"Since Master Lin wants him..." Wang Hongshi's family had recognized Lin Hui. They approached the bride's family directly and promptly handed the lecher over to the Clear Wind Temple's mbers.
Lin Hui was in no rush. He maintained his disguise as a relative, staying through the main ceremonies before slipping away.
Before leaving, he t privately with Wang Hongshi and Zhao Feiyue, presenting them with a few small wood carvings he had made himself as wedding gifts, then hauled the lecher back to the Clear Wind Temple compound.
Thud.
In the courtyard, Lin Hui looked down at the lecher, who lay on the ground with a burlap sack over his head.
With a casual wave of his hand, a breeze swept past and loosened the sack.
"You're free. Go. Don't be so foolish next ti—charging into soone else's ho without even scouting it first."
The sack tore apart and fell away. Caught off guard, the lecher was montarily blinded by the lantern light. It took him a mont to adjust and collect himself.
Utter disbelief washed over his bruised, swollen face. "You... you're really letting
go!?"
"Of course. Heaven cares for every living thing. Go on—you didn't succeed, after all." Lin Hui's tone was mild.
The lecher stared at Lin Hui for a mont. Then he sprang from the ground, his figure blurring as he launched himself toward the courtyard gates.
Bang! The heavy doors flew open a crack, revealing a solid gray wall of fog beyond. The lecher froze.
It's the middle of the night—and the Night Mist is everywhere.
He turned back to find Lin Hui wearing a peculiar expression.
A pulsation of life? Lin Hui was surprised—and pleased. Surprised, because the pulsation of life had no concern for morality; saving a life was enough to earn a return, regardless of circumstances. Pleased, because it ant the ways he could accumulate it were far broader than he had assud.
"My Lord—might I stay until dawn before I go?" The lecher attempted a smile that ca out more wince than grin.
Lin Hui's only answer was a casual wave of his hand.
Swish.
A sudden gust caught the lecher and flung him out through the gate. He plunged into the gray Night Mist and was gone.
The gates were just about to close when—
Thwack! A massive, grayish-black hand covered in scales jutted out from the mist and held the doors open.
A mont later, a black, lizard-like humanoid with a single massive eye stepped slowly into the courtyard.
What species is this? Lin Hui's eyes sharpened with curiosity. The Night Mist was already billowing in through the gap; he crossed to the doors in an instant and slamd them shut with a firm press.
The creature was now trapped inside.
Hiss! It roared and lunged, raking a claw savagely at Lin Hui's chest.
Its attack speed was on par with a Circulation martial artist—a mild surprise. Compared to the Night Mist creatures back in Tuyue, these ones were considerably more powerful.
Swoosh! As the lizard-man's palm tore through the air, it left a trail of dark vapor in its wake. Within that vapor, twisted ghost faces flickered into existence, accompanied by thin, fractured wailing. The effect was deeply unsettling.
As the strike closed in, Lin Hui braced to et it directly with the Surrounding Wind.
But then—
Swoosh. Lin Hui's figure blurred for a fraction of a second. The lizard-man's strike passed clean through him as though he had turned to vapor, and missed entirely.
Carried by its own montum, the lizard-man lurched forward several steps, then wheeled around in bewildernt—its strike had found nothing.
Lin Hui was equally intrigued. In that fraction of a mont, his body had trembled almost imperceptibly—and the blow had simply passed through.
Nothing. Not even the Surrounding Wind had registered so much as a whisper of contact.
The Surrounding Wind always fed back so sensation when it intercepted an attack, no matter how faint. This ti, there had been none at all.
Hiss! Furious and disbelieving, the lizard-man attacked again—this ti with both hands in a rapid flurry. Black wind howled, spreading into dense curtains of mist that engulfed Lin Hui, ghost faces screaming within.
But—swish—all of it passed straight through him, as though he were nothing but shadow and light.
This ti, Lin Hui watched the whole sequence with complete clarity.
So this is the Micro-Flash. A minute, automatic evasion. But what were its limits? If it only worked against weak or ordinary attacks, it was hardly worth noting. Lin Hui turned the question inward.
He planted his feet and let the lizard-man attack at will.
Ti passed.
Two hours later, the lizard-man's chest was heaving, black sweat streaming down its body. It stared at Lin Hui as though seeing a ghost, retreating one step at a ti toward the courtyard gates. It had spent every technique it possessed, and yet its opponent might as well have been smoke—there was simply no touching him.
Lin Hui did not stop it. He watched as it pushed open the doors, backed into the Night Mist, and disappeared.
By then, he had a working picture of the Micro-Flash.
A precise, automatic evasion. Any attack moving at less than half my speed is sidestepped automatically. The stamina cost is negligible—and because the shift is so brief, it looks, from the outside, as though I never moved at all.
Range and activation conditions confird. Next: the upper limit.
His gaze settled on the courtyard gates. In all the ti since his past-life mories had awakened, he had never ventured into the Night Mist.
The Night Mist's greatest threat was not the monsters themselves—though those were dangerous enough. Certain species carried toxins that could affect even a Palace Master; his Big Brother had once ntioned that sowhere in Tuyue's history, a Palace Master had entered the Night Mist and died of poisoning.
He was, however, sowhat stronger than a Palace Master—and with the seemingly unrivaled potency of his Wind Disaster, his confidence held firm. A brief foray near the entrance should pose no real danger.
The true danger of the Night Mist was disorientation. It was riddled with strange anomalies; anyone who stepped inside could be displaced without warning, transported sowhere else entirely. Those who ventured in without care almost never ca back.
Staying near the entrance, though, was generally safe—or so both his Big Brother and Su Yaping had found.
Every powerhouse in this world had explored the Night Mist at so point, drawn by the sa restless curiosity. Sothing so vast, so strange, and so persistent could not simply be left alone.
He walked out through the courtyard doors. Lin Hui stood at the threshold, looking out at the familiar yet changed wasteland.
Around the Clear Wind Temple, the land was wild and untended—weeds waist-high, a tangle of fresh green and withered yellow, alive with insects and small creatures. Here and there, older stalks had splintered in the wind and hung drooping at the thicket's edge.
The mont he stepped out, dim black humanoid figures rose from the grass directly opposite the gate—each so two ters tall, long black root-like appendages trailing behind them.
I should start keeping a record of the creatures that appear in the Night Mist, he thought, watching them rise. Compile my own observations, cross-reference existing logs. Soone else must have had the sa idea.
The next instant, the black figures surged forward without a sound.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Dozens of black shadows passed through him in quick succession. Their speed exceeded that of a Circulation martial artist—sowhere between Divine Officer and High Divine Officer.
Whatever their raw strength, the ambush speed alone would have been fatal for an ordinary person. By the ti you registered the movent, you were already down.
But Lin Hui's outline flickered and blurred automatically, as if so part of him had slipped out of the physical world into so thin, adjacent plane, leaving only a ghost of a silhouette behind.
Shadow after shadow ran through him. None of them touched anything.
Interesting. He revised his assessnt of the Micro-Flash upward. A test like this won't expose its ceiling. The sparring sessions with Su Yaping will be more useful.
…
At that sa mont, Su Yaping—just returned from Wang Hongshi's wedding—sat in his quarters, deep in the study of the perfected Clear Wind Sword Technique.
Like Yun Xiazi before him, he had been completely captivated since learning the perfected version—drawn in by the uncanny, innate sense of flawlessness it carried.
Now that he possessed the Righteous Body Law Seal, he pored over the art's subtleties every day.
The results had been staggering. As a Luminous Extre Grandmaster, his physical foundation alone had grown forty percent stronger—without even activating the law seal. Such was the reach of the perfected Clear Wind Sword Technique.
That even a martial artist who had pressed against the very ceiling of his realm could gain this much was remarkable. It was almost comical that the ordinary disciples of the Clear Wind Temple had been sitting on a supre treasure without the faintest idea.
Every ti the thought crossed his mind, Su Yaping felt a sharp pang of regret. Had he t Daoist Lin Hui even a few years sooner, his current strength would have been several tis what it was.
Outside, the sky was beginning to pale. Through the fish-skin night screen, the first gray suggestion of dawn was just visible.
Having kept vigil through the night, Su Yaping sheathed his sword and wiped a light film of sweat from his brow, ready to wash up and sleep.
He had officially joined Black Cloud Shipping as Vice President. A seasoned outsider, he had brought his Xingdao managent style with him—even-tempered, adept at smoothing over difficulties—and had worked himself into the organization's local factions with quiet efficiency.
Black Cloud Shipping was the preeminent local outfit connecting governnt officials with independent shipping fleets, backed by one of the three great families of the Inner City's Moon Tower.
The three great families were direct descendants in bloodline of the city's three founding Mistborn. Two of those Mistborn had been male; the third, a woman, had taken a husband into her household. The family surnas beneath their banners were therefore far simpler to follow than the tangled lineage structures back in Tuyue.
With that official backing behind him, Su Yaping had thrived—his standing rising steadily, his sphere of influence in the Outer City expanding to encompass nurous smaller factions that had gathered under his banner for protection.
He was turning over the matters that needed his attention at Black Cloud Shipping the next day when—
Click. The heavy outer latch of the manor lifted on its own.
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