The Way of Restraint

Against Zhang Kaitai, the mental calculation required was not particularly demanding.

In Su Jie’s perception, Zhang Kaitai’s movements were slow — openings abundant. A feint of the eyes in any direction was enough to make those openings widen, creating opportunities at will.

The constraint was this: defeating Zhang Kaitai decisively without inflicting serious injury was the only acceptable outcome. The contest had been framed as no-holds-barred, but if Su Jie actually killed Zhang Hongqing’s son or put him in hospital, he would not walk out of this ancestral hall. That was simply a fact.

So having identified the openings, he didn’t move immediately. He spent the time draining Zhang Kaitai’s reserves. One part of his attention he kept continuously on Zhang Hongqing — if the Dragon Head chose to release a thrown weapon, even from across the room, Su Jie could find himself suddenly on the wrong end of the engagement.

By any normal logic, a man of Zhang Hongqing’s standing wouldn’t intervene covertly in his son’s fight. But there was no such thing as trusting logic absolutely when the stakes were this high, and Zhang Hongqing was not a straightforwardly honorable figure. He was a titan of the shadow world — a man for whom ends justified means. His entire presence suggested someone who would use any tool available to achieve what he wanted.

When Zhang Hongyuan drifted over and spoke quietly beside him, Zhang Hongqing was already processing all of this.

“Brother — Kaitai isn’t looking good out there. I didn’t expect the boy to be at this level. I can’t understand how he’s trained.” Zhang Hongyuan kept his voice near-inaudible.

“External factors matter far less than the inner life,” Zhang Hongqing said. “In this world, there are people whose psychological quality is simply born beyond the ordinary. This boy has reached the Realm of the Living Dead, and reaching it young is the critical variable — the earlier the breakthrough, the greater the compounding effect on physical development. That’s the congenital advantage. Kaitai is my son and I’ve given him every resource I had access to, but elevation of the inner state cannot be purchased. It must be arrived at alone. This is the one domain where resources cannot substitute for the path. Heaven always leaves a thread of possibility open — that someone like this should appear follows the logic of yin and yang in motion.”

“Brother — if Kaitai loses, what then?”

“He loses. He remains a Honey Badger Security board member — that doesn’t change. If he never loses, how does he grow? The shame of this defeat, if it breaks something loose in his inner state, will have been worth more than the position.”

Zhang Hongyuan paused. “Brother — your thrown weapons are invisible when you move. No one would see.”

“The boy is watching me,” Zhang Hongqing said, with a slight smile. “Anyone who has reached the Realm of the Living Dead is not a simple figure. Don’t let his age mislead you. It’s precisely because of his youth that he’s formidable. If he were older, I would not be as cautious.”

“Cautious?” Zhang Hongyuan looked as though he had heard something extraordinary.

The number of people in the world who gave Zhang Hongqing reason for caution could be counted on one hand.

“Every practitioner of the Realm of the Living Dead gives me reason for caution,” Zhang Hongqing said. “Hongyuan — you’ve been stuck at that threshold for many years. You know better than anyone what that level actually requires.”

“The Realm of Divine Enlightenment  is recorded in our family’s history across many generations, with considerable detail,” Zhang Hongyuan said. “When the great patriarch first reached it, that was what gave the Zhang family its foundation — without it, none of this prosperity would exist. When you reached it, we advanced further. Now we can only hope the next generation produces someone who can continue the line, so we don’t find the lineage broken.”

Zhang Hongqing said nothing further. He looked back at the fight.

*****

After dozens of attacks that had not touched the edge of Su Jie’s clothing, Zhang Kaitai had registered that the speed gap was absolute. But the refusal in him was equally absolute. He stopped, holding the mantis posture, both blades raised, eyes fixed on Su Jie. Still.

Su Jie stopped too, his gaze resting on Zhang Kaitai’s weakest transitions, not moving.

Three minutes had elapsed. Roughly the length of a first round in a professional fight.

Su Jie showed no exertion — not a flush, not a changed breath, as though he had just begun a morning walk. Zhang Kaitai’s breathing had become irregular, his pulse and heart rate visibly elevated.

Several deep breaths. A deliberate return to center. Zhang Kaitai recovered, arriving back at something close to peak.

His breathing method had a particular quality — a technique that appeared to expand oxygen absorption capacity, driving air through the diaphragm and distributing it through the body in seconds. The recovery was unusually fast.

Su Jie watched this with genuine interest and filed away what he was seeing. He was extracting from Zhang Kaitai what could only be found in the Zhang family’s core lineage: movement patterns, breathing methodology, inherited martial structure. If any single person in the entire Zhang family had received the authentic transmission in full, it was Zhang Kaitai.

Zhang Manman had not been given that.

This was the additional reason Su Jie hadn’t ended it quickly. The Zhang family’s martial system had things worth studying.

Kill.

Having restored himself, Zhang Kaitai erupted — a burst of sound from somewhere deep in his chest, and he came forward again.

Both wrists flicked.

The two Night Hawk blades left his hands as thrown weapons, locking trajectories on Su Jie from angles that cut off both lateral escapes.

Before they landed, his hands already held two more.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

Eight blades in total flew in rapid sequence — in this instant, he had finally shown what he actually was. Eight arms seemed to exist simultaneously. Eight knives in the air. And as the last threw, the final two in his hands came forward in the same motion, driving straight at Su Jie.

This was everything — the entire distillation of his weapons art. He called it the Eight-Branched God, after the eight-headed serpent of old legend. Ten Night Hawk blades carried on his body at all times. He had studied numerous thrown-weapon traditions — ninja throwing spikes, shuriken release methods — and synthesized them into his own system: eight released in a single continuous action, two driving home in immediate pursuit, all converging. Against any opponent at any level, this sequence had ended the fight.

Now. Su Jie had been tracking Zhang Kaitai’s concealed armament from the beginning, mapping the distribution, calculating the optimal release pattern. He had known this was coming.

As the eight blades filled the air, his body shifted through several angles that should not have been geometrically possible, and all eight missed.

In the same motion, he had moved to Zhang Kaitai’s left — precisely into the position that blocked Zhang Hongqing’s line of sight. Even if the Dragon Head released something now, the angle was gone.

Bang.

Su Jie moved forward. Turned. A downward arc, hand curved like a hook, driving in at the forward diagonal.

The Hoe Strike. One more time. Quiet as always — plain, careful, unhurried, the way a farmer works around young shoots, cautious not to uproot what should be left growing. One careless degree and the seedling goes with the weeds.

Crack.

The technique found the gap in Zhang Kaitai’s collapsing defense and landed across his face.

Zhang Kaitai went straight down like a timber post.

Su Jie stepped back immediately to his position behind Larich.

Zhang Hongqing had not moved throughout.

Several Zhang family elders moved quickly to Zhang Kaitai, checking for damage. Unconscious but uninjured — nothing broken, no serious harm. The relief was visible, but the way they now looked at Su Jie had changed completely.

Throughout the exchange, Zhang Kaitai had held nothing back. In the end he had thrown every blade he had, clearly intending lethality. And Su Jie’s finishing strike had been restrained — a controlled blow that put him down without permanent consequence.

Exercising that degree of precision in those conditions, against that level of opponent — it was difficult to understand.

Within minutes, skilled Zhang family healers had Zhang Kaitai conscious again through massage and medicinal oils.

He walked to his father, carrying his defeat without visible expression.

“Father. I lost.”

“What did you learn?”

“His speed exceeds mine by a margin I can’t calculate. He reads each movement before I make it — every technique was answered before it arrived. The thrown weapons didn’t reach him either.” Zhang Kaitai kept his voice low. “I didn’t expect him to be at that level. I thought the blades would be enough.”

“It’s not your fault,” Zhang Hongqing said. “You’ve never encountered a practitioner of this state before. I’ve been occupied — I haven’t been able to work with you consistently. Once someone reaches Divine Enlightenment , ordinary analytical frameworks fail. What happened to you today was a gap in knowledge. With proper preparation, you wouldn’t have fallen as quickly.”

“Father — I want to go into seclusion.” Zhang Kaitai’s eyes held something fierce and unresolved. “I will break through to that level. I will defeat Su Jie.” He paused. “I gave my word. If I lost, the Honey Badger Security position goes to Zhang Manman.”

“Knowing when your word doesn’t have to bind you is a skill for the powerful,” Zhang Hongqing said. “If you can do this without carrying the weight of it, you’ve matured. Since ancient times — the First Emperor, Emperor Wu of Han, Taizong of Tang, Hongwu, Kangxi — which of them kept every promise they made? The strong create rules to constrain others, not themselves. Remember that.”

“Yes, Father.” He paused. “Manman is still pressing her case over there. What should be done?”

“What’s your own thinking?” Zhang Hongqing was testing him.

“Concede to their demands for now. Let the assembly conclude. Then immediately reverse position and settle accounts.”

Something clear and hard appeared in Zhang Kaitai’s expression.

“Good,” Zhang Hongqing said. “That’s how significant things are done. When Kangxi moved against Oboi, he offered lavish honors first — drew him into the palace under false reassurance, then took him. You understand the model.” He nodded. “Go. Resolve this. When you’ve demonstrated you can manage situations like this, the Zhang family can pass to you.”

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