The moment Ye Xiaoqian saw Shen Rujian, his eyes lit up — bright as the clearest star in the night sky, sparkling and burning.

“Shifu — how did you come here? When I left, didn’t the Qianzhang say that no one from the Bureau would be coming to support me?”

Shen Rujian fixed him with a look.

“I said no one from the Bureau would come. When did I ever say I had no time?”

Mi Xiansheng studied Shen Rujian carefully, brow furrowing. “You are from Yunyin Mountain?”

Shen Rujian nodded. “I am.”

Mi Xiansheng said, quietly, “Then I will not kill you. You may go.”

She glanced at Ye Xiaoqian. “But he must die.”

Ye Xiaoqian shot back immediately: “You think my shifu is just here for decoration?”

Mi Xiansheng gave a cold snort. “Among those from Yunyin Mountain, who can stand above me?”

Shen Rujian smiled — a smile like a clear wind and a bright moon.

Mi Xiansheng paused for a moment, then raised both hands. Her sleeves seemed to hold their own breeze; the moment she lifted her arms, a cloud of mist billowed from each cuff.

In the ship’s dim torchlight, that mist expanded into the air around Shen Rujian — like a swarm of tiny insects.

In truth, it was not like insects. It was insects.

The creatures were minuscule — roughly a third the size of a mosquito.

They poured forth in a fog and drove toward Shen Rujian — yet she only stood there, motionless.

The insects reached a point about three feet from her, as if meeting an invisible screen. They stopped dead in their tracks, those that came behind crashing into those in front.

Shen Rujian raised her left hand and flicked her finger. Something roughly the size of a peanut flew from her.

The swarm seemed to detect a new target. They tore away in pursuit — and when that small object fell into the water, the insects dove after it, one after another, a relentless column plunging into the river.

This sight brought a complicated look to Mi Xiansheng’s face.

After a moment of silence, she spoke: “I thought only I on Yunyin Mountain knew this insect-driving art. Can it be all the Tianxia Xingzou know it?”

There was genuine bewilderment in her expression.

Shen Rujian said, “Not quite as many as you think. Only three people know it — you, me, and the one who taught me.”

Mi Xiansheng asked, “Who taught you?”

Shen Rujian replied, “Your own shifu’s shizhu personally guided me.”

Mi Xiansheng gave a dismissive huff. “The shizhu has been dead for who knows how many years — don’t invent stories so freely.”

Shen Rujian said, “This art of yours — you learned to drive poisonous insects, but you never learned how to dispel them instantly. Doesn’t that strike you as strange?”

Mi Xiansheng replied, “Because the method to instantly dispel them doesn’t exist. When I read the book, there was only the method for cultivating the insects — nothing about a counter. Because the shizhu feared that writing down a counter to such a remarkable art would pose a threat to Yunyin Mountain.”

Shen Rujian sighed gently and thought: if this shijie ever learned that the reason the counter wasn’t there was because the shizhu had once rushed to the outhouse in urgent need, grabbed the nearest book, and torn out those very pages to use as toilet paper — she could only imagine the reaction.

That Li Xiansheng had always been unfathomable in his ways.

The insect-driving art he had left at Yunyin Mountain was something almost every disciple — all women — wanted nothing to do with. How many women enjoyed insects?

It sat there unlearned for so long that Li Xiansheng decided it wasn’t worth keeping.

One day, seized by a sudden abdominal crisis, he snatched the nearest book, tore out several pages, and ran to the outhouse.

And while squatting there, he had looked at what he’d written — and reflected on it.

He had realized there were gaps in what he’d written and had made a mental note to go back and fill them in.

Then he wiped, stood, and forgot all about it.

Shen Rujian was not an ordinary woman. Before she became a Tianxia Xingzou, she had decided that this insect art, though unappealing, would be useful for walking the jianghu — and so she had learned it. Only after she came to be at Li Chi’s side and met Li Xiansheng in person had she been able to ask him directly for the method to counter it.

Mi Xiansheng waited for Shen Rujian to answer, but she waited a long while without a word. The silence only made her angrier.

She stretched her left hand forward, and from her cuff a slender cord shot out, aimed straight at Shen Rujian’s throat.

But as the cord drew within about two feet of Shen Rujian, Mi Xiansheng shook it.

A fine powder scattered off the cord — and even Ye Xiaoqian, standing behind Shen Rujian, instantly caught a waft of a sweet fragrance.

His heart sank: the agent in his system from earlier hadn’t been cleared yet — and now he’d breathed in another dose, and this one seemed even more fragrant than the last.

But he saw Shen Rujian raise her hand, the sleeve lifting like a passing cloud.

The cloud exhaled wind, and in that wind was also a scent.

The two fragrances met and seemed to cancel each other out. In moments there was no trace of either — as if neither had ever existed.

Mi Xiansheng stepped back several paces. Behind her sat a small wooden chest.

She reached back and flung it open, then raised her right hand and scattered its contents forward — a generous spray of powder drifting toward Shen Rujian.

In the same instant, a great cloud of venomous wasps burst from the chest. Whether attracted by the powder or by whatever scent clung to Shen Rujian, they surged toward her in a roaring mass.

Shen Rujian’s hand produced a folding fan. It opened with a soft clap, and in that instant a pale-yellow dust billowed out from it.

The wasps behaved as if they had encountered a great threat. They veered away, flowing around Shen Rujian in a wide arc.

A moment later, Shen Rujian heard Ye Xiaoqian’s voice from behind.

“Shifu… did you bring antidote for wasp stings?”

Shen Rujian glanced back and saw Ye Xiaoqian’s face peppered with red welts.

She let out a soft laugh: “I forgot you had no strength to dodge them.”

Ye Xiaoqian replied, “Your disciple has grown rather accustomed to this sort of thing…”

Shen Rujian reached into her deerskin pouch, produced a jade vial, and tossed it to him. “Take two.”

Ye Xiaoqian opened the vial and swallowed the pills immediately.

They worked not only as antidote for the wasp poison — they somehow also restored a measure of his strength.

He immediately turned around and shoved his hand into his trouser leg, thrashing around — a wasp had apparently crawled in through the cuff and made its way up with alarming speed.

In his frantic attempt to grab it, Ye Xiaoqian missed, and in desperation clamped his thighs together hard.

His face contorted — yet inwardly he was counting himself lucky, for wherever the wasp had stung him, it had been mercifully close to, but not quite at, the vital point.

He was already thinking: this wasp had crept in through the cuff, traveled all the way up, and had still not moved until he clamped it to death. If he hadn’t killed it when he did, heaven knows if it would have made a beeline straight for that spot.

This led him to conclude that the woman who released these wasps was truly venomous — training wasps to target men in that particular place.

He found himself wondering how one would train wasps for such a purpose — this method was worth studying.

If Mi Xiansheng had known what he was thinking at that moment, forget wasps — she would have marched over and stung him there herself, with her foot, with one precise, upward kick aimed exactly at that spot.

Mi Xiansheng could see that even the wasps were no use against this woman. Unease stirred in her heart.

She had moved through the jianghu with these poisonous insect techniques, killing no small number of people. Yet this woman before her neutralized each attack with ease.

What Shen Rujian had said about a counter to the insect art — she was forced to believe it now.

“You are very skilled,” Mi Xiansheng said quietly, the four syllables falling flat.

Then she slowly untied her outer robe.

Ye Xiaoqian said, “Madame, this really won’t do.”

Shen Rujian gave him another look. “Go stand to one side.”

Ye Xiaoqian asked, “Why does it still hurt after taking Shifu’s medicine?”

Shen Rujian said, “That antidote clears the poison. It doesn’t dull the pain.”

Ye Xiaoqian said, “Shifu, do you have a painkiller as well? If so, why didn’t you give it along with—”

Shen Rujian replied, “I have one. You didn’t ask. You only asked for antidote.”

Ye Xiaoqian fell silent.

Then Shen Rujian caught herself: “Doesn’t everyone in the Bureau carry their own painkillers?”

Ye Xiaoqian blinked.

When his shifu wasn’t nearby, he was a self-sufficient master of all skills. With his shifu present, he seemed to become remarkably slow.

After Ye Xiaoqian had taken his painkiller, Shen Rujian asked, “How much of your strength has returned?”

Ye Xiaoqian circulated his qi to check, then answered: “About seven parts back.”

Shen Rujian gave an “mm.” “Good then.”

Ye Xiaoqian said, “Thank you for your concern, Shifu.”

Shen Rujian replied, “I’m not concerned about you. You’ll understand in a moment.”

Her words had barely settled when Mi Xiansheng had already stripped off her outer robe. Beneath it was a short-sleeved martial garment, and her body was festooned with equipment — vials and canisters, blades and prongs, all manner of things.

Mi Xiansheng pulled something from her body with each hand: a sheaf of silver needles — how many, it was hard to say. They looked finer than embroidery needles, with a faint dark color to them. Coated with poison, most likely.

Mi Xiansheng suddenly flung both hands forward simultaneously. The needles filled the air in a dense, driving rain aimed straight at Shen Rujian.

Shen Rujian reached back and grabbed Ye Xiaoqian, who was edging away, and planted him squarely in front of her.

“Flowing Cloud Flying Sleeve,” she said.

Ye Xiaoqian thought: this is exactly what I knew was coming — this is what being a shifu means. No one but her would pull something like this.

Both arms powered up. His sleeves billowed instantly — and with his twin sleeves rotating, they became two great billowing sails spinning before him.

Every last poisoned needle was caught and deflected. The Flowing Cloud Flying Sleeve seemed designed specifically to counter just such an attack.

This disciple truly seemed to have been taken on specifically to block flying needles.

Then Ye Xiaoqian felt his waistband go taut — and Shen Rujian had seized him by the sash and moved him aside.

“You may go now,” she told him.

At those words, Ye Xiaoqian felt as though he’d received a pardon. He turned and walked away, thinking that two women fighting like this was something he should be at least five hundred li away from to be safe.

Shen Rujian asked: “Yunyin Mountain holds ten thousand wonderful arts. Why do you rely only on these methods that tend toward the sinister and vicious?”

“Sinister and vicious?”

Mi Xiansheng gave a cold laugh. “If you knew what I had endured, you would understand that everything I have done falls far short of what you’re calling sinister.”

Shen Rujian said, “Shijie, do not strike again. Come back to Yunyin Mountain with me.”

Mi Xiansheng burst into laughter — head thrown back.

When the laughter died, she lowered her head and met Shen Rujian’s eyes.

“The jianghu is so good.”

“All those who fall beneath me are no better than ants. Those who stand above me — I accept my fate. I do not accept defeat.”

She said this, and then stepped forward.