Bai Zhi planted her heel on the edge of the bluestone, the tip of her sword braced against the ground to support her nearly strengthless body. She could hear her own harsh breathing, loud as a bellows; every breath tugged at the torn wound in her left shoulder. Blood slid down the crook of her arm and pooled in a small, sticky patch on the sword hilt. Lin Xiao and the other two had no intention of stopping. Their footsteps closed in again, sword edges crossing to seal off both her advance and retreat.
"How many more moves can you hold out?" Lin Xiao sneered, slowly raising his longsword. The blade caught the sunlight, flashing a blinding white streak.
Bai Zhi did not answer. She merely slowly pulled her sword from the ground and held it across her chest. Her movements were sluggish, as though every motion drained her of all strength, yet the flexible sword trembled faintly, as if some indescribable force were building within it.
Chen Wuya stood at the edge of the field, his fingers still hooked around the cloth sash at his waist. He did not call out again. He simply stared at Bai Zhi's sword hand—that hand was covered in blood, its knuckles white, yet it had not let go.
He knew what she was thinking.
Just last night, he had leaned against a corridor pillar, coughing blood as he laughed. "Rules are dead; people are alive. If you insist on practicing exactly as the books say, that's just copying homework. I refused to follow them, and in the end, my flow of force opened up on its own."
At the time, she had frowned and said, "Nonsense."
Now she understood. It had not been nonsense. It was a crack in the wall of a