Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Fourth-Rank Bu Geng

“Sir Qi, why won’t you give me your ‘wise self-preservation’ word-spirit?”

Shen Tang almost coughed up blood.

She’d memorized that word-spirit not long ago.

Condense qi into an aura—guard your whole body!

In plain terms, it was a shield.

Qi Shan using it on himself was one thing. But the bastard had quietly backed up behind her, leaving an eleven- or twelve-year-old shut-in to face a butcher who’d wiped out an entire household.

It was shameless.

Qi Shan said calmly, “I’m frail. I’m not good at fighting.”

Shen Tang went silent for a beat, then remembered what she’d thought of him last night after reading the word-spirit scroll: offense as defense, a bush-camping kill-stealer. Now she needed to add another line to his profile—this man could sell out a teammate with terrifying ease.

“Even if you’re not good at fighting, you’re still a young man who’s had the coming-of-age ceremony!”

Hiding behind her?

Was that what a real man did?

She planted a boot into the middle-aged man’s chest.

The man flew back before he even processed what happened. Qi Shan remarked, “A young man who’s had the coming-of-age ceremony still couldn’t kick someone that far.”

Shen Tang: “…”

The middle-aged man hit the floor, clutching his chest, shock plastered across his face. He couldn’t believe a skinny little kid could have that kind of strength.

He slapped the ground, surged to his feet, and roared, “If you’re tired of living, don’t blame me for being ruthless!”

Somehow, he produced a hatchet that glowed red.

He chopped straight down at Shen Tang’s head.

Thud!

Martial gall empowered the blade. It cut iron like mud. The first clash split the woodcutting knife in Shen Tang’s hands clean in two.

His eyes lit up. He swung again with brute force, aiming for her neck, the corner of his mouth lifting as if he could already see her head rolling.

Shen Tang dipped low and leaned back, letting the red blade slice through empty air. Her steps shifted—calm, measured, unhurried.

The man had no technique. Just raw strength and a hatchet that could butcher steel.

One chop after another.

One hit and you were dead—or worse.

As cracks spiderwebbed across the floorboards, Shen Tang’s gaze tightened.

Qi Shan’s voice cut in, perfectly timed: “Second-rank Shangzao.”

A second-rank Shangzao who relied on nothing but brute force.

Shen Tang slipped in close, coiled her fingers, and snapped a strike into his wrist.

The man yelped. His grip broke, and the hatchet dropped. Shen Tang didn’t waste the opening—she drove a vicious kick into the spot three inches below his navel.

The man’s scream went thin and high.

Qi Shan sucked in a sharp breath. He raised a sleeve to cover his face like he couldn’t bear to watch.

No man could take that kind of pain.

The middle-aged man doubled over, exactly what Shen Tang wanted. She caught him by the ear and hair, yanked him down, and smashed his face into her rising knee.

Thud.

Qi Shan reflexively touched the bridge of his own nose. Just watching made him ache for the guy.

Then, in the corner of his vision, a shadow flickered beyond the paper window.

Qi Shan didn’t hesitate. He recited, “Share the same boat in wind and rain; save one another in peril!”

The instant the final word fell, a gray streak tore through the window with unstoppable force and shot toward Shen Tang’s vitals. At the same time, a halo of written qi flared around her, bright and sharp.

The gray streak hit. The aura answered.

The impact exploded with a boom that rattled the room.

Shen Tang had already moved. She stared at the spear blade sunk several inches into the floor and snapped her gaze toward the window.

There was another enemy in the dark.

Qi Shan said, “An accomplice. Likely a third-rank Zan Niao.”

With his experience, the force of that thrust was enough to judge the attacker’s level.

Then he added, as if it were nothing, “Young Master Shen should be able to handle it.”

Shen Tang: “…” So he planned to keep spectating from the edge.

This one wasn’t like the clumsy brute. The newcomer moved like a trained fighter.

He sprang in, palm pulling. The spear embedded in the floor ripped free and flew back into his hand.

His target wasn’t Shen Tang. He feinted and drove straight at Qi Shan.

The man wore black. Nine chi tall. Broad-backed, thick-waisted, muscle packed like iron. Just standing there, he filled the room with pressure, making the space feel smaller, tighter, meaner.

Qi Shan wore an expression that said, of course. He murmured a single-character word-spirit under his breath. Literary light surged beneath his feet, and his figure blurred—he was already a full zhang away.

The man in black tried to chase, but Shen Tang crashed in with the Merciful Mother Sword and cut him off.

Clang!

Spear and sword collided, sparks snapping.

Qi Shan drifted to a safer open spot and, unhurried as ever, added, “If danger is on me, I pass it to others—my danger becomes others’ danger; to avoid it, they must help free me.”

The word-spirit fell.

Literary light bloomed under Shen Tang’s feet.

She nearly bit through her tongue. “…What?”

She blocked a barrage of spear thrusts and shouted, voice cracking with fury, “Qi Yuan Liang! Be a human being, will you!”

Qi Shan was absolutely a dog.

That line sounded harmless until you translated it: if I’m in danger, I dump it on someone else. If I’m in danger, they’re in danger too. If they want to be safe, they have to help me deal with it.

Forced risk-sharing.

“Young Master Shen,” Qi Shan said serenely, “the greater good comes first.”

Then he had the audacity to smile. “As the saying goes—‘literary heart is not purged, martial gall is not extinguished.’ He’s trained. He knows the rule.”

He tilted his head, shameless. “I’m frail. I’ll have to entrust my life to Young Master Shen.”

Shen Tang: “…” [Brother Qi Yuan Liang, do you remember what you said last night—“Do you think this sword is just decoration, or a weapon I actually use?” And after one night, you’re already putting on a weak-scholar act?]

Boom!

A gray arc from the spear tore a hole through the roof.

The man’s strength was monstrous—far beyond that third-rank Zan Niao constable. Shen Tang had to retreat several steps to bleed off the force. Her grip hand tingled, and her face went dark.

“Qi Yuan Liang,” she snapped, “are you sure he’s third-rank Zan Niao?”

Qi Shan was about to say yes when he caught something in the lamplight—the man’s thick lips moved soundlessly, muttering a line.

The air around him shifted.

In the next heartbeat, hundreds of spear shadows burst forth, the shaft curling like a living serpent around Shen Tang’s sword.

Qi Shan stared hard at the man’s mouth.

“An army has no constant formation, water no constant shape…”

Realization hit him like a blade.

“Careful,” Qi Shan barked. “He’s a fourth-rank Bu Geng!”

As the warning left his mouth, a faint, hazy black shadow appeared in Shen Tang’s blind spot, forming a pincer with the man in black.

Spear wind screamed in.

Shen Tang moved as if she’d grown eyes on her back. She grabbed a hanging curtain and vaulted straight up onto a broken beam, dodging the thrust aimed at her heart.

“Holy shit,” she hissed. “He can split himself!”

Qi Shan’s voice rang out again: “Stars strewn like a chessboard!”

A low hum filled the air. Characters stretched from beneath his feet in a crisscross grid—at a glance, a massive chessboard laid over the room.

The man in black’s legs sank as if the ground had turned to mire. His knees trembled, as if a boulder had dropped onto his shoulders.

He roared, martial qi flaring. Gray gleam slammed into literary light, the collision shrieking.

Shen Tang watched, stunned. She didn’t even know where to begin helping.

This was outside her understanding.

Qi Shan caught the hesitation in her eyes and said coldly, “Just fight. Leave the rest to me. Take him alive.”

The threshold for Gong Shi rank and Shangzao rank was laughably low. Any martial brute could reach it.

Third-rank Zan Niao was the dividing line.

Starting from fourth-rank Bu Geng, you could draw on military-strategy word-spirit. In an army, someone like that could be a centurion.

If he served a powerful household as a retainer, he’d never worry about food or drink. Why would a man like this become a bandit, living by robbery and slaughter?