SS CH7

Xie Li felt as though he were cursing the stars themselves this year. If he managed to escape this alive, he vowed to douse himself head-to-toe in black dog blood to purge the misfortune.

After being shoved blindly through the hidden mechanism into the stone chamber, he had spent ages pounding on the door with his boots and the Duanshui blade’s scabbard. Not a single response came back, leaving him panicked and completely at a loss.

Ye Fusheng’s intentions had been sound. Possessing acute night vision, he had heard the hollow echo beyond the wall and assumed it to be a quiet chamber. Sensing an enemy in their midst, he pushed Xie Li out of the line of fire to resolve the threat safely before retrieving him. Unfortunately, the world is full of headstrong children who excel at courting disaster.

Realizing pounding on the door was futile, Xie Li turned to search for another way out. Knowing nothing of the chamber’s layout and lacking a fire-striker for light, he fumbled blindly in the pitch darkness like a headless fly. Yet, through sheer bold persistence, he traced the grooves between the stone bricks one by one. By a stroke of blind luck, after tapping seven hollow bricks, he mapped their positions in his mind and delivered a heavy, decisive palm strike straight to the Tianshu position.

The hollow brick caved in completely beneath his palm. A thunderous crash boomed through the dark. Ducking aside, Xie Li watched half the wall collapse as a biting, icy wind surged through the gap, stinging his face.

A faint light trickled from the hole, piercing eyes that had grown accustomed to the dark. Xie Li picked up a stone and tossed it through, listening to it clatter and roll far into the distance.

There were obstacles inside.

A wiser person would have hesitated, but Xie Li possessed a stubborn streak.

Ten years old, he had begun practicing martial arts at three and holding a blade at four. With his mother long dead and his father distant, throwing tantrums or running to adults for help were childish comforts long buried.

Duanshui Manor, the Duanshui blade, Xie Wuyi… these were responsibilities carved into his mind since childhood. For three years, he had trained day and night through every season, witnessing deceit and hearing tales of past glory. Before his mind could even mature, a desperate desire to stand tall had taken root in his chest. Thin and frail as he was, he strove to shoulder the crumbling weight of his legacy, never understanding how to back down.

Taking a deep breath, Xie Li unslung the Duanshui blade and held it firm. He was small, and the blade was nearly as tall as he was, making for an almost comical sight.

He darted inside without hesitation. Before he could even regain his footing, a whistling wind rushed down from above. Instinctively ducking his head, his high ponytail split open as his lapis lazuli hair ring snapped in two, sending his hair cascading down.

In that split second, Xie Li caught a brief glimpse of his surroundings. It was another stone chamber, structurally similar to the last but vastly larger. Three eternal lamps flickered along the walls, while a circular stone platform surrounded by water rested directly in the center. Standing at the four corners of the platform were four life-sized wooden puppets.

Carved in the likeness of adult men, their features were so identical they looked like quadruplet brothers. Each held one of four weapons: a blade, a spear, a sword, and a halberd, standing like the Four Heavenly Kings arrayed to vanquish demons.

The sword-wielding puppet closest to him struck out again after missing its first blow. Its iron blade thrust forward with lethal flexibility, the tip coming within a hair’s breadth of Xie Li’s throat before clashing against the scabbard of the Duanshui blade.

The force vibrated through the iron blade, knocking Xie Li back three paces. Hearing a sudden howl of wind behind him, he reacted instantly, parrying backward with his scabbard to block a sweeping halberd. The immense pressure forced him down onto one knee, splitting open the skin between his thumb and index finger.

Before he could catch his breath, Xie Li’s expression shifted drastically. Rolling across the floor to dodge, a rapid succession of eight sharp thuds echoed as dust exploded into the air—leaving eight deep holes precisely where he had been standing an instant before!

The third puppet lunged forward with its spear, its ninth strike colliding heavily against the Duanshui scabbard. The sheer clash of forces sent Xie Li’s internal organs churning, forcing him to swallow back a mouthful of blood. Just then, the fourth puppet brought its heavy blade crashing down from above.

With a resounding metallic clang, the autumn-water blade of the Duanshui blade flashed free from its scabbard. Enduring until the critical moment, Xie Li drew his weapon and met the puppet’s blade head-on, sending sparks flying in the dark.

Before the momentum of his block faded, he followed through with a downward slash. The puppet’s blade snapped in two, but the construct simply abandoned the ruined weapon. With a loud, mechanical creak of its joints, its ten fingers clenched into fists and slammed downward toward his head.

Trapped in the center by all four puppets, attacks rained down upon him incessantly, forcing Xie Li to dodge like an agile monkey. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the water-encircled platform remained entirely tranquil; at no point had the puppets extended their attack range toward that center zone.

Executing a feint, Xie Li brought the Duanshui blade toward the iron sword. Right before impact, he intentionally withdrew his strength, letting the blow knock him backward like a kite with a broken string. His calculations were precise, aiming to land directly on the stone platform. However, the spear-wielding puppet refused to let him escape so easily, hurling its long spear straight at his face. Mid-air with no leverage to dodge, Xie Li’s pupils contracted—only for the spear tip to graze past his ear.

“I’ve never seen anyone quite this foolish.”

A stranger’s deep voice echoed in his ear. A pale finger lightly flicked the spear shaft, deflecting the projectile from its lethal trajectory. A ghost-like black silhouette materialized beside Xie Li, grabbing him by the collar and hoisting him onto the water-encircled platform like a helpless chick.

Sure enough, the four puppets halted at the water’s edge, standing motionless like ominous sentinels. Chu Xiwei casually unclasped his grip, letting the boy crash face-first onto the stone floor, taking a mouthful of dust.

Chu Xiwei surveyed their landing spot—a stone platform roughly ten feet square, surrounded by a ring of glowing green water. Brows raised, he tossed a silver coin into the liquid, raising a harsh, sizzling hiss upon contact.

“This is Duanshui Manor’s forbidden ground. As the Young Manor Lord, have you been here before?”

Coughing up dust, Xie Li replied, “I’m the Young Manor Lord, not the Manor Lord.”

“Tch, dead weight,” Chu Xiwei muttered, giving him a light nudge with his foot. “Get up. It’s starting.”

What was starting?

Xie Li didn’t ask. Wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, he gripped the Duanshui blade and stood up, ready for whatever was to come.

As it turned out, the rare warning from the Sect Master of the Hundred Ghosts Sect was no idle threat.

A series of sharp metallic clangs echoed as over a dozen iron bars shot upward from the edge of the stone platform, embedding themselves deep into the ceiling above to form a massive cage. Chu Xiwei pressed a hand against Xie Li’s shoulder, inspecting each iron bar before striking one with a palm thrust. After a violent tremor, the iron cage remained entirely undamaged. Behind him, Xie Li looked up and gasped, “The stone ceiling just dropped three inches!”

Chu Xiwei’s brow furrowed. Gathering sixty percent of his internal energy, he delivered another heavy palm strike. The iron bar before him cracked to the brink of snapping, yet the massive stone slab overhead plunged downward by over a foot!

If they couldn’t shatter the iron cage in a single blow, they would be trapped and crushed into raw meat!

“Give me the blade.”

Xie Li hesitated for a fraction of a second before handing over the Duanshui blade. Chu Xiwei channeled his inner qi. The moment his hand closed around the hilt, the weapon unsheathed faster than the eye could follow.

Before Xie Li could even track the blade’s edge, a sharp metallic ring filled the air. Chu Xiwei’s blade style was devoid of flourish—every draw was an immediate strike. In the span of a single blink, the blade was already back in its sheath.

The four iron bars in front of them were sliced into twelve neat segments; the top and bottom eight rattled precariously, while the middle four exploded into fragments.

At that exact moment, the overhead stone slab crashed down with a deafening roar. Dust billowed violently as the massive weight plunged toward the two of them.

Grabbing Xie Li with one hand, Chu Xiwei vaulted out of the trap like a floating leaf. The falling stone grazed their hems as it slammed onto the platform, sending a wave of water splashing in all directions.

Though holding a child, Chu Xiwei moved through the chaotic spray without a single drop of water touching his clothes. Just as they were about to touch the floor, mechanical gears whirred from the walls. Three side panels flipped open, revealing hidden compartments filled with miniature launch holes. Smooth, razor-sharp stone needles erupted in a dense, gleaming volley.

Suspended mid-air with nowhere to step, they faced four puppets blocking their front and a rain of lethal needles from every other side. In a fraction of a second, they would be turned into pincushions.

The lead stone needle was an inch from striking the back of Xie Li’s head.

Chu Xiwei shoved Xie Li forward, contorting his body mid-air with incredible precision. The Duanshui blade in his hand swept out in a wide arc. Like a gale scattering autumn leaves, the invisible blade qi pulled the nearest stone needles into its flow, redirecting them backward to intercept the second wave of projectiles mid-flight.

Twisting gracefully through the deadly storm, he carved out a safe three-foot radius around himself.

Yet no matter how exceptional one’s qinggong, no one can remain airborne forever.

Before Chu Xiwei could plant his foot on the ground, the halberd-wielding puppet lunged forward, thrusting its weapon straight at his face. Unable to pull his blade back in time to parry, Chu Xiwei raised his left hand, striking out with an open-palm knife attack aimed precisely at the seam in the puppet’s wrist joint.

The lifelike hand snapped off cleanly at the wrist, sending the long halberd clattering to the floor. Suddenly, a cloud of yellowish-green poison gas spewed from the puppet’s severed wrist. Caught off guard, Chu Xiwei held his breath instantly, but his eyes flared with a scorching, burning pain.

Sensing his temporary vulnerability, all four puppets swarmed in to strike. Seeing the danger, Xie Li used his small size to slip through a gap in their formation. Stepping in front of Chu Xiwei, he kicked the knee of the sword-wielding puppet with all his strength. The recoil nearly knocked him off balance, but the puppet’s leg below the knee broke off and flew across the room!

His eyes closed shut, Chu Xiwei listened closely. “What happened?”

Xie Li paused, scanning the puppets quickly. “These puppets have clean cracks running across their joints—they look like they were sliced through by a sharp weapon long ago.”

“This mechanism is designed primarily to trap, not kill. Each layer triggers the next only when you prove strong enough to break the previous one. Clearly, it was designed to contain a formidable opponent…” Chu Xiwei gave a low chuckle, casually sitting down on the floor. “Kid, I’m blind right now. I’ll leave these four to you—don’t let them touch me.”

For a grown man to say such a thing to a young boy was shamelessly audacious, yet the child didn’t complain.

After a brief pause, Xie Li took back the Duanshui blade and stepped forward to face the four puppets alone.

Metallic clashes echoed through the stone chamber as he held his ground stubbornly before Chu Xiwei, refusing to yield an inch. The martial arts foundation he had built through seven years of relentless practice finally bore fruit. Though lacking deep internal energy, he relied on his agile footwork to evade strikes, exploiting the puppets’ structural flaws to turn their attacks against one another. Fighting one against four, he maintained a steady, calculated defense.

The longer he fought, the sharper and calmer his mind became.

Had he been born into an ordinary family, a ten-year-old child would be free of worries. But born into the Jianghu, his life was bound to blades and blood.

“The legacy of Duanshui Manor cannot be destroyed in your hands! As Xie Wuyi’s son, you can never afford to just be a child!”

Sweat poured down his forehead, soaking his messy hair, while a faint cut from a sword tip bled along his cheek.

He raised the Duanshui blade above his head, bracing against a heavy downward strike from a puppet’s iron sword.

The weight pressed down relentlessly, nearly forcing Xie Li to his knees. He could retreat; he could dodge.

But behind him sat a blinded Chu Xiwei, and in his hands rested the Duanshui blade.

His knees slammed into the stone floor, drawing blood. Teeth grit and veins bulging on his forearms, he poured every ounce of strength from his chest into his legs, slowly forcing himself back up.

Behind him, Chu Xiwei raised an eyebrow, his fingers uncurling as he prepared to launch a palm strike.

“…Fei… Liu!”

A hoarse, youthful roar tore from the boy’s throat. The Duanshui blade chimed with a crisp ring as it deflected the iron sword outward. Swinging back along the existing crack on the puppet’s body, the blade bit deep into its waist!

A strike of Feiliu—a torrent cutting through stone! Without a moment’s delay, Chu Xiwei traced the sound and delivered a palm strike just above Xie Li’s head. The force struck the puppet directly along the deep gash, shattering its frame and sending the torso flying!

That devastating palm strike stunned Xie Li, but it did nothing to deter the remaining three puppets. Forming a triangular formation, they surged forward, their heavy blows whistling through the air.

Just as the attacks were about to land, a blur flashed before Xie Li’s eyes, and Chu Xiwei heard the rustle of flying robes.

Ye Fusheng swept through the broken doorway like a swallow, gliding seamlessly into the fray. Without exchanging a single word, he and Chu Xiwei threw out their palms simultaneously—one to the left, two to the right. The resulting gale lifted the loose hair on Xie Li’s head as he instinctively ducked between them.

A moment later, a pile of shattered wood fell to the floor beside the stray strands of his hair.

A single palm strike, thunderous and absolute—leaving no room for defense, and no chance for survival.

Seeing that the newcomer was Ye Fusheng, Xie Li let out a long breath of relief, only to notice another figure standing by the broken doorway.

Standing against the faint light, the person’s features were obscured—an emaciated, skeletal figure that barely resembled a human being, yet faintly carried the silhouette of a woman. Xie Li widened his eyes to get a better look, but a hand suddenly came down on the back of his neck, applying a firm press.

Before he could utter a sound, Xie Li collapsed softly into unconsciousness.