~~~

The first thing Liu Jin did after the first stage of the tournament reached its conclusion was to procure a list of every member of the Endlessly Raging Valley’s delegation. By that point, the information was freely available to everyone in the city, so it had not been difficult. Still, once he had that sheet of paper in his hands, his eyes stayed on it for several minutes, focusing on one single name.

Su Daji.

That is the name Su An entered the tournament under.

As her Qi blazes in front of him, Liu Jin tells himself it does not have to mean anything. A name is a name and nothing more.

He tells himself that, and it rings hollow. Had she entered under Su An, he would have felt elated and taken it as a good sign. Why bother pretending otherwise only because he got the opposite outcome?

Delusion might be a comfortable guide, but it’s a poor one.

Foxfire materializes around Su Daji. The orbs of spectral flame shine an eerie purple light on the red forest and shoot toward Liu Jin like arrows. The sound they make as they pass through the air is almost like a wail.

Purple lightning meets them.

It bursts from Liu Jin’s palm and spreads out, detonating every orb of foxfire before it can reach him. The explosions rock the forest and destroy several trees, yet they do nothing to Liu Jin other than ruffle his hair a little.

When the smoke clears, Su Daji is similarly unharmed.

“That technique will not work,” Liu Jin says. “I have seen you use it before.”

“Are you saying we know each other?” Su Daji asks, offended. “This anger might feel familiar, but I...”

Suddenly, she grabs her head in pain. It is the perfect time for Liu Jin to strike. He easily visualizes himself closing in with Art of the Roaming Thief and striking her acupoints with needles.

He does not.

“We… We have met before, haven’t we?” Su Daji says in slow realization. Her purple eyes study him carefully while she still holds her head. “That’s why you two made such a scene during the first stage.” She laughs harshly. “Typical. She never tells me anything.”

“The Wandering Wind likes her secrets a little too much,” Liu Jin says, nodding. “Although, in this case, she was probably trying to prevent this exact thing from happening. My presence unbalances you.”

“It does not unbalance me! It makes me angry!” Su Daji yells. Her eyes glow as she glares at him. “And there’s no way that monster cares enough to help me.”

“You’re alive because of her,” Liu Jin points out, albeit reluctantly.

“Because my soul was fragmented, and only she could put it together?” Su Daji asks, rolling her eyes. The expression is too much like Su An’s. “She already told me that, but I’m not an idiot, boss! She’s not acting out of the goodness of her heart! She just wanted the chance to mess with a soul.”

Liu Jin stares. A big smile slowly forms on his face.

Su Daji blinks.

“Boss,” she repeats, tasting the word and licking her lips. She looks at him. “Why did I call you that?”

“Because I was that,” Liu Jin says, his smile becoming tinted with nostalgia. “I was not searching for an underling, but as I recall, you wanted the position quite badly.”

“I am no one’s underling,” Su Daji says harshly, her Qi rising and pushing back everything around her. “Least of all yours, boss.”

Her face goes flat.

Liu Jin does not move a single muscle.

“...You are laughing on the inside, aren’t you?” Su Daji asks him.

“It’d be rude to do it on the outside,” Liu Jin says.

“I am starting to realize why you make me so angry,” Su Daji says, the aura around her body taking the shape of a fox’s head. It glares at him with spectral eyes.

“Oh, I assure you, you have far more reasons to be angry at me than that,” Liu Jin tells her.

“No more words! No more cryptic statements!” Su Daji shouts. “We fight!”

[Ground Contraction]

Liu Jin’s eyes widen. It is not him but Su An who is using the technique to get close to him.

He immediately tells himself it is nothing special. Every single style out there has some sort of movement technique, and many of those are remarkably similar to each other. They will add or take a few moves and call it something else, but the fundamentals will remain the same.

However, the technique Su An is using right now is undoubtedly the Xiao Sect’s movement technique. He is certain of it.

[Ground Contraction]

He meets the technique with his own, dashing towards Su Daji as gold lightning roars around him. The fox’s head howls and tries to bite down on him, but his lightning is too strong, too furious. It takes the shape of a snake and bites the fox. Its fangs flash purple as the enemy construct explodes with sound and fury. Su Daji is violently knocked back across and through several trees, creating a path of devastation across the forest.

Liu Jin stands in place, his robes only slightly dusty. Su Daji’s Qi has grown small and hard to detect, but Liu Jin does not believe she has been harmed seriously. Someone who has survived being around the Wandering Wind for so long could not possibly be inconvenienced by that level of attack.

Sure enough, the forest soon glows with purple light as hundreds of foxes made of foxfire scurry in between the various trees. The animals do not reach Liu Jin’s knees, yet he knows better than to underestimate them.

They charge.

A dozen foxes attack from behind, but Liu Jin is ready for them. He points up with two fingers, and purple lightning rises around him, detonating all of them at once.

The quality of foxfire is absorbing the power of the enemy’s technique and adding it to its own. It makes it very hard to deal with as otherwise equal exchanges become incredibly advantageous for the one who wields foxfire. Their enemy is forced into a situation where he must use multiple techniques to disrupt one of theirs.

However, against Liu Jin’s purple lightning, that is all immaterial. While preparing for the tournament, Liu Jin extensively tested his purple lightning and discovered one thing: It is too pure. Foxfire cannot hope to absorb it because the degree to which it has been refined is far too great. The moment it attempts to do so, the technique destabilizes and explodes.

Su Daji should have realized it already, yet she still created so many constructs. Even now, they swarm around Liu Jin, coming at him in seemingly unending waves. The forest burns as he blasts them with lightning.

She could not possibly be trying to tire him out. Neither of them is using their full power. Liu Jin is sure of it because he still cannot determine her exact level of cultivation. She should have realized the same. Could she be trying to escape? Distract him with several minor annoyances to cloud his senses so he wouldn’t notice as she flees? Or perhaps she merely hopes to draw attention to them by causing as much damage as possible?

As Liu Jin evaluates different possibilities, Su Daji’s Qi burns with renewed strength, rendering them all pointless. He barely sees her as she bursts through trees and slams into him. Her aura, densely packed with Qi, protects her against his lightning and pushes him back.

She has fox ears now.

Cute and covered in purple fur, they stand straight on top of her head. Liu Jin shouldn’t stare, but he does.

He gets slammed through a tree for it. Su Daji’s aura, taking the shape of a long, furred tail, wraps around his waist and tosses him around. Liu Jin breathes, and lightning destroys the tail as Su Daji closes in on him again. A swing of her hand creates wide arcs of purple that he weaves in between. White poison glows in his palm as he crouches low and aims at her stomach.

She steps back. She’s fast, but he already knew that, so he’s not surprised when her leg is suddenly cutting through the air, mere inches from his forehead. Liu Jin bends back to dodge, twisting his body to a nearly perfect ninety-degree angle.

Dozens of foxes leap at him from the trees.

An explosion of purple rocks the forest for miles, scattering countless leaves to the winds and covering the sky in purple smoke. A crater several meters deep is left behind.

“You dodged that,” Su Daji says, standing on the edge of the crater, glaring as the smoke clears to reveal Liu Jin at the other end. “I was not expecting you to.”

“I thought there was no need for words now,” Liu Jins says, rubbing his neck. Su Daji’s scowl grows fiercer at his words, and he almost feels guilty.

“You’re right,” she says. “My mistake.”

One of her Qi tails surges from the ground, trying to wrap around Liu Jin’s ankle. Dodging with a burst of [Ground Contraction], Liu Jin speeds through the air towards Su Daji. As he reaches the midpoint of the crater, the air distorts. His eyes widen as he realizes what is happening. It has been years, yet he remembers this technique perfectly.

[Void Fist]

It is not a small thing that merely covers one or two meters. The distortions rip apart the entirety of the crater, creating a screeching sound as the air is abruptly displaced and sucked back in.

"When could you possibly have learned that?" Liu Jin asks, having barely managed out of the technique's range in time. His voice has a mix of surprise and joy in it. Without a doubt, that was Xiao Sect's signature technique. However, Su An had never known it!

Could she have learned it in secret and kept it from him?

"Who knows?" Su Daji says, her smile taunting. "Perhaps, if you tell me how you keep dodging, I might feel inclined to share."

Liu Jin says nothing.

"No? Very well, then," Su Daji brings her hands together.

Distortions appear in the forest by the dozen. Liu Jin's body blurs as he's forced to avoid them, never allowing himself to be caught in their range.

The foxes wait for him there.

Su Daji's laughter rings as the purple explosions go off one after another. No matter where Liu Jin goes, there is an attack waiting for him. No matter where he turns, there is no path that leads him to Su An. As tactics go, this attack is completely lacking in grace or subtlety, but it is no less effective because of it.

Despite knowing better, a smile appears on his face.

This way of fighting… It feels like Su An.

"How about now?" Su Daji laughs. "You cannot run if there is nowhere to run!"

At that moment, Su Daji yelps in surprise as the ground under her suddenly crumbles and multiple snakes rise. Tails of Qi wrap around her legs just in time to stop the snakes' fangs from piercing her skin. Her eyes and aura blaze with purple fire, destroying all the snakes around her.

It all takes no more than a fraction of a second.

It is enough.

Liu Jin falls on her from the skies like a meteor. Aura clashes against aura, their faces inches apart. Purple lightning crackles against foxfire.

She falls back.

He gives chase.

The tips of her tails sharpen and try to pierce him, but multiple snakes wrap around them, holding them in place and melting them with poison. Her claws slash through the air, missing him by millimeters and gouging vast swathes of land. His lightning tears through the ground, stunning her before she can use Void Fist once more. Always pushing, never stopping. Multiple miles go by in the blink of an eye.

With every movement, Su Daji grows angrier and her Qi sharper. The idea of holding back for the third stage starts mattering less and less.

Suddenly, it happens.

Her aura scatters, her rage gone in a haze of confusion.

Her soul screams.

"What is this?" She yells, holding the sides of her head and glaring at him. "You…What did you…"

Her eyes widen.

"The snakes…" she whispers in realization. "... a soul fragment…But why would you?"

"There was no other way I could be sure," He says, a weak smile on his face. "Please, don't think badly of me. This… this will hurt for me as well."

When Liu Jin sent his snakes to strike her from underneath, he sneaked one of his soul fragments among them. When she used her aura to block and snuff them out, his soul fragment harmonized and blended into her aura. From there, it was just a matter of keeping Su Daji under pressure so she wouldn't notice it until it had reached her soul.

Now, soul touches soul. The link between the two has been established. In the Storm Dragon Palace, Liu Jin attempted something similar, but he lacked skill. Not anymore.

He opens his soul to Su Daji.

In doing so, he pushes every single one of his memories of Su An into her.

When he first met her…

When she viciously defended his reputation while he prepared for his duel against Xiao Fang.

When she worried over him in the Eastern Port City Tournament…

When she made sure he wouldn’t overwork himself while studying Doctor Wu’s notes…

Truly, he made her worry too much, didn’t he?

“I…” She staggers back, her eyes wide yet looking inward. “Stop! This is not… It’s not…”

“It is,” Liu Jin says, his hands falling to his sides as he relives the memories alongside her. “To be honest, I do not know if I can say you are the Su An I remember. Too many things have happened for you to be considered the same person. Even so, a part of you is my Su An. Selfish though it might be, I wanted…I wanted to try to strengthen that part of you as much as possible…”

She looks at him with teary eyes.

"Boss, why are you always acting like that? People will misunderstand you if you do."

Liu Jin blinks. His eyes feel hot for some reason. "Su… An?"

She hugs him.

The notion of dodging or protecting himself does not cross his mind. He can only wrap his arms around her and hold her tight, as if afraid she'll vanish the moment he lets go.

There is so much he still needs to ask, yet for now…

For now, he dares to believe.

~~~

"Goodness," Lu Mei says, observing the situation from a safe distance. "To think I'd help my betrothed grow so close to another woman. I am truly merciful, don't you think so?"

Her question aimed at the female standing beside her. While the few people unfortunate enough to be within several miles of the fight had wisely run away, this girl tried to interfere with it.

Naturally, Lu Mei could not allow that.

The girl, Ding Yan, is pretty enough, Lu Mei supposes. Her figure is appealing to the eye, and her face is perfectly symmetrical. Her long green hair is carefully adorned with feathers of exotic Spirit Beasts. More importantly, she is dressed in the green robes of the Endlessly Raging Valley.

"I am not sure what I think," Ding Yan says, glancing in the direction where Liu Jin and Su Daji are. "I did not expect the Wandering Wind's disciple to have a relationship with the Emperor of the Storm Dragon Empire."

"A relationship? That is one way of putting it."

"One you are not in a hurry to correct, I assume," she says.

Lu Mei smiles.

"The Elders are not happy with the Storm Dragon Empire right now," Ding Yan says.

"You tried to take advantage of my husband's country. It was foolish to expect anything other than being kicked out," Lu Mei says. "You should be glad he was so merciful."

"An entire trading operation was destroyed!"

"Like I said, merciful," Lu Mei says. "Besides, do you really mind what happened to those trading ports?"

"Of course not," the girl says, sounding offended. "It's the principle that matters here. The Endlessly Raging Valley was offended."

"Your Elders were offended," Lu Mei corrects. "The Wandering Wind clearly does not mind. Ask yourself, between the Wandering Wind and the Elders, which one would you choose?"

Ding Yan looks at her, and Lu Mei immediately knows her answer.

~~~