Brother Hu, a bulky youth with a cruel twist to his mouth, sneered as he looked Lin Feng up and down.
"Practicing?" Hu laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "What's the point? You can't channel Qi. You're just dancing with a stick."
He stepped forward, his own Qi flaring, a faint, earthy brown aura surrounding him.
"I think you forgot your duties. The latrines near the West Pavilion are still filthy."
The lackeys snickered, fanning out to block any escape.
The familiar fear, cold and sharp, lanced through Lin Feng.
His usual response was to submit, to endure.
But today was different. The ghost of Lei's stubborn pride simmered in his veins.
The memory of that single, desperate thrust was fresh in his mind.
He didn't say a word. He just adjusted his grip on the branch, his body settling back into the end-stance of the Staggering Viper's Thrust.
It was a passive, almost defensive posture.
Brother Hu misread it as surrender.
"Good. You're learning." He reached out, not with a technique, but a simple, condescending grab to seize Lin Feng's collar.
It was the opening. The stumble.
As Hu stepped forward, his weight shifted.
Lin Feng's body moved without conscious thought, guided by the phantom's muscle memory.
He didn't brace; he gave way, letting his own balance break as if stumbling backward.
The motion was so unexpected, so utterly unorthodox, that Hu's grab missed by inches.
In that same moment of Hu's overextension, Lin Feng's body uncoiled.
The branch, propelled by the full, off-kilter momentum of his "stumble," shot forward like a striking snake.
It wasn't fast because of Qi. It was fast because of physics, because of a flawed, desperate genius that used imbalance as a weapon.
The tip of the branch slammed hard into the center of Brother Hu's chest, right over his sternum.
THWACK.
The sound was sickeningly solid.
Brother Hu let out a choked gasp, all the air driven from his lungs.
His Earth Qi aura flickered and died as his concentration shattered.
He stumbled back, clutching his chest, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock, pain, and utter incomprehension.
He hadn't been defeated by a technique. He had been defeated by a joke.
A move that looked like a drunkard falling.
The two lackeys stood frozen, their mouths agape.
Lin Feng stood panting, the branch still extended.
He felt no triumph. Only a cold, stark terror.
He had done it. He had fought back. And he had used a power that was not his own, a power born from a century of ridicule.
Brother Hu wheezed, his face turning a blotchy red.
The shock was rapidly being replaced by incandescent rage.
"You… you dare? You used some… some trick!"
Lin Feng didn't wait. He turned and ran, crashing through the bamboo, leaving the bullies and the echo of his first, ghost-powered victory behind.
He had drawn a line. And he knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that the consequences would be swift and brutal.
The fragile peace of his miserable existence was over.