Chapter 32: Dual verification and a shocking truth

Second day of the Annual Azure Competition.

Morning on the east slope came cold and loud.

The practice field already held a crowd before the first cluster was fully called.

Well to be precise,all are excited.Outer disciples pressed the rails and juniors from the mid-slope watched with the bored interest of people, who already knew their own rankings would not be decided here.

Gu Shen found Lin Tian near the third-row path with a steamed bun in one hand and the expression of a man, who had slept too little and heard too many rumors.

"Brother. Yesterday you broke through, accepted a public dual verification, and somehow made Zhao Yiran look like someone stole her last spirit stone, remeber I had said these similar things yesterday."

"Today you get to fight and please try not to do all three at once!"

Lin Tian took the bun anyway.

On the nearest square, a side-cluster bout ended fast.

Liu Suyin’s opponent was a west-peak boy with more mouth than footing, well he ate a clean palm to the shoulder and stumbled out of the ring before he could finish his second technique. That’s all.

The deacon marked the cloth. Liu Suyin stepped off without looking at the crowd like a awesome cool person.

Someone in the back muttered that the "fucking talkers" were quieter this morning.

"Cough cough...."Gu Shen coughed.

"See. Even the side characters are winning now... The mountain is trying to look fair before your name comes up brother."

Lin Tian’s name came up three clusters later.

The opponent was a solid Early Foundation outer with a heavy staff and the kind of confidence, that came from winning two easy rounds the day before.

The square was packed enough that the dual thread with Su Qingxue sat warm at the edge of Lin Tian’s awareness, even though he could not see her yet nerves, focus, the leftover steadiness from the night they had used for control and not for the deacons’ eyes.

The match did not last long....

Mid Foundation sat denser than Early.

Footwork that had been clean yesterday was cleaner today. One exchange to test the staff’s reach. One step inside the arc. A short, decisive strike to the wrist and a follow that put the boy outside the ring, before the staff could complete its second swing!

No dual-colored light used,only weight and timing, maybe it was due to his imagenary Immortal level instincts.

Sweeeew!!....swiiick!

Gu Shen whistled from the rail. Cheng Fei stopped pointing for half a breath. Han Qirui’s silver-cloud badge did not move,they knew, they are going to face this mixed root bastard, sooner or later.

Soon Lin Tian stepped off the square and scanned the women’s side of the field.

Su Qingxue’s name had not been announced yet.

He thought that was deliberate, deacons stacking the dual verification after the early combat, so the outer court would already be watching! Well it’s the purest form of cultivation after all. How can the test not be special.

Our Zhao Yiran had pushed for a later slot so more eyes would be present.

Either way, the dual thread pulled him toward the side platform where the verification square was being cleared.

He went towards the pull, the verification place sat apart from the main combat rings and a flat stone square with a low sensing jade, on a stand and two deacons already in place.

Outer disciples filled the rails and Mid-slope faces mixed in.

Then handsome and famous man was also here.

Zhao Wenshan stood far enough in the back that he did not look like he was supervising his sister.

Zhao Yiran was already on the square.

She held her chin high.

Not the girl you fall for but the one you pin down.

Face sharp, with high cheekbones, full mouth that looks better bitten than smiled.

dark inky-black eyes that hold a challenge instead of warmth.

Chin always a little high, it was the kind of face you want to wipe the arrogance off with your hands.

Hair long black, usually bound high and tight so neck and collarbones stay bare. When it comes down it’s heavy and straight made to fist.

Heavy full breasts that strain outer-court robes when she breathes hard. Tight waist, wide hips, and thick, round ass.

Long legs, strong thighs. Skin fair with a warm undertone marks easy under fingers and teeth. Not delicate pure-Yin pale, but warm more like an Animal under the Zhao name.

Peak of Qi Condensation leaning into early Foundation pressure, pure enough on the surface that the sensing jade would have nothing easy to criticize!

Her eyes found Lin Tian when he arrived and held a fraction too long, well not the look of a simple challenger.

Su Qingxue arrived a few breaths later, white ribbon pale against the morning light. The dual thread opened wide the moment she stepped onto the stone.

The night’s control work still sitting in her circulation like a promise she refused to break in public.. Her thighs inside her clothes on her breast, her stomach, all contains bite marks.

The ealdery Deacon raised a hand the same one, who supports Zhao wenshin.

"Public dual verification. Challenger Zhao Yiran, Respondent Su Qingxue, with linked Yang support Lin Tian."

" Exchange to be held under observation. Stability and balance will be marked. Begin on the count."

They began...

Lin Tian stood at the edge of the square where the deacons had placed the Yang support mark.

Su Qingxue faced Zhao Yiran in the center. When the count dropped, pure Yin rose from Qingxue in a clean, controlled line without scattering or clinging.

Lin Tian’s Mid Foundation Yang answered through the dual thread, pressure matched to hers, denser than Early and locked down hard enough that the dual-colored core never once showed under the skin.

Zhao Yiran pushed!

She wanted a visible clash. She wanted Qingxue’s Yin to buckle under the mixed-root pressure so the story would write itself in front of the whole outer court.

The sensing jade stayed quiet. Breath stayed even and Meridian light under Qingxue’s skin held without breaking any contact.

Our mixed root bastard did not drown her for show. Simultaneously Qingxue did not cling so hard the deacons could call it drain.

The count ran out, and balance remained stabilized.

The ealdery deacon marked the cloth.

"Clean.... Exchange stable. Respondent holds,The Verification recorded!"

Noise broke across the rails, surprise, calculation, the sudden rewriting of every rumor that had climbed the mountain. Snce the afternoon Qingxue had accepted.

" Nice! brother!!"

Gu Shen’s voice carried from somewhere near the back. Cheng Fei found something else to point at.

Han Qirui’s silver-cloud badge still did not move.

Su Qingxue stepped off the square with her jaw tight and her eyes clear.

The dual thread between her and Lin Tian hummed warm and open.

He met her gaze once across the edge of the stone. The result was already louder than anything either of them needed to say.

Zhao Yiran stayed on the square a breath longer,

her fists clenched at her sides until the knuckles went pale.

That day when the thin walls and sounds that shouldn’t have carried still carried, I was close enough to hear.

Not every word of it , but

Enough that my circulation locked so hard my fingers went numb.

Enough that her voice came through the wood steady, broken and softy, not like the careful dual manuals everyone repeats, not like technique.

Like someone was being taken apart and still asking for more. His breath under it , the wet sound. The way she said his name like she could not hold it in.

I stood on the other side of that wall with my pride burning and my thighs pressed together and I told myself I was only angry. I wasn’t at all.

Later, alone, I could not stop my fingers from finding the place between my legs that was already wet from nothing but sound.

I bit my own wrist to stay quiet. I came with my face turned into the pillow and hated myself for it before the shaking even finished.

Damn ! I Hate the white-ribbon girl for being the one who got to make those sounds.

I Hate the boy ! Hated the way my own body answered !!

I still cannot quite believe it was real.

Now the verification is clean, and the deacons have marked it.

She still stands there with her white ribbon, and he still stands there with Mid Foundation weight and that calm that makes the rails rewrite their stories in real time!

Her fists stayed clenched.

I hate this bastard , for making somthing, so full of pleasure that even now.

The square emptied around her.

She did not look at her brother or the sensing jade.

She only looked once more at the mixed-root outer and the pure-Yin girl walking away with a dual thread,which maybe the whole outer court had just watched hold under official eyes.

And the hate in her chest sat tangled with something she refused to name.

Well, somewhere behind the rails, the next combat cluster was already being called.

The competition went on also the verification cloth was already being carried toward the ledger hall, where Elder Zhao Wen would see the mark and maybe she would remember a man who had come at night, asking about balance before the second bell.

Zhao wen recieved a message, through a letter.

Her inky black eyes widened, when she reads the content.

"What ? Sect master is returning!!"