Chapter 604: Mirror-of-the-Sky Blood (8)

Following the Lama Monks wasn’t difficult.

They were celebrities—idols to the plateau folk. Even along the way, people flattened themselves on the road in five-point prostrations and crawled up on their knees. How special did a single blessing have to be, exactly?

So we only had to watch from a distance whenever a commotion broke out.

For reference, Seol Iri tilted her head.

Something about it felt familiar—then she remembered the happy faces of the Seol Trading Company staff offering Qing snacks.

In contrast, the Lama Monks showed no reaction at all.

They wandered the city, stopping to press the supplicants with questions.

I had no need to wonder what they were asking.

“Excuse me. [N O V E L I G H T] What are the monks saying?”

“They asked whether a monk had visited you before. He was badly hurt—gravely ill—they pray he survives...”

“Ah. So that’s how they’re playing it. Tsk.”

Admitting openly that a traitor to their sect had appeared would embarrass them. And if Amukhablap were hiding somewhere healing his wounds, whom would the locals hide for if not fellow monks? They could pry it out in no time.

For all their earlier bluster, I suppose they lacked the guts to touch the city; they were the sneaking, calculating kind.

Thus, while I was shadowing them from afar—

The Lama Monks, who’d been stroking a plateau man’s head and chanting blessings, suddenly halted.

They looked to one another, their faces turning grave, lips moving; then they grabbed a plateau man and began cross-examining him.

After that, they strode off in a hurry into a side alley.

What could be so urgent for a Lama Monk?

“Move. Looks like they sniffed out Uncle Ahab.”

We picked up our pace.

A casual glance into the narrow alley—good. At the far end they cut left, still in sight.

We too made an awkward turn, adding an even more awkward line like, Right, this is the place, and slipped into the alley with the air of people who’d only just realized they’d missed it.

Padding quietly, I sent the basic Martial Alliance hand signals:

Fast. Quiet. Ahead. Right. Present. Left. Aim for the head. Confirmed.

At the end, pretend to go right—watch left naturally.

And then, at the end of a rather long alley, a small problem:

Hm. It didn’t fork left and right. It was a single path that only bent left...

This was the root weakness of my people, the Middle Kingdom folk.

Back home, a “city” was built to plan; pick a direction and you could turn and turn and turn, never hitting a dead end.

So if I thought, If we go this way, it’ll be faster, it often was.

However—

That’s the exception.

In cities that sprawled up haphazardly, alleyways had no logic: they twisted as they pleased, dead-ended mid-run, or curled around to pop you out right beside where you’d gone in.

Guesses like If we go here, we’ll come out there didn’t work at all.

So the party looked to me.

I flashed new signals.

Not strange. Liars. Road. We go.

Just act normal and follow the path.

And then I raised my voice out of nowhere:

“Okay, but where exactly is your uncle’s place?”

Gyeon Pohee tilted her head. Cute.

Seol Iri tilted hers too. Very cute.

But the speed of their reactions made my eye twitch.

Hee-mae’s brain is pure and simple—fine. But Gunyeong, you too? Do you... think?

Thankfully, Peng Daesan picked up the rhythm.

“Don’t rush me. My uncle moved recently; it isn’t my neighborhood either.”

As expected of San!

There’s the brightest of the dimwits—shining in his role as the dimmest of the bright!

“Are we even going the right way? It’s getting seedier. You’re not luring us somewhere shady, right? If you pull that ‘Oops, wrong alley’ again like before, I’m really not letting it slide.”

“And what will you do if you don’t ‘let it slide’? If you’re not coming, live here. I’m going to my uncle’s.”

“Right here, you’re saying that?”

We played passersby.

Lost passersby.

Ahead, after about 100 feet, another wall.

A closer look: the path connected on the left, meaning it was a single lane that bent right.

So we turned the corner without getting lost—

—and stopped.

Three Lama Monks blocked the alley in a line, waiting.

“What are you people?”

“Us? What do you mean, ‘what’—”

“Don’t play dumb. I saw you in the square stuffing yourself like a pig. You’d stacked bowls into a tower and thought pretending otherwise would fool me? Why tail our order’s procession?”

Seol Iri and Peng Daesan looked at me.

Their eyes narrowed sideways as if to say, And why are you looking at us like that?

“Excuse me—‘pig’? What’s wrong with eating a lot? Ha. Funny. Do you even know me? Why pick a fight on first sight? Monk, what era do you think this is? Kids these days don’t curl up like worms just because some elder barks ‘Hey, you!’ like it’s grandpa’s time.”

The monk’s brows gave a big twitch.

His expression, however, slipped uncertain.

“I’m the daughter of a good house, and I learned martial arts. You think you can pick a fight with someone wearing a sword?”

The Lama Monks traded looks.

They were certain I was an insufferable brat—but was I the one? Not the usual reaction when a tail gets made.

Yet we’d definitely been sneaking glances in the square, pretending not to watch.

Well, Central Plains folk might find a public sermon novel...

Tap.

At that moment—

Three more Lama Monks appeared from the corner behind us.

Two held long staves; one was bare-handed.

I feigned a start and shuffled back quick-quick.

“W-what? You think my family’s just any family? The Seol Trading Company runs Hubei tight, okay? If you mess with me, our old man—no, my dad—no, my father won’t let it slide. That’s a real warning. Hey, Cheolsu, you’re just going to stand there? Didn’t you say the General taught you martial arts?”

“Hm.”

Peng Daesan eased a step in front of me and took his saber’s hilt.

The monks’ faces grew more ambiguous.

Spoiled out-of-towners? But what out-of-towner wanders into this walled city?

Then I pivoted and made a fuss toward the far end beyond the other alley.

“What—over there—don’t come—don’t come, okay? Why—what is it—what is it? Hey, Gunyeong, block them, block them!”

And I grabbed the woman behind me and thrust her forward like a shield.

We’d arranged for another team to catch the tailers from the rear, but to anyone who didn’t know the setup, it could seem plenty threatening.

The monks’ rear team wavered.

Maybe they really were just brats?

Mouthy, sure—but brats with backing.

Up front, the oldest monk softened his voice.

“My, my. A brief misunderstanding. We mean no harm.”

He was really signaling the rear team:

Not a tail. Don’t touch them.

“Really? Then why carry weapons? Put them away first.”

“Disciples, lower your arms!”

The monks blocking the back lane shifted their long staves from a two-handed grip to one-handed, resting them on the ground like walking sticks.

The pole’s near-only advantage:

In the hand, it might not look like a weapon.

Of course, the pole’s drawback matched that advantage:

It didn’t hit like one.

“We have business this way. Regrettably, could the benefactors visit in about one double-hour?”

“F-fine. Then, either let us pass, or you monks go first.”

“[Disciples, withdraw and continue the search.] I was a bit on edge. Escort these... folks outside first.”

“[Yes.] Benefactors, this way.”

The monk at the back answered in halting Central tongue.

Still, far better than Amukhablap.

How did Ahab learn the Central tongue to sound like that? Even from books, you’d do better than him.

A new question for later.

Anyway, we meekly retraced our steps.

My fingers traced shapes behind my back, hidden from view:

Ahead—ambush. I—center. San left, Hee-mae right. Not kill. Legs valid. Flee after.

What else do you do when you’re fooled? You take your beating.

My acting is usually awful—because I don’t like deceiving decent people.

But if the targets aren’t people—if they’re animals in human skin—then for the sake of wrecking them, I become someone else entirely. Call it a killer’s intelligence—murder-loving, a finisher’s art.

We hugged the wall, slipping past with cautious faces.

Seol Iri, of course, lacked the poise to “manage her expression” at a time like this—but tension was the right look now.

And the instant the monks shifted aside and two bodies brushed—

My Moonlight Sword flashed out, drawn in a blink, arrow-true.

A vision slid past:

An exquisite beauty, nobility dripping from her as if nobility itself had taken form, walking under the moonlight with effortless grace—my master, Sifu?—her poise so refined it poured out of her.

Then a pack of obvious thugs blocked her path.

They mouthed something; I couldn’t hear, but what can you expect of men who block a lady at night with those sleazy faces?

Why... is a peerless beauty walking alone at night?

Or do they think it’s odd and still dare try their luck?

My master stood, quiet, eyes flat, as the men closed.

And sure enough—thump!—the instant they entered range—

A perfect draw-cut; a strike with no hint of killing intent beforehand.

Ximen Surin’s Moon Maiden Sword Art, Second Stance.

A Woman Guards Herself. A woman can protect herself.

My sword-aura slammed into the monk’s knee.

Even faster than the girlish Ximen Surin inside my mind—well, back then my master hadn’t been a Flower Realm master yet.

But a draw-cut is useless except as an ambush—an ignoble trick meant only for that one moment.

No matter how strong, a draw-cut doesn’t reach even half the power of a full, ordinary swing.

Weapons strike harder the bigger the motion; that’s common sense.

So the meaning of draw-cutting is: how unexpectedly, from how ordinary a posture, and how fast can you deliver an attack that’s still powerful enough.

In that sense, this stance isn’t actually that great—

“Ghk!”

The blade that had pierced through the knee on conviction slid inward; I recovered it between his legs and—while I was at it—surged up to flow into the next motion.

“Aaagh!!!”

When I cut eight-tenths through his knee, he swallowed the scream. But when I boldly lengthened his legs by opening his crotch about an inch, the applause was thunderous.

Only then did howls break out to either side.

“Argh!” “Aaaaagh!”

Mm. Such is the way of amateurs.

Even their ambush is slow.

They say a hack is slow even to fall; how quick could his ambush be.

“Hee-mae, scoop this one! This side!”

“Okay!”

I stepped on the stone wall, vaulted onto a roof; the others followed, blithely trespassing onto a stranger’s house, and—whoosh—vanished.

Shrieks burst—

Damn!

The fore team of monks sprinted in from around the corner.

But too late—those brats had sunk into the earth or leapt to the sky, and were gone.

On the ground lay three Lama Monks writhing and screaming.

One had about two inches of knee left, dangling; worse, a flood of blood poured from the crotch he clutched desperately in both hands.

Another had a slab of outer thigh—about a pound of flesh—sheared off, the raw cross-section bright red.

The last had an elbow bent backward and an ankle crushed, with a clear footprint stamped there.

“[Mahya, Basu—check the disciples!]”

This was why I hadn’t killed, and why I’d aimed for the legs.

A dead one can be left—too bad. (Also, it’s a waste to grant an easy death.)

An arm, torso, or head wound still lets you walk yourself to safety.

But with wrecked legs, a comrade must lift and carry you.

The old monk grasped the malice at a glance.

“[You accursed dogs! How dare you! I will never forgive you!]”

Roaring, he bolted out of the alley.