Her punch slammed into his mouth, and he rocked back, arrogance shifting to shock in a flash.

“Oh I am sorry, my fist must have slipped,” she noted idly, taking a step closer, and kicking at his knee. “how unlucky of me.”

In his stumbling, he managed to step off just to the side of her strike. The rage in her heart was gone, crystallized down into cold certainty in an instant.

“Why did you do that?!” He stared at her with wide eyes, wiping blood off his mouth with one hand. She felt his spiritual energy shield spike in intensity, and strengthened hers to match.

“Me?” She put a hand on her chest, feigning innocence. “What are you talking about? It’s not my fault if your luck moves my hand to dislodge some impurities inside your own head, is it?”

She felt a brief spike of disappointment that her hit hadn't broken off one of his teeth. Well, there was always the next one.

“Luck - you punched me!”

“Did I?” She raised her eyebrow, pantomiming thinking with one hand. Her other hand flicked back to a series of strings tied to her waist, and she let her long rope fall down on the ground, filling it with spiritual energy, sneaking it over to his feet. She pounced on him again. “I didn’t notice.”

Instead of a response, she felt spiritual energy burst out of his feet, and he retreated into the air just before her punch connected, standing on two clouds of fiery dragonflies. She raised her head to keep a watch on him, resting her hands on her hips.

The fingers of her left hand kept moving her rope around. Could she make it leap up at him? No, he was too high.

“Get down here and punch me like a man,” she taunted.

“Why would you punch me?” He shouted at her, “I didn’t do anything to you!”

“To hear you say it, you are responsible for every single problem in my life.” She scowled. “So I figure, you want to treat me like a brainless jade beauty, helplessly pulled around by the strings of your luck? Incapable of my own plans, decisions, even mistakes? Well, hey, I guess I am fine with that - means I can do whatever I want, and not care in the slightest, since it’s all your fault anyways.”

“What - that’s not what I said!”

“It’s what you meant,” she said, her breathing stabilizing, “now get down here and debate Dao with me like a true cultivator, or I’ll have to force you down.”

“Force me - you can’t even fly!”

Instead of responding, she picked up the free end of her rope from the ground, unclipped her sword sheath from her belt, and tied the rope to the handle of her sword. Stretching out her hand, she started pouring her spiritual energy into the blade.

“Hey- “ Wang Yonghao said, worry bleeding into his voice, and backed up a bit more, “hey, what are you doing?”

“To cultivate is to rebel against the Heavens,” she intoned, letting a grim smile break out on her face, “I wouldn’t be much of a cultivator if I couldn’t drag even the stars down to the ground, would I?”

The spiritual energy flowed through the sheath and the sword, spinning up, stabilizing, and in mere moments, the sword started to hum.

“Let us see if we could follow in Gu Lingtian’s footsteps.” She sneered, and with a clap of air, her sword rocketed up into the air, invisible wings holding it aloft and heading straight for Wang Yonghao. The silken rope whipped behind it, like the string of a kite.

He dodged it, because of course he did, and she brought the sword back for another pass, trying to at least catch him with the rope. The sword was moving too slowly to break through his spiritual shield, in any case.

“Since when do you have a flying sword technique?!” He shouted at her, bouncing around in mid air. Somehow, the random flaps of turbulence managed to always pull the rope just far enough away from his limbs to avoid catching on.

Because of course they did.

“You can thank your luck for giving me one.”

“Stop this, Shanyi!”

“Then get down to the ground and fight me.”

“Please! I didn’t even do anything to you!” he cried.

“What?” She scowled up at him. “You asshole, you kidnapped and beat me half to death! Or did you already forget? And now you have the sheer fucking gall to say all my decisions and everything you did was actually just down to your luck? As if it was your luck that swung your fists!”

“It’s - I apologized! You said we were square!”

“I don’t care about apologies, I care about actions and understanding,” she said, “understanding that you clearly lack if even now you make excuses for yourself.”

Wang Yonghao was too fast, dodging her sword every time, and with his luck, he didn’t even have to look at it half the time. She needed it to go faster, but there wasn’t enough space for it to accelerate.

Instead of making another pass at him, she pulled the sword over to the edge of the world fragment, and slammed it into the side. Her sword slid along the almost frictionless surface, circling around the entire thirty meter spherical border, gaining speed with every second as she poured more and more energy into it.

“Funny thing about luck, Yonghao,” she started with a wide smile, malice in her eyes, “there needs to be a path for it to find. So what happens when my sword flies faster than you could dodge? Should we conduct this experiment, little rabbit?”

“Why are you trying to kill me?!” he cried, pulling at his hair.

“You said you tried to kill me today, with the flash flood.”

“That’s not me - that’s my luck!”

“By your own words, the fastest way for me to get rid of it would be to get rid of you! After all, who knows! Perhaps your luck would force us to meet time and time again. Besides,” - she scoffed - “Kill you? Please. As if your luck would let you die - I would sooner believe you would spontaneously develop a resurrection technique. No, I don’t think I can kill you. But I can make it hurt.”

She held his stare for a moment, and saw him gulp, before the fireflies below his feet winked out and he dropped down to the ground. She motioned for her sword to turn downwards, and out of the corner of her eye, saw a cloud of earth burst into the air where it safely buried itself in the dirt.

“What do you even want from me?” he said, holding up his hands as she stalked over to him.

“I want a bare modicum of fucking respect,” she growled, raising her hands in the only defensive stance she knew, dancing lightly on her feet as she circled around him. Seeing her do so, he unclipped his own sword sheath, and tossed it aside. She waited for him to raise his hands, and then pounced on him.

“I do respect you!” he said, blocking her strikes. “You are an asshole, but you’ve helped me a lot!”

“Bullshit you do,” she scowled, “you respect nothing - not even yourself.”

Pugilism was not a core part of either the Seven Flowers Bloom or the Three Obediences Four Virtues, the two fighting styles she had studied so far, but the basics - footwork, keeping your distance, guarding yourself - were shared between every martial art. She had never been attracted to the practice herself, and her Elders would have blown out their heart dantians if they ever heard of her practicing something this unrefined, but she had to admit that there was a very visceral satisfaction in slamming her fist into something and feeling it give.

Unfortunately for her, Wang Yonghao seemed to have actual training. He realized this quickly, and relaxed, mostly going on the defense. The arrogant prick still refused to punch her in the face.

“What are you even trying to do, Shanyi?” he said a minute later, catching her arm and tossing her over his head. She spun around in the air, landing on her feet, and sprung back into the fight. “I beat you last time! I am stronger - especially without a sword! You can’t win this.”

“That is your philosophy, huh?“ She sneered. “Only fight the sure fight? No wonder you run away so much.”

“Well… Yes!” he said, easily hopping over a wide leg sweep she made. She spun on the ground, turning her momentum into an upwards kick, aiming for his groin while he was airborne, but he caught her leg, and kicked her in the chest, sending her skidding off down the grass. “Of course I run - I can’t beat my luck! Anyone would do the same thing!”

“Luck this, luck that,” she said, picking herself up, and sprinting back to him, “if things go well, luck made them good. If things went badly, luck made them bad. If you’ve fucked up, luck made you fuck up. If you hurt someone, luck made you hurt them. Is that what you call respect? Complete abdication of any responsibility for your actions?”

“Of course luck did that!” He scowled at her, and closed the distance first this time, managing to trip her up. He didn’t capitalize on the opportunity, and she sprung back to her feet a moment later. “You even said you found me because of the vow - because of my luck! How can I not say it?”

“I didn’t find you because of luck,” she sneered. She needed a plan, this really was going nowhere. “I found you by being resourceful - your luck was just one more piece on the board. Should I thank the suns in the skies for giving me light to see? The winds, for bringing me air to breathe while I stalked you? The river waters, for letting me travel at speed? If you didn’t have luck, I would have found another way.”

“That is not the same thing,” he said, falling for her feint at his kidneys and dodging right into a kick at his neck - but his hand came up just in time, leading her leg millimeters away from his skin. “My luck kills people!”

“It also saves people.”

“From me! It sometimes saves them from the misfortune I bring! Even your tribulation - you are only in it because of your vow, which you only made to find me!”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“That’s not how luck works, you idiot.” She sneered again, frustration welling up in her. “It rearranges things. That mushroom spirit you fought? It had to already be in the forest, hadn’t it? It would have come into conflict with the human towns eventually - your presence just expedited the inevitable.”

All she learned from the Seven Flowers Bloom was completely useless at this, she might as well have asked him out for a dance - and while Three Obediences Four Virtues had a great deal of useful advice, it was all of the disemboweling variety, and required a knife besides.

“You do not know that,” he said, but she could see she put him off balance, if even a bit. Her kick landed just a fraction closer to his skull. “It could have lived peacefully, and my luck enraged it. Made it attack when it otherwise wouldn’t have.”

“Then why are you not a hermit?” She laughed. “Even if you really think it’s all down to your luck, then it’s still your decision to travel around people. Your fucking agency. So which is it?”

He stumbled again, and this time, she managed to plant a solid punch in his face. His spiritual shield crackled, but held.

The trouble was, she had started out with less spiritual energy than he did, and then wasted still more on her flying sword technique. She was running out faster than he was - she needed a way to change things around. Her rope was too far away from her, at the very edge of the world fragment, and Wang Yonghao’s luck wouldn’t allow her to lead him away from the center. She needed something else.

While he was distracted, she reached behind herself, and tore off one of the many tassels she made to control her rope technique, hiding it in her fist. Carefully, she spun the technique around the belt of her robes, keeping it at its lowest power - she would have to time this very carefully. Her spiritual energy shield should hide it from his senses, at least.

“It’s - it’s not so simple,” Wang Yonghao said, getting his stride again, “I am no saint! I don’t want to become a hermit because my luck might hurt people.”

“Or save people.”

“Save them from me!”

“Say it’s a good thing you saved those people,” she snarled, “just fucking say it. A murderous spirit is dead, and nobody even got hurt. That’s a good thing. Say it’s a good thing.”

“It’s not - ”

“Say. It.”

“Say what?” he snarled back at her, “That I am a selfish bastard for putting them in danger in the first place? Yeah, I know that!”

“No. Say that it’s a good thing for cultivators to save people.”

“Of course it’s good for cultivators to do that -”

“You are a cultivator. Say it’s a good thing you did what cultivators do.”

“Fine!” he snarled again, “It’s good that I killed it! At least sometimes I can kill something that deserves it! Are you happy now?”

“Overflowing with joy,” she deadpanned, dancing away from a punch he threw back at her, “without you, that moron Jian Shizhe would have fucked up, brought that demon beast too close to town, and it would have killed people. If not today, then weeks from now. Now say it’s a good thing you stopped it.”

“It’s good I am a butcher - is this what you want to hear?”

“All cultivators are butchers, you are not special.” She sneered. ”Say it’s good mothers and fathers won’t have to dig graves today!”

“And then what?” he shouted, and his eyes snapped to her face and away from her hands. Foolish mistake. “It’s good that I kidnapped you, because you got a good technique from it in the end? It’s good that I almost killed you, because I didn’t? I just don’t want people to die! Why can’t you understand this?!”

Using his distraction, she caught his left arm in her right hand, and powered up her rope control technique. With trained flicks of the fingers on her left hand, she made her belt untie itself, unravel, and slither across her body and onto Wang Yonghao. Her robes, now unsecured, opened up, and his eyes widened, before he turned away instinctively, blushing profusely.

Second distraction. Her leg swept under him, throwing his back into the grass, and her belt tied into a noose around his throat, starting to squeeze. His spiritual energy shield crackled under it, keeping it at bay - but now that he had to burn energy every second simply to resist the pressure, they should be more evenly matched.

Falling down on him, she slammed her knee into his stomach with all her weight, and started to punch him in the face.

“You don’t get to decide how I die,” she snarled, straddling him, “that’s between me, my sword, and the fucking Heavens!”

He brought one of his hands to block, the other reaching up to his neck to tear her belt off. That wouldn’t do. She caught that hand, and pulled it away from him, pushing the other one down with her leg.

“You think being around you puts me in danger? So fucking what?” She continued, struggling for leverage, “By the time you arrived, I was already growing stir crazy in my sect. If not for you, I would have found some other way to reach for the skies - and if there was no way, I would have made one! You think you are doing me a fucking kindness by protecting me? Do not insult me - I need a sword that can slice apart the very Heavens! Danger? I put myself in danger! Because I am a cultivator, and that’s what cultivators do!”

Untrained as she was at grappling, she needed both hands to keep one of Wang Yonghao’s hands away. His other hand was mostly free - she could push it away from his neck, but that was about it. She saw it scrambling down in the grass, and his hand closed around a handle.

Because of course they happened to fall within reach of his sword.

“Good,” she said calmly, staring into his eyes, “now either stab me, or don’t, but make a decision, and own it.”

“Fuck you,” he said, let go of his sword, and punched her in the face with his free hand. Her spiritual energy shield held, and she responded by kicking him in the mouth, close distance not letting her put as much force in as she would have liked.

They scrambled against each other, punches and kicks landing without any pattern or technique, until his spiritual energy shield broke and her foot slammed into his teeth, and then his punch broke hers and sent her flying off into the grass. She rose, and stumbled up to where Wang Yonghao was still laying, dismissing her rope control technique before it strangled her only way out of this world fragment.

Her tongue felt around a hole in her mouth - that punch actually managed to knock out one of her teeth. She’d have to find it later - with healing pills, she should be able to put it right back where it belonged.

Wang Yonghao still seemed out of it, and so she tied her belt back on, and went off to get some water to clean up, covered as she was in fresh grass, dirt and blood.

One pot of water dumped over her head later, and she felt suitably refreshed, her thinking finally clear of rage. She got a second pot, brought it to the man himself, and dumped it over him too. He quickly woke up, blinking the water out of his eyes. His lips were split, and as he sat up, he spat out blood and a pair of teeth of his own.

“You alive?” She smiled, offering him a hand. He took it with some reluctance, and she pulled him up to his feet, helping him dust off some grime and grass.

“Sorry about punching you,” she said lightly, “if you want to kick me out after this, I’d understand it completely. But no more of this bullshit about your luck deciding for me. I decided to punch you because I was furious. My agency is my own.”

It’s not like she could work with him if he didn’t change his mind on this.

“Didn’t you say you should kill me to get rid of my luck?” he asked, warily, hissing as he touched his face. “What happened to that?”

“I don’t actually believe that,” she admitted, “I was just trying to get under your skin. Sorry about that too.”

“Why don’t you believe it?” he said, “The threat is still there.”

“The Heavens trying to kill me is not your fault.” She shrugged. “That they may or may not use your luck as a weapon is irrelevant. I already challenged them when I stepped on the path of cultivation, as every cultivator does, and I was aware of the risks.”

“But it’s not just the Heavens.” He winced. “What if my luck tries to kill you again on its own? It’s all subconscious. In the back of my mind, I still had the idea of hiding from you - and so the flash flood happened just as you were crossing. Surely you agree it’s not a coincidence.”

“I am already going to be helping you murder your luck,” she said casually, “if your luck decides to try and murder me in return, then I welcome the challenge.”

Wang Yonghao looked at her strangely, and then started laughing. She arched an eyebrow at him.

“What?”

“Murder my luck?” He kept laughing. “That’s how you put it? Heavens, you really talk like the old monsters sometimes.”

“Well, I’ve watched every play about them that was performed in Golden Rabbit Bay,” she said bashfully, “I suppose I picked up some habits from it.”

“Some habits, yeah.” He chuckled, bending over to pick up his own teeth. “You have healing pills, right?”

“I said I was prepared.”

“At least one of us is, I guess.” He sighed. “Look, I’m also sorry, alright? I know you don’t care about that, but I am. I…didn’t think how it would be, from your perspective, when I left you there. And…maybe I didn’t need to push you about luck.”

“I was once told by a fellow cultivator that it’s good to make a little trouble for less trouble later,” she said casually, “no permanent harm done.”

She went back to check up on the rice. By a small miracle, she caught it just before it would have started to overcook completely, and pulled it off the fire. Now she just had to wait for the mushrooms to finish breaking up in the chiclotron, and then she could cook them together with the rice and other vegetables.

She yawned. She was honestly feeling exhausted - the hectic flight on Curls, her fight for her life on the glassy fields, and then this fight with Wang Yonghao took a lot out of her, and on top of that, she had been up and about for close to thirty hours. But there was one more thing she absolutely had to resolve today.

“So what will it be?” she asked Wang Yonghao.

“What?”

“Do you want to challenge the Heavens together, or do you want to kick me out?” she looked straight at him, “You can take the time to think it over, but I need a straight answer.”

“Oh. Yeah, but I… have a condition.” He winced.

She raised an eyebrow, letting him speak.

“You being alright with risking your life… I guess I get it, kind of,” he sighed, “but this tribulation… It’s too much. I want to try something else - I am pretty good at pretending to work hard, but achieving very few results. If you make me cultivate hard, but ineffectually, it might still pass the vow, right?”

“I…don’t think that would work,” she said uncertainly, “the Heavens aren’t very big on technicalities when it is to their detriment.”

“But you wouldn’t mind trying?”

“As long as you aren’t doing it just because of the threat from the Heavens, I don’t care what you do.” She shrugged. “It’s your cultivation. Build it, break it, turn it on its head - it’s your business. I just don’t want them to think I would be their patsy, and I don’t want you to think like you need to do this. You have choices.”

“Thank you,” he sighed.

“I should be the one thanking you,” she grumbled, “this tribulation will be terrifying, and if this works, you’d be saving my life. I don’t want to face it either - if I could avoid it without becoming their servant, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But that also wasn’t what I was talking about.”

He looked at her in surprise.

“What do you mean?”

“Yonghao,” - she gave him a flat stare - “you have an inner world that, best as we can tell, the Heavens can’t see into - a perfect place to plan and scheme, a tool that could be sharpened into a weapon. And you have luck which is perhaps not entirely caused, but certainly heavily influenced by the Heavens. Forget the tribulation - if you want to get rid of your luck, there is only one place to head.”

She pointed one finger up towards the skies.

“So what will it be?” she said. “Do you want to break into the Heavens and topple their thrones? That’s my real question.”

He stared at her for a long while, before he closed his eyes.

“I am just so tired,” he said, “I can’t keep living like this. If that’s what it would take… Then yeah, sure. I am all in.”

“Good choice, fellow cultivator Yonghao.” She grinned. “Now let’s plan how to make celestials into corpses.”