Sure enough, in this duel she was determined to win, Duanmu Yu opened with Ye Luo Zhi Qiu, her signature move. Beneath the desolate autumn chill, her whole person vanished from sight in an instant, just as before.

"Ha! A petty trick!" Lei Gong had long been prepared for this. Almost at the very instant Duanmu Yu's figure disappeared, he had already brought a knife-hand chop slashing toward her flank, copying almost exactly the method Wei Zhao had used to break the move in the previous round.

This knife-hand strike sought no power, only speed. So long as it landed squarely on the vital node at Duanmu Yu's flank, victory was his beyond a doubt.

It smacked a little of drawing a tiger from a cat, true enough, but one had to admit his response was nothing short of a cunning tactic aimed at the mind, and its strength lay in reactions and speed swift enough to leave anyone caught off guard.

Yet to his surprise, the knife-hand strike fell through. It swept across the air, and there was nothing before him but emptiness.

In the next instant, a palm-sized leaf of dark iron came crashing down on his back. Lei Gong was a hulking brute of a man, yet struck by this single leaf he was blasted bodily off his feet on the spot, sailing clean over the heads of the crowd and plunging into the sea. That, of course, put him out of the contest.

"One Leaf Like a Mountain!" Xin Yi'an's eyelid twitched. Much less renowned than Ye Luo Zhi Qiu, this move was nonetheless one of the rare hard-hitting killing strikes of the Ye Ling Sect, its power first-rate among Foundation Establishment cultivators. The trouble was that precious few in the Ye Ling Sect had ever truly mastered it, and outsiders had even less chance of witnessing it.

This was the first time Duanmu Yu had ever used it before a crowd. To send the hulking Lei Gong flying with a single move—One Leaf Like a Mountain truly lived up to its name.

Watching Duanmu Yu walk calmly to one side and sit down in meditation to recover her true qi, the crowd exchanged uneasy glances. This woman, hard as any man, was genuinely not one to cross. Ye Luo Zhi Qiu paired with One Leaf Like a Mountain—apart from someone of Wei Zhao's caliber, no one could withstand it at all.

Soon enough it was Qiu Lingshan and the others' turn to take the field again. This time they performed just as brilliantly as ever; Qiu Lingshan, Wu Chengtian and the rest came through without incident, winning all three of their matches and earning their trial qualifications early, just like Wei Zhao.

As for Kang Xiaofeng and the others, though they failed to sweep all three, they scraped through with two wins and a loss, their prospects looking bright enough.

The lone exception was Ying Ziyu. Of them all, she was the only one whose future looked bleak—one win and two losses across three rounds, and even that single victory had been picked up only because she drew Yu Bing in the first round. Her other two matches against disciples of the Primordial Alliance had ended in easy defeats, and the counter-moves Wei Zhao had taught her proved utterly unusable. At this rate, things looked very bad indeed.

"Ziyu, you..." Faced with this, even Wei Zhao could not help feeling helpless. He had racked his brains to work out counter-moves against every sect for them all; it was like handing them the answer key in advance—all they had to do was memorize the answers and recite them in the examination hall. But with Ying Ziyu's situation as it was, surely he could not step onto the field and sit the exam in her place?

"Brother Wei Zhao, am I terribly useless?" Ying Ziyu said with a bitter smile.

Wei Zhao looked at her and felt a jolt in his heart. The girl was still forcing a smile even now, but tears were plainly welling and circling in her eyes, held back only by the most desperate effort from spilling over.

"No." Wei Zhao shook his head. Looking at Ying Ziyu's expression of forced strength, he felt a pang of tenderness, and a quiet regret stirred in his heart. At her age she ought to have been left in the mortal world to enjoy her school life in peace; he had taken it into his head on the spur of the moment to bring her along to the Primordial Trial. Had he been too arbitrary?

"Looks like this time I'll be the only one left behind," Ying Ziyu said forlornly. When Wei Zhao first proposed that they all enter the Primordial Trial, she had been the most eager and enthusiastic of the lot. Yet by the look of things now, she was all but certain to miss out.

"Don't lose heart. You still have a chance," Wei Zhao comforted her.

"Brother Wei Zhao, there's no need to comfort me. I know my own situation best. Winning both of the next two matches is simply impossible," Ying Ziyu said with a bitter smile.

At first she might still have hoped for luck—after all, if her luck held well enough to draw her own people in the next two rounds, she could coast into the trial qualification. But unfortunately, those who had swept all three matches—Qiu Lingshan, Wu Chengtian and the rest—had earned their qualifications early; and to keep them from coasting through the rest of the competition and undermining the fairness of the great trial, the rules barred them from the draw. That left only Kang Xiaofeng and a few others of her own side as possible opponents.

That made the odds vanishingly small, and even if she did run into them, Ying Ziyu would be too embarrassed to ask Kang Xiaofeng and the others to go easy on her—doing so would put their own trial qualifications at risk.

Qiu Lingshan and the others exchanged glances, wanting to offer comfort but not knowing how to begin. They all knew Ying Ziyu's nature had always been fiercely proud; a careless word might not only fail to console her but could well backfire.

"Nothing is impossible. One mustn't look at everything from the gloomiest angle. Yes, it's a pity you've lost two in a row, but look at it from the optimistic side—win two more and everything will be just fine, won't it? Besides, this situation isn't so dire. On your own you may not be able to think up a counter in time, but don't forget—you still have me," Wei Zhao said with a smile.

"Brother Wei Zhao, you have a way?" Ying Ziyu's eyes lit up, but then she shook her head dejectedly. "It's no use. It's all because I'm too useless. You already taught me all the counter-moves, but the moment I step into the arena I can't help getting nervous, and the moment I'm nervous I forget everything clean. I can't use any of the counter-moves at all. I'm just a good-for-nothing!"

"No, you're not. You're simply too young, that's all—you haven't gotten used to this atmosphere yet," Wei Zhao said, shaking his head. Suddenly he took Ying Ziyu by the hand and headed toward the little wooden boat moored on the beach nearby, saying as they walked: "Get ready. For the next two days I'm going to give you special training." (To be continued.)