Chapter 31: The opening

I walked to the competition grounds and tried to locate Lai Xinyue. I come here in just five minutes so I had enough time. Well, my chief disciple robes would help her to find me at least.

After a few minutes of walking around, a voice called out to me.

“Senior brother.”

As I know the owner of that voice I turned to face her.

“Junior sister.” I greeted her with a nod.

“So, who are you going to fight?” I asked her. I wanted to see how was her luck in this competition.

“I am fighting a true disciple from the core court.” She told me with a stoic face.

‘Well, her luck is shit…’ I thought to myself. To fight a true disciple right of the bat could only be described as bad luck.

“Well, that would probably be an intense fight. I’m looking forward to it.” I told her with a business smile on my face.

It is not like I don’t give a shit about her fight but it is more like that I don’t want to give her the wrong impression that I am overly excited and invested in it. This is the easiest way to show her that on which level of closeness we are.

If I reacted to her the same way that I react to Yuan Jia and Hu Anjing that would be plain stupid so yeah…

“Yes, I will be going to go to the sparring stage now.” She gave me a nod and went toward the stage where her fight was going to happen.

As she went on her own was, I too found a good location to watch the spar. I wished that I had some beer to drink while watching the fight, I mean sports and beer just went together by default, especially if it is a sport that involves fighting.

But I had to keep my image as the young master of the sect so I couldn’t do that even if I had the beer, or so I consulted myself.

As my hands were itching to get some popcorn at least, the contestants of this fight went on the stage.

On one side was Lai Xinyue and on the other side was a dude with short spiky brown hair, with one short lock of hair behind his head, and light brown eyes. His looks were kind of ordinary. He comes to the stage with a sly smile on his face.

‘What is with that dude?’ I thought.

One elder got to the stage and spoke to the two sides.

“I would be the referee for this match.” The elder told them.

Taking a closer look the elder seems familiar. In a second I remember him, he was the elder that let me cut the line in the sparring grounds of the outer court.

He is a good man in my book. As he was looking around the crowd he saw me and cupped his fists and I cupped my fists back.

I would normally only nod as an answer but for one this is a very public place with all the young geniuses of the sect so if I only nod that would be interpreted as me having no respect for my elders or some other bullshit, on the other side this dude saved my time on that time by letting me cut the line legitimately so this is the least I could do.

The reality of being in a cultivation world hits you when you are thinking about the implications of you giving a simple greeting to someone.

After our short interaction, the referee turned to the two disciples on the stage and spoke.

“Introduce yourselves.” He said.

“I am true disciple Han Qiang.” The spiky boy introduced himself proudly.

“Outer disciple, Lai Xinyue.” Lai Xinyue followed up.

You could see a sneer on Han Qiang’s face at the mention of Lai Xinyue being an outer disciple.

When I saw it, I couldn’t help myself but grin.

‘Oh boy, you are going to get fucked.’ I was very, very eagerly looking forward to the fight now.

“The fight will go on until one of you is deemed unable to continue or forfeit, do you understand?” The elder asked to both sides.

They both nodded to his words.

“You can begin now.” The elder told them and backed away from the stage.

As soon as the elder backed away, Han Qiang spoke to Lai Xinyue.

“Junior sister, I will give you the chance to forfeit now before it is too late.” He spoke as smugly as he could.

Lai Xinyue looked at him weirdly.

“Didn’t you hear the rules? I can forfeit anytime that I want, as long as the fight is continuing it is not late.” She told him as if instructing a child.

Circulating my Qi I stopped myself from laughing but others didn’t and Han Qiang got red on the stage.

“You dare to mock me, a true disciple?” he asked through clenched teethes.

Lai Xinyue looked at him with her emotionless face.

“You misunderstood. I didn’t say you have low intelligence, I thought that you forgot the rules.” She said.

‘i’m sure that this is not how you clear a misunderstanding.’ i thought.

Han Qiang was so angry that I could assure you that his blood pressure had no way to go any higher.

“Enough. We will fight.” Han Qiang had enough and attacked Lai Xinyue.

To my surprise, Lai Xinyue didn’t even unsheathe her sword.

She easily sidestepped Han Qiang’s first attack. Han Qiang who was shocked got angrier by Lai Xinyue’s nonchalant attitude and attacked with reckless abandon.

This was what Lai Xinyue was looking for, with a swift action she unsheathed her sword and attacked at Han Qiang’s opening.

Unfortunately for Han Qiang, that opening was between his legs. Before he could react to this new development and change the trajectory of the attack with his sword, he was hit, and oh boy let me tell you, he was hit hard.

As all the male disciples shivered from this display, Han Qiang had lost consciousness after he was hit in the family jewels.

When you think your opponent is trash, you are prone to make stupid mistakes like this.

As we were giving a silent prayer to this man the referee came back to the stage.

“As you can see, disciple Han Qiang is unable to continue the fight and so, disciple Lai Xinyue would go to the next round.” The elder told the crowd.

After that, there were other fights and Lai Xinyue fought two more times and won to go to the final round that would be held tomorrow in the style of the ten throne selection.

With this, I was pretty sure that Lai Xinyue would be on the trial grounds so after a quick congratulation to Lai Xinyue I got back to my courtyard.

I have to be prepared for the trials so that I can gain good results there or at least gain a sufficient amount of loot from there.

As I thought about these things, I start my meditation to ease my mind more.