22: A cold gaze

When the stuttering announcement of the Deacon Disciple finally echoed across the silent Martial Arts Training Ground, everyone awoke as if from a dream, forcibly pulled back to reality from an absurd nightmare.

He won?

Lin Ye, who looked like he could be blown away by the wind at any moment and was constantly yawning, actually won?

After a brief silence, the crowd erupted!

"I... I didn't see wrong, did I? Shi Lei... was just pushed out like that?"

"This... this is too unbelievable! His push just now looked so soft, how could it have so much power?"

"What power! Didn't you see? Senior Brother Shi Lei was pushed off because he used too much force himself, lost his footing, and he just happened to push him! This kid is incredibly lucky!"

"Right! It must be like that! He was taking hits from beginning to end, with no power to fight back. That last push was definitely a fluke!"

All sorts of discussions, doubts, and undisguised mockery converged into a massive wave of sound. Almost everyone attributed this victory to "luck" and "accident."

Because, other than that, they couldn't find any more reasonable explanation.

And on the arena, Lin Ye, as the "victor," played out this "lucky" act to the extreme.

He slumped to the ground, panting heavily, his already pale face now completely devoid of color. He first stared blankly at his slightly reddened right hand, his face full of "disbelief" and "bewilderment," then, as if remembering something terrifying, his body uncontrollably shivered.

His weak, fearful, and shaken appearance looked even more miserable than Shi Lei, whose face was flushed with shame and pain below the stage.

Soon, Disciples responsible for maintaining order came onto the stage and helped him down, half-supporting, half-carrying him. Lin Ye's body was as limp as a puddle of mud, almost all his weight hanging on the two Disciples, and he kept muttering, "I... I didn't mean to... I don't know what happened..."

This appearance drew another burst of laughter from the crowd below, and also completely dispelled the last trace of doubt in their hearts... Just as the Outer Sect Martial Arts Training Ground was bustling with noise over this absurd victory, no one noticed a figure quietly stopping on a secluded mountain path connecting the Inner Sect and Outer Sect, to the side and rear of the Martial Arts Training Ground.

That was a young girl.

She wore a snow-white robe, with faint, flowing clouds embroidered in silver thread on the hem of her skirt. A waterfall of dark hair was simply tied back with a clear jade hairpin, accentuating her long, swan-like neck.

Her figure was so graceful and tall, like a snow lotus quietly blooming at the Peak of an icy mountain, aloof and independent.

But what was most startling was her face.

It was a perfect, flawless face that words could not describe. Her skin was like snow, eyebrows like distant mountains, a delicate nose and cherry lips, as if she were the most perfect creation of the heavens. However, this beautiful face was covered with a layer of coldness and indifference that kept people at a distance, making her seem not of the mortal world, but rather like a Fairy who had mistakenly entered the human Realm.

Her appearance even quieted the surrounding noisy air a bit. Several Outer Sect Disciples who inadvertently glimpsed her figure subconsciously held their breath, their faces showing expressions of self-abasement, not even daring to speak loudly.

Su Qingyue.

A Sect Genius, a leader among Inner Sect Disciples.

This name, for the Outer Sect Disciples struggling at the bottom, was a legend in itself.

Today, she was ordered by her master to go to the Outer Sect Deacon Hall to retrieve a scroll, and had no intention of lingering here. This kind of "chicken pecking at each other" in the Outer Sect, in her opinion, was no different from children's play and not worth a second glance.

However, just as she was about to leave, the announcement from Arena Number Seven, and the sudden burst of incredulous clamor from below the stage, caused an imperceptible ripple in her clear, cold eyes.

She stopped, her indifferent gaze, from a great distance, falling upon the arena where the battle had just concluded.

She happened to see the final scene—the thin young man named Lin Ye, supported by two Disciples, staggering off the arena, his face still bearing that shaken expression.

"Disordered and utterly foolish."

This was Su Qingyue's first judgment of this victory in her mind.

He was passively taking hits from beginning to end, his counterattacks were clumsy and weak, and that final push was full of coincidence and luck. Such a battle was an insult to the words "Martial Skill."

She had intended to withdraw her gaze and leave.

But, for some reason, a ripple quietly arose in her calm heart.

Something is not right.

As one of the top Geniuses in the Inner Sect, her vision and knowledge were far beyond what those Outer Sect Disciples could compare to.

In her clear, cold eyes that seemed to penetrate everything, that seemingly simple scene just now was instantly broken down, replayed, and many details within it were infinitely magnified.

First, the defense.

Although the Disciple named Shi Lei was not very strong, he possessed natural Divine Power, his punches were fierce and powerful, and his cultivation at the Peak of the second level of the Qi Refinement Stage was considered above average in the Outer Sect. But his storm-like attacks, when striking the young man named Lin Ye, were like mud oxen entering the sea.

Su Qingyue saw clearly that at the moment each heavy punch landed, a very faint bronze glow would flash across Lin Ye's body.

That was a manifestation of Body Refining Cultivation Technique cultivated to an extremely profound level, where Qi and blood are externalized, and self-protective Qi is generated!

Although the glow was faint, its quality was exceptionally pure and condensed! This indicated that the horizontal Body Refining method this person cultivated was definitely not of low grade, and furthermore, he had cultivated this Cultivation Technique to a quite astonishing degree!

Second, the Foundation.

While enduring attacks, the young man was knocked askew and seemed extremely disheveled. But Su Qingyue keenly noticed that his feet, from beginning to end, were as if rooted to the ground, his lower body terrifyingly stable! No matter how much his upper body swayed, his core remained undisturbed.

This is a display only possible when one has refined their body to the extreme and their Foundation is incredibly solid!

A person with such a solid Foundation, a person who has cultivated a horizontal Body Refining Cultivation Technique to the Realm of self-protective Qi... why would his actual combat performance be so poor?

Su Qingyue's brows subtly furrowed.

This was the biggest contradiction!

It was like seeing a house with a Foundation cast from the strongest ten-thousand-year profound iron, yet its walls were plastered with the weakest mud.

This simply defied logic!

Finally, there was the decisive push.

To others, it was a coincidence, luck.

But in Su Qingyue's eyes, that push contained a startling "Dao."

Timing!

The timing of that push was absolutely perfect! It was precisely at the only moment when the opponent's old strength was exhausted, new strength had not yet emerged, his guard was wide open, and his lower body was unstable!

A moment more, and the opponent would have noticed.

A moment less, and the opponent would still have had strength to spare.

This kind of grasp of combat opportunity was no longer ordinary combat skill, but a nearly instinctive, beast-like combat intuition!

And there was the application of power.

That palm strike seemed soft and weak, but it contained an extremely condensed and highly penetrating hidden force! Otherwise, it would have been impossible to so easily push an opponent whose weight far exceeded his own off the arena.

An incredibly solid Foundation, a deeply cultivated Body Refining Cultivation Technique, beast-like combat intuition, and exquisite control over power... all of this formed an incredibly sharp and glaring contradiction with his displayed "panicked" and "clumsy" Moves!

A thought uncontrollably emerged from the depths of Su Qingyue's heart.

"He... is he hiding his true abilities?"

As soon as this thought appeared, it made her feel a touch of absurdity.

If he really was hiding his abilities, then his cunning and acting skills were simply too terrifying! He played everyone like puppets, and even the Outer Sect Elder on the high platform couldn't see through him.

Why would an Outer Sect handyman struggling at the lowest level do this? And how could he achieve such a feat?

A hint of deep doubt, which even she herself hadn't noticed, flashed in Su Qingyue's clear, cold eyes.

She stood rooted to the spot, her gaze piercing through the noisy crowd, falling one last time on that thin figure, which was already merging into the crowd and about to disappear.

For some reason, she always felt that beneath that seemingly ordinary back, there seemed to be a unique and mysterious Soul hidden.

Finally, she slowly withdrew her gaze, and that beautiful face once again returned to its eternally cold expression.

She did not linger, turned, and stepped forward, her white robe fluttering like a wisp of clear wind, disappearing at the end of the mountain path.

As if she had never appeared.

But Lin Ye, who had already merged into the crowd, inexplicably shivered at this moment.

He subconsciously looked back, but only saw a dense mass of heads.