Chapter 57: Talisman
The talisman flared.
Blue light erupted from beneath the round-faced disciple’s foot, snapping into a jagged ring that sliced through the silver river of Qi like a knife through silk.
The vortex feeding Su Chen’s dantian shuddered, frayed at the edges, and for one crystalline moment the entire square held its breath.
The fatty’s eyes widened in shocked surprise.
The swordsman and the elder were the same.
The captain, on the other hand, noticed the opportunity immediately.
"Suppress!" she shouted.
Her suppression field locked into place with an audible crack, severing the heavenly baptism’s directions one edge at a time.
With a quick air punch that headed directly at Su Chen, it completely broke the arrangement.
The Swordsman and the Elder quickly blocked it, but that time was enough to completely intercept the young man’s cultivation.
One of the guards sent a burst of vile Qi at Su Chen, waking him up from his meditative state.
"How dare you!"
Su Chen’s eyes flew open—dazed, disoriented, a man waking from a dream he hadn’t wanted to end.
The blinding golden-white glow around him guttered and died almost instantly.
His breakthrough, which had barely entered Stage 5, stalled mid-surge and collapsed back into his dantian with an almost resentful hiss of escaping Qi.
The round-faced disciple’s expression went through three stages in half a heartbeat: shock, fury, then a carefully constructed mask of innocent confusion.
His foot was still pressed against the cobblestones, the talisman’s blue light now visible to everyone in the square.
He couldn’t hide it anymore.
"Big Zhang!" The sword-wielding disciple spun on him, eyes blazing. "What have you done?"
Fatty Zhang’s face cycled through a dozen expressions before settling on bewildered outrage.
He yanked his foot off the talisman as though it had burned him, the blue glow sputtering out against the cobblestones.
"What the hell is this!" His voice pitched high, almost squeaking. "Someone else activated it! I was just standing here!"
The hollow-cheeked elder’s eyes narrowed to slits.
Su Chen rose to his feet like a man pulling himself out of a grave.
The heavenly Qi that had been pouring into him scattered into nothing, and the absence of it left his face gaunt, hollowed-out.
A mask of cold rage barely held together by the twitching muscle in his jaw, he glared at everyone surrounding him.
"Fatty Zhang," he said, and the name came out soft. Almost gentle.
The round-faced fatty took a step back before he could stop himself.
"Brother Su, I swear on my cultivation base—I didn’t activate that talisman. Someone else—"
"Someone else."
Su Chen’s laugh was a dry, splintered thing.
It echoed across the silent square.
The swordsman and the elder exchanged a glance, their bodies tensing.
Even the captain’s steel mask tilted slightly, her eyes squinting.
Su Chen kept laughing, the sound climbing into something jagged, and the crowd instinctively turned silent.
Finally, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, still chuckling, then, he sighed.
For half a breath even Fatty Zhang’s shoulders dropped in relief.
Then Su Chen moved.
No one saw the sword appear.
One moment his hand was empty, and the next a blade of pure white light hummed in his grip—thin as a razor, crackling with a martial intent so dangerous the cobblestones beneath his feet split in a radiating spiderweb.
Fatty Zhang’s mouth opened to scream.
His head left his shoulders before the sound could form, tumbling once in the air before it hit the ground with a wet, heavy thump.
Su Chen flicked the blood from his blade and turned toward the captain, his eyes burning with Qi.
"Fatty Zhang!" The Swordsman shouted. "Su Chen, you are going too far!"
"The Jinguan Sect sent you three to protect me," Su Chen said, not looking at the swordsman or the elder. "But if you want to stand in my way too, I’ll cut you down right here as well."
The Swordsman gritted his teeth.
He wanted to discipline the arrogant brat right there, but the truth was that he did not dare.
The movement technique that Su Chen had used earlier was so fast that the others hadn’t even been able to react.
How would they dare attack him now?
The captain’s steel mask tilted an inch.
"You’ve got blood on your blade, boy. Are you planning to use it on me, or was that your one good move?"
Su Chen’s sword of light flickered and died.
He sheathed nothing at his hip, the motion smooth with long practice, and leveled a dead smile at her.
"This junior wouldn’t dream of raising a hand against Mulberry Gate’s honored guards." His voice was calm now, almost pleasant. "A traitor within the Jinguan Sect required discipline. Internal matters, Captain. I’m sure a woman of your experience understands how... delicate such things can be when handled publicly."
Something shifted behind her mask—amusement, or maybe disappointment that he hadn’t taken the bait.
Su Chen held her stare without blinking, a snake measuring a hawk, that was when a sudden prickle crawled up his spine.
His head snapped left, toward the eastern edge of the crowd where the shadows between two shuttered stalls hung a shade too deep.
Who was that?
But there was nothing but a mortal crowd there.
...
Meanwhile, walking through the crowd, Kian entered the alley heading to his residence.
He slipped into the alley’s gloom with a smile too sharp for the dark to hide.
Oh, Su Chen! OH!
The system flickered.
[You have succesfully destroyed a lucky opportunity of the Chosen One of Fortune]
[Fortune +100]
[Su Chen’s Remaining Fortune: 2100]
Kian’s smile turned into chuckles.
He hadn’t known he could earn Fortune this way as well!
Kian hummed a tone as he walked, looking at the quests one more time.
[Quest: Steal ’Su Chen’s’ close people.]
[Subquest 1: Steal ’Maid Xiao Cui’ from Su Chen. Reward: 100 Fortune.]
[Subquest 2: Steal ’Inner Disciple Fatty Wang’ from Su Chen. Reward: 150 Fortune.]
[Subquest 3: Steal ’Fairy Qinglian,’ his sister, from Su Chen. Reward: 600 Fortune.]
[Special Reward: Steal all three and receive a unique aspect of the Chosen One’s cultivation.]
’So I can earn 850 Fortune by stealing his family. Then, to get the rest of his fortune, I need to destroy or steal his opportunities?’
Kian nodded to himself as he reached the gates of his home.