While the tens of thousands of people in the venue had yet to recover from that absurd quarterfinal opening match, Lu Xiaoqi—who was supposed to be "critically injured and on the verge of death"—had already drilled out a path of survival.
Like an ungraspable, slippery loach, he moved through the crowded sea of people.
"Make way! Make way! Critically injured patient coming through!"
With the wind howling in his ears, Mo Fan brought out the sprinting speed of an 800-meter college fitness test from his past life, fleeing all the way back to the servant quarters in one breath.
BANG!
He crashed headfirst into his own small courtyard, backhandedly locking that broken wooden door dead, and even dragged a large rock to block it from behind just to be safe.
"Phew... It's a wrap. It's finally a wrap."
Mo Fan leaned against the door panel, letting out a long breath of turbid air.
He casually wiped away the mouthful of fresh blood he had forced himself to spit out at the corner of his mouth. Where was there even a shred of the deep affection and despair he had shown on the arena stage?
Only the relaxation and comfort of retiring after a successful campaign remained.
In the days that followed, Mo Fan announced to the outside world that he had "suffered damage to his heart meridians, his Dao Heart was frustrated, and his doors were closed to all guests."
No matter who came knocking, even those paparazzi reporters wanting to dig up juicy follow-up gossip, he played dead and refused to see anyone.
Facts proved that his judgment was extremely accurate.
No matter which world it was, the "internet" had no memory. The enthusiasm of the melon-eating masses (onlookers) was always fickle, loving the new and loathing the old.
This sensational unrequited love drama lost the soil for follow-up interaction because the male lead suffered a miserable defeat, fled, and completely vanished.
This wave of public opinion heat, which originally could have overturned the Azure Cloud Sect, began to naturally cool down at a speed visible to the naked eye.
After all, no spectator would be willing to stare at a tightly closed broken wooden door every day.
As for Mo Fan, all of this was no longer important. The quota for inner sect disciple was safely secured in his pocket.
The rest of the Grand Tournament had completely turned into a free theatrical play that had nothing to do with him. He hid peacefully in his room, leisurely drinking tea while calculating his new life in the inner sect.
However, Mo Fan patted his butt and left the stage, but the aftershocks he left behind pushed another person onto the altar.
The ice queen, Shen Qiu.
Through this battle, Mo Fan executed his duty as the "perfect stepping stone" extremely flawlessly.
In the eyes of the outside world, Shen Qiu's ruthless, clean, and efficient "exorcism of demons" on the arena stage not only thoroughly washed away the vile rumors of her having illicit relations with a servant...
It also deeply entrenched her aloof image of being pure as ice, clean as jade, and utterly unprofanable into people's hearts.
Her prestige was pushed to an unprecedented peak in this moment.
Even before the upcoming semifinals were finished, rumors were already quietly spreading within the sect.
Several elders holding real power from the main peaks of the inner sect had taken a liking to Shen Qiu's cold, ruthless disposition and formidable combat power displayed during this storm, and had secretly sent people to contact her in advance.
You have to understand, this kind of exceptional treatment—being thrown olive branches by multiple powerful elders, even faintly creating a bidding war—was an honor usually reserved only for the ultimate Grand Champion in past outer court tournaments!
Shen Qiu had not only found a blessing in disguise but had directly become the most dazzling, most talked-about absolute star of this tournament.
But where someone rejoices, someone else is destined to taste the bitterness of being forgotten.
Perspective shifts back to Courtyard A of the outer court.
Our miserable sword cultivator, the original number one seed and top favorite of this tournament—Lin Tian—was experiencing the darkest moment of his life.
In the ensuing quarterfinals (8 to 4) and semifinals (4 to 2), in order to salvage his dignity as the top favorite and snatch back his lost front pages, Lin Tian fought with extreme effort.
It could even be described as him strutting like a peacock spreading its tail feathers.
On the arena stage, dressed in white whiter than snow, his sword Qi crisscrossed. Not only did he win, but he won with extreme ease and elegance.
While crushing his opponents, he even carried a deliberately manufactured flamboyance.
"Thanks for the match."
In the semifinals, Lin Tian used his sword to flick away his opponent's weapon. With a flick of his wrist, he twirled an extremely gorgeous sword flourish and sheathed his longsword elegantly.
He didn't step down immediately.
He deliberately lingered in the center of the stage for a moment longer, looking up at the sky at a forty-five-degree angle.
The breeze fluttered his sideburns as he struck the lonely posture of a peerless swordsman finding it too cold at the top.
Out of the corner of his eye, he cast an expectant glance at the reporter area below the stage, filled with people wearing badges from major media outlets.
"Take pictures! Take pictures of me quickly! This invincible sword posture, this cold and arrogant side profile—tomorrow's headline is definitely mine!" Lin Tian roared frantically in his heart.
However.
Reality was like a resounding slap, ruthlessly smacking him in the face.
He held his pose for a full ten seconds, his neck almost getting sore. But he realized despairingly that the Image-Capturing Stones of the reporters below had actually turned their heads in unison!
All the lenses, all the light, were completely aimed at the adjacent Stage B!
There, Shen Qiu had just whipped her opponent off the stage and was coldly retracting her weapon.
"Take pictures quickly! The look in Senior Sister Shen Qiu's eyes during that whip strike just now was so badass!"
"This temperament is unmatched! This is the true prestige of our Azure Cloud Sect's outer court!"
As for Lin Tian's side...
Aside from a few junior brothers clapping sparsely below the stage, there wasn't even a ghost's shadow. It was so deserted that even a passing dog wouldn't want to spare a second glance.
The lonely posture on Lin Tian's face instantly froze. The corner of his mouth twitched violently, and he walked off the stage dejectedly.
"It's fine... It's fine!"
Returning to his courtyard, Lin Tian gulped down a large mouthful of cold herbal tea, forcibly comforting himself.
"There are still two days until the final championship match. Without a doubt, the ultimate pinnacle showdown will be between me and Shen Qiu! Since we've both made it to the finals, and I am the bona fide number one seed, they surely can't ignore me this time, right?"
Clinging to this desperate, sink-or-swim expectation, Lin Tian endured a sleepless night.
Early the next morning. The eve of the Grand Tournament Finals.
Lin Tian sent his bookboy early to buy the latest edition of Azure Cloud Daily and Outer Court Gossip Weekly.
"Young Master, the newspapers are back!" The bookboy held the papers, his expression somewhat bizarre, not even daring to lift his head to look at Lin Tian.
"Bring it here quickly!"
Lin Tian snatched the newspaper, unfolding it abruptly with eager anticipation.
The front page headline was indeed the preview for today's finals.
However, when Lin Tian saw the layout clearly, he felt his heart being ruthlessly crushed.
It was a layout design meant to murder the heart.
The entire left side and center of the front page, occupying a full three-quarters of the page space, was a flawlessly photoshopped, high-resolution poster of Shen Qiu wielding her long whip!
In the picture, she was cold as frost and valiantly heroic. Beside her was an extremely domineering, massive, bold font that could blind a person:
[The Peerless Iceberg: Shen Qiu! The Final Step on the Road to the Championship!]
And what about him, Lin Tian?
Lin Tian widened his eyes, looking as if searching for bacteria under a microscope. Finally, in the bottom right corner, in a spot almost squeezed out of existence by advertisements, he found himself.
It was an illustration so small he had to squint to see it, about the size of a stick figure.
Beneath that blurry picture, written in a microscopic font not much larger than an ant, was an extremely perfunctory line of text:
(vs Lin Tian)
The brackets were even in fucking lowercase!
Pfft—!
Looking at this newspaper, Lin Tian only felt his Qi and blood surge violently in his chest. A sweet taste rose in his throat, and he almost sprayed a mouthful of old blood directly onto the page.
How the fuck was this a preview for the outer court finals?
This was clearly Shen Qiu's personal gravure photobook, with a typo attached in the scrap margins!
"This is bullying too far... This is intolerable!!!"
Lin Tian went completely mad.
His originally aloof, worldly, and rock-solid sword cultivator Dao Heart was now trembling crazily from the anger caused by these cultivation world paparazzi who only kissed up to the high and stepped on the low.
Fine cracks even began to appear.
SHING—!
He abruptly drew the longsword from his waist. Sword Qi erupted, instantly shredding the newspaper in his hand into a sky full of dancing confetti.
His eyes were blood-red, looking like a possessed demon. In the courtyard, he let out a low roar like a wounded beast:
"SHEN QIU!!!"
"Tomorrow's finals! I, Lin Tian, swear that even if it severely damages my vitality, I will absolutely trample you under my feet!"
"I want to make the entire sect, and these blind dog paparazzi, take a good look..."
"Exactly who is the one and only king of this Grand Tournament!!!"