Chapter 175

Chapter 175: The Gap Between Heaven and Earth

The man moved the instant he borrowed momentum.

Wang Jie turned and found a chalk-white face inches from his own. A dagger drove straight for his abdomen.

He didn’t dodge.

He could have slipped aside with Jia Eight Steps, but he didn’t bother. The Thousand-Spirit Armor covered him.

Clink.

The blade struck his body with a crisp metallic ring. In the same heartbeat, Wang Jie struck first, driving out a palm. A sideways gust of force swept through like a wind-blade and flung the attacker back.

He surged forward with Jia Eight Steps. The man snapped his dagger out in a sharp flick. Wang Jie dodged cleanly, and the attacker immediately turned and ran.

Wang Jie chased with Sword Steps and casually flung a sword after him. The weapon flashed once—then vanished.

A torn sleeve drifted down from the air. After that, there was nothing.

The assassin had disappeared into the moonlight.

Wang Jie stared at the shredded cloth on the ground and let out a breath through his nose. He hadn’t been able to keep him, which was no surprise. The man was a Roaming-Star Realm powerhouse—and an assassin on top of that.

If they truly fought to the death, the assassin’s battle strength might even surpass Wu Yun’s.

Moments later, a squad arrived—members of the Four-Dao Market’s enforcement team.

The Four-Dao Market was formed by forces from every side. Its rule was simple: no fighting within the market boundaries. Step outside, and anything went.

The clash had been loud enough to draw them.

Wang Jie explained what happened and had Du Xian confirm that he’d been followed.

One enforcer frowned. “If you knew someone was tailing you, why lure him into attacking?”

“I didn’t know he was an assassin,” Wang Jie said evenly. “I thought it was an enemy. Shouldn’t I confirm who it is?”

“And did you see clearly?”

“Of course,” Wang Jie said. “It was Gao Chi.”

—

He watched the enforcers stalk off, each of them bristling with killing intent, and finally let out a slow breath. Gao Chi shouldn’t be able to keep tabs on him for a while now.

Wang Jie turned back the way he’d come.

He hadn’t gone far before he stopped mid-stride.

The night was silent. Branch shadows swayed on the ground like hunched, snarling beasts.

Wang Jie drew out a Revival Pill and tucked it under his tongue.

Just now—only for an instant—he’d felt pressure so overwhelming it was as if an invisible mountain had crushed heaven and earth flat, pinning him in place and stealing his breath.

Someone else was here.

And whoever it was stood beyond the Roaming-Star Realm.

Worse, even the enforcement team hadn’t noticed a thing.

Wang Jie wanted to call them back. He couldn’t. Every instinct screamed at him not to make a sound. Not to move.

Who?

Another assassin?

No. If it were, he’d already be dead.

Then who?

A voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once.

“You noticed an assassin tailing you long ago. After confirming his strength wasn’t guaranteed to pose an absolute threat to your life, you drew him out. And while you were at it, you brought in the enforcement team and framed someone who’s been watching you all along.”

Wang Jie’s gaze tightened. He couldn’t place the speaker—no direction, no distance. The sound seemed to bloom from all four sides.

Yet the wind in the trees was still crystal clear.

That meant the voice had been suppressed inside a fixed area—contained so it wouldn’t carry.

“Against an enemy two realms above you,” the voice continued, “you blocked with a chen artifact and footwork. You have Thunder Pattern, and eyesight sharp enough to read his strike path. If I’m not mistaken, you can use Chen Art.”

A pause, faintly amused.

“Oh, right. You cultivate lockforce. Locking arts, then.”

Wang Jie didn’t answer.

“More importantly,” the voice said, “you can see an enemy’s qi.”

Wang Jie’s heart lurched.

Qi.

Since leaving Blue Star, no one—no one—had spoken that word to him. Not like this.

He kept his breathing steady. “Senior… who are you?”

“Little kid,” the voice said, calm and distant, “I can see everything about you. There’s only one thing I don’t understand.”

“How do you tell fortunes?”

Wang Jie’s fingers twitched. He tried to locate the speaker with qi sight.

Nothing.

“No need to look,” the voice said, almost kindly. “You won’t find me.”

“If you can use qi sight, you should understand this much: qi can be concealed. Qi can be shifted. The amount, the size—everything can be controlled.”

Wang Jie swallowed, then spoke carefully. “Junior only uses information and methods to stir up trouble for them, then uses fortune-telling to point them toward a solution. It isn’t difficult.”

A low, humorless laugh. “Is that so? Do you think I’m stupid—or do you think they’re stupid?”

“Junior wouldn’t dare.”

“If I don’t care about your secret,” the voice said, “then it stays yours.”

A beat.

“Now go. You can leave.”

Wang Jie tried to move.

He couldn’t.

Before, it had been caution—he hadn’t dared. Now it was different. It was as though invisible chains had locked his limbs and spine in place.

“Senior,” he forced out, “what does this mean?”

“Leave,” the voice said. “If you can, I’ll give you a benefit as vast as the sky.”

Wang Jie drew a slow breath.

This person didn’t feel hostile.

Could he be the Observer from the Star Vault Vista?

It wasn’t impossible. Who else would do something like this—testing him like a blade on a whetstone?

Move.

Move.

He poured more strength into his body. His muscles and lockforce surged.

Nothing.

Qi and force… fused.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the ground. The surface buckled, and Wang Jie sank as the earth collapsed beneath him—yet he still couldn’t budge.

Then the void around him rippled.

And Wang Jie saw it.

Qi.

Not only qi.

Starforce, too—threaded beneath the skin of the void like a hidden current.

Before, he hadn’t been able to see it at all.

How…?

This was beyond his understanding.

The qi and starforce weren’t simply stronger than his own. They weren’t pressing him down with brute force. They had formed something like an interwoven cage—crossing lines, intersecting points—locking him in place with a method he couldn’t fully read.

A formation?

No.

He’d seen formations. Formations needed a source—something like seal-chen stone continuously releasing starforce.

But this starforce drifted like mist. No source. No anchor.

Qi was the same.

Could qi really be projected to this extent?

Wang Jie steadied himself, forced down the tightness in his chest, and drew his emotions under control. He pulled his qi inward until it converged.

A formless heat seemed to ignite, and the qi and starforce around him sharpened into clearer outlines.

He suddenly thought of something.

He pulled out the Star Compass and fed qi into it.

On the compass’s map, the qi traced itself into a single character.

Lock.

He was trapped inside the lock.

If qi formed the lock, then what about starforce?

Wang Jie closed his eyes and used void to map it out. He marked the starforce points by position, linking them in his mind, line by line—

And found another lock.

Qi and starforce. Two locks, perfectly controlled.

The gap was monstrous. The control was something he couldn’t even imagine reproducing.

Two locks—heaven and earth apart.

Wang Jie opened his eyes, glancing between the Star Compass and the space around him. He raised his hand. Qi spilled outward. He slashed diagonally through the air, then drove lockforce through his left arm in a horizontal cut.

He struck both locks at once, disrupting the pattern.

In that instant, the binding loosened.

Wang Jie lunged—hard.

His body slammed into a nearby residence and blew through the wall.

The room exploded into splinters.

Inside, an old man sat on a bed, staring at him in frozen terror.

Wang Jie’s scalp prickled. He immediately bowed, apologized in a rush, and left compensation behind before backing out and disappearing into the street.

Free.

He headed straight for a crowded area without hesitation.

The Four-Dao Market had no curfew. Even at night the streets were busy—taverns blazing with lanternlight, laughter spilling out, perfume and powder hanging thick in the air.

“Little kid,” a voice called, warm now. “Care for a drink?”

Wang Jie turned.

In a shadowed corner by the street, an old man looked up at him, smiling as if he’d been waiting all along.

Wang Jie’s eyes narrowed.

It was him.

He walked over and sat. “Greetings, Senior.”

The old man beckoned lazily. “Waiter.”

A young waiter hurried over with steaming wine.

Wang Jie poured for the old man and watched him savor the drink as if it were the finest treasure in the world. A small dish of peanuts sat between them.

Contentment radiated off the man.

“You want a cup?” the old man asked.

“Fine,” Wang Jie said.

He poured for himself and took a sip. It might as well have been water.

The old man drained his cup. Wang Jie refilled it.

Cup after cup.

A whole pot vanished in moments.

“Another,” the old man called.

Another pot arrived. Then another.

Only after several did the old man finally sigh, blissful. “Comfortable.”

Wang Jie set the pot down and kept his posture respectful.

The old man studied him with open satisfaction. “Not bad. Not bad. You’re only a lockforce cultivator, but in the Zhi Academy, finding someone with qi sight is rare.”

He smiled, then said as casually as if naming the weather, “Let me introduce myself. I’m Shu Rang. A star dao master.”

Wang Jie’s breath caught.

A star dao master?

That was a profession spoken of like a myth.

He had heard of artifact dao, formation dao, pill dao—those were the three mainstream paths among cultivators.

And above them, there was star dao.

Star dao had almost no clear records. People spoke the name with reverence, but no one could explain its meaning.

Wang Jie had once found a few scattered lines in old books in Shuanghua Sect, written in a tone of longing rather than true knowledge.

Even without understanding, star dao still stood over the three paths.

The Zhi Academy was built around the Four-Dao Star Cluster and split into four branches: artifacts, formations, pills, and cultivation. Yet in the old division of the Four-Dao Star Cluster, the fourth wasn’t cultivation at all.

It was star dao.

Whether star dao masters existed or not didn’t matter. Star dao remained one of the four. No one could replace it.

Wang Jie had never imagined a star dao master would take interest in him.

He forced himself calm, then said, “Waiter. Another pot.”

Shu Rang watched him with a grin. “Surprised?”

He popped a peanut into his mouth. “Understandable. A backwater like Fourth Nebula doesn’t have many people who know what star dao really is. That doesn’t change its status.”

Wang Jie leaned forward slightly. “Senior… what is star dao?”

“Star dao,” Shu Rang said thoughtfully, “is the art of arranging the stars.”

“Arranging the stars?”

Wang Jie’s mind flashed to Blue Star being moved—something even Shuanghua Sect could barely imagine accomplishing. Even a Star-Refining Realm expert would struggle.

Shu Rang chuckled. “At your level, you won’t understand. No need to rush.”

Wang Jie hesitated. “Then why seek me out, Senior?”

Shu Rang reached into his sleeve and placed something on the table.

Wang Jie’s eyes flicked down.

A Star Compass.

So that was it.

He pulled his own Star Compass out and set it beside Shu Rang’s.

They were identical.

“Anyone who can use the Star Compass must know how to use qi,” Shu Rang said. “I was curious who in the Zhi Academy could do that.”

“So you came.”

Wang Jie’s gaze sharpened. “This Star Compass was yours—the one consigned at the shop?”

“More or less.” Shu Rang tipped his cup. “One hundred million starstones. If you dared buy it, you either understood it… or you were rich enough to gamble.”

He smiled faintly. “Either way, I’m not cheating the poor.”

Wang Jie couldn’t disagree. If it were priced at a hundred thousand or a million, plenty of people might buy it out of curiosity—then discover they could never use it.

In Fourth Nebula, cultivating qi was nearly impossible.

Wang Jie studied Shu Rang. “Senior, you’re not just a qi refiner. You cultivate starforce as well.”

He chose his words with care. “Junior has heard cultivating two forces at once never ends well.”

Shu Rang’s smile turned smug. “You missed the second half.”

He drank, then said slowly, “Unless you’re a star dao master.”

Wang Jie’s eyes lit. “Then what about lockforce?”

Shu Rang didn’t even hesitate. “No future.”

Wang Jie fell silent.