Chapter 63: Outsmarting the Mind Arts

Chapter 63: Outsmarting the Mind Arts

I hadn’t yet gone looking for Du Xiaoran when his virtual-world avatar, Liu Tanzhuang, came looking for me instead.

He said Young Miss Yuan had sent him to invite me over for a chat. Then he winked at me, with obvious mischief in his eyes.

I’d only just become a rank-eight Grandmaster, and it would have been awkward to refuse Young Miss Yuan’s goodwill—especially since Liu Tanzhuang mentioned she was the Sect Master’s own daughter. So I had no choice but to follow him to see Yuan Lingliang.

She was already seated in the inner hall of Xingyue Palace, dressed to seductive effect. The moment I stepped through the outer door, the maid Xiaocui darted through the inner one—no doubt to announce me.

When I entered, Yuan Lingliang’s manner toward me had done a complete about-face from the first time we’d met. She wore the shy, blushing look of a bride seeing her groom for the first time. A shame, really, that I’d already seen her at her most imperious before the match—no amount of coyness now could move me.

So I cupped my hands and said, in my roughest, heartiest voice, “Song Chenfeng offers his thanks to Young Miss Yuan for the recommendation before the match. Had you not given this humble fighter the chance to compete, I would never have become a rank-eight Grandmaster—nor gained so much besides. Song Chenfeng expresses his deepest gratitude!”

I brought up her “recommendation” on purpose—a reminder of exactly what kind of woman she’d shown herself to be.

But to my surprise, she seemed delighted by it. She covered her mouth with one hand, blushing prettily, and said, “Grandmaster Song is too kind. My father and I suspected all along that you were a hidden expert—we only used harsh words to provoke your fighting spirit. And sure enough, you unleashed your true power in the match and rendered great service to our sect. Lingliang has prepared some wine to show her gratitude.”

Xiaocui had the servants bring out food and drink, then waved Liu Tanzhuang off, signaling he should leave rather than linger and get underfoot.

He took the hint and excused himself at once.

The moment he left, I quietly activated same-frequency sensing to probe Yuan Lingliang’s intentions—and what I found startled me. A flicker of familiarity, faint but unmistakable. There was no scientific basis for the feeling; it was pure instinct. But somehow, Yuan Lingliang knew mind arts. And this particular flavor of mind arts—I thought I might have encountered it before, in the real world.

Keeping up my hollow courtesies, I sat down across from her while Xiaocui poured our wine.

I racked my memory, trying to recall if I’d ever crossed paths with a woman like this.

People from the Mundane World couldn’t reach the Elite World’s metaverse. And in the Elite World, I hadn’t been here long, and the people I’d met were few.

Noticing my stiffness, Yuan Lingliang reached out with a delicate hand, caught mine, and used it to pick up food for me. “Don’t be so reserved, Grandmaster Song. Eat. This West Lake vinegar fish was made specially by a chef from Jiangnan. Try it and tell me what you think.”

The scent of her, the touch of her skin—it brought one name rushing to mind: Pu Liuqian. Because I could feel it now, clear as day: Young Miss Yuan had been using mind arts on me this entire time, probing and enticing me at once. Of course, Yuan Lingliang couldn’t be Pu Liuqian herself. I’d once wrapped my hand around Pu Liuqian’s throat, and my brain had analyzed her biological signature then. The two women were not the same. The virtual world differed from the real one in some respects, but the Elite World’s metaverse was flawlessly lifelike—as Uncle liked to say, in the Elite World, the virtual is reality.

So this Yuan Lingliang and Pu Liuqian might share the same teacher.

Uncle had told me Pu Liuqian’s father was Pu Xuande, Grand Elder of the Shadow Pavilion. Yuan Lingliang’s father, according to Du Xiaoran, was Yuan Jiangyi, founder of the Ziyun Sect. Could Yuan Jiangyi be nothing more than a shell Pu Xuande wore in the virtual world?

If so, then Yuan Lingliang would be Pu Liuqian’s sister—which would explain quite neatly why both of them knew mind arts.

After all, mind arts were an art of playing with the human heart. A man in a position as high as Pu Xuande’s—or Yuan Jiangyi’s—would naturally be skilled at reading people. Scheming was simply their nature.

The fact that Yuan Lingliang had turned her mind arts on me the instant we sat down worried me deeply—I feared she might see straight through to who I really was. And her murky ties to Pu Liuqian meant murky ties to the Shadow Pavilion as well.

The thought made me act fast. I sealed my brainwaves tight, activated my frequency-tuning function, and wove a chaotic fluid layer around the outside of my cerebral cortex. From there on, I spoke to her on instinct alone.

She kept working her mind arts even as she worked her charm arts on me, pressing her lithe body against mine, letting her consciousness waves slip into my brain and squeeze gently along the edges of my consciousness.

I played dumb, shoveling food into my mouth while trading crude, boastful nonsense with her—anything to keep her waves from breaking through my shield.

I’d never faced Pu Liuqian directly in a contest of mind arts. I only knew of her from the base’s live broadcasts and from Uncle’s accounts of just how extraordinary she was.

But fending off Yuan Lingliang’s mind arts alone was already grueling. Her consciousness waves moved like flowing water—soft, slick, and utterly relentless, seeping into every crack they could find.

I’d never encountered such an unreasonable kind of probing in my life.

She didn’t seem to care in the least that I’d noticed. She kept squeezing and infiltrating my consciousness, darting along the outer edges of my mind without a shred of restraint.

Fortunately, I wasn’t so easily beaten.

I held my consciousness sealed tight and let the fluid layer scramble her waves. After groping around the outer layer of my brain for a long while and finding no opening whatsoever, she finally withdrew her waves and said, almost gently, “Grandmaster Song truly is a formidable man. No wonder the Jianghai Gang’s rank-six fighter conceded midway through the match—he lost fair and square. You may look rough on the outside, Grandmaster, but your soul is watertight. Whoever you really are, you must be quite the hero.”

She tapped my chest lightly with one finger and added, curious, “But why does it feel like there’s the heart of a tender young man beating in there? As if you’ve never so much as touched a woman. How adorable.”

I wiped my greasy hands and said, “Since Young Miss Yuan thinks so highly of this one, Song is now your trusted man. Say the word, and I’ll walk through fire for you without hesitation!”

Then I deliberately smeared my greasy hands down my own sleeve, so she’d stop leaning against me.

A thought struck me—I wanted to see how she’d react if I brought up Pu Liuqian. If there really was a connection between them, my same-frequency sensing should pick it up.

So I said, gruff and hearty, “Speaking of heroes—the one in my heart has to be Grand Elder Pu’s daughter, Pu Liuqian. She is the true heroine among women. I hear no one can hide a thing standing in front of her. Even the upper ranks of the Elite World and the Spirit Realm show her deference.”

To my surprise, Yuan Lingliang burst into giggles. “You admire Sister Liuqian that much? Fine, then. One of these days I’ll invite her over, and the two of you can meet.”

I put on my best flattered expression. “Oh? Truly? Then allow me to thank Young Miss in advance for such kindness! I’ve only glimpsed Pu Liuqian from a distance once—never had the chance to actually meet her. Though she’s such an important figure, she may not think much of a commoner like me. Even a distant glimpse of my idol would be fortune enough for three lifetimes.”

“You want to see her that badly?” Yuan Lingliang said. “Then I really will have to send for her.”

My heart dropped. Damn it. I’d brought this trouble on myself. One Yuan Lingliang alone had nearly worn me down—if Pu Liuqian actually showed up, I’d have to run for it.

Just as I was scrambling for a way out, Liu Tanzhuang rushed in with a message: the Great Grandmaster wanted to see me right away. He had something to ask me.

I rose at once and took my leave of Young Miss Yuan.

Once we were outside the gates of Xingyue Palace, Liu Tanzhuang suddenly burst out laughing.

I asked him what was so funny.

“I was outside and happened to catch the tail end of your conversation,” he said. “Came running to save you. Honestly, why bring up Pu Liuqian of all people? If she’d actually shown up, could you have handled her?”

I shook my head. “No chance. What exactly is this Young Miss Yuan? How does she know Pu Liuqian’s mind arts? What’s she after?”

“You really have no romantic sense at all,” Liu Tanzhuang said. “The young lady’s obviously taken a fancy to you—that’s called throwing herself at someone. Probing you like that? Call it flirting on a mental level. If she’d actually lost her temper and forced her way into the consciousness body inside your brain, I honestly couldn’t tell you whether you could have withstood it.”

“Mind arts are that powerful?” I said. “And that wasn’t even Pu Liuqian herself. If she’d come in person, I’d have had to flee. Actually, I brought up Pu Liuqian on purpose—I wanted to see how Young Miss Yuan reacted to her, to figure out what’s between them.”

Liu Tanzhuang laughed. “Honestly, you could’ve just asked me. Here’s the truth: Pu Liuqian has come to the virtual world in her true body before. A figure that conspicuous doesn’t usually bother with shells. She came to the Ziyun Sect to help Yuan Jiangyi bring in Treading the Wind, Seeking the Dao—it’s a wisdom-harvesting platform from the Mundane World, and Yuan Jiangyi has no right to run it without official approval. In exchange, the Ziyun Sect hands over fifty percent of the equity interest to Pu Liuqian every year—hard assets, convertible straight into real-world achievement points. That’s when Yuan Lingliang learned mind arts from her. The two of them hit it off right away.”

I pressed a hand to my still-pounding chest. “Thank goodness. So they’re not actually kin. If they were, she’d have driven me out of my mind. Yuan Lingliang alone is already this hard to deal with—I might really lose to Pu Liuqian.”

“You were lucky last time,” Liu Tanzhuang said. “She didn’t have time to use her mind arts on you. Otherwise you’d have lost for certain. Every big name she’s purged from the Shadow Pavilion had exceptional abilities of their own—some were even founding elders. Her mind arts wore them down to exhaustion until they voluntarily withdrew from the Shadow Pavilion.”

“Where did she learn her mind arts, then?” I asked. “I’d like to learn them too.”

“You could ask her to take you on as a disciple,” he said. “Otherwise, you’d have to get inside the Shadow Pavilion itself. I hear her mind arts came from some mysterious figure within the Pavilion—not from her father. That figure’s never shown their face. Word is, they’re the true core of the Shadow Pavilion. Pu Xuande’s own arts of calculation are a different thing entirely from Pu Liuqian’s mind arts. His actual position is spokesman for the Shadow Pavilion. ‘Grand Elder’ is just what people call him informally—officially, there’s no such position.”

“A mysterious figure?” I said. “Why is everything tied to the Shadow Pavilion always so mysterious?”

“Of course it is,” Liu Tanzhuang said. “The Shadow Pavilion is the core of the Elite World. No one knows its true face. All anyone knows is that it’s some kind of central organization. Every political order comes from the Shadow Pavilion. The Shadow Pavilion is the rules.”

“Eldest Senior Brother told me the sect’s going into a rest period for about a month,” I said, “and the Great Grandmaster’s agreed to let me travel. I actually wanted to ask you where I should go—somewhere I could grow stronger, see more of the world, and make some money along the way.”

Liu Tanzhuang thought it over. “Then I’d recommend you go underground. To Ghostdark City.”