It was afternoon in Arc City's Old District, and the shrill drone of cicadas was enough to fray anyone's nerves.
The battered "Plumbing & Electrical Repairs" Wuling Hongguang van sat parked, carelessly, at the mouth of a moss-covered alley.
Su Yu pushed open the door, tugged the brim of his flat cap low, tucked his hands into the pockets of his short-sleeved shirt, and walked deeper into the alley along the mottled brick wall.
It was already three in the afternoon.
The alleys of the Old District were nearly empty; a few big yellow dogs lay panting in the shade beside the trash bins.
He had already been through two midterm exams — Kevin's desperate counterattack, and Old Yang's black-hole baptism.
He now had a far deeper understanding of this body of his, one that had only just mastered third-stage spiritual power.
Shadow Stalk activated in complete silence.
This wasn't as simple as holding one's breath.
It worked by suppressing his own bioelectric signature and subtly warping the light-refraction index of the air around him.
It turned his entire body into something like a stone with no temperature at all, invisible to both the naked eye and thermal imaging.
He circled past the dojo's front entrance, past the plaque with "Inch Heart" gilded across it, and came to an old wall of flaking red brick behind the building.
A slight push of his feet, no running start needed.
His body shot straight up. His hands caught the top of the wall, and he flipped over it like a weightless cat.
The abandoned back courtyard of Inch Heart Dojo was spacious.
The once-derelict factory building had been funded by Su Yu into a climate-controlled motion-capture studio.
But the yard outside still kept that desolate, hold-out feel of an urban village nail house.
From the motion-capture room ahead came the faint clatter of a mechanical keyboard, along with Fu Hua's cool, measured voice giving instructions.
"Ma Feima, your stance is too unstable. The data capture on that sweep kick isn't grounded enough. Do it again."
Fu Hua was drilling her disciple.
Kiana wasn't there — she'd probably already finished her quota for the day and gone home to rest.
The motion-capture room's soundproofing was excellent; by the time any noise leaked out, it was already faint.
Su Yu's gaze swept past a flowerbed choked with weeds.
It settled on the crooked, aged locust tree standing at the center of the yard.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps in its leaves, scattering mottled shadows across the ground.
In that shifting play of light and shade—
Rita Rossweisse stood in her signature black-and-white maid outfit.
The knee-length hem was trimmed with a ring of immaculately kept lace.
Her long legs were sheathed in sheer black stockings, her feet in a pair of small black lace-up leather shoes.
In her hands she held a large broom bound together from bamboo twigs.
In a world that had gathered the previous civilization's strongest Fusion Warrior, a Herrscher of Reason, and Starfire's elite special forces—
this S-rank Valkyrie of Schicksal was, at this very moment, absorbed in sweeping the wind-blown, withered yellow leaves scattered across the yard into one neat little pile, stroke by careful stroke.
Her motions were unhurried, neither rushed nor slow.
Even the rasp of bristles against the ground kept a rhythm calm enough to soothe the mind.
Every bit the picture of a maid's professional composure.
Su Yu crouched low in the shadow behind the flowerbed.
His spiritual power spread out like quicksilver poured across the ground, but it stopped short of touching Rita, hovering just three feet beyond her.
So then, my assassination instructor, Su Yu thought.
Let me hand in my midterm exam answer sheet.
The tip of Su Yu's foot pressed down against the moss-covered brick.
There was no sound of wind.
He became a black shadow stretched long under the daylight, skimming the ground at a speed that shattered human physiological limits, sliding toward the sweeping figure beneath the locust tree.
Ten meters. Five meters. Three meters.
At this distance, even a professionally trained special operative would have had no time to react at all.
Su Yu's right arm bent, his whole body driven by the momentum of his sprint, his elbow a battering ram aimed straight at the unguarded center of Rita's spine.
He put seventy percent of his strength into that strike.
A direct hit would inflict instant nerve paralysis severe enough to cripple a Battle-Car Class Honkai Beast.
In the instant his elbow closed to less than ten centimeters from the black fabric—
the bamboo broom, which had been sweeping in that steady rhythm, suddenly stopped.
Rita's fingers, gripping the broom handle, shifted by no more than half an inch.
Whoosh.
That ordinary-looking bamboo broom, moving with force that seemed to defy physics outright, swept upward from below in a reverse arc, cutting the air with a sharp whistle straight toward Su Yu's chin.
Had Su Yu pressed the elbow strike home, the broom's bristles would have driven into his throat first.
"That's some reaction speed!"
Su Yu didn't force it.
Mid-air, he violently killed his own forward momentum, his core snapping into action to whip his upper body back into the extreme angle of an Iron Bridge.
The bamboo broom grazed past the tip of his nose.
The wind it kicked up stung his skin.
The strike missed.
Rita didn't turn to look.
Her left foot traced a half circle on the ground.
Her body used the momentum of the broom swing to complete a fluid pivot.
Only now did her eyes, half-hidden beneath ash-gold bangs, finally lock onto her attacker.
A gray hoodie. A low-pulled cap brim. A black mask. A presence entirely unfamiliar.
There wasn't a ripple in Rita's eyes.
She didn't even so much as furrow her brow.
She gripped the broom in her hands as though it were the haft of a war scythe.
A flick of her wrist.
The broom spun a half turn through the air and, riding the pull of gravity, came crashing straight down onto the head of Su Yu, who had just righted himself from the Iron Bridge.
The blow carried an assassin's characteristic decisiveness, with no wasted feints.
It was meant to knock him out cold, plain and simple.
Su Yu's feet shuffled rapidly, carrying him half a step back.
The broom smashed into the brick just in front of his toes, shattering it to fragments.
Dust billowed up.
No wonder she was the instructor — her awareness was practically a built-in radar.
Su Yu said nothing.
He steadied himself amid the dust, turning retreat into advance.
His left foot slammed down on a nearby ornamental rock, launching him airborne off the leverage.
His right leg snapped straight like a whip, tearing a shrill sound through the air as it swept sideways toward Rita's neck.
Crack!
Rita didn't dodge.
She raised her left arm, the outer edge of her forearm meeting Su Yu's evenly matched kick with perfect precision.
Muscle and bone collided with a heavy thud.
The impact's sheer force sent Rita sliding half a foot to the right.
Her shoe soles plowed two shallow furrows through the leaf-strewn ground.
In that instant of contact, her eyes finallyshowed the faintest flicker.
The way that kick had generated its force—
using momentum in midair, exploding out from the extreme power of the core in a single instantaneous burst—
it was far too familiar.
It was, unmistakably, the very technique she herself had used to torment a certain someone, over and over, on the Starfire Base training grounds this past month.
It belonged to her, Rita Rossweisse's, own close-combat style.
But the force behind it—
the seamless, flowing-water fluidity of the muscle contraction—
was more than a full tier above that person's.
His kick failed to land, and Su Yu used the motion to drop back to the ground.
He gave Rita no time to think.
His third-stage spiritual power spun into overdrive.
Wind speed, light and shadow, even the fold angle of the hem of Rita's maid dress — his mind processed all of it into precise webs of data.
He closed in, pressing right up against her.
His fists opened into palms — he abandoned the hard force of Tai Xu Sword Qi.
In its place he used a softer, more yielding technique.
It was a joint lock he'd learned the hard way — through pure bodily instinct — after being ground into the dirt by Rita's jujitsu countless times back at Starfire Base.
His hands moved like coiling snakes, wrapping and climbing swiftly along the broom handle Rita swung.
His target was Rita's wrist joint.
Lock the wrist, and he could strip the weapon from her hand in an instant.
"Using my own technique against me?"
Rita gave a cold, silent laugh inside.
She simply let go of the broom with both hands.
letting it drop to the ground.
The instant she released it—
her body dropped, boneless, at an uncanny angle, slipping clear of Su Yu's grasping hands.
Then—
her right leg, sheathed in black stockings, sprang upward from below like a coiled viper striking.
A killing move straight out of military combatives — a knee strike, aimed at Su Yu's jaw.
A clean hit would have given him a serious concussion, Genetic Lock or not.
Su Yu's brain, pushed to its limit, completed the prediction.
He didn't retreat.
Retreating would only drag him into the relentless rhythm of Rita's follow-up pursuit.
He chose the most dangerous option instead.
Crossing both arms into an X—
he slammed them downward, blocking Rita's knee strike head-on in its unavoidable path.
Bang!
Another dull, heavy clash.
Numbness shot through both of Su Yu's arms.
If this woman ditched the maid outfit and took up soccer, she'd kick straight through the goalpost.
Still, he'd stopped her attack cold.
Their bodies were pressed close together now.
Close enough to feel each other's ragged, heaving breath.
Su Yu could even catch the scent clinging to Rita — a faint hint of black tea mingled with the cold tang of metal.
The exchange—
in that patch of yard barely ten square meters wide, had turned into close-quarters combat that was as riveting to watch as it was lethal at every turn.
No glow of Honkai energy.
No roar of heavy-caliber weapons.
Just the raw contest of muscle, bone, and combat skill.
Fists, elbows, knees, legs.
Every point of contact landed with a heart-stopping thud.
Su Yu's movements grew faster and faster.
He fused together everything he'd learned over the past months — from Kevin, from Siegfried, even from the woman standing before him now.
The processing power of his third-stage spiritual force let him predict every one of Rita's attacks before she made them.
He kept slipping past her lethal strikes by the narrowest of margins, striking back through the blind spots in her guard.
The longer they fought, the deeper Rita's astonishment grew.
At first she'd taken him for some reckless high-level assassin sent by a hostile faction with a death wish.
But gradually—
she began to see far too many shadows layered into this assassin's technique.
There was the Kaslana family's reckless, life-be-damned brawler style.
There was the Inch Force of Tai Xu Sword Qi, so precise about breath and the timing of power release.
There was even her own assassination art, tailor-made for severing nerves and joints.
A fighting style stitched together from such a chaotic jumble of influences, yet fused seamlessly through an almost inhuman degree of body control.
There was only one person in the entire world who could pull that off.
Rita's breathing didn't falter.
But she stopped chasing after one-hit kills.
Her strikes turned probing, testing, drawing him out.
She deliberately left an opening in her guard.
Su Yu caught it instantly.
His left shoulder dipped, and his right fist shot forward like a cannon shell, straight at the gap Rita's turned side had exposed.
But just as his fist was about to make contact with the black-and-white fabric—
the corner of Rita's mouth—
amid the swirling dust and falling leaves—
curled up, barely perceptibly.
It was the quiet confidence of a hunter watching prey take the bait.
She hadn't been trying to defend that opening at all.
Instead she used the force of Su Yu's forward charge to let herself fall backward.
It was a self-sacrifice technique.
Rita's back slammed hard into the leaf-covered dirt.
But in the same instant she fell—
her hands clamped onto Su Yu's outstretched right arm like a pair of iron pincers, yanking down hard.
The momentum of his charge, combined with Rita's pull, threw Su Yu instantly off balance, sending him toppling toward the ground.
Just as he was about to crash down on top of her—
two long, taut thighs, sheathed in black stockings—
coiled up from below like a pair of black pythons.
A headscissors choke.
The pinnacle of jujitsu technique.
Rita's left leg pressed precisely against the back of Su Yu's neck, while her right locked tight above his collarbone.
Both legs crossed and locked at the side of his neck, forming an inescapable triangle choke.
Thud!
Both their bodies hit the ground together.
Leaves scattered in every direction from the impact.
Su Yu's face was forced against the ground, his cheek pressed tight against the taut, springy black stocking fabric.
The cool, smooth feel of the nylon, mingled with the faint warmth of body heat radiating through it after such violent exertion, flooded his senses completely.
In this position, all it would take was one sudden clench of Rita's legs.
Within three seconds—
the blood flow through Su Yu's carotid artery would be cut off entirely, and oxygen deprivation would drive his brain straight into shock.
A little more force, and his cervical spine would snap instantly.
Deadly, and charged with a tension so thick it was almost suffocating.
An instructor really is an instructor, he thought. There's just no guarding against her.
Quiet settled back over the courtyard.
In the distance, Fu Hua's cool voice still drifted over in intermittent fragments from the motion-capture room, utterly unaware of everything unfolding out here.
Leaves spiraled down around the two of them.
Rita didn't clamp down to snap the assassin's neck right away.
She held the position that pinned him to the ground.
Even her breathing barely quickened.
She turned her head and studied the cap-shadowed head so close beside her.
In her wine-red eyes—
there was none of the cold killing intent she'd have shown a mortal enemy.
Instead—
certain feelings she'd kept locked away these past few days behind her perfect maid's mask, without so much as a hairline crack showing—
the moment her suspicion was confirmed—
surged up in her eyes, unstoppable, like spring water breaking through ice.
"Your technique for generating force has improved by forty percent since a week ago,"
Rita's voice sounded close by Su Yu's ear.
"Your read on joint locks is worth praising too."
She tightened her legs slightly.
The pressure of taut muscle wrapped around him made breathing difficult for Su Yu all over again.
"But—"
Rita leaned her body slightly forward.
With a touch that was almost teasing, her fingers caught the edge of the black mask on Su Yu's face.
"Never use the techniques your instructor taught you — against your instructor."
A slight pull of her fingers.
The black mask came away, tossed carelessly into the fallen leaves.
Su Yu's face lay fully exposed to Rita's gaze, with nothing left to hide it.
Even though, over the course of their exchange, Rita had already confirmed his identity with complete certainty — reading it in the seams between techniques she knew all too well—
still, in the moment she actually saw his face—
her fingers, still holding the mask, couldn't help but clench, just once.
Every report about the collapsed abandoned factory, every cold red X on a life-signs scanner, every despairing possibility she'd chewed over in the dead of night countless times these past three days—
in this single instant—
all of it dissolved into nothing.
He wasn't dead.
He'd even had the leisure to come all this way and spring some underhanded, unguarded little "test" on her.
She let out a long breath.
The exhale slipped past her lips and teeth, dislodging a leaf from the brim of Su Yu's cap.
Then—
a smile rose up from somewhere deep in her eyes.
No exaggerated gesture, no crinkling of her eyes, none of that practiced, formulaic sweetness.
But the moment that smile appeared, the whole taut, bowstring-sharp edge of her presence went completely slack.
Even the killing chill lingering in the air around them seemed to lighten by a few degrees.
She looked down at the man pinned beneath her legs, at the flicker of bewilderment and resignation in his eyes.
"I knew it."
Rita's voice softened.
That distinctive maid's tone, laced with both submission and a quiet, possessive edge, reached Su Yu's ears with perfect clarity.
"There's no way you'd have died so easily, in a place like that."
She tilted her head slightly, and her short ash-gold hair spilled down, a few strands brushing across Su Yu's cheek.
"Welcome back."
Rita said softly.
Every word was crisp, precisely enunciated.
"Lord Su Yu."
Leaves spun down around them.
Rita's voice was quiet, the trailing note of "welcome back" carrying just a hint of that distinctive maidenly languor and obedience.
But the long legs crossed and locked around Su Yu's neck showed not the slightest sign of loosening.
If anything, she adjusted the angle slightly, pressing the taut stocking fabric even closer against Su Yu's skin.
She looked down at Su Yu, pinned in the mud beneath her.
The slight moisture that had welled in her wine-red eyes upon confirming he was alive had already vanished completely.
In its place, her face now wore a look of undisguised mischief.
Like a cat that had finally pinned a mischievous mouse beneath its paw.
Su Yu's cheek was forced flat against the ground.
The rough scent of dirt and grass mixed with the warm body heat rising off Rita's legs, faintly tinged with black tea, pressing insistently into his nose.
The two thighs holding him locked in place carried a startling, stomach-clenching fullness and tautness beneath their sheath of black stockings.
With the muscle flexed tight, the soft flesh of her inner thigh pressed into a tempting crease, the black nylon mesh stretching faintly against her skin, letting the pale white beneath show through.
He looked at the plain, unmistakable amusement in Rita's eyes.
The pent-up frustration of a whole month spent being ground into the dirt and tormented every which way at Starfire Base—
combined with his current predicament — seemingly seductive, but in truth humiliating beyond words—
quickly fermented into a fierce urge for payback.
His third-stage spiritual power boiled silently in his mind.
The Eye of Deconstruction opened once more.
He fixed his entire field of view on Rita, pressing down on top of him.
In a single instant—
the black-and-white maid outfit and the taut black stockings lost all power to conceal, in his field of vision.
Blood coursing through vessels, muscle fibers contracting, the layout of her skeletal frame—
all of it lay bare before him.
His pupils narrowed slightly.
Within Rita's body — seemingly flawless, brimming with explosive power—
beside the femoral artery on the inner left thigh, in the deep fascia of the right lower back, and at the point where the right shoulder blade met the cervical spine—
several glaring red warning highlights flickered in his vision.
Hidden ailments, left behind by years upon years of high-intensity combat, covert operations, and countless brushes with death.
Ordinarily suppressed by Rita's sheer force of will, but steadily eroding her body's function all the same.
"So this is it,"
Su Yu scoffed inwardly.
"You wicked maid, so fond of drilling everyone else half to death — turns out your own body's already riddled with holes."
His hands were pinned beneath him, but his fingers could still move.
Su Yu closed his eyes.
He compressed the Tai Xu Sword Qi that had only recently recovered within him down to its absolute limit, forcing it into the tips of his index and middle fingers.
A needle of qi took shape.
Without any warning—
the hand of his pinned beneath Rita's left leg twisted upward with a cunning flick of his fingers.
The sharp, densely condensed Tai Xu Sword Qi at his fingertip drove, with unerring precision, into the red blockage point on the inner thigh closest to her femoral artery.
"Hah—"
The teasing look on Rita's face froze instantly.
A wave of intense numbness and pins-and-needles, followed immediately by a scalding torrent like a bursting dam, surged from that point through her entire left leg.
The taut nerve pathway was forced wide open by the Tai Xu Sword Qi.
Years of built-up lactic acid and strain were violently released under that single strike.
The sudden stimulation, striking straight into the depths of her nerves—
sent the muscles of her left leg into an uncontrollable spasm.
The flawless triangle chokehold loosened, just for a moment.
That was his chance.
Su Yu wasn't about to waste an opening he'd carved out with his own hands.
He sucked in a sharp breath.
His core exploded with force against the mud, pushed to its absolute limit.
Using the brief slackening in Rita's left leg, his body twisted and rolled sideways like a fish breaking free of a net.
His right hand planted against the ground, and his entire center of gravity flipped in an instant.
The tables turned.
In under two seconds—
the man who had been pinned to the ground—
now sat straddling Rita from above.
His legs pinned her knees down.
His left hand clamped her right wrist.
Su Yu didn't let up.
His right hand turned fingers into a blade.
Tai Xu Sword Qi fell like a downpour.
It pierced the deep fascia of her right lower back.
Struck the joint of her right elbow.
And finally—
pressed hard into the largest hidden ailment point, where her right shoulder blade met her cervical spine.
A quick flurry of strikes.
Fast as lightning.
"Ah…"
A near-uncontrollable gasp slipped from Rita's throat — a rare sound indeed.
This perfect maid, who killed on the battlefield without blinking and tormented new recruits at Starfire Base without changing expression—
now felt as though her whole body had melted into a puddle of mud left baking under the sun.
The aches and heaviness that had plagued her for years on end—
melted away as fast as ice under sun, after Su Yu's seemingly brutal acupressure strikes.
In their place came a wave of pure relief so intense it nearly drew a moan from her, head to toe.
It felt too good.
Good enough that she felt on the edge of collapse.
Swept up in that overwhelming relief, Rita lay flat on the muddy ground, her chest heaving uncontrollably.
The proud curves beneath her black maid dress and white lace trim traced exaggerated waves with every breath.
From Su Yu's vantage point looking down, it seemed as if they might burst free of their buttons at any moment.
Even through the heavy fabric, it was impossible not to imagine just how astonishingly soft they must be.
That gasp reached Su Yu's ears.
It was more potent than the strongest aphrodisiac imaginable.
Straddling her, he looked down at the woman beneath him — her ash-gold hair spilled across the dead leaves, her eyes hazy and unfocused.
His last line of rational defense was tested to its limit.
Rita didn't struggle.
She didn't even try to pull her right hand, still clamped in Su Yu's grip, free.
She simply lay there on the ground.
gazing up at Su Yu above her.
Her wine-red eyes, which should have flashed with anger or wariness at having the tables turned—
instead brimmed like pools of spring water.
The corners of her eyes carried a faint, alluring flush from that same overwhelming relief.
"Oh my."
Rita's voice went soft as cotton candy.
Every word trailed off long and syrupy.
"How rough of you, Lord Su Yu…"
Her body shifted against the carpet of dead leaves.
It was the kind of unrestrained, languid stretch a cat makes waking from a nap in the afternoon sun.
With that motion—
her already form-fitting maid dress shifted out of place.
the hem sliding up considerably.
exposing a smooth, dewy waistline without a trace of extra flesh.
As her arms stretched out, the delicate skin beneath her arms lay completely bare to Su Yu's eyes.
But the most dangerous part was her legs, pinned beneath Su Yu.
Her right foot, which had been in one of those small black lace-up shoes—
had somehow lost the shoe at some point.
Clad only in a thin black stocking, it slid restlessly in past the outside of Su Yu's knee.
That delicate foot, wrapped in ultra-thin black nylon, teasingly stroked up and down along the side of Su Yu's calf.
The stocking material was so sheer it faintly revealed the outline of five small, round toes.
Rita's instep slid slowly upward along the leg of Su Yu's pants.
She watched Su Yu's shoulders grow more and more rigid.
The curve of her smile deepened.
"Still," she breathed out, a gust of warm air—
the fragrant, scorching breath washing directly over Su Yu's clenched jaw.
"I don't dislike this rough side of you at all."
It was blunt to the point of no return.
No pretense at all.
A seduction so shameless it might as well have had "come and get me" written across her face.
It short-circuited Su Yu completely.
He was a perfectly normal man — and one whose third-stage spiritual power had sharpened his five senses to an almost inhuman degree.
That foot still climbing steadily up his inner thigh, combined with the vivid, ripe-for-the-taking picture spread out beneath him—
left Su Yu's throat feeling parched enough to catch fire.
"Ahem."
He gave an awkward, tactical little cough.
forcing his gaze away from the pale expanse at Rita's collar and thighs.
Whatever else was true—
this was the back courtyard of Inch Heart Dojo.
The motion-capture room's soundproofing was good enough that Fu Hua and the others hadn't heard a thing.
But in broad daylight, out here in the open — if things actually got out of hand, this would stop being about any midterm exam.
It would be a full-blown social catastrophe.
"So, uh — the exam's over."
Su Yu swallowed hard, trying to salvage the situation with a businesslike tone.
He released the hand pinning Rita's wrist.
and braced his core, preparing to swing off of her.
Just as his center of gravity lifted—
and the pressure of his legs on hers vanished—
everything changed in an instant.
Rita, who had been lying there like a puddle of soft mud—
in a tenth of a second, every trace of allure and languor drained from her wine-red eyes, replaced entirely by razor-sharp focus.
The wrist he'd just released whipped back around with thunderous force, seizing his wrist in turn.
At the same time, the right foot still teasing along the inside of his thigh—
snapped back, hooking hard behind the crook of Su Yu's knee and yanking with all its force.
Her core exploded with power in an instant.
Su Yu, only half risen, lost his balance completely.
Rita rode the momentum of his fall, springing up like a leopard.
The tables turned once more, flawlessly.
Thud.
Su Yu's back slammed hard back down into the mud and leaves.
His vision blurred for a moment.
Rita was already straddling him again.
No wasted words, no pause.
She leaned straight down.
her startlingly full chest pressing without the least hesitation, full weight, against his own.
Under Su Yu's somewhat startled gaze—
Rita's face drew close to the side of his neck.
She opened her mouth.
baring straight white teeth, and bit down on the trapezius muscle near his shoulder.
"Hiss—"
Su Yu hissed sharply through his teeth.
Was this woman part dog?! She bit down hard enough to leave a mark. Even with Genetic-Lock-toughened skin, that was going to leave a deep bite mark.
Rita didn't let go right away.
She simply kept her teeth clamped down.
for a full five seconds.
Only then did she slowly release.
She didn't lift her head.
Her lips still rested against the hollow of his neck.
Her warm breath fell across the clear imprint of her teeth.
"This is for going missing for days on end and stirring up such a mess."
"A maid's small, insignificant punishment for a disobedient master."
She slowly straightened up.
her hands braced against Su Yu's chest.
looking down at him from above.
"And also a new lesson from your instructor."
Rita unhurriedly straightened her collar, mussed from the fight.
"The more beautiful a woman is, the better she lies."
The corner of her mouth curved back up into that flawlessly scheming smile.
"Never let your guard down until the very last second."
She reached out and tapped the tip of Su Yu's nose lightly with one finger.
"Have you ever seen a cat show its belly?"
There was a hint of mischief in Rita's eyes.
It looks, on the surface, as though it's baring its most vulnerable spot to the enemy without reservation.
"But it's actually the most dangerous posture of all — one that frees every claw on all four limbs, ready to strike at any moment."
With that said—
Rita rose up off of Su Yu.
She bent down, picked up the small black shoe lying nearby, and hooked it back onto her foot with her toes.
Then she carefully brushed a few dead leaves and specks of dust from her skirt hem.
Once the dust was gone—
she stood there in the sunlight.
and gracefully extended a lace-gloved hand toward Su Yu, still lying on the ground.
Su Yu looked up at the perfect maid standing there, backlit by the sun.
His shoulder still throbbed with a dull ache.
He looked at the hand offered to him, the corner of his mouth twitching.
Instead of brushing the dirt off himself, he reached out and took that soft yet powerful hand.
letting her pull him to his feet.
"Lesson learned."
Su Yu straightened up, looking down at Rita, half a head shorter than him.
He smiled faintly.
"Instructor Rita."
Rita didn't let go of his hand.
She stepped back half a pace, both hands lifting the hem of her black-and-white maid dress.
her right foot drawing back a half step, left knee bending slightly.
her back straight, head bowed slightly.
There, in the leaf-strewn, abandoned back courtyard of Inch Heart Dojo—
she dropped into a flawless curtsy before Su Yu.
"Lord Su Yu."
Rita lowered her eyes, her voice gentle and solemn.
"Allow me to express my joy once more."
"I'm so glad you're safe and unharmed."
Su Yu looked at the woman before him — the same one who moments ago had fought him to a bloody standstill and bitten a mark into his shoulder, now standing there with a deference so flawless he couldn't fault a single thing.
He sighed, long and inward.
"Mm."
The guardedness and calculation faded from Su Yu's face, giving way to a faint smile.
"Rita. I'm back."
He looked at the crown of her ash-gold hair.
"Sorry for making you worry these past few days."
Rita raised her head.
letting go of her skirt.
The smile on her face was still flawless, its curve precise enough to have been measured with a ruler.
"It's nothing."
She looked at Su Yu, her tone utterly sincere.
"After all, a maid's duty is to worry over the aftermath her trouble-prone master always leaves behind."
A muscle jumped at the corner of Su Yu's eye.
He looked into Rita's innocent-seeming eyes.
"You're definitely mocking me right now, aren't you?"
"Not at all," Rita said, tilting her head slightly. "How could a maid ever harbor a disrespectful thought toward her master?"
"You obviously are…"
Su Yu ground his teeth.
That bite still stung. And this was supposed to be free of disrespect?
"You're overthinking it. It's just your imagination."
The two of them stood there between sunlight and tree shadow.
Su Yu looked at the woman before him, her scheming nature bred into her very bones.
In the end—
all he could do was crack a helpless, wry smile of surrender.
"Honestly, I…"
Su Yu shook his head.
"Which one of us is actually the master here, and which one's the maid…"
Rita's eyes curved into a smile. She didn't answer.
In the distance—
the iron door of the motion-capture room creaked softly.
It seemed Fu Hua's coaching session had wrapped up, and someone was about to come out.
Su Yu instantly wiped the helplessness from his face.
He glanced toward the motion-capture room.
"Never mind that for now, Rita."
He lowered his voice, bending to retrieve the black mask from the ground and putting it back on.
"Don't spread word that I'm back yet."
Su Yu pulled his cap brim low again.
"There's one last stop left on my midterm exam."
He looked toward the dojo's outer wall.
A soft light surfaced in his dark eyes.
"Next, it's time to go see that idiot."
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