61: The Semifinal
The semifinal between Su Yan and Crown Prince Cang Hao opened at the third hour past dawn on the twelfth day of the fifth month of the spring.
The plaza was full. Eight thousand spectators, by Cousin Su Lin's later count. The royal family was at the high dais. Princess Cang Xueyi sat at the King's right side. King Cang Yuan sat at the center. The Crown Prince's empty chair sat at the King's left, waiting for its occupant to step down to the contest dais.
Su Yan stepped onto the contest dais at the appointed hour, exactly.
Crown Prince Cang Hao stepped onto the dais opposite him.
Cang Hao was twenty-five. He was Foundation Late, with the careful trained foundation of a young man who had been raised, since the age of four, by the kingdom's senior cultivation tutors with the explicit preference of producing the kingdom's next king. His thread along the spine was the cold clean blue of his sister's, but with a smaller diameter and a less steady rhythm. He had — by Cousin Su Lin's three-month file — *not* been prepared for the careful possibility of facing Su Yan in the Tournament's semifinal.
He was angry.
He kept it controlled. He bowed at the precise angle of a Crown Prince to a third-seed clansman. He held the bow exactly as long as etiquette required. He straightened.
His eyes, in the bow's release, were *not* friendly.
Su Yan inclined his head.
He registered Cang Hao's anger and filed it. The anger was the anger of a Crown Prince who had — by the careful careful careful seeding of five days of contests — *expected* to face a foreign honored guest in the semifinal, and had instead, by the small private accident of one branch family clansman's preceding emergence, been forced to face *a domestic peer who would, by the careful seeding's careful read, defeat him in front of the kingdom*.
Defeat by a foreign guest was — by the kingdom of Beicang's standing diplomatic etiquette — *politically acceptable*. Defeat by a domestic peer was — by the same etiquette — *humiliating*.
The kingdom's etiquette had decided.
Cang Hao would, by his own preference, prefer not to be defeated at all.
The contest's senior judge — Bureau Chief Lu Yiren — raised his hand.
He let it fall.
The contest began.
---
Su Yan had decided, at the third hour past dusk of the previous evening in his small upstairs room at the embassy, exactly how he would conduct the semifinal.
He would not exploit Cang Hao's preceding training weaknesses. Cang Hao had three of them — a small careful unhurried over-reliance on the kingdom's preceding traditional sword-form's third option, a small careful unhurried under-developed *low-stance defense* against opponents striking from beneath, and a small careful unhurried preference for closing distance on the right side of his opponent's centerline that left his own left flank fractionally exposed at the careful careful careful precise hour of his closing.
To exploit any of the three would be — by Cousin Su Lin's careful preceding read of the kingdom's senior cultivators in the gallery — to *publicly humiliate* the Crown Prince.
Su Yan would not exploit the three.
He would, instead, fight Cang Hao at the careful precise unhurried hour of *neither side's preferred ground*, in the calibrated middle of two equal-seed contestants of approximately matched cultivation, until — at the careful precise unhurried hour the contest's preceding rhythm had been settled into the kingdom's preceding small private comfortable read — *the contest's careful preceding small private outcome would, by the careful preceding small private slow accumulation of seven exchanges, become predictable to the gallery's senior cultivators*.
He would, in the careful precise unhurried hour, *win* by the careful preceding small private accumulation of small careful unhurried advantages, none of which would individually expose the careful preceding small private weaknesses he was choosing not to exploit.
The contest would be — by the careful preceding small private hour of seven exchanges — *long enough* that the kingdom's senior cultivators would, by their careful preceding small private read, register Su Yan's *displayed* cultivation as the careful preceding small private *Foundation Establishment Mid* the kingdom's preceding seeding had filed him at.
The contest would be — by the careful preceding small private hour of seven exchanges — *short enough* that Cang Hao would, by the careful preceding small private hour of the contest's closing, *retain his face* in the kingdom's preceding small private public reading.
It was, by Su Yan's careful preceding small private bookkeeping, the careful preceding small private *political* calibration the kingdom's standing succession arrangement required.
He executed it.
Seven exchanges took, by the contest's preceding hour, approximately *four minutes*.
By the seventh exchange, Cang Hao's left flank was — by the careful preceding small private accumulation of small careful unhurried positional preceding small private adjustments — *open*. Su Yan did not strike the flank. He instead, by the careful preceding small private precise hour of the seventh exchange's preceding closing, *placed* the tip of *Ledger* against the third sub-vertebra of Cang Hao's spine — *gently*, with the careful preceding small private courtesy of a young clansman's preceding small private blade resting at the precise pressure of *acknowledgment* but not *strike*.
Cang Hao — by the careful preceding small private hour of the precise pressure — *registered* the contest's preceding closing.
He had not been struck.
He had been *acknowledged*.
The careful preceding small private courtesy of one Heaven Spirit Root cultivator of his own kingdom had — by the careful preceding small private hour of one preceding semifinal — *let him retain his face*.
He inhaled, slowly.
He inclined his head — small, formal — to Su Yan.
He spoke, audible to the front three rows:
*"Young Master Su. I yield the contest, by the careful preceding small private courtesy of one preceding small private peer's preceding small private acknowledgment."*
Su Yan stepped back.
He inclined his head — by the careful preceding small private precise unhurried angle of a third-seed clansman to a first-seed Crown Prince of his kingdom whose preceding small private contest he had — by the careful preceding small private hour of seven preceding exchanges and one preceding small private precise unhurried courtesy — *honestly won*.
The contest's senior judge — Bureau Chief Lu Yiren — raised his hand.
*"Crown Prince Cang Hao yields. The contest is awarded to Su Yan, branch family Su, eighth district, Cloud Sky City."*
The plaza applauded.
The applause was — by Cousin Su Lin's careful preceding small private read — *politely warm*. The kingdom's preceding small private noble youth had — by the careful preceding small private hour of one preceding semifinal — registered that *the third-seed had not, by the careful preceding small private hour, humiliated the first-seed*. The careful preceding small private hour of the kingdom's preceding small private succession had been — by Su Yan's preceding small private courtesy — *preserved*.
Cang Hao — by Cousin Su Lin's preceding small private read of his thread on his preceding small private return walk to the King's table — was *not, by the careful preceding small private hour, friendly*.
But he was — by Cousin Su Lin's preceding small private read — *no longer angry in the careful preceding small private way that would have, by some preceding small private hour, become a future strategic threat*.
He was, by her preceding small private read, *embarrassed*.
Embarrassment, by the kingdom of Beicang's preceding small private senior cultivators' preceding small private bookkeeping, was — by the careful preceding small private hour of one preceding semifinal's preceding small private courtesy — *the most useful careful preceding small private state* a young Crown Prince could, by the careful preceding small private hour, be in. Embarrassed Crown Princes, by the careful preceding small private read of the kingdom's preceding small private senior cultivators, *learned*. Angry Crown Princes did not.
Cang Hao would, by Cousin Su Lin's preceding read, *learn* from the preceding semifinal.
The preceding small private succession crisis Cang Xueyi had been preceding-time preparing for had — by the careful preceding small private hour of one preceding semifinal's preceding small private courtesy — *gained* the careful preceding small private possibility that the kingdom's preceding small private next king might, by the careful preceding small private hour of the next eighteen months and twenty days, *not* be the preceding small private uncle's preceding small private heir Cang Xueyi had been preceding-time preparing for, but instead — by the careful preceding small private hour of one preceding small private embarrassment — a young Crown Prince who had been, by the careful preceding small private hour, *taught* a careful preceding small private lesson and had, by his own preceding preference, *learned* it.
Su Yan filed the careful preceding small private possibility.
He returned, at his unhurried pace, to the third-rank waiting area, where Cousin Su Lin had — by her preceding standing arrangement — brought him a fresh small clay cup of plain tea.
He drank it.
The Tournament's preceding small private *final* — by the careful preceding small private hour of the bracket's preceding small private settling — was, by the careful preceding standing arrangement, *twenty-four hours* away.