Chapter 9: The Monthly Competition Divergence - Part 2
Day 22. Fang Zheng finds me during the post-competition cooldown period.
His smile is too genuine for this world. "Mo Bei! Your defensive transitions in the third match were solid. Want to train together? I need help covering my blind spots."
The request catches me off guard. B-rank students don't usually seek out C-ranks for practice.
"Your blind spots?" I test the waters. "You placed second. I placed tenth."
"Exactly." He stretches, rolling his shoulders. "You lost strategically—I saw the matches. You know when to retreat. I don't. I keep pushing forward even when I shouldn't." He pauses. "My brother says it'll get me killed someday."
It will. In the siege. But that's months away.
"Alright," I say. "Eastern practice yard tomorrow morning?"
His grin widens. He claps my shoulder—too hard, too friendly. "Perfect. I'll bring the good practice blades."
After he leaves, Great Sage analyzes. "Strategic value: Moderate to high. Benefits include: proximity to Fang Yuan intelligence, access to B-rank training resources, enhanced combat data collection. Risk: Emotional attachment formation. Warning: Attachment creates exploitable vulnerabilities."
I know the risks. I accept them anyway.
FANG ZHENG
Mo Bei was different from other students. No ego. No posturing. Just quiet calculation beneath a mediocre surface.
Fang Zheng had watched him during the competition—the way he won just enough to prove competence, lost just enough to stay invisible. That took discipline. Self-awareness.
Most students either clawed desperately for recognition or gave up entirely. Mo Bei had found the precise middle ground and stayed there deliberately.
Smart. Probably safer than my approach.
But Fang Zheng couldn't be like that. Righteousness demanded visibility. Justice required standing in the open, even when it made you a target.
He hoped Mo Bei's caution would rub off on him. Or at least teach him when to stop charging forward.
Day 23. Morning sparring.
Fang Zheng moves like water—fluid, adaptable, technically flawless. But there's a hesitation in his strikes. A microsecond pause before committing to lethal angles.
"You're pulling your hits," I say after the third exchange.
"Force of habit." He resets his stance. "I don't want to actually hurt training partners."
"That'll get you killed in real combat."
His jaw tightens. "I know. Fang Yuan tells me that constantly. But there's a difference between training and war. I refuse to treat every sparring match like a fight to the death."
Noble. Stupid. Doomed.
We continue for an hour. He's better than me—objectively, measurably better. But his moral limitations create openings I can exploit. Hesitation before a throat strike. Reluctance to target joints. Unwillingness to follow through on disabling techniques.
In a real fight, those openings would kill him.
"Good session," he says afterward, breathing hard. "You're harder to read than most opponents. Makes me work for it."
Across the practice yard, Gu Yue Qing Shu watches us. Her expression is carefully neutral, but her attention stays locked on Fang Zheng.
"She's watching you," I mention casually.
Fang Zheng's face flushes. "Qing Shu? We've talked a few times. She's... accomplished."
"Very." I hand him a water skin. "You should pursue that. You're what she's looking for."
His eyes widen slightly. "I thought you two were—"
"Engagement dissolved. Incompatible philosophies." I keep my tone neutral. "She wants someone with ambition. Drive. Someone who'll climb."
"And you don't?"
"I want to survive. Climbing just paints targets on your back."
He studies me for a long moment. "That's a sad way to live, Mo Bei."
It's the only way to live when you know what's coming.
"Maybe," I say. "But I'm still here."
Day 24. Marketplace.
I need basic utility Gu—nothing expensive, just supplements to my mediocre arsenal. Jade Leaf Gu for essence recovery, Stone Step Gu for stability on rough terrain. Survival tools.
The marketplace is crowded. Merchants hawk their wares, students haggle over prices, the air smells like incense and primeval stones.
I round a corner between stalls.
Fang Yuan stands three feet away.
We freeze. The marketplace noise fades to distant static.
His eyes—ancient, calculating, impossibly aware—pin me in place like a blade through my chest. Different than the blade that killed me. Sharper.
"Interesting," he says conversationally. "You've been avoiding me for days. Very deliberately."
My mouth goes dry. "Classes don't align. Coincidence."
"No." He steps closer. The crowd parts around him without realizing. "You're the one who uses clones. I've been wondering when you'd approach me directly—or if you'd keep hiding."
The world tilts. He shouldn't know. That timeline reset. He can't remember.
"I don't know what you mean." The lie tastes like copper.
His smile is slight, terrible. "Patterns repeat, even across timelines. Different timeline or not, the way you watch me never changes. That specific analysis. That particular fear."
Great Sage screams warnings. "CRITICAL ALERT: Subject has deduced Return by Death mechanics through behavioral pattern recognition alone. Probability of host survival if designated immediate threat: 3.7%. Recommend complete compliance and non-threatening posture."
"How?" My voice comes out ragged.
"I pay attention." He tilts his head. "You move like someone who's seen the future. Small tells. Flinching before strikes land. Avoiding paths that will become dangerous. You knew to dodge that poisoning attempt, didn't you? The one that hasn't happened in this timeline yet."
He's been watching me the entire time. Cataloging every divergence.
"I'm deciding," Fang Yuan continues calmly, "whether to eliminate you now or wait to see how you develop. You're not strong enough to threaten me. But you're smart enough to inconvenience me. The question is whether that inconvenience has value."
My legs want to run. I force them still. Force myself to meet those ancient eyes.
"I'm not your enemy." Each word costs me. "I have no interest in opposing you. I just want to survive."
Silence. Five seconds. Ten.
The marketplace continues around us. Merchants call out. Students laugh. The world keeps spinning while mine hangs by a thread.
"That's the correct answer," Fang Yuan says finally. "Keep it true."
He walks away. Doesn't look back. Just vanishes into the crowd like he was never there.
I stand frozen for three full minutes before my legs start working again.
"Analysis complete. Subject Fang Yuan has: Identified host's temporal awareness (probability 94.3%), deduced reset mechanism exists (probability 87.1%), chosen non-elimination strategy (probability 78.6%). Reasoning: Host designated as potentially useful variable if managed correctly. Threat level: CRITICAL but currently passive. Recommendation: Absolute non-interference with Fang Yuan's objectives. Any deviation risks immediate termination."
He knows. He's always known.
And he's letting me live because I might be useful later.
FANG YUAN
Mo Bei was confirmed now. Temporal awareness, possibly resurrection ability, definitely intelligent enough to be cautious.
Fang Yuan walked through the marketplace, processing the encounter. Five hundred years of experience taught him to recognize the signs: the way transmigrators moved, the specific pattern of future-knowledge anxiety, the tells that separated lucky survivors from actual threats.
Mo Bei was the former. Smart enough to hide, not ambitious enough to compete. Perfect.
Keep him alive, keep him scared, keep him useful. When the inheritance opens, he might serve a purpose.
Variables that knew their place were assets. Variables that forgot became corpses.
Simple math.
That night, I can't sleep.
The conversation replays endlessly. Fang Yuan's voice: Patterns repeat, even across timelines.
He figured it out through pure observation. No special ability. Just centuries of experience recognizing anomalies.
And he chose not to kill me. Not out of mercy—he doesn't have that—but because I might be useful.
I'm livestock. Kept alive until there's a reason to slaughter me.
The thought should terrify me more than it does.
Day 24 ends. Twenty-four days survived. Six to go.
Fang Yuan knows about my abilities. He's tolerating my existence.
The narrowest path imaginable just got narrower.
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