Nie Jiuluo couldn’t explain why, but the thought of beating up Yan Tuo excited her a little.

She asked Yan Tuo: “Want me to give you a handicap?”

Yan Tuo said: “No need.”

He didn’t sound very confident though. Since Nie Jiuluo’s return from the underwater stone cave, they hadn’t fought—if her martial skills had advanced as much as her sculpting abilities, he would be in trouble.

He comforted himself: Nüwa was skilled at creating humans, but wasn’t known for her fighting prowess—he should be able to handle this.

Nie Jiuluo smiled like a cunning cat: “Here I come then.”

Before her words faded, her right foot pushed off the ground, and with a leap, she flew through the air, directly pouncing onto the workbench between them.

Yan Tuo understood her intention—she planned to use the workbench as a launching point. This pounce, derived from the “tiger leap,” was fierce but easy to dodge. He could simply sidestep to avoid it.

However, Yan Tuo had other plans.

Just as Nie Jiuluo’s hands grabbed the workbench, poised like a great bird about to take flight, Yan Tuo suddenly seemed to remember something and made a stopping gesture: “Hey, wait, wait!”

Damn it!

Nie Jiuluo made an emergency stop.

It’s easy to sprint a hundred meters, but stopping suddenly takes several times more effort. She pressed one hand hard against the workbench surface, forcefully bracing her knee, barely managing to stabilize herself, but the blood rushed to her head, making her very uncomfortable.

Nie Jiuluo demanded angrily: “What is it?”

Yan Tuo looked very sincere: “I just remembered, you have so many sculptures here—what if they get damaged? Shouldn’t I move them somewhere safe first?”

Nie Jiuluo responded irritably: “Fine, move them!”

Yan Tuo began methodically moving the sculptures. He planned to wear down Nie Jiuluo’s fighting spirit—first comes enthusiasm, then weariness, right? Who said fighting had to be a pure force against force? All’s fair in war.

Nie Jiuluo had no interest in helping him move things. Her heightened fighting spirit had been interrupted, leaving her thoroughly annoyed. She sat cross-legged on the workbench surface, finding fault with everything she saw.

Finally, she waited until Yan Tuo finished moving everything.

This time, Nie Jiuluo planned a sneak attack. She watched Yan Tuo wiping his hands with tissue paper, pretending to be casual while quietly changing position, ready to launch a sudden attack that would catch him off guard…

Yan Tuo suddenly spoke: “Oh, right, A’Luo, one more thing.”

Perfect—a second burst of energy forcefully suppressed. Nie Jiuluo exploded: “Yan Tuo, do you have a death wish?”

Yan Tuo asked in surprise: “What kind of talk is that? I’m not deliberately interrupting.”

“I was thinking, shouldn’t we agree before we start? Just bare hands, no weapons. Your studio has chisels and axes—they’re all deadly weapons. If blood is drawn, it would be unlucky.”

So many trivial matters. Nie Jiuluo endured: “Fine, no weapons. I can kill you with my bare hands.”

Yan Tuo: “It’s just a fight, no need for killing, right? Let me put away the tools, in case you grab them in the heat of the moment.”

He began putting away the tools with great ceremony. Nie Jiuluo climbed down from the workbench with sinister intent, finding her slippers annoying, she kicked them off left and right.

Yan Tuo caught this in his peripheral vision and thought: not good—the barefoot don’t fear those wearing shoes. It seems he had successfully provoked her; she was getting serious.

This was good too—without breaking, there’s no establishing. If they were going to fight, it should be an all-out battle.

After putting away the tools, thunder crashed outside, rumbling as if rolling across the eaves. Yan Tuo, being by the window, instinctively looked up at the closed window.

At that moment, there was a sudden rush of wind behind him, and Nie Jiuluo’s hand was already on his right shoulder.

As Yan Tuo quickly looked down, he caught sight of her slender fingers and the oval gleam of her fingernails.

A thought flashed through his mind: if those nails were painted bright red, it would be quite scary.

Meeting force with force, Yan Tuo quickly dropped his right shoulder, trying to shake off her hand.

However, someone skilled in combat was far too familiar with these common counter moves. Nie Jiuluo refused to comply, her hand following his movement down, then gripping forcefully, her nails digging into Yan Tuo’s shoulder through his clothes.

Yan Tuo hadn’t noticed her nails before: why would a sculptor keep long nails? Wouldn’t they get in the way of work?

He steeled himself and thrust his elbow backward, though not too forcefully.

Nie Jiuluo had anticipated this too. Her right hand maintained its grip while her left hand grabbed his left shoulder for leverage. Simultaneously, she planted her foot against the nearby wall and rapidly walked up it, managing to twist her body sideways onto the wall.

This completely nullified Yan Tuo’s elbow strike.

But she wasn’t done—Nie Jiuluo hadn’t intended to stay on the wall. After just a few steps, she pounced onto Yan Tuo’s back, her legs wrapping around his waist. Then she suddenly let go with her hands, hanging upside down, grabbed his ankles, and yanked sideways with great force.

Yan Tuo lost his footing and was thrown to the ground—though partly deliberately, aiming to dissipate the force and avoid a hard fall.

As he hit the ground, Yan Tuo concluded: Nie Jiuluo fought like a leech—once she got close, shaking her off became extremely difficult.

Yan Tuo rolled to his feet.

Nie Jiuluo was in no rush to follow up. She leisurely propped herself up: “If this were best of three, I’d have won the first round, right?”

By competition rules, with ground contact scoring, she had indeed won.

Yan Tuo nodded.

Won just like that? Nie Jiuluo scoffed, feeling the fight had been too easy—she’d barely warmed up before winning.

Second round.

Neither rushed to move first, both carefully assessing the other’s position and their surroundings. Modern competitive fighting was about “strike and withdraw”—actual contact time was minimal.

After a while, Nie Jiuluo grew impatient: “Last time I attacked, this time you go first.”

Yan Tuo said: “Alright.”

He walked straight up to Nie Jiuluo and stopped, raising his hand as if to strike. As Nie Jiuluo glared, he withdrew, muttering: “This isn’t right.”

Then he announced: “I’m going to push your shoulder, okay?”

He raised his palm and gave her shoulder a perfunctory push.

Nie Jiuluo was furious: was he looking down on her? Even giving her advance notice?

She clenched her teeth, violently deflected Yan Tuo’s arm, and followed through with her other hand, fingers hooked, going straight for his throat.

Yan Tuo didn’t dodge. He waited for her hand to reach his throat, then unexpectedly swept her legs.

Caught by the sweep, Nie Jiuluo lost her footing and stumbled, but she didn’t panic. Without thinking, she reached to grab Yan Tuo’s waist.

Yan Tuo was exasperated—this was another of her old tricks. Once before, she had grabbed his belt and changed tactics mid-move, but then he had been wearing a belt. Now it was the middle of the night, and he was in his sleepwear—if she grabbed now, his pants wouldn’t stay up…

Thinking quickly, he reached out and firmly gripped Nie Jiuluo’s waist, saying: “Out you go.”

As he spoke, he lifted her body and threw her forcefully to the side.

This wasn’t a killing move—with Nie Jiuluo’s skills, she could stabilize herself in a few steps. The problem was that he had thrown her toward the window.

Worse still, that window had been open initially, and when he’d worried about the strong wind, he’d pulled it closed but hadn’t latched it.

When Nie Jiuluo crashed into it, the window flew open, and with nothing to brace against, she flipped backward and out.

Lightning flashed across the sky, followed by total darkness, with only the endless rainlines remaining.

Yan Tuo’s mind went blank as if the top of his skull had opened and all his souls had floated away. He rushed to the window, calling out: “A’Luo!”

Outside the window was a sloping roof covered with tiles, which gleamed in the rain under the faint indoor light, but there was no one on the slope.

A buzzing filled Yan Tuo’s ears, and his arms trembled as they supported him on the windowsill: Where was Nie Jiuluo? Had he thrown her out the window and she’d rolled down the slope and fallen?

What terrible thing had he done, not sleeping in the middle of the night and insisting on this ridiculous fight?

As Yan Tuo’s throat went dry and he was about to rush downstairs, a pair of hands suddenly appeared from the side of the window, wrapping around his neck like nimble snakes, yanking him hard outward with a low growl: “Go to hell!”

Caught off guard, Yan Tuo was pulled and thrown onto the roof slope. The incline prevented him from stopping—he rolled diagonally downward, and even at the eaves couldn’t stop. He fell straight down, taking about ten roof tiles with him, which crashed to the ground with a clatter, triggering the motion sensor lights below.

Fortunately, it was only the second floor, and the ceiling height wasn’t too high. Also, as Yan Tuo fell, one hand managed to grab the eaves, allowing him to hang vertically before dropping, greatly reducing the dangerous distance.

He stumbled as he landed, wiped the rain from his face, and looked up to see a soaking-wet Nie Jiuluo, like Yama coming to claim a soul, fiercely pouncing down at him from the eaves.

At such a moment, dodging would have been the best response, but Yan Tuo feared she might get hurt and hurriedly opened his arms to catch her.

He caught her squarely, arms full of wet clothes, but the momentum of a person diving from the second floor was too great. Yan Tuo couldn’t maintain his footing and staggered back several steps under the overhang before falling backward.

Even though he had prepared for the fall, the impact still made his head hit the ground, causing stars to dance before his eyes.

In his daze, looking at Nie Jiuluo above him, he suddenly felt disoriented, as if returning to their last time, at this same spot, at the end of their fierce battle: she had straddled him, pulled her left wrist band taut into a gleaming silver wire, and moved to loop it around his neck.

How had he responded then?

He remembered—she had a knife strapped to her thigh, and he had accidentally found it, using the tip to press against her heart, forcing her to cease fighting.

Yan Tuo instinctively reached for her thigh, feeling smooth softness but finding nothing.

He heard Nie Jiuluo’s vicious voice: “I told you long ago I’d stuff this thing in your mouth and make you swallow it.”

Yan Tuo was bewildered: “What thing do you want to stuff in my mouth?”

Actually, after making this threat, Nie Jiuluo herself was stunned.

She wasn’t holding anything, so there was no “thing” to stuff into Yan Tuo’s mouth and make him swallow.

The night light under the eaves was dim yellow, flickering due to unstable voltage, and dense rain lines hung down from the eaves like a broad rain curtain being woven.

Nie Jiuluo was completely soaked, water droplets slowly rolling down her hair, collecting at the dark, glossy tips until they grew too heavy and dropped onto Yan Tuo, instantly absorbed by his warm cotton clothing.

She raised her head in confusion, looking at the courtyard.

This was her courtyard, but compared to when she left, the flowers in bloom were different.

Back then it had been winter turning to spring, and she remembered iron stick roses blooming in the courtyard, along with primroses and camellias.

Now it was… autumn? She immediately noticed the osmanthus tree, swaying in the rain but full of blossoms.

Sister Lu could make osmanthus sugar preserves again.

After a long while, she finally looked down at Yan Tuo.

Seeing her eyes, Yan Tuo knew that everything that had been misaligned had returned to its proper place.

His body gradually relaxed, a smile spreading across his lips as he asked: “What thing did you want to stuff in my mouth and make me swallow?”

He added: “How come I never knew about this? A’Luo, why are you so petty, secretly holding grudges and planning to get back at me?”

Nie Jiuluo smiled too.

She would never tell him that back then, he had hidden a spring clip under her sofa cushion, telling her it was a bomb that would blow her to pieces.

After that, she had sworn to stuff that thing into Yan Tuo’s mouth and make him swallow it.

Later, the spring clip had gotten lost somewhere, but it turned out she had always remembered the incident clearly.

As she smiled, Nie Jiuluo gently lowered herself, wrapped her arms around Yan Tuo’s neck, and moved close to his ear.

Yan Tuo felt the familiar scent mixed with autumn night rain’s coolness fill his nose, and cold wet hair softly covered the side of his face.

Then he heard her say softly: “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, Yan Tuo.”

Yan Tuo smiled, his eyes gradually growing warm as he reached out to embrace Nie Jiuluo.

When she was docile like this, she always seemed especially fragile, so much so that he didn’t dare use even a fraction more force.

He said: “Me too, it’s been so long, A’Luo.”

Neither of them noticed that Sister Lu’s room light had come on, and the curtain had lifted slightly.

Then the light went out.

Sister Lu had been awakened by the sound of falling tiles. That night, with its strong winds and fierce thunder, she hadn’t been sleeping soundly. When the tiles fell, her eyes flew open, and she broke into a cold sweat, thinking thieves might be breaking in under cover of night.

So she turned on her night light but didn’t dare go out immediately, first quietly lifting her curtain.

This…

Sister Lu hurriedly turned off the light and lay flat in the bed, her heart still racing.

Young people these days…

They had no limits when seeking thrills—whatever they wanted to do, they could do it inside, but in the middle of the night with such wind and rain…

Sister Lu felt she still preferred her generation’s view of romance when people were more reserved, and though emotions weren’t openly displayed, they were elegant and lasting, growing more fragrant with time.

Maybe she should talk to Liu Changxi one of these days.

The End