Chapter Three: On Curse Marks and Splintered Promises
*scroll down to the footnotes before reading!
The way blood cakes a throat isn’t...quite dissimilar to the feeling of being choked.
Xiu Lihua would know this, because she’s been choked before, and now there’s blood lining the inside of her throat. The liquid seeps, thick and warm, through the tight press of her lips, and dribbles down the side of her chin.
Vaguely, she registers the wind whipping the loose strands of her hair into her face. And she realizes that she’s in the air--which, no, that couldn’t be right, because the last thing she remembered was the resentful spirit, the sword cutting across her torso, calling out for--
Xiu Lihua winces as she feels a firm arm around her waist tighten. Who would be--why would someone else be--
Right. She remembers. Ren Ju’s arm. No, Ren Liufang’s, she corrects, dazed.
Xiu Lihua forces her eyes to unscrew themselves, lashes fluttering as she strains to make out Ren Liufang’s form through half-lidded eyes.
The woman has her brows furrowed together, and Xiu Lihua fights back the urge to reach out and smooth out the space between them. Ren Ju shouldn’t look as stormy as she does--a distraught glint in the light of her eyes, her grip tightening around Xiu Lihua’s body, as if she fears Xiu Lihua will disappear if she lets go.
I’m sorry, Xiu Lihua wants to say, but the words die in her throat when the sharp pain of the sword’s gash across her abdomen protests. A wheeze escapes her lips instead. Ren Liufang’s expression grows minisculely darker at this.
I hate this, Xiu Lihua thinks instead, startled by the harshness of her own thoughts. By the voices that bubble to the surface after seven years of solitude. No, I--I missed you. I’m sorry that I missed you. Why did you do this? Why did I do this? And how do you see me now, Ren Ju?
Dark spots tear at the edges of her vision again. Xiu Lihua feels her head loll backwards, further into the crook of Ren Liufang’s arm. It feels like a sign.
And when the darkness takes her back again, Xiu Lihua thinks:
What could I have done differently so you would have asked me to stay?
❀ ❀ ❀
13 years ago, in the past
Xiu Lihua: 10 years of age
Xiu Lihua’s fist connects with the older girl’s nose.
Alright, to be fair, Xiu Lihua thinks, she’d practically caught the girl by surprise. Still. Doesn’t make it any less satisfying.
The older girl screams, thrashing from underneath Xiu Lihua. Her limbs whip around so wildly that Xiu Lihua can hardly see her with the way her red robes whip through the air.
Xiu Lihua’s closest friend, Ren Liufang, stands frozen a few feet away from the scuffle.
Her eyes are wide, her hands raised to her lips. If Xiu Lihua weren’t in the process of exchanging hits with the girl beneath her, she’d toss a cheerful wave to Ren Liufang.
And then she feels herself being lifted off the older girl.
Rough hands grip her by her shoulders, tugging her up and backwards as she screams, fists still flailing in a vain attempt to land another hit. The older girl on the ground sits up, looking equally furious. She sends a scathing glare Xiu Lihua’s way.
Xiu Lihua almost lunges forward to punch that look off her face, but the tight hold around her wrist pulls her backwards. She yells in frustration, whipping around to look up at the person holding her.
The man gripping her wrist looks down at her, face twisted into a scowl. His forehead is creased roughly. Xiu Lihua huffs. She always thinks he looks way older when he’s angry. Cranky geezer.
“Xiu Lihua,” Ren Mingshou grits out slowly. His hand circled around her wrist tightens. Ren Mingshou is not a hulking figure by any means: the man is lanky, all knobby wrists, narrow shoulders, a long neck that looked like a turtle, and a rather unflattering goatee, if you ask Xiu Lihua.
But the way he carries himself--it intimidates the other disciples, how calculative, how unerringly orderly he was. Even the scars that marred his jaw seem to line themselves perfectly along his skin. Xiu Lihua snorts to herself when Ren Mingshou bites out, “What is the meaning of this?”
“She’s a coward!” Xiu Linua spits back immediately, at the same time the older girl stammers out, “She attacked me!”
“I attacked you?” Xiu Lihua retorts, pointing an accusatory finger towards the girl. “You’re a liar, and a bully, and a—”
“—she’s a dirty fighter! She doesn’t even use a sword, she just—”
“—a coward! You’re a coward if you take advantage of people weaker than you! And you don’t even bathe, you’re gross and stin—”
“Enough!” Ren Mingshou interrupts with a rough tug to Xiu Lihua’s wrist. Both girls immediately go silent. He turns to look down at Xiu Lihua again, fixing her with a strong gaze. “Xiu Lihua. Explain to me quickly why you were attacking a fellow Ren disciple.”
“She was picking on—on him!” Xiu Lihua responds quickly, pointing towards a smaller disciple. The young boy’s eyes widen at being addressed, and he scurries to hide behind Ren Liufang. Xiu Lihua looks back at Ren Mingshou defiantly, eyes wide. “Even though she knows he’s not strong enough to—she was taunting him!”
Ren Mingshou lets out a pained sigh at this. He screws his eyes shut, tilting his head back as if he were asking the sky for patience. Xiu Lihua scowls. Long turtle neck.
“Everyone, leave the training grounds,” Ren Mingshou says finally, once he’s opened his eyes and regained his composure. “Clean up and return to your quarters.”
All the Ren Sect disciples in the area—Ren Liufang, the older girl she’d fought with, the younger boy, and the ones that had stopped to watch the spectacle—respond with a uniform “yes!” and a quick bow of their bodies. In a flurry of red, they trudge out of the open training area.
Once they’re gone, Ren Mingshou begins, voice low, as if barely restrained, “Xiu Lihua. Don’t you have any shame?”
Xiu Lihua stutters over her words, annoyance bubbling in her chest. Shame? “I didn’t even do an—”
“Always causing trouble!” He barks out, and she flinches backwards. She can feel how his grip is leaving red imprints on her wrist. “You’re not even allowed to be on the training grounds, much less starting fights on them. This child…”
Xiu Lihua balls her fists. She glares up at the older man. “But why? Everyone else my age in the sect has already begun training! Aren’t I supposed to be a cultivator too—”
“You’re ungrateful,” Ren Mingshou spits back, as if he hadn’t even heard her. “The Ren Sect took you in as an infant when you were left on our grounds. We raised you, we have these simple rules for you. You study, you practice your calligraphy. Is this not enough? Should we have left you to the street dogs, Xiu Lihua? Or would you be too greedy for them, too?”
“The other disciples are doing real things!” Xiu Lihua protests, ignoring the way his words cut at her. A street dog. Greedy. Is this not enough? “Why am I the only one in the entire sect not allowed to train seriously?”
“I’ve heard about enough from you this evening,” Ren Mingshou retorts, hissing through his teeth. He releases her wrist, and she rubs at it immediately, cradling it with her arm. “Return to the library, Xiu Lihua. You’ll learn discipline as a proper Ren Sect disciple if it takes you your entire life.”
❀ ❀ ❀
The library, unsurprisingly, is as boring as ever. Xiu Lihua huffs, blowing a loose, inky black strand of hair away from her face. Books were books. They weren’t nearly as cool as grasshoppers, which actually moved. What did a book do? Sit on a shelf. That’s what a book did.
Well. It could certainly be worse.
“Ren Ju!” Xiu Lihua exclaims, once she sees her friend enter the library in timid steps, head ducked low. “You followed me! Agh, that geezer, I swear, the entire time, I was only thinking of ways to tell him that his facial hair makes him look like those mountain goats—like the mountain goats we saw last week, right, Ren Ju?”
Ren Liufang crouches to a kneel at the circular table Xiu Lihua has seated herself at. She nods slightly, a delicate smile curving at the corner of her lips at Xiu Lihua’s expense.
“Stupid goat man,” Xiu Lihua grumbles, validated by her friend’s agreement. “Not stupid goats. I love goats. Goats are cute! But that man, really, he’s…well. Whatever. I have you to play with now!”
Ren Liufang nods again. She responds in an airy voice, “I’ll play with Xiu Ying.”
“Yes! We’ll—wait, for real?” Xiu Lihua stops herself. She suddenly looks around at their surroundings, then fixes Ren Liufang with a reluctant look. “Ren Ju, are you sure? It’s so...boring...here. Do you have more important things to do?”
Ren Liufang shakes her head at this. “I will stay.”
“Promise?”
“I, Ren Liufang,” Ren Liufang continues, solemnly holding up a snow-white palm, “promise that Ren Ju will always stay by Xiu Ying’s side.”
“Oh.” Xiu Lihua feels a grin split the lower half of her face. She feels...warm in the chest. Pleased. Enthusiastically, she raises her palm to mirror Ren Liufang’s. Xiu Lihua answers, “well then I, Xiu Lihua, promise that Xiu Ying will always watch Ren Ju’s back!”
Ren Liufang lets out a quiet giggle at that, turning her hand to cover her mouth. She reaches her palm forward to link her pinkie finger with Xiu Lihua’s. Xiu Lihua shakes their joined hands triumphantly.
“Wait a second. How would that work?” Xiu Lihua ponders, retracting her hand to put her chin into her fingers, trying to look thoughtful. “If you’re right next to me, how am I supposed to look at your back? One of us is going to have to compromise.”
And Ren Liufang laughs at that, bright and happy. So Xiu Lihua laughs too. And suddenly, the library doesn’t feel too dreary anymore.
It feels alright, Xiu Lihua guesses.
So long as Ren Ju is there by her side.
❀ ❀ ❀
Present day
Xiu Lihua: 23 years of age
Xiu Lihua wonders if the owner of every shady tavern that houses alcoholic thugs met up with each other to discuss building schematics.
Because the tavern in Zhoucheng looks exactly the same as the one in the past village. Same betting tables, same far, shadowy corners, same rickety barstools. The only difference is that the lanterns in this tavern are shoved unceremoniously under the tables, since there’s no use for them in the daytime.
Well, she thinks, wrinkling her nose. The musty stench of cheap alcohol and sweat fills her lungs. They sure smell the same.
Xiu Lihua takes a seat at an empty table. Another figure takes the seat beside her. She turns to greet them, before she remembers who it is.
Ren Liufang smooths out her billowy white robes from underneath her as she sits, neatly folding her hands in her lap.
Neat, Xiu Lihua thinks, frowning. She remembers those same hands--in vague flashes--unravelling and stretching the rolls of white bandages over her skin. Remembers how when she woke up, Ren Liufang was the first face she’d seen.
Unthinkingly, Xiu Lihua’s hand drifts to her midriff, where bandages stretch over the expanse of her skin. She wonders how much Ren Liufang saw.
Xiu Lihua shakes her head, smacking a palm to her forehead. Ugh. No use dwelling on such...irritating thoughts.
“This morning,” Xiu Lihua starts, picking at the splinter of the wood table in an attempt to seem nonchalant, “you said there was a case twenty years ago in Zhoucheng that involved curse marks, right?”
Ren Liufang nods, curt. Xiu Lihua rolls her eyes. Predictable as a dead fish that flops in the market. Ren Liufang waves down a man balancing a tray of cups on his shoulder. She plucks one off delicately before raising it to her lips.
Xiu Lihua blinks. Was she seriously…
“Are you drinking?” Xiu Lihua hisses, incredulous. A few men in the table nearest to them turn their heads at the sound. “We’re on a case right now, can’t you—”
“You,” Ren Liufang cuts in, clipped, “are the only one in the room not drinking.”
Xiu Lihua pauses, swiveling her head around in both directions. To her annoyance, Ren Liufang is right—everyone has at least some form of liquor or another near them. Xiu Lihua looks incredibly out of place.
She coughs into her fist, cheeks warming. “I—I’m not going to—oh, screw this! We came here to see an informant, who cares if I—”
“The barkeeper?” Ren Liufang asks, gently putting her cup down on the table with a clink. “You said he only agrees to talk to cultivators if the room is clear. Correct?”
“Right,” Xiu Lihua responds, scratching the back of her head. She’s just now realizing that there are quite a few eyes on her. Which is not embarrassing, except it is. She clears her throat, then stands up abruptly. “Hey!”
The chatter in the tavern dies down abruptly. The other patrons’ heads swivel to look at her, fixing her with unimpressed gazes. She shivers—deja vu.
“I’d like to politely request that you all leave the bar now,” Xiu Lihua announces, blunt. “I’m here on official business with—”
“Xiong Jinli,” a man cuts in, crossing his arms. “We all knew as soon as she walked in.”
“Xiong Jinli and Zaihuanü walk into a bar together,” another man cuts in, voice booming as he lets out a laugh. “What a sight to see!”
Xiu Lihua’s hand tightens on Mengdie’s hilt at the mention of her moniker. She scoffs. “If you know our titles, then you know that what we mean to investigate is no joke. We think a tragedy is soon to come to Zhoucheng.”
“Tragedies happen in Zhoucheng nearly every day,” another voice returns, unimpressed.
Xiu Lihua shakes her head in response. “Not ones like this. Whatever is to come will make the petty crimes that you speak of look like nothing. Whoever is orchestrating this will liken you to injured prey as to a hunter. So again, I’m asking that you remove yourselves now so we may—”
“And you?” The first man interrupts.
She frowns, puzzled. “What?”
“So what do you liken yourself to?” he asks, tilting his cup in his hand. “What are we to you?”
“What is an ant to a boot?” Xiu Lihua snaps back, growing irritated. Were these men really so difficult? “I must remind you that I have your safety in mind, but I—”
Two men in the table nearest to them lunge towards her suddenly, overturning their own table.
Xiu Lihua steps smoothly to the side, sliding her foot before the first man’s. She shoves her palm into his back, and he stumbles onto the ground.
The second man aims a fist directly at her head. Xiu Lihua catches him by the wrist, using her other hand to grab him by the hip.
Grunting, she heaves him upwards, until she’s holding the man directly above her head. Then, she slams him down onto the table she and Ren Liufang share. The table splinters in half with a crack. Ren Liufang simply continues drinking from her cup.
“I will not ask again,” Xiu Lihua continues, wiping her hands on her robes. The men in the bar look at her, wide eyed. “Leave now.”
Every patron in the room scurries out without another complaint. She sighs at their retreating backs.
The barkeeper at the other end of the room sighs as well, much more weary. He continues wiping down cups with a rag.
Ren Liufang looks up at Xiu Lihua. The two women nod at each other. The other cultivator stands, and they make their way across the room to the counter.
“Lovely day today,” Xiu Lihua greets sincerely. “Nice weather, yeah?”
“It’s been raining,” he responds, blunt. “And I don’t know anything about what you’re looking for.”
Xiu Lihua opens her mouth to reply, but she stops when Ren Liufang slips onto a barstool, placing her hands into the counter. She frowns. The barkeeper looks just as surprised.
“This is a lovely tavern,” Ren Liufang starts, voice curt. “Is your finest liquor…”
“Y--yes,” he stammers, head bobbing. He runs off, further away from the counter, and returns with a liquor jar. Hastily, he pours some into her cup.
Ren Liufang sighs. “I’ll take another one, after this.”
“Ah, Xiong Jinli,” he answers, thumbs fiddling against each other. He swallows thickly. “Can you be drinking like this?”
“Sorrows are best chased away by a good drink,” Ren Liufang answers, looking forlorn. Xiu Lihua’s frown deepens. She’s so confused. Where did this change in demeanor come from?
“Why is Xiong Jinli sorrowful?” The barkeeper asks, letting a nervous laugh erupt from his lips. His eyes dart to Xiu Lihua like she’ll help him. She shrugs, equally puzzled. Then, he continues, “Young Master Ren, don’t look so sad. You’re a candidate to be the Ren Sect Leader, yes? No need for sorrows to distract you.”
Xiu Lihua stiffens. She swears her blood freezes in her veins. Sect Leader--Sect Leader candidate. Of the Ren Sect?
“My sorrows come from these... black marks,” Ren Liufang continues, quickly brushing over his comment. She thins her lips.
“Black marks?”
“Yes,” she answers, nodding. “I’ve been looking for further information, but I can’t seem to find any. My closest companion was a victim of this, yet it seems that I’ll never be able to avenge them.”
“Ah.” He laughs again, scratching the back of his head. “Well, that’s a shame, Xiong Jinli. I’m sorry that I can’t be of more help.”
Ren Liufang lets out a pitiful sigh. Xiu Lihua would scoff, but her lips feel frozen together. Sect Leader. Sect Leader.
It’s silent for a few moments. Then, the man finally breaks, waving his hands around, flustered. “F--fine! I may know a few things, but I really doubt that they’re of any help.”
“Do tell,” Xiu Lihua says, finally, teeth grit together.
“Xiu Bingwen…” the man starts, eyes darting between the two women. “Twenty years ago, in Zhoucheng...well, you know. He was here, that scoundrel. He was killed soon after, but Zhoucheng still bears his scars. Who knows what disgusting techniques he practiced here?”
“Xiu Bingwen?” Xiu Lihua tilts her head. “That’s a tale told to scare children. Xiu Bingwen is a monster in a folk tale. I mean, it makes things bad for business, you know, we have the same family name and all, so--”
“That’s all I know,” the barkeeper insists. “And you’re young, the both of you. You were probably born during the time of the destruction he caused. But the sects had to work together, back in my days, to bring him down.”
“I see,” Ren Liufang answers, looking contemplative. Politely, “thank you for your help.”
The barkeeper nods, stiff. The two turn away to make their way out of the bar, and he continues wiping down the counter. But an echo remains in Xiu Lihua’s mind, and it is: Ren Sect Leader, Ren Sect Leader.
“Xiu Bingwen…” Ren Liufang mutters to herself. “They must be linked, somehow--”
“I’m sorry,” Xiu Lihua interrupts. “I need to—I’m going to…I need fresh air.”
Ren Liufang turns to her. She looks surprised, almost. But there’s another emotion that Xiu Lihua can’t decipher, and it looks something like... acceptance.
She feels sick. “I’ll meet you back at the inn in an hour,” Xiu Lihua manages to choke out. “I’m going to...I’ll see you, I just need to--”
“Xiu Lihua…”
She spins around before she can hear what Ren Liufang says, taking long strides as she sprints out of the tavern. The sunlight greets her, far too jovial, as she runs out into the open. And she runs. And she runs.
And Xiu Lihua runs until she’s alone, as if it’s all she knows how to do.
❀ ❀ ❀
Xiu Lihua finds herself in an alleyway.
There’s shade, at least, to accompany the broken dirt-covered bottles and rotten fruits that litter the floor. She can vaguely make out the sound of a vendor, rolling their cart past, and a mother tugging her children along. Maybe. Everything sounds as if Xiu Lihua is listening from underwater.
There’s a storm of emotions that threaten to squeeze the life out of her heart. Like the way the air feels both thick and numbing at the same time in the days that come before a thunderstorm. When Xiu Lihua looks down at her hands, they’re shaking.
She tightens her fists until they press crescent moons into her palms. Gods. Xiu Lihua knows she’s—knows that her emotions always tend to get the better of her. Knows that’s why she wasn’t cut out to be the type of cultivator Ren Liufang is: strategic, never easy to read, cold and calculating.
If Ren Liufang was a locked chest, then Xiu Lihua was a fuse held in a paper-thin box waiting to explode.
Maybe that’s why Ren Liufang is a candidate to be the Ren Sect’s leader. Xiu Lihua suddenly feels like she’s going to throw up.
Sect Leader Ren Liufang. Of course.
Xiu Lihua knows that she’s utterly clueless about politics, but Ren Liufang—she’d never imagined that…the Ren Sect, really, of all of them…the thought of the sect makes her feel dizzy. She presses a palm to her head, as if it will help to staunch the flow of the memories.
A bamboo stick pressed harshly to her back. Nights alone in the library. Her, sixteen, stumbling out of the Ren Sect’s gates, alone, alone, alone—
“I, Ren Liufang, promise that Ren Ju will always stay by Xiu Ying’s side.”
Mengdie shakes violently at her hip. Like the sword is at the verge of a panic attack. Xiu Lihua rests a hand on its hilt, as if to calm the blade. But what use is that, when her own heart feels like it’s bound to crawl up her throat at any minute?
So Xiu Lihua slumps backwards, until she’s pressed against a weathered stone wall. And she doesn’t think of her past in the Ren Sect. And she doesn’t think of sect leaders. And she doesn’t think of a broken path, travelled alone.
And she doesn’t think of splintered promises. Xiu Lihua squeezes her eyes shut.
No. She doesn’t.
❀ ❀ ❀
It’s already been a few hours when she starts her way back to the inn to meet up with Ren Liufang again.
She’ll apologize. Maybe. Or she won’t. Xiu Lihua snorts. Nah. Definitely won’t.
She turns the corner, eyeing the inn in the distance. Faintly, she hears the sound of a shuffle of feet behind her.
Xiu Lihua stops in her tracks. She tenses, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Xiu Lihua’s hand drifts slowly to Mengdie’s hilt.
She’s being followed.
She squares her shoulders, continuing down the path. If she can make it through the entrance to the inn, then Ren Liufang will be—
Xiu Lihua whips around, pulling Mengdie out of its sheath in the same motion. She swings the blade upwards through the air. The arrow that had been whistling towards her bounces off of her blade, cluttering to the ground.
She sweeps her eyes from side to side. On one building’s roof is an archer, currently in the midst of notching another arrow. Then, not far down the path is another man wielding a sword, sprinting down in long strides towards her.
Both wore pale, stone blue robes. Xiu Lihua huffs, tightening her grip on Mengdie. So they’re of the same sect. Really, again? This happens practically every weekend.
Xiu Lihua steps backwards when the man with the sword is within a few feet of her. He yells, raising his sword in his arms.
She flexes her fingers around Mengdie’s hilt. Once the man is within swinging distance, she brings Mengdie upwards to meet his blade.
“You two have been following me,” she says, almost conversational, as their blades push against each other. He grunts, bringing his sword back to swing horizontally, and Xiu Lihua parries easily. “Is there a reason? Or did I accidentally damage another sect’s priceless property again?”
He yells again at this, gripping his sword in a way that Xiu Lihua knows he plans on swinging in an upwards motion. She feels the familiar hum of Mengdie in her hands, and the blade is no doubt glowing blue.
And then an arrow whizzes past her again, lodging itself into the wooden wall of the building to the side of her. Xiu Lihua looks up again, scowling at the archer on the building. This is getting irritating.
Bringing Mengdie up and backwards so the sword hangs over her shoulder, she closes one eye to get a better look at where the archer is. He notches another arrow.
Then, she hurls Mengdie through the air. The sword spins, and just as planned, it lodges itself with a thud into the wall behind the archer, piercing through the robes of his shoulder and pinning him backwards. Mengdie glows a brighter blue, and the archer yells, flinching away from the sword’s burn.
The swordsman charges her again. Xiu Lihua sidesteps him, bringing her arm down into the bend of his elbow. His sword clatters to the ground as he lets out a pained yell. She jerks him forward, grabbing him by his robes’ collar.
“Don’t,” Xiu Lihua says through grit teeth into the man’s face, “bother me on a bad day.”
She crashes her fist right into his nose. The man collapses backwards.
She looks up again. The archer thrashes in place, struggling in Mengdie’s hold.
Xiu Lihua pushes herself off the ground onto the roof, slowly making her way towards the archer. His eyes widen when he sees her approaching, and he desperately claws at Mengdie.
Xiu Lihua grabs him by the collar once she stands in front of him. She brings her fist backwards, a warning.
“So,” she says, “talk.”
The archer opens his mouth. Then, his gaze darts over Xiu Lihua’s shoulder. Xiu Lihua turns to follow his line of sight.
Ren Liufang stands. She returns a cold look back at them. The swordsman is at her side, and from the looks of it, she seems to be helping him up.
“Xiong—Xiong Jinli,” the archer stammers out. “If you’re a companion to Xiong Jinli, then…we have no ill will towards you!”
“Ah,” Xiu Lihua answers. She releases her hold on him, reaching over his shoulder to pull Mengdie out of the wall. He drops to the ground, letting out a relieved gasp. She clicks her tongue. “Right.”
Ren Liufang’s voice calls from the ground. “They’re of the Cheng Sect.”
“Well, I have no idea who you are,” Xiu Lihua admits, smile unwavering despite the archer’s wary gaze. She holds a hand out. “Sorry about that! We can be friends now, yes?”
The archer looks at Xiu Lihua, eyebrows knitting together. Then he looks to Ren Liufang. The other woman just blinks back at him.
“Is she serious?” He asks.
“Yes,” Ren Liufang answers, curt.
“I’m standing right here,” Xiu Lihua says.
The swordsman standing near Xiu Lihua bows hastily. When he comes back up, he explains, “Our apologies! We misunderstood, thinking that Zaihuanü had…malicious intentions in following Xiong Jinli. We were unaware that you were working together.”
“Uh huh,” Xiu Lihua answers, unimpressed.
“We, of the Cheng Sect, are also investigating the strange circumstances revolving around Henan, and what we think will soon be Zhoucheng.”
“They have offered to bring us back to their sect and exchange information,” Ren Liufang adds.
The swordsman nods quickly. “You are most welcome.”
“I see.” Xiu Lihua responds. Then, after a beat, “Am I welcome to come, though?”
She sees Ren Liufang tense slightly at the question, but there’s the smallest bit of surprise written on her features. The swordsman returns her question with a hard gaze.
“Zaihuanü is welcome,” the swordsman answers, terse, not breaking eye contact. “As I said.”
“Of course,” Xiu Lihua nods, humming. She tilts her head, and a sardonic smile spreads across her face. “Then if I’m welcome, tell the four men on the rooftops two buildings behind me to lower their bows.”
Ren Liufang glances at the swordsman, expression unreadable. He holds Xiu Lihua’s gaze for a few long moments. Then, he sighs, shoulders slumping. He waves a hand, and sure enough, four archers in blue robes are bounding across the rooftops, dropping down onto the ground behind him.
“Lovely!” Xiu Lihua says, clapping her hands together. “To the Cheng Sect, now?”
The swordsman obliges, turning to nod at Ren Liufang, who returns the gesture with a courteous nod of her own. Xiu Lihua leaps down from the rooftops to follow them.
And yet, she notices that all the archers have their fingers flexed, tight, around their swords’ hilts at their belts. All of them avoid eye contact with her.
Xiu Lihua snorts. ‘I’m welcome,’ my rear end.
One of them flinches at the sound, his hand tightening around his word. Xiu Lihua sighs.
This was going to be an interesting trip.
❀ ❀ ❀
Footnotes (and some recap):
This chapter takes place right after @mnemosynink’s Chapter Two: Of Sect Cultivators and Reopened Wounds. Please read her chapter first!
The previous chapter, Chapter Two: Of Sect Cultivators and Reopened Wounds:
https://theprose.com/post/384771/chapter-two-of-sect-cultivators-and-reopened-wounds
The next chapter, Chapter Four: On Festivals and Sect Leader Candidates:
https://theprose.com/post/390520/chapter-four-on-festivals-and-sect-leader-candidates
Xiu Lihua: Xiu is her family name. Xiu Lihua is again, her courtesy name! Xiu Ying is her given name, only used by close friends and family. Likewise, Ren Liufang is a courtesy name, and her given name is Ren Ju.
Cultivator: people possessing spiritual power that refine their body to the point of possessing magic-like abilities and longevity.
Sect: an organized group of cultivators that control a certain patch of territory. Members of the sect are called “disciples” and the leader is the Sect Leader.
Zaihuanü: Xiu Lihua’s unofficial moniker, means “disaster flower maiden.” Just like Ren Liufang’s is “Xiong Jinli”, meaning “vicious koi.”