Chương 17: First Fight

Zichen had infiltrated this building before. It wasn't difficult to do — there were four floors and no doorman after eleven, and the camera at the main entrance didn't function, and, even if it did, there were plenty of blindspots regardless. He went up the fire escape on the east side of the building, which accessed a landing on each floor. Once on the third floor, he counted the windows to confirm his location, putting him at the bedroom window of the apartment previously lived in by Shen Bowen.

It was strange having to break into a place he'd usually walk straight through the front door of, but he'd practised a couple of times under Bowen's command. The window itself was double-glazed, and had a latch that wasn't set properly. He applied pressure at the correct point, and the latch gave without sound. The window swung inwards, and he climbed through. The room was almost completely dark; the only bits of light being the moon and the amber-red light from a laptop charging in the corner.

Zichen crossed the room, carefully distributing his weight to avoid any noise. He reached the air conditioning unit and felt around for the access panel on the lower left side. It was held by two Phillips screws that could be removed by hand if you applied enough torque at the right angle. He reached up and began to work the first screw loose. He didn't hear anything. The figure in the bed had been breathing with complete regularity throughout the process.

He didn't hear anything, and then there was a forearm across his throat. The grip was not technical, which was the first thing Zichen realised once the shock of it all wore off. Whoever had come up behind him didn't know how to apply a chokehold — the arm was positioned slightly off, resulting in the pressure being distributed unevenly across the trachea rather than on the carotid arteries on either side. Correctly applied, a rear naked choke rendered a person unconscious in seconds.

Fortunately, it was not correctly applied. This one was simply an attempt at crushing his throat, which was painful, but much more difficult to do once he applied his Willow Wall Defensive Art. He reached up and grabbed the arm with both hands and tried to break the grip. The arm didn't move. He tried again, with more force, and the arm still didn't move. Although the grip itself was untrained, the strength behind it was not ordinary.

It was simply raw resistance — a wall of physical capability against his own Willow Wall. He changed approach, and drove his elbow back, hard, aiming for the ribcage. There was contact, and he heard a sharp exhale behind him. The arm loosened slightly, allowing Zichen to breathe once again, and he used the moment to drop his weight and drive forward towards the wall, intending to use it to crush whoever was behind him against it. The person behind him braced.

Zichen hit the wall with less force than intended because the grip had re-established itself mid-movement and pulled him backwards. He was turned, partially, and now had a better sense of the figure behind him, which was slightly taller than average, but contained little bulk compared to the cultivators he knew at the Shen clan. Zichen focused his Qi in a single sharp circulation through the arms, the standard reinforcement technique that practitioners used when physical strength required a supplement.

Channelling Qi through a limb would increase its strength, whilst channelling Qi through the body would increase one's stamina instead. His arms came back alive and he drove both elbows back, breaking the grip. He spun and put distance between them. The man opposite him, standing between him and the window, was breathing hard in a now ragged and slightly drenched t-shirt. He was running on pure adrenaline. Zichen planted his feet deeper into the flooring and considered his options.

The window was behind the man, and the door was to his left. The room was small enough that both options were equidistant. He moved for the door. Two steps in, something closed around his ankle. The man had dropped to the floor and gone horizontal, committing himself to grabbing the nearest available point of contact. His grip on Zichen's ankle was as unrefined as it had been on his neck, but the strength was the main issue. Zichen went down, and caught himself on his hands.

He immediately tried to kick free with his captured leg, but the grip held. He used his free leg and drove his heel back at the man's shoulder. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. The man grunted, but didn't let go. He drove the heel back again, this time towards the head. The man turned his face away from the impact, instead taking the hit on the side of the skull. He still didn't let go, but his grip loosened once more.

He then bit Zichen. Right in the calf. A yelp of pain escaped Zichen's mouth as he tried to pull his leg free. The teeth held. He circulated his Qi around the legs, but as soon as it reached the wound site, it started behaving incorrectly. Something at the point of contact pushed back and rejected his Qi. He poured in more Qi, but that turned out to be a worse decision. It felt like his leg had plunged from a sauna straight into an ice bath before being electrocuted, and his body recoiled from it instinctively.

His Qi was entering the man through the wound and hitting something inside that did not want it there, and the feedback loop of it all just amplified the pain. He removed all Qi from the captured leg, funnelling it all into his free one, and drove his heel back one more time with everything he had. The grip broke. Zichen was on his feet in a second, moving for the door, hand pressed to his calf. He reached the door handle. The lights came on.

Shen Yue was stood in the doorway, wearing the clothes she had been sleeping in. Her hair was loose, and she had one hand still on the light switch, and the other extended towards Zichen in a configuration for close range combat application. She looked at him blankly. Then, she looked at Lin Che, who was on the floor near the bed with blood on his mouth, but otherwise unwounded She looked back at Zichen.

She lowered her hand, which had the effect of releasing whatever she'd applied to both of them simultaneously, which Lin Che hadn't noticed had been holding him in place as well. The room was very quiet.

"Zichen," she said. Zichen stood with his hand on the door handle and his back straight and said nothing, because there was nothing to say that wouldn't make things worse.

"You broke into my home," she said.

"Through my husband's window in the middle of the night. Would you like to explain yourself?" Zichen looked at the air conditioning unit on the wall, the panel half-open from where he'd started on the screws. He looked back at Shen Yue, whose eyes followed his own. He kept quiet.

"Forget this happened," she said.

"You went in, you completed your task, and everything went according to plan. That is what you report." He nodded once.

"The bite will heal," she said.

"Go." He went.

The window closed behind Zichen as Shen Yue crouched down in front of Lin Che. Lin Che was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed. He had found a corner of his t-shirt and was using to to wipe his mouth and face.

"You won," she said. He looked up.

"Your first real engagement against someone with martial training and active Qi reinforcement." She crossed her arms.

"You won."

"He got away," mumbled Lin Che, his lip slightly swollen.

"He left — there's a difference there." She paused for a moment.

"You should have pretended to be asleep." Lin Che opened his mouth.

"You heard him come in through the window. You had time. The correct response, at your current stage, is to feign sleep, let him complete whatever he came to do, and tell me about it afterwards."

"He was going to—" Lin Che stopped. He looked at the half-opened panel of the air conditioning unit.

"There was something in there. There's been something in there since before we moved in. I cleared it out the first week. I didn't know what it was back then."

"Cleared what out?"

"With the vacuum cleaner. I thought it was just dust." She looked at the unit and exhaled. She picked up the glass of water from his nightstand and held it out to him.

"Rinse," she said. He rinsed.

"The bite," she said, when he'd finished.

"During the Hollow Bell circulation, his Qi entered through the wound. Do not do that ever again without a proper defensive technique."

"Understood."

"If he had fully released all of his Qi into you, you would be in a significantly worse position right now."

"I know."

"Regardless, I'm proud of you for adapting your cultivation techniques into something a bit more combat-oriented."

"Thanks," he sighed, as Shen Yue turned towards the air conditioning unit, fully opening the panel. Nothing was inside.

"The thing in the filter housing," he said.

"It was Crimson Miasma Powder." Shen Yue froze.

"I recognised it at the pharmacy and saw the purchase ledger." Silence.

"Pretend this never happened," she eventually said before leaving. Lin Che sat on the floor in the dark for a while after she closed the door, with the copper taste still at the back of his mouth. Then, he got back into bed. As he slowly drifted off back into the dream world, Lin Che circulated the Liuhe Breathing Method to improve his recovery speed. He fell asleep, and it held.

Zichen scrambled up the stairs of the Shen clan residence and limped towards Shen Bowen's house. The lights were still on. He fished out a spare key kept under a plant pot by the entrance and entered his boss' corridor before laying on the floor and leaning against the wall. Shen Bowen approached from upstairs after hearing the thud of Zichen's fall. The two made eye contact.

"Mission failed," he cried.

"Lin Che is stronger than we thought, and Shen Yue caught me." Shen Bowen thought in silence for a while, put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out his phone. He tapped on the screen a couple of times, and held the phone to his ear as he waited for someone to pick up his call.