I did not see Professor Jibeidi again that day. That was fine. She would probably stay for around a week to finalize trade negotiations. When my afternoon work ended, I wandered back home, and I assumed Natsuki was still talking with all the big-shots in the inner sect.

As I approached the vegetable patch where Hanfeng had died, I felt an inexplicable sense of anxiety crawl up on me, that kind of fatal anxiety you feel when the date approaches for an examination you know you cannot pass. But you cannot dispel such anxiety, you can only suffer it.

I continued walking.

—And then I saw, in the road by the vegetable patch, not far from the very spot where Hanfeng had become one with the wind, I saw kneeling Chen Mantian, Guoqiang's right hand, likely here on Guoqiang's orders. She was investigating something.

As soon as she entered my eyesight, she paused for a moment, and I knew that she was aware of my presence.

A fatal fear cannot be escaped. If I did not go to her, she would come to me. That was the meaning of her pause.

I walked down the road, and arrived at her location.

"Good afternoon, Senior Chen," I called out, my voice shaking.

She turned to me, and her blood-red cape billowed in a breeze that did not blow.

"Apologies, apologies," she said with a snakelike smile and a voice rattling like marbles in a jar. "I was just taking a look at the place where you and Hanfeng have your... morning lessons. I can't help but think that something is a bit odd about this place. What do you think, little Xue?"

I shrugged, though my heart was pounding increasingly fast. Perhaps she was pressuring me with the force of her qi, an ocean of qi strong enough to crush the life out of my veins if she so wished, but I was so nervous that I could feel nothing but my heart slamming against my left lung, pleading for leniency. "I tripped and fell on some of the plants this morning, so they got crushed a little bit. Sorry."

She sighed. "Little Xue, you don't have to lie to me. Don't we both want what's best for Hanfeng? Come, tell me. What happened here?" Her voice suddenly darkened. "Did the foreigner do something?"

"No," I said, and I found myself out of breath, my body stricken with fear.

She slowly pushed herself to her feet. "Bai Chunxue, why must you always make things hard for yourself?" She snapped her fingers, and I suddenly noticed that I was surrounded by more of Guoqiang's followers, these ones holding pipes and bats in their hands.

Shit! I should have run! No— it hardly mattered. I couldn't outrun people who could do qinggong. If Chen Mantian wanted to break my arms, she would break my arms, and I would have no choice but to limp to the Central Theatre and collapse on the earth there, where some passing inner sect cultivator would hopefully have enough pity to heal me.

"Let me tell you something, little Xue," she growled as she approached me. "I don't really enjoy roughing up weaklings like you. The best part of breaking someone's bones is feeling their protective qi shatter like glass. You don't have any protective qi, so it's no fun. But..." She cracked her neck, once to the left, once to the right. "Brother Guoqiang asked me to break every other bone in your body, so I don't have a choice, do I?"

My knees suddenly buckled, and I fell to the ground, and only when my face was covered in dirt did I feel the pain resounding in my calves. Someone had struck me!, and now—

"Break Bai Chunxue's bones, but don't kill him! Brother Guoqiang wants to kill this bastard himself."

One strike, to my right shoulderblade, shattering it in three.

Two strikes to my left femur, cracking the bone and rending the hamstrings.

A sharp strike to the back of my left ankle, rupturing the Achilles tendon.

Two to the hip—

One to the upper arm—

four to the lower—

and after some moments the pain was so constant that I could not tell what was being struck and what was simply smarting, though I could hear their strikes, crashing into my bones, their blunt weapons wrapped in qi, my bones with no protection but my very skin, that ripped and tore like paper under their assault.

And then, finally, a strike of metal directly to my spine. A wave of pain greater than any I had ever felt before towered over my body, but before it could crash against my brain, it disappeared, and when it disappeared, I could no longer move any of my muscles. My body was frozen in place.

"Why do you have to try so hard to make Brother Guoqiang angry?" warbled a voice, probably Mantian's, in my ears, though I could hardly make it out among the noise— what noise, I did not know. "Let me tell you, little Xue, I only come out to deal with you when Brother Guoqiang gets angry at you. If you didn't make him angry, I wouldn't have to do this to you. Personally, I'd rather beat up some of the Muscle Tempering-stage outer sect disciples. You are too raw, and the Blood Tempering-stage disciples are too well done." She drove her heel into my skull and, leaning down over me, whispered, "So understand well that you only have yourself to blame for this, little Xue."

These words provoked a silent fury, an absolute fury, deep in me. Myself? The blame is on me? What had I ever done wrong?! I never had the power to wrong others! I was always the one being wronged! No. No! The ones who were to blame, the ones who deserved to have their bodies broken, were them! Not me, them! All of Guoqiang's lackeys, all of Wujiu's followers, all the criminals of the Bai family! All of them deserved to die! If only I could get revenge on these scum! If only, I could get revenge!

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

I could get revenge.

By Natsuki's hand.

—In the flashing patterns swimming upon my eyelids, I saw it. Her eyes. Two white circles in the darkness, one that would bring me salvation, and one that would bring others judgement.

The pain in my limbs ceased.

My hearing cleared.

And my mind— my mind understood.

I pulled myself back onto my knees, then slowly pushed myself up to my feet. I opened my eyes and directed my gaze at Mantian. Every bone in my body burned with power, power that turned and coiled and bent as I willed it.

Mantian recoiled. "Bai Chunxue! What is that qi?! How are you using qi when all of your meridians are closed?!"

She began to draw her sword. So slow! Too slow!

I grabbed a pipe out of one of the thugs' hands, then launched it at Mantian's chest with such force that I could not see it fly from my hand. It pierced through her right lung and stopped only when half of its length had opened a hole through her back. She fell to her knees. She was in the Foundation Establishment realm, so this would not kill her. I would kill her later, I would pierce through her other lung as well, after I had killed the rest. I wanted her to feel grief. Grief, grief, grief enough to turn her soul utterly blue, a blue turbid like the ocean, so salty that the demon would have to break off little pieces of it to season the other souls I would offer it!

"Demon," I muttered under my breath, "what way should I kill them so you can best enjoy their souls?"

"Destroy the brain, but leave the neck intact," it whispered back.

In one smooth strike I unsheathed my sword and thrust it between the eyes of one of Mantian's minions, the one standing directly to my right. I yanked it out and with a simple Zwerchau swung it horizontally halfway into the next lackey's skull, right through his right ear. Then I reversed the Zwerchau, sending the blade in an arc above my head, from my left to behind me to my right, towards the next enemy. This one was smart. He raised his sword to block mine. But the angular momentum of a reversed Zwerchau is not something so easily blocked, especially when Natsuki's power is forcing it forward.

My sword cleaved right through his blade and a third of the way into his skull, right above his left ear.

One of them ran towards me from behind, seeking to impale me with his sword. I turned and grabbed his sword in my hand— Natsuki's power would protect my hand from the edge of the blade. I yanked the sword upwards, causing him to fall towards me, then thrust my elbow into his forehead, shattering his skull and sending the fragments of bone into his brain.

"Three more," I muttered, and I turned to find that the remaining three minions had all fled in slightly varying directions. I did not want to chase them down, so I projected my qi as far as I could—

"One Strike, Ten Cuts."

I slashed my sword once.

Nothing happened.

Then the trees in the distance toppled to the side.

And then the three runaways' torsos fell off their bodies.

Turning to Mantian, who was still kneeling on the ground, I began walking towards her.

I raised my sword. I would split her skull straight down the middle.

—But before I could, she turned her gaze up at me, and I could not believe what I saw there. There was no sorrow in her expression. No grief. Only anger, and an immeasurably deep well of arrogance.

She rose up to one knee, and I jumped away.

She stood, and put her left hand to the pipe sticking out of her chest. She grimaced in pain, but did not move the pipe; I could not tell what she was doing, so I did not approach.

—Then the pipe glowed red-hot, and at that precise moment she tore it from her chest, leaving behind a gaping but cauterized hole in the right side of her chest. Her right lung had been destroyed, and so had her right pectoralis.

"One arm and one lung are more than enough for me to kill you," she hissed, her voice screeching like a knife's edge against glass.

The gap between Foundation Establishment and Qi Condensation is, after all, wider than the gap between heaven and earth. And I— I was not even at the level of Qi Condensation. So how could I hope to stand against her?

—With Natsuki's power, of course.