The next day, on my way to the Central Theatre, I saw Wujiu standing like a pillar of rock among the torrent of disciples flooding to and from all directions.

She made eye contact with me, and then wandered into a nearby thicket of trees.

—It was time for my revenge to continue.

Wujiu had killed me, and so it was only just for me to kill her.

But though I repeated these words to myself, I was not entirely convinced by them. I could not convince myself that I could do it, that I could kill her. It was not because I doubted my ability; it was no such rational doubt. The logic was ironclad, yet some part of my brain simply refused to accept it, like a child refusing to eat their favorite food!

Why? Why? I knew why.

Sighing, I followed her into a clearing in the midst of a thick field of trees. She stood at the only passable entrance to the clearing, arms crossed.

"So? Have you made your decision?"

I had not made the most important decision— the decision of whether or not to kill her— because I felt like I could not justify such an act to myself! How could I justify killing someone without first bearing witness to the murderous glint in their eyes, without first persuading myself that what I was doing was in some form an act of self-defense? That was my emotional limit! Her eyes— sure, they were cold and dark and looking far into the distance, but they were not the eyes of a murderer. Such eyes could not feed the smoldering thorn in my heart that was my revenge.

And so, I turned my gaze off to the side, to avoid meeting those eyes.

"I.. I don't think it'll be possible."

"I see." She sighed deeply, then pushed herself forward. "Then, at the least, I will take that cultivation manual before I return home."

"You—"

I suddenly felt the impact of a blunt object striking my forehead, and I tumbled back, the back of my skull crashing against the compacted earth. My vision swam, nesting itself in refraction upon reflection. I could not orient myself, so when I tried to pull myself up, I ended up slamming the back of my head into the floor once more.

Wujiu knelt by my side and pulled a small knife out from under her robes.

How stupid I was, to ever have thought that she had given up her hatred! How naive I had been! In her eyes, the only thing that had changed about me was Natsuki's presence. If I denied her Natsuki, then of course Wujiu would return to her past ways! Of course she would despise me! Of course she would kill me!

"I know the rule. Do not kill on sect grounds. Don't worry. I'll kill you now, but you won't die for another several hours. I think you'll have enough grace to leave your corpse out in the mountains."

And suddenly, the doubt in my mind disappeared. After all, if she hated me, if her hatred drove her to murder, then I could justify my own murder. Her hatred would fuel mine! Only then, only engorged on the crimson vitriol burning in her heart, would mine own be able to carry the guilt, the guilt, all the black guilt that would spatter forth from her veins!

The thorn in my heart blossomed into a crimson briar, and I— I looked into her eyes, one last time, one last time before I would kill her, to see if there was anything I could find in them. I found—

no hatred.

Just the same cold, dark, distant glare.

No, no, why? What was that look? Why was there no hatred? How could she kneel there, preparing to kill me, with no hatred in her heart? What could she possibly think of me that would leave her heart so unmoved by her actions? Had— had she never thought of me as anything more than an obstacle to obtaining that one dusty tome I had held onto for so many years, an obstacle to be excised like a rock blocking the road?

If she did not hate me, then how could I possibly kill her?

"Why?" I whispered.

"My time is running out!" she hissed. "Before I go back to Xichuan, I must have the cultivation manual sealed by your life-thread!"

"It's just— a book!" I wheezed through what breath I could muster.

"You don't understand!" she shouted. "You don't understand the weight of that knowledge! That's why I'll k—"

"—Princess Wang."

A voice that sounded like a window being smashed by a mace, its tones screeching and cracking, its enunciation like shards of glass clattering and shattering against the ground— a voice, a cold voice, a voice I knew well, cut through the air like a falling stalactite. It was not a voice that one could ignore.

Wujiu turned her head, the force of her glare unabated. "Who are you?" she demanded.

I could not see the figure in the entrance of the clearing from where I lay, but I knew that voice well enough, and I could not help but feel that the situation had somehow turned from bad to worse.

"I am Bai Xiaolong. As it turns out, I have some business with Chunxue there. Family business."

Wujiu grimaced. She understood well that it was a bad idea to be stuck between me and Xiaolong. After all, she could only harm me because the Bai family turned a blind eye to it. If, even for this one moment, the Bai family would not approve of her actions, then she risked causing a feud between the Wang and Bai families if she did not yield. And she knew best of all that the Wang family was in no position to suffer such a spat.

"Fine. I'll give you face and back off here." She hid away her knife and stomped out of the clearing.

"Come, Chunxue." Xiaolong walked over to me and offered me his hand, as if to pull me up. "We have some matters to discuss."

I did not trust that hand, or that wide, flat smile of his, so I stood up myself after a good four tries, though it felt as though my stomach stayed on the floor.

He raised his hand, and a makeshift bench rose out of the earth, forced up by his qi. "Come, sit," he said, and I could not disobey, so I sat, but he did not.

"Chunxue," he drawled, "You know that it is not common for First Sister and I to be at the Phantom Orchid Sect. The reason I am here today is actually to discuss something with you."

The pit in my stomach grew deeper.

"With me...?"

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Yes. In fact, we were supposed to do this yesterday, but First Sister has some anger issues when it comes to you, so matters ended up like this. Well, it's because she's like this that I still have a chance at becoming the next family head." He laughed precisely four times, then stopped.

I did not need to reply.

"Well, let us proceed into the heart of things. The other day, nine of Long Guoqiang's followers died. Initially it was assumed they went missing, but a few of their life-threads are held in the vicinity of Kangtian, and they were clearly ruptured. The Long family, with the aid of the Jiang and Chen families, is sending their people to collect the other life-threads from the respective families, but the current assumption that all nine of them have died."

Well, I had killed them, so of course they had all died!

"I see."

Xiaolong began pacing around the clearing.

"Now, here is the problem. Everyone knows about your relationship with Long Guoqiang, and furthermore, all nine of them went missing right after they were supposed to meet you."

"I see. So what does this have to do with the Bai family?"

Xiaolong raised his eyebrows suddenly, as if my question was not worth answering.

"—Chunxue, they are suspecting that you are responsible, and your surname is Bai. That alone makes it a problem for us. They have not yet made a complaint because there is not yet evidence, but they have told us to prepare an explanation, and of course we must, else both of our families will end up losing face when this does end up escalating." He paused for a moment, and I saw in the flaring of his nostril that he wished to say something off-script. "The Long family of today is weak, much weaker than it was even only three generations ago— but the world runs on relations, not on violence! So even though we have the power to erase the Long family from existence, we will find whatever bastard is responsible and present their head as apology."

"Hmph," I snorted. "As if I of all people could be responsible for this."

"Exactly. That is precisely the problem," he said with a nod. "So this was the decision we came to at six in the morning the other day, after a sleepless night arguing with an ambassador from the Long family. Short of killing you, I am to do everything in my power to ascertain whether or not you are hiding something. Something that could cause trouble for the Bai family."

Hearing the implication in his words, I jumped back off the earthen bench. I needed to escape. Xiaolong in front, and behind me— I turned. There was no path, only dense trees that led into denser woods.

The right corner of his mouth twitched upwards. That was the only smile of his that I could trust, and oh, how I hated that I could trust it.

—Xiaolong's hand caught me by the neck and pinned me to a tree. His grip tightened, enough that my head began throbbing in lack of oxygen, and no more.

Of course. Torture only works if its subject is conscious.

"Don't worry. I will heal you after this is over. Unlike First Sister, I do have that much respect. Not for you, but for the surname you carry."

With his other hand, he pulled out a serrated knife from his robes, and drew it close to my arm.

I knew that knife well. It was a knife better at inflicting pain than at killing, that could not pierce the deep-seated blood vessels of the body but which could rip away at every flake of skin and nerve on its surface. In that respect it was like a flaying knife, but instead of preserving the skin it was designed to cause more pain.

The spikes of the knife prodded against my skin, and began to—

—No. I promised her. I would never again suffer this blade.

"Natsuki..." I whispered.

The pressure at my neck softened, and my vision cleared. I looked and saw Natsuki standing to the side, her hand wrapped around Xiaolong's wrist, black flame smoldering at the intersection.

"Grrrrhhk!"

She tightened her grip, and Xiaolong's hand went limp. His hold on my throat lifted, and I gasped for breath.

"You— who the hell—"

She tightened her grip, the flames of her fingers sinking deeper into Xiaolong's flesh, burning through his skin and muscle.

"AAaghhr! Let go of me, you—!"

"Ask and it shall be given."

She tightened her grip, balling her hand up into a fist, crushing his bone within it and snapping his forearm in two! His hand, now but an amputated piece of flesh and bone, fell to the ground, right at my feet!

Instinctively, he dropped his knife and bent down to reach for his amputated limb. He was no doubt skilled enough to reattach it. The faster he reattached it, the easier it would be.

But Natsuki was not so permissive. She drove the heel of her boot into Xiaolong's amputated hand, and it erupted with black flame. Like huoyao, it burned for only a moment, then disappeared into smoke.

Xiaolong grimaced. Sure, cultivators could heal bodily wounds, but to regenerate a lost limb you would need to be in the Core Formation realm, and even then it could cost several months of cultivation.

—Natsuki's knee slammed into his face and sent him tumbling through the clearing, before he finally crashed into a tree and collapsed to the floor.

"You dare...?!" Xiaolong groaned with pain as he struggled to push himself to his knees. "You— you think you can get away with disrespecting the Bai family?! Who do you think you are?!"

Xiaolong spoke loudly, but it could not hide the fear in his voice.

"Me?" Natsuki grinned widely, her mouth curving up to her ears like a crescent moon. "I am but a goose feather, drifted ten thousand miles on the wind."

"I see... an unexpected variable..." Xiaolong managed to pull up one knee. "We hadn't considered that the for—"

Natsuki took one step, one step twenty meters in stride, and she was on the other side of the clearing, in front of Xiaolong. She raised her knee, and I saw in the shadow of her hakama that her entire leg was nothing but a pincer of iridescent flame. Then she straightened her entire body, smashing the point of her foot into his nose, crushing it with a standard-form side-kick.

She stepped to his side and kneeled down, and I saw now that Xiaolong's face entire was aflame, of embers green and purple. He opened his jaw, but he could not scream. The flames crawled into his mouth, they gnawed on his tongue, they bore through his cheek, they tunneled through his palate, like maggots— no, more like leeches, feeding not upon the flesh of the dead but upon the vitality of the living!

"Bai Xiaolong," she whispered into his dissolving ear, "be cautious in your action. Every wrong you commit, I shall return ten thousand times over, for in this incarnation I am the rakshasa of vengeance."

Then she stood and beckoned for me.

I crossed the field, keeping as wide as berth I could from Xiaolong's spasming body.

"Natsuki, that fire..."

"Don't worry," she said with the most imperceptible of smiles. "This is only a particularly weak form of Doma's flame, that will stop once it burns all his skin off. He is a cultivator, so his skin, at the least, will heal quickly."

She put her hand on my shoulder and guided me out of the clearing.

I turned, to get one last look at her face.

There, hanging behind me, was only my own shadow.