My best friend asked me if I was still doing system tasks.

Yunzhong Square was packed with people as far as the eye could see. At noon, the cultivators were resting and waiting for the competition to continue in the afternoon.

"The sword cultivators' competition the other day was truly earth-shattering. I heard that they even broke through several arenas."

"Yes, yes, I heard it was a match between Yan Jiashi and Lin Zhuzui, and Lin Zhuzui narrowly won by one move!"

"It's really unfortunate that I drew my own fellow disciple in the lottery. He knows every move of mys very well."

"You didn't see those tied games. The situation was so tense that many people had no choice but to stop. Continuing would have been a waste of time as no one could gain the upper hand."

"Yesterday was the competition of concealment peak techniques and talismans, is it the turn of formations today?"

"Pretty much? I'm really looking forward to it. I wonder how they'll compete. Will they draw the formation on the spot?"

Listening to the discussions of the cultivators around her, Luo Hanying said expectantly, "I'm so curious too. Array masters are usually support roles. Even if they have array plates, their self-protection ability is relatively average. I wonder if we'll see them using array plates or drawing arrays on the arena in this competition."

Ruan Chayan clutched the yellow paper and responded, but hesitated to put pen to paper, looking troubled: "I've seen so much these past two days..."

Luo Hanying patted Ruan Chayan on the shoulder: "You don't have to keep doing this just because that lightning talisman didn't work. Are you putting too much pressure on yourself?"

Ruan Chayan dejectedly put away her paper and pen, and whispered in despair, "Do you know that feeling? Every time it's just a little bit short, just a little bit. I feel like I've finished drawing it, but somehow it just gets ruined."

Luo Hanying said understandingly, "I know, I know, I replicated the formation last time too..."

Okay, I won't say anything more about you. I tend to overthink things myself.

The two looked at each other and smiled.

Tongming was at the Golden Core stage, half a step into the Nascent Soul stage, so he was scheduled for the fourth round of the competition, competing against a Nascent Soul stage cultivator.

"What did you figure out?" Ruan Chayan asked Luo Hanying during the break between the changes of personnel.

Luo Hanying shook her head: "I think I understand it, but I don't really. Basically, it's just activating the array plate directly, without any steps of setting up the array."

"Just by observing the established formations and their counter-strategies, the situation on the arena changes rapidly, and I can't discern anything clearly, though I have a vague sense of it."

Ruan Chayan was worried that Luo Hanying was upset, so she comforted her with a few words: "After all, she specializes in studying formations, so it's normal that you and I don't understand them."

Tongming will be on stage soon too. I have a recording stone here; let's record it and watch it later.

Luo Hanying smiled gratefully, "Good, Tea Mama is very well prepared."

"Hey, did you record that talisman you used back then?"

"No, I was just too shocked at the time," Ruan Chayan said, fiddling with the recording stone in her hand. "It's okay, I can always go back to Xue Meng Lou to take a talisman class and learn about this stuff."

With so many people around, Luo Hanying couldn't project her divine sense outwards to avoid offending others. She listened to the conversations of the surrounding cultivators and, after learning roughly which arena Tongming was in, hurriedly pulled Ruan Chayan through the crowd.

"Fellow Daoists, are you also here to watch Tongming's competition?"

A male cultivator blocked their path and said, "Why don't we place a bet and see who will emerge victorious?"

The two men, who had no interest in gambling, prostitution, or drugs, quickly squeezed into the crowd and stood still. Tongming and the cultivator opposite them had already bowed and were preparing to make their move.

Zhao Mingshan was an inner disciple of the Hidden Peak. If he hadn't been a little lacking in talent, he would have had the opportunity to become a personal disciple of several elders.

When he heard that his opponent was Tongming, he was both nervous and excited. Tongming had failed to break through to the Nascent Soul Realm during his last seclusion, while he had successfully entered the Nascent Soul Realm. Did this mean that Tongming was inferior to him?

He wanted to use this opportunity to get the attention of the elders and fellow disciples, instead of relying on Tongming's fancy formations.

He knew Tongming; during her travels, she had obtained only two complete array formations from fragments of array scrolls. She had used these two formations to achieve victory at the Dao Discussion Conference, so many people had studied how to break the formations she used…

Tongming stood opposite Zhao Mingshan, seemingly oblivious to his thoughts, as he casually tossed out spirit stones to set up an array.

Zhao Mingshan flung out a talisman, sending spirit stones flying. This made Tongming frown. The two of them tested each other back and forth and realized that they could not peacefully set up an array to compete to see who could get out of the other's array first. Instead, they had to see who could pull the other into their own array first.

The two activated their formations, which then shot out and enveloped the arena. Zhao Mingshan cautiously moved along the edge of his own formation, determined to play the role of a quail to the very end.

Tongming despised his behavior and leaped forward to fight Zhao Mingshan. Several times Tongming was forced into the formation, but was pulled away by the talismans on her body.

Zhao Mingshan noticed that Tongming was being pulled towards him by an external force, away from the formation. Only then did he feel the talisman that had been pasted on his back at some unknown time.

However, whenever he tears off a sheet, Tongming always manages to inadvertently paste another one on.

"I don't understand. What kind of talisman is that? Why does it seem to be able to bounce and attract like a magnet?"

Luo Hanying originally wanted to focus on studying the formation, but the talismans affixed to Tongming's body were too eye-catching.

Ruan Chayan, of course, had no idea. She clicked her tongue in amazement: "I do know of a technique that has a similar effect. I'll teach you later."

Zhao Mingshan's martial arts skills were inferior to Tongming's, and he struggled to keep up, unable to force Tongming into the formation for a long time. He inevitably became impatient.

Just then, a talisman forced Zhao Mingshan back. As Tongming lunged forward again, forming hand seals and chanting incantations, Zhao Mingshan's vision blurred, and he froze in place, two lines of text surrounding him—

A half-pole's length of spring water, a straw raincoat of smoke, embracing the moon, I sleep with the Big Dipper as my pillow.

There was a moment of silence in the crowd, followed by a burst of boisterous discussion.

Ruan Chayan exclaimed in surprise, "It's the formation she set up during the fight!"

She didn't step forward to fight out of impatience; she wanted to use this opportunity to set up a formation to trap Zhao Mingshan inside!

She was just as excited as everyone else. She turned to look at Luo Hanying, only to find that Luo Hanying was staring at the poems all around Zhao Mingshan as if she were possessed, her eyes unblinking.

"The dancing fan adds to the dissipation of the past clouds and mist, the cold blossoms are poured to the snow and the aroma of tea is inhaled..."

As Ruan Chayan listened to Luo Hanying's murmurs, a white dot suddenly floated down before her eyes. She reached out and caught it, finding a small, cool water droplet in her palm.

"It's snowing?" "How can snow from the Unmelting Mountain drift to Yunzhong Square?" "Plum blossom trees?! How did trees suddenly grow there?!"

"Who made tea?" "Why is it steaming?" "It smells so good, what kind of tea is this?"

A red and green array materialized beneath Luo Hanying's feet, and a dazzling golden light poured down from the sky, enveloping her.

The wind and clouds shifted, and the swirling snowflakes covered the ground in pure white. The gnarled plum trees stretched out freely, but the cultivators' spiritual senses were obscured by the mist, preventing them from seeing their surroundings. All the cultivators in the Cloud Bell Square were trapped in place.