The Thunderous Palm flowed out, the left hand striking for the face, the right sweeping for the ribs. Iron Breaking fists smashed the palms away and continued towards Tian’s face. Slaps turned to deflections, wrapping around the incoming fists and diverting their strength. Then both sides withdrew and reset.

As the hands moved, so did the feet. Hong stomped forward, seemingly ready to plant herself and trade blows- before exploding forward with the brilliant footwork of a born boxer. Tian let himself slide around, retreating as she advanced, pressing to the side when she thrust, but never letting her get a clean angle.

His fingertips thrust for her eyes, a sharp spear extending from his sleeve. Hong shifted her head, slipping the thrust and answering with a heinous kick to Tian’s thigh. Tian got his shin up to block it, and felt like he broke his leg. The impact was brutal, like kicking an iron pole. He tried to ride the momentum backwards and counter with a return palm thrust, but Hong danced back, staying just out of his range.

Tian felt his leg stiffening. He could heal it easily enough, but this was a battle of skill. No vital energy. He frowned. Iron Breaking art. It wasn’t just a boxing technique.

“You have refined your body,” Hong said, not even slightly out of breath.

Tian jolted, then half smiled. “Funny. I was going to say the same to you.”

“I’ll stop going easy then.”

Hong Liren advanced, moving with tiny steps left and right but always closing. Her upper body swayed, but each step was firm. She led with a jabbing left, a second left, then the right came in with a brutal hook that sounded like a saber ripping through the air.

Tian blocked the jabs, but the hook caught him on the button and dropped him. As he fell, he lashed out with a foot and caught the side of Hong’s knee. He wasn’t sure if his foot or her knee took more damage.

His hands slapped the ground, breaking his fall. He caught his foot around Hong’s ankle and yanked forward. Her stance broke for a second, but it was long enough for Tian to roll back to his feet. Hong’s foot scraped his cheek as he straightened up. She was on him now, fists flying, elbows smashing in, knees striking up and over. It was like trying to fight someone with eight arms. Every part of her was an iron club.

Tian retaliated, hands flashing, his own elbows and knees trying to capitalize on gaps. It was a losing trade. His skill with Thunderous Palm simply wasn’t as polished as Hong’s grasp of Iron Breaking Art. He grunted. Losing was habit forming. He didn’t intend to lose. He fell back towards the cubbies on the wall.

Hong advanced with steady ferocity. Her face was a mask of focus, cold screening the blaze in her eyes. Every step was an attack- if not directly, then in positioning. Constantly moving to strike without permitting retaliation. Tian recognized the style, if not the technique. It was the hard external arts his brothers favored.

Brother Bo told him when he first got Thunderous Palm- not many on the Southern Border practice palm arts, though it was popular amongst those who mingled in murky waters. He had always wondered about that. Surely being able to liquify someone’s internal organs with a single slap more than made up for its short range and high skill requirements.

His brothers were a lot of things, but ‘bad at boxing’ wasn’t one of them. Hong was demonstrating exactly why hard arts were favored. Fierce, direct, powerful. No need for any complicated methods. Just kill.

Well. He had always relied on complicated methods. It was all a weak boy could do. So let it be complicated.

Tian leapt up and backward to land crouched on a high cubby, then immediately pushed off to deliver a crushing shin to Hong’s head. She blocked, staggering, but immediately shifted to grab his leg. Tian borrowed the force of her block to spin in place, driving his other heel into Hong’s temple.

She slipped it. The kick came out of her blind spot, lightning fast, and she still managed to lean her head back and dodge. Then her hand came up and wrapped around his ankle like an iron hoop. Tian knew what she was going to try next- the ground slam. He started contracting his body, ready to grapple with her, but the slam didn’t come.

Since he was already near to the wall, Hong just lunged straight forward. A perfect spear thrust, with a terribly imperfect spear. Tian cracked his back and skull against the stone wall of the cave, blacking out for a moment.

“I yield.”

Tian didn’t try to get up. The ceiling was spinning. He closed his eyes and circulated The Advent of Spring. Something twisted in him. He rolled to his side and threw up.

Concussion, damn it all to hell. Keep cycling Advent of Spring. It will fix you up soon enough, but you can forget going anywhere today.

Grandpa Jun sounded grim. Tian didn’t say anything else. He just lay still and cycled his art. He could hear Hong stomp off, and what might have been a muffled scream of frustration. He wasn’t really paying attention. Tian grabbed the cursed dagger and breathed, letting his art heal him.

Some time later, he felt a cool cloth wiping his face, and something removed the smell of sick from near him. Hong must be cleaning up. A few moments later, a cool cloth was gently pressed to his forehead.

She didn’t say anything. He didn’t either. He wasn’t sure how he felt. Not good physically, but there was something painful in him emotionally, and he couldn’t quite get his hands around what it was. Among other things, he definitely didn’t like losing. But it was something more than that.

“Fists and feet have no eyes. It’s normal to be hurt while sparring.” Hong Liren’s voice was soft. “Because accidents are in the hands of fate, but negligence and fuck ups are in the hands of humans. And since we are human, we can’t be negligent and we really can’t be fuck-ups. That’s what Sister Sia told me. Then Sister Bai dragged her off by her ear, scolding the whole way, but she didn’t disagree.”

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“Sounds like something Brother Meng would say.”

“He was the brother you lost recently, right?”

“Among… too many others.”

“Sister Sia died a month ago.”

“I am sorry. She sounds like a good sister.”

“She was. She really, really was.”

Tian didn’t say anything else. What was there to say?”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was quiet.

Tian felt something loosen within him. A knot he hadn’t even realized was tightening.

“I was stupid, and frustrated, and I’d already lost to you twice, once in front of an elder

, and, and, I’m on the Disciplinary Squad.”

Tian wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything.

“You know you have an incredibly readable face, right?” Hong asked.

“I do?”

“Yes. I’m guessing you never bothered to learn how to hide your emotions.”

“I can.” Tian denied it.

“Uhuh. Sure. I believe you, Brother. Nobody else would, but I do.”

“I sense lies in your voice, Sister.”

“Me?”

“Mmm.”

Silence settled down around them again.

“How bad are you hurt?”

“We won’t be traveling today.”

The room went quiet again.

“Sorry. I’m… really sorry.”

He could hear the truth in her voice. The knot unraveled further, but didn’t completely untie. He couldn’t understand it. What he could understand, he didn’t like. So he asked- “What’s wrong with the Disciplinary Squad? Rumor has it that it was an arrangement of your grandmother.”

“It was. A wonderful opportunity to meet future sect elders, powerful cultivators, make incredible connections, and oh yes, earn a little tea money on the side. Ninety percent of the time you are sorting out other people’s fights over money, and the other ten percent is dealing with stuff I wish I didn’t know brothers and sisters could do to each other. The Disciplinary Squad requires strength, will, and an utterly clean background. Naturally, that kind of responsibility is reserved for the Hereditary Disciples.”

Her voice sounded muffled towards the end. Tian imagined her sitting with her knees pulled up, her face buried in her arms.

“Hereditary disciples?”

“The descendants of Inner Court or Core Disciples who are able to cultivate. With how long they live, there can be quite a few running around at any time. And since their loyalty is ‘guaranteed,’ and we are all related to some degree…” Her voice trailed off.

“You are all related?”

“Yeah. Distantly, mostly, but Mountain Gate City isn’t that big. Families don't fall more than one generation away from a True Disciple because we all intermarry constantly. It’s quite normal for someone to have multiple wives or husbands. A lot of them are just on paper- business deals disguised as marriages for tax reasons.”

“That feels like cheating.”

“Mmm. On the other hand, it’s how things have worked forever, so nobody cares. It’s a way to make a lot of money. The dowries, bride prices, and businesses that change hands with a marriage are enough to buy entire villages below the mountain. Entire towns out in the rest of the kingdom.”

“Is it that good to live in the city?”

“Mortals almost never get sick and are strong into their nineties. It’s the safest place in the whole country, with opportunities to make huge money and even cultivate immortality. Kids born near the mountain are way more likely to become cultivators. The ones born on the mountain have an even better chance. You tell me if it’s a good place to live.”

“So what happened?”

She snorted. “Yes, that’s the delicacy I have come to expect from Brother Tian.”

Tian nodded. It was good that he was developing a reputation for courtesy and tact.

“We lost a war. Pretty literally. Our businesses were wiped out, our marriage alliances were broken, and our businesses and clansmen outside Mountain Gate City all ran into bandits. One hundred and seventeen times, across eight provinces, over six weeks. That’s what Mom told me. I don’t really remember much of it.”

“Ah.”

“Mom and Father Xiu… had to make a choice. There are rules about this sort of thing. Everyone understands that the wheel turns. We are all kin, to some degree. And Grandma was still alive. Not willing to interfere in mortal affairs, but alive. We sold everything we could, cashed in every favor, and found the absolute worst bastards amongst the manor families near West Town. The worst ones without a living patron, anyway.”

“And then you hired my brothers.”

“Mom and Father Xiu did. I was six.” Her voice was muffled again. “I don’t really remember my other dads very well. I remember their voices, sometimes. Or a smell. I can remember Father Wang holding me as we watched a lion dance.”

They didn’t make it out. There are rules, but rules are made and enforced by people.

“The worst bastards without patrons?”

“Yeah. I don’t understand it, but you can’t just kill a family. Not without paying a price. And the more awful the people you kill are, the smaller that price is. So Mom and Father Xiu found… monsters. They were monsters. And we killed them all. Mom, Father Xiu, our surviving guards, and some of your brothers. I don’t know who. They all wore masks and dark robes, we never knew their names. That’s the rules too.”

“Hiding from the price.”

“Maybe. But even with as bad as they were, it…”

“You still paid a price.”

“We are still paying. They killed everyone. That… family. They didn’t kill our guards or clanfolk, they killed the village. They burned down their own manor, and it was a signal to their bandits in the village to slaughter all the villagers, dump poison in the wells and scatter even more poison over the fields. We had to hire serfs from other villages. We had to import food to the village. Import food. To a farming village! And anything leafy, cabbages, anything, rots in hours. Even root vegetables and rice rots, or gets vermin infesting it. So much food got wasted. So much damn money got wasted! We still haven’t repaired all the fields, and there are way more kids born sick and weak in the village than there should be so close to the mountain.”

Tian wondered if he had been one of those kids, then shook his head. The dates didn’t line up.

Hong started laughing. It was a miserable sound. “But it was all okay! It was all worth it! Because I’m a cultivator, and that means I can lead the family back to Mountain Gate City and avenge my dads and restore our fortune and all of a sudden Grandma remembers we exist and now I’m on the DAMNED Disciplinary Squad and my sisters keep dying!”