"Victor — Zhao Tiehe of Sanshan City!"
The judge's pronouncement finally landed, and almost at the same instant, the figure of Zhao Tiehe, still swinging his fist in one last furious effort, crashed to the ground.
His injuries were, in truth, far heavier than Lin Zhengli's. His stamina had long since reached its limit, and in the end he had swung purely on willpower.
Now he slumped, sprawling on his back.
Beside him, Lin Zhengli had been all but beaten into the pit by those fists, long since unconscious.
On the field lay rubble, severed vines, great craters, splashes of water, smears of blood... utter desolation.
And then the applause from off the field finally came.
At first it was sparse and scattered, for neither combatant was a native son of theirs — but it very soon thundered into a roar.
This battle had been far too splendid, and it had shown everyone the stubbornness of Sanshan's cultivators.
They admired Zhao Tiehe, and through him looked upon the city he stood for with fresh eyes. Perhaps this, more than anything, was what they had meant to prove, fighting to the death.
They were born on barren land, in the mountains crawling with ferocious beasts — but they were no savages. They had their loves and their hatreds, their pursuits, and their own... honor.
"Such a hard-won thing." Ling He clapped until both his hands were red. Of all those present, he was perhaps the only one who had never flung the slur "mountain savage" at Sanshan's cultivators.
Because he understood what it was to be looked down upon, he never looked down on anyone else.
But Zhao Rucheng was focused on a wholly different question: "Those two fought each other half to death — Third Brother wins without even lifting a hand!"
Beside him, Huang Azhan had already begun calculating: "Ten Dao Merit for a win, and those two battles are ours without fighting. First-year champion of the Three-City Dao Debate, double Dao Merit reward. Add it together... fifty Dao Merit. Half a Meridian-Opening Pill! You have to treat us!"
Were it not for Jiang An'an's presence, he'd have already blurted out the Pavilion of Three Parts Fragrance.
"What is Dao Merit? Is it worth much?" Jiang An'an asked, curious.
"It is indeed." Zhao Rucheng knew the story of how Jiang An'an "earned money to pay off debts," and teased her: "One point of Dao Merit is worth more than that whole chest of treasure you earned!"
Jiang An'an bent her fingers and counted very seriously for a while, then spread her hands very wide, drawing a big circle in the air. "So much!"
...
After the first bout of the rotation came only a very short recovery time. It was hardly fair to Zhao Tiehe, fresh from a grueling battle, but such were the rules.
The judge asked again and again, and still Zhao Tiehe stood, swaying on his feet. He would fight on.
Jiang Wang stood across from him, one hand on his sword, his gaze heavy and deep.
"Come down," said Sun Xiaoman.
She looked every inch a little girl, and her voice was a little girl's too, but the words she spoke were not something Zhao Tiehe could ignore.
He turned his head, looking at Sun Xiaoman. "I still have one life left to spend."
His manner was not fiery, but quite calm, for he was merely stating a fact.
Jiang Wang was far from weak — he had defeated Yang Xingyong in hard, head-on combat, and even now he stood at full strength.
At this moment, indeed, there was nothing else he had left to spend — except his life.
"Your life is precious, and Sanshan City has great need of you." Sun Xiaoman spoke with the utmost seriousness. "Before, I allowed you to fight with all you had, because you still had a chance. Now it is not allowed, because the chance is gone. You carry many resources heaped upon you. Your life must not be wasted."
It was unclear which of her words convinced him. Zhao Tiehe turned and trudged, stumbling, off the field.
Whether it was a trick of the eyes, in the instant of that turn, Jiang Wang seemed to glimpse a flash of tears in his eyes.
A man like that, and he would weep?
Jiang Wang could not understand this near-obsessive regard the cultivators of Sanshan had for winning and losing.
He had done all he could. Why should he grieve that he could not fight to the death?
Carrying that question, Jiang Wang met the third bout of the rotation — and Lin Zhengli had not even yet recovered consciousness, so Lin Zhengren surrendered on his behalf again.
And so Jiang Wang became first-year champion of this Three-City Dao Debate. Because both his opponents had wounded each other into a draw, perhaps it was not the most convincing of victories — but...
"Who cares! Dao Merit in hand is what's real." That was Zhao Rucheng's verdict.
By then Jiang Wang had withdrawn to the edge of the field and become a spectator along with Ling He and the others.
The common folk of Fenglin City were generous enough to those cultivators who brought them honor, and went so far as to clear a spot for the resting Jiang Wang.
Jiang An'an and that insolent little girl sat side by side at the very front, while Jiang Wang and the others sat behind them on and off, trading idle talk.
The one thing that surprised Jiang Wang was that the cloud mat they sat on was not Zhao Rucheng's doing, but brought by the old man who guarded the little girl Qingzhi.
This cloud mat weighed almost nothing, its texture extraordinarily soft — a treasure ordinary families could never enjoy. And yet Qingzhi's family had laid out such a large one on the ground.
Jiang Wang could only marvel that in the world of the rich, every mountain was higher than the last.
Born as he was into a family with land and a shop, he had never wanted for food or clothing. Ever since he got to know Zhao Rucheng, though, he often felt like a beggar.
The hunchbacked old man measured Jiang Wang with a few glances, then suddenly spoke: "I never expected you people to send that chest of treasure back. Young friend Jiang, you have taught your little sister well."
The old man's voice was kind and warm, but paired with his shifty, dodgy features, it carried little conviction.
Jiang Wang was not one to judge by appearances, and answered without any discourtesy: "Only right and proper. It was just a child's game between the young ones, after all. How could one take it to heart?"
"Confucius said: 'Riches and honors gotten by unrighteous means are to me as floating clouds.' Young friend Jiang, your words carry quite the Confucian bearing."
Discussing Confucian bearing with a disciple of the Dao path, in the kingdom of Zhuang no less — this hunchbacked elder had probably lost his wits from too much larding his speech with dusty maxims.
Jiang Wang dodged the matter with a casual laugh. "The match is starting."
...
The Three-City Dao Debate was divided into first-year, third-year, and fifth-year brackets, but the rules of competition were much the same throughout.
Li Jianqiu and Wang Changxiang stepped up together, three matches running at the same time.
Jiang Wang concentrated with all his might, sitting and taking in the whole scene.
Li Jianqiu's opponent came from Sanshan City, and this bout was once again splendid. The two displayed extraordinarily delicate manipulation of their Dao arts, trading blow for blow in a long scuffle, until at last Li Jianqiu defeated his opponent with a fire-element Dao art.
Wang Changxiang's bout against a cultivator of Wangjiang City was the simpler of the two. No sooner had the fight begun than he summoned a thick fog with his art, blinding the opponent's vision. Then, with calm ease, he formed his mudra, and a single Breath-Whirlwind Tornado sent the opponent spinning up into the sky.
Arts of the A Class like the Breath-Whirlwind Tornado were nearly unsolvable at this level of combat. Jiang Wang remembered how, in Little Grove Town, a single Breath-Whirlwind Tornado had been enough to drain Wang Changxiang dry — and he had wondered whether Wang Changxiang was abandoning the fights that followed.
But no sooner had the battle ended than Wang Changxiang promptly pulled out a Dao Essence Stone and began absorbing it...
Plainly the Wang family had gone all out this time, set on seizing the third-year champion's seat.
But what the common folk of Fenglin City cared most about was the bout of that mysterious man in black from Sanshan City.
When the black robe was undone, revealing a plump little fellow of most comical look, the round of Fenglin folk let out a unanimous sigh of disappointment.
In their imagination, within that black robe should have been a great demon lord with a scarred face; failing that, at least someone ferocious of mien. Anything but a soft, plump sort who looked easy to push around.
But they were not wholly disappointed, for this plump little fellow was strong!
When the bout began — whether because his earlier teammates had suffered a run of defeats — the third-year cultivator from Wangjiang City brought out his full power.
Five water coneshots opened the charge, and treacherously he ambushed wind blades among the coneshots.
Then came earth spikes, and last he formed his mudra in readiness for the Raging Surges.
Water, wind, and earth arts all mixed together, a string of transitions that dazzled the eye.
And the plump little fellow from Sanshan City had done only the one thing from beginning to end — charge.
Headlong and senseless he charged, all but shouldering his way through a sky-filling barrage of arts.
Charged right up to face his opponent.
Then raised his fist, and crashed it down.
The battle was over.
The plump little fellow's clothes were riddled with holes from the onslaught, yet the exposed flesh still showed pinkish-white beneath.
And the opponent was already on the ground.
A whole ring of people stood stunned.
"That body of his is too strong in defense!" Ling He marveled.
"Is he a pure warrior?"
"No. That final punch was the stone-clad fist. He used a Dao art."
"And there's no sign of a Stone-Skin art or the like. How can his defense be so strong?"
These young men were young after all, with little experience, and they talked it over a long while without any answer.
"It's the Kun Skin Drum — a permanently solidified Dao art." Out of nowhere, the hunchbacked elder who had been listening for a long while spoke in a quiet, low voice.
But of the specifics of that art, he would say nothing more.