In the early hours of the next morning, Ye Yu slowly opened his eyes, filled with exhaustion. When he tried to sit up, he found his body aching as if it had been torn apart.
Lox, standing at the foot of the bed, clearly caught Ye Yu's movement and hurriedly stepped forward to help him up.
"Thank you for yesterday," Ye Yu said slowly, his voice hoarse and his throat terribly sore.
If Lox hadn't rushed over in time to block that slash, he would have died right there.
Lox carefully tucked a pillow behind Ye Yu's back, poured him a cup of warm water, and fed it to him.
"Protecting the young master is my duty. You haven't fulfilled my wish yet, so I won't let you die before me."
Lox said this with absolute determination.
After taking a couple of sips of water, Ye Yu felt much better and smiled. "It couldn't have been thirty minutes last night, how did you manage to get there just in time?"
To his shame, he hadn't expected that he would even struggle to last ten minutes.
"Please forgive me, Young Master. I was observing the battle from the window all along. When you ran off in another direction, I realized something was wrong, so I quickly followed." Lox fed Ye Yu another couple of sips of water.
"When that assassin sent you flying with a blow, I knew right then that the two of us combined wouldn't be his match, so I was constantly looking for an opportunity to strike or rescue you."
Ye Yu nodded, feeling his control over his body gradually returning. He continuously opened and closed his fists; although it hurt, he was glad to be able to command his body's strength once again.
"It's fine. Your judgment was very wise. How much time is left before the Martial Arts Tournament begins?" Ye Yu affirmed Lox's actions, then asked.
After taking that first kick, Ye Yu was basically on his last legs and couldn't be of much help anyway. Even if Lox had joined in, it would have just added another corpse.
"Two hours left. A large number of pedestrians are already heading out there now. Are you planning to watch the matches, Young Master?" Lox asked with a puzzled look, not expecting that Ye Yu would still be thinking of going to watch the spectacle despite being injured to this extent.
"No, I'm competing." Enduring the pain, Ye Yu got out of bed. Fortunately, yesterday's injuries were all superficial, otherwise Ye Yu wouldn't have been able to participate in this Martial Arts Tournament at all.
Ye Yu hadn't mentioned his participation in the Martial Arts Tournament to Lox, which left Lox quite astonished.
"But right now, the Young Master's body..." Lox still wanted to dissuade him. At present, Ye Yu possessed less than a tenth of his strength, and even with another two hours to recover, he wouldn't be back at peak condition. There wouldn't be anyone too weak in the official matches of the Martial Arts Tournament.
"This is an opportunity. Two hours will be enough for me to recover half my strength." Although his entire body was wrapped in white medical bandages, Ye Yu kept moving, accelerating his familiarity with this excruciatingly painful body of his.
An hour later, Ye Yu let out a long breath. The pain in his body now basically didn't affect his movement; he had recovered even better than he expected.
Changing into a fresh outfit and simply freshening up, Ye Yu picked up Luoying and tucked it into his belt.
"Old Luo, trouble you to stay here for a while longer."
Ye Yu called out to Lox and walked out the door.
"Wishing the Young Master military success." Lox knew that anything he said now was useless, so he simply accepted the reality. "Miss Leone has been coming over to listen to my stories lately, so the Young Master doesn't need to worry too much about me."
"......"
When Ye Yu arrived at the Martial Arts Tournament grounds, the place was packed with a sea of people. As he searched for the competitors' entrance, someone suddenly hugged him from behind, making Ye Yu almost lose his footing.
"Hey, how come you didn't dodge today?" Leone hugged Ye Yu, resting her head on his shoulder as she asked curiously.
Shocking! A heartless capitalist is actually about to give money to an impoverished girl!
Bearing Leone's weight, Ye Yu didn't answer her. Instead, he stretched out his hand and looked at his palm in disbelief—it was still trembling continuously.
"Ah, what is wrong with you today?" Seemingly noticing that something was amiss with Ye Yu, Leone quickly let go of him and looked at his slightly trembling hand with concern.
"It's nothing, just a minor issue. Since you caught me and helped me discover a problem, I'll give you a few more silver coins." Ye Yu took a deep breath and feigned ease.
He fished five silver coins out of his pouch and shoved them into Leone's hand, making sure to keep it hidden from others.
After all, five silver coins were enough to tempt ill-intentioned people into making a move.
"Huh?" Leone was baffled. Her little brain's CPU practically fried—could it be that Ye Yu was genuinely acting out of the goodness of his heart today?
Without explaining, Ye Yu spotted the competitors' entrance and walked straight toward it.
It was fortunate that Leone had helped him discover in time what issues still lingered in his body, or he might have really crashed and burned here.
Although Ye Yu could move now, the connection between his mind and body had weakened, causing many situations where his mind reacted, but his body failed to keep up.
It was just like a lagging computer: you input a command, but the screen takes a moment to delay before acting on it.
In a life-or-death duel, that was pure suicide.
Leone watched with concern as Ye Yu walked into the competitors' passageway, then turned and ran toward the spectator seating area for the main matches.
She had originally just come to watch the fun, never expecting that Ye Yu would actually enter the Martial Arts Tournament as well.
The Martial Arts Tournament was open to the entire Imperial Capital. Even without a ticket, one could enter to watch, though there wouldn't be a seat provided for rest.
Ye Yu stood in the area designated for participants, and the other contestants cast frequent glances his way.
Many were puzzled by the bandages on Ye Yu's body, but no one stepped forward to ask.
An open space automatically cleared around Ye Yu. After all, the entire Imperial Capital now knew the grand reputation of Ye Yu—a person with the appearance and height of a child, yet known as the Arm-Swallowing Demon.
If one were chosen as Ye Yu's opponent, wouldn't that be drawing the worst possible lot? At the very least, you'd end up losing an arm.
The format of the Martial Arts Tournament was one-on-one; defeating the opponent or having the opponent surrender secured victory, with a three-minute time limit. If neither opponent was defeated within three minutes, both would be judged as losers. The only rules were that as long as a person didn't die and didn't fall off the ring, there were no restrictions whatsoever.
The entire schedule was extremely short, concluding within a single day.
"First match, Ye Yu versus Chetg."
Soon, the host announced the matchups for the first round.
Ye Yu was momentarily stunned, not expecting that he would have to go up in the very first round. Carrying the doubts in his heart, he walked onto the stage. Not far away, a dark-skinned man walked up as well.
......
"Gohzuki, your skills have grown rusty," Prime Minister Honest remarked sarcastically. Clearly, Gohzuki had sworn that morning that he had already taken care of Ye Yu, yet here he was stepping out in the very first round.
He had clearly wanted to use the excuse of Ye Yu's absence to have him eliminated in the first round.
"I didn't expect him to survive under those circumstances. I'll go finish him off in a moment." Gohzuki prepared to draw Murasame.
"No need. Since he's already on stage, he's surely caught the Emperor's attention. That fellow Enide is watching too, so you won't have a chance." The Prime Minister stuffed a large mouthful of meat into his mouth and said dismissively, "I just hope this little brat can bring a bit of amusement to my life in the future."
Gohzuki said no more. Since the Prime Minister put it that way, it meant he wasn't allowed to make a move.
It didn't matter to him anyway; once this job as a spectator was done, he would fly far away again, and he wouldn't have many opportunities to see Ye Yu in the future anyway.
After all, he didn't want to deal with troublesome matters either.
"By the way, do you need me to specifically train assassins for the Empire to eliminate any future hidden threats for you, Prime Minister?" Gohzuki looked at Ye Yu on the stage and said calmly.
The five assassins sent on the assassination yesterday were too foolish, making Gohzuki realize it would be better to personally train his own exclusive assassins to handle situations like yesterday's.
"We can discuss this matter another time. My current authority isn't very large; at the very least, we'll have to wait until Enide abdicates before we talk." Honest looked toward the Emperor on the main seat, a hint of eagerness in his eyes.
Then, he glanced back at Ye Yu in the arena, deep in thought.
Since he was able to escape from Gohzuki's hands, he seemed to possess some value worth recruiting.