Reach Heaven Via Feng Shui Engineering, Drug Trade And Tax Evasion

The central square of Glass Ridge was an open and bustling place, one of commerce and gourmet dining, of deals struck and romances broken. On good mornings, before the center of the square got too hot, peddlers of goods and trinkets would set their stalls around the central column, their cries mixing with the clink of gold and glasses of wine, and on occasion, when a festival descended on the town, even music and dancing. There was plenty of space for everything in this hundred meter-wide circle of sand.

Most days, that is. Today, no peddler dared set their stall in the square, chased off by the rumors of a duel between two cultivators. Today, crowds gathered around the square, standing on rooftops and balconies, in restaurants and filling the streets. Ordinary people mixed together with cultivators, all having come to watch the duel of Jian Shizhe and this secretive woman who had appeared out of nowhere.

Today, the square was filled with chaos. The dry, hissing roar of a glass shambler bounced off the buildings, silencing the shocked murmurs of the crowds, but not the enraged screams of Jian Shizhe, trying to bring his beast to heel. Stomps of spear-sharp legs shook the ground, and the acrid stink of ichor wafted through the air.

Qian Shanyi dived under a swipe of the glass shamber’s claw, her fingernails digging into the rough sand below. She slammed herself to a stop just short of one leg that came down from the sky, and then rolled to the side to dodge another. It crashed into the ground, stabbing blindly, again and again, and she leapt up onto her feet, eyes darting around for other danger.

The damnable glare all around the creature made it seem as if all the suns joined forces and came down from the Heavens to hunt her down. The beast was trying to trample her, mad with the pain. But it could not look down, and was simply stabbing blind. It should have been child’s play to dance around its strikes.

Should have.

Six enormous legs, two claws - all thrashing with little plan or direction, each as large as a tree tossed away by a hurricane. She could not let her attention slip - even a single mistake in the dance would mean her death.

She needed two seconds. Two seconds of focus, to aim and guide the sword in, to kill this beast for good.

She couldn’t get two seconds.

Both claws came after Qian Shanyi - one from the front, one from the back, sweeping low to the ground. She cursed, tossing out one of her ropes, and hooked it on a piece of glass high up on the shambler’s leg.

She swung up over one claw and immediately dived below the other, kissing the ground just inches away from the pool of ichor dripping down from up high. The claw passed close enough to ruffle her hair. The other groped around where her rope touched - the creature could feel its own spikes, it seemed.

The brain was small, and this fucking glare made it hard to see the jaws. She already missed once, and she only had the one shot left.

She really needed those two damn seconds.

She spun around, leaping up on her feet again, spitting the sand out. It was time to change her approach, before Jian Shizhe got back his control of the beast. She could faintly hear him still cursing above her, though she had no mind to focus on what he said.

Plan B then.

She sprinted away to one of the legs, and slapped it with her sword to attract the creature’s attention. It came for her, claw open wide, and she sprinted away, eyeing it as it closed in.

At the last moment she leaped, turning around in mid air, pushing away from the pincer with one foot and her sword pressed against the glass. The speed of it tossed her away as if by the hand of a giant, and she flew across the square, just where she aimed.

In the air, she spun her flying sword technique around her sword, and sent it down into the ground, her rope trailing behind it. It lodged into the earth like an anchor, and she swung around, bringing her behind the column of the world’s edge at the center of the square.

She had gotten there just in time. The glass shambler reared up, and spit a hundred glass shards towards her, each as long and as sharp as a spear. Some shattered against the impenetrable edge of the world, while others embedded themselves in the ground, like stalks of bamboo.

One caught her in the back just as she vanished behind the column, her spiritual shield almost shattering from the impact. If she was still out in the open, she would have been skewered for sure.

She called her sword back to her hand, and tied the rope back around her waist, leaning against the edge of the world to draw a steadying breath. Hiding beneath the creature was meant to keep her safe from the glass spears, but she almost got trampled for her trouble. Talk about being stuck between two tribulations.

She heard the beast lumber after her, screeching in rage, and started to jog in the opposite direction, keeping one shoulder against the world edge. As she ran, she put her hand on the pommel of her second sword - the one with the crystal bomb - and started to channel spiritual energy into it, weaving the flying sword technique anew. She’d need it to kill this thing.

Perhaps on open ground it would have been a challenge to run away - but they were not on open ground. The column was ten meters wide, roughly circular, and the glass shambler was too large to hug its surface. It had to walk a much longer path than her, and it was easy to keep out of its sight, all the way on the opposite side of the column.

Her second sword flew up and ahead of her, circling behind the shambler. With any luck, neither it nor Jian Shizhe could see it.

“You coward!” Jian Shizhe screeched from out of view. “Come out and fight like a true cultivator!”

Ah, did he regain control?

“A coward is one who brings a demon beast to a sword fight!” she called back. She raised her hand, using her first sword as a mirror, to look behind her and around the surface of the column. She caught a glance of Jian Shizhe, his face bright red, teeth bared. Like a beautiful white cloud against a sunset.

Perhaps he thought it was rude of her to interrupt his little speech? Well, everyone made mistakes. She could always let him finish. She needed him livid, so that rage would cloud all his thinking, make him stupid and predictable, but you couldn’t rush bringing someone over the edge of all rationality. This was a slow and careful process, like steaming a very fatty dumpling.

“What was it you were saying before, little Shizhe?” she drawled, projecting her voice to carry all across the square. “My trash technique couldn’t hope to pierce through those scales?”

Disappointingly, Jian Shizhe did not scream. He did send the glass shambler into a run, and she had to scramble to keep ahead of it. The glass shambler was still bleeding, though slower - all she had to do was wait for it to lose enough ichor that it would stop moving, and then she could easily finish it off.

Or for Jian Shizhe to lose control. Ironically enough, the safest thing might have been if the beast went after the audience. They were a good fifty meters away, and even at a gallop, it’d take it at least four seconds to reach them. Without having to worry about being skewered, aiming calmly, she could easily kill it in two.

They circled the column once, twice, her swift feet easily keeping ahead of the glass shambler, kicking errant glass shards away from the column. She kept her second sword flying behind it, waiting for an opening.

“Perhaps I will feed you to my shambler when I catch you,” Jian Shizhe called after her, “then your cowardly bones will at least serve a purpose -”

The glass shambler stumbled, then stopped, screaming again. Its body shook from side to side, like a dog that came out of the water, as it tried to shake its rider off.

“Move, you stupid beast!” Jian Shizhe shouted again. He was trying to do something - pulling on chains, perhaps using talismans, though she could not see clearly - and then she saw glass shambler’s claws rise.

Did it break free, decide to kill Jian Shizhe? Or did he plan this?

Trap or opening?

Only a moment to decide.

Little Shizhe, trap? He could not set one up even if I wrote him a manual on how to do it.

She stopped, turned back, stepping closer to the glass shambler. All her attention narrowed down to a point, to the mirror of the sword in her hand. Maneuvering the other sword by its reflection was difficult - but she had trained for this exact contingency with Wang Yonghao.

Her sword flew swift as an eagle and quiet as an owl. The first time, she only had a brief moment to aim. If Jian Shizhe made the glass shambler spit those glass spikes while she was still out in the open, she would have died on the spot - but he predictably wanted to bluster instead. This time, she could take her time.

This time, she didn’t miss.

The second explosion was so strong that for a moment, she felt that the world froze, before it clicked back into action. The shambler’s scream abruptly ceased, as its entire “face” vanished in a cloud of ichor and glass, the sharp crack of air dampened by her strengthened spiritual shield before it reached her ears. The sheer pressure still whipped her hair behind her.

Jian Shizhe was kicked up, high into the air, only secured down by a chain, and for the first time since she knew him, she saw raw panic on his face.

All strength vanished from the glass shambler’s legs, and it collapsed, yanking Jian Shizhe after it by his own restraints. It slammed against the ground like a third crystal bomb, sending clouds of sand and dust up into the air, shaking the ground. She stumbled, but kept her footing.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the glass shambler’s jaws skip off the sand and lodge themselves into the wall of a restaurant, just above the door, before the sand reached her, and then she only saw three feet ahead.

Jian Shizhe’s fate was obscured from her vision entirely.

Her ears were not so fortunate. A scream of incoherent rage rebounded across the square, silencing the sudden cheers of their audience.

Qian Shanyi barely held herself from laughing. She saw how proud he was of that glass shambler. He must have come here expecting an easy fight, just to show off in front of the ordinary people. No such luck - and now she literally slammed his face into the ground.

He did manage to give the people a good show, so there was that. But she wanted to make it a great one. She was going to take him apart, piece by little piece.

Qian Shanyi bravely strolled straight through the billowing clouds of dust and sand, Hui Yin’s technique keeping sand out of her eyes. It was a shame nobody else could see her. “You’ve brought a pile of meat to a duel with an immortal chef?” she taunted. This steamed dumpling was just about ready, but he needed that final push. “Can’t say I see the strategy!”

“YOU DARE?!” Jian Shizhe roared back at her. Delicious. “Death! Death upon you! Death upon your parents and grandparents, your children and grandchildren, death upon your siblings and cousins, your aunts and uncles, and ESPECIALLY DEATH UPON THAT WORM WANG YONGHAO!!!”

Qian Shanyi felt Jian Shizhe’s spiritual energy far before she saw him, and slowed down, coming close to the glass shambler’s massive flank. They both stopped just on the edge of each other’s vision in the cloud of sand, circling around, studying each other, Qian Shanyi with a playful smirk and Jian Shizhe with the fury of a beaten, cornered animal that just last night thought itself a king of its little forest. Resentment dripped out of his eyes like bloody tears.

Could she manage to give him a qi deviation in a single duel? Hm.

He looked as if he was passed through a grinder - cuts all across his arms and face from when he fell down onto his own shambler, blood staining the front of his robes. Seems his spiritual shield was not quite strong enough to withstand a sudden fall from ten meters up onto razor-sharp glass. The sand grains sparkled around him, pushed away by the spiritual energy as he reconstituted it.

His steps were jerky, uneven. A sprained ankle, on top of his prosthetic, or did he simply spend no time adjusting to it, busy with his shambler? The cuts were healing - but slowly. A weak pill, whatever he had brought along with him.

But it was his face that was the most telling. From up close, she could see the signs, the little twitches, the glint in the eyes, thick bags under them. Familiar, from when she almost did this to herself, preparing for her tribulation. A stimulant overdose - though even she never went this far. He must have not slept at all since she challenged him.

No surprise there, if he wanted to train this shambler in time - but all the better for her. Ivory of the Rampaging Divine Ape got less and less effective the longer it was taken, needing a detoxification period to return back to full effectiveness - which she had done, and he had clearly not. For all that both of them have taken some, he’d be slower.

“Any more tricks,” Jian Shizhe spat, first to break the silence. That scream of his was like the flow of beef stew out of a pot that had simmered for hours, finally boiling over, leaving behind the most delicious demiglace of fury, thick and viscous. “Crystal bombs, hidden weapons? Go on then, you dishonorable wretch, bring them out!”

“Of course I have more,” Qian Shanyi said, giving him a confident glance, but deliberately stiffening her expression, eyes darting around. Like she was a terrible liar. Easy bait, when Jian Shizhe had not known how good her lies were, not yet. “You best surrender before I blow your head up!”

She gestured with her sword, pushing on the edge of her sleeve with her spiritual energy to obscure the handle. As if she was very badly hiding yet another crystal bomb.

Jian Shizhe stared at her for three long seconds, before he started to laugh. “No,” he said, confidence slowly returning to his voice. “You have nothing. This is all you had!”

He stepped closer to her, unsheathing his enormous sword from his back, and she raised her own to match.

“I’m warning you for the final time, Jian Shizhe,” she said with a serious tone, “you best surrender while your pride is still mostly intact!”

His laughter bubbled over into hysteria. Fully cooked. “Surrender and die quietly, like the dog you are!” he roared, and sprung at her.

She kept her distance, deflecting his strikes, and led him deeper into the clouds of dust. Even with both his feet in bad shape, he was easily keeping up.

She kept her expression tense, as if her ruse had been broken - but in her heart of hearts, she cheered.

Come on, you little dumpling. Leap right into the jaws of doom.

How do you win against an opponent that outclasses you? One you cannot kill, lest their sect take revenge, but that can easily kill you?

You build your victory like a tower, block by block, within their own mind. You paint a false reality, a bridge of smoke and shadow. One that only looks like a bridge - but can bear no weight.

And then you invite them to walk across.

Because in a fight between cultivators, even a single wrong move spells defeat.

Steel clashed against steel, sand swirling, spiritual energy roiling. Death and slaughter filled the air as two cultivators fought for their life.

For all that Jian Shizhe was injured, exhausted, and squinting against the sand in his eyes - he was still a master with his sword. Qian Shanyi could barely even get close.

He swung his sword wide, blade sending out glass shards where it crashed into the tall spikes of glass spat out by the glass shambler, and she stepped back, shielding her face with her sleeve. Her sword touched the tip of his, pushing it past her, before she closed in, stepping left.

His prosthetic foot was still stiff, leaving a big opening she had trained for. Her sword met his flank for the briefest moment, and his spiritual energy shield flared, blocking the strike perfectly, with barely even a whiff of energy wasted.

And then his sword was there again, and she had to scramble back before he took her head off.

Like fighting a tree in a furious storm. Even if you could get past the whirling branches, a score on the bark meant little. Glancing strikes, never enough space to go for a kill.

Left, left, lunge, right, left, left, strike, left, right…

Jian Shizhe’s face grew stern as he fought, fury seeping away to reveal a mask of focus, but she could still feel it bubbling underneath. It must have stung, to know that his fighting style was now marred, imperfect, because of a foot he lost saving her. With any hope, it’d teach him a bit of humility.

No real chance of that, but one could still hope.

“Stop dodging!” Jian Shizhe snarled as she stepped left once again.

“Stop missing,” she replied coldly.

He snarled, going for a vertical strike, and when she stepped to the left, he pivoted on his foot, the other coming for her face. She stumbled back from the spin-kick, her spiritual shield flickering slightly. The slimy fucker was quick to adapt, if nothing else.

Instead of following up on his strike, Jian Shizhe lept back, and raised his sword above his head, beginning to spin it in a figure-eight pattern, faster and faster.

Qian Shanyi circled around him. Very, very dangerous. She wasn’t sure if she could withstand even a single strike from that, and if she got close, it would be far from a single strike. He’d take her head off for sure - but that sort of technique was tiring. He’d have to attack or stop soon.

“What, scared?” Jian Shizhe grinned maliciously. The sand had mostly settled down around them, even if dust had not. She could see some of the audience now, far away, on roofs and balconies. “Your death is certain. I will avenge my honor.”

“You dishonored yourself,” she scoffed. “If you want vengeance, seek it in a mirror.”

“I am Jian Shizhe, son of Jian Zhexuan, young master of the Northern Scarlet Stream sect!” Jian Shizhe spoke, projecting his voice over the square. No longer addressing her. “Your pathetic tricks will be no match for our Dancing Sunlight sword art! Even crossing swords with me is a privilege you frankly do not deserve.”

He was playing to the crowd. Was this duel about something more for him, just as it was for her? What was his goal? To stake a claim for being the true heir to his sect, gather allies, disciples, or to make her out to be an enemy of all his people?

Too many possibilities, and no time to think through them. If he wanted to cross swords of rhetoric as well as steel, she would just have to destroy him twice over.

“Behold,” Jian Shizhe said, his sword melting into a blur, air screaming as it struggled to get out of the way. “This is the essence of all sword styles, of all cultivation!”

He sprung at her, his sword still spinning, too fast to dodge. She Cursed, and he angled a pass of his sword to slice the technique in half - but she wasn’t aiming at him. Her technique hit the sand beneath his feet, and the explosion of sand into his eyes made him flinch.

Even blind, he still struck at her neck, following her spiritual energy - but she already had her sword up. Steel pushed against steel, and she used his own momentum to close into his range and kick him in the balls.

He could sense her spiritual energy, but he couldn’t sense a blade of metal that held none.

“How arrogant of you, to think you can speak for all cultivators,” she sneered, stabbing him in the stomach while he blinked sand out of his eyes. His spiritual shield held, and she had to dance back before he could retaliate. “To cultivate is to rebel against the Heavens, and what rebellion do you offer? To be tied to your belt, following your every beck and call like a pathetic dog? Your cultivation is weak, and your mind is even weaker.”

“Arrogance is the right of a cultivator,” he snarled, spinning his sword up again, “Not of a dog like you, biting at the heels of humans.”

He sprung at her again, and she Cursed at his feet, but this time, he angled his sword to parry the sand itself, a burst of spiritual energy from his forehead scattering the rest. A trick could only fully work once.

She tried to block, but his strike tore her sword out of her grip, and then the second swing slammed into her side, sending her flying away. Her spiritual shield shattered entirely when she hit the ground, rolling away. She wheezed, coughing up blood on the sand, her left hand coming up to cradle her ribs. She crawled away, eyes darting around for her sword.

She glanced behind herself. She was just about halfway between the column at the center of the square and where Wang Yonghao and Rui Bao stood, following after the duel, but not interfering. Wang Yonghao gave her a pitying look, and she gave him a slight grin, before turning back towards her opponent. Jian Shizhe couldn’t have seen her expression.

“Beg for your death, dog,” Jian Shizhe sneered, strolling towards her unhurriedly. ”And I will make it quick. Or forswear your honor and surrender, like the coward that you are.”

“You were right,” she said, ignoring his posturing. She chuckled grimly, supporting herself with one shaky hand. “Arrogance is the right of every cultivator, or how could we rebel against the Heavens? But that arrogance has only one response!”

Jian Shizhe saw her other hand reach behind her back, but did not stop. He already knew what was there: a knife, a feeble, last attempt at resistance. He saw her use them in the tribulation, how she carried them on her back, in that exact spot. He knew she was an immortal chef, and she brought it up, again and again, keeping it in his thoughts. He knew she had no more tricks left, that this was it, her sword too far away, defenseless, injured, spiritual shield weakened, and now, finally, Qian Shanyi’s head will roll and he will be rid of this pest upon his life because she will DIE -

She did not draw a knife. She drew a chakram.

“So behold,” she hissed as it flared in a flash of electric sparks, instantly drawing an entire liter of blood straight out of her body to power itself. “Tribulation!”

The panic in Jian Shizhe’s eyes glowed far brighter than the reflected flash of light. He tried to defend, to block, abort his swing, but his sword was too far off the line, swung overhead with all his might. For all his skill, even he could not move faster than lightning.

The bolt of current slammed into his chest, and he was sent flying, crashing into the pillar of the edge of the world with his back. He slid down to the ground, his spiritual shield shattered entirely, too dazed to move. Somehow, he still kept a hand on his sword.

Qian Shanyi got up on her feet, her weakness mostly feigned. A trick could only properly work once - it was his mistake to use the same technique twice in a row. She judged the strength of his strike the first time, and took the hit willingly, knowing where she would fall. In his rage, he didn’t even notice her leading him to this exact spot - let alone how strange her decisions have been.

The sudden blood loss from the chakram made her dizzy, and she forced the blood vessels in her arms and legs to squeeze tighter, pushing more blood into her head. She had tried using the chakram several times during her training, to learn how to aim the lightning, but this was the most blood she had ever given it by far. Hitting the right balance between power and not passing out was tricky. Without Wang Yonghao’s help… she didn’t think she could have managed it.

She stumbled over to a patch of the ground, and pushed her hand through the sand, grabbing the rope she left there a night ago, pushing her spiritual energy into it, weaving her rope control technique, linking it to her gloves.

Twin lassos of rope forced themselves out of the sand exactly where Jian Shizhe fell, tightening around his feet and pulling them apart. He scrambled, raising his sword to cut the ropes, still dazed and clumsy. His spiritual shield flickered, just barely reconstituted before the ropes closed in around his skin.

“Stop,” she spoke, and he did, for a brief moment. She unbound her lasso from her waist, swishing it in the air and sending it flying while she slowly walked closer. “Drop your sword.”

If he was not dazed, if he was in full health, if he was standing instead of half-lying on the ground, feet pulled apart into a full split, he could have dodged, or cut her curse technique out of the air. It was easy to sense, and for someone of his skill, barely a threat. There was a reason she did not even try aiming it at him while they fought.

If, if, if… If only. He wasn’t. It hit him in the face.

He still resisted it, not dropping the sword, but his grip slackened. Her lasso caught his sword, and with a twist of her feet and a pull of her shoulders she yanked it away. It sailed through the air and she caught it with one hand, freeing her lasso, her lips split in triumph.

“Thank you for this gift, Jian Shizhe,” she said, grinning wider still as she examined his sword. “An excellent make, though a bit too long for my style.”

Jian Shizhe’s eyes were glued to his sword, teeth clenched. She expected him to say something inane about returning it, but perhaps he was too proud to admit he even truly lost it. Instead, he tried to stretch over to his foot, pulling at the rope - but without anything to cut with, even his own nails flat and trimmed, it was fruitless. She kicked any errant glass shards away from that spot while they were running around the column.

Her plan worked, and it felt wonderful. She couldn’t resist, doing a little spin where she stood. This duel was over, even if he didn’t realize it yet.

If she wanted to kill him now, it would have been child’s play. But she couldn’t kill him, or Jian Wei would bury her alive. And he would never surrender. So she had to create a third option.

“Come now, this is no time to get distracted,” she chided him, hefting his sword on her shoulder and swirling her lasso in the air with her other hand. “we are in a duel! Raise your hands.”

The Curse sped off towards him, a barest blur in the air. Just before it reached him, Jian Shizhe reared back and punched it, smashing the technique into bits, his fist glowing with spiritual energy. His lips were split in a snarl, staring her down.

Qian Shanyi raised an eyebrow at him. She knew for a fact that he was not a body fundamentalist - for him, a punch like that must have been a huge waste of his reserves. All the better for her.

Best to be careful. Tied down or not, it would be foolish to discount Jian Shizhe. He would never surrender, never concede defeat, not while he was still so full of rage and hatred that he seemed to have lost any ability to speak. But she could afford to be methodical now. Pick a safe approach.

She quickly picked up her own sword off the ground, sliding it back into its scabbard, before approaching Jian Shizhe, hefting his own massive sword in her hands. She swung it overhead, not putting any spiritual energy into strengthening her swing. The blade struck Jian Shizhe on the shoulder, but bounced off his spiritual energy shield.

He snarled at her triumphantly, still trying to pull at the rope around his foot. He had nothing to fear from a weak strike like that.

So she struck him again.

And again.

And again.

The spiritual shield was a tricky technique. On the one hand, it granted cultivators an almost perfect level of protection. But on the other - blocking each strike still used up your spiritual energy reserves. With skill, this was only a relatively small amount, only strengthening the part of the shield that was struck… but she was not wasting any energy on striking him.

Chip by little chip, like carving away at a mountain.

His blustering glare turned to confusion, then to worry, then to apprehension. He pulled harder on his ropes, but they were solid. She tested them with Linghui Mei - even after an entire hour, the kitsune couldn’t pull those knots apart without her claws.

She heard the crowds murmur behind her, some in confusion, others in shock. Jian Shizhe, down on the ground, being beaten with a stick like a petulant disciple. With his own sword. But if he thought this was the lowest he’d fall today…

“You still don’t seem to understand, little Shizhe,” she said coldly. “There is only one way this ends. Surrender.”

“Shut your mouth, you honorless whore,” he snarled, panic once again rising up in his eyes.

“Shizhe,” Rui Bao called out from somewhere behind her, “she is right. You’ve lost.”

Jian Shizhe did not respond. She sighed, simply continuing her monotonous work.

To slaughter or surrender they swore, but she could neither kill him nor force him to surrender. So she had to go with a third option. To destroy him so thoroughly it would leave no doubt in anyone’s mind she could have slaughtered him like a pig, and chose not to. An even graver insult to his honor, a dire humiliation, to not even bother killing him - one that could mean a second, fully justified duel - but she had a different solution in mind for that.

It took four minutes of her hammering at his spiritual shield for his reserves to run out. His spiritual energy shield buckled on one side, bent, and finally broke, dissolving into nothing. Jian Shizhe looked exhausted, his muscles sagging, no longer having any spiritual energy to support them. Even the flow of spiritual energy through his pores and around his body shuddered, slowing down to a crawl.

Qian Shanyi stepped back and stuck his sword in the ground. Time for the final step.

“I told you that you should have fallen down on your knees and apologized, did I not?” She asked coldly, pulling out a long spool of thread out of her pocket, and a crude cloth puppet, with a much shorter thread wrapped around it. “You should have listened.”

She let the thread unfold, pouring spiritual energy into it, linking it to the thread around the puppet. She made the long thread crawl along the ground, hook around Jian Shizhe’s foot, and then begin to spiral around his leg, slowly crawling upwards along his body beneath his robes.

He tried to fight it, to rip it away from his skin - but by now, he was too tired to manage even that. It only slowed her down a fraction.

The thread encircled his waist, his chest, and passed onto his arms, locking them in place through the force of her spiritual energy, parts of the thread linked to the puppet, parts to her gloves. Soon, it wound all around his body, from his feet up to his fingers and his neck. The only things Jian Shizhe could still freely move were his eyes and tongue.

Controlling him like this was a chore, but she had some practice - once again with Linghui Mei - and with Jian Shizhe, she didn’t feel like being careful. If he hurt, he hurt. She released the ropes holding his feet - no need for them anymore - and twisted the cloth puppet’s legs, forcing him to sit down, kneel, back bowed low to the ground, arms stretched forwards.

A humble petitioner before an empress. He snarled at her, spitting and sputtering. Completely helpless.

When she explained what she was going to do to Wang Yonghao, he said it was too much. She told him to swallow it. Slugs like Jian Shizhe did not learn at all until they had no pride left to cling to.

Moving his body was easy enough with only her hands, but that was not enough for the next part. She took out a third piece of thread, and put it into her mouth, making it curl all the way around her tongue, lips and teeth. Long thread on Jian Shizhe’s body did much the same.

“Look at me, Jian Shizhe,” she said coldly, forcing his neck to bend back so that he would do as instructed with a flick of her fingers. His muscles strained against the thread, but it was useless. “An apology is in order.”

She linked the thread in her mouth to the one in his, and twisted all fingers in his hands beyond their limits. Not to break, but to hurt.

“Aa-I-apohl-oghizze!” she spoke with his mouth, his pained groan giving voice to her own words, letting them carry all across the square. The despairing fury in his eyes was grimly satisfying, a strange contrast to her earlier jubilation at her plan working.

“Apology accepted,” she pronounced with a smile, switching the linked thread in his mouth to her gloves. No reason to let him speak more. With a twist of her fingers, she made the thread around his throat tighten, cutting off his circulation, until he fell unconscious. Bending down, she pulled out her sword, and carefully cut a line around his throat: superficial, barely a papercut across the skin. The point was in the message.

I could have slaughtered you, and chose not to.

She turned around, picked up his sword and hefted it onto her shoulder. Her trophy, now. She’d need it. She breathed out, her mind already clearing up. This duel was done.

“Did you… have to be this vicious?” Rui Bao said, coming over. He whistled slightly. The crowds behind him were growing raucous, shocked whispers spreading of what they all saw.

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Falling off his own glass shambler wounded him far more than anything I did,” she said dismissively, “He’d recover in a day.”

“I wasn’t talking about the wounds,” he whispered.

“The man wished death upon my family,” she threw back, strolling past him. “I am already treating him with the softest gloves I have, and only out of my respect for his sect.”

Winning the duel was the easy part. Now it was time for the hard part: the consequences. Making sure that winning it would still let her see tomorrow.

It was time to talk to Jian Wei.