As Ye Xiaoqian walked toward Mi Xiansheng, several black shadows slipped around to his back.

His words were breezy enough — all that talk about hitting a woman being a greater challenge than swimming.

But Ye Xiaoqian knew perfectly well: when you find yourself looking at a woman who may be the hidden mastermind, underestimating her will cost you dearly.

That, too, was something a Qianzhang had told him.

So his nonchalance — his almost cocky swagger — was entirely an act.

He stayed alert every instant, braced for this woman to strike without warning, and had already prepared a contingency: if he couldn’t handle her, he would run.

But the woman simply stood there, as if she hadn’t given him a second thought — as if her pride made her feel that no one was worthy of her making the first move.

Ye Xiaoqian decided a proactive strike might be wiser, since this was enemy territory — or rather, enemy ship.

But at that very instant, someone else couldn’t hold back and struck first.

The black-clad men behind him fired a volley from repeating crossbows. A man of Ye Xiaoqian’s caliber didn’t need to look back to know what was happening.

During Bureau training, sharpening one’s hearing had been a critical component. A Qianzhang had once said that the eyes were not only the key to defeating an enemy — they were the key to keeping yourself alive. And right behind the eyes were the ears, the second most vital organ for survival. Hearing had to be cultivated.

When he was young, Ye Xiaoqian had heard many jianghu tales from an old street performer.

In one such story, a great hero encountered the most powerful opponent of his life — a villain of unrestrained evil. The villain’s speed was so extraordinary that the hero’s eyes could not track his movements.

So the hero, gravely wounded, closed his eyes and used his ears to sense the enemy’s position — and struck a killing blow.

After hearing that story, young Ye Xiaoqian had rushed off to find Ye Xiansheng and begged him to teach that same technique.

Ye Xiansheng asked what brought this on. Ye Xiaoqian retold the story.

Ye Xiansheng’s review came in two sentences.

First: nonsense. Second: bullshit.

Ye Xiaoqian refused to believe it, saying the old man had told him that faint sounds in the dark could reveal an enemy’s position.

Ye Xiansheng had Ye Xiaoqian close his eyes, then threw a small stone to the left. Ye Xiaoqian punched left — and Ye Xiansheng’s right hand gave him a sharp slap across the face.

Ye Xiaoqian was utterly stunned: not just because hearing alone wasn’t as reliable as he’d imagined, but because the slap itself had genuinely rattled him.

He thought Ye Xiansheng had cheated, but Ye Xiansheng laughed.

If you’re locked in a fight to the death and your eyes are already useless — you think your ears will save you? Do you take your enemy for a fool?

And so after the slap, Ye Xiaoqian learned: stories are lies.

But hearing was still useful — and when the men behind him raised their crossbows, he recognized that sound with total familiarity.

He sidestepped sharply, and in the same motion his left hand dove into the deerskin pouch at his waist. Even as he moved, his arm snapped back — and a sheet of iron tacks scattered like a driving rain.

Two of the black-clad men behind him had no time to dodge; several tacks found their mark, more than one each.

At that very moment, Wen Jiu — who had quietly retreated to the shadows — spotted his chance.

Ye Xiaoqian had sidestepped and flung the tacks backward; for one instant, his back was turned to Wen Jiu.

Wen Jiu’s sword came out.

A man who had been roaming the jianghu for twenty years causing mayhem, who had never met a match — and who, after being defeated by a single kitchen cleaver, had suffered a blow to his confidence that had rattled him ever since — was still, sword in hand, a force of extraordinary power.

The blade appeared in the ship’s faint light as if materializing from the dark void itself.

This thrust was the fastest of Wen Jiu’s life.

Faster, even, than the thrust he had aimed at that farmer years ago.

But it was useless.

Ye Xiaoqian didn’t turn around. Instead one sleeve swung backward.

The sleeve unfurled like a sail — like a wall of air — and the sword drove into it. The sail went slack.

But this was not the blade piercing through. Ye Xiaoqian had done it deliberately. The moment the sword punched through the cuff, Ye Xiaoqian spun sharply around, and with the rotation the sleeve wound around the sword.

He yanked backward. The sleeve, wrapped around the blade, dragged it back; the handle burned across Wen Jiu’s palm, scraping the skin raw.

Then Ye Xiaoqian’s long sleeve swung forward again — and the sword hilt cracked squarely against Wen Jiu’s forehead.

The blow nearly split Wen Jiu’s skull open.

All through the exchange, Ye Xiaoqian had kept his guard on the woman — but even after Wen Jiu fell, she still had not moved.

As if Wen Jiu’s life or death meant nothing to her at all.

After Wen Jiu hit the ground, Ye Xiaoqian spun and hurled the long sleeve back out — the sword flying free, aimed straight at Mi Xiansheng’s face.

At the same moment, he kicked Wen Jiu in the temple. The man let out a muffled grunt and went limp.

The sword crossed the distance to Mi Xiansheng. She raised her hand as the tip drew to within an inch of the space between her brows.

Her thumb hooked the sword hilt, put a flick of force into it — and the sword completed half a turn in front of her face.

Now the tip pointed back at Ye Xiaoqian. She gave the handle a light nudge, and the blade flew back faster than it had come.

Watching this, Ye Xiaoqian had one single thought: the Qianzhang was right.

Women are terrifying.

His wide sleeve began to spin before him, forming a vortex. The returning sword flew in and was swallowed, its force absorbed.

But then, in the very next breath, his expression shifted.

He fell back rapidly, his hand diving into the deerskin pouch. He pulled out a tiny bottle, yanked the stopper, tipped out a pill, and jammed it into his mouth.

Mi Xiansheng still watched him with that same cold, indifferent gaze.

The moment the sword had been caught in his sleeve, she had coated the blade with powder — so fine and subtle that Ye Xiaoqian had not noticed when she did it at all.

He had only realized something was wrong when he caught a faint sweet scent. And by then, he understood — by the time you’ve noticed the smell, it’s already too late.

And sure enough, even after swallowing the antidote pill immediately, it wasn’t long before he felt his limbs begin to go soft.

“You took the Detoxifying Pellet,” Mi Xiansheng said.

“But what I used was not poison.”

Ye Xiaoqian stepped back two paces and grabbed the railing to stay upright, feeling his strength drain away quickly.

A flicker of remorse went through him — he had learned so much from so many masters, and still been outsmarted.

Mi Xiansheng looked at Ye Xiaoqian’s handsome face and thought about how many cuts it would take across it to satisfy her.

For good-looking men, she had a simple policy: see one, kill one.

That year, she had been sent by her sect to walk the jianghu.

But she who entered the great world for the first time had been so very naive — and people had cheated her at every turn, each time she had let her guard down.

The one who had hurt her worst, pushed her to the edge of despair, had been a beautiful man.

She had fallen gravely ill while trying to save someone, her body failing. With her medical knowledge, healing herself would have been simple.

But she hadn’t expected to be deceived again and again until the world meant nothing to her anymore.

When her body was at its weakest she stumbled into a pharmacy, the last coins she had to buy the ingredients for a remedy.

But that place — meant to preserve lives — had had darker intentions. The physician had seen her weakened state and her beauty, and had taken advantage.

He had played the concerned healer and brewed her a remedy. She had been unsuspecting at first — but the moment she picked up the bowl, she knew something was wrong.

One breath of the steam told her the medicine was wrong.

That young physician, with his refined and scholarly looks, had meant something vile.

With the last of her strength she threw the medicine in his face and staggered toward the door — but the physician dragged her back. She had not known he was also a martial artist. She was too weak to resist.

She begged and wept. It accomplished nothing. The physician violated her.

Afterward, she pretended to have no martial arts, gradually winning the physician’s trust, letting him treat her illness.

When he was off guard, she beat him, bound him, and handed him over to the local magistrate’s office.

But what she could never have foreseen was that the officials had first made a show of locking the physician away — and then, the moment she left, released him.

Not long after, the magistrate’s office called for her. She thought she was going to receive justice.

The moment she walked through the door, a net dropped over her. And in the place she had trusted most, a group of constables beat her savagely with cudgels.

If she had not been utterly certain of the magistrate’s good faith, she — with her skill — would never have allowed herself to be ambushed like that.

Shortly afterward, she was jailed for theft from the physician’s shop and for injuring him.

And in that jail, the guards set their eyes on her as well.

In that moment she understood: no man was trustworthy.

So she began to kill.

From that day on, the person who had gone out into the world on behalf of her sect was gone.

“You can still jump overboard,” Mi Xiansheng said, looking at Ye Xiaoqian with a flat calm. “If you want to, do it quickly — in a few more moments you won’t have the strength to climb over the railing.”

Ye Xiaoqian gave an “mm.” “And if I jump, I’ll drown shortly after, I suppose.”

Mi Xiansheng said, “Drowning would be better than dying by my hands, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t think so,” Ye Xiaoqian said. “You’re better-looking. I’d rather die at your hands than be gnawed apart by fish.”

Mi Xiansheng let out a soft sigh. “You’re still talking nonsense on the edge of death.”

“My Qianzhang once said—”

He hadn’t finished the sentence when Mi Xiansheng was suddenly directly in front of him.

A small knife had appeared in her hand, slender as a willow leaf, with just a glimmer of cold light at its tip.

She raised it toward Ye Xiaoqian: “First I’ll cut out your tongue.”

“Shijie.”

At that moment, a voice came from behind Mi Xiansheng.

Mi Xiansheng spun around — and at the word shijie, her shoulders gave an involuntary tremor.

She stared at the woman before her: plain hemp-cloth clothing, brow gently furrowed.

“You’re from Yunyin Mountain?” she asked.

The woman in hemp didn’t answer. She only sighed softly and said, “Just as I thought — you really were the one who went into the world before me.”

She walked forward slowly.

When Ye Xiaoqian saw her, he very nearly wept.

“Shifu…”

He called out softly.

Shen Rujian fixed him with a look. “Disgraceful.”