“There’s no one else I can rely on for this, it has to be you,” Han Zhiran pleads as an old man with a goat-like beard sticks his acupoints full of needles in hopes of relieving his widespread paralysis.
“But why me? There are others.”
“We have, at most… the time it takes to eat a meal before the final match. I can’t get someone else from school, and Han Ji didn’t do too well. You’re my only hope of winning!”
“But I lost…”
“Pah! We both know who deserves this, and I have my own reason for wanting to win.”
“You think I can win?”
“Had I held back even a tiny bit, it would have been your win, and I know you were holding back.”
Ban Shuyi sighs. Of all the people that could have been chosen to replace Han Zhiran, he went and picked her. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like he’d be on his feet in time, and even then, fighting so soon after being hit with such a powerful toxin is asking too much. He needs someone to fight on his behalf.
“Fine,” Shuyi replies curtly and crosses her arms. “But I get half the prize.”
“You can have all of it,” Han Zhiran stares off into the distance with a whimsical expression on his face. “My reward is not offered by the hosts.”
“Uh, okay…?”
“I’m serious!” Zhiran grabs her wrist and holds on tight, forcing himself to move despite the toxin. “You have to win; my life depends on it!”
“Fine, fine!” Shuyi growls and pries his fingers off of her. “Stop being so dramatic. I’ll do my best.”
“Not just your best! You must win!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Shuyi waves a hand to dismiss him as she exits the room.
She leans up against the wall across from his room and sighs. “What a mess…”
The opponent for the finals is Liu Gongming, and she had seen his last two fights. He’ll be a difficult opponent, and had Han Zhiran managed to recover in time, Shuyi is confident he’d have lost. She can’t help but scoff at the idiot being right about her. Unless someone else shows up from his school, there is no other choice but her if he wants to secure the win.
‘Works well for me, too,’ Shuyi figures as she pushes away from the wall with a flex of her shoulders. ‘I can’t guarantee I made a good showing fighting him, so getting another chance, especially in the finals, is the perfect way to get noticed. Heh… maybe I’ll get [their] attention.’
She makes her way back towards the arena with a smile on her face.
“Liu Gongming… I’ll not hold back, and everyone will see what I can really do!”
As expected, Han Zhiran’s condition didn't improve in time so everything fell onto his chosen champion’s shoulders. Ban Shuyi makes her way back to the center of the arena where her opponent is waiting and gives him a critical look.
‘What’s he got to look so smug about?’
Liu Gongming’s pale golden robes flutter as he crosses his arms and looks down on her. He smirks, though it is very close to being a sneer. “Losing once wasn’t good enough for you, eh, halfbreed?”
‘Ah, right… a racist.’
She droops a bit.
“I promised an idiot that I’d win, so I’ll make it quick.”
“You’ll make it quick?” Gongming clicks his tongue and covers his fully sneering face with one of his wide sleeves. “I’ll appreciate it if you just lie down and die right now, and save me the trouble of washing my hands of your filth.”
Shuyi rolls her eyes and prepares to fight. “Whatever you say, brat. Today you’ll disappoint your ancestors.”
“Y-you! How dare you!?”
Shuyi scoffs.
‘Get angry, idiot.’
She shifts her weight onto her back foot and taps the toes of her other foot on the wide stone tiles while she waits for the announcer to finish his spiel. As the battle draws closer, her guarding palm rises into place and she smirks.
‘I will crush you.’
“Fight!”
Despite her resolve to crush Liu Gongming, Ban Shuyi does not rush forward right away. He also reached the finals of the tournament, so he is undoubtedly a formidable fighter. Some caution is necessary if she intends to win this without taking too much damage.
“Afraid?” she baits him.
“Of trash like you?” Gongming growls in response and comes forward. “Not a chance!”
Shuyi grins.
‘Fool.’
She begins by meeting him with the First Move: Flowing River. Designed to intercept an incoming attack with the guarding palm, it is first and foremost, a countering move. Shuyi considers it more of a stance, though, because it is not a finite move where it is performed and resolved, but continues to flow like its namesake. Counter, then strike, and repeat until done.
The wide, sweeping palm strike, almost a slap, is turned away by Shuyi’s guarding palm and she immediately retaliates by forcing it across his body and striking directly for his torso. Her hand meets Gongming’s other hand and is deflected away.
From her observations, she learned that the Divided Palm style Liu Gongming uses is one of perpetual motion, much like the Flowing River stance. The arms move in wheeling motions, constantly striking and defending while simultaneously using the ridiculously wide sleeves to obscure vision. It is a nuisance of a style, but she resolves to see if it could hold up.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Shuyi counters several more strikes from her opponent, and each time he refuses to commit to another attack, she baits him with another feint. She believes, confidently, that she holds the lead here, and that her Flowing River is out performing Liu Gongming by just a small fraction. It is enough, however, to give her confidence.
“It seems this trash is more than you bargained for,” she quips while redirecting another of his palm strikes across her body and out of the way, leaving his flank exposed.
He appears ready to respond with some derisive comments when his thoughts are interrupted by a sudden shift in Shuyi’s attack patterns. She uses her false stance to deliver a powerful lateral kick to his lower ribs, but he twists and intercepts with his free hand. However, his wheeling chain of motion is disrupted.
Severing the Peak into Descending the Valley!
He is pushed back a step, but just as they make contact, Shuyi lowers her leg and plants her foot so she can spin in reverse. She drops down low and catches his heel with a sweep from behind his ankle, and Liu Gongming falls. Nevertheless, he recovers quickly by rolling back and into his fighting stance.
Ban Shuyi shows no hesitation!
‘Too slow!’
Fifth Move: Toppling Giants.
As he orients himself, Liu Gongming catches sight of Ban Shuyi whirling through the air to crush him with a powerful spinning kick. It is too slow to land, so his head and neck are protected by his forearm. She immediately uses her other foot to push off his defending arm and drives herself back to the ground where she arrests her momentum with her hands and tumbles gracefully back to her feet.
She can see that he is about to say something smug, so Shuyi dashes forward. She no longer stays in the false stance of Flowing River, but shifts to the Second Move: Parting Clouds’ neutral stance! From there, she attacks with both hands, driving repeated strikes towards his core and pushing his defense wide like splitting a sturdy log with a wedge.
Against other foes, the billowing sleeves obscure vision and make it difficult to see where each arm is, but Ban Shuyi is not his typical foe. Her sharp ears pick up the fluttering sounds and give her clues others would miss. She knows where he is at in his rotations, and now that his wheeling motions are too slow, Liu Gongming finds himself pushed backwards.
His expression is filled with a rage befitting a fool who believed himself superior, and because Ban Shuyi promised Han Zhiran she wouldn’t hold back, she circulates her Inner Force and prepares her next attack
Secret Art: Hidden Palm!
Liu Gongming impedes her assault, but it is insufficient to deter Shuyi entirely. The Inner Force is released and a wispy blast of qi strikes her opponent in the center of his torso. However, despite the clean connection, he uses some strange softbody technique and allows himself to be pushed back. To others, it may have looked like he took a serious blow, but to Ban Shuyi, he absorbed almost all the damage.
“Inner Force, huh?”
“Don’t act surprised. Even an idiot could recognize it.”
The idiot she speaks of is none other than Han Zhiran, but it has the intended effect of rousing Gongming’s ire again.
“A beast would use a beast’s tricks.”
She shrugs. “I have a few more… if you’re interested.”
Liu Gongming is not interested, but he does come at her again. Whether it is his rage or hatred of non-humans that fuels him, Gongming picks up his pace and begins unleashing a flurry of powerful blows.
Shuyi smirks and relies upon the Eighth Move: Gentle Touch, a defensive technique that reduces the attack’s potency substantially, if not entirely. Though it didn’t work against Zhiran’s last-ditch, all-in punch, it is effective enough against Gongming. She discovers, however, that even if she stops the incoming damage, turning his blows away is less beneficial than against someone like Han Zhiran, because he just adjusts and continues.
She clicks her tongue in annoyance while she narrowly deflects another attack, only to be struck by an unexpected kick that hits her vulnerable abdomen. She grunts and stumbles back, coughing as pain explodes through her flank thanks to Zhiran’s earlier strike.
“You’ll be lucky to survive this, you filthy halfbreed.”
‘This is trickier than I thought. He’s hard to injure, even with Hidden Palm. I may need to resort to more drastic measures…’
“I could say the same about you!”
His eyes narrow and he comes forward.
‘Let’s end this.’
His assault is aggressive, pushing her to her limits, but Ban Shuyi has picked up on a quirk or two of her opponent. He hates her for what she is, and would love nothing more than to use that against her whenever possible. She prepares to bait him again.
‘You better appreciate this, you big idiot.’
After a few more moments of Gongming attacking, she figures it is time. Shuyi deftly turns another strike aside with Gentle Touch and uses Severing the Peak. However, her kick falls short and her toes barely brush his robes. She allows the momentum of the kick to pull her around and stops with her back to him.
He acts as expected.
Liu Gongming, faced with an obvious vulnerability, grabs her tail. As soon as she feels him touch her fur, she fills it with Inner Force, and each strand becomes a razor sharp needle, so when she continues her twist and pulls her tail free, his hand is shorn bloody. He screams in pain and recoils.
“It is time for you to taste defeat,” Shuyi shouts as she continues her twist. “Know that a halfbreed bested you!”
‘Ban Family Secret Art…’
As she completes her rotation, Shuyi strikes with her guarding palm, drawing his defense to the center. With his hand bloodied, Gongming relies on his good hand to intercept with his palm. It was never a strike, though, it was to gauge her distance and fine-tune her aim.
As soon as she locks in, Ban Shuyi’s other arm whips around and drives forward, but not for a palm strike, this time it is different. The tips of her fingers barely brush his forearm, and while it is purely unnecessary and completely frivolous to shout the name of one’s technique, it is satisfying for the psychology and demoralizing for the enemy to know what has done them in.
“Kingfisher’s Feast!”
The moment she connects, Inner Force surges through her arm leaving searing pain in its wake, but as it reaches her finger tips, it focuses into a fine point. From that point it bursts forth and lances through Liu Gongming like the spear of a cavalryman. It is not physically damaging, but obliterates his meridians and pierces through his middle dantian.
He spits blood and topples backwards as immense pain overloads his brain.
The crowd roars, and so does Ban Shuyi. She is the winner, and her victory cry is a mix of pride and pain.
‘That idiot owes me...’
She drops to a knee and looks at the arm hanging limp at her side. It will take weeks to mend, but Ban Shuyi knows she has drawn [their] attention. A month or so of painful recovery was nothing so long as she kept that in mind.
I smile as Ban Shuyi leaves the arena as the victor. I don’t know what sort of technique she used at the end, but that one clean hit took Liu Gongming down and made it look easy. She has to have used Inner Force, I can’t believe it was anything else other than that mystical energy of martial artists.
“Shall we go, my lady?” Jingyi asks as she rises from her seat. “It’d be best to leave before the crowd starts to move.”
I nod and leave my seat.
The guards accompanying us were already making their way into the halls and leading the way back to where we first arrived. Aside from us, one other group is waiting for their carriage, but they pay us no mind. The presumed husband and wife are more concerned with their own affairs and that suits me just fine right now.
“My lady, the carriage is here,” one of the guards announces.
Jingyi shows me the way and I climb into the carriage and take a seat. After setting the annoying hat aside I look out the window as we start to move. The tournament had taken the majority of the day, but I can’t help but feel like it was worth it. My hands are still trembling and my heart is racing from excitement, so I settle back in and take a deep breath.
‘I’m sorry, Han Zhiran, but you’ll never get the chance to learn my name. Maybe in another life.’