“---Sister Luo.” Qi Qiqi stopped Luo Qing in front of the door to the kitchen.
“Chief, what brings you here?” Luo Qing’s eyes widened in surprise. Qi Qiqi looked into the kitchen and asked, “Sister Luo, are you going to prepare dinner for the little ancestor?”
“Yes, Little ancestor has yet to eat anything today.”
“In that case, it’s not a bad idea if you personally cook dinner for the little ancestor,” Qi Qiqi suggested as she looked toward Chao Xue tower.
“Chief, you were…?”
“Your cooking is the best in the temple, take it as consolation for our little ancestor, after all, I have...uh... felt guilty for what I did to her, this is my compensation.”
“Sure it can be done, but why wouldn’t you tell me the real reason behind it, chief? The REAL reason.” A steady smile still adorned Luo Qing’s face, her bright eyes stared at Qi Qiqi, that pure sight penetrated her heart as easily as reading a book.
‘I knew she would notice!’ Qi Qiqi sighed.
“Even if you prepare the dishes, she might not get the chance to eat them.”
“That is not what I wanted to hear,” said Luo Qing as she shook her head quietly. Though her tone was peaceful her words felt indisputable.
“Situ Wood is already on his way to Chao Xue tower.”
Qi Qiqi didn’t give any context to her words, but Luo Qing was smart enough to figure out her meaning.
Luo Qing was silent for a moment, then asked, “Chief, you don’t want to stop it from happening?”
“Ye Zhen was there as well.”
“It’s not right.” Luo Qing frowned seeming displeased.
“I know. However, you don’t understand, sister Luo. ” Qi Qiqi looked down saying “I don’t have a choice most of the time,” in a voice almost faint enough to be a whisper.
Luo Qing didn’t know what to say but sighed after a moment of silence.
Bright stars could be seen above if she turned to face them.
Dark blue and ink-ish black mixed together, painting the night sky, stars were dressed among it, building up into a long milky way. Sue Kirin didn’t know much about stars, so she wasn’t sure if this was the same sky that she used to see in her original world. Since when did the original world has such a clear sky? No, it might be the same.
Just-----
Sue Kirin looked around. Half of the Tian Xuan Temple fell to darkness, only a few lights were still shaking within the sights. Aside from them, it might not have anything that was similar. The cold that only midnight could bring spread out.
Sue Kirin shrunk her body while sitting on the stairs.
But that didn’t help because it was her heart that went cold. She was lonely in this world. At least for now. However, she wouldn’t attempt to complain about it, instead, she wanted to try and make a place for herself in this world. Yes, it will start from----
“Old man Qi, I have seen your granddaughter. Whatever I promise I made with you, I’ll see it through. ” Protect your granddaughter for my entire life---Sue Kirin still didn’t understand the weight of the promise he’d made at that moment.
“Anyway, what is taking Little Qing so long? I’m starving! It’s been like fifteen minutes!” Sue Kirin laid down. Although the edge of the stairs was hard against her back, she didn’t worry about it, and instead, she raised her hands and stretched.
Little crystal-like fingernails were reflecting lights, her sleeve fell off slowly, showing her skinny arms. Suddenly, a noise that sounded like crossbow fire...
A sharp sound broke through the wind and struck next to Sue Kirin’s ear. Her body reacted before she even knew what was happening. Sue Kirin used her hand to push off the ground and flip back. After steadying herself she looked back at the place she was sitting just a moment before.
There was a sword.
It wasn’t an ordinary sword. Judging from the appearance, it was a long sword, yet it was longer than the average long sword, it stood taller than Sue Kirin. Not to mention the sword was very wide making it reminiscent of a greatsword from the Middle Ages.
Sue Kirin felt terrified, if it wasn’t because of the year of training with Qi Guiyuan and the basic Gongfu he’d taught her, Kirin might have become a shish kebab. Yet that didn’t mean she could afford to be relieved. After all, the sword was now being held by someone, a bear-like body covered in black night clothes, half of his face was hidden behind a black scarf.
‘An assassin?’ Sue Kirin assumed such after looking at his clothes.
Then, the assassin looked up and met her eyes. The assassin’s eyes seemed emotionless, to the point of being lifeless. Though Sue Kirin, as one who’d experienced both life and death, could tell that in the depths of their eyes some emotion still surged.
Fanatical devotion akin to a raging flame.
A seeker.
Their expression was one that only a seeker could conjure.
“Who are you?” Sue Kirin asked seriously. She didn’t know why suddenly attacked her and she couldn’t make an assumption since she’d only recently arrived, she had no understanding of the motives that anyone could have for attacking her.
“I am merely seeking a no holds barred duel.” the opponent responded with a strange voice.
“That doesn’t answer my question.” Sue Kirin sneered. Her opponent responded by stabbing his sword at her.
Sue Kirin was still new to Wugong, but she could still tell that although the strike appeared simple, it contained his intent to kill.
Simplicity. It was due to that simplicity that there were so many ways that the assassin could follow up the attack. She didn’t know what his power level was, but she could tell that he puts effort behind this move. The strike was meant to test Sue Kirin.
“Ze!”
Qi rapidly flowed inside her body. Sue Kirin curled the fingers on her right hand, letting Qi converge within it. Following up, she struck out with her right arm, two blades of aura shot toward assassin’s leg and shoulder. However, he didn’t fall back, instead, he swung the longsword in his hand and shattered the two aura blades.
Sue Kirin used that opening to condense Qi in her legs and jumped into the air, before aiming her leg down at the assassin’s head.
“EAT MY LOLI KICK!”
“Nice attack!” The Assassin shouted out while bending his back, at the same time raising his longsword to counter attack Sue Kirin’s kick.
“Burst!” Sue Kirin yelled. Immediately, an explosion separated the two. It was magic. Since Qi and Mana were essentially the same, Sue Kirin was able to use her skills in magic.
The explosion pushed Sue Kirin into the sky. Just as she finished adjusting her position in the air she looked back to see the edge of the longsword closing in on her eyes.
The assassin jumped out from the cloud of dust before she’d had a chance to notice, and jumped toward Sue Kirin like an arrow.
“Hou Tian Zhi San! ”
Electricity danced on the long sword’s blade and a torrent of wind sprung to life. Sue Kirin raised her left arm, the longsword bounced off as if shot by another arrow.
“Eh!” Not understanding why his weapon was not following his lead, the assassin unconsciously turned to look at the longsword that bounced out of his hand, naturally, at that moment, his focus was shifted away from Sue Kirin.
That was her chance! The assassin was wide open. Sue Kirin sent a single palm to strike the assassin’s chest.
“Burst!” A few sparks flashed between her palm and his chest which lit up into an explosion. The assassin fell to the to the magic’s influence that essentially made him a bomb hurtling toward the ground. The assassin’s body crashed into the ground and created countless clouds of dust. The longsword that had flown off earlier struck into the ground, and Sue Kirin landed atop its hilt like a feather.
Sue Kirin’s technique was best described as being “as light as air.”
“Little ancestor, you cultivate Air Bending skills? ” The assassin questioned Sue Kirin as he left the dust cloud, his appearance reminiscent of a drowned mouse. Blood leaked out of his mouth, his clothes also had a big hole in them over his bloody chest. The sleeve on his right arm was torn apart by some outside force, leaving an irregular cross-section. It might have been because he used his hand to block the first explosion.
“What did you just called me?” Sue Kirin asked, squinting her eyes.
Although he immediately shut his mouth, Sue Kirin was certain that she’d heard him call her “Little ancestor.” In other words, there was a high chance that this assassin was from the Tian Xuan Temple.
‘But why would the folks in Tian Xuan Temple want to kill me?’ If Sue Kirin had time to think about it, she may have had a few guesses, but at the moment she was too busy on guarding her surroundings, so she couldn’t spend any time trying to calm down and think it through.
The assassin clenched his fist and took a stance. It seemed to be the starting technique of some sort of fist-skill.
“You still want to fight me,” Sue Kirin stepped on the longsword, “even though you’ve lost your weapon?”
“A true fighter can use every part of the body as a weapon, not to mention that you haven’t shown me your true strength.”
“How’d ya know that?”
“You don’t seem to be that good in close quarters combat, which is why you fell into a passive position when I ambushed you. However, with the distance we have right now you should be able to kill me in an instant. ”
Apart from that, Sue Kirin also wasn’t experienced in fighting against strong close-combat opponents. Even though there were some mages that were good at close-combat, none of them were as good as this man standing in front of her. It wasn’t due to a lack of skills, but his reaction speed which could only come about from years of training. He was too fast, so much so that he even dodged the surprise attacks Sue Kirin had thrown at him. However, Sue Kirin had started to get used to this kind of close combat style.
Although Sue Kirin wasn’t top tier among mages, she couldn’t use high tier magic and had only been trained in Gongfu for a year. She had loads of practical experience. She was certain that from their current distance she could take the man down before he could touch her hair.
“Even so, you still want to fight?”
“……” Assassin fell silent.
“Even rabbit bite people, not to mention lolis!”Sue Kirin’s looked pissed, “You think I won’t kill you?”
“I don’t know about that,” the assassin said in a deep tone while shaking his head, “All I know is that you haven’t shown your full potential. We just want to know how far is the distance between you and us really is.”
Sue Kirin was stunned. This dude was an idiot and a paranoid idiot at that! He was the kind of person who never gave up until he reached his goal. He’d definitely come back if he has the chance, which made him little more than a troublemaker.
Since that was the case----
Qi rapidly flowed inside her body again, her veins were under great pressure, and she felt pressure from rapidly expanding them. Sue Kirin frowned. Somehow controlling the Qi wasn’t as simple as last time, but she didn’t have the time to think about it.
“Xian Tian Zhi San, Hou Tian Zhi Liu---”
Words of power sprung forth from her mouth, the tone of which was so flat that it was impossible to sense any emotion from it.
As if an infinite number of firework had been sparked, countless fragments of flame appeared around her.
“...Fire as its element, Dragon as its form...” The fragments of fire were merged by an invisible force and formed a vortex in front of the girl. Streams of flame wound into one another and eventually became one--
A dragon was born. The fire dragon’s skinny body turned to Sue Kirin, the heat from its body masked her figure. That dragon head looked to the assassin, who was shocked beyond compare and sprayed out a breath of fire. Sue Kirin’s cold gaze fell on him.
“Are you ready to become BBQ?”
Unsure if it was due to the fire dragon hiking up the temperature, or because he was afraid of Sue Kirin’s aggressiveness, beads of cold sweat fell from the assassin’s face.
“You look ready to me.” Once she finished talking, Sue Kirin made a finger gun gesture with her right hand and pointed at the man.
“BANG~”
As if it received a command, the fire dragon immediately rushed out and attacked the assassin. The dragon passed by the ground and no matter where it went, it burned out a path of dust. The assassin was caught off guard.
“Hold on!”
A burst of lightning flashed.
Then…
A bright aura-blade shot out from above, which beheaded the fire dragon. At the same time, a shadow jumped between the fire dragon and the assassin. Sue Kirin squinted her eyes, she saw who that person was. Streams of flame burst out with an incredible “BOOM!”
The shockwave dispersed in every direction, the wind that it carried ruffled Sue Kirin’s sleeves lifted up numerous dust clouds. This was the third explosion of this conflict. However, It was different from the first two, just the blast from this explosion uprooted some trees and caused some sand and stones to be deeply indented into nearby buildings.
In the time it took for the dust clouds to disperse two shadows had appeared. One of them stepped forward. He was wearing a blue robe, Sue Kirin recognized his hatchet face, he was the Vice chief of the Tian Xuan Temple, Ye Zhen. He folded his hands in a salute.
“May little ancestor show mercy to my dishonorable apprentice.”
Sue Kirin also recognized the face of the assassin, it was Situ Wood.
“What’s all this about?”
“My dishonorable apprentice is too dumb and obsessed with gongfu, whenever he sees an expert, he goes out to challenge them. That is why he bothered you, little ancestor.”
“Yoyoyo, Why would he cover his face if all he wanted to do was challenge me? Do I look stupid to you?”
“That is Tu Sun ’s[1] fault, because my dishonorable apprentice refuses to abandon this habit of his, I feared that he might provoke someone he shouldn’t fight against, so I told him that whenever he challenges someone, he must cover his face and get rid off anything that might prove him as member of this sect. ”
“Yeah, mie...That way no matter what happens, it won’t become a problem for the Tian Xuan Temple, right?” Sue Kirin asked rhetorically with a half smiling face.
Ye Zhen looked relieved. “Exactly, little ancestor. ”
“Bullshit.”
Sue Kirin intuition told her that he was speaking out of his ass, but she couldn’t do much about it since she had no proof.
Then---
“We just performed such a big stage show, you girls have seen enough right? It’s about time you come out and pay for your fucking tickets, no?”
Sue Kirin suddenly yelled at the entrance gate of the courtyard. She sensed that there were some other folks peeking around for quite some time, which is why she had paid so much attention to her surroundings in the fight earlier.
Two girls showed up at the gate with awkward faces, they were Qi Qiqi and Luo Qing.
“Yoyoyo, what a GREAT show.”
Sue Kirin squinted her eyes, glaring daggers at Qi Qiqi.
“Twenty-one, you better have a good explanation.”
Footnotes
^ Ye Zhen expressing Sue Kirin's seniority to him. Essentially it means Martial Grandson..