A Tournament

The next few days went by in a blur. Chen Wei moved out saying that she wanted to be independent. I and Fang Qiong continued our days in quiet waiting for the Yearly Martial arts tournament to start.

Finally on one winter morning we got ready to participate in the Yearly Martial Arts tournament.

The preliminaries were held in the morning and ended around lunchtime. The top 64 competitors would move onto the next round.

As expected, the prelims went without any surprises. Both Fang Qiong and I made our way into the next round with ease. We had to fight two matches each and we didn’t have any problems winning.

We sat down to eat some lunch together and watched the rest of the matches. There were some upsets in the prelims and a few seeded fighters got knocked out early.

After lunch, the main tournament started. It would be a single-elimination tournament from now on, and the loser would get eliminated.

The quarterfinals were scheduled to start at 3 PM, and we would be fighting in the same arena. Fang Qiong was up first against a girl named Liu Yue. She was from a smaller family called the Liu family. She was a pretty girl with long black hair and pale white skin. She was dressed in a red robe with golden trimming. Her family logo was emblazoned on the back of her robes. It depicted a phoenix spreading its wings.

Liu Yue was nervous about facing Fang Qiong, who was considered to be one of the favorites to win the tournament. But she put on a brave face and walked out into the arena.

Fang Qiong also walked out to the center of the arena and bowed to her opponent. She then turned to face the crowd and gave a small wave.

The referee signaled for the match to begin, and Liu Yue charged forward with her spear. Fang Qiong sidestepped her attack easily and countered with a palm strike. Liu Yue blocked it with her spear, but Fang Qiong followed up with another strike. This time, Liu Yue wasn’t able to block it, and she was sent flying backward.

She hit the ground hard and rolled before getting back to her feet.

Fang Qiong didn’t give her any time to recover and charged forward with her sword. Liu Yue managed to block the first few strikes, but Fang Qiong overwhelmed her with a flurry of attacks. Liu Yue was **** to retreat and eventually was out of bounds.