The road was long, stretching across vast plains of yellow reeds and jagged ridges of stone that jutted like the teeth of ancient beasts. The sky was wide and pale, the kind of endless dome Yue Qingshui remembered faintly from… somewhere. Perhaps a battlefield. Perhaps a courtyard she once walked in another life. Time had grown strange for her; she knew pieces of her past, but each memory surfaced like a ripple on a pond—visible only for a moment before fading again.
The company she traveled with was small: Shi Heng, the martial master, and six of his disciples. Hardened men, all accustomed to discipline, but ever since Yue had joined them, the weight of their silence told the truth. They feared her. Not because she had threatened them—though she often barked commands like an empress addressing servants—but because of the way she carried herself, the ease with which her arrogance seemed… justified.
She reclined on her saddle with one leg propped on Shi Heng's stirrup, sipping from a gourd of bitter wine she had plundered. He no longer protested. At first, he had tried to maintain dignity, correcting her posture, insisting she follow some decorum. But after days of her blunt remarks, her mocking smiles, and the terrifying casual strength she displayed, Shi Heng had learned it was easier to endure her eccentricities.
Still, she had tried. She was learning his words, stringing together sounds that passed for sentences. Sometimes she failed, and hand signs took over. It amused her, watching this proud martial master squint in confusion as she acted out her meaning like a village child miming for sweets. Yet there was a strange bond forming, hidden beneath the mockery—an understanding born from effort on both sides.
When Yue asked him about their destination, Shi Heng spoke of Yanbei Martial Kingdom. His words were curt, his tone heavy. Yanbei was not a mere dynasty, nor a simple clan's land—it was a crucible of war, ruled by martial might, where sects and clans rose and fell like tides, and where the Martial King's shadow still lingered in history. Yue listened, eyes sharp, but inside her heart trembled faintly at the thought: Could he truly still live?
By the time the sun dipped, the company stopped by a stream lined with crooked pines. The air carried the smell of wet moss and iron-rich stone. Yue left without a word, vanishing into the brush. Moments later, the men nearly dropped their bowls when she returned dragging three massive boars—caught by hand, their necks twisted clean. Blood streaked her arms like crimson silk ribbons.
Shi Heng had seen her fight before, but this display unsettled him anew. How could such a woman—silver hair flowing down her back, each strand tipped in red like the burning of dawn—carry so much raw, brutish power? It defied reason.
That night, after the boars were skinned and roasted, Yue cornered him. She wanted more than travel, more than words—she wanted to learn his martial ways. Shi Heng resisted, but reluctantly relented. If nothing else, teaching her might prevent her from tearing through his men out of boredom.
The Training
They stood in a clearing lit by the fading sun, shadows stretching long.
Shi Heng began slowly, his feet planted wide, body loose but coiled like a drawn bow.
"The Iron Wind Eight Limbs," he said, patting his forearm, then his shoulder, his knee, his hip. "It is not about strength, but about flow. Every limb, every surface can strike, seize, mislead."
He demonstrated first: a sudden step inward, shoulder slamming like a battering ram into Yue's chest. She staggered but caught herself, silver hair whipping behind her. He spun, elbow rising like a blade, then dropped low, sweeping with his shin while his arms hooked as though pulling an enemy into the fall.
Yue clapped, mocking. "Dance," she teased in her broken speech.
"Not dance. Storm," Shi Heng snapped. "Iron Wind misleads, ensnares. The enemy thinks fist—" he flicked his hand, then struck with his knee—"but it is the knee. They think kick—" he raised his foot, then slammed his hip forward—"but it is the shoulder."
He beckoned her. "Now you."
Yue grinned, stepping forward. Her first attempt was graceless, relying on raw force. She slammed her shoulder into his guard, but Shi Heng redirected her, twisting her arm into a lock and throwing her into the dirt. Dust burst around her. She lay still for a moment, then burst into laughter, rolling to her feet.
Again and again, they moved. Yue learned the rhythm: fist turning to elbow, elbow to grapple, grapple to throw. The Eight Limbs were not hers, not like the sharp, domineering strikes she remembered from her old arts, but she saw their merit. They coiled around the enemy, stripped away defenses, used closeness as a weapon.
Shi Heng noticed how quickly she adapted. Her footwork was flawed, her transitions rough, but her instincts… her instincts were frightening. Each time he corrected her, she twisted the correction into something of her own, as if recalling forgotten arts that bent his teachings to her will.
By the time the moon rose, her body glistened with sweat, yet her eyes blazed with hunger.
That night, silence lay over the camp. The men snored, the fire crackled low. Yue perched atop the carriage roof, her chin resting in her palm, eyes fixed on the pale moon sailing across the heavens.
Her expression softened. For once, the mockery and arrogance were gone. She thought of her lovers—two faces blurred by memory but etched deep into her soul. Did they live? Did they mourn her? Did they know she was lost to another age, wandering like a ghost?
Her chest tightened. She was cruel when she needed to be, cold when the world demanded—but love, when it found her, had always been her weakness.
Her silver hair shimmered in the moonlight, the red tips glinting like smoldering embers. She whispered softly, words half-choked by foreign syllables and fading memory.
Could the Martial King truly still live? Was he somewhere beyond Yanbei, waiting for her… or for her death? If they met again, would he embrace her—or would they clash, their blades writing the final chapter of their story?
She did not know.
But she swore this to herself beneath the lonely stars: nothing, no man, no sect, no kingdom, would halt her steps. She would find the Martial King, even if it meant carving a bloody path through heaven and earth.
And with that thought, Yue Qingshui's lips curved into a faint, dangerous smile.
The road stretched onward.
It was funny to her, holding back, letting someone teach her how to fight? . It was funny because it reminded her of him, she didn't remember his name or face but remembered the experience.