The nook of Entry hall 128 became an arena of stone.
When the Scholar shrieked his curse, he didn’t launch a reckless, physical charge. Despite his madness, Ji Mingchuan was a high-tier fighter of the Upper Heavens, trained in thirty forms of royal fencing and spiritual evasion. He knew that in close quarters, against a man who had spent three decades throwing an eight-pound lead line-weight with millimetric care, a straight lunge would be fatal.
He leaped backward, his sharkskin boots landing lightly upon the coping of the southern drainage gutter.
His ivory sleeves billowed around him like white banners as he gathered his spiritual qi. A pale, sickly aura of lavender light erupted from his dantian, lighting up the rough granite ceiling with a cold, spectral glare that made the ancient relief carvings cast long, dancing shadows across the walls.
Qiao Ming did not advance.
He stood his ground upon the threshold flags, his feet planted wide, his balance point resting low in his hips. His left hand held the sixty-fathom sounding line in three loose, nested coils. His right hand gripped the green rust bone-awl, its blunt handle knob pressed firmly against the palm of his hand, its sharp point angled toward the Scholar’s throat.
