Yù Méi woke before the sun painted the red ceramic roofs. Her body hummed, every muscle taut as a bowstring pulled to its limit. Her sister's promise from the night before echoed in her mind, competing only with the wet, desperate sounds she had been forced to ignore through the bedroom wall during the early hours.
She paced the small room, her fists opening and closing. Where would they come? Would they attack at the meat stall? She imagined herself holding a skewer of honeyed pork in one hand while crushing an arrogant cultivator's skull with the other. Or perhaps on the jewelers' street, hurling mercenaries through display windows of clear glass. Every scenario her mind conjured made her more anxious, more hungry.
She put on the same emerald‑green tunic from the day before, tied the coin pouch to her belt, and forced a relaxed smile onto her face. She stepped into the hallway and knocked on the double suite door with the exaggerated cheerfulness of someone pretending the previous night had never happened.
The door opened. Yù Qíng appeared radiant, her porcelain skin glowing with a vitality that only an ocean recently refilled by a universe could possess. She wore the short navy‑blue dress, her black hair swaying like heavy silk. Just behind, Zhì Yuǎn glided into the hallway, his charcoal‑gray tunic and black cloak merging with the air currents, silent and invisible to the world.
"Good morning!" Yù Méi smiled, bouncing on her heels. "The sun is already high. Shall we go for a walk? Eat something on the street? I have an absurd urge to chew on something… hard."
Yù Qíng let out a crystalline laugh, her black eyes perfectly catching her sister's predatory tension.
"Then let's go, little flower. The wind today promises."
They descended the polished wood stairs. Yù Méi was mentally calculating how many skewers of meat she would buy, her guard completely down from sheer boredom, when she stepped onto the last step and the scene in the main lobby made her freeze.
The morning grumpiness evaporated. A predatory smile slowly drew itself across the Untouchable Petal's face.
They were there.
In the center of the Golden Heron's luxurious lobby, the Patriarch of the Thunder Clan waited. He wore heavy purple silks, jade rings gleaming on his fingers. His eyes, sharp as those of a commercial falcon, studied the stairs with cool calculation. But it was not him who drew Yù Méi's attention. It was the four mercenaries arrayed behind him like living walls.
Three men and, to her surprise, one woman. They did not possess the sparse Qi she had seen scattered across the city. They were cultivators of the sixth mortal realm—Organ Purification. Their auras were dense, brutal, forged in the hunting of beasts and spilled blood. The first man carried a massive war hammer; the second, thin as a praying mantis, wielded paired hook‑swords. The third, his face crossed by scars, rested his hands on a broad, rustic greatsword. The woman, broad‑shouldered with dark braids, gripped a heavy black‑iron halberd that rested on the wood floor with a menacing thud.
The other mortal guests of the inn huddled in the corners, terrified by the "killing aura" the group exuded. For the trio on the stairs, however, that aura was like a breeze striking the foothills of a mountain.
Silence reigned until Yù Qíng descended the last step. Her bare feet touched the floor, and she stopped, tilting her head slightly. To Yù Méi's surprise, it was her sister who broke the silence, her voice sweet and laced with deadly sarcasm.
"You took your time," Yù Qíng said, her black eyes fixed on the Patriarch. "We waited all day yesterday. I was already calculating the interest on the delay for our inconvenience. Is the Thunder Clan so poor that it needed an entire night just to gather the coins for our apology?"
The audacity of the statement made the mercenaries tense their muscles, but the Patriarch raised a hand, stopping them. The businessman assessed the scene quickly. He looked at Yù Qíng. She was ethereal, barefoot, her posture so light she seemed to float; there was something unfathomable about her that troubled him. But when his eyes landed on Yù Méi, the alarm bells of his fifth‑stage martial instincts blared. The blonde in emerald green did not float. She radiated the dense, violent vigor of a caged beast, her muscles ready to explode with brute force. His son had not lied.
The Patriarch looked around. The inn was owned by a strong business ally. The lobby was filled with fine porcelain and rare wood. If the blonde beast had the strength his son described, fighting here would cost him thousands in repairs and broken alliances. Caution won over pride.
He opened a cold, corporate smile, his voice polished.
"You are quite right, young lady. It was an unforgivable blunder. I came personally to deliver the coins for the… misunderstandings… with my son. However, while taking my breakfast this morning, I happened to forget the gold pouch in my quarters."
Yù Méi let out a harsh laugh, tilting her chin toward the four mountains of armed muscle.
"And you needed to bring an army to tell us you forgot the pouch? Or are they the payment?"
The Patriarch did not lose his smile, though his knuckles were white.
"Men in my position attract unwanted attention in the city. They are merely my family's security. I ask that you accompany me to one of my establishments, two streets from here. There we can settle the interest with the dignity and discretion that gold demands."
An obvious trap. Brazen.
Yù Méi looked at her sister. Yù Qíng did not hesitate. She feared nothing in that mortal world, because the god of that world walked just behind her.
"Lead the way," Yù Qíng said.
They walked through the sunlit streets. Zhì Yuǎn followed the group just behind, his black cloak fluttering, completely ignored by the mercenaries' gazes—they had no eyes for the sky while looking at the earth. The Patriarch guided them to the end of the second street, stopping before a familiar building: the Cloud Pavilion, the same luxury restaurant where they had lunched the day before.
The establishment belonged to the Thunder Clan. With a simple wave from the Patriarch, the manager and waiters began expelling all the customers. Complaints were stifled when the mercenaries showed the hilts of their weapons. In less than five minutes, the heavy wooden doors were closed from the inside, locked, and the curtains drawn.
The trio waited patiently in the center of the hall. Yù Méi cracked her neck. The stage was set.
Now that there were no civilian witnesses or a partner's decor to protect, the Patriarch's cordiality evaporated. The false smile gave way to a mask of arrogant hatred.
"Arrogance is the poison of the young," the Patriarch declared, walking to the main table. "You injured my heir without cause. Destroyed an arm nourished with expensive elixirs. Do you think you can come to this city, wound the Thunder Clan, and leave with pockets full of gold? Today, the interest I collect will not be in coins."
Neither woman answered. Neither tried to justify that his son had started the confrontation. Justifications were for the weak.
At a silent command from the Patriarch, the four sixth‑stage mercenaries advanced. They did not run; they walked with lethal precision, shoving the heavy tables and chairs out of the way with casual kicks, creating a clean arena in the center of the hall. The sound of the war hammer dragging on the floor and the clink of the paired hook‑swords filled the tense air. The woman raised the heavy black‑iron halberd, her eyes fixed on Yù Méi.
The fight was a second from exploding.
And then, the atmosphere stopped. Space itself seemed to hold its breath.
Yù Qíng, who had been standing with her hands relaxed at her sides, raised her right arm. Her black eyes showed no fear. They showed nothing but the boredom of someone shooing flies. With the grace of a priestess, she extended a single index finger and gave a light tap, a gentle touch against the empty space before her.
The sound was muffled, like a drop of water falling into a perfectly still lake.
An invisible fragment of the Law of Destruction, planted in her sea by Zhì Yuǎn, rippled through the hall.
There was no explosion. No kinetic impact. The first mercenary's colossal war hammer simply lost cohesion. The iron turned to gray sand in the big man's hands. The mantis's paired hook‑swords disintegrated into shimmering flakes, running through his fingers like ash from burned paper. The scarred man's greatsword dissolved into nothing. The woman's heavy halberd crumbled into silent particles, leaving her holding only air.
The weapons had not been broken. They had ceased to exist.
The breeze slipping through a crack in the side window swept the metallic dust across the wooden hall, dispersing what remained of the warriors' armed pride.
The four mercenaries froze, their eyes wide at their empty hands. Their mortal brains could not process the impossibility of what had just occurred. The Thunder Patriarch choked, the color draining from his face, his heart missing a beat as primal terror seized his bones.
With the scene frozen in pure, dark terror, Yù Qíng lowered her hand, smiled gently at the disarmed group, and her sweet voice cut through the sepulchral silence of the restaurant:
"It's very rude to bring weapons to a fistfight."
Yù Méi let out a genuine laugh, clenching her fists with cracks that sounded like whips. The fun, finally, was about to begin.
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