The plum ravine spat them out onto a windswept ridge just as the sun dipped behind the western peaks. Below them stretched a narrow valley—dry grass, scattered boulders, a thin silver thread of river glinting in the last light. Yānchéng was still two hard days away if they kept this pace.
Sùyīn scanned the horizon, hand shading her eyes.
"Open ground," she muttered. "Bad for hiding. Good for running."
Mei followed her gaze. The valley looked peaceful. Too peaceful. After the ghost forest, the quiet felt like a held breath.
They descended carefully, picking their way down a shale slope that slid underfoot. Halfway down, the hairpin gave a single, sharp pulse—warning.
Mei stopped.
Sùyīn noticed immediately. "What?"
"Something's wrong."
Before Sùyīn could answer, movement erupted from both sides of the valley.
Six figures rose from behind boulders like they'd been waiting for the exact moment the girls' silhouettes cleared the ridge line. Black Lotus again—same tattoo creeping up their necks, same hungry eyes. But these weren't scouts. These were hunters.
The leader stepped forward first. Tall woman, late twenties, hair cropped short and dyed crimson at the tips. Twin curved sabers rested across her back in an X. Her qi rolled off her in visible heat-shimmer waves—mid Foundation Establishment, maybe higher.
She smiled. All teeth.
"Little traitor and her stray healer. You've been busy. Two scouts down, a ghost forest crossed… impressive for someone who's supposed to be dead already."
Mei's hand drifted to the hairpin. It was already burning.
Sùyīn shifted so her back was to Mei's, sickle raised. "We don't want a fight."
"Too late for that." The leader drew one saber in a lazy flourish. "The bounty doubled this morning. Alive is preferred. Dead is acceptable. Pieces are negotiable."
The other five fanned out—two archers taking high ground on the left ridge, three melee closing from the right. Coordinated. Professional.
Mei felt the familiar heat flood her limbs. The hairpin didn't show her a full memory this time—just fragments. A night raid. Moonlight on steel. A whispered instruction: When surrounded, choose one and break the circle there.
She picked the leader.
"Sùyīn," Mei said quietly. "Cover the archers if you can. I'll take the front."
Sùyīn gave her a sharp look. "You sure?"
"No. But I'm faster than I look."
The leader laughed. "Cute. Let's see how fast."
She lunged.
Mei moved.
Not a step—a glide. Body low, weight forward, right hand already curling into the drawing form even though there was still no sword. The leader's saber came down in a vicious overhead chop. Mei slipped left, close enough to smell the metal polish on the blade, and drove her palm upward into the woman's elbow joint.
A crack.
The saber wavered.
The leader snarled, spun, brought the second blade whipping horizontally.
Mei ducked under it—hair brushing steel—and came up inside the woman's guard. Her left hand snapped out, fingers rigid, targeting the soft hollow beneath the ribs. The strike landed clean. Air whooshed out of the leader in a surprised grunt.
But she didn't fall.
Qi surged—hot, red, explosive. The woman's elbow popped back into place with an audible snap. Foundation Establishment recovery. She retaliated with a palm strike wreathed in crimson flame.
Mei barely blocked—forearms crossed, taking the hit square. Heat seared through her sleeves. Pain bloomed bright and immediate. She staggered back two steps.
Across the valley, Sùyīn was already moving.
She flung a handful of powder from her sleeve—gray-green, acrid. It burst into choking smoke between the two archers. One coughed, arrow going wide. The other loosed anyway—blind. The shaft hissed past Mei's ear close enough to tug hair.
Sùyīn darted low, sickle flashing. She didn't aim to kill—just hamstring. One archer screamed and dropped. The second turned, fumbling for a knife.
Mei didn't have time to watch.
The leader was on her again—both sabers now, a whirlwind of red steel and flame. Mei parried with empty hands where she could, redirected where she couldn't. Every block sent jolts up her arms. Her borrowed body was tiring faster than the memories wanted it to.
The hairpin flared—hot, almost painful.
A new fragment: When the blade is too fast, become smaller than the blade.
Mei dropped.
Not a dodge—a collapse. She folded at the knees, rolled forward between the leader's legs, came up behind her, and drove an elbow into the base of the woman's spine.
The leader arched, sabers flying wide.
Mei didn't stop. She grabbed the woman's crimson-tipped ponytail, yanked her head back, and slammed her open palm into the exposed throat.
Not hard enough to crush windpipe.
Hard enough to collapse the qi flow for a heartbeat.
The leader gagged. Flame flickered out. She dropped to one knee.
Mei stepped back, breathing hard.
The remaining three melee fighters hesitated.
Sùyīn finished the second archer with a precise kick to the temple—lights out, not dead. She spun toward the last three, sickle dripping red from where it had grazed a thigh.
"Still want pieces?" she called.
One of them looked at their fallen leader. Looked at the smoking valley. Looked at the two girls who should have been easy prey.
He raised both hands.
"We're done."
The other two followed suit.
Mei didn't relax.
Sùyīn didn't either.
"Leave your weapons," Sùyīn said. "And your leader. Walk away. Tell whoever sent you that the bounty isn't worth the graves."
They obeyed—swords, sabers, bows left in the dirt. They retreated up the opposite ridge, limping, silent.
Only when they were specks did Mei finally let her shoulders drop.
She looked at her hands. Blistered. Bleeding in thin lines where steel had kissed skin.
Sùyīn appeared beside her, breathing hard. A shallow cut across her forearm, already clotting.
"You okay?" Sùyīn asked.
Mei nodded. Then winced. "Mostly."
Sùyīn glanced at the fallen leader—still conscious, but wheezing, clutching her throat.
Then at Mei.
"You could've killed her."
"I know."
"Why didn't you?"
Mei looked down at the woman. The crimson hair was matted with sweat and dust now. The arrogance was gone. Just pain. And fear.
"Because I'm not her yet," Mei said quietly. "The one who sentenced me without blinking."
Sùyīn studied her face for a long moment.
Then she knelt beside the leader, pulled a small vial from her box, and forced three drops between the woman's lips.
"Antidote to your own qi backlash," Sùyīn said. "You'll live. You'll hurt for a week. Think about retirement."
The leader coughed. Managed a weak glare.
Sùyīn stood.
"Come on. We need to move before more come."
They gathered what they could—two waterskins, a few ration bars, one of the sabers (Mei took it; the weight felt wrong but better than nothing). Then they left the valley behind, following the river downstream toward the distant glow of Yānchéng.
Night fell fast.
They didn't stop to camp.
As they walked, Mei felt the hairpin cool slowly against her scalp.
But before it went fully quiet, it sent one last, soft image:
A silver-haired girl standing alone on a moonlit pavilion.
Wind lifting her sleeves.
Her eyes fixed on the horizon—as though she could see someone coming.
And for the first time, the memory didn't feel like accusation.
It felt like waiting.
Mei tightened her grip on the stolen saber.
Two more days.