CLANG—BOOOOOONG!
At eleven o’clock sharp, the giant bronze gong atop the Grand Prefecture Martial Arena echoed across the crowded amphitheater as twenty thousand spectators filled the tiered stone stands!
High up in the shaded central VIP pavilion sat fifty-two-year-old Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng , at Rank 3 Mid Martial Grandmaster. Flanked by the twelve county magistrates and the wealthy clan patriarchs of Azure-Cloud Prefecture.
Looking down at the official tournament bracket scroll handed to him by a page, Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng raised a silver-streaked eyebrow in surprise and turned to Frost-Pine Town’s Magistrate Liu. Who was sitting proudly in the front row of the county magistrates wearing a brand-new official hat:.
“Magistrate Liu, does this bracket sheet have a misprint? It says Frost-Pine Town’s two entries—Gu Nian and Gu Nuannuan—are nine years old and seven years old! And Deputy Magistrate Zhou has matched nine-year-old Gu Nian in the very first bout of Round One against eighteen-year-old Tie Ba of the Iron-Fist Clan!
Tie Ba reached the Rank 2 Early Iron-Bone Stage last winter and weighs two hundred pounds—do you want this Lord to step in and adjust the bracket so the child isn’t hurt?”
Sitting in his cushioned chair sipping hot wolfberry tea from a clay thermos he had brought from Frost-Pine Town. Sixty-year-old Town Magistrate Liu smiled with the serene confidence of an immortal sage and waved his hand:.
“My Lord Prefecture Governor, please do not worry about Young Master Nian! If anyone needs your Lordship’s protection in Bout One, it is eighteen-year-old Young Master Tie Ba—and whatever furniture happens to be standing behind him when Young Master Nian raises his finger!”
“Oh? You are that confident in a nine-year-old boy against a Rank 2 Iron-Fist heir?” Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng chuckled, leaning forward with genuine curiosity to watch Arena Stage #1.
Sitting two seats down from the Prefecture Lord, forty-five-year-old Patriarch Tie , at Rank 2 Late, of the Iron-Fist Clan stroked his thick black beard and laughed aloud:.
“Magistrate Liu, this old man respects Frost-Pine Town’s famous ten-copper gummies, but a martial arena is not an apothecary clinic! My son Tie Ba has soaked his hands in hot iron-sand since he was eight years old, and his palms can shatter a three-inch granite slab! When the gong sounds, I will tell my boy to hold back seventy percent of his strength so he only pushes your town’s nine-year-old child off the ring edge without breaking his ribs!”
“Patriarch Tie is very kind,” Magistrate Liu replied with a polite sip of his wolfberry tea, “though I still suggest you keep a stretcher ready near the referee table just in case!”
Down at the edge of Arena Stage #1—a forty-foot-square elevated platform paved with thick bluestone tiles—rat-mustached Deputy Magistrate Zhou stood behind the mahogany chief referee’s table. His right boot resting inconspicuously over a recessed brass spring-lever hidden beneath the table skirt!
Connected to that brass spring-lever beneath the floorboards of Stage #1 were twelve six-inch [Dark-Iron Meridian-Draining Nails] that Lin Fan had purchased from a dark-array dealer. Buried under the western half of the stage at midnight!
As soon as Deputy Magistrate Zhou stepped on the brass lever. The twelve underground nails would project an invisible five-foot magnetic draining field directly into the soles of whoever stood on the. Western starting mark—paralyzing a Rank 2 martial artist’s leg meridians in two breaths so his opponent could cripple him at will!
“Round One, Bout One on Arena Stage One!” Deputy Magistrate Zhou shouted at the top of his lungs, barely hiding the malicious smirk beneath his rat mustache as he banged his wooden gavel. “Representing the Prefecture City Iron-Fist Clan: Young Master Tie Ba, age eighteen, Rank 2 Early Iron-Bone Stage!
Versus representing Frost-Pine Town Elementary School: Gu Nian, age nine!
Under Prefecture Tournament rules, once the gong sounds, fractures and broken limbs are a matter of martial fate!”
THUD!
Six-foot-two, two-hundred-pound eighteen-year-old Tie Ba vaulted over the stage ropes without even using the stairs, slamming his heavy combat boots down onto the eastern starting mark so hard the floorboards groaned!
Cracking his thick neck left and right, Tie Ba tossed his five-foot broadsword to his squire—disdaining to use a blade against a child—and flexed his oiled, iron-gray forearms at the cheering gambling crowd:.
“Bookmaker Qian! Put five hundred silver of my own pocket money on me winning in under three breaths! I only need one Iron-Palm slap to break this nine-year-old country bumpkin’s collarbone!”
Over by the eastern bleachers, Bookmaker Qian grinned behind his mahogany betting board as dozens of wealthy city merchants rushed forward to toss silver ingots onto the table:.
“Ten-to-one odds in favor of Young Master Tie Ba winning in under five breaths! Step right up, gentlemen—easiest silver in Azure-Cloud Prefecture!”
Hearing that ten-to-one payout, sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu calmly walked over from the Frost-Pine ringside bench. Set a heavy leather pouch containing five hundred silver taels of household petty cash onto Bookmaker Qian’s table, and tapped his black-iron abacus:.
“Bookmaker Qian, please put five hundred silver taels on Contestant #199, nine-year-old Young Master Gu Nian. Winning in a single move—and write the receipt clearly so there is no dispute when we collect five thousand silver in two minutes!”
“You’re betting five hundred silver on a nine-year-old child against Young Master Tie Ba?!” Bookmaker Qian stared at the one-eyed old butler. If he had lost his mind, hurriedly stamping the ticket before the old man could take his silver back!
On the western side of Stage #1, nine-year-old Gu Nian walked neatly up the four wooden steps in his yellow bunny slippers. Wearing his spotless yellow cotton bunny apron over his blue school uniform and carrying his small rectangular [Fused Cast-Iron Pencil Case] clipped to his belt.
Down at the ringside family bench, twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng sat comfortably beside Auntie Qin, Grandpa Fu. Seven-year-old Su Nuannuan (who was waving two little pink pom-poms while Grandpa Yao watched through his gold spectacles from her lap), calling out a calm fatherly reminder:.
“Nian’er, remember our school sparring etiquette: bow ninety degrees before the bell, remind your senior brother about safety hazards, and only use one finger so you don’t ruin the referee’s furniture!”
“Okay, Dad! I’ll only use one finger!” nine-year-old Gu Nian called back obediently as he stepped onto the western starting mark!
Right behind the family bench, Captain One-Ear Scar and his fifty pink-aproned security uncles raised a thirty-foot pink silk banner embroidered with dancing white bunnies and beat a synchronized rhythm on two brass basins:.
“GO, CLASS PRESIDENT NIAN! POLITE MANNERS FIRST, ONE FINGER SECOND! DON’T GET CHALK DUST ON YOUR APRON!”
Hearing the nine-year-old boy promise his father that he would “only use one finger” against an eighteen-year-old Rank 2 Early Iron-Fist prodigy—while fifty scarred six-foot-tall. Warriors in pink bunny aprons cheered about keeping his apron clean—the spectators in the lower bleachers burst into another wave of roaring laughter and catcalls:.
“Hahaha! Did you hear that father and son from Frost-Pine Town?! The nine-year-old kid promised he’d only use one finger so he wouldn’t break the referee’s furniture!”
“Does he think Young Master Tie Ba is made of paper-mache?! Tie Ba’s Iron-Fist training can split a millstone in half!”
The instant Gu Nian’s yellow bunny slippers touched the western flagstones—.
Click-HUMMM!
Down at the ringside bench, Gu Changsheng rested his elbow on the wooden armrest and watched his son with a quiet smile. Polite manners first, heavy iron second, Gu Changsheng thought approvingly. Nian’er remembered every word of our family tournament rules.
Behind the mahogany referee table, Deputy Magistrate Zhou secretly stamped his heel down on the hidden brass spring-lever!
Beneath the floorboards under Gu Nian’s feet, all twelve [Dark-Iron Meridian-Draining Nails] lit up with a sinister, invisible black magnetic vortex designed to suck the internal qi straight out of the nine-year-old boy’s legs!
In the shadows behind the VIP pillar, eighteen-year-old Lin Fan clenched his fists and grinned: “Yes! The draining nails are active! In two seconds Gu Nian’s legs will go numb, and Tie Ba’s Iron-Palm will crush his chest!”
However, neither Lin Fan nor Deputy Magistrate Zhou knew what nine-year-old Gu Nian was wearing on his feet!
Those fluffy yellow slippers with the two little white cotton rabbit ears weren’t ordinary cloth shoes—they were the [Rank 1 Perfection: Iron-Defense. & Grounding Yellow Bunny Slippers] that Gu Changsheng had fused in [Dad’s Care-Package Upgrade Box] during the very first week of the system!
Not only were the soles of those yellow bunny slippers 100% insulated against all underground traps, needles. Draining arrays, when nine-year-old Gu Nian channeled a wisp of his Rank 2 Chaos Golden-Bone weight into his heel, the grounding rubber-iron soles acted. A superconducting mirror—bouncing the underground meridian-draining current straight back along the floorboards into eighteen-year-old Tie Ba’s iron-nailed boots on the eastern mark!
ZAP-NUMB!
Across the stage, eighteen-year-old Tie Ba suddenly felt a weird, cold tingle shoot up his own calves—right where his left bootlace was still untied and dragging across the stone tile!
Strange, why did my left foot suddenly feel like it stepped on an ice cube? Tie Ba frowned. Shaking his left leg once without realizing that twenty percent of his leg-meridian qi had just been siphoned into the floorboards by Deputy Magistrate Zhou’s own trap!
Before Tie Ba could figure out why his left ankle felt heavy, the starting gong rang!
Remembering his father’s etiquette rule, nine-year-old Gu Nian placed his small hands neatly at his sides, bowed at a polite ninety-degree angle toward the six-foot-two teenager. Spoke in a clear, earnest voice that carried across the entire silent arena:.
“Big Brother Tie, thank you for the match! Dad says fighting with an untied shoelace is bad manners and makes you trip, so if you want to tie your left boot first, I can count to ten and wait for you!”
Hearing a four-foot-tall nine-year-old in yellow bunny slippers offer to wait ten seconds for him to tie his shoes in front of twenty thousand spectators. Eighteen-year-old Tie Ba’s face turned as red as a pig’s liver!
“Tie my boot?! You arrogant little dwarf—I’ll use your bunny apron to wipe my boots after I break your ribs! Eat my [Iron-Fist Clan: Crushing Boulder Palm]!”
Roaring with fury, the two-hundred-pound eighteen-year-old stomped forward—accidentally stepping right on his own untied left bootlace at the exact moment the reflected underground draining current numbed his left toe!
As Tie Ba’s huge iron-gray palm hurtled down toward Gu Nian’s head with 1,500 pounds of force, nine-year-old Gu Nian didn’t dodge backward.
Instead, the nine-year-old boy took one crisp half-step inside Tie Ba’s wide, off-balance guard, raised his small right hand. Gently tapped the tip of his chubby right index finger—infused with a single controlled pulse of. Rank 2 Mid Innate Chaos Golden-Bone Strength (4,500 lbs)—squarely against the center of Tie Ba’s iron breastplate!
TING—KRA-BOOOOOOM!
It sounded as if a siege battering-ram had struck a bronze temple bell!
A visible ring of golden air-waves rippled across Arena Stage #1!
Every single spectator in the twenty-thousand-seat amphitheater watched in utter, jaw-dropping petrification. The six-foot-two, two-hundred-pound eighteen-year-old prodigy of the Iron-Fist Clan was lifted clean off his untied boots by a nine-year-old boy’s single index finger!
Spinning backward fifty feet through the air like a human cannonball. Eighteen-year-old Tie Ba flew straight over the eastern stage ropes and crashed dead-center through Deputy Magistrate Zhou’s mahogany referee table—burying both himself. The screaming Deputy Magistrate under a mountain of splintered mahogany planks and spilled ink!
Down at the ringside family bench, seven-year-old Su Nuannuan jumped up on her stool waving her two pink pom-poms in the air. Three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Grandpa Yao clapped his fuzzy green turtle flippers together and laughed aloud:.
“Hahaha! A textbook forty-five-degree trajectory! Not a single splinter landed inside the stage boundary, and that loudmouthed brat’s breastplate took seventy percent of the shock so his ribs are only bruised!
Nian’er’s control over his Rank 2 Chaos Golden-Bone strength is already ten times finer than a sect elder’s!”
“Big Brother Nian didn’t even get a speck of dust on his yellow bunny apron!” Nuannuan cheered happily, turning to Grandpa Fu with her small hand held out. “Grandpa Fu, did we win the five thousand silver from the betting uncle?
Can we use ten silver to buy candied hawthorns for our whole first-grade class when we get back to Frost-Pine Town?”
“We certainly did, Little Miss Nuannuan!” sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu beamed, waving his stamped betting receipt toward the pale, sweating Bookmaker Qian across the plaza. “Five thousand silver taels in clean profit—more than enough for every child at Frost-Pine Elementary School to have two skewers of candied hawthorns!”
At the ringside bench, Gu Changsheng poured a fresh cup of warm honey water for his son. One round down and not a single thread on his yellow bunny apron is dirty, Gu Changsheng thought, his eyes crinkling with paternal pride. Deputy Magistrate Zhou’s rigged brackets crumble on the very first match.
[ DING! ROUND ONE UPSET — ONE-FINGER KNOCKOUT ON STAGE #1! ]
* Match Result : 9-Year-Old Gu Nian defeats 18-Year-Old Tie Ba in.
1.5 seconds using 1 Finger (30% Output)!
* Side Payout : Grandpa Fu collects 5,000 Silver Taels from.
Bookmaker Qian’s Betting Booth!
* Daily Income : +110,000 DP/day -> +120,000 DP/day!