5/3/26 A/N: Releases might be a bit slow for a week or so. My wife was unexpectedly called out of town, so I'm single parenting it at the moment.
Yang Xiu clenched her fists. The mayor sentencing her to death should have been almost funny. As if he had such power. All his guards together couldn’t so much as create a single tear in her battle robe once she switched to wearing it. Even if they could get past her fabric armor, their mortal grade spears and swords couldn’t penetrate her skin.
They were all powerless before her. If she wanted, she could destroy the entire town, though she’d probably have to use one of Master’s talismans if she didn’t want to take forever.
No, Fang Bao had exactly zero power or authority to sentence her to death, but his son had killed her parents. There was nothing comical about the mayor’s fury, futile as it was.
Instead, it ignited her anger.
Fang Bao was clearly incensed at her, and he had no right to be. She was the party who was wronged. It was his son who initiated the entire situation. All blame, including for his own death, lay on Fang Wei.
“Don’t you dare try to pass judgment on me,” Yang Xiu snarled. “What you reap, you will sow.”
“You killed my son!” the mayor roared.
Oh, how she wished she had, but at that point in time, she’d been powerless. “Unfortunately, I didn’t.”
“Then it was that trash brother of yours, and you’re still responsible.”
She almost laughed. When the mayor found out how much higher in status she was in compared to him and that it was her master, who was obviously even higher still, he would be stunned into silence. It wasn’t time to play that card yet, though.
“It wasn’t Yang Ru, either,” she said.
“Enough of this! Guards, bring her to the gallows.”
Two of guards rushed to comply, one grabbing each of her elbows. As they tried to push her forward, though, nothing happened. They pushed harder, visibly straining, and still nothing happened.
“Your son killed my parents,” Yang Xiu said calmly.
The mayor didn’t respond, instead simply glaring at her.
“Despite you accusing me and Ru’er of the crime, you’re not denying it. And that’s good. I’m sure that almost everyone watching knows it was Fang Wei.”
The mayor clenched his fist, but he still remained silent.
“In the end, he died because you spoiled him, thinking that being the son of a minor noble in a nothing town made him all powerful.” Yang Xiu snorted. “He thought a basic shield talisman would protect him from an actual cultivator.”
The mayor’s face reddened. If he had any qi, she might have been afraid that he’d explode. “Are you quite finished with your blathering?”
“Maybe if you would have taught him just a tiny bit of humility, of understanding that he was not the premium existence on the planet and not everyone would bow to his will, he’d have survived. But you didn’t, and he didn’t. And now it’s time for you to pay for your failure to raise him correctly. It’s time for you to pay for my family’s murder.”
“It was his right to kill your trash parents, peasant! His right! He was worth a hundred of you. A thousand.”
Yang Xiu sighed. “Might makes right, huh? The most powerful person can do what they please?”
The mayor sneered at her. “Yes. And you shall hang today.”
“But what if I’m the most powerful person?” She jerked her arms away from the two guards.
They stumbled, colliding with each other and falling to the ground.
Yang Xiu twisted her ring, instantly changing into her battle robe. She drew her flying sword from her ring and jumped atop it, rising instantly to float twenty feet above the crowd.
There were many gasps and exclamations, but she ignored them.
Her bow appeared in her hand. And not the original bow supplied by her master. No, her current weapon was given to her upon her ascension to Golden Core, made personally by Master. A masterwork.
It was a named weapon—Cold Fury.
Made of a metal invented by Master called unobtanium, the number of arrays inscribed into it was truly staggering. In normal mode, it simply enhanced the speed of her arrows. The grip was made of a different material, something soft but not fabric, and four buttons rested just in reach of her curled fingers, each giving her access to adding a different qi type to her attacks—Earth, Fire, Lightning, Metal, Poison, Void, Wind, and Wood.
A separate button by her thumb triggered creation of an arrow from the bow’s store of greater spirit coins, or she could supply physical ones from her storage. Nocking was extremely efficient as the string, made of pure qi, attracted the end of the arrow. Further, the string’s draw strength could be adjusted by her intent alone.
Master said she could shoot arrow as fast as machine gun, whatever that was.
One of the neatest features, however, was the aiming reticule. The bow projected an illusion into her eye that displayed the target’s distance and other important measurements such as height and wind speed. She’d spent countless hours practicing her aim, and with the assistance from the illusion, she very rarely missed.
The bow was her pride and joy.
She formed an arrow, drew back the string, and aimed at the mayor.
***
For nearly a decade, one thought occupied Fang Bao’s thoughts from the time he rose in the morning until the time he fell into a fitful sleep at night—those peasants had killed his son, and he had no way to find them.
At first, his missives on the subject to his superiors in the Emperor’s faction had received responses, updates that no progress had been made but that they’d be captured if they were located. Then, a couple of years later, he’d received a message that the inquiry was being dropped and instructing him not to pursue the matter further.
Fang Bao had never felt so helpless and hopeless. He’d even been forced to lie to his lady wife, Fang Huian, telling her that the twins had probably died somewhere in the forest.
But he knew. He knew.
The girl was attractive, which was what had caused the whole mess in the first place. Fang Bao’s logical assumption was that she’d become a concubine of someone rich enough to shield her. She and her brother were out of his reach.
His only consolation was that, if either of them ever returned to their hometown, he could immediately have them executed on the spot before their backer could intervene.
When a runner had announced that the guards had apprehended the girl, Yang Xiu, Fang Bao had been elated. Upon getting word that she was outside the gate, he rushed outside, eager to confirm that they had, in fact, apprehended the correct girl and, if so, to see her executed.
He’d been somewhat surprised to see a crowd gathered, one the included most of the council of elders, but he hadn’t cared. His eyes were filled with only one person—Yang Xiu. She was older, of course, though she appeared younger than he expected. A decade of hard living should have changed her more than that.
Only a soft life could explain the lack of harsh lines on her face. That detail enraged him.
Not that he wouldn’t have been furious beyond measure, anyway.
He yelled at her, and she responded, defiant. The content of the words didn’t matter. The only thing that did was that, in her arrogance, she’d erred, put herself under his sway once more. She would not be leaving the town except as a corpse.
Still, her jibes angered him. However it had happened, that peasant girl had been responsible for the death of his son. Finally, he shouted, “It was his right to kill your trash parents, peasant! His right! He was worth a hundred of you. A thousand.”
She’d agreed with him that the most powerful person could do as they pleased. Not that he needed her agreement. He was a noble, the Town Lord, a member of the Emperor’s faction. She was nobody. A peasant.
“But what if I’m the most powerful person?” she said.
The next thing he knew, the two guards who had been restraining her were on the ground, and she wore fine cultivator robes while floating in the air on a flying sword.
An inkling of doubt penetrated his rage. Maybe she hadn’t just used her body to secure backing. She’d apparently become a cultivator.
Yang Xiu aimed an arrow at him. He had no defenses. If she loosed, he was dead.
“What power does a mortal hold against a random Qi Gathering Cultivator, much less a Golden Core? What position does a mayor hold in this world versus an A+ ranked talent?” she said. “You are nothing. An ant. Less than an ant. I have every right to kill you.”
Her revelation couldn’t have been worse. If she were telling the truth, the value of possessing A+ spiritual roots so far exceeded his own as a competent administrator that he shouldn’t even put her in his eyes. At that moment, though, he didn’t care. She wasn’t a cultivator and him a mortal; she was the one who killed Fang Wei.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Murder me like you murdered my son.”
“That would be too easy. Considering your obvious disdain for peasants, your sentence is to live as one.”
“You have no such—”
“You have no idea what power I hold. I met with the Emperor. He agreed to give me face and accept whatever ruling I decided upon.”
The mayor swallowed hard. If that were true…
“Attention citizens of Seventh Brilliant Raven Town,” Yang Xiu said loudly, “by personal decree of Emperor Han Shu, Town Lord Fang Bao is hereby removed from his position of mayor and stripped of all lands and titles. He has one hour to vacate the town limits or be executed. He may take only what he can carry, and a full audit of the town’s resources will be conducted before a new mayor is appointed. Any missing funds will be collected.”
Most of his money was invested, and any auditor truly examining the books would probably find how much he’d skimmed over the decades. Best to count his investments as lost. He only had a few thousand taels in liquid assets to take with him.
His situation was bleak.
“What about my family?” he said.
“They’ll be taken to Elegant Heavens Splendor Village and will be given a small hut.”
He turned to one of his guards. “Prepare my carriage. Pack it with—”
“No!” the girl said. “No carriage. You will walk out of town, and no using guards or servants to prepare.”
That village was a minimum of ten days’ travel to the east. Probably more like two weeks. Maybe three for a man of his age who was unused to walking from sunup to sundown. The trip in itself might be a death sentence.
She looked at her wrist for some reason. “Fifty-eight minutes remaining.”
He rushed to gather supplies necessary for his exile.