Chapter 168 Rank One Is Eating Dumplings

Chapter 168: Chapter 169: Rank One Is Eating Dumplings

The golden light came up out of the ground.

It started as a single thread near the stage and ran across the clearing like a lit fuse, branching and spreading until the whole forest floor glowed with a vast circle of ancient lines. Daniel felt the grass hum under his boots.

"Formation array," Paul breathed. "A transport one. That’s a seven-ring Heaven’s Domain array. Do you know how much that costs?"

"Do you know how much I care?" Daniel said. "There’s a knife on my neck."

The light swept over Brick Head’s eleven victims first. One by one they dissolved into gold dust, their snores cut off mid-snore.

Brick Head waved at the empty grass. "Bye! Sorry about your faces!"

Across the clearing, under the cracked tree, the young master of the Golden Dragon Clan flickered like a candle in a draft. For one second he looked almost peaceful, drool and all.

Then he was gone.

"Young master!"

The blade left Daniel’s neck so fast he felt the air move. Su Wan lunged across the clearing, her braid whipping behind her, and her hand closed on empty grass where the boy had been a heartbeat earlier. Golden dust sifted through her fingers.

She stayed there on one knee for a long moment, utterly still.

"Is she okay?" Brick Head whispered.

"No," Lyra whispered back. "Be quiet."

Su Wan rose slowly and turned around. Her eyes were no longer cold river water. They were a frozen river, and something was moving underneath the ice.

"Do you understand what you have done?" she said, her voice very quiet. "The young master’s seat in Heaven’s Domain was this clan’s entire investment for the decade. Four years of tutors. Two spirit pills a month. A thousand gold in bribes to the registration clerks."

"Is that why he was hiding in a bush?" Daniel asked. "Did the bribes cover a bush?"

"You robbed him."

"I borrowed his card for a moment. He lost it in the process of being boring." Daniel spread his hands. "You should file a complaint. I hear the guild is very understanding about complaints."

Su Wan’s hand dropped to her hilt. Lyra’s pistols came up. Paul’s wind began to curl around his fingers. Brick Head, after a moment of visible effort, raised both fists and tried to look dangerous.

"One more step," Lyra said, "and I turn that armor into a sieve."

"Ladies," said a dry voice, "I would think very carefully."

An examiner had materialized at the edge of the circle. He was thin, grey-robed, and wore a silver badge shaped like a falling star. He did not look at the weapons. He looked at Su Wan’s belt, where a bronze plaque swung against her hip.

"Participant," the examiner said. "The test has ended. A cleared participant who draws steel on another cleared participant after the horn is subject to immediate disqualification. If she kills, she is subject to something worse." He smiled thinly. "Which is it going to be?"

Su Wan breathed in. She breathed out.

She drew her hand away from the hilt.

"This isn’t finished," she said to Daniel. "The Golden Dragon Clan does not forget a debt."

"Neither do I," Daniel said warmly. "And I never forget a woman’s name. Su Wan. It’s a good name. You should say it more."

She stared at him as though he had spoken in a language she was fairly sure was illegal. Then she turned and walked away through the crowd without another word, her braid swinging like a pendulum.

[Affection Level: Su Wan: -37%]

"Trending the wrong way," Daniel murmured. "Still. It moved."

"You asked a woman with a knife at your throat to dinner," Lyra said.

"The knife was incidental."

"It was at your throat."

"Which is why the dinner was a gesture of peace." Daniel looked at her seriously. "Lyra. Are you jealous?"

Lyra opened her mouth. Closed it. Her ears went pink. "No," she said, and walked away three steps with her chin up, before coming back to stand next to him anyway.

Paul sighed like a man who had made peace with his entire life.

The survivors gathered in front of the stage.

The clearing had emptied in a way that felt wrong. Where thousands of voices had filled the forest an hour ago, there were now only a few hundred people, standing in uneven clumps, dirty and bruised and visibly wondering if they were allowed to be proud.

Elder Jian stood at the podium and waited until the last murmur died.

"The first test," he said, "was never about strength."

Someone near the front muttered a word that was probably very rude.

"It was about three things. Observation: whether you noticed the rules were not what they seemed. Adaptation: whether you could change your plan when the ground changed under you. And honesty with your own limits." He folded his hands behind his back. "Of one thousand two hundred and thirty-six participants, four hundred and nine hold plaques. The rest have been escorted to the village. They may try again in three years."

Four hundred and nine.

Daniel did the math quietly. Eight hundred and twenty-seven people had just been removed from the exam. He hoped, distantly, that none of them were carrying a grudge.

"Tonight you rest. Meals are provided at the camp behind the stage. Tomorrow at dawn the second test begins." Elder Jian paused. "Speed."

The murmurs came back.

"Your starting positions are determined by your clearing time." He gestured, and the air above the stage rippled. A huge board of glowing script unfolded in the sky, ten names stacked in gold. "The ten fastest participants will begin the test with a head start. I suggest you look at them carefully."

Daniel looked.

Yun Xi: Pair One. 3 minutes, 41 seconds.

Long Tian (Golden Dragon Clan): Pair 104. 11 minutes, 9 seconds.

Heng Bao (Iron Mountain Sect): Pair 218. 19 minutes, 30 seconds.

His eyes ran down the list. Six more names that meant nothing to him. And then, at the bottom of the ten:

Daniel Black: Pair Seven. 48 minutes, 12 seconds.

"Seventh," Paul said, impressed. "You were seventh. You napped."

"I planned."

"You napped."

"Napped strategically."

Lyra elbowed him. "Look at number one."

"I’m looking. Three minutes and forty-one seconds." Daniel frowned. "Is that even possible? It takes me three minutes just to find my partner."

"It’s the fastest clear in the history of the exam," said a boy standing nearby, in the awed tone of someone reciting scripture. "Nobody knows who Yun Xi is. No clan. No sect. No sponsor. She registered under a plain name and walked in barefoot."

"Barefoot," Daniel repeated.

"Barefoot."

"That’s the strangest part of that whole sentence."

The spectator rope on the east side of the clearing had never been so crowded.

Daniel had barely cleared it before a small, furious projectile hit him in the stomach.

"MASTER!"

He staggered back, caught her, and found Fluffy’s long ears pressed flat against his chest, her tail wagging so hard it was shaking her whole body. She pulled back, her eyes enormous and bright.

"You are bleeding!" she said.

"It’s a scratch."

"A knife lady did it!"

"A very small scratch."

"Fluffy heard everything." She took a very deep breath. "Master asked the knife lady to dinner."

Daniel closed his eyes. Behind him, Lyra made a strangled noise.

"Fluffy." Cheeky had arrived at a more dignified pace, her iron gauntlets shining at her sides. Her cheeks were still thin, but they had color in them now, healthy and warm. She pushed Fluffy gently aside and took Daniel’s chin in one hand, tilting his head to see the thin red line beneath his ear.

"A woman held a knife to your throat," Cheeky said, "and you flirted with her."

"Technically," Daniel said, "I offered a meal."

"Daniel."

"A friendly meal."

Cheeky’s lips twitched in spite of herself. She dug a clean cloth from her belt and pressed it against the cut, harder than she needed to. "You are going to get killed by someone," she said, "and the last thing you say will be a bad joke."

"That’s the plan."

"It’s a terrible plan."

"It has a lot of character."

She laughed, a real laugh, and the sound made something warm settle in Daniel’s chest. Four hours of a countdown had ended in a quiet room not long ago. This laugh was the best part of the whole day.

A tiny hand tugged at his sleeve.

Mittens stood half behind Cheeky, her cat ears twitching, her tail wrapped tightly around her own leg. She held out a small clay pot.

"Ointment," she whispered. "From the cook. For... for the cut."

Daniel took the pot gravely, as if it held a treasure. "Thank you, Mittens."

Her ears flicked upward. A tiny smile crept across her face before she ducked behind Cheeky again.

"She’s been holding that for an hour," Cheeky murmured. "She wouldn’t go to the cook alone. I went with her."

"Thank you," Daniel said again, quieter.

"Fluffy went too!" Fluffy announced. "Fluffy carried the ointment! And a cookie!"

"You ate the cookie," said Mittens from behind Cheeky.

"Fluffy tested the cookie."

Brick Head wandered up, a half-eaten chicken leg in his fist. He looked at the group, then at the board in the sky, then at the group again.

"Did I win?" he asked.

"You cleared," Daniel said.

"Is that winning?"

"It’s a very specific kind of winning."

"I like it," Brick Head said, and took another bite.

The sun was sinking behind the trees when Daniel finally noticed the girl.

He was heading toward the camp with the others, the ointment tucked in his pocket and a plate of something unidentifiable in his hand, when he saw her sitting alone on a flat grey stone at the edge of the clearing.

She was small. She looked maybe eighteen. Her plain grey robe was clean in a way nobody else’s was, no dust, no scorch, not a single wrinkle. Her black hair was tied in a loose knot with a bit of string. Her feet, tucked under her on the stone, were bare.

In her lap lay a paper bag. She was eating steamed dumplings out of it, slowly, one at a time, and looking at nothing.

Beside her, on the stone, sat a bronze plaque. It was engraved with a single character.

One.

Daniel stopped walking.

"Daniel?" Lyra said. "What is it?"

"That’s her."

"Who?"

"Rank one. The one who cleared in three minutes." He lowered his voice. "She’s eating dumplings."

The girl finished one dumpling, wiped her fingers on a napkin, and picked up the next. She had not so much as glanced in their direction.

Daniel stared. Then, because he was Daniel, he did the only thing his instincts told him to do.

"System," he thought. "Show her affection level."

The screen appeared in front of his eyes. He read it once. Then again.

[Target: Yun Xi]

[Affection Level: Unable to read.]

[Warning: Target exceeds current system threshold. Level gap too large for analysis.]

Daniel blinked.

"What does it say?" Paul asked, who had learned to read Daniel’s expression after three months of unpleasant experience.

"It says she’s too strong for the system to read."

Paul went pale. "How strong is too strong?"

"I don’t know. It’s never done that before." A slow, dangerous grin crept across Daniel’s face. "I like her."

"No," Lyra said instantly.

"I didn’t say anything."

"You were about to."

"I was about to say hello."

"Absolutely not."

On the stone, Yun Xi lifted her head.

Her eyes were an ordinary dark brown. Plain. Unremarkable. But when they met Daniel’s across fifty meters of trampled grass, he felt something slide down his spine that had nothing to do with the evening air. It felt like standing at the edge of a very deep well and hearing something at the bottom turn over in its sleep.

She looked at him for exactly three seconds.

Then she held up the paper bag and tilted it toward him, a question without words. Want one?

Daniel stared at the bag. Then at the girl. Then at the bag.

Behind him, Fluffy’s ears shot straight up. "Fluffy likes dumplings."

"No," said Cheeky, Lyra and Paul in perfect unison.

Daniel didn’t move. He was still looking at the girl, and at the single character on the plaque beside her.

The second test would begin at dawn.

And for the first time since he had woken up in a desert with a giant lizard behind him, Daniel Black wasn’t sure he was the most dangerous person in the room.