Chapter 30: Bai Qinghan

  An Jing had long known Bai Qinghan.

  The reason was rather amusing: like many other children, Bai Qinghan had tended school and was illiterate, so it was hard for her to learn martial teiques or read the Imperial Heaven Scripture.

  An Jing fretted greatly over this, going so far as to spend his own time tut these children one-on-one, helping them quickly gain basic literad master martial teiques.

  Bai Qinghan was the fastest learner among them. She was often singled out by An Jing for praise and held up as an example for others.

  Thus, the two of them already had an impression of each other. Yet they rarely spoke; even when An Jing praised her, Bai Qinghan would merely respond with a soft “mm,” seeming very shy.

  Their real acquaintance began with a sparring session.

  As the Senior Brother, An Jing sometimes acted as an assistant to the instructors, helping those who were weak at formation drills or martial arts by sparring with them and teag them proper movements and striking forms.

  Especially now that the training had shifted closer to “real-sword drills,” where partits truly had to knock each other down rather than stopping at a tap. This demahat An Jing watch over them and provide guidance.

  Bai Qinghan was one such partit, yet she was a bit special.

  Her problem was not poor uanding of striking or martial teiques; her teiques were too lethal. She nearly killed people, more than once.

  Some moves were simply off-limits in a training spar.

  Eye gouges, elbow strikes, groin attacks, stomping the heel down, striking the temple, pung directly over the heart…any of these carried a high likelihood of causing severe or even fatal injuries.

  But Bai Qinghan simply could not hold back. She reflexively used these moves.

  From appearances, she seemed a gentle girl—delicate features, habitually silent, seemingly just a timid, introverted young dy. She was even illiterate at first, which gave her a kind of natural innoce.

  But that was only a facade, a disguise.

  Her pitch-bck eyes usually seemed dull and lifeless, yet during bat practice, they lit up with a startling radiance.

  In those moments, Bai Qinghan looked less like a human being than some fierce, untamed beast—a starving winter wolf or a stalking leopard.

  When that savage aura burst forth, even these youths who had all tasted catastrophe found themselves stuhey backed away on instind that retreat seemed ter something within Bai Qinghan, drivio charge in even more ferociously.

  In the end, Bai Qinghan always realized she was no longer living in that bandit-ridden homend but rather at the retively safe Hanging Fate Manor. She would pull ba time, so her sparring partners were oo gravely injured.

  Still, after a few is, nobody dared to spar with her anymore.

  So at that point, by the instructors’ request, An Jing had to match bdes with this bright yet dangerous individual.

  He used three puo put her on the ground, thus g her tendency to inflict extreme injuries.

  Bai Qinghan’s situation was simple enough: she had grown up amid stant life-threatening danger. Any flict meant life-or-death bat. As a small girl, if she had not fought ruthlessly, how could she have survived in the vast wastends of the desert?

  And her parents…had probably been rather problematic as well, never giving her a sense of security.

  In short, that profound insecurity had left her with a deep mental wound. Once she engaged in bat, she aimed to kill.

  The fact she could hold back at all showed that she was making a real effort to restrain herself. A few months, however, was not enough to undo years of habit.

  For An Jing, though, none of this posed a problem.

  An enemy who relied purely on instinct to deal lethal blows without knowing formal teique was actually easier to handle.

  Because it meant that person would only attack vital targets.

  When Bai Qinghan shed out at his eyes, An Jing, who had anticipated the move, blocked with his left arm and drove his right fist into her exposed throat, knog the wind out of her.

  As Bai Qinghan staggered back, she used that momentum for a backward snap kick to An Jing’s heart. An Jing sidestepped it and struck her right leg with a punch, f her to roll away to absorb the impact.

  Whe up and prepared to pounce again, An Jing stepped in with a single punch to her , knog her out.

  When she came to, Bai Qingha a while in a daze.

  At first, An Jing worried he might have damaged her mind. Then she suddenly stood, apologized, and thanked him.

  “I’m sorry… Thank you, Senior Brother.”

  Her voice, utterly at odds with her fighting style, was as soft and sweet as a sweet-filled dumpling made of white flour. “It felt as if I just woke from a dream…”

  “Uh-huh.” An Jing had no idea what to say—maybe “Lucky I knocked you ft”?

  “I io go apologize to everyone I injured.”

  Bai Qinghan paid o his rea. L her head and looking at the ground, she spoke softly. “I kept telling myself I’m safe now, that I don’t o be this fearful… Even though this is the demonic sect’s manor, they won’t just kill people indiscriminately…”

  “Wait a minute.”

  An Jing caught the key phrase and interrupted, keeping his voice down. “Demonic sect?”

  ——She actually k was a demonic sect?!

  “Yes.” Bai Qinghan looked back at him, her gaze oddly clear, the depths of her bck eyes tinged with faint streaks of bluish glow. “Senior Brother…you know it too, don’t you?”

  “In order to live just a bit longer, we all sold our lives to the demonic sect, right?”

  From that point on, An Jing often versed with Bai Qinghan.

  trary to her soft, delicate exterior, Bai Qinghan had an unusually sharp perspective. She had known from the start that a demonic sect purchased her, and she did not think it particurly strange.

  Her homend had once been struck by a demonic catastrophe, a Hanhai Tidal Mist True Chi* suddenly departed from the region, and the myriad demonic fiends and monstrous creatures it had lo in check broke loose—scattering in panic, rampaging around Hanhai, and leaving tless casualties in their wake.

  She was born amid that chaos. She had to sge and fight with her parents, snatg sustenance away from other humans, from savage beasts, from demonic beasts.

  She never learo pull her punches. Any fight meant drawing blood. If she did not, she would be the oo die.

  Bai Qinghan’s parents had since perished. She herself had been the oo “sell” herself, as nobody wao adopt a wild girl from the desert. People feared her ferocity, worried she might rip out their throats if they got too close.

  “In parison to the Great Desert reat , this demonic sect merely eats people—and in a trolled manner. Look, after half a year, they haveen all of us.”

  “They’re simply full.”

  That was Bai Qinghan’s viewpoint. She possessed a pair of eyes that could see through humas—her innate gift—and she had long noticed An Jing’s cautiousoward the instructors aurers, reizing the demonic sect’s true nature.

  “No.” An Jiated before replying quietly, “They’re not full. They’re waiting.”

  “Cutting the seedlings early yields no rice. Killing the cub means no grow. The demonic sect is always hungry, always dev. They’re just biding their time, waiting for a sumptuous feast.”

  “…I see.”

  Bai Qinghan gave a slight nod, l her gaze to her toes. Softly, she said, “At least for now, they wo all of us.”

  An Jing did not respond, recalling those medial vats.

  After a moment, when he recovered enough to ask her not to go blurting out such truths, Bai Qinghan gave him a rather odd look.

  “Senior Brother, I may not have learo read,” she said, “but I’m not stupid.”

  (End of Chapter)

  * “螭” is an archaic term referring to a type on—often uood as a hornless or unadorned dragon.