War

"Hmm?! Mara-struck?!"

The moment those words landed, the teahouse's leisurely atmosphere vanished without a trace.

The retired uncle who had just been grinning and mocking Qingque's luck at tiles had the wrinkles on his face tighten instantly, like stretched leather pulled to its limit.

He snatched up the heavy Celestial Jade table with one hand and flipped it over. With a loud crash, tiles, teacups, and credit points scattered across the floor, while he propped the sturdy wooden table before himself like a shield.

Another tile player kicked apart the chair beneath him, gripping a broken, splintered chair leg as his muscles bulged. He assumed the standard Cloud Knights charge formation.

"Get out of here, now!"

The uncle holding up the table growled, his voice scraping like metal. "We'll hold them here!"

"Hold them? With what?"

Qingque instinctively shrank behind Zhang Qi, her voice trembling as she looked at the two unarmed uncles. "They have gunblades! You don't even have a kitchen knife!"

"What does a little girl like you know!"

The uncle gripping the chair leg spat. "When we were fighting across the stars, you were still nursing! We haven't given these skills back yet!"

Zhang Qi did not move. He merely glanced at the Cloud Knights wrapped in black mist, then at the panicked crowd.

"Leave this to me."

"What? Why are you trying to act tough at a time like this?!"

Qingque was so angry that she forgot to be afraid. She reached out and grabbed Zhang Qi's sleeve. "We've played tiles together for so many years. Do you think I don't know what you're capable of? You're only a little better than me! I'm at least a Xianzhou native—I'm tough enough that one hit won't kill me. But with that scrawny body of yours—"

She wanted