However much she shouldn't have come, she was already here.
Well — I'm already here.
Qiu Wuji could only sit there staring blankly as the dancer on stage twisted a waist like a snake's, wrapping herself around that steel pole and striking one wondrous pose after another.
In ten thousand years of roaming the world, what scenes had Qiu Wuji not witnessed?
This one. I've never seen this one.
She had wiped out lewd sects before, cults that harvested cultivation from their partners — the things inside those places had been even more outrageous, some of them going at it right out in the open under the sky. But who ever stuck around to watch that? One divine ability from a distance and they were all flying ash. Besides, her mind had been fixed on killing back then; every scrap of her vigilance had been spent on traps and ambushes, not on this sort of thing.
This really is the first time I've sat this close to enjoy a performance.
Qiu Wuji could not understand how the other woman did it — dancing with a perfectly motionless pole, and yet it looked more seductive than a picture of two people tangled together in bed. That sultry dancing, if you called it the cultivation world's Hehuan seduction dance, would more or less pass. Apart from the total absence of cultivation, her movements already pushed enticement to its limit: not only did men feel a dry heat rise in their chests watching it — a woman's mouth went dry too.
Especially with a man sitting pressed right up against her.
Qiu Wuji hadn't even noticed when Chu Ge's arm had crept back against hers. Sitting this close, contact could happen at any moment. But she could feel that his arm was stiffer than before, as though his whole body were drawn taut, his breathing quicker, his back faintly hunched.
The woman slowly unfastened another layer.
Chu Ge's mouth hung half open; his brain had gone blank.
Okay, miss, that's enough — you're really taking it off?
My city actually has this stuff? The last twenty or thirty years of my life were wasted... no, wrong — I should have come to denounce it long ago!
No wonder everything's so expensive here... so this is where the money goes?
He stole a glance at Qiu Wuji, and she had actually calmed down instead.
Three points. I've seen plenty of that lately.
Writhe as she might, watch it long enough and it's just that. Nothing to it...
Don't tell me you'd actually dare take it all off?
Even as she thought it, a tsunami of cheering erupted through the hall. The woman plucked off her lampshades, and the dazzling headlights and the red LED glowing in the middle blinded Qiu Wuji's eyes.
Her whole mind went blank.
You actually dared!
In front of all these people!
Everything blurred, and the black lampshade the woman had casually flung went flying — straight toward Chu Ge.
Purely on instinct, Chu Ge reached out to catch it.
A sharp pain stabbed at his waist; a jade-white hand had already snatched the lampshade out of the air ahead of him.
Cloud Horizon Sect's ultimate martial art! Kunpeng Lowers the Clouds, Ten Thousand Li of Autumn Swept Aside, a Thousand Forms and Ten Thousand Illusions of Formless Sword Qi!
The lampshade was reduced to flying ash and smoke.
The lampshade: "…"
Chu Ge: "…"
The woman had meant to follow the destiny carried by those flying headlights over to their side and do a little something, but an icy killing intent flashed from somewhere, and in her muddle she forgot the whole idea and went on dancing on stage.
The other guests were howling and cheering like mad, and they too seemed to have forgotten something — not a single one paid attention over here.
Chu Ge's shoulders sagged, and he let out a breath.
Qiu Wuji clenched her fist. "So this is the show you were looking forward to, huh? Asking about it the moment we walked in."
"Uh, that — I was only putting on a show so nobody would think I was a total newbie." Chu Ge was a little nervous, and some devil made him add, "With a lady this beautiful sitting beside me, isn't that the best show in the—"
"Thunk!" A fist cracked down on his skull; Chu Ge's chin hit the table and he passed away peacefully.
Out of anyone else's mouth that line is a compliment. Out of mine, it's a death wish...
Still draped over the table, Chu Ge muttered, "And they say cultivators are supposed to be calm and even-tempered..."
Qiu Wuji sneered. "Do you know why I'm allowed to be un-calm and you're not?"
"Uh?"
"Because I can beat you, and I can even beat everyone in this room. You? All you can do is work yourself into a sulk." Qiu Wuji hauled him up by the collar. "I've found the hidden passage. Move — how much longer do you want to watch?"
The hot dance continued on stage, but the sultry mood seemed to have shattered completely with that one exchange.
Chu Ge no longer had the heart to wonder what the woman's last garment coming off would look like — he had realized he was more interested in this place's secrets than in hers.
How can women compare to a good adventure?
Anyway, I've got someone covering my back.
The two slipped quietly from their seats, and amid that writhing mob of demons they turned a corner. Where the way seemed to have ended, a sudden opening appeared: a corridor that looked like a staff passage, with two or three burly men pacing inside it, watching the outside warily.
Seeing someone peek in, one of the men said at once, "Staff passage. No unauthorized entry."
Chu Ge raised a hand to signal he'd taken a wrong turn and backed away. He exchanged a look with Qiu Wuji; both of them were certain something was wrong here. Who guards a staff passage like that?
But it didn't look like outsiders were absolutely barred, either — otherwise they'd have sealed the opening. Making it a hidden door with a lock was hardly difficult. Why leave a bright, obvious corridor mouth right out in the open?
Qiu Wuji lowered her voice. "From my experience, a place like this in the jianghu always has some special gathering inside. They won't turn everyone away. As long as you have the password, or a token, you'll pass without hindrance."
Chu Ge asked, "Can you sense any other passages?"
Qiu Wuji said, "There are other passages underground, but they lead to more troublesome places. Better to work on this one directly."
"What kind of plan could there be... it'll have to be you slipping in with an invisibility art. Take me along."
Qiu Wuji was silent.
Chu Ge found that odd. "What?"
Qiu Wuji's tone went chilly. "I assumed that with your experience of this world you could go anywhere freely. So this is all it amounts to... then what exactly did I bring you here for?"
Chu Ge: "…"
Why did I have to write you so tsundere? Oh, right — I think I wrote proud. Sorry, I'm a flop of a writer with no craft, I wrote you crooked...
But Qiu Wuji didn't use an invisibility art — because it wouldn't do.
She simply swaggered into the passage, flashed her empty hand at the burly men, and said, "I can go in now, right?"
The men all bowed. "Please, go ahead."
Qiu Wuji tossed her ponytail and strode deep into the corridor; Chu Ge trotted along behind her like a lackey, and no one stopped them at all.
Autumn Waters Deep and Dim — an illusion art that let the men see what they wanted to see, so that they believed there was a membership card in her empty hand.
At the end of the corridor was a downward elevator; who knew how deep underground it went. That was why invisibility wouldn't do — the elevator going down would obviously give away that someone was inside...
Standing in the elevator feeling like a useless hanger-on, Chu Ge caught the faint clean scent of Qiu Wuji beside him in the cramped space. It didn't bother him in the least that he'd been useless; instead, a quiet pride swelled in his chest.
I created this woman.
"Ding!" After who knew how long descending, the elevator finally reached the bottom.
The instant the doors opened, an enormous wave of noise hit them in the face. Forget Chu Ge — even Qiu Wuji's pupils contracted slightly.
Who would have thought there was such a vast space down here, about the size of a gymnasium. The fighting pit at the center was roughly half a soccer field, ringed by tier upon tier of seating; though it didn't look full, it already gave the impression of a surging sea of heads.
Every face was contorted, screaming madly, bloodshot eyes full of savagery: "Kill him! Kill him!"
The voices tangled together and echoed through the sealed underground space like thunder.
"Hrah!" In the center of the pit, a burly man drove his fist into the belly of the girl in front of him.
Yueying tried to slip away nimbly, but the moment she moved, her body suddenly felt heavy and sluggish.
Gravity manipulation?
The thought flashed through Yueying's mind, and she forced her way past the pull of gravity, but it slowed her all the same — the man's fist had already grazed her belly.
The blow sent Yueying rolling across the ground several times. She spat out a mouthful of blood; it was caught by the mask on her face and dripped slowly from its lower edge.
The man chased after her with a savage grin and lashed out with another kick.
Yueying forced herself to roll again, only to find she had reached the edge of the platform.
One more roll and I'm off.
"Fuck your mother, you stinking bitch! I bet a million on you to win! You dare screw me over?" Someone in the stands was already on his feet, flinging his phone onto the platform as if it cost nothing. "Get up!"
Others howled with laughter. "Kill her! Kill her, hahahaha!"
The crowd surged with fury; everyone was cursing and throwing things, and no one could hear a word anyone else said.
Chu Ge watched it all, cold seeping through his whole body. He could scarcely believe this was inside his own city — it was like walking into the world of a novel.
Yueying pushed her upper body up with an effort, and a flying kick from the big man came straight at her.
Can I dodge it?
She didn't dodge.
Unnoticed, the shadow beneath the man's feet had coiled into a knot; as he lunged into the kick, it caught his other, planted foot and yanked it backward.
Caught off guard, the man pitched forward; Yueying slipped to the side, and a back kick landed square on his spine.
The fall plus that kick sent the man himself tumbling out of the ring first.
Name: Yueying (note: obtained from the wall-walker's testimony; information incomplete; suspected to be a code name).
Identity: unknown. Known to take part in underground black-market fighting.
Ability: shadow manipulation.
Degree of development: unknown.
Nature: combat, assassination.
Potential evaluation: S.
Gu Ruoyan's finger traced across this entry, and she said quietly to the subordinate beside her, "Find this Yueying. If the wall-walker's testimony isn't exaggerated, a person like this absolutely cannot be left drifting around a black-market fight ring."