Chapter 122 - Afraid

The sparring selection wasn’t complicated. With Han Qingyu’s and Shen Yixiu’s strength, a single exchange each put the matter beyond dispute.

As Shen Fengting said before, Swissland was a small country with an equally small Coalition base and few geniuses. It hadn’t been easy for Yin Caixin’s grandfather to gather anyone at all.

From what Yin Caixin had said, some of her people had been contacted through friends and then invited or hired. The Yin grandfather and granddaughter really did have some nerve.

Of the three from Han Qingyu’s side, only He Tangtang had genuinely had to fight, and he’d had a somewhat hard time of it.

He hadn’t been wearing armor long, and was comparatively behind in terms of source energy tempering. At the start, he lost a round to the strongest B-ranker on the other side, and it took work to fight his way back to the final pairing.

Thankfully, he won. The final lineup came out as a three-plus-two. Three from Han Qingyu’s side, along with Yin Caixin and a B-ranker named Luca. Luca had reportedly put on armor early and had nearly four years of experience in it.

“Little Qing, that last guy seemed a bit off,” He Tangtang whispered as he came off the platform and passed Han Qingyu.

This guy came across as coarse to outsiders, and he looked the part. However, Han Qingyu could sense a fine grain under the coarseness. He was the sly and sneaky type.

By “off,” He Tangtang meant that the other man hadn’t felt like he was merely competing for a slot. He had felt like someone fighting for his life, willing to injure or kill others just to get in. It wasn’t hard to sense this when sparring against a partner of similar strength.

Basically, this man would pay any price and cross any line to participate.

It wasn’t enough to draw any conclusions, but it was suspicious all the same.

Shen Yixiu had been standing behind Han Qingyu like an armored guardian the whole time and thus had heard it too. After a moment, she asked quietly, “Should we warn Little Caixin?”

The two of them were about the same age, but Yin Caixin seemed so childish that Shen Yixiu had unconsciously cast herself as the older sister.

Han Qingyu thought it over, trying to see it from Yin Caixin’s perspective. The people she ought to be most apprehensive about were likely Han Qingyu and his group. After all, they had only just met, held the majority, and had an enormous gap in strength between them—almost overwhelmingly so at that.

If they were the bad guys...

Was that Invincible Firewind Wheels demonstration just a show of force? Is she trying to say, “I have a big move, so you’d better be careful! If I have to save myself, I’ll buy time by sweeping the whole field without regard for friend or foe and hurt you all at once!”

It was an amusing thought.

“It’s fine,” Han Qingyu said quietly. “There’s probably no immediate danger. We’ll wait and see.”

There was one thing he had become certain of: If he wanted to win this trial, he would have to hold complete control. Yin Caixin would have to trust him completely and do as he said.

With that, the group left the sparring ground and headed back to their rooms to rest.

Yin Caixin came pattering up from behind, overtook them, and braked hard in front of them. Her eyes held a clear unease, though she worked hard to look delighted.

“Wow! You’re all really so robust. Now I can rest easy.”

The group smiled at her.

“So, should we go find people to ally with?” Yin Caixin kept beaming. “Since only five can go in, many people are forming alliances beforehand. Most are pulling together four teams to make twenty people. I know a few of those teams. I could go find them.”

It was the natural response to the cap on how many could enter.

In an alliance, the greatest contributor would step forward to collect the reward, which would then be divided by contribution.

Two metal cores refined into eighty energy cores at the very least and more than a hundred at the most, so dividing them wasn’t hard.

According to Yin Caixin, many in the hotel were already doing this. Inwardly, she had automatically ruled out having Han Qingyu and the others go looking for allies, even though they could probably have found stronger ones.

The Oriental Republic Army Group was exceptionally strong. Even their name, the Oriental Republic, was such because that country was tied to the safety of all of Asia.

Yin Caixin naturally dared not let Han Qingyu’s group go recruiting. A worst-case scenario kept playing in her head.

Hahaha, the three of us are wolves. You’re dead. Hahaha, actually all eighteen of us are wolves, so you’ll die in pieces.

I don’t want to die in pieces.

Despite her spiraling thoughts, Yin Caixin pushed herself to trust them. If everyone on both sides had joined equally, and there had been no sparring match for her to witness Han Qingyu’s and Shen Yixiu’s strength firsthand, none of this would have crossed her mind.

Thankfully, Han Qingyu didn’t seem to have noticed her quiet scheming regarding the alliances. Yin Caixin let out a slight breath of relief.

Then she watched as he shook his head.

“If you’re willing to take my advice...” he started. “I’d suggest we don’t ally with anyone.”

“Huh?” Yin Caixin’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. Letting out a feeble breath, she sagged a little, and her brow furrowed.

“There are only five of us, though. If we want to kill a Sharpie, we have to join up with other people,” she explained after composing herself, an aggrieved tone in her voice.

“Then we wait until the end, see who’s fighting, and join up with them,” Han Qingyu said.

“Can we even do that?” Yin Caixin blinked. “What if they all have alliances already?”

“We join them by force.”

Yin Caixin stood there in shock.

***

The large room was divided into three inner rooms, so even with Rust Girl there, sorting out the sleeping arrangements wasn’t hard.

All five of them were in the sitting room.

“If I were to guess, the people she brought are probably telling her how dangerous it is to work with us right now, trying to talk her into finding other allies so they can go in themselves,” Wen Jifei said. Taking a sip of Nepor black tea, he decided it wasn’t bad.

“Huh? She won’t listen to them, will she?” He Tangtang looked ready to panic, as usual.

“Cuihua... Little Caixin isn’t the kind of person to do that,” Wen Jifei said, confident in his read on people. “She’s probably really scared, though. Let’s wait and see. She’ll come to us again tonight for sure.”

“Mn.” The others nodded.

“I have this weird feeling that something isn’t right...” Han Qingyu said in a lowered voice. He paused until everyone turned toward him before going on. “The rule only lets five people in, so alliances are a predictable and inevitable response, right?”

“Yeah, anyone can see that,” Wen Jifei said.

“Who benefits most from a situation like that?” Han Qingyu asked.

They all went still.

“Wipers in hiding?” He Tangtang suggested. “The Preservers probably aren’t much better.”

“True. It makes their work easier,” Liu Shiheng agreed.

The mood turned tense.

“So, even a senior Starlight hero is suspect now? What do we do then?” Shen Yixiu asked uneasily, though still wanting to give their senior the benefit of the doubt. “Could it just be an oversight in the rules, or is this part of the trial too?”

Han Qingyu smiled slightly. “I just hope I’m worrying over nothing.”

A knock came at the door.

“She’s here,” Wen Jifei mouthed quietly.

They opened the door, and sure enough, Yin Caixin was standing outside.

With a bright smile, she came in, closed the door behind her, and turned her eyes to Shen Yixiu. “Hello. I actually know about you, Xiuxiu. Grandpa told me.”

Shen Yixiu stood up and answered warmly, “Hello.”

“Um...” It seemed to take some effort, but Yin Caixin eventually asked, “Can we sleep together tonight? I’m a little scared.”

It was a choice born of apprehension. She was forcing her trust onto Shen Yixiu first, the most trustworthy of them thanks to her grandfather’s connection, hoping to come to know and trust the rest through her.

“Sure,” Shen Yixiu said. “Your room or mine?”

Yin Caixin blinked, clearly not expecting her to agree so readily. “Mine, if that’s all right?”

“Sure.” Shen Yixiu smiled. “Do you want to sit down and talk for a bit first, though? Ask whatever you like. Don’t worry, none of them can beat me.”

Iron Maiden had picked up some bad habits from them and knew how to tease people on purpose now. Low laughter went around the room.

“All right.” Yin Caixin sat down, ?hesitantly glancing at Han Qingyu. “You can’t beat Xiuxiu either?”

“That’s right,” Han Qingyu replied. “Why?”

“N-no reason. I just feel a bit safer.” Yin Caixin’s voice weakened toward the end, and she turned to avoid Han Qingyu’s eyes.

“Do I really look that much like a bad guy?” Han Qingyu asked. I have an honest face, don’t I?

Yin Caixin turned back to him, visibly working up her courage before finally nodding. “Mn. The energy cores we used for the sparring... Everyone else gave them back. Only you didn’t. You pretended to forget.”