Rising Phoenix

In the brief moments since the post house had come into view, she had killed three men.

Three cooling corpses lay staring into the night, never to know that they had died at the hands of a novice’s first foray into battle.

The novice in question covered her mouth with a sleeve, holding back her vomit and she stepped past the bodies and rushed forward.

The post house was still trapped in darkness.

Voices murmured unintelligibly in the distance and the thick tang of blood hung in the air.

She quickly sidled up to the wall, perking up her ears as she listened intently. A vague, deep voice called out: “Count them!”

Feng Zhiwei’s heart fell.

Count what? Count the corpses?

A strange shuffling sound followed the words until someone cried out in astonishment and called out: “The Big Man!”

Feng Zhiwei’s heart fell again — Big Man? Ning Yi? Had something happened to Ning Yi?

Her body seemed to plunge into ice, and her fist tightened over her sword’s hilt.

Feet pattered as someone ran through the courtyard, and then a quiet voice whispered: “Two are missing. The Big Man is gone!”

“Search!”

“We’ve searched everything three times!”

The deep voiced man paused before speaking again: “The longer the night the more dreams to come; we must still complete the escort mission and the Imperial troops will soon arrive. Everyone uninjured will change clothes and search the surrounding area; rendezvous back at Gua Ye Du. Burn everything down.”

“Yes!”

The man turned and left the yard while the others set up fuel for the fire. The rustling on the ground grew louder, flowing with an orderly rhythm like sand flowing into a bottle.

The sound was so strange and creepy that Feng Zhiwei could not hold back a frown.

But as she frowned and her breathing subtly changed, the footsteps on the other side of the wall stopped.

When the footsteps paused, Feng Zhiwei immediately twirled, shifting along the wall.

“Chi.”

A half second after she twisted away, a green blade pierced through the wall, nearly grazing Feng Zhiwei’s waist!

If she had hesitated a single moment, the blade would have pierced through her belly.

As Feng Zhiwei turned and the blade pierced through the wall, she flicked her wrist and stabbed her long sword through the brick.

You stab! I stab as well!

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The green blade had barely pierced the wall when Feng Zhiwei’s black sword cut forward. The man on the other side grunted in surprise at Feng Zhiwei’s rapid, ferocious reaction, but then he snorted and pinched Feng Zhiwei’s blade with his bare hands.

His hand carried the sheen of metal and the toughness of steel, and the single pinch not only locked the soft sword in place, but also knocked down the entire wall.

Dust bloomed around them as the man sneered at Feng Zhiwei: “Copying me? Courting death!”

But then a voice above him laughed coldly, saying: “Pinch my sword, courting death!”

As the cold laughter rang out, a dark light flashed forward, piercing towards his skull.

The shocked man finally realized he was pinching the broken end of a sword blade and that the long sword in Feng Zhiwei’s hand was still completely intact and piercing down towards him with murderous Qi.

This was another function of Feng Zhiwei’s weapon — self breaking. She had gotten the idea after observing a gecko, and had been quite enamored with the gecko’s ability to abandon its tail to survive, so she had designed her sword with three tips that she could break off at any time.

The long sword stabbed forward from almost point blank range with the dust from the collapsed wall blocking her opponent’s view, but the man she faced was a great expert and instantly stamped downwards, creating a large pit that he fell into, allowing him to barely dodge Feng Zhiwei’s blow.

Her stab had been dodged and her attack ended, but Feng Zhiwei was still airborne and her guard broken; the masked man jabbed forward with a finger, his eyes gleaming as he attacked Feng Zhiwei’s chest with a Qi blow. Feng Zhiwei coughed out a mouthful of blood, her circulation disrupted, and she fell downwards into the man’s reach.

The man’s twisted smile grew near.

Death lurched closer and closer.

Then Feng Zhiwei suddenly flicked out her hand.

In her grasp was clutched a rough, faceted brick!

“Taste my Nine Steamed Nine Sun Dried Ten Thousand Esoteric Octagonal Stab!”

“Pa!”

Her brick smashed into the man’s ear, cutting a shallow wound across his head. Feng Zhiwei sighed in quiet disappointment — this man’s reaction speed was too fast; even at such close range and so confident in his victory, he still managed to twist his head aside, or else the shallow wound would have been a smashed skull.

She had smashed down with every bit of strength remaining, concussing the man and pressing multiple acupoints. Her dizzied opponent stumbled back a step and Feng Zhiwei landed safely, surreptitiously shattering her brick into yellow dust. As she coughed through the dust cloud, she smiled gently and lifted up her stolen flare, chuckling as she said: “I cannot beat you, but wait until the others come.”

The concussed, blurry-eyed man could not see through Feng Zhiwei’s deception, and he had no idea what the ‘Nine Steamed Nine Sun Dried Ten Thousand Esoteric Octagonal Stab’ attack was, but his ear burned and he could not see the weapon Feng Zhiwei had used. In Minnan, “Esoteric” arts and the various venom and poison practitioners were taboos wrapped in mystery. Erring on the side of caution, the man snorted and whistled a signal before flashing away and disappearing away from the dust.

His scattered subordinates saw their injured leader retreat and instantly fled into the night. When they had all disappeared, Feng Zhiwei sighed in relief and stumbled against the remaining length of wall, leaning her powerless body against the brick.

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Cold sweat drenched her and pain roared in her chest. She was too weak to walk and soon began throwing up blood and water, finally dissipating some of the pain. As she thought back to the breath-stopping sequence of events, her spine prickled — she had only survived with fast reactions and luck; the three guards in the woods had been weaker men spared from the main attack, and the assailant’s fear of detection played into her favor. If not, a novice like Feng Zhiwei would have been lucky if she could get an unmarked grave much less drive them off.

The smoke from the smoldering fire pricked at her nose as Feng Zhiwei struggled to remain upright, using her sword as a crutch as she limped into the yard. The yellow sand in the outer yard was marked with trails of crawlers, and Feng Zhiwei’s heart cooled as she remembered a Minnan legend.

Blood and burnt hair fouled the air as Feng Zhiwei forced herself up and into the post house, tripping at the entrance. Below her, a Chang Ying Guard lay silently, his face a tortured rictus.

Feng Zhiwei stooped to investigate. No noticeable wounds marred the guard’s flesh, and his cooling body was a strange, earthy yellow. Feng Zhiwei thought back to the shuffling against the sand and her fingers tightened around her sword hilt.

She walked into the post house; corpses sprawled everywhere, some with bowls still in their hands; terror filled every face. They had been attacked while at dinner.