“Accept you as my student?” Ming Yue’s smile turned bemused. “Are you sure you want to be asking that? After all, aren’t you the one who saved me?”
Mei Jian shook her head. “I fought an assassin in open combat. Looking at your sword now, I can see it easily. You’re a level beyond me, beyond just about anyone I have ever seen with my own two eyes. Master Chen may have talked down to you, but I think that you have to be approaching even the level of rising dragons like Shi Liu of the True Justice sect, or Wong Yao of the spear”
“Hmm?” Something else seeped into her new senior’s smile as she spoke. “It’s so strange that you would happen to say that. You could even say that those people are actually my goal.”
She paused for a second, and let out a sigh before continuing. “But that aside, what exactly do you even want to learn from me? Do you know that my style and techniques will be compatible with those of the Plum Blossom Sect?”
“I can’t afford any techniques or teaching from the sect, and without any training there’s no way I’ll ever be able to pay off my debt.” Mei Jian bit down on her lip. “I’m not nearly good enough to even pass the ranking at the end of the year as I am now, and as others spend their points on learning more and gaining the guidance of the elders and seniors, my own are swallowed up by what I’ve already paid for.”
“Aw…” The older girl pouted. “So for all your praise, I’m just a last resort? How cruel of you~”
“No!” Her head shook hurriedly. “I was serious about that. That technique of yours is fantastic. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Ming Yue stepped closer, looking over her. Her dark eyes seemed to take in every little detail, and Mei Jian couldn’t help but to blush ever so slightly as she leaned in.
“Before, that annoying old man,” she said. “Master Chen, you called him?”
After receiving a nod of approval, Ming Yue continued. “He said you nearly passed out when engraving a token. From pain, or exhaustion?”
“From—”
The word had barely left her lips when she was cut off, her new teacher already more interested in monologue than discussion. “The latter, I assume. You were talking about techniques as though you’re familiar with them. I’d assume you know at least one personally.”
A finger rose up, pointing to the open space where her sword had flashed through the air minutes before. “Show me?”
Mei Jian took a stance, drawing the weapon from her waist. She lifted it high, to the halfway point of its arc, and then a little farther. This was a demonstration, so a little telegraphing should be alright. Just a simple cut, physically. One of the most basic diagonal strikes, the first thing any child to pick up a sword would learn.
She swung it once, in practice. A decent cut, her muscles moving on their own to correct it and speed it with all her body as the blade moved in her hand.
Power didn’t come just from the wrist, though that was the most activated part. Nor from the arms, or even the upper body alone. With how much stronger and more important they were to the foundation, even a minor influence from the hips and legs could create a notable effect on the speed of the strike. And beyond that, something else.
Higher than her hips, but deeper at the same time. Below, within her muscles, within even her bones, her soul. That throbbing, faint power that sat just below her gut, tendrils dancing out into every part of her at once.
She drew it out, matching it with the flow of power from her hips, up through her chest, down her arm and into the blade. It cut the air, blurring through at what was at least twice the rate of her previous one. Yesterday, she would have called it fast. After seeing Ming Yue’s strikes, even sluggish seemed like an overly confident statement of praise. She turned back to that person in question, order completed.
The same finger that had pointed to her spot now tapped on perfect lips for just a few seconds, thinking. “Alright then, I know where to start. I’ll teach you how to use Qi.”
Holding her hands up, Mei Jian stepped back. “Just a minute, if you would please, teacher. I already know how to use Qi. Is that not what the attack I just showed you was empowered by?”
“Wrong.” She waggled that finger once more. “Well, not on that being the source of your technique’s power. But firstly, I don’t want to be called ‘teacher’. It sounds too old and impersonal.”
“Then, senior sister? Or just your name?”
“Either works.” Ming Yue nodded. “Secondly, that’s using a technique with Qi, not using Qi in its pure form. I know quite a few teachers who would be up in arms that you’ve learned them in that order. Honestly, I’m shocked someone as pure as you was able to connive your way into learning it. Care to share the story?”
A soft, kindly smile, marred by the trail of blood that dripped from its mouth. A gentle, easy voice giving instructions broken apart by harsh coughing. A handkerchief that wiped away the former, a dismissal of the latter she had been all too quick and eager to believe—
“Sorry, but I won’t be doing that. Besides, shouldn’t you be the one answering my questions instead?”
A little overly blunt, Mei Jian knew. The first thing that came to mind as she snapped back to reality, lacking in even her normal half-mastered grasp of honorific speech. The older woman didn’t seem to mind, grinning even wider.
“Oo, spicy.” She chuckled. “Alright then, where was I? Ah, yes. Qi. You don’t really have any.”
“Everyone has Qi! I’d be dead without it!” She protested. “And you just saw me use it!”
“I don’t mean literally no Qi.” A sigh opened those lips slightly, and then they split as a grin widened from a realized idea. “Think of it more like how I know that you have no experience with romance, from how the sunrise appears across your cheekbones at even the softest of flirtations.”
Her hand flew up on instinct to check, although the faint rush of heat had already confirmed the taunt as truth. “That’s something different entirely!”
“Not really. From a perspective of one well versed in lovers, you have no experience, although you have technically touched upon it. Likewise, from the perspective of most those in a sect, you have no Qi, even though the basic amount that all people hold hasn’t suddenly gone missing.”
Her finger wagged again. “You know how to channel that Qi into one big, flashy technique, but what about the foundational ones? Surely you’ve seen feats of physicality that didn’t quite seem human before?”
The way that Master Chen and even Yi Ping glided along the ground. That catlike quickness and ridiculous strength which embraced Wei Feng. The assassin’s uncanny thrusts, seemingly far too fixed to their path.
“I have. Is that not merely the result of training?”
“Not quite. Qi is power. So if you can gather that Qi, and fill your body with it, even without using a technique or martial art of some kind, you can expect it to enhance everything. You don’t even need to have loosened up your meridians, though that helps, of course.”
Looking at her junior’s nod, she stepped closer with a smile. “That’s why I asked if it was pain or tiredness. If you had plenty of Qi, but hadn’t worked up the proper way to channel it, then the token would have sucked it out by force, widening them as it went. That hurts like hell, you know?”
“It did look painful for them.” She nodded again by reflex, a habit formed to show the teacher she was paying attention as a child. “Then, what did you mean by ‘foundational techniques’? I was of the impression that the one I learned was the most basic of strikes that use Qi. Is it really more complicated than that?”
A lone, warm finger rested on her mouth, cutting her off before she could begin her next sentence. All the moisture in her mouth fled from it, suddenly giving her a need to swallow it down.
“Well, isn’t that pretty extreme on its own? Focusing everything on one attack like that? The true foundational techniques aren’t about one sudden move, but about learning to subtly guide your Qi to lighten your feet or speed your hand throughout the entire combat and beyond. But before that, you need to learn to gather it.”
Mei Jian could feel the nail touch skin through the thin cloth of the robe as that same finger came to rest on just below her navel. She involuntarily felt her stomach clench, as though expecting a blow. Even through the clothing, it was apparent.
“You can relax, you know?” Ming Yue shot her a wink. “I’m just going to show you the basic way to gather Qi. Breath out as deeply as you can? With your mouth, if you would?”
The moment she did, even more air was forced from her lungs as her senior drove her fist-no, the hilt of her sword into the center of her solar plexus. A look of betrayal was only met with another teasing smile, barely hidden behind a pale hand.
“Now, breathe in with your nose alone, and focus on your dantian.”
At first the breath struggled to come, and then it came all at once, her lungs greedily sucking in every last bit as they reinflate—
Ming Yue drove the hilt into her chest a second time, this time forcing the younger woman to her knees as that vital oxygen was pushed out by force once more. “Not like that!”
“Breathe in slowly, and imagine pulling on the air with your dantian. It should be nice and empty now that you’ve used that technique. Draw the air inside it as you inhale. Focus on what you can feel with your spirit, not merely your mundane senses.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Mei Jian strove to do just that. Drag in the air, pull it inside the empty space in her—
Another blow knocked her out of it, this time bringing her all the way to the floor. “Better, but focus harder on the air itself, not just the action. You’re still not quite there. Perceive it with your own Qi, just like when you send that Qi out for that strike of yours.”
This time it took all the scraps of will she could still muster to force her attention away from the weapon still in hand, her mind starting to swim from a lack of fresh air. Focus on the air itself. So it’s something about the air? Its contents?
The moment that thought came to conclusion, she could feel it. ‘Feel’ was the closest word, though not like one felt with flesh. ‘See’ wasn’t quite right either, nor was ‘taste’. Perhaps a mix of all of them came closest to encapsulating the feeling.
Nonetheless, it was Qi, she was pretty sure. Tiny particles of Qi that drifted throughout the air even as she inhaled, motes of golden light, specks of heat, the tinge of citrus that stings one’s mouth when held to a fresh fruit. Something like that.
“There you go. Just do it like that, and I won’t have to jab you again. Much more fun this way, right?”
This sadistic woman…
Something else, mixed in. The bitter sting of the cutlery’s metal as you take a bite from it, the discordant sparks from a fire that leapt into your eyes when you leaned too close, the glimmer on the water’s surface that distorted the image beneath. It was part of the Qi, part of the breath, but at the same time different. It felt wrong, but also natural, normal. Like walking backwards, or something easy to do, but hard to really conceptualize.
Before she could say anything, an explanation came unasked.
“When Qi comes in, so do impurities. Focus on those, and breath out through the mouth. Push them all out. You’ll lose some of the Qi as well, but that’s just part of the process. Remember, you can do it as many times as you want, until your dantian is completely filled to bursting.” She paused. “Well, not to bursting, maybe. As full as you can comfortably make it?”
Ignoring the rambling ending, Mei Jian guided the sense of wrongness out, letting it flow free and watching as it took more than its fair share of Qi with it. That impurity was at most one part in ten, but the amount of Qi left after she expunged it was half, at best.
As the last of them left her, she took another few breaths, normal ones this time, for the sake of air alone.
“What are they? They felt just like the Qi itself, but at the same time something completely different,” She said.
“Of course, those impurities are just another form of Qi, but one that you can’t process with a normal breathing technique. If you do, they’ll build up damage bit by bit every time you use that Qi, tearing apart your spiritual system. That’s why when you take in as narrow a dose of Qi as possible, through the nose, and let out as high a dose of impurities as possible, you should be using the larger mouth.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Ming Yue pantomimed it, huffing an exaggerated breath in and out. “Like that, see?”
“Another form of Qi?” Her mind flashed to the sense of opposition. Yin and Yang, light and dark, hot and cold. A hint of urgency flew into her next words. “Demonic Qi?”
“Well, yes, but not in the way you think. Demonic practitioners use that Qi, but it’s not that the Qi itself is demonic. It’s not even intentional on their part. Rather, they use techniques based on power before purity. They sacrifice far less Qi, at the cost of not quite getting out all of the impurities either. A technique for someone who doesn’t value their own life.”
Even as her explanation turned grim that same mocking smile clung to her face, only growing as her hand found Mei Jian’s shoulder. “Now, do it one more time for me, Mei-Mei.”
“I said not to call me that!” She made to jerk her shoulder free, but it may as well have been a tree that grew up around it, rather than a slender woman’s hand.
Wasn’t she half dead and bedridden just that morning? How was she that strong? A second pull barely made any physical response, though it did draw out a verbal one.
“Now, now, Mei-m—Mei-Jian. Just take another breath. I promise not to sucker punch you again this time, as funny as it may have been.”
The singsong tone in her lovely voice did little to dissuade the notion, but at this point arguing felt futile. She closed her eyes, feeling for the Qi as she opened her lungs, reaching out for the mysterious substance in the air.
The hand slipped inside her robe, slender yet strong fingers closing on bare flesh as every muscle in her body tensed at once, suddenly standing straight. She may as well have been a puppet, and the forceful hand the string, pulling her along without the idea of resistance ever occurring.
By the time she finished that thought, a finger had already come to rest on her lips, silencing the futile attempt at protest before she ever had the slightest chance of voicing it.
“Trust me, okay?”
Mei Jian squinted at her, but that soft smile, suspicious as it may have been, betrayed no intentions beyond that.
“Just close your eyes and relax~” A sweet tone entered her voice, like charming a frightened animal, only with a seductive undertone that was predatory enough to send a shiver down her spine. “I promise, it will feel nice~”
Nonetheless, she obliged. Her eyes closed, and her focus turned inwards and outwards at the same time, reaching out with the exact same style to draw on the Qi all around them.
It came more quickly this time, as though…. As though it was being guided to something else. There. A glowing beacon where Ming Yue’s hand rested on her, the site where flesh met flesh lit up like a torch in comparison to the faint sparks in the air. It was almost magnetic, the way that Qi seemed to hone in on it and follow the path it set down into her.
The same was true of the impurities, exiting through her mouth just like they were rice being scooped from a paddy filled with water, or a spare ingredient that had floated to the top of the stew being snatched away by impatient chopsticks.
It all passed through that spot on her shoulder, where bare flesh made skin contact, and another type of contact as well. The hand was a conduit, connecting them not only physically, but in a deeper, more intimate manner.
Traces of Ming Yue’s stronger, sharper Qi guided the flow through her junior’s body, as though she was the puppeteer guiding a doll on strings. When that hand pulled away, the breath out completed, Mei Jian had to fight the sudden feeling of loss, her own muscles unprepared to fully stand on their own power, even though their weighty burden had vanished at the same moment.
She stumbled, and the arm returned, this time cupping her own as it steadied her. Grateful eyes met her senior sisters’, only to turn away as she remembered just how this had happened in the first place.
A slight blush colored her cheeks, for the third? Fourth? Time. She really needed to work on a way to control that response.
“What was that? It was….” She trailed off, unable to find the words to describe it.
“I just helped you with the process, to make sure you were doing it right. Isn’t that what every good senior sister should do? Ah!” The woman hid her mouth behind her sleeve. “Or did you mean that feeling when you looked into my eyes? I fear that’s called falling for someone, my dear, cute junior~”
“I didn’t—That’s not—” Unable to stop heat rushing to her face, Mei Jian turned away instead. “Not the latter, for certain. And you know full well that’s not a proper explanation for the first one either.”
She turned back, forcing her face into a neutral position. “That feeling, the one of the Qi, where mine and your own intermingled.”
Her fingers brushed that spot on her shoulder, stilled bared, before hastily pulling the robe on her upper body back closed over it.
This time there was no disguising the blush that colored her cheeks, even if she had maintained the presence of mind to try and do so. Instead, Mei Jian pushed through with her question.
“What exactly was that? I don’t know how to describe it. It was like I could see inside you. No, like I was, in some way, inside you, and you in me.”
Her head shook, trying to clear the lingering traces of the trance. “Is that what taking in Qi is supposed to feel like? I’ve always heard of ‘one with the world’, but I thought it more metaphorical than literal. Is that what you were trying to show me?”
“You…. You have to be doing this on purpose, right?” Ming Yue raised a hand to her face, looking over it with eager eyes.
It took a moment for the words to sink in, but this time the rush of heat and embarrassment was too large to ignore. It was a perfectly innocent statement in her mind, but now it felt shameful to even recall saying it, considering the implications. A low, sultry laugh from the older girl did nothing to ease those feelings, nor did the grin she shot as she answered the question.
“Well, I supposed because I was inside you. At least, my Qi was inside your own meridians, if only a little bit. I needed to feel up how you were doing it, to ease out those tight cramps, and to guide your body from within into the right manner of breathing. It would have taken forever for you to get it just through trial and error, and it would have been way too easy for you to injure yourself. Like how I kept hitting you.”
She grinned wider. “There’s a reason I kept doing it, you know, and it wasn’t just because I find it cute when you’re gasping for air in my arms. I needed you to become more aware of your body, so that you didn’t end up letting anything strange inside it.”
Somehow, each sentence was worse than the last. Mei Jian could feel as her skin went from a flushed pale pink to a bright hue that bordered on red, nearly rivaling the plum blossoms that waved in the trees above as they started to bloom. Was this really the only way to describe it? Her eyes darted over to her new teacher, trying to discern just how much of the sultry grin plastered onto her face was genuine, and how much was an attempt to tease. Surely she couldn’t be as shameless as that pig Wei Feng, right? What were the odds that the two people she ended up tied to were both equally perverted disgraces?
And what does it say that both of them are stronger than you?
A voice inside her head whispered that last line, and it was a bucket of ice water poured onto her growing embarrassment. That was right. She was speaking with Ming Yue in the first place to learn from her. She didn’t have the privilege of getting flustered by a few flirtations, be they real or false.
“In that case, Senior Sister, can you please show me one more time? I want to be completely sure of the correct feel before I set to replicating it on my own.”
“Of course. I’m more than happy to show you inside me as many times as you like, and even more eager to go inside you.”
This time the innuendo wasn’t enough to break her line of sight, as blatant and heavy-handed as it was, though it did nothing to quell the last vestiges of the lingering blushes from before. Instead, Mei Jian just stepped forwards, offering her shoulder again and pulling the robe slightly open.
“Then, whenever you’re ready.”
The hand felt warmer this time, less controlling now that she was expecting it, perhaps. As she breathed in, her eyes fell closed on their own, and her sense of touch was magnified. Qi particles floated through the air, still that mixture of a dozen sensations that were each just slightly off from reality and yet more real than anything else.
This time, Ming Yue was stronger in her guidance, not just creating a faint path but actively pulling on everything. If the prior touch was a gentle caress, then this time she was doing a deep massage, working her fingers into each sore knot and sensitive place, stirring up feelings and reactions from within Mei Jian’s body as though that was her goal to start.
It wasn’t just her shoulder as a conduit this time, but her entire body that was the puppet on strings of her Qi. They drifted in, stroking each bit inside her, making her aware of her own body, the flow within her and what she could feel, in a way that she would have never imagined.
Each breath was a full experience on its own, a little lifetime consisting entirely of the feeling of Ming Yue inside her, and the energy she guided in. It was like each part of her, from the breath within her lungs, to the beating of her heart, was synchronized with the other girl down to the most minute detail. The foreign Qi, even as it poured the power from the air outside into her, utterly dominated it, making the flow of her body fall in order behind its rhythm.
Each moment was an eternity, and yet it was over all too soon.
The hand pulled away, arm already wrapped around her to stop her fall as knees gave and weakness rushed through her once again, all the stronger this time for the depth of the connection lost.
No, something was different.
It was a strange feeling. It wasn’t quite right to say that it felt wrong, though if anyone else had described the sensation she would have called it that, or at least assumed as much. But if anything, it felt right. It was like this was what she had always been like, apart from the entirety of her lived experience. It didn’t make any sense, and yet, somehow, every other state of her body suddenly felt like a fever dream.
She stood, and although the difference was that of a third again her normal speed at the very most -more likely a quarter- it seemed like the difference between a healthy youth springing to their feet and a doddering old man pushing himself up with a cane.
A step and then another, and Mei Jian broke into a run as her feet ate up the ground beneath her. Again, the difference was minor, but perhaps that was part of the feeling.
If the difference was too large, it would throw off everything, but as it was, it was just enough for her to still keep full control, while also being a larger gap than anything she had ever experienced. The air was so full, as though each breath carried an extra load of oxygen just for her. The sun was suddenly so much brighter, illuminating the world in sharp detail for the sake of her eyes alone. The ground had become firm, gripping the bottoms of her shoes in a way that supported without restraining in the slightest.
Her sword came free in her hand, and it too felt light, but at the same time heavy, filled with a new weight and power than she now knew as Qi. It flowed out smoothly, in the manner she could see for the first time, from her dantian into her arm and from her arm into the blade, as though it was just another part of her.
“Be a shame not to put some of that new energy to use, wouldn’t it?”
Ming Yue had already eased her own weapon free by the time she turned, as quick as it felt. No, not her own weapon. From that bejeweled, garish hilt, it had to be Wei Feng’s practice blade. He’d left it here, because of course he had. It wasn’t as though he had any plan to train with it, or anything. That would be crazy.
The faintest scowl crossed Mei Jian’s face, but the sensation in her bones washed it away along with the errant thought that had conjured it in the first place. Forget him, Ming Yue was the one to focus on at the moment. Although….
“I don’t have my practice blade. Let me fetch it from the cabin.” Another turn that felt fast, only to be cut off by the other woman.
“No need. I’ll make you a little wager, even. If you can draw so much as a single drop of blood from me, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll even strip down naked and let you walk me around the sect like a dog, if you’d like that.”
She sighed. “Provocations aren’t going to convince me that easily, you know. I already know that I’m outmatched without you rubbing it in, and I’m not the type of anger that easily.”
Ming Yue’s lips stretched to reveal shining teeth as she leaned forward, just enough. “And what if it’s not just a taunt? Are you really sure that you can’t so much as touch me, when it’s a sharp blade matched against a dull one, and you’re fighting at your best against a girl who’s just recovered from a major injury?”
She grinned wider. “And are you sure, really, truly sure, that you don’t want that reward? Just think about it~”
Unbidden, at least by her, the image filled Mei Jian’s mind. Smooth, silky flesh on perfect display, walking along the stone pathways of the sect on hands and knees, each and every curve a work of art bared without the slightest hint of concealment. What type of face would she wear at that time? Would her smile break at last, as she got a hint of the embarrassment she had been dealing out so casually?
Maybe she did want to see it, just a bit. Not that she would ever do such a thing, but the moment she had the chance might finally be what cracked the façade. Then maybe she would get just a bit of face, as a fellow sect member deserved.
“Fine then. I’ll accept this challenge. I assume the stakes will be the same for both of us?”
She was granted the sight of the grin turning into a smirk in response. “That doesn’t seem quite fair, does it? I wouldn’t be a very nice senior, bullying her junior like that.”
The older woman tilted her head, lips pursed. “I know! How’s this? If you don’t manage to touch me even once, I get to call you Mei-Mei as much as I want. How about that?”
Mei Jian only hesitated a second. “We have a deal.”
Her sword came up, held out in front of her at just below the height of her ribs, arm extended almost fully to take advantage of the length. There was no way for Ming Yue to move in and attack without impaling herself, and from what she had seen of that technique, it consisted of a single strike, not a continual enhancement.
When she moved in to strike, her senior would need to deal with the outstretched blade first, before she could utilize that blinding speed in a strike. At that moment, she would be slowed enough to get touched by a counter.
Not too strong of one, of course, but one strong enough to at least draw a few drops of blood. I’m not someone you can look down on to that degree.
Something within her was irked at the idea of exploiting unfair conditions to win, but more than that, there was a new feeling. Ever since she came here, ever since she had entered those gates that marked the Plum Blossom Sect she had spent years dreaming of, Mei Jian had been handed only the most dubious of victories.
An interrupted match against Wei Feng, a fight with the assassin that she had only survived due to the strongest expression of luck, and now this duel, this test from the woman before her? Was she supposed to be incapable of winning here?
Despite everything being rigged in her favor, despite this newfound power brimming inside her, she was still supposed to desperately scrape for a halfhearted victory in name only? She wasn’t that shameless. No, if she was going to do this, she was going to do it right. A pulled blow still, but one that had the potential to end a real, deadly encounter if thrown with her full power. A slight tension entered her jaw. Anything less would be a disgrace to the sword in her hand, and to the benefactor that had taught her up until now.
Even as her opponent took a high stance, hand at eye height and tip slanted down to her own chest as it came out, Mei Jian resquared herself, drawing her arm back slightly, bringing the center of balance closer to her hip so that it was less easy for it to be moved against her will.
At some point, sweat had started to bead on her hands. How strange, when the chill of winter still lingered into the spring, and her exertion had not yet begun. No, she was still brimming with energy, not even a hint having pushed herself.
Ming Yue’s foot shifted towards her, just a little bit. Then once more, then once more after that. Tiny, shuffling steps of barely even a fist’s reach. One by one they drew closer, until the moment in which the two tips were only a single step apart.
Now, she just needed to wait for the moment when—
Her sword spun out of the way, twisted by an invisible impact. No, not invisible. She could see it, the flickering trace of speed too great for her eyes to follow, fast beyond fast to the point that her mind had barely processed it when Mei Jian felt the tip of the sword press gently, but firmly, into her breast.
“My win, Mei-Mei. Want to try again?”