked the fire. "Not changing it, no. Right now it mostly depends on whether Ge Shi makes a mistake," Huang Donglai hedged. "As long as he doesn't slip up, he still has the upper hand. He won't lose." Before the words had fully left his mouth, Ge Shi and Zheng Mukai crossed paths on the arena with a move called "Divergent Paths in Wind and Snow." As the exchange concluded, both men exposed slight flaws in their stances and had to compensate with their off hands. Left palm met left palm, colliding squarely in an exchange of internal force. In that single clash... Zheng Mukai discovered something: Ge Shi had a fatal weakness in his left shoulder. This vulnerability had arisen from Ge Shi's practice of his spear's ultimate move, "Red Lotus of the Scorpion Tail." The move boasted immense power and struck from astonishing angles, but its sole drawback was that it required the junction of his left neck and shoulder to serve as a pivot. Only upon mastering the technique had Ge Shi realized that the qi and blood around his Jianjing acupoint had become stagnant, narrowing the meridians and obstructing the flow of internal force. Fortunately, as long as he refrained from using that specific move, the condition would not worsen or impede his other techniques. Yet right then, by sheer coincidence, he had clashed internal force with his left hand in that exact posture. A third-rate martial artist would never have sensed anything from such a collision. Had Zheng Mukai only traded three or four moves with Ge Shi, he likely would not have noticed either. But by now, Zheng Mukai had exchanged dozens of blows and thoroughly gauged his opponent's capabilities. If he still failed to see it, his years in the jianghu would have been entirely wasted. "Humph..." Having spotted the flaw, Zheng Mukai let out a cold sneer. Ge Shi saw that smile and vaguely realized what was happening, yet he still clung to wishful thinking, telling himself his opponent might merely be bluffing. The two wheeled around to clash again, but from that moment on, the tide turned dramatically. With dread creeping into his heart, Ge Shi's moves instinctively shifted toward defense. Zheng Mukai's swordplay grew increasingly fierce, intentionally or unintentionally pressing toward Ge Shi's left flank. As the enemy pressed and he retreated, the balance shifted. Zheng Mukai soon held a commanding advantage, leaving Ge Shi with barely enough room to parry. "Hey, this isn't looking right." As Huang Donglai watched, he saw signs of defeat written all over Ge Shi and could not help exclaiming, "What's going on? How did Ge Shi suddenly forget how to fight?" "Hahaha!" Sun Yixie gloated beside him with a laugh. "'Sixty-forty'? Huh? Brother Huang, you really jinxed him good!" "Dammit, what does that have to do with me?" Huang Donglai snapped. "It's their own fault! I was just analyzing based on the situation back then!" While the two bickered, some of the spectators down below who had bet on Ge Shi could no longer sit still. Cries of "Refund!" and "Give us our money back!" began to rise. "The hell with that! Refund my ass!" Hearing this, Sun Yixie immediately sprang up and cursed at the crowd. "Have you ever heard of getting a refund after placing a bet at a gambling den? Who the hell forced you to buy in? Don't you understand that all bets are final and non-refundable? Why don't you ask the brothers who bet on Zheng Mukai if they'll let you have a refund? Try shouting one more time! You think I won't come down there and skewer you to death?" Brother Sun had seen plenty of such scoundrels and gamblers in the fish market, and he had his own way of dealing with them. Wielding his trident, he pointed straight at their noses and let loose a barrage of curses. His voice was louder than theirs, and his aura was far more menacing. A few fierce words were enough to make them back down. If some hard-headed fool dared keep yelling, Sun Yixie would have leaped down without hesitation, hauled him out, and beaten him senseless to make an example of him. This was Brother Sun's hard-won experience: the most important thing when running a book was holding down the house. If you failed to crush even a single troublemaker, a whole string would follow, so you had to nip any ringleader in the bud. *Clang!—* Meanwhile, the duel upon the challenge arena was drawing to its close. Zheng Mukai fought with growing vigor, while Ge Shi was nearing the end of his rope. With a sharp metallic clang, numbness shot through Ge Shi's left arm, and the sword's impact knocked the patterned spear from his grip. Truly: a rain of sword strikes repelled the tide of spears; the three-armed warrior severed the scorpion's tail. Yet Ge Shi did not concede. He knew Zheng Mukai would never utter a polite "well fought" and allow him to walk off the arena with any shred of dignity. The look on Zheng Mukai's face made it abundantly clear that he intended to beat Ge Shi until he dropped to his knees begging for mercy, or else kill him on the spot. Ge Shi would never beg just to save his own neck. Losing his own face was trivial; dragging the reputation of the Xiayi Sect of Huai'an through the mud was not. For Ge Shi today, there were only two ways off the platform: victory or death. The moment his weapon left his hands, Ge Shi cast aside all hesitation and resolved to risk everything on a final gamble. Leaving himself entirely exposed, he leaped forward in pursuit of the flying spear. In midair, he executed "Swirling Wind, Drifting Clouds," reclaiming the shaft in his grip before twisting his waist to sweep the spear back around. Zheng Mukai remained unperturbed. His sword wove like an agile serpent, parrying and slicing in a counteroffensive of offense meeting offense. In the split second their weapons tangled, Ge Shi finally unleashed his ultimate move: channeling his true qi into his right arm, he planted his feet apart and swung the spear over his shoulder. Using the Jianjing acupoint on his left shoulder as a pivot, he blocked, swung, and lunged. The spearhead shot forth like a scorpion's stinger, its red tassel erupting into a furious crimson lotus. The strike came abruptly, brutally, and with vicious cunning. Whether one could find a counter to such an ultimate technique in the spark of a flint was not a matter of how refined one's routine forms were, but of raw reflexes, experience, and natural talent. Though Zheng Mukai's spirit did not waver, his body had already tilted, and his sword went out in a rising horizontal parry. It was a reaction born of pure instinct, a direct testament to his martial talent. He had likely won this duel. Parrying this blow would leave him lightly injured, but Ge Shi would be completely stripped of any ability to fight on. Yet the mastery behind this move showed that Ge Shi's martial talent surpassed his own. Had this duel taken place two years later, Zheng Mukai would have held no more than a thirty percent chance of victory. Yet there were no "ifs" in this world. At least in this moment, both men knew that the instant Zheng Mukai met the strike, victory was already decided. Unexpectedly, just as the outcome was about to be sealed... *Whoosh—* A dark silhouette arrived like a sudden gale, sweeping in with blinding speed. The newcomer was twelve chi tall—purely a figure of speech, for in truth he was just barely over six feet tall—clad in black, masked, and burly of build. Yet his speed was unmistakably superior to that of both fighters. Leaping onto the challenge arena in a single bound from outside the surrounding crowd, he landed like a clap of thunder, planting himself right where spear and sword were about to collide. With his left palm clamped around the spear shaft and the fingers of his right hand pinching the blade, he halted both strikes in mid-motion before their internal force could fully deploy. At once, everyone from the onlookers to the combatants was stunned. Leaving aside the lightness skill demonstrated by his leap onto the stage, the mere act of arresting both strikes bare-handed showed that his martial arts far surpassed theirs—so much so that their previous duel looked like child's play by comparison. "Gentlemen, please step forward and hear me out..." the man spoke, his voice low and raspy, likely disguised on purpose. Zheng Mukai and Ge Shi had no choice. The newcomer was clearly a first-rate master. When someone like that "requested" you take a step forward, refusing him face would only invite disaster. A breath later, the man in black loosened his grip. Only then did the two duelists retract their weapons, disperse their fighting intent, and step forward together. No one could hear what the man in black whispered to them, but the color drained from both their faces, shifting through several shades. Having delivered his words, the man in black took two steps back and said, "Take care of yourselves." Then, just as he had arrived, he bounded several rods across the air and vanished. Zheng Mukai and Ge Shi were left standing on the stage in awkward silence. After a long pause, the younger Ge Shi cupped his hands around his spear, averted his eyes, and said with evident reluctance, "Brother Zheng, forgive my poor judgment. For today's matter... I have offended you." Seeing a way out of the predicament, Zheng Mukai offered an awkward laugh and returned the courtesy. "Heh... a misunderstanding. It was all a misunderstanding! I'm a crude fellow myself; I hope Brother Ge won't take offense." Having exchanged these hollow courtesies, the two offered no explanation to the crowd. They simply stepped down from the arena, murmured a few words to the dibao, and had him tear up the life-and-death waiver before each went his own way. They left behind a crowd of bewildered spectators frozen in place, along with two betting-pool commentators who dearly wanted to curse up a storm.