Blossoming Path-243. A Plant's Gambit

Blossoming Path-243. A Plant's Gambit

My thoughts fractured.
One line of thought tracked Cheng’s movements as each step pushed the fight toward the Soaring Swallow Inn. Another, quieter and urgent, sifted through implications.
The Soaring Swallow Inn.
Cheng had chosen his direction blindly, purely reacting to our coordinated attacks. He didn’t know what lay inside. He couldn’t.
But I did.
Lan-Yin. Wang Jun. Villagers still recovering, too weak to evacuate. And above all—Ren Zhi. The man who had taught me to sharpen my senses and helped me breakthrough, who had trained me when he could have remained hidden, content in obscurity. Ren Zhi had secrets, a burden heavy enough that he kept his very existence hidden from most eyes. He desired nothing but peace.
A fragile, secluded peace.
If Cheng crashed through those doors, if he forced Ren Zhi to act...
My jaw clenched. That peaceful life would shatter instantly, irreversibly.
I quickly assessed my actions, the contract flashing through my mind. No, I had not broken it, neither knowingly nor unknowingly. Cheng’s arrival was coincidence, his aggression a force entirely beyond my control. This wasn’t my doing.
Yet, I wouldn’t let that justify passivity.
Ren Zhi had risked discovery and sacrificed anonymity for my sake, guiding me without complaint. I owed him more than simply standing by. I owed him
action
.
In that fractured instant of manifold thinking, clarity crystallized sharply.
I must protect Ren Zhi’s secret. I must divert Cheng. And above all, I must not let him reach the inn.
With a burst of resolve, I pivoted sharply on my heel, qi roaring to life in my limbs.
Cheng’s eyes widened slightly at my sudden aggression. Good.
I surged forward, heat trailing from my heels like streaking embers across the dirt. My qi flared in a jagged pulse, my body snapping into a rotation that turned a standard frontal assault into something unpredictable. I pushed the flame deeper, beyond the surface; threatening to incinerate me from within. The Heavenly Flame coiled through my muscles, wreathing my palm in fire, and for the briefest of moments, I poured everything into one clear, unhesitating motion.
Strike to kill.
Cheng’s body responded before his mind could catch up. His stance shifted, spine tensing, right arm snapping up to intercept the blow. That small shift, that single step, tilted his angle away from the inn.
Just enough.
He’d seen me fight. He had read my habits. That I would counter. That I would evade. That I would never take center stage unless it was part of someone else’s move.
I was
interrupting
the narrative.
Behind me, Xu Ziqing moved.
Of course he did.
We’d played this out on Tianqi Duel a dozen times. When I changed tempo this abruptly, when I risked material without clear compensation; it was never aimless. It was a gambit. And Ziqing learned to recognize it.
The formation shifted.
"There!" I could hear Xu Ziqing direct people behind me.
Han Chen tightened his stance, reinforcing my left.
Jian Feng angled his body diagonally, intercepting the likely retreat vector. The rest of the disciples strode forward into a crescent moon formation.
Together, our new arc bent away from the Soaring Swallow Inn. A redirection hidden inside what looked like aggression.
It was a subtle wedge.
An invisible line pushing Cheng toward the village center instead. And all of it disguised beneath the familiar chaos of combat.
Cheng stumbled; not because we hit him, but because he was recalibrating.
He was trying to see the pattern.
I pressed forward, striking again.
He blocked, flicking a talisman in front of him to burst with wind and scatter the flames I’d conjured. “Enough,” he said, breath ragged. “I’ve already said I don’t want blood. Give me the cure, and I’ll leave.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; any sightings.
“No,” I answered simply.
“Why?” His gaze flicked sharp. “You think you’re righteous? You think you’re saving people? You’re risking them. Every second this drags on, the cost grows.
You
cannot defeat me.”
He was trying to get inside my head.
But I’d lived too long inside other people’s heads to fall for it.
“I don’t trust what you’ll do once you’re strong,” I replied. “Not when you’ve hidden the Phoenix Tears this long.”
There. The flinch.
A miniscule one, caught only because I was looking for it.
My eyes dropped deliberately to his storage ring.
I lunged.
I overextended, arms stretching far too greedily toward the ring on his finger.
He reacted instantly, shifting his weight, dropping into a defensive pivot and slapping my wrist away with a hard snap of his palm. His other hand brushed the ring instinctively.
There it was.
He still had it.
A breath later, I smiled.
And Cheng’s eyes narrowed in realization.
He thought I was acting on emotion. That I had grown reckless in pursuit of the artifact. Now I could bait him with the threat of losing it.
Force him to react.
Cheng stepped back, reassessing, circling again.
Behind me, I felt Xu Ziqing adjust formation with the Verdant Lotus disciples, their line flexing like a bowstring being drawn. They didn’t know the full plan, but Ziqing knew enough.
He could see I was building layers. And for now, that was enough.
The ground beneath my feet began to shift subtly. Not from combat, but from what I’d already set into motion.
From the greenhouse across the square, the roots I’d seeded responded to my command.
Shennong’s Decree.
The moment I activated it, the hybrid plants within the greenhouse stirred.
Through Viridescent Sovereignty, I could feel each of them; distinct, alive, eager.
'Come out.'
The kudzu responded first. Its tendrils had grown aggressively, and uncoiled through the slight gap in the greenhouse door, brushing over stone and earth, sliding beneath battle-scuffed soil without a whisper.
I guided it carefully.
Gently.
Only when Cheng turned his back. Only when the angle of our formation obstructed sightlines.
Another feint. Another near-lunge for the Phoenix Tears.
“You stupid, greedy old man!” I spat, fire coiling in my hands, body hunched low like I was ready to pounce.
The insult wasn’t for impact. It was camouflage. Rage was easier to understand than tactics.
Cheng’s brows furrowed. He kept his distance, body low, wary.
But his talismans were slowing.
I could feel it.
His frequency of counter-use had dropped sharply. The elegant wave of his hand faltered, replaced by tighter, shorter motions. He was conserving.
'He was running low.'
But so were we.
Jian Feng’s counters were a half-beat slower. Han Chen’s palms, still iron-strong, weren’t striking with the same certainty. Even Ziqing, ever-unshaken, was more reactive now, his steps heavier, calculating risk down to the muscle.
And me? I was burning qi like paper in a furnace. My lungs rasped. My vision narrowed. The only thing keeping me upright was momentum and the pressure I knew I had to maintain.
My fingers brushed the pill pouch at my waist. Still sealed. Still full.
Stamina pills, made from the hybrid ginger.
I flicked a pill through the air. It arced toward Jian Feng. He caught it mid-stride, understanding flashing through his face.
Then another to Han Chen. One to Ziqing.
Three dull glints in the torchlight.
Cheng’s gaze snapped to them. A beat too late.
I caught the shift in his breathing. His footwork faltered just slightly.
And I saw the realization bloom behind his narrowed eyes.
'You had these the whole time.'
I wanted him to think we were bleeding out, dragging the fight through attrition. That we were all clinging to the edge while he stood tall, victorious and inevitable.
I’d let him believe it.
To prepare the ground while they’re looking at the sky.
Xu Ziqing gave a subtle flick of his blade, shearing open a soft channel of earth beside Cheng’s ankle—
'Now.'
—and the kudzu moved.
The ground beneath Cheng’s foot shifted.
The kudzu, fed by my qi and emboldened by Shennong’s Decree, erupted like a serpent striking from the loam. It wound tight around Cheng’s ankle in a fraction of a second.
His balance faltered.
Exactly what I needed.
Han Chen’s Iron Palm landed flush against Cheng’s chest, the shock rippling outward with the force of a falling cliff. The sound cracked the night, echoing like distant thunder across the village.
Cheng reeled, off-balance and reeling.
And I was already in motion.
Qi surged up my legs, compressed through my spine, and ignited in my core. My Heavenly Flame Mantra blazed upward, propelling me skyward like a torch loosed from the earth.
The village shrank below. The battered square. The broken soil. The arc of disciples circling like stars around a collapsing sun.
And in the center was my target; Cheng.
He raised his hand, a talisman snapping into place; a hastily-formed barrier.
Jian Feng cut through with a slicing arc of sword qi that shaved a visible crack through the barrier’s outer edge. Behind him, the other Verdant Lotus disciples pressed in, their strikes aimed to fracture. Xu Ziqing and Han Chen followed, making cracks form throughout with their strikes.
At the apex of my jump, I activated it.
ROOTED BANYAN STANCE!
Qi surged downward. every ounce of momentum compacted into my heel. My body condensed, drawn tight like a weighted pillar. My frame grew denser. Heavier. A falling mountain sculpted by flame.
I roared as I came down, all the fire and fury I had forged in this hellish winter erupting in a single, decisive strike.
My axe kick cleaved through the barrier.
It shattered like brittle glass, fragmenting mid-air.
My heel drove into Cheng’s shoulder and chest in a spiraling smash of force, empowered by every pill I’d taken, every root I’d woven, every layer of strategy I’d laid down like interlocking stones.
He didn’t fly backward.
He cratered.
Straight into the earth.
The earth split beneath him, kudzu wrapping around his limbs. His qi snapped and buckled, what remained of it dispersing in wild bursts that flickered and died like spent embers.
And for a breathless second, there was silence.
I landed hard, knees nearly giving, ribs howling. The burn in my meridians told me I was near empty; scraped hollow by the demands of the battle. But the moment I stumbled upright again, I felt it.
Rooted Banyan Stance has reached level 8.
Heavenly Flame Mantra has reached level 6.
The interface blinked against the edges of my vision, quiet and celebratory, as if this had merely been a test.
Jian Feng leveled his blade. “Don’t move,” he commanded.
Others fanned out in a loose circle, weapons raised, qi humming throughout the still battlefield.
Cheng didn’t rise.
Didn’t snarl, or curse.
He coughed once—wet and raw. Blood spattered across his lips. His shoulder had caved in where my heel landed. One eye was swelling shut. His robes were soaked with violet-black qi rot.
He looked finished.
And then his fingers twitched.
His storage ring glinted.
"Stay down," I said. Not a threat. A plea.
He turned his head toward me. His neck looked like it might snap from the effort.
And he
smiled
.
Not with arrogance. Not with menace.
With something worse.
Resolve.
Mad, fevered, sunken-eyed resolve.
"I crossed oceans for this,” he rasped, voice bubbling through blood. “Watched brothers die. Killed better men. I bled in places your maps don't name.”
His hand lifted.
“No one—no one takes it from
me
.”
Xu Ziqing stepped forward, blood trailing down one arm, half his robe torn and burned away. He looked at me, not asking.
Just reading.
This wasn’t the madness of cultists; frenzied and foaming, chanting in tongues. No.
This was the madness of
greed
.
The kind that calcified over decades. Hardened through loss, sharpened by survival. Cheng would not stop. Not even if we gave him the cure. Not even if we begged.
His lips parted again. Perhaps to scream. Perhaps to spit another denial.
He didn’t finish the breath.
Ziqing moved in silence.
One smooth motion.
A crescent of moonlight swept through the air.
Cheng’s head rolled from his shoulders, thudding into the dirt beside the crater.
My knees gave. I sat there, breathing hard. Watching the blood soak into the soil.
"It's over."
Someone exhaled behind me. Jian Feng, maybe. Han Chen slumped to one knee. One of the Verdant Lotus disciples dropped his blade, let it clatter.
Ziqing didn’t sheath his sword. He just looked at Cheng’s corpse with a blank expression.
I stared down at the ruined ground. At the man we’d been forced to kill. The man who might’ve been something once.
Ren Zhi’s secret remained safe.
The Soaring Swallow Inn stood untouched.
The Phoenix Tears were ours.
But none of it felt like a victory.
It just felt like the prelude to something even
worse
.

.
!
243. A Plant's Gambit