THE REJECT SYSTEM

CHAPTER 6

"Sir, please follow me." Two attendants respectfully ushered Lingtian inside.

"Welcome!" A chorus of greetings echoed around him as he entered, delivered by a lineup of charming servers, each dressed to impress. Golden Pavilion was, he had to admit, genuinely eye-catching.

"I'm here to see the head of the Pavilion," Lingtian said, sitting down and looking at the nearest server. "Tell him Lingtian is here for his parents."

The server's face changed immediately — they'd assumed he was just a customer. One of the waitresses hurried off to report to the manager.

"You really have a lot of guts coming here. Do you know where you are?" Iron Head appeared, looking at Lingtian with undisguised glee. "This is Golden Pavilion. They can bury you and your family, and no one will dare question them. Elder Brother Zhang Dafu is coming to finish you off — but before you meet him, how about you warm up with this? Boys, come out!"

The hall doors swung open, and three men walked in.

*Three five-star experts. Golden Pavilion really does have some hidden talent,* Lingtian thought, smiling to himself. Iron Head had been right about one thing, at least — the branch had brought in some genuine muscle.

The Golden Pavilion branch in Jiangnan City had two bosses: Wan San and Zhang Dafu. Wan San had gone to headquarters on business and hadn't returned yet, leaving Zhang Dafu in sole charge. That he'd come to face this alone said something about his confidence, at least.

"Cripple him for me," Iron Head shouted.

The five-star experts surrounded Lingtian.

"How do you want to die?" one of them asked with a wide grin. "One of us is enough — it's a waste bringing all three."

"Hmph. Just an arrogant fool," Lingtian said. He leaped forward, delivering a swift kick that sent the man flying, his body tracing an arc through the air before crashing to the ground, unconscious.

Lingtian moved like a phantom after that, diving into the remaining two with a flurry of punches and kicks, swift as a shooting star.

"Ouch, my hand!" one of them screamed as Lingtian broke his arm with a swift chop, then knocked him out cold with a palm strike. The last man barely got a strike in before he joined his companions on the floor.

Lingtian's movements were fluid and fierce — more impressive than anything out of a martial arts film. In no time at all, he'd dealt with all three as if they were nothing.

Iron Head stared at him like he'd seen a ghost. "D-don't come any closer!" he screamed.

"You've got a lot of audacity. That's not necessarily a bad thing," a voice came from the door.

Iron Head bolted toward it as if it were a lifeline. "Elder Brother Zhang! He's going to kill me! He left all of them injured, useless! You have to avenge them! You have to kill him — he doesn't take you or anyone else seriously!"

"Hey, you," Zhang Dafu said, ignoring him, looking Lingtian over. "What family do you come from? Do you want to be my follower? I can train you, give you power. No one in the whole of Jiangnan Province would dare come against you."

Lingtian looked at him with open amusement. "You're offering me a place under you? That's cute."

Zhang Dafu's smile didn't falter. He strolled forward slowly, hands clasped behind his back, savoring the moment. "You don't understand what you're looking at, boy. Golden Pavilion isn't just some street gang. We have roots that stretch into the capital. I trained under a registered sect myself — my inner strength was forged the proper way, not stumbled into through some lucky pill." He rolled his shoulders, and the air in the hall seemed to thicken, pressing down like a held breath. "You beat five nobodies. Congratulations. Now you get to see what a real expert looks like."

Iron Head, still hiding behind a toppled chair, found his courage the moment his elder brother spoke. "That's right! Elder Brother Zhang has personally executed twelve men! You're finished — you hear me? Finished!"

"Twelve men," Lingtian repeated, tilting his head. "Is that supposed to impress me? I've broken more bones than that this week, and I only just woke up to what I can do."

"Arrogant to the end," Zhang Dafu said, his amusement cooling into something harder. "Let's see if your mouth is as fast as your hands."

He moved.

For a heartbeat, Lingtian had to admit the man was fast — faster than the five-star experts by a wide margin, his fist cutting the air with a low, ugly whistle aimed straight at Lingtian's chest. A real martial artist's strike, not a street thug's clumsy swing.

Lingtian sidestepped it without hurry.

"Not bad," he said. "But you're still beneath me."

He caught Zhang Dafu's wrist mid-strike, twisted, and drove him face-first into the polished floor. Wood cracked. Zhang Dafu barely had time to gasp before Lingtian's knee found his spine, pinning him flat.

"W-wait—" Zhang Dafu wheezed, scrabbling uselessly. "You don't understand who's coming—"

"I don't care who's coming," Lingtian said calmly. "I care about my parents. Where are they?"

"I don't know anything!"

Lingtian pressed down harder, and something in Zhang Dafu's shoulder popped audibly. The man screamed.

"Let me ask again," Lingtian said, his tone unchanged, almost gentle. "Where. Are my parents."

"Storeroom! Behind the kitchens! I swear, that's all I know!"

Lingtian released him, and Zhang Dafu collapsed, cradling his ruined shoulder, all his earlier bravado gone as if it had never existed.

"Elder Brother Zhang!" Iron Head shrieked.

"Shut up," Zhang Dafu snarled through gritted teeth, dragging himself upright with his good arm. Then, despite the pain twisting his face, something like relief crossed it. "You think this changes anything? Wan San is already on his way back. The moment he heard some brat was tearing apart our branch, he left headquarters immediately. You want to know what real strength looks like, boy? You're about to find out."

As if summoned by the name itself, the front doors banged open.

A man walked in without hurry, dressed simply, his presence entirely unlike Zhang Dafu's showy bravado. Where Zhang Dafu had postured and preened, this man simply existed in the room — and the air seemed to notice him the way it notices an approaching storm. Not loud. Just heavy.

"Wan San," Zhang Dafu breathed, sagging with relief. "Brother, finally! This bastard—"

"I heard," Wan San said, cutting him off. His eyes swept the wrecked hall — the groaning bodies, the shattered furniture, Zhang Dafu's mangled shoulder — before settling on Lingtian, something like genuine curiosity flickering across his face. "You did all this?"

"They started it," Lingtian said.

Wan San studied him a moment longer, unbothered by the destruction around him. "I'm an outer disciple who's touched the Inner Strength realm. People like us don't get made branch boss for nothing." His eyes narrowed. "What sect are you from?"

"Does it matter?" Lingtian asked. "I'm just here for my parents."

"It matters to me," Wan San said, something sharpening in his gaze. "I don't just beat people up for the sake of it. I want to know if you have people of standing behind you. If you want to walk out of here with your family, you'll have to tell me who your master is."

He rolled his neck once, settling into a loose, low stance that spoke of real training. A small chill settled over the hall — but Lingtian only smiled.

"Come. One duel," Wan San said. "Win, and I'll personally see your parents released, no more trouble from Golden Pavilion. Lose—" his lips curved slightly, "—and you and your parents will find yourselves far worse off than the men you've already put on the ground."

Lingtian considered him for a moment, then nodded once. "Fine. One duel."

They didn't waste time on words after that.

Wan San came in low and fast, his first strike more a test than a commitment. Lingtian let it graze his shoulder on purpose, using the contact to read the man's strength, and found it considerable — real Inner Strength, not the borrowed kind Lingtian had swallowed from a pill in one night. This man had spent years building a stable foundation through his meridians.

The second strike came faster, and Lingtian didn't let it land. He twisted aside, drove a palm toward Wan San's ribs — and found only air. Wan San had already moved, pivoting with a fluidity that made Zhang Dafu look like a lumbering child by comparison.

For several exchanges, neither man gained clear ground. Fists and palms cracked through the air, blocked, redirected, countered. The wrecked hall rang with impact after impact, dust shaking loose from the rafters. Iron Head and Zhang Dafu watched in tense silence, neither daring to speak, as the fight swung one way and then the other.

It was Lingtian's raw, hard-won power that eventually broke the deadlock. The elixirs and manuals had given him strength that outstripped his years of experience, and though Wan San's technique was the more refined of the two, sheer force began to win out. Wan San could feel it plainly — he was nowhere near the same league. Lingtian had been holding back the whole time, toying with him.

Wan San caught himself before he fell, breathing hard, blood at the corner of his mouth. He looked at his own trembling hand, then at Lingtian, and something like begrudging respect settled over his face.

"Enough," he said, straightening and lowering his stance. "I concede."

"Wan San!" Zhang Dafu shouted, aghast. "You can't just—"

"I said enough," Wan San repeated, sharper this time, silencing him. He turned back to Lingtian and gave a short, formal bow. "A duel is a duel. You won it fairly. Your parents will be released, unharmed, right now." He glanced sidelong at Zhang Dafu. "And there will be no further trouble from this branch. I'll see to that personally."

Zhang Dafu's face twisted through several ugly emotions before settling into something dark and resentful. He said nothing more.

The storeroom door was unlocked minutes later. Lingtian's father sat slumped against a stack of crates, bound but unhurt, and his mother rushed forward the moment the ropes were cut, sobbing his name, pressing both hands to his face as if to convince herself he was real. Lingtian held her tightly, murmuring reassurances, before helping his father to his feet.

"Let's go home," he said quietly.

They made it as far as the hall doors.

"You think it ends like this?" Zhang Dafu's voice cracked out behind them, raw with fury and humiliation. "You humiliated me in front of my own men! In front of Wan San! I don't care what he agreed to—"

Lingtian didn't turn around at first. But there was a shift in the air — a subtle displacement, the whisper-quiet rush of something moving too fast for an ordinary man — that told him exactly what was coming. Zhang Dafu had drawn a short blade from somewhere and lunged, not at Lingtian, but at the unguarded back of his mother.

Time seemed to slow for everyone in the hall except him.

He turned, caught Zhang Dafu's wrist an inch from his mother's spine, and in the same motion drove his palm into the man's chest with every ounce of controlled fury he'd been holding back since the moment he'd found his house ransacked. There was no flourish to it, no drawn-out struggle. Just a single, absolute strike.

Zhang Dafu's body left the ground, crashed through what remained of a support pillar, and did not get up again. The hall fell utterly silent.

*Ding. Host has eliminated a hidden threat to his family. Quest complete: Protect what is yours. Reward: 500 points, one high-grade cultivation manual.*

Lingtian lowered his hand, exhaling slowly, and looked over his shoulder to check on his mother. She stared at him, pale but unhurt, clutching his father's arm.

Wan San hadn't moved. He'd known his own strength was no match for Lingtian's — but he hadn't expected Zhang Dafu to be killed just like that, without a second's hesitation.

His knees hit the floor before he'd consciously decided to kneel. This boy, who looked barely sixteen, could have killed him just as easily, at any point in their duel. He silently thanked whatever luck he had left, fighting to keep his own bladder from betraying him at the worst possible moment.

"This one had eyes but failed to recognize a true master," he said, his voice trembling with the weight of what he'd just seen. "Zhang Dafu's death was earned the moment he raised a blade against your family. I hold no grudge on his behalf." He bowed his head fully to the ground. "If you'll have me, I pledge my loyalty to you, from this day forward — as your subordinate, or in whatever role you see fit."

Iron Head, still cowering by the wrecked chair, looked between Zhang Dafu's body and Wan San's bowed head, and realized, with no small relief, that he had just escaped the same fate.

Lingtian looked down at the man kneeling before him, then back at his parents standing safely behind him. He crossed the room quickly to Wan San's side and pulled him to his feet.

"Get up," he said. Then, quieter, just for him: "Do you want to get me into trouble?"