The moss beneath Yan Zixuan’s boots yielded with a soft, moist sigh as he started his first advance.
He didn’t rush forward with reckless fury. He moved with the measured grace of a heron stepping through shallow reeds, his folded-steel blade humming at a low, ringing hum. With a sudden flick of his wrist, he carried out the foundational opening of the Crimson Flame sword form. A clean, slanted rising arc aimed directly at the bamboo tea whisk in Gu Qingfeng’s hand.
Ting.
The impact produced a sound no louder than a silver needle dropping onto a fine china plate.
Gu Qingfeng had not shifted his crossed legs upon the granite boulder. His left hand continued to steady the dark heavy clay bowl resting upon his knee. At the same time, his right wrist carried out a tiny, circular flick. The eighty slender tines of the split-bamboo whisk brushed against the flat of Yan Zixuan’s steel blade. It caught the edge exactly at its shaking node.
The entire forward driving force of the strike vanished instantly, absorbed into the circular whorl of the whisk as effortlessly as morning mist dissolving into sunlight.
Yan Zixuan’s eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t pause or step backward.
