Something special happened today! I don’t know exactly what it is because no one will tell me, but the door is making lots of sounds. Mommy’s popping bubbles in the sky, and there’s lots of lights. It reminds me of a party. Parties are like this: loud and colorful. Um, is it to cheer me up? The teacher bullied me a lot. He called me a trickster! I don’t know what that means, but I bet it’s not nice! I do feel better after seeing it. It’s so pretty! My mommy is the best; she knows how to make me forget all the bad things.

Um, weapon class is over now. I didn’t get to learn anything, but I don’t have to. The bow Auntie Ilya gave me already made me a master archer. That means I can focus more on body training and qi gathering! I’ll do that tomorrow; it’s too late to do that today. I have to go to Teacher Lin’s class. Um, I have some extra time, so I’ll go to Ri’s weapon class and wait outside for her there. I bet she’ll be super surprised.

I think the fan class was this way, near the bathrooms. The bow class needed a lot of space for the targets to be far away, but I don’t think other weapons are the same. Um, I think this as her classroom. I’m going to peak in through the window. Big Sis Mirta says it’s rude to look through people’s windows, but it’ll be fine if I don’t get caught. Everyone should be busy learning; no one is going to see me. Ah! There’s Ri. She saw me. I waved at her, but she looked away. Um, she probably doesn’t want to get into trouble for not paying attention.

A few minutes later, Ri’s class was over. “Hi, Ri! How was your class? Did you have fun?”

Ri gave me a strange look. Um? Did her class not go well? She doesn’t look too happy.

“Ri? Are you okay?”

“Oh.” Ri shook her head, and a small smile appeared on her face. “Sorry, I was distracted by something. Class was okay. It turns out there isn’t much to learn about fighting with fans until we learn some combat techniques involving qi for them. How about you?”

“The teacher was so mean to me!” Um! Just thinking about it makes me mad now. I don’t even feel sad anymore! “He picked me up and threw me on my head because I was too good with the bow!”

Ri blinked twice, and her mouth fell open. “He did what?” Her eyebrows furrowed, and she narrowed her eyes. “Did you tell your parents?”

“Yeah! Mommy strung him up on the flagpole.” I looked around for a window to point the teacher out to Ri, but I couldn’t see him from here. “He’s still there, I think. I’ll show you him later; we have to go to class now.” Um? Why is Ri touching my head?

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“I’m just checking for scratches,” Ri said. “There isn’t anything there. Your mom gave you medicine?”

“Auntie Ilya did.” Mommy wanted to, but Auntie Ilya gave me what I needed instead. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“I see.” Ri nodded. “Are you ready to go to class? You’ll be fine to learn, right?”

“Of course! Um, actually, I have to pee first.” Auntie Ilya made me drink a lot of bitter liquid. I asked her why it tasted bitter, and she said medicine had to taste bitter or dumb people like my mommy would drink it for fun and die. I don’t know why medicine kills people if they drink too much. Doesn’t it fix people?

“Oh, alright, I’ll wait for you outside.”

Luckily, the bathroom is right there. That’s really convenient. Um, the bathrooms are mostly empty. No one ever uses them except for me. Auntie Ilya says that’s because most people eat one piece of immortal rice a month, and they don’t have to pee or poop it out. Um? Is that blood? “Hey! This is the girl’s bathroom! Why are you in here?”

“Sophia!?” Ri burst into the bathroom. “What’s…? Is that … an invader from the immortal realm?”

Um, there’s a person lying on the ground. He’s missing an arm and a leg, and blood is coming out of his body. He’s not wearing the sect robes, which means he’s not part of the Shadow Devil Sect. Auntie Ilya made an announcement about people invading. Ri thinks he’s one of them? “Hey, is he dead?”

“I don’t know,” Ri whispered. “I think he’s still breathing.”

Um! He just mumbled! “He’s alive. Do we look for someone to help him? I, I don’t think I can pee when he’s lying on the floor like that. It’s too weird.”

“Help him?” Ri’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding? We have to kill him! If we kill him and give his head to the principal, we’ll get ten thousand contribution points! Do you know how much ten thousand contribution points are? Teachers only earn thirty a month, one for each day!”

Um, that’s a lot of points! “We have to kill him?”

Ri grabbed my shoulders and stared at me. “We have to kill him and cut his head off.”

“I’ve never killed anyone before.”

“Neither have I, but we’ll have to learn sooner or later,” Ri said and took in a deep breath. She exhaled and held her hand out towards me. “Give me an arrow.”

Arrow? “Here.”

Ri took the arrow and tiptoed towards the person on the ground. Once she was standing over his head, she took in another deep breath and raised the arrow up and … didn’t do anything after that. “Ri? Are you going to stab him?”

“I’m going to stab him, just, just give me a second.” Ri took in another deep breath and swung her arm down. Right as she did that, the man’s eyes opened!

“Courting death!” The man’s head moved really fast and smashed into Ri’s shin! There was a really loud cracking sound like a bone breaking! Ri’s leg must be…, eh? What happened? The man stopped moving.

Ri wasn’t moving. She was staring at the person with wide eyes. Then, she turned her neck to look at me. “I, I think he’s dead.”

Um?