Chương 100: 99. The High Human Cost of Preserved Meat Logistics

Mei Lin steps onto the platform. Deng Rui waits across from her with both hands empty. The disciples treat the body itself as the final technique, reinforced by earth and supported through water. Deng Rui appears to follow that tradition. She draws Water Reflecting Blade. The crowd quiets. Village Head Guo lowers one hand.

"Begin." The first exchanges unfold almost exactly as expected. Deng Rui advances beneath a layer of packed earth that gathers across his forearms and shoulders. The armor is not thick enough to restrict movement. It covers only the places most likely to meet a blade. A wall rises beside Mei Lin. She changes direction before it finishes forming. Another emerges behind her, narrowing the platform into the kind of corridor Stone River prefers.

Deng Rui enters immediately, using the walls to restrict the angle of her retreat while forcing her toward close combat. Mei Lin does not retreat. Water gathers around her sword. The first cut slides across his reinforced forearm and redirects into the second before the stone fully absorbs the impact. A spray of water follows the edge, soaking into the armor and darkening the earth beneath it. Deng Rui strikes toward her ribs. Flowing Ripple Counter Art forms between them.

The thin rotating layer of water catches his fist at an angle and carries part of the force away. Mei Lin turns with the impact rather than resisting it, allowing the blow to guide her into the next cut. Deng Rui's expression changes. He expected the cultivation gap to allow him to control every exchange. Instead, Mei Lin meets his pressure with continuous movement, each sword strike flowing into another while water interferes with whatever terrain he tries to establish.

When a wall rises beneath her path, she steps onto its sloping edge before it settles and uses the new height to cross over him. When he reinforces the wall to trap her, a narrow current runs along its base and weakens the packed earth before the qi can fully stabilize it. Weeks of being buried, cornered, and thrown through Ling'er's imitation battlefields have made the warning signs familiar. The disturbance beneath the platform. The shift in stance.

The moment he divides his attention between shaping terrain and closing distance. Mei Lin recognizes all of them. For several exchanges, she pushes him backward. Water Reflecting Blade traces a sequence of silver arcs across the platform. Deng Rui blocks the first, avoids the second, and is forced to raise another wall against the third. The wall breaks before the cut lands. Water has already loosened its foundation. A murmur passes through the crowd. Beside me, Wei Chen leans forward.

"She has him!"

"Not yet," Jun says. Deng Rui gives ground once more. Then he stops. The surprise has disappeared from his face; something harder replaces it.

"You defeated outer disciples who knew only the foundations," he says.

"Did you truly believe that was everything Stone River had to offer?" His hands move. Water rises from the platform around him. At first, it resembles a defensive current wrapping tightly around his body. Then earth breaks apart beneath his feet. Fine sediment, coarse sand, and fragments of sharp gravel lift into the flow. The water darkens. Its rotation accelerates.

The technique becomes a dense ring of moving weight, every grain and stone dragged through the current with enough force to scour the platform beneath it. Deng Rui's mouth curves faintly.

"Gravel-Sweeping River. Let's see you counter this." The current surges outward. Mei Lin raises Flowing Ripple Counter Art. The two techniques meet. For an instant, I expect the shield to redirect the flow as it has redirected everything else. Instead, the outer layer collapses beneath water filled with thousands of separate impacts, each fragment of stone striking from a slightly different angle. Flowing Ripple disperses under the sheer mass. Mei Lin is thrown backward.

A wall rises behind her before she can recover, and she crashes into it hard enough to crack the packed earth.

"MEI LIN!" Wei Chen shouts with alarm. Mei Lin drops to one knee. One hand presses against her ribs. Her breathing catches, but she forces it steady and rises. Deng Rui attacks again. The dark current circles his arm and lashes across the platform. Mei Lin avoids the center of the strike, but the edge catches her left arm. Cloth tears. The water and gravel scrape across exposed skin with the violence of coarse stone dragged at full speed.

When she escapes the current, the arm hangs at her side, raw and bloodied from shoulder to wrist. My stomach tightens. We prepared for the methods used by patrols and outer disciples because those were the methods we had seen. Deng Rui is showing us what comes after them.

'I underestimated Stone River.' Across the platform, Guo Jian watches without visible excitement. Deng Rui begins advancing again, Gravel-Sweeping River rotating around him while earth armor seals the openings Mei Lin created earlier. I expect her to retreat. Instead, she rushes forward. The movement catches even Deng Rui off guard. Pain has tightened her face, but her eyes remain clear.

She keeps her injured arm close to her body and drives straight toward the technique that has already broken through her defense twice. The Gravel-Sweeping River follows. Deng Rui braces behind his earth armor. He thinks she has trapped herself between him and the current. Then water gathers around Mei Lin. Flowing Ripple Counter Art appears again. Larger this time; the shield spins faster than before, its surface tightening into a broad rotating arc that extends beyond her body. Deng Rui steps forward to meet her.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. The Gravel-Sweeping River closes from behind. At the final moment, Mei Lin drops. She dives beneath Deng Rui's guard and angles Flowing Ripple upward. The two currents collide. I see the interaction clearly. Her technique catches the rotation and tears through the difference between its parts. The heavier sediment separates first. Then the sand. Then the gravel.

The current splits around her shield, and everything solid inside it is ripped free and driven forward in a widening cone. Deng Rui has already committed. He runs directly into his own technique. Stone fragments and sharpened gravel strike his earth armor from every exposed angle.

"AGGHHH!" The impact resembles a shotgun blast at close range. Deng Rui manages to turn his head and raise one forearm, but not quickly enough. Most of the gravel strikes his face and chest before the earth armor can shift to cover them. Blood appears across his cheek. Several fragments bury themselves along his collar and shoulder. The reinforced layer over his torso fractures beneath the repeated impacts, sending chips of packed earth scattering across the platform. He staggers.

For one hopeful moment, I think the match may be over. Then he plants one foot. His body sways, but he remains standing. Peak Qi Condensation is not merely a larger reserve of qi. Years of reinforcement, circulation, and physical refinement have made his body capable of enduring punishment that would have ended the match for a weaker cultivator. Deng Rui lowers his arm. Rage has replaced the patient control in his expression. His eyes are bloodshot.

He looks at Mei Lin as though the technique she turned against him was a personal insult rather than the consequence of his own attack. The Gravel-Sweeping River collapses around him. The remaining water and sediment spill across the platform. His reserves are deeper than Mei Lin's, but the technique has taken too much to maintain after being disrupted so violently. Mei Lin's breathing is no steadier. The enlarged Flowing Ripple Counter Art disappears as soon as the redirection is complete. Her sword arm trembles.

Her injured left arm still hangs uselessly at her side. Neither of them has enough qi left to repeat what they have just done. The fight becomes simpler. Deng Rui rushes forward. Without the Gravel-Sweeping River, he returns to the methods Stone River built him around: reinforced limbs and direct pressure. Earth gathers over his knuckles and shins in rough plates as he moves. Mei Lin meets him with the Water Reflecting Blade. The terrain favors her more now. Broken walls divide the platform into uneven paths.

Gravel covers the ground. Shallow water fills the cracks left by their techniques. Deng Rui possesses greater speed and strength, but Mei Lin has spent weeks learning how to move through exactly this kind of disorder. She steps along the edge of a fallen wall and turns his first strike aside with the flat of her blade. The impact drives her backward. Her foot lands on a raised section of stone, and she changes direction before Deng Rui can follow. Water Reflecting Blade cuts toward the opening beneath his arm.

He twists away. The edge still leaves a shallow line across his side. Deng Rui responds with a backhand that would break bone if it lands cleanly. Mei Lin bends, and her sword rises immediately afterward, forcing him to protect his throat instead of continuing the combination. Skill keeps her in the fight. Tactics keep her from being overwhelmed. But the cultivation gap remains. Every blocked strike jars her entire body. Every collision forces more strain through her wounded ribs.

She can redirect Deng Rui's momentum, but she cannot make the force disappear. I stop thinking about the wager. The merchants, roads, compensation, and public recognition become distant concerns. I watch the way Mei Lin's left arm hangs. I watch her breathing shorten. I watch Deng Rui's earth-covered fist pass close enough to her face that the displaced air moves her hair.

'Permanent damage is not part of the agreement, but it can still happen.' For an instant, I see her as she was at the bottom of the mountain. A frightened girl crying because she believed she had failed before she had even been given a real chance. That girl is gone. The woman on the platform stares at a cultivator three stages above her without hesitation. She moves through pain, reads his balance, and keeps searching for a way to win. Pride and fear twist together until I cannot separate them.

A hand catches my sleeve. Ling'er. I look down and realize I have already moved several paces toward the platform.

"Master," she says quietly. I force myself to stop. Wei Chen leans toward the platform.

"You have him, Mei Lin! His right side is open whenever he plants!" Deng Rui hears him too. He changes the next entry. Mei Lin expects the same rooted step and prepares to redirect the shoulder. Deng Rui shortens the motion instead, shifting his weight before the strike fully commits. Her sword moves a fraction too early. The deflection misses its angle. His kick lands against her shoulder with the full force of a peak-stage cultivator. The sound carries across the square. Mei Lin is lifted from the ground.

She tumbles across the damaged platform, strikes the edge once, and rolls beyond the boundary. The crowd erupts. I am already moving. Deng Rui follows her. He steps off the platform with rage still written across his face, one reinforced fist drawing back as Mei Lin tries to push herself upright with her remaining arm. That strike is no longer part of the match. Wei Chen reaches her first. Jun moves beside him with Seeking Edge already leveled toward Deng Rui's throat.

Ling'er appears between one breath and the next. The three of them stand over Mei Lin with weapons raised and qi gathering. Deng Rui stops. One more step would place him inside all three attacks. For several breaths, no one moves. Then he clicks his tongue. He lets the earth fall from his fist and spits blood onto the stones beside him. Village Head Guo hurries forward before the silence becomes something worse.

He looks between both delegations, making certain everyone understands that he is restoring order rather than choosing a side.

"Mei Lin of Coiling Dragon Sect has crossed the boundary and is unable to continue. The first match is awarded to Stone River Sect." The Stone River side answers with restrained applause. Guo Jian appears displeased by Deng Rui's conduct or performance, but Mei Lin is already stirring, and I have no attention to spare for him. Wei Chen kneels beside Mei Lin as her eyes flutter. For a moment, they do not seem to focus. Then they find the platform, the broken earth beyond it, and finally the people gathered around.

Understanding reaches her slowly. Her gaze shifts toward me. There is pain in it, but something else appears beneath that. Shame and fear.

'Why is she afraid? Does she think I will punish her?' The question lands harder than the match did. Before she can speak, I kneel beside her and place a hand on her head.

"You did well. Rest, Mei Lin." Whatever she had intended to say remains caught behind her teeth. After a moment, she nods. Ling'er bends and lifts her carefully, keeping the injured arm supported as she carries Mei Lin back toward the rest of the sect. The younger disciples hurry forward at once. Medicine appears from storage bags. Cloth is torn into bandages. Someone brings water while another begins cleaning the raw skin along her arm. Shen Qiao stands nearby. He looks ill. I know exactly why.

Because the ledgers, routes, contracts, and calculations have become a person lying injured in front of him. I understood that before. At least, I believed I did. Seeing Mei Lin broken and bleeding makes the knowledge feel different. Every plan made in the Finance Hall eventually reaches someone's body. Every decision to continue a route, pressure a rival, or force a public settlement creates risk for the people who carry it out. I chose this wager. I chose the matchup.

I believed her technical advantage would be enough. A sense of failure settles heavily in my chest.

"Sect Leader." I turn. Wei Chen stands a few paces away. The usual restlessness is gone from him. He is not grinning, boasting, or trying to convince anyone that he has already won. He looks toward Mei Lin once. Then back at me.

"I will avenge Senior Sister Mei Lin." His voice is steady.

"I trained for this. I will bring the match back for us. Please watch." For all of Wei Chen's flaws, he is perceptive when it matters. He sees what Mei Lin's loss has done to the sect. He sees what it has done to me. And instead of pretending the result means nothing, he asks me to trust him anyway. I straighten.

"I believe in you." Wei Chen bows once. Then he turns and walks toward the platform. Across the square, Guo Jian steps forward and stamps one foot. Qi spreads through the damaged stone. Broken sections rise. Cracks close. Fallen walls sink back into the platform as earth pulls itself together beneath the surface. The crowd murmurs at the casual display. Within moments, the battlefield is level enough for the next match. Wei Chen climbs onto it. Han Kuang follows from the Stone River side.

He rolls his shoulders and looks toward Mei Lin, still surrounded by disciples and healers.

"You will end up like her. It's best you surrender before you lose face." Wei Chen rests one hand on Mountain Breaking Blade.

"The last Stone River disciple who spoke to me like that lost his front teeth. Keep talking and see what I can do."