One Sentence Breaks the Pavilion
General Zhu said softly, "And what if I insist?"
Yet when the words fell, Yan Pavilion did not erupt at once.
The lamps in the chamber seemed to sink half an inch beneath the weight of those few words. The thin porcelain wine cup beside the qin table had been stirred by the saber wind only moments ago; now, beneath the lowered light, it still trembled faintly. A splinter of reflected wine shimmered against the corner of the table, then vanished again.
Yan Ji did not lift the hand resting on the edge of the qin table.
Her fingertips were very steady.
Too steady for a courtesan listening to a guest press her. Too steady for someone trapped in a narrow chamber with a line of attendants from the capital standing outside the door. She merely raised her eyes and looked at General Zhu before her. The small green jade pendant by her ear still hung in silence, no longer swaying.
General Zhu had already withdrawn his hand.
But his gaze remained there.
The pendant was very small.
So small that amid a house full of jewels, pearl tassels, coral screens, and agate cups from overseas, it should have counted for nothing at all. Yet it was not a gift from a patron. Not an object that could be entered into the ledgers of the house. Not something a man could simply demand to see and reach out to touch.
Yan Ji said softly, "If the General insists, then Yan Ji can only set courtesy aside."
General Zhu looked at her. "Set courtesy aside?"
It was as if he had heard some remarkably fresh expression. That trace of childishness buried in his eyes surfaced again for an instant, yet it no longer carried the harmless brightness it had before.
"And how," he asked, "do you mean to set courtesy aside?"
Yan Ji replied, "Yan Pavilion has its rules for receiving guests. If the General keeps to the rules, Yan Ji will naturally treat him with courtesy."
She paused, her voice still perfectly even.
"But if the General will not keep to the rules, then Yan Ji will have no choice but to ask him to leave Yan Pavilion."
General Zhu laughed.
The sound was very light.
"Ask me to leave Yan Pavilion?"
He repeated the words slowly, as though no one in this world had ever spoken to him that way before.
Outside, the dim corridor light fell upon the papered door. Several shadows still stood beneath the eaves, motionless. But Yan Ji knew that if a single sound arose in this room that should not have arisen, they would push the door open at once.
She also knew that on the other side, by the mouth of the inner corridor, Iron Mask was standing guard.
Farther out lay the outer room.
Mu Qi was there.
Fang Yingjie was there.
She had personally told him only moments ago: without my word, you are not to come in.
So she could not afford to lose control.
The moment she lost control, everyone outside would lose control with her.
Yan Ji lowered her eyes. Her voice remained steady.
"The General is an honored guest. Yan Ji would naturally never dare slight him. But even honored guests have the place proper to them."
General Zhu said, "And where should my place be?"
Yan Ji answered, "Beyond the qin table."
General Zhu glanced at the table between them.
It was not wide.
Upon it sat the qin, the wine, and a censer whose incense had not yet burned out. The Blackcloud Jade-Moon Saber had already been returned to its sheath and now lay across the long side table beside the qin desk. The low lamp cast its glow over the dark-gold patterns on the scabbard, and that faint cold gleam of jade looked like an eye that had never fully closed.
General Zhu said, "A single qin table—that is the rule of Yan Pavilion?"
Yan Ji said, "A single qin table is enough."
The smile in General Zhu's eyes faded a little more.
"And if I wished to sit a little closer?"
"The General is close enough already."
"And if I wished to come closer still?"
Yan Ji lifted her gaze.
"Then it would no longer be for listening to music."
General Zhu studied her for a long moment, then said suddenly, "You truly dare say it."
Yan Ji replied, "Yan Ji says only what ought to be said."
"What ought to be said?"
General Zhu took another step forward.
The step was not heavy.
Yet the moment he moved, the shifting lamp-shadow in the room seemed to press forward with him. Yan Ji caught the faint scent of wine on his clothes, and something else besides—the dust of the road. It was not the usual blend of powder, perfume, and sweet drink that clung to the common patrons of Baoque Tower, but something mixed of horseback, weapons, the cold wind beyond palace walls, and an indefinable air of nobility.
The scent was not strong.
Yet there was no escaping it.
General Zhu looked down at her and said, "You accepted my saber just now."
Yan Ji replied, "What Yan Pavilion accepted was your gift."
"The gift entered the room, yet the man who brought it is held so far away?"
"A gift has its proper place."
Yan Ji looked at him and said, one word at a time, "And so does a man."
General Zhu's gaze lingered on her face.
From downstairs came the faint continuation of silk-and-bamboo music. Most likely the front hall had hastily resumed another tune to bridge the emptiness left by Yan Pavilion's closed doors. Beyond the door and the hanging curtains, the melody had already grown thin, like a layer of mist scattered across the surface of a lake by the night wind.
Inside Yan Pavilion, however, there was not the slightest trace of that mist-like softness.
General Zhu suddenly reached out.
This time, he did not go for the green jade pendant.
He went for Yan Ji's hand where it rested on the edge of the qin table.
Yan Ji had been prepared. With a turn of her wrist, her dark blue-black sleeve slipped from his fingers, and she herself retreated half a step to the side. But General Zhu moved more quickly than she had expected. He seemed merely to reach out casually, yet his fingertips still managed to catch the edge of her sleeve.
Only the sleeve.
He had not touched her hand.
But that slight brush was enough to turn Yan Ji's eyes cold.
She did not cry out.
Nor did her voice sharpen.
As she retreated, however, the hem of her skirt swept across the incense box beside the qin table. The little box, worked with foreign designs, had been resting at the edge of the side table, its lid half-open, a trace of dying incense still smoldering inside. Snagged by the sweep of her skirt, it rocked once, then fell.
It struck the floor with a sharp crack.
Fine incense ash scattered, carrying a faint, cool sweetness through the lowered light.
The sound was not loud.
But in the suddenly taut stillness of Yan Pavilion, it was like a slender string plucked until it snapped.
From the inner corridor, Iron Mask finally moved.
The motion was slight.
Slight, like a piece of old iron being slowly awakened from the dark. But Yan Ji heard it. Her fingertips tightened imperceptibly on the edge of the qin table, then relaxed again.
Outside the main door of Yan Pavilion, the figures beneath the corridor lamps also shifted.
The black-faced soldier's shoulder pressed forward by half an inch. The two Muslim saber-men let their hands drift closer to the hilts at their sides. The pale, beardless middle-aged attendant lifted his eyes, but said nothing. The tall man in blue still leaned against the corridor pillar; only the cuff of his sleeve stirred lightly, as if touched by a passing wind.
All of them had heard.
Yet none of them entered.
General Zhu had heard it too.
He did not turn his head. He only smiled.
"That Iron Mask outside the door," he said, "is he guarding you?"
Yan Ji did not answer.
"Or is he guarding your rules?"
Yan Ji said, "Since the General knows there is someone outside, he ought all the more to stop here."
Inside the chamber, General Zhu lowered his eyes to the incense box on the floor.
Its ash lay scattered beside his boots.
It had been one of the things he noticed when he first entered the room. He had even picked it up and turned it over in his hands, asking whether it had been given by a patron. Now it lay shattered at his feet, as though that flicker of idle amusement from a moment ago had cracked open with it.
General Zhu did not grow angry.
Instead, he smiled.
"To keep me from touching you once, you would rather lose the object as well?"
Yan Ji said, "If an object breaks, it can be replaced."
General Zhu looked at her.
Yan Ji lifted her eyes.
"But if a person is sullied," she said, "there is no price that can make it right."
The last trace of a smile disappeared from General Zhu's face.
In that instant, he no longer looked like a young guest delighted by every light in the house, nor like the youthful general who had idly toyed with the little bronze beast, the glass cup, and the Blackcloud Jade-Moon Saber only moments earlier.
He merely stood there.
His robes were immaculate. His features were young. His fingers were long and elegant.
Yet beneath that young, clean exterior, something suddenly pressed forward—heavy, slow, and unmistakable.
Yan Ji felt her chest tighten slightly, but she still did not retreat.
She had promised Mu Qi.
Tonight, he was not to come near her.
There was to be no touch of skin against skin.
And there was to be no shameful act.
Since she had made that promise, she would keep it.
General Zhu suddenly said, "Sullied?"
It was as if he held the word on the tip of his tongue and tasted it slowly.
"The young lady thinks I am unclean?"
Yan Ji replied, "The General misunderstands."
"Then what are you afraid of?"
"Yan Ji is not afraid."
"If you are not afraid, why do you keep retreating?"
Yan Ji looked at him.
"Because I do not wish to."
The room fell still again for the space of a single breath.
And that single breath was colder than any silence that had come before it.
General Zhu stared at her. At last, there was something in his eyes besides curiosity.
"You do not wish to?"
Yan Ji answered, "I do not."
General Zhu nodded.
It was as if he had finally understood her.
And as if, at the same time, he understood even less than before.
"There are many things in this world one does not wish to do," he said. "But many things are done whether one wishes them or not."
Yan Ji said coolly, "At least in Yan Pavilion, they are not."
General Zhu looked at her.
"And if I insist on showing you otherwise?"
Yan Ji did not answer.
General Zhu took another step forward.
This time the step brought him closer than before.
Yan Ji had nowhere left to retreat. The qin table was at her back. One hand braced against its corner; the other hung hidden within her sleeve, her fingertips touching a small plectrum.
General Zhu's shadow pressed over her.
This time, he did not look again at the green jade pendant.
Nor did he reach for her hand.
He lifted an arm, as though he meant to gather her bodily into his embrace.
The motion was unhurried.
It even retained a trace of careless amusement.
And precisely because it was unhurried, it sent a deeper chill through the heart. It was as though, in his eyes, whether the person before him retreated or dodged or said she did not wish it, all of it amounted to no more than a trivial ripple before he reached out his hand.
"Let me come a little closer and have a better look at you," he said in a low voice. "Across a qin table, one cannot see clearly enough."
Yan Ji's eyes turned cold.
She neither screamed nor panicked.
At the very instant his sleeve was about to fall around her, she twisted aside, the line of her shoulder and back nearly sliding against the edge of the qin table. General Zhu's arm failed to close around her. It only stirred loose a strand of hair beside her temple and brushed the outer layer of dark fabric over her shoulder.
Only an inch more.
Yet in the end he had not gathered her in.
He had not touched so much as a hair of her skin.
And still, in that instant, the color left Yan Ji's face at last.
Only by a shade.
Then, in the next instant, the hand hidden in her sleeve flashed up and swept the wine cup from the qin table to the floor.
Porcelain shattered.
Wine splashed wide.
Under the low lamp, splinters of light scattered across the ground.
This sound was far heavier than the fall of the incense box.
From outside the door came a deep, low sound from someone's throat.
It was not speech.
It was more like a man who had long since forgotten how to speak forcing out, from the depths of his chest, a remnant of old fury at hearing something he could no longer endure.
At last, General Zhu turned his head.
The side door leading from Yan Pavilion to the inner corridor was flung open from outside.
Iron Mask stood in the doorway.
The low lamp struck the old iron mask on his face, dull and heavy, leaving half of it buried in shadow. His body was still somewhat stiff; his shoulders and back no longer carried their former ease, and even the way he stood bore the drag of old ruin. Yet when he stood there, he still seemed like a gate.
A gate already broken, already old, already rusted—yet not yet fallen.
At the sight of him, Yan Ji said in a low voice, "Iron Mask."
Iron Mask did not look at her.
From behind that mask, his eyes stared fixedly at General Zhu.
General Zhu flicked him a side glance.
The faint surprise in his eyes vanished almost at once.
What replaced it was interest.
"Him?"
When he said it, his gaze had already returned to Yan Ji's face, as though he were sincerely curious.
"You think that with him, the rules of Yan Pavilion can still be kept?"
Yan Ji did not answer.
Neither did Iron Mask.
He could not.
He only stepped forward.
As his foot came down, the broken porcelain on the floor crackled softly beneath his boot.
General Zhu finally turned his eyes fully to the iron mask.
"Or do you think," he said, "that this iron mask can show me out of Yan Pavilion?"
Outside, several figures moved at once.
In the outer room, Fang Yingjie heard the first sound of porcelain shattering.
It came through door and curtain, no longer perfectly clear, yet it still felt as though something had split open across his chest.
He lurched to his feet.
The register of gifts on the table shifted when his sleeve brushed it, and the brush stand rocked slightly.
But he did not rush out at once.
He remembered Wang Yan's words.
Without my word, you are not to enter.
That sentence still weighed beside his ear like an invisible gate.
Then he heard the side door of Yan Pavilion being thrown open from outside.
That sound was heavier than the breaking of the wine cup.
And more urgent.
Fang Yingjie's hand gripped the corner of the table, the knuckles whitening little by little.
The atmosphere within Yan Pavilion had changed.
It had changed into something like underground water, suddenly rising high enough to flood the chest.
Iron Mask no longer looked at General Zhu's face.
He saw only that General Zhu stood too close to Wang Yan.
So he took another step forward.
This time he raised his hand.
That hand did not move quickly; it was even somewhat stiff. But once it came up, there was not the slightest hesitation left in it.
He struck at General Zhu.
It was not a warning.
Not a test.
Not the kind of threatening gesture some hired guard of a pleasure house might use to frighten off a drunken guest.
That fist drove straight out, like the last clear thing remaining in the wreckage of a man's shattered mind.
Whoever tried to touch Wang Yan
had to be driven back.
The force of the punch pressed across the lamplight.
At last, the last trace of playfulness in General Zhu's eyes changed.
He shifted half a step to the side.
The wind of the blow scraped past his shoulder and slammed heavily into the edge of the screen behind him. The screen shuddered. A small jade pendant hanging from it struck with a sharp clang and fell.
At the same time, outside the main door of Yan Pavilion, the black-faced soldier's voice rang out, deep and urgent:
"My lord!"
In the next instant, the door was shoved open from outside.
The lamplight broke into chaos.
With the Last Gate Broken
The instant the door opened, the light from the corridor came flooding in.
What entered first was not the wind.
It was the shadow of the black-faced guardsman.
He was a large man to begin with, broad in shoulder and back. Standing in the doorway of Yan Pavilion, he seemed to fill half the entrance by himself. The red lanterns outside shone behind him, casting his shadow deep into the room, over shattered porcelain, spilled wine, scattered incense ash, and all the way to the edge of the zither table.
The low lamplight inside Yan Pavilion had been arranged with exquisite care. With that one intrusion, it was thrown into disorder.
And once the light was broken, the soft night it had cradled broke with it. Shadows wavered across the screen. The wine spilled beside the zither table caught the light and gleamed. On the floor, the foreign-patterned incense box had split in two, and the ash, stirred by the draft from the open door, drifted low across the ground like a layer of cold mist.
The black-faced guardsman looked first to General Zhu.
"My lord."
General Zhu stood not far in front of Yan Ji. His sleeves were unruffled, and his expression was no less composed. Iron Mask's punch, a moment ago, had passed by his shoulder without so much as grazing him. It had only left the screen behind him trembling with the lingering echo of the blow.
Only after seeing that he was unharmed did the tightness in the guardsman's eyes ease slightly.
Then he turned his head and flicked a glance toward the doorway.
No further word was needed.
The three guards with armor hidden beneath their robes moved at once.
They were not common pleasure-house guards, nor swaggering men of the martial world showing off over a wine table. The moment they moved, their footwork showed not the slightest disorder. One pressed in from the left, one cut off retreat from the right, and the third circled past the doorway and dropped slantwise half a step behind Iron Mask.
They were fast.
And silent.
No one shouted. No one drew steel. Yet the instant they closed in, the little space left in Yan Pavilion seemed to contract, as if three walls of cold iron had slammed shut around it.
The black-faced guardsman himself took one step forward and stood squarely before General Zhu.
He was not moving to strike Iron Mask.
He was shielding General Zhu.
That single step fell with terrifying certainty, like an iron gate dropping into place, separating General Zhu from Iron Mask, and General Zhu from the attack of the three guards as well.
Yan Pavilion was not a small room.
A private chamber belonging to Baoque Tower's foremost courtesan naturally had its own spacious elegance and lavish air. But that spaciousness had been meant for lamplight, music, wine tables, screens, and guests—not for armored guards to maneuver and fight within it.
The door had opened, the black-faced guardsman had entered, and the three guards had pressed in after him. Of the nine men who had accompanied General Zhu, several had already occupied positions inside and outside Yan Pavilion. The zither table, the long table, the screen, the shattered porcelain, the incense ash, and the Wuyun Biyue Saber were all forced into the span of a few short steps.
General Zhu had originally been standing very close to Yan Ji.
Now, with the black-faced guardsman barring the way and the three guards closing in together, the few paces in the middle of Yan Pavilion instantly became a fighting ring. Protected by the guardsman, General Zhu gave ground smoothly to the doorway.
Not because he was afraid.
But because the room had already grown too cramped.
If he remained beside the zither table, his guards would only be hampered when they moved, and a desperate charge like Iron Mask's might yet crash too close.
Blocked off near the door, the faint smile on General Zhu's face faded somewhat, but he did not flare up.
He merely watched.
Iron Mask was still staring at General Zhu.
It was as if he did not understand he had already been surrounded.
Or as if he simply did not care.
General Zhu had been protected back to the doorway by the black-faced guardsman, while the three guards pressed in from left, right, and rear. Iron Mask had meant to stand before Yan Ji, but in the confusion of those few steps, he had been forced away from that line.
He was only a few paces from Yan Ji.
Yet he could no longer shield her securely.
He was farther still from General Zhu.
Between them stood the black-faced guardsman, and the tightening circle of the three guards.
But in his ruined, clouded mind, only the scene from moments ago remained.
General Zhu had stood too close to Wang Yan.
So General Zhu had to be driven back.
"Iron Mask," Yan Ji said softly.
Iron Mask did not turn.
Nor did he retreat.
His breathing behind the mask came hard and heavy, each breath like an old bellows dragging across split iron. His shoulders no longer held the stretch they once had, and his footing was unsteady. That last punch had already spent nearly all that remained of his burst of force. Yet he still stood there.
Still stood upon that line which had already been broken apart beneath him.
The guard on the left moved first.
He did not draw his blade. He merely shot out a hand toward Iron Mask's shoulder. It was a small movement, but chillingly precise: his fingers fell exactly where shoulder bone joined upper arm. If that grip settled fully, the entire arm would go numb at once.
Iron Mask reacted a fraction too late.
He jerked up his arm and smashed the hand aside by brute force.
A flicker passed through the guard's eyes, but he neither retreated nor lost shape. Even as his hand was knocked away, he pivoted on his foot and yielded to the side, forcing Iron Mask half a step to the right.
That half-step was exactly what the guard on the right had been waiting for.
His palm drove toward Iron Mask's ribs.
The strike came without a sound, yet the edge of that palm carried frightening weight. Iron Mask had no time to counter. He could only twist aside on instinct. But he was too slow, and the palm-edge still skimmed across his ribs.
A dull thud sounded.
Iron Mask's body lurched, and underfoot he crushed a shard of porcelain.
He did not fall.
He only caught himself on the zither table beside him.
Under that pressure, the strings gave a low tremor.
Yan Ji's fingers tightened sharply.
Iron Mask did not know martial arts.
At least, not this kind of martial arts.
What he possessed was only a ruined body, brute strength, old hatred, and the instinct to protect that he forced out from the cracks of his bones. But the three men before him were different. Every step landed exactly where it should. Every move was made not for beauty, but to rob a man of strength, put him on the floor, and silence him.
These were not guards a pleasure house could hire.
Nor were they retainers bred in the household of any ordinary wealthy man.
A chill ran through Yan Ji's heart.
The third guard struck from behind Iron Mask.
He did not aim for the head, nor the chest. He lifted his leg and swept toward the back of Iron Mask's knee.
It was a vicious strike.
And a precise one.
Iron Mask heard the wind behind him, but had no time to turn. He only managed to lunge half a step forward, but the guards on his left and right had already sealed off his path. In the next instant, the kick landed hard behind his knee.
Iron Mask's leg buckled.
He nearly dropped to his knees.
"Iron Mask!"
The cry burst out of Yan Ji, sharper than before.
Perhaps he heard it.
Perhaps he did not.
One hand hit the floor, and by sheer force he drove himself upright again.
When he rose, his breathing behind the mask had already fallen into disorder.
Yet he still lunged one step toward General Zhu.
There was no technique in that step.
No pattern, no method.
Only the lunge itself.
Like a door-panel cracked by fire that, before collapsing, still meant to smash itself upon the man forcing his way through.
The three guards tightened together.
The left guard locked onto Iron Mask's arm. The right pressed down on his shoulder and back. The one behind swept again at his knee. The three motions came together as one, as if they had been drilled a thousand times.
Iron Mask's lunge covered scarcely half a foot before it was stopped dead.
His body pitched forward.
His hand was still reaching.
His fingertips were still several feet from General Zhu.
Between them stood the black-faced guardsman.
The three guards.
And all the power of the capital—an entire weight of rank and force he could never break through.
Only then did General Zhu truly look at Yan Ji.
Until now, he had been watching Iron Mask.
Watching to see how much strength this broken man in the iron mask still had left.
Watching to see how long a man who knew no martial arts could keep holding on.
But now Iron Mask was close to the end.
So General Zhu no longer looked at him.
He looked at Yan Ji.
Yan Ji's face had gone paler than before.
She watched Iron Mask pinned down beneath the three guards, her fingertips pressed so hard against the edge of the zither table that they were almost white. She had not cried. She had not begged. But that single cry of "Iron Mask" had already let a trace of panic slip through.
General Zhu saw it.
And the cold glint in his eyes brightened little by little.
So she could panic too.
So she had something she feared to lose.
The more she was like this, the more he wanted to see her break.
The prouder she was, the more he wanted her tonight.
General Zhu did not tell them to stop.
He did not speak at all.
Across the shoulder of the black-faced guardsman, he simply watched Yan Ji in silence.
Waiting for her face to change.
Waiting for her to speak.
Waiting for her, for the sake of this iron-masked man, to lower at last that final shred of cold pride.
Yan Ji said nothing.
General Zhu was in no hurry.
He had patience to spare.
At least tonight.
Down in the front hall below, however, everything fell suddenly still.
When the incense box had struck the floor and the wine cup had shattered, the sounds carried downward had still been half-covered by music, laughter, and the clink of cups. But now, with the three guards surrounding Iron Mask, the zither table jolting, the screen shaking, and knees striking the floor, one sound after another rang out, and no longer resembled the ordinary accident of someone breaking a cup.
The pipa stopped first.
Then the flute.
Then even the singing girl's voice broke off in mid-phrase.
The red lanterns in Baoque Tower's front hall still burned throughout the building, but in that instant, every guest, every courtesan, every serving maid, every boy carrying trays looked up toward the upper floor almost at once.
Someone said in a low voice, "Has something happened in Yan Pavilion...?"
No one answered.
At last the smile on Mama Qi's face would no longer hold.
She stood below the staircase, heard another muffled crash from above, and felt her heart sink. Forgetting everything else, she hurried upstairs at once with two seasoned maids and several of the house guards.
Her steps were quick.
The hem of her skirt swept across the wooden stairs with a rapid patter like falling beads.
But halfway down the outer corridor, she stopped.
The tall man in blue stood by a pillar outside Yan Pavilion, still wearing that same easy, unhurried smile.
He did not even raise a hand.
He merely shifted his footing lightly, and his whole body drifted sideways like a thread of blue smoke, coming to rest squarely across the corridor and blocking Mama Qi's path to Yan Pavilion.
Forcing a smile, Mama Qi said, "Sir, there seems to be some disturbance upstairs. Yan Pavilion is part of Baoque Tower. This old woman ought to go and take a look, lest the General be neglected."
The tall man in blue smiled.
"Mama worries too much."
His voice was gentle.
"Master Zhu is unharmed."
Mama Qi said, "But Miss Yan Ji—"
Before she could finish, the pale-faced, beardless middle-aged attendant had already approached from the other side.
His brows were lowered, his hands folded, and his manner even more deferential than the tall man in blue's. Yet the instant he stepped into the corridor, the two guards behind Mama Qi stopped short without meaning to.
"The young lady is unharmed as well," he said.
The smile on Mama Qi's face stiffened.
"If all is well, then let this old woman go in and take one look. Only then can I be at ease."
The pale-faced attendant lifted his eyes to her.
The glance was not heavy.
But it was cold.
"Mama may set her mind at ease."
At that point, it was no longer a discussion.
Mama Qi felt something sink in her chest.
She glanced toward the doorway of Yan Pavilion.
The two men dressed in western garb had originally been standing where the lantern light was dimmer. Now they too had stepped forward by half a pace. Beneath their robes, a section of curved saber gleamed coldly.
Not fully drawn.
Only a section.
But that was already enough to drain the color from the faces of the house guards behind Mama Qi.
On ordinary days, those guards could hold back drunk guests, suppress disturbances, and overawe a few rich young merchants making a drunken scene. But faced with blades like these, they all knew at once those were not things they could lay hands on.
Mama Qi's hand tightened within her sleeve.
She did not try to force her way through again.
Instead, she turned and looked downstairs.
That glance chilled her even more.
The private table where the Prefect of Raozhou had been sitting was already empty.
The Jiangxi provincial official who had been there moments before had, at some point unknown, withdrawn with his aides into the depths of a side corridor. Several lower-ranking military officers had vanished long ago, leaving only an unfinished cup of wine on the table, still trembling softly under the red lantern light.
The constables and yamen runners were gone as well.
Even the petty officials who most loved to display their authority in the hall had disappeared as though they had never been there at all.
The whole building was full of people.
The whole building was full of light.
Yet at this moment, there was not a single person she could call upon to intervene.
Standing there in the corridor, Mama Qi felt the cold spreading slowly through her palms.
At last she understood.
It was not that Baoque Tower could not stop what was happening tonight.
It was that every official face in the house had already withdrawn first.
From inside Yan Pavilion came another muffled impact.
Mama Qi spun around sharply.
The pale-faced attendant still stood before her.
The tall man in blue was still smiling.
And the two curved sabers, still half-hidden beneath the robes of the western-dressed guards, were still showing that same strip of cold light under the lamps.
That short stretch of corridor had suddenly become harder to cross than a city gate.
Inside Yan Pavilion, Iron Mask was finally forced to his knees.
Not one of the three guards let go.
The man on the left locked his arm. The one on the right pinned his shoulder and back. The third knelt half behind him, driving a knee against his lower leg. With those three points fixed, Iron Mask seemed nailed to the floorboards.
He struggled once.
He could not break free.
He struggled again.
From his shoulder and back came the faint sound of bone slipping out of place.
Behind the mask, Iron Mask's breathing stopped sharply for an instant.
Yan Ji's face went white.
"Iron Mask."
This time, the tremor would no longer stay out of her voice.
General Zhu heard it.
At last he spoke.
"So the young lady does feel pain for him?"
Yan Ji did not look at him.
"If it pains you, then say so," General Zhu said.
Yan Ji still said nothing.
General Zhu stepped half a pace closer.
At once, the black-faced guardsman moved with him, still planted firmly between him and Iron Mask. General Zhu thus stopped behind that "iron gate," looking at Yan Ji.
"As long as you say a single word," he said, his voice lowering, "I will order them to release him."
At last Yan Ji raised her eyes.
There was red in them, but no tears.
"What does the General wish to hear?"
General Zhu looked at her.
"I want to hear you beg."
The last trace of softness in Yan Ji's face froze away.
"Yan Ji will not," she said quietly.
The smile on General Zhu's face slowly disappeared.
"Will not?"
"I will not beg," said Yan Ji.
"Nor will I sell myself."
General Zhu looked at her in silence.
The low lamplight in the chamber swayed once.
That playful edge in his desire was stirred by those two sentences into something deeper—and colder.
She would not beg.
Nor would she sell herself.
Good.
Very good.
All at once he wanted to know what that mouth would look like if, one day, it were finally forced to soften.
He wanted to know too whether the cold pride in those eyes, if driven to the point where it could no longer be hidden, might be even more beautiful than what he saw now.
He said nothing more about whether Iron Mask would be released.
He only lifted a hand slightly.
At once the three guards increased their force.
Iron Mask gave a violent wrench.
That single movement almost dragged the guard on the left forward.
Almost.
Only almost.
The guard's expression changed slightly. His hand slid down from Iron Mask's arm to clamp onto the wrist. His fingers twisted, and that arm seemed at once to lose half its strength.
At the same time, the guard on the right chopped a palm between shoulder and neck.
With a heavy thud, Iron Mask's whole body lurched to one side.
He still tried to brace himself.
But the guard behind him swept away his point of support with one kick.
At last Iron Mask could no longer hold himself up and crashed to the floor.
Even as he fell, he thrust out a hand on instinct, as though still trying to seize something, block something.
But he caught nothing.
The old iron mask struck the floorboards hard.
Clang.
Heavy.
Dull.
Like an old bell split from within by a single blow.
Iron Mask sprawled on the floor and did not rise for a long moment.
The edge of the mask had torn open the skin at his brow. Blood seeped slowly from beneath the iron and ran along its rim onto the floorboards.
His fingers twitched once amid shattered porcelain and spilled wine, as though he still meant to push himself upright.
But when that arm—the one whose wrist had been twisted—took weight, it immediately gave way. The strength in his shoulder and neck seemed severed too; no matter how he tried, half his body would not rise.
He could not get up anymore.
And yet that hand still reached half an inch farther toward Yan Ji.
As though even now, at the end of everything, he still remembered he was meant to stand before her.
"Stop!"
The shout came from the side door leading to the inner corridor.
That was where Iron Mask had charged in from.
And the door still stood open.
There was a man standing there.
Mu Qi.
Fang Yingjie.
At some unknown moment, he had already reached the doorway to the inner corridor. One hand braced against the frame, his knuckles had gone so white they looked ready to sink into the wood. The low lamp in the outer room cast light from behind him, drawing his shadow long, half of it falling across the corridor, the other half stretching over the threshold into Yan Pavilion.
He saw Iron Mask.
He saw that old iron mask slam against the floor.
And he saw that hand, no longer able to lift its owner, still stretched toward Yan Ji.
The look in Fang Yingjie's eyes went utterly cold.
He stepped over the threshold.
It was not a large step.
Yet it was as though the name Mu Qi had been left outside the door.
Staring at the three guards, he said, each word clipped and clear:
"Do not touch him again."
Bare Hands Reveal Their Edge
Fang Yingjie did not raise his voice when he spoke.
Yet everyone in the Yan Pavilion heard him.
He had already crossed the threshold.
The low lamp in the outer room still burned behind him. The shadows of the inner corridor still dragged at his feet. But he himself was already standing inside the Yan Pavilion.
Mu Qi was supposed to remain outside.
Mu Qi was supposed to keep his head bowed and his hands lowered, waiting for orders.
Mu Qi was not supposed to look a guest in the face, much less step even half a pace into the Yan Pavilion.
But the one standing here now was no longer only Mu Qi.
It was Fang Yingjie.
The three guards had not yet withdrawn.
The hand pinning Iron Mask's wrist was still there. The man pressing down on his shoulder and back had not loosened his hold. The third, who had swept away his footing, was half-kneeling at his side, one knee still weighing on that weakened leg. Iron Mask lay sprawled on the floor, blood still seeping from the edge of the old iron mask. The hand he had reached toward Yan Ji was still outstretched.
Not because he did not want to draw it back.
Because he no longer could.
Yan Ji saw him, and her gaze jolted.
"Mu Qi."
The words were very soft.
Soft as a warning.
Soft as a command to stop.
Fang Yingjie did not look at her.
He was afraid that if he did, he would see how pale her face had gone. Afraid too that he would see the shock and pain she had forced down into the depths of her eyes.
So he looked only at Iron Mask on the floor.
The old iron mask had struck the boards hard enough to dent against them. Blood was slowly welling along its rim. His hand still stretched toward Yan Ji, but he could no longer push himself up.
Fang Yingjie stepped forward.
A shard of broken porcelain cracked beneath his sole.
The guard holding Iron Mask's wrist looked up first.
It was a cold glance.
A flat one.
The look a man gives a servant who has wandered in where he does not belong.
He did not release Iron Mask at once. Instead he tightened his fingers by half a measure more. Beneath the mask, Iron Mask's breath caught sharply. His fingers clawed against the floorboards, scraping through broken porcelain and leaving a thin streak of blood.
The cold in Fang Yingjie's eyes deepened.
"Let go."
At last the guard smiled.
The smile had barely touched the corner of his mouth when the man before him was suddenly there.
Too fast.
Not the drifting, elusive speed of lightness skill. Not the practiced swiftness of a martial man showing off his footwork. Fang Yingjie simply stepped once, porcelain clicking underfoot, and his body had already pressed in along the man's arm. There was nothing ornate about that step. Nothing pretty. But it was as though he had already measured every inch of floor in the Yan Pavilion—where the shards lay, where the wine had spilled, where the incense ash had fallen—and knew as well from which angle the hand clutching Iron Mask would be most vulnerable.
The guard's eyes changed.
His grip on Iron Mask's wrist had not yet loosened, but his other hand was already up. Fingers together, he drove straight for the hollow beneath Fang Yingjie's throat.
It was not a large motion.
There was no feint in it at all.
If it landed, the shock would rattle the throat-bone hard enough to bring a man to his knees on the spot.
Fang Yingjie did not retreat.
His left hand rose. The back of it slid along the inside of the guard's wrist like cloud brushing stone. The guard felt his strike fall suddenly into emptiness, its force drawn gently aside by something he could not name. Before he could change techniques, Fang Yingjie's right fist had already turned up from beneath his ribs and struck—only an inch of motion, no more—directly under the man's elbow.
Thud.
The sound was not loud.
But it was heavy.
The guard's entire arm went numb. The five fingers clamped around Iron Mask's wrist slackened against his will for the briefest instant.
That instant was enough.
Fang Yingjie bent, pulled Iron Mask's strengthless arm free from the man's hand, and drew it away.
Iron Mask made a rough, broken sound in his throat.
Pain, perhaps.
Or perhaps the sound of a man finally snatching back half a breath after being held underwater.
Fang Yingjie did not help him up.
Not yet.
The guard on the right had already moved.
He had been pinning Iron Mask's shoulder and back. The moment he saw his companion lose his hold, his eyes darkened and the edge of his palm slashed diagonally for the back of Fang Yingjie's neck. Fang Yingjie moved as though he had eyes in his back. Without even turning, he shifted half a step,避开 the vital line of neck and shoulder, and at the same time his left palm came up beneath him.
Palm met palm.
The sound was light.
But Fang Yingjie's shoulder dropped at once.
The man's strength was harder than he had expected—harder and fuller. Not the kind of force martial men flaunted for an audience, but the compact, killing force honed in close-quarters grappling: short, heavy, cold, and bent on crushing joints the instant it touched you.
Fang Yingjie's palm tingled with numbness.
He did not meet it head-on.
The force of Dragoncloud Palm turned once at his wrist—supporting became yielding, yielding became guiding. The guard felt his downward cut sink into something as thick as a bank of cloud, and beneath that cloud ran a hidden current, drawing his strength softly to one side.
His footing shifted by half an inch.
Half an inch was enough.
Fang Yingjie dropped his shoulder and drove his right elbow out into the man's chest.
A dull boom answered him.
It sounded like striking iron.
There was armor beneath the man's clothes.
The point of Fang Yingjie's elbow shuddered with the impact; half his arm went numb. But the guard felt his own chest clog with breath, and at last the hand pressing Iron Mask's shoulder came free as he stepped back half a pace.
Only half a pace.
But it was enough for Iron Mask's shoulder to slip from beneath his hold.
The third guard came in from Fang Yingjie's rear flank.
He did not speak. He did not draw a blade.
He used his leg again.
A moment ago he had swept behind Iron Mask's knee. This time he aimed for Fang Yingjie's ankle bone. Broken porcelain, spilled wine, incense ash—the floor was still treacherous with all of it. If Fang Yingjie lost his footing even for an instant, he would fall straight into the ring the three men were forming around him.
The kick came very low.
And very mean.
Fang Yingjie caught only the flicker of a hem from the corner of his eye.
He snapped his foot up just in time, narrowly saving his ankle, but the man's shin still grazed him. Porcelain slid beneath his sole. His body swayed—only slightly.
All three guards seized on that slight sway at once.
The one Fang Yingjie had driven back lunged in again, five fingers hooked for his shoulder. Another dropped his palm toward Fang Yingjie's centerline. The third slid in low against the floor, driving a knee toward the crook of his leg.
Three sides closed.
The few paces of open floor in the Yan Pavilion shrank until only the point beneath Fang Yingjie's feet remained.
Yan Ji's fingers clenched hard on the edge of the qin table.
She almost spoke.
But before the sound could leave her throat, Fang Yingjie suddenly sank.
He did not fall.
He sank.
His waist and back lowered in an instant. His feet seemed nailed into the floorboards. He met the hand clawing for his shoulder by driving his own left shoulder forward into it, not avoiding the grab at all, but letting the man catch a fistful of cloth.
The guard's eyes went cold. He was just about to wrench down when suddenly the cloth in his hand gave way to emptiness.
Fang Yingjie turned one shoulder. His sleeve slid from the man's fingers, and he had already spun to the outside of that arm. His right palm came down with the turn and pressed directly into the gap between wrist-bone and elbow.
It was not a heavy strike.
But it landed on precisely the place that should never be pressed.
The guard's arm went numb. Half his body sank with it.
Fang Yingjie did not pause.
Riding the same turn, he slipped past the palm crashing in from the other side. His left hand rose in reverse, palm against wrist, and gently flipped it back. The guard suddenly felt his own momentum being sent back the way it had come, so that against his will his strike crashed straight into the advance of the third man.
Their steps crossed.
A crack opened in the encirclement.
Fang Yingjie moved through that crack and seized Iron Mask by the back of the collar, dragging him half a foot behind him by sheer force.
Iron Mask was heavy.
Not the heaviness of flesh.
The heaviness of a man who was badly hurt, nearly out of strength, and still refused to let go.
That single wrench nearly dragged Fang Yingjie down with him. Fang Yingjie gritted his teeth, caught Iron Mask under the shoulder with his free hand, and said in a low voice, "Hold on."
A muffled sound came from behind the mask.
Whether it was an answer, or whether he still wanted to crawl toward Yan Ji, Fang Yingjie could not tell.
He did not speak again.
Half supporting, half dragging, he pulled Iron Mask to the side door of the inner corridor and braced him against the doorframe. It was still not far from Yan Ji, but at least he was no longer under the guards' feet amidst broken porcelain and spilled wine.
Only then did the expressions on the three guards' faces truly change.
Only then did they see clearly that this Mu Qi was no ordinary attendant.
A servant in a pleasure house should not have such a heavy base.
Should not have such accurate hands.
And should never have been able to tear open half a foot of space inside a three-man encirclement and drag someone out through it.
Yan Ji did not move.
She still stood beside the qin table, dark sleeves hanging at her sides, her face whiter than before. Yet when she saw Fang Yingjie pull Iron Mask to the doorway, the panic she had been forcing down in her eyes finally steadied, if only by a fraction.
The next instant that fraction sank again.
Because she saw Fang Yingjie's hand.
The hand that had struck hidden armor was flushed red over the knuckles. One sleeve had split open. The elbow that had seemed to force a man back had taken the rebound into his own bones as well.
He was not unharmed.
He had simply not retreated.
General Zhu saw it too.
He had been standing half a step behind the dark-faced soldier. Now he turned slightly, his gaze sliding off Iron Mask and settling on Fang Yingjie.
That look was bright.
When he had watched Yan Ji, he had been waiting to see when she would lower her head. When he had watched Iron Mask, he had been waiting to see how much longer the ruined thing could hold out. But what he saw now in Fang Yingjie was different.
It was the sudden delight of finding something new.
As though, amid a hall full of elegance and polish, a blade not yet fully honed had suddenly broken into view.
Not bright enough.
Not fast enough.
Still a little raw.
But it had bone.
General Zhu laughed softly.
"Interesting," he said.
"So there are attendants like this in the Yan Pavilion."
The clean-shaven middle-aged retainer in white standing by the door twitched faintly at the words. He said nothing. Hands lowered, he swept a glance across the room inside and out, as though silently reckoning how tonight's disturbance ought to be ended, and where it might still be ended without crossing a line.
The two Muslim saber guards still stood outside in the shadows.
Neither had entered.
But under their robes, a clearer length of cold light now showed from each curved saber. They exchanged a look. There was no surprise on their faces—only a caution that had just been stirred awake.
The thin performer stood farther back.
Others watched the fighting. He looked first at the broken porcelain on the floor, then at the qin table knocked crooked, and only then at Fang Yingjie. There was no killing intent in his eyes. He looked instead like a man watching a play that had suddenly shifted its key, a quiet tune interrupted without warning by the crack of a drum.
As for the tall man in blue, he still lounged against the pillar in the corridor.
Lamplight fell across half his face, and that lazy hint of a smile was still there.
Only thinner than before.
He had not moved when Fang Yingjie threw his first punch.
He had not moved when Fang Yingjie used Dragoncloud Palm to melt aside the guard's force.
Only when Fang Yingjie tore open that narrow line in the three-man ring and dragged Iron Mask half a foot clear did one of the tall man's fingers twitch inside his sleeve.
Only slightly.
Slight as wind stirring cloth.
But the smile had indeed faded.
He looked at Fang Yingjie's feet.
Then at his waist.
Then at his hands.
After watching for a while, he slowly raised his eyes to Fang Yingjie's face.
There was no surprise there.
No killing intent either.
Only the first trace of real attention, as though he had finally decided to look clearly at this "Mu Qi."
The dark-faced soldier had seen enough as well.
Standing in front of General Zhu, he slowly drew his brows together.
When the three guards had been pressing Iron Mask down, he had not interfered.
Not because he had not wanted to.
Because it had not been necessary.
Now it was different.
This Mu Qi had pulled a man free from under three guards and torn open a seam in their encirclement. That was not skill an ordinary attendant in a pleasure house was supposed to possess.
The dark-faced soldier stepped forward.
Broken porcelain rang under that single step.
The three guards, who had been about to surge in once more, all stopped at the sound.
The dark-faced soldier did not look at Fang Yingjie first.
He looked at the three guards.
Only once.
There was no roar, no rebuke. Yet that look weighed more than either.
All three men's faces darkened at the same time.
They had overwhelmed Iron Mask too easily just now.
To lose him from the hands of an attendant in the Yan Pavilion was no longer something mere carelessness could cover.
The three guards closed in again.
One flexed fingers still numb from the strike to his wrist. One, breathing through the dull ache beneath the armor at his chest, looked colder than before. The last shifted his toe lightly among the shards and sealed Fang Yingjie's rear flank again.
This time none of them looked at Iron Mask.
All three were looking at Fang Yingjie.
Fang Yingjie looked back at them.
Iron Mask had already been dragged to the side door of the inner corridor, his back against the frame. He was slumped there, one arm still unable to rise, but at least he was no longer being ground into the floor underfoot.
Behind Fang Yingjie stood Yan Ji.
Behind and to the side, Iron Mask.
Ahead of him stood three guards with armor hidden beneath their clothes.
He still had no weapon in hand.
The saber lay beside the qin table, upon the long stand.
Under the low lamp, the black-gold scabbard rested in shadow. That cold gleam of jade on it looked like a single eye quietly open in the dark.
Fang Yingjie knew it was there.
But he did not look.
It was not yet time to look at the saber.
The three guards moved at once.
This time they did not hold back.
The one on the left drove for the centerline, fingers no longer clawing for his shoulder but spearing straight for the throat. The one on the right circled behind him, palm skimming toward the waist to cut off his retreat. The third dropped low again for the legs, no longer sweeping merely for the ankle, but sealing knee, shin, and instep together.
Three sides closed.
Again the few paces of open space in the Yan Pavilion were crushed down to the point beneath Fang Yingjie's feet.
Fang Yingjie did not retreat.
A moment ago Iron Mask had still been in their hands. Every punch and every palm-strike Fang Yingjie threw had first had to save him.
Now Iron Mask was behind him.
At last he could fight with both hands free.
The guard on the left arrived first.
Fang Yingjie neither dodged nor swerved. His right fist came up from beneath his ribs and struck an inch short and true beneath the man's wrist.
The guard's wrist-bone jolted. His attack skewed.
Fang Yingjie stepped in after it, dropping his shoulder and back, and drove a punch into the man's chest.
Boom.
His fist struck hidden armor with the dullness of a hammer on an iron gate.
But this punch was not the same as before.
Before, he had struck in haste to force a retreat and pull a man free.
This time, he used one of the heaviest lines in the Fang Family Fist—a stele-splitting blow.
The force could not pierce the armor, but through that hard layer it shook the breath inside the man's chest into chaos for half a beat. The guard grunted and staggered back two steps, crashing spine-first into the edge of a screen. The jade pendants hanging from it broke into a clatter.
The guard on the right had already come around behind him.
Palm-force slashed for Fang Yingjie's waist.
It was as if Fang Yingjie had known he would be there. His left palm rose behind him. He did not even turn his head, yet it met the man's wrist exactly as the strike came in.
The guard's heart jumped.
That support looked light, but it landed at precisely the instant when his strength had not yet fully left and his next change of movement had not yet begun.
The force in Fang Yingjie's palm rolled once.
The guard was drawn forward, nearly colliding with his companion.
Fang Yingjie turned at the waist and drove his right elbow backward.
Another dull boom.
The mountain-smashing force of it could not be stopped by armor alone. The iron beneath the man's clothes saved bone and flesh, but not the choking heaviness of the blow. His chest locked. His steps broke. Fang Yingjie followed through with a palm and sent him reeling into the edge of the long stand.
The stand shook.
Inside the scabbard, the saber gave a soft ring.
It was a very light sound.
Yet it was like a thread of cold moonlight suddenly waking among the disorder of lamps and shadows.
General Zhu's eyes brightened faintly.
The tall man in blue still leaned against the pillar.
A trace of lazy amusement had hung on his face before, but after that turn of waist, that backward elbow, that palm which sent a man flying, it had thinned again.
He still did not move.
Only the fingers hidden in his sleeve had gone still.
The third guard was already skimming in low along the floor.
He had been waiting for this moment, when Fang Yingjie had turned.
His foot swept behind the knee. His palm chopped at the crook of the leg. His other hand clawed for the sash at Fang Yingjie's waist. If that grip settled, and the other two came crashing back in, Fang Yingjie would be driven to the floor again beneath all three of them.
Fang Yingjie sank through his stance.
That sinking was like a stone dropping to the earth.
The sweeping kick struck the outside of his calf with a hard thud. Pain jumped between his brows.
But he did not fall.
With the leg that had been struck, he nailed himself to the floor, stepped forward with the other, and brought his palm down from above onto the third guard's shoulder.
The weight of it came down like a mountain.
The guard had already lowered his center and had not yet recovered it. Under that pressure his knees bent; he nearly dropped to the floor. He reacted quickly, slapping a hand down to brace himself and trying to roll free beneath Fang Yingjie's arm.
Fang Yingjie did not give him the space to roll.
His left hand darted out, caught the back of the man's collar, and jerked upward.
Not to haul him clear off the ground.
But to borrow the momentum of his roll and send his whole body sideways.
The guard had not yet regained his footing before he crashed into the left-side companion who had just come back in. Shoulder and back struck shoulder and back. Both men's steps tangled for an instant.
And in that instant the right-side guard returned.
Fang Yingjie turned and punched.
Halfway through the punch, the fist opened into a palm.
The force of Dragoncloud Palm pushed out through it—soft at first, then suddenly heavy, like a turning dragon hidden beneath layers of cloud. The guard crossed both arms to block, thinking he could take it, only to discover that the force did not crash into him head-on. It wound instead along his forearms, rolled inward, and then burst from the center of his chest.
A sideways force, rolling and breaking like cloudbanks against a shore.
Bang.
The man staggered back three steps.
On the third, his heel came down on broken porcelain. At last he lost his footing and dropped to one knee.
The other two guards had separated again.
One's shoulder and back still tingled with numbness from the collision.
The other's knees felt weak from the weight that had driven him down.
None of the three was badly wounded.
But this round of encirclement had been broken.
Broken cleanly.
Silence fell over the Yan Pavilion for a breath.
It lasted only an instant—
so brief that the music from downstairs had not yet had time to begin again—
but everyone in the room saw it clearly.
The three hidden-armored guards had not held back.
And still this Mu Qi had scattered them with his bare hands.
Yan Ji stood beside the qin table, her fingers slowly loosening by a fraction before tightening once more.
She saw the rise and fall in Fang Yingjie's shoulders.
She saw too that his torn sleeve had split wider, and that a new thin cut from broken porcelain had appeared across the back of his hand.
He had not won easily.
But he had won.
General Zhu watched him, and at last the interest in his eyes truly lit.
"Good."
The word was not loud.
Yet it grated harder on the ear than all the cheers that had filled the front hall before.
Because it was not simple praise.
It was the sound a man makes when a small beast he had thought caged suddenly bares its teeth.
The face of the dark-faced soldier darkened completely.
His three guards had been scattered. He did not look at them again.
There was no need.
Enough face had already been lost.
Fang Yingjie had only just begun to steady his breathing when a shadow blotted the light before him.
The dark-faced soldier was already there.
There had been no preparatory stance.
No warning.
He simply stepped—and the punch was already in front of Fang Yingjie's chest.
"Watch the fist."
The words had hardly left his mouth when the blow was upon him.
It was nothing like the grappling of the three guards.
Nothing like the posed exchanges of martial men squaring off in the martial world.
It was a soldier's punch for breaking through a gate.
Straight.
Heavy.
Cruel.
This was the kind of fist born from close killing on the battlefield—not a fist that cared for names or sects, only whether it could put a man down on the spot.
Before the wind of the blow even reached him, Fang Yingjie felt his chest cave under its weight.
He had no time to evade.
And he could not evade.
Behind him stood Yan Ji.
Behind and to the side sat Iron Mask.
If he yielded, the force left in that punch would crash straight into them.
So Fang Yingjie could only receive it.
Both palms rose. The lifting force of Dragoncloud Palm gathered in them and met the incoming fist.
Punch and palms struck.
The impact was not loud.
But Fang Yingjie's whole body dropped sharply backward.
Broken porcelain shattered to powder under his feet. His soles slid half an inch through spilled wine. Shoulder, wrists, chest—all of them jolted at once, as though a galloping horse had struck him full-on.
The dark-faced soldier did not move at all.
Fang Yingjie gave back half a step.
Only half a step.
But he had taken it.
A change came into the dark-faced soldier's eyes.
Not surprise.
Coldness.
Colder than before.
"Again."
The second punch came down immediately.
This time Fang Yingjie did not brace against it head-on. His feet shifted. Dragoncloud Palm turned from supporting to yielding. His palm stuck to the side of the soldier's wrist and drew that brutal weight aside. But the dark-faced soldier's punch was too heavy. Even after Fang Yingjie bled off three parts of it, the remaining seven still numbed half his arm.
The third punch followed at once.
Fang Yingjie led with shoulder, with elbow, then with palm, barely managing to support the edge of it.
The fourth drove straight at his centerline.
Fang Yingjie gave half a step.
The fifth dropped suddenly lower, hammering toward his ribs.
Fang Yingjie used the turning force of Dragoncloud Palm to ease it slantwise away, but the wind of the blow still ripped another tear through his sleeve.
In the space of a few exchanges, the lamplight in the Yan Pavilion trembled wildly.
Broken porcelain was ground finer under the feet of the two men.
Wine and incense ash mixed together, lifted by the force of their blows, and scattered back to the floor.
At last Fang Yingjie understood that the three guards from before and this dark-faced soldier were not the same thing at all.
The three guards were strong because they moved as one, because they were precise and vicious and protected by hidden armor.
This man's strength lay in one word alone:
Weight.
Every punch that came down felt as though it meant to crush bone and breath together into ruin.
This was not the heaviness of a contest platform in the martial world.
It was the heaviness forged in ranks of soldiers.
The heaviness of horseback, armor plates, iron shields, and piles of the dead.
At this rate, he would not be able to keep receiving those blows for long.
Fang Yingjie's chest rose and fell. His palms were numb. Then, under that relentless pressure, the thread of inner force deep in his energy center suddenly stirred on its own.
It was not the Fang Family Fist.
Nor was it Dragoncloud Palm itself.
It was the breath-regulating method Old Daoist Xuan had taught him long ago to nourish qi and preserve life.
Back then Fang Yingjie had still been young. The old Daoist had told him only this: the method was not for contesting strength, not for forcing victory, not for seizing sudden advances. It sought only that one breath should not break, that one spark should not go out.
At the time, Fang Yingjie had not truly understood.
He had only practiced as the old man taught him, again and again, guarding that faint warmth in his energy center through endless darkness.
Then came ten years beneath the earth.
Hunger.
Cold.
Pain.
The breath of death pressing down layer after layer.
He had lived to this day not by refusing to die alone.
He had lived by this breath as well.
Ordinarily it did not show itself.
It announced nothing.
But now, driven to the limit by the weight of blow after blow from the dark-faced soldier, that faint warmth hidden in the depths of his energy center finally seemed to wake. Line by line, it renewed itself through the meridians.
Not fierce.
Not violent.
But unbroken.
The dark-faced soldier's sixth punch came down.
Fang Yingjie raised a palm to meet it.
The palm was still Dragoncloud Palm.
But this time, that thread of warmth in the energy center rode up along its path.
It did not strive to overpower.
It did not seize the initiative.
That continuous inner force rose with the palm, first adhering to the oncoming fist, then turning, drawing, sinking, and finally sending.
Dragoncloud Palm was a dragon hidden in cloud.
This breath-preserving method seemed to add a living breath to the cloud itself.
At the instant fist and palm met, the dark-faced soldier felt the force he drove down fail to shove the youth back as it had before.
It was as though his strength had fallen into deep water.
Water was not hard.
But it did not break.
His brows knitted. He added more force.
Fang Yingjie's face went white.
But his feet did not move.
The inner force from his energy center rose on and on, flowing along his arm into his palm, fuller under pressure, heavier under pressure. In the next instant Fang Yingjie gave a low shout and both palms turned at once.
Not a hard collision.
First drawing in, then shocking out.
There was already something in it of Dragoncloud Palm at its most mountain-subduing.
Bang!
This muffled impact was heavier than any before it.
The dark-faced soldier's shoulder jolted, and at last his foot slid back half a step.
Half a step.
No more.
But he had indeed been shaken loose.
Fang Yingjie fared no better.
His chest clogged. Sweetness rose in his throat. He staggered back a step and nearly struck the qin table with his shoulder. Yan Ji took half a step forward without thinking, then forced herself to stop.
Because Fang Yingjie had caught himself.
He stood in front of the qin table, both hands hanging at his sides, fingertips trembling faintly. His sleeve was split. Blood had begun to seep from old wounds in his palms.
But he was standing.
The dark-faced soldier was standing too.
He lowered his eyes and looked at that half-step he had been driven back.
His face turned so dark it seemed water might drip from it.
The Yan Pavilion had fallen silent enough for a needle to be heard.
Then General Zhu laughed.
"Good!"
This shout was brighter than the one before.
He came forward half a step, eyes fixed on Fang Yingjie as though he had finally found the one thing tonight that truly pleased him.
"Excellent."
The smile on the tall man in blue's face had faded away completely.
He still had not moved.
But for the first time, his gaze settled fully on Fang Yingjie's palms.
He was no longer watching for amusement.
He was watching for method.
Poetic Coda
Beneath the low lamp, one word snapped the clear strings;
Shards and incense ash left the chamber cold.
Even the broken mask still shielded Yan of old;
A lone fist rose first and stirred Lord Zhu's own gate.
Three hidden-armored guards closed in and lost their ground;
One unbroken breath in sinking cloud refused to fail.
Say not Mu Qi lacked an edge within his bones—
The man in blue watched those palms and lost his easy smile.
(End of Chapter Forty-Three)