The challenger glanced toward Yu Juanshu upon hearing the words.
He didn’t notice any change in Yu Juanshu’s expression, but following Li Yunxian’s advice, after only entangling briefly with Yu Juanshu, it was obvious that Yu Juanshu’s attacks had become more proactive.
And with proactive attacks, defense inevitably gets sacrificed.
That was the opening!
Without Li Yunxian’s reminder, the challenger instantly seized the gap and thrust his sword toward Yu Juanshu.
However, his sword wasn’t as fast as Li Yunxian’s, nor did it have her sharpness.
Yu Juanshu sidestepped.
But the challenger wasn’t disappointed.
He let out a sly grin and looked at Yu Juanshu.
From that strike onward, offense and defense reversed!
Some challengers moved on their own initiative, some followed Li Yunxian’s vocal reminders to exploit openings. After several rounds, there was no doubt—Yu Juanshu had been defeated.
The challenger retracted his Spirit Sword, looking on Yu Juanshu’s still calm face with a hint of gloating, then turned and stepped down from the Practice Arena.
He was now ranked 92nd!
Li Yunxian looked toward Yu Juanshu and asked, “Continue challenging?”
Yu Juanshu took a shallow breath, glanced back at Li Yunxian, paused for a few seconds, then without any objection, answered.
“Continue.”
Yu Juanshu pulled out his phone again and accepted another challenge.
This time, it was still a Sword Cultivator.
Li Yunxian chuckled softly but said nothing.
The final outcome was unquestionable.
Yu Juanshu dropped to 94th.
Yu Juanshu, 95th…………….
Yu Juanshu, 99th.
***
After seven consecutive matches, Yu Juanshu’s stamina was completely drained, barely standing on the Practice Arena.
He stared silently at Li Yunxian.
Li Yunxian’s expression remained calm as she looked back.
She still asked Yu Juanshu in almost the same tone as at the start, “Continue challenging?”
“Continue,” Yu Juanshu barely managed to breathe out.
The entire arena fell into silence.
The once excited audience exchanged glances.
No one had expected the duels announced yesterday to end up like this.
Li Yunxian’s classmates, sensing the atmosphere around them, approached and cleared their throats softly beside her.
“Yunxian, maybe it’s time to stop,” one whispered.
Li Yunxian looked at her classmate and replied, “Whether to stop or not isn’t up to me.”
She raised her gaze and fixed it on Yu Juanshu.
“I said, in the next few days, I’ll be in the Ranking Arena. I guarantee anyone who challenges Yu Juanshu within the Top 100 will lose.”
“He fights on stage, and I’ll guide from here—that’s all.”
With that, Li Yunxian repeated her question to Yu Juanshu again.
“Continue challenging?”
“Continue…” Yu Juanshu reached out, trembling as he tried to tap on his phone, but just as his fingertip was about to press, his movement froze.
Bang.
Yu Juanshu collapsed onto the Practice Arena.
His last ounce of strength drained away, and he fainted.
Li Yunxian’s classmate standing beside her was stunned.
Li Yunxian’s expression remained calm, but when she turned to look at her classmate, her expression softened slightly.
“Feeling soft-hearted?” Li Yunxian teased.
Her classmate looked awkward.
Li Yunxian smiled.
She didn’t blame him.
Young students in their teens and twenties having sympathy isn’t a bad thing.
Sometimes the world needs people like that—those who stand up against injustice and speak for the voiceless.
That youthful idealism is something good.
But not in Yu Juanshu’s case.
Li Yunxian looked at the varied expressions on and off the arena, her voice cool as she said, “Back then, Du Rong was the same, forcing Yu Qiyao to accept the Life-and-Death Arena.”
“If Yu Juanshu had pretended he didn’t know and didn’t step up for Du Rong, I’d say he was soft-hearted.”
“But he didn’t.”
“So I won’t be soft-hearted toward him either.”
Li Yunxian turned and walked away from the arena.
Since Yu Juanshu could no longer duel, there was no point for her to stay.
Before leaving, she tossed out a final remark.
“Someone tell him when Yu Juanshu wakes up, I’ll be back at 9 a.m. tomorrow.”
The audience below was unsure how to react.
Some looked at Yu Juanshu, who had stubbornly held on until utterly exhausted, their eyes mixed with pity.
The atmosphere shifted, with the once clear divide between good and bad blurred.
Seeing this subtle change, someone clenched their teeth and stepped forward, eyes closed, shouting loudly, “Anyway, I’ll challenge Yu Juanshu again tomorrow morning!”
“He backed Du Rong up against me before.”
“I’m like Li Yunxian—I won’t go easy on him!”
“Why should a bad person get sympathy just for doing a little ‘good’?”
“I want him dead!!”
Once there was one, there were two and three.
Yu Juanshu’s deeds helping Du Rong weren’t just one or two instances.
True, Yu Juanshu only reprimanded them lightly.
But what did they do to deserve his punishment?!
Of course, some chuckled and shamelessly mixed their voices in.
“I don’t care what. I just want to get into the Top 100, I want the Xuanwen Token!”
The rest of the audience showed looks of resignation.
“Stop the insults, stop the insults.”
***
In the end, Yu Juanshu was escorted to the infirmary by the referee.
In the afternoon, after class, Li Yunxian saw the news in the group chat—Yu Juanshu had been pushed out of the Top 100.
Many of the Sword Cultivators who challenged Yu Juanshu lost to the original Top 100 challengers.
So when the Practice Arena ended that day, Yu Juanshu ranked 104th.
Li Yunxian’s earlier declaration—to push Yu Juanshu out of the Top 100 so he wouldn’t get the Xuanwen Token—had been fulfilled.
But the matter wasn’t over.
The next day, both Li Yunxian and Yu Juanshu showed up again.
Yu Juanshu’s phone had far fewer challenge requests, so he failed to select only Sword Cultivators as he had hoped.
But it didn’t matter.
Li Yunxian was familiar with other weapons as well.
How else could she confront them?
Yu Juanshu fought ten matches in a row, eventually collapsing from exhaustion again.
That day, Yu Juanshu’s final ranking was 121st.
On the third day, Li Yunxian and Yu Juanshu both arrived promptly at nine.
Their expressions were calm, as if nothing had changed since Yu Juanshu first appeared on the arena.
But the audience below wore mixed expressions.
Some wanted to say something but thought of the words spoken on day one and Yu Juanshu’s past deeds, and nothing came out.
The entire arena was unusually quiet as they watched Yu Juanshu lose match after match.
After seven fights, sweat streamed down Yu Juanshu’s face like a river.
He gasped for breath.
Li Yunxian felt the Jade Token in her pocket tremble.
It was the Jade Token Duan Qiu had given her.
As an assistant instructor, Duan Qiu couldn’t appear beside Li Yunxian meddling in this affair.
But giving Li Yunxian a warning about Professor Du Sen’s Nascent Soul presence didn’t require Duan Qiu to be on-site.
The Jade Token’s shaking was Duan Qiu’s signal.
Professor Du Sen had arrived—escape quickly!
Li Yunxian pressed the Jade Token with her finger, a faint smile surfacing in her otherwise emotionless eyes.
She didn’t follow Duan Qiu’s advice to run as soon as Du Sen appeared.
The Xiayun Sword slipped quietly into her hand as she calmly looked at Yu Juanshu and, as usual, asked, “Continue challenging?”
Before Yu Juanshu could respond, Li Yunxian heard behind her a surge of intense anger barreling straight toward her.
The power of a Nascent Soul stage.
Everyone in the crowd below, still at the Qi Condensation stage, dropped to their knees under its pressure.
Everyone except Li Yunxian.
She turned, the Xiayun Sword singing crisply in her hand.
She didn’t like bullying the weak—she wanted to fight the old man instead!
Finally, Du Sen appeared!
But when Li Yunxian turned, what met her eyes wasn’t Du Sen’s long whip, but Su Wenjing standing in front of her, silver-white hair flowing.
Li Yunxian’s sword poised to strike froze.
Su Wenjing caught the whip with one hand, his Fenshen Stage aura immediately pressing down on Du Sen as he said coldly, “You want to attack students here at the academy?”
Du Sen had expected Professor Chen Bujian to intervene but never imagined Su Wenjing would suddenly appear.
This was a completely different level.
Du Sen’s heart pounded, but seeing Yu Juanshu looking up at him from the arena, he gritted his teeth.
“That student provoked me too much.”
Su Wenjing said indifferently, “That’s a student matter. They haven’t broken any rules, so teachers can’t interfere.”
“I’ll report this to the Student Council Office.”
Du Sen gritted his teeth and stared at Su Wenjing for a long moment.
Finally, under Su Wenjing’s increasingly dangerous gaze, he reluctantly retracted his whip and said, “……”
He then crossed past Su Wenjing onto the arena and grabbed Yu Juanshu.
He said nothing to Yu Juanshu but looked coldly at Li Yunxian in the audience, then threw something heavily toward her.
Li Yunxian reached out, softened its impact, and caught it.
It was a Storage Artifact.
Du Sen’s voice on the arena was suppressed with great anger but forcibly restrained:
“Take these, and your dispute with Juanshu ends here.”
Li Yunxian saw the Storage Artifact packed full of spirit stones and various materials.
She beamed.
They might lack attitude, but they certainly had sincerity.
And in any case, the purpose had been achieved.
“Fine,” Li Yunxian quickly agreed. “It ends here.”
Seeing Li Yunxian’s excited expression, Du Sen’s lips twitched.
He glanced at Su Wenjing before disappearing from everyone’s sight with Yu Juanshu.
After Du Sen left, Su Wenjing didn’t linger either; in a blink, he too vanished.
The pressure of the Fenshen and Nascent Soul standoff suffocated the Qi Condensation students below.
Only after they both left did everyone cautiously breathe a sigh of relief.
They exchanged astonished looks.
No one had expected this outcome, least of all Du Sen.
Someone cautiously looked at Li Yunxian and quietly asked, “Yunxian, you know Professor Su?”
Li Yunxian answered succinctly, then asked the group in return, “How would he show up here if the teachers only met him at meetings before? They barely know him.”
The crowd:
“You ask me, we ask who?”
“And… why were you at the teachers’ meeting?”
This became a baffling mystery among the students.
But the truth was…………
Li Yunxian said goodbye to everyone and hadn’t gone far from the arena when she saw Su Wenjing standing beneath a tree.
She approached, crossing her arms, wearing a half-smile as she looked at him.
“Why did you save Du Sen?”
“Worried I might take the academy down along with him?”