Fire Burns the Rootless Life

Liu Jin put down the bamboo box.

Wugensheng stepped back three paces, and the two stood facing each other across a narrow ridge between the rice paddies. The autumn wind blew across the paddies, rustling the withered leaves on the rice stalks. In the distance, white smoke from burning straw still drifted into the sky, and the shadows of the two men were reflected in the ditch beside the ridge, one standing ramrod straight, the other casually.

"Please." Wugensheng cupped his hands in greeting, without any initial stance or pre-coil movement. The Quanxing people never paid attention to such things.

Liu Jin didn't care. He took a step forward. Just one step. The soil beneath his feet didn't sink, the air didn't explode, but his figure disappeared from one end of the field ridge and appeared in front of Wugensheng in the same instant.

It wasn't teleportation; it was the complete transformation of Qi after the third stage of the Reverse Life Triple Transformation, where the physical body was no longer obstructed by the Qi of Heaven and Earth, allowing for short-distance movement with almost no time consumption. The right palm struck out without any fancy moves.

Wugensheng's reaction was incredibly fast. The instant Liu Jin disappeared, he began to retreat, simultaneously crossing his hands in front of him and releasing Qi from his palms.

The palm struck his crossed arms. Wugensheng was sent flying, his feet leaving the ground, sliding several meters along the paddy field ridge. He knocked over a bundle of straw standing by the field, scattering the straw all over the ground.

He braced himself with one hand on the ground, while the other hand clutched his chest, a trickle of blood escaping from the corner of his mouth. He looked down at the bloodstains on his hand, then looked up at Liu Jin, his eyes showing no fear, no anger, only pure shock.

"Your palm strike was completely devoid of technique," Wugensheng wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his voice a few decibels lower than before, but every word was enunciated clearly, "pure power, speed, and Qi density. There was absolutely no room for trickery. You're truly not human."

He spoke with a strange calmness, not in admission of defeat, but in confirmation. It was like a scholar who had spent half his life studying biology finally seeing a live dinosaur with his own eyes, and then muttering to himself, "So what was drawn in the books was real."

Liu Jin reluctantly withdrew his hand. He had only used 30% of his strength, but the effect of the third level of the Reverse Life Triple Technique, even with only 30% of his strength, was still too obvious when it hit the leader of the Quanxing Sect, who was not known for his defense.

"Should we continue?"

"Of course." Wugensheng stood up, brushed the straw off his clothes, and the shock in his eyes had faded, replaced by a stronger curiosity. "I haven't seen the immortal fire yet. That last hit doesn't count; you just slapped me with brute force, and the fire didn't even start."

He said this with a hint of resentment, like a child whose forehead is pressed down by an adult's hand, whose arms are flailing wildly in the air but cannot reach the other person, while shouting "That doesn't count."

Liu Jin smiled. He didn't strike again, but simply extended his hand—not to strike, but to offer it. He held out his right hand flat in front of Wu Gengsheng, fingers spread, palm facing up, as if inviting him to shake hands. Wu Gengsheng looked at that hand, a flicker of hesitation crossing his eyes, but it lasted less than a moment.

Then he reached out his right hand and grasped Liu Jin's right hand. A glint flashed in his eyes, his face as innocent as a baby's, and his divine spirit was fully activated.

A faint white light emanated from Wugensheng's right hand. The dissolving power of the divine spirit wrapped around Liu Jin's palm like countless fine threads, beginning to dismantle, restore, and dissolve the Qi that constituted this hand.

He succeeded. The Qi on the surface of Liu Jin's right hand was indeed restored. The white Qi slowly faded away under the dissolving power of the divine spirit, revealing a very faint layer of gold.

That was the underlying layer, enveloped by Qi and not meant to be seen, a skeleton reforged from Samadhi True Fire. After the divine spirit stripped away the reversal Qi, that golden skeleton sensed the touch of unfamiliar energy and reacted instinctively.

boom!

The restored Qi suddenly ignited from within, and the white Qi transformed into blue flames the instant it was dissolved by the divine spirit, bursting forth from Liu Jin's palm.

The eerie blue flames spread upwards along Wugensheng's hands with lightning speed, instantly burning his wrists and forearms. This was no longer the Samadhi Divine Fire of the Zhuge family; the Samadhi True Fire could burn anything.

Liu Jin frowned, and his five fingers suddenly tightened. The erupting blue flames seemed to be grasped by an invisible hand, forcefully pulled back from Wu Gengsheng's arm, retracted into his palm, and then extinguished by his grasp. The entire process took less than a breath. From the eruption of the flames to their forced retraction, the speed was so fast that Wu Gengsheng didn't even have time to fall.

Wugensheng took two steps back and leaned against the bundle of straw behind him. He looked down at his hands; they were intact, without burns or blisters, and his skin was still its original color. But only he knew that if he had been half a breath later, they would have been burned to a crisp.

"Just now," he raised his hand and looked at it over and over again, as if to make sure his fingers were still there, "the divine spirit did work. Your Qi was restored, and then the restored Qi turned into fire."

It's not that you're controlling it; the fire started on its own. Your Qi is no longer ordinary Qi. It ignites spontaneously the moment it's reduced to its original state; Qi is fire, and fire is Qi. You can no longer distinguish between them.

He lowered his hand, looked up at Liu Jin, and saw no trace of frustration in his clear eyes, only a childlike light that only comes from someone whose worldview has been completely shattered. Then he said something almost exactly the same as what Zhang Zhiwei had said back then.

"Next time we meet, I'll find a way to keep you out of trouble."

"Then I'll think of another kind of fire," Liu Jin said.

Wugensheng was taken aback; he probably hadn't expected Liu Jin to use the same phrase Zhang Zhiwei had used. Then he laughed too, not a polite laugh, but a genuine laugh from the heart, the kind that comes from being amused.

He cupped his hands in a respectful gesture to Liu Jin, then turned and walked along the paddy field ridge. His figure in the gray cloth robe receded into the distance in the rice paddies. When he reached the bend, he raised his hand and waved, without looking back.

......

"It's over! A handshake and a palm strike, the whole thing probably took less than two minutes."

"Wu Gensheng was truly defeated this time. Not just verbally, but in his heart. His words, 'You're really not human anymore,' are the same as Zhang Zhiwei's 'I lost by half a move' back then."

"The divine spirit has been utterly destroyed. The more you restore my Qi, the more fiercely the fire burns. Who can withstand that?"

"Liu Jin's last line, 'Then let's think of another kind of fire,' was so classic. He said it to Zhang Zhiwei, and he said it to Wu Gengsheng as well. Zhang Zhiwei is probably no match for Liu Jin now."

"Nonsense, he has already transcended this world."

......

Liu Jin stood on the edge of the paddy field, watching Wu Gensheng's figure disappear into the distance. Then he bent down, picked up the bamboo box, and patted off the straw. The white smoke from the burning straw in the distance had dissipated, and the autumn sun, setting in the west, dyed the paddy field a golden hue.

He continued walking along the official road, then suddenly stopped and glanced back at the bundle of straw that Wugensheng had knocked over on the edge of the field. He went back, straightened the bundle of straw again, dusted it off, and continued on his way.