The setting sun cast an orange hue upon a carriage drawn by two silverback horses, their muscles rippling like coiled silk as they trudged along the forest trail. The carriage was accompanied by ten guards, their uniforms bearing a silver crescent moon over a mountain peak, stitched with golden thread.
From within the carriage, a melodious voice rang out.
"Old Guard Wei, night is almost upon us. Let's find a place to rest."
"Yes, First Young Mistress."
"I've said you can call me Lin Xue."
Old Guard Wei's expression softened. His face was weathered like ancient oak, crisscrossed with scars that had long since stopped telling their stories. A white beard cascaded down his chest, but his eyes still held the sharpness of a drawn blade.
"Ever since Master Lin Tianhao saved me, I've devoted my life to serve this family. I cannot call you by name, First Young Mistress."
Lin Xue sighed and gave up. The carriage trundled on in silence.
Then—
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
Arrows rained from the treeline.
The guards reacted instantly, deflecting the projectiles. But one arrow found its mark — a guard cried out as it pierced his arm.
The ambushers emerged from the shadows. Ten guards. Twenty bandits.
A voice slithered from the crowd — the leader, face hidden behind a black cloth mask.
"Disable them. Don't kill them. They're hot goods for sale."
"YES!"
Old Guard Wei's hand went to his sword. "First Young Mistress, Second Young Mistress — stay in the carriage."
Lin Xue's voice was steady, barely. "Can you handle them?"
"If I cannot, I will hold them long enough for you to escape."
He turned to his men. His aura exploded — Peak Body Tempering 8. His subordinates followed at Body Tempering 7.
"FIGHT! PROTECT THE MISTRESSES!"
The masked bandit leader stepped forward, aura rising to match Wei's. Without a word he drew his blade and charged.
Steel met steel. Aura met aura. The masked man fought with strange familiarity — his footwork tickling something at the edge of Wei's memory. But there was no time to dwell on it. The clearing had become chaos.
---
The turning point came quietly, the way bad things always did.
One guard went down. Then another. Wei held the center, but the numbers were grinding them down step by step. He saw it happening and could do nothing to stop it. The moment he recognized it as inevitable was the moment a blade caught his side and a kick sent him crashing to the ground.
Even the carriage, which had tried to flee, was intercepted.
The masked leader stepped over Wei's prone body. Slowly, but deliberately, he reached up and pulled off his mask.
Wei's eyes widened.
From inside the carriage, Lin Xue and her younger sister Lin Mei peered out.
Lin Xue had the kind of face that made people forget what they were saying. Raven hair, eyes dark and still as deep water. But it was the composure in those eyes that was truly striking. Even now, with everything falling apart, she looked at the unmasked man with the careful stillness of someone already thinking three steps ahead.
Lin Mei beside her was a different creature entirely. Fox-like features, twin buns adorned with silver bells, a sharpness to her expression that in any other circumstance would have been mischief. But right now it was just fear.
Both of them went pale.
"Ma Fu?" Lin Xue whispered.
The man who had tended their horses for three years. The quiet servant who always bowed his head. The man who had fed sugar cubes to Lin Mei's pony just last week.
He stood before them now, sword dripping, a cold smile twisting his familiar face.
"First Young Mistress. Second Young Mistress." He tilted his head. "The buyer specified unblemished and in good health. You'll fetch the full price."
Lin Mei recoiled. "You monster!"
"Monster?" Something almost philosophical crossed his face. "Your father's wealth was built on the backs of others. I'm merely redistributing." He glanced at his blade. "The only difference between a merchant and a bandit is the paperwork."
"Who hired you?" Lin Xue asked. Her voice didn't shake.
"You'll meet him soon enough." Ma Fu turned to his men. "Secure them. ."
The fallen guards were bound with coarse spirit rope. Don't underestimate those ropes they drain your energy leaving you powerless. Old guard Wei spat a mouth full of blood after confirming that.
Lin Mei buried her face in her sister's shoulder. "Brother Ma," she said quietly. "You used to bring me candied plums."
Something flickered in Ma Fu's eyes.
Then it was gone.
"Sentiment is for fools," he said. "Load them up."
Wei struggled against his bonds. His fury had nowhere to go but inward. A man built from loyalty had nothing to say to a man built from none. He spat a mouth full of blood again.
Ma Fu surveyed the clearing. "Move the guards too. They might be useful for negotiation." He sheathed his blade. "We move before midnight."
The sun had fully set. The Bloodvine Forest grew dark, lit only by flickering torches.
Ma Fu counted his men. "Eighteen... nineteen?" He paused. "Where's the scout?"
A bandit shrugged. "Haven't seen him since the arrow volley."
Ma Fu's eyes narrowed. He counted again. Still short.
"Find him."
Two bandits disappeared into the treeline.
The forest went quiet. Too quiet. The birds had stopped. The insects had gone silent. Even the wind seemed to be holding its breath, waiting to see what happened next.
Ma Fu's hand drifted to his sword hilt.
The two men he'd sent didn't come back.
He made a subtle hand signal. His remaining men spread out, two moving to flank the darkness at the tree line's edge. He drew a secondary dagger from his boot and waited.
Something was in the trees.
Something that had already taken his men.
A figure emerged from between two trees.
Young. Perhaps sixteen or seventeen. Green robes that moved easily with him. He walked like a man who had nowhere urgent to be and found the current situation mildly interesting.
His face stopped Lin Mei mid-breath. Sharp angles, a jaw carved without mercy, eyes dark amber with flecks of gold that caught the torchlight and held it.
Lin Mei forgot, briefly, that she was tied up.
Lin Xue watched him with different eyes — taking in the easy movement, the absence of tension in his shoulders, the way his gaze swept the twenty bandits around him the way you sweep a room you've already decided isn't a threat. Her composure, carefully maintained until now, developed a small and involuntary crack.
Who is this person? He's not simple.
Old Guard Wei squinted. "A cultivator. But he's too young — he can't possibly—"
Ma Fu studied him. The stranger's aura was suppressed, unreadable. Sixteen at most. What could a boy do against twenty hardened men at Body Tempering 7?
And yet. The missing scout. The two men who hadn't come back from the trees.
His instincts, honed by years of surviving things that should have killed him, were screaming something is wrong.
He signaled two men to circle behind the stranger. They melted into the shadows, moving wide.
"Identify yourself!" Ma Fu's voice carried the edge of a man who wasn't afraid but had decided to be careful anyway.
The young man tilted his head.
A lazy smile spread across his face — the smile of something that had already decided how this ended and found the question faintly amusing.
"Hoy, shit face."
[TO BE CONTINUED...]