“Yes?”

He had a surprisingly soft voice for someone so capable of putting his fist through my chest. I hadn’t had a chance to hear him speak the last time, but that calm tone was quite apparent to me now. He possessed a general air of refinement about him, now that I was looking carefully. He had the typical noble features of a wealthy cultivator, with a delicate face housing two sharp green eyes and his hair tied back in a neat tail. I’m sure poets would call him beautiful, but after having been on the dying end of his fists I was more occupied with just how distracted he seemed, as if-

He didn’t recognise me. That was what that blankness was: he didn’t have a clue who he was talking to. Just that I was some random Outer Disciple who’d apprehended him in the middle of the Inner Sect after we’d both bumped into each other. The man who’d killed me didn’t even have the decency to recognise my own face.

In any other world, this would be a boon beyond measure; I would simply apologise again and continue on my way, hoping that his own apathy would lead him to forget about the entire interaction. For anyone looking to live, this would be the thing to do.

But unfortunately for him, I was looking to die today. “Yes, you. You bumped into me.”

“Oh.” He opened his mouth for a moment, as if searching for the right words. “I suppose that happened. Not to worry.” And then he made to continue walking-

“Not to worry?” And I stopped him once again with my words. “That’s all you have to say?”

“Ah?” He turned again, the frown back on his face. “I’m…yes? Is there anything else to say?”

“Do you not think it would be appropriate to apologise to the person that you bumped into?”

There was something immensely freeing in being able to say something so abominably stupid. It felt as if I’d suddenly gained the ability to stop time, as the tens of other Disciples within earshot immediately froze at my words. Even the mist itself seemed to hang still in the air, unable to reconcile my appearance with my audacity. And as my mystical ‘technique’ faded, those cultivators pivoted in unison to face me, inspecting my every quality, determining exactly what a messenger like me was thinking in saying such a thing…

But with the protective guise thrown away, I no longer appeared to be a courier tasked by someone immensely more powerful than even them. Silver trim didn’t adorn my robes, to indicate that I might actually join their ranks soon enough. I didn’t even have a token of favour, indicating that some mighty Elder or Core Disciple considered me their cousin or friend. I had revealed myself to be a simple Outer Disciple, in a place where I shouldn’t be.

They didn’t move a step closer, but I could feel the ring closing around me. Not to entrap me and trample me, as if I was some wild Spirit Beast to be brought down; they were just spectators settling in to watch a goose attempt to poke out the eyes of a dragon.

But oftentimes it is the most absurd of actions that prompt the most unsure reactions. The dragon in question blinked a few times, not quite ready to laugh at a joke that he didn’t know the punchline to. “I…didn’t think it would be necessary.”

“And why not?” I sniffed, glancing down at the path. “This path is clearly wide enough for two. We should’ve both passed right by each other. Instead, we collided. Do you not think you should apologise in such a situation?”

The noble cultivator blinked, before considering the path, as if properly seeing it for the first time before. It was indeed sized suitably for two individuals to pass right by the other, like I had said. What I had not mentioned, but what his eyes were immediately drawn towards, was my own position solidly in the middle of the path, while he had in fact been walking along the side.

This is becoming dangerously fun, I reflected, as I watched the noble cultivator go through the entire gamut of human emotion before eventually settling on a tight smile just a hair away from a grimace. I think I understand why cultivators are like this so often.

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“That is…an immense shame,” the Young Master managed to say eventually. “And I apologise. Are we done here?”

I blinked.

The noble didn’t even pause for a moment at my surprise before walking off. “I’ll take that as a yes. Good day.”

The entire courtyard was silent as he walked off. The ring of spectators had come for an execution, and instead had watched the dragon turn tail and run. I was just as stunned. No, I was dumbfounded. I’d never felt so out of place in my life. It was like the entire ground had fallen out from underneath me, leaving me still floating above a chasm that wanted nothing more than me to fall. What sort of Young Master doesn’t immediately kill anything that disrespects him!?

This wasn’t the plan. I shouldn’t have needed to do more than look him in the eye to receive a beating within an inch of my life, and instead he was positively running away from a confrontation that he would win handily!

This couldn’t stand. “Where do you think you’re going, huh?” I shouted after him. “Do you think such a weak apology is enough!?”

The Young Master slowed again, the confusion and exasperation growing further on his face. “I’m really not quite sure what more there is to talk about,” he insisted. “Do you- I’m incredibly busy right now. This disciple sincerely, humbly apologises for whatever trouble I’ve caused you. Can you please stop bothering me?”

I scoffed. “Busy? You think I care about how busy you are after you’ve treated me so poorly? You think such a poor, pathetic apology is enough to satisfy my wounds?” You dare think you can possibly stop me from killing myself?

The audience was absolutely rapt with attention, their heads bouncing back and forth between the Young Master and the suicidal idiot. I could see some of them reconsidering me, searching for any hints that I was some powerful cultivator who’d simply thrown on a pair of grey robes, and then searching harder when they found absolutely nothing.

Time to finish this. I raised a hand, now pointing directly at the Young Master. “With these insults you’ve hurled upon me, perhaps it is my duty to exchange pointers with you, to show you what missteps you’ve made, eh? Perhaps that would help you understand your grievous errors.”

The Young Master’s mouth moved silently, pausing as if to consider words before throwing them away. He began to raise a hand of his own, only for it to drop, and then to lift, and then to fall again. “What?”

“Clearly your hearing is in need of work. I do recall I said we should exchange pointers-”

“Oh.” The noble exhaled. “Now I remember. You’re the one I’d bumped into nearly a week ago, aren’t you?”

“And now it seems like your memory is finally wo-”

The Young Master bowed. “I am genuinely sorry about that business. We’d returned from a mission and my fiancée Mei was…anxious. Unfortunately, she took it out on you, when you deserved nothing of the kind.” The Young Master straightened, looking me in the eyes. “I understand that simply paying for the treatment for the wounds I’d inflicted on you is far from a fair deal, when such a thing shouldn’t have happened in the first place. I’m more than happy to reimburse you for the trouble, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

…

Huh?

Words failed me. The spectators were in a similar position, not even whispering in between themselves as they kept their eyes on the best entertainment that they’d seen in probable months. I could hear the question in their minds, wondering just what my relationship to the Young Master was, who my patron could possibly be for me to act so carelessly.

My own question was much simpler.

Why won’t you kill me!?

“I’m unsure what an appropriate recompense would be,” the Young Master continued, watching me carefully as if I was an untamed beast, and not an ant he could crush in a single blow. “It’s been a while since I was an Outer Disciple. Would twenty- no, would thirty thousand yuan suffice?”

Of course it would suffice. Thirty thousand yuan was more than six times the original stipend that the Cult provided all its newest disciples. If I resumed my original path of determination, if I went back to Senior Librarian Yun and begged and pleaded for him to resume his tutorship, if I returned to the sparring arena and bled upon the sands there in return for strength beyond measure-

I could cut short this farce. I could graciously accept this gift from the heavens, properly apologise for my rudeness, and return back to the Outer Sect. I could focus once more on being a true Cultivator, like I had dreamed of when I was a child. One day, I could enter this Inner Sect properly, in blue robes of my own, and look upon this Young Master as an equal. I could laugh about how silly the entire situation had been, and perhaps ask him for a true fight. I could live forever.

Or I could throw that all away on a hopeless bet. On some random girl with a scythe who didn’t belong.

…

I sighed, and glanced towards the ring of spectators. “If one of you gawkers would be so kind as to find an Elder?” I looked back to the Young Master, who returned my own gaze with a look of terrible understanding of what was about to happen.

“Tell them that I have challenged this Young Master to a spar.”