Chapter Twenty: The Candlelit Battlefield (6)

It was not a single flame burning and another extinguished, but two distinct, blazing candlelights!

Tiger Spirit was overjoyed, thinking to himself: How fortunate! Both are here! Yet, a moment later, a puzzlement crept into his mind.

“How strange! The statistics from the Celestial Eye Trial were clearly wrong! The display showed only one flame.”

Tiger Spirit abruptly raised his head and looked skyward.

“Trial participants: two hundred and ninety-two.
Number of candlelights: two.”

“How has it become two again? How could a candlelight be extinguished and then rekindled?”

If an extinguished flame could be relit, what meaning would this trial hold? Wouldn’t all the extinguished candlelights be able to burn anew? A sudden blankness swept through Tiger Spirit’s mind.

No matter. Two is perfect! Not only can I sell one, I get a free slot for myself and move on to the next round. All that effort just now with the Ant Flower was wasted, but it didn’t delay me at all.

Tiger Spirit snorted, bent down to pick up the candle. Yet, before his hand could touch it, his body was suddenly flung several yards backward with a whoosh. When he regained his senses, he found himself sprawled in the muddy earth at the edge of the lotus pond.

He had no idea how he had been thrown out from the pond’s bottom, nor how he had slipped in the mud at the edge—almost face-down, like a dog eating dirt. Furious, he scrambled to his feet, scanning the surroundings, but saw no one.

“Who! Which bastard ambushed me? Who was it?” Tiger Spirit shouted, but silence reigned around him.

Looking ahead, Tiger Spirit froze. Beside the candlelights at the pond’s bottom, someone was standing—when had that happened?

The silhouette was familiar. Tiger Spirit felt he’d seen him before; yes, it was the young noble who had tried to buy the candlelight from him.

“How are you here? Who told you my candlelight was hidden here?” Tiger Spirit gritted his teeth.

The Young Lord Supreme rubbed the back of his head, deliberately using a mocking tone: “Ah, Senior, your words are incorrect! Allow me to correct your syntax first. Since these candlelights are placed at the bottom of the lotus pond, and no names are written upon them, they might be yours, or anyone’s. For example, they could very well be mine. Don’t you think so?”

Tiger Spirit was furious, shouting, “I never told anyone! How did you know they were here?”

“I didn’t know,” said the Young Lord Supreme.

“Then how did you come here?”

“You brought me here, using your transfer art.”

“Nonsense! When I cast my spell, no one touched me—not the ant, not even a bug!”

“Who said I touched you? You touched me,” replied the Young Lord Supreme.

“I don’t believe it! When did I touch you?”

The Young Lord Supreme lowered his head and looked at his shoes. “You stepped on my foot.”

Tiger Spirit roared, “Impossible, I did not!”

“You did. Of course you did,” the Young Lord Supreme said slowly. “The room you just stayed in—that was me.”

Tiger Spirit was stunned, left speechless. He truly hadn’t been touched by anyone, but he couldn’t refute it; he had indeed stepped on the floor of that room.

If he stepped on the floor of that room, and the room was this person’s transformation, then it was entirely possible that he came along with Tiger Spirit!

---

“So you and that ant are accomplices!” Tiger Spirit’s teeth ground audibly. “What about that fiery character outside the window? That was transformed by Immortal Fire Thunder. There was only one candlelight left—how could it change at your whim?”

“Indeed, the fiery character made by the Immortal, my immortal power was unable to alter. Even if it did change, Immortal Fire Thunder would notice. But fortunately, there’s an easier method—just block those characters,” the Young Lord Supreme stroked his chin. “That’s why you were locked in the little dark room.”

“You conjured the fire character outside the window?”

The Young Lord Supreme shook his head. “That was Huasheng’s doing. What do you think? Illusory-level immortal technique; he seems quite adept.”

“Illusory-level, that’s all!” Tiger Spirit stamped his foot in anger. “I actually failed to see through it!”

“You should have, but your mind was already unsettled. Even I thought Huasheng’s calligraphy was too thin, and the color and brightness of the flames were clearly amateurish. If the real and fake fire characters were placed together, perhaps anyone could tell at a glance.”

“Truly infuriating!”

“Indeed, we are a bit infuriating,” the Young Lord Supreme raised a thumb. “But perhaps the true deception isn’t from us. People always think they can possess something forever, but what truly belongs to them may only be this illusion of ownership.”

Tiger Spirit’s fury burned, veins bulging on his forehead. He shouted towards the water of the lotus pond: “Swift as the law commands!”

He wanted to use the pond water to extinguish the candlelights, determined to let the arrogant young lord gain nothing.

But the water’s surface remained still, the pond’s water unmoved by the Young Lord Supreme’s presence on either side. The Young Lord Supreme only said, “In terms of immortal techniques, you are no match for me.”

Tiger Spirit’s eyes seemed almost aflame. He turned, his form swiftly expanding. Orange fur sprouted simultaneously on his face and hands, his ears shifting instantly to the top of his head. With this change, his fingernails elongated into sharp, black hooks, and in moments he transformed into a striped tiger weighing hundreds of pounds.

“Revealing your true form?” the Young Lord Supreme sneered, “Let’s see what you can do.”

Tiger Spirit’s enormous claws slammed down, gouging two pits in the earth. Rising upright, he opened his blood-red maw and unleashed a thunderous roar at the Young Lord Supreme.

“The same trick twice?”

The Young Lord Supreme raised his palm, forming an invisible barrier half a yard in front of him. The roar’s shockwave was blocked, shaking the pond water to either side in a spray.

Then, the Young Lord Supreme drew back his hand, calling, “Raise stone, level mountain!” As the words fell, the invisible barrier flew like a solid wall straight into Tiger Spirit’s face, sending him hurtling three yards away.

Before Tiger Spirit could rise, the Young Lord Supreme turned to shield the two candlelights at the pond’s bottom, recited an immortal incantation, and vanished in a flash.

As soon as the Young Lord Supreme departed, it was as if a thick pane of glass had been removed from the pond—the waters converged from both sides, colliding and surging like boiling water.

Tiger Spirit struggled upright, seeing the situation lost, pounding his chest and stomping his feet, howling to the sky.

“Damn it! I, Tiger Spirit, have been duped by you!”

Meanwhile, Huasheng sat in a secluded spot in the mountain woods, legs crossed atop a boulder in meditation. As he predicted, Tiger Spirit had vanished together with the Young Lord Supreme.

The two had played their roles flawlessly. The only unexpected part was the power of the Linglong Ring, which lasted longer than anticipated. Thus, he had to chat with Tiger Spirit for half an hour to stall for time. If he couldn’t delay further, he planned to quietly inform the Young Lord Supreme to weaken his power, making it easier for Tiger Spirit to remove the Linglong Ring.

The chief purpose of the Linglong Ring was simply to seal Tiger Spirit’s power, so he could glance at the fake numbers Huasheng had conjured. As long as Tiger Spirit failed to notice anything amiss in that moment, his mind would become unsettled—the scheme was ninety percent successful.

As Huasheng pondered, suddenly, the Young Lord Supreme appeared before him, holding two candlelights.

Huasheng leapt up in delight, performing a backward somersault. “I knew it would work!”

“That was close, but we made it,” the Young Lord Supreme tossed one candlelight to Huasheng.

Huasheng hurried to catch it, exclaiming, “Don’t throw it! What if it goes out?”

“If it extinguishes, I can go back to sleep,” the Young Lord Supreme yawned, “Otherwise, I’ll have to stay up all night with you.”

---

“Alright, alright! We passed, didn’t we? When’s the next round?” Huasheng asked.

“No idea. Maybe in a few days. I’m exhausted—I need a good rest,” the Young Lord Supreme complained, opening the glass cover of the candlelight and pinching out the flame with his fingers. Instantly, his body was enveloped in brilliant colors, vanishing like Tianji.

Huasheng looked up at the fiery character in the sky.

“Trial participants: one hundred and three.
Number of candlelights: one.”

Huasheng looked at the candlelight, taking a deep breath.

“This Celestial Eye Trial is truly difficult. But at least we’ve passed. Time to rest and fight again another day!”

He thought he ought to share this experience with Weiyu—perhaps she would see him in a new light. With that, Huasheng opened the glass cover and pinched out the flame.

A faint hiss sounded, the candlelight extinguished. Brilliant colors appeared on Huasheng’s body, and his vision turned white.

When the white light faded, a boulder the size of a water vat appeared before him, flying straight towards his head!

Huasheng immediately shouted, “Swift as the law commands!”

Hands braced against the boulder, he yelled, “Divide!”

The boulder was pushed aside, then shattered with a crash. Looking into the distance, he saw several dozen disciples in courtyard robes surrounding a youth.

The youth dodged back and forth with remarkable agility; despite the attackers’ myriad spells, none could approach him.

Huasheng focused and saw the besieged youth was Tianji. In Tianji’s hand was a slip of paper.

One of the attackers shouted, “Stop Tianji! Don’t let him throw the number into the ring!”

Looking around, Huasheng realized he was in a vast stalactite cavern, dazzlingly lit with strange stones towering everywhere. The cave walls were covered in glowing moss, and torches blazed throughout, illuminating the cavern as bright as day.

High above, a circular ring hovered, radiating golden sparks. For some reason, these disciples were preventing Tianji from placing the slip of paper into the ring.

Puzzled, Huasheng caught sight of the Young Lord Supreme’s back.

“Young Lord Supreme!”

The Young Lord Supreme was rubbing his temples. “Can’t a man catch a break?”

“What’s going on? Why are these people chasing Tianji?”

The Young Lord Supreme did not answer, merely pointed to the upper cave wall.

Huasheng looked closely. The first thing he saw was four large characters carved into the stone:

“The Divine Mind Calculation Game.”