Yue Qingshui did not understand the village dialect. Not one word.
And she didn't care to.
She'd been staying at the Broken Moon Inn for the past three days, sleeping on a straw mattress stuffed too thin and waking to a series of noises she interpreted as "grunting nonsense." Every conversation was a test of patience. She tried listening. She truly did. But something about the way these people spoke irked her—too much phlegm, too little intent.
When the innkeeper's son brought her water in a wooden cup and bowed, she narrowed her eyes, misunderstanding the gesture as mockery.
She shoved the boy out the door with a scowl.
When two old men pointed at her robes and muttered amongst themselves, likely complimenting her appearance, she spun on them and barked a dozen words they couldn't decipher. Her voice was sharp, almost melodic in how violently it climbed. The men scattered, terrified by the "pretty foreigner with murder in her eyes."
She was bored.
And she was getting itchy.
Not the kind of itchy that needed scratching. No, this was the bone-deep itch of stillness, of quiet, of wasted time.
And Yue Qingshui hated wasting time.
---
That morning, she wandered out of the inn dressed in pale blue robes cinched tight at the waist, an old gourd of wine swinging loosely from her belt. Her Silver hair tipped red at the end fell to her hips, unkempt but not uncared for. She walked through the winding village path, hearing the dull thud of fists in the wind. There was shouting, too. Cheers.
Fighting ring.
It wasn't hard to find. Just follow the noise. She stepped into the open clearing—a ring of packed earth surrounded by low wooden benches and shouting villagers, most of whom stopped mid-cheer when they saw her. A dozen eyes widened. Some gasped.
She wasn't a local. That was obvious. She didn't dress like them.
And more than that—she carried herself like she didn't fear the world.
In the ring, two young men danced around each other. They were fast. Aggressive. But Yue's sharp eyes picked them apart in seconds.
"Wasted footwork."
"Your guard's open."
"Why the spin? That made no sense."
She sighed aloud and stepped closer to the ring, watching as one fighter tried a sloppy leg sweep and the other took a glancing hit, then fell over dramatically. The crowd erupted into cheers.
Yue rolled her eyes. "That's what you cheer for? You call that a fall?"
The victor climbed the edge of the ring and smirked at her, trying to be charming. He said something in that garbled village tongue. She didn't know what it meant—but it felt condescending.
She tilted her head. "You mocking me, rat?"
He laughed nervously. Maybe he thought she was harmless. A noble's daughter? A courtesan gone astray?
Yue Qingshui stepped into the ring without invitation.
The crowd hushed.
The fighter blinked. "...Mei mei?" He gestured for her to go back.
Yue blinked at him, then raised one delicate eyebrow. Her lips curved into a cruel smile.
And then she grabbed him by the belt and collar, lifted him clean off the ground, and spun. With a casual flick of her wrist, she hurled him through the air like a sack of rice. He hit the dirt outside the ring with a hollow thud, rolling once before going limp.
Gasps. Murmurs. A few screams.
Someone shouted, likely asking who she was. Yue just turned to the audience, cracked her neck to one side, and grinned.
"Next."
Four men leapt into the ring. She counted their steps. All muscle, no technique. They rushed together. Predictable.
Yue sidestepped the first, ducked under the second, then planted a palm in his chest with enough force to lift him off the ground and into the third man. Bones cracked. The fourth man swung a club; Yue caught it with two fingers, twisted, and the club shattered.
She moved like a windstorm wrapped in silk, graceful and unrelenting. One man grabbed her arm. She snapped his elbow. Another tackled her. She dropped her weight and flipped him with her hip, letting him fall headfirst into the ring post.
Cheers turned to horror. The villagers watching realized something was deeply wrong. This wasn't an ordinary woman. This wasn't even a martial artist.
This was a monster in human skin.
Minutes later, the ring was a graveyard. Not of the dead, but of the humiliated. Yue Qingshui sat atop a pile of groaning bodies, chin in her hand, looking utterly unimpressed.
"Still not enough," she muttered. "Do none of you know how to fight?"
Then, movement.
From the other end of the ring, a man emerged. He wore black and gold robes, his hair tied high with a silver clasp. His eyes were cold, like a judge who'd seen too many cases and handed down too many sentences.
Behind him were five guards. Silent. Armed. Eyes sharp.
Yue tilted her head. Something about his gait made her pause. A memory—it flickered in her like lightning.
An old man, back straight, arms behind his back, walking across a ruined field.
The same pace. The same arrogance.
She stood up from her throne of bodies.
One of the injured men crawled toward the robed figure, babbling in panic. The leader nodded once, then stepped into the ring. His gaze never left hers.
He spoke. Firmly. Authoritatively.
Yue didn't understand a word.
So she gave him a cheeky grin and raised her middle finger. Then, just for good measure, she gestured rudely to the pile of men at her feet.
The man's eyes narrowed. He asked her something again, voice lower now, tinged with heat.
Still, Yue didn't respond. Or rather, she did—but with profanity, in a language none of them knew.
The man's expression didn't change. But the air did.
Suddenly, the atmosphere tightened. It became heavy. Violent. The sky itself seemed to dim.
This was Zin.
An invisible force pressed down like a mountain, flattening all those still conscious to their knees. Even the spectators in the crowd buckled, gasping. A few fainted. The guards behind him didn't flinch—trained to withstand pressure like this.
The man smiled.
And then his smile vanished.
Because Yue Qingshui was still standing.
Unmoving. Unbent. Eyes bright with wonder.
"Ooooh," she whispered. "That was Zin? That tickled."
She took a step forward.
The man tensed.
Then Yue smiled wider and—without shifting her stance—released her own Zin Pressure.
It was like a typhoon had exploded in silence.
The entire village shook. Trees bent. The wooden supports of nearby homes cracked under the force. The very earth trembled.
The guards dropped like dolls. The crowd collapsed. The air grew so thick it became difficult to breathe. The sky itself turned hazy, warped by the sheer volume of intent being released.
The man—the master—grunted. Then gasped. His knees buckled. He tried to hold himself up. He failed.
He knelt.
Yue walked toward him slowly, each step light as snow. Her robes fluttered in a wind she herself had created.
The pressure didn't ease. It increased.
The master was shaking now. Sweat pooled on his forehead. His hands trembled.
And Yue knelt in front of him, face inches from his, and whispered in a foreign tongue that sounded like a purr.
"So you're a real one. That's good.
You're the first man I didn't break with a flick.
What's your name, Little Tiger?"
He didn't understand her.
But he would never forget the way her eyes looked—like a goddess from the old legends, curious, cruel, and hungry for more.