Faced with Lu Songping’s question, Xiao Nanhui had absolutely no intention of responding.
At a standoff this clearly hostile, who in their right mind would waste words on pleasantries? Ridiculous!
She drew a deep breath, did not turn around, and hurled herself straight at the disheveled, filthy Deputy Superintendent Lan.
The unfortunate fellow surnamed Lan was badly startled, assuming she intended to drag him down with her before dying, and scrambled frantically to dodge aside — but his leg irons were heavy and cumbersome, and he essentially only managed to writhe in place.
The very next second, a rush of wind swept past him, followed by a heavy crash. The floor beside him cracked open — the wooden panel normally used only for passing food through had been kicked entirely loose by someone.
Xiao Nanhui slipped out through the bottom of Shunxin Pavilion and tried to use the moonlight to get a rough sense of direction. But Lu Songping had absolutely no intention of giving her that chance, and came after her almost in the same breath.
Xiao Nanhui spun around and sent a wooden board flying with a kick, putting every ounce of strength in her legs into it.
A thread of silver light flashed like a needle’s tip, and the board fell apart in two pieces without a sound. She looked up just in time to see a razor’s edge driving straight for her eyes.
Swift as a streak of light, with the whistling sound of air being cut.
Xiao Nanhui dared not be careless, yet her body had already retreated as far as it could go. She called up every ounce of strength to twist her neck and shoulders aside.
A cold, biting edge swept past her jaw, past her ear, through her hair.
She saw it clearly now — it was a long, narrow sword, nothing like the forthright bearing of a gentleman’s blade. Instead it carried a certain sinuous, insidious quality that complemented its wielder perfectly.
It brought to mind an ancient legend from eastern Ling: it was said that when the heavenly gods descended to the mortal realm, they had imparted enlightenment upon several living creatures — and among these were serpents.
The sword in Lu Songping’s hand was exactly like a serpent.
A silver serpent that had attained sentience.
Its first strike having missed, it retracted swiftly and, when it darted out again, came from an entirely different direction.
Xiao Nanhui had no desire to fight — her sole aim was to escape. She kept to pure defense, hurling everything within reach at her opponent, and seized every opening to try to widen the gap between them.
The silver serpent seemed to grow irritated. It suddenly bent, the blade reversing into an impossible angle, and snapped viciously toward Xiao Nanhui.
Such a narrow blade — and yet it was a soft sword as well.
Xiao Nanhui swore inwardly, her instincts telling her she was about to sustain a wound.
This should have been a killing blow by any measure, yet the one wielding the sword deliberately eased off several degrees of force, allowing the blade’s trajectory to veer ever so slightly, its momentum gentled just enough. And so what ought to have been a devastating strike of consummate precision was reduced instead to the petty maneuver of a rogue tearing someone’s clothing.
Xiao Nanhui looked down at the slash across her garment at the waist and recognized that her opponent was arrogant and self-satisfied — this was the posture of a cat toying with a mouse. Somehow, that realization settled her nerves a little.
If Lu Songping were fighting with the intent to kill her, even at full force she might only have a fifty-fifty chance of survival. But if he was unwilling to exert his full strength against her — that was an entirely different situation.
In the time it took to catch one breath, Lu Songping’s sword came lunging at her back shoulder again from a tricky angle.
This time, Xiao Nanhui did not dodge.
The silver serpent’s gleam reached her in the blink of an eye. Xiao Nanhui reached her hand back toward her spine, and with a burst of focused force yanked out the cloth-wrapped bundle she had kept strapped there.
Clang.
Steel met steel; sparks scattered in all directions.
Xiao Nanhui gripped Ping Xian in her hand, and without giving Lu Songping a moment to react, executed a move — Moon Fishing from the Lake Bottom — that slammed his sword away with full force. Using the recoil, she launched herself upward onto the rooftop and, with a mid-air roll, opened the distance between them.
A longer weapon holds one advantage; a shorter one holds one danger.
Now that she had drawn her weapon, while it didn’t put Lu Songping in any great peril, it was more than enough to let her make her escape.
She didn’t overthink it. She turned and ran.
Several zhang away, the surprise in Lu Songping’s eyes gradually transformed into a competitive drive kindled by the provocation. Like a jackal that had been kicked in the chin by a rabbit, he gave chase at even greater speed.
To avoid drawing more pursuers, Xiao Nanhui was forced to abandon the path toward the outer wall and ran deeper into the seldom-visited reaches of the detached palace.
Branches and trailing vines, some slender and some broad, swept past her ears in rapid succession. When Xiao Nanhui stepped free of that overgrown, secluded path, she lifted her eyes and saw in the darkness the silhouette of a massive palace hall.
The sheer scale of this hall’s construction seemed to hint at something, yet the entire structure was devoid of a single candle’s light — silent as the grave.
Beyond the hall was the main courtyard road, and she could be certain that would be thick with pursuers. But behind this hall appeared to be the detached palace’s rear garden, and beyond the garden was the outer wall — it should not be too difficult to find a way out.
A swift assessment made, Xiao Nanhui flew up the stone steps ahead and headed toward the pitch-dark gates of the hall.
Almost at that same instant, the ominous wind that had been hounding her steps suddenly fell still.
Xiao Nanhui turned back gasping to look. In the moonlight, Lu Songping’s shadow stood at the very first step at the base of this great hall’s entrance — and refused to advance so much as half a step further.
Strange.
Was he tired of giving chase?
There was no time to think further. Xiao Nanhui stepped quickly toward the darkness ahead.
The scorching night wind stopped dead at the threshold of this great hall.
The moment Xiao Nanhui crossed into the darkness, she felt something cool brush lightly across her cheek.
She had taken it for a piece of very large, very thin gossamer silk, and raised her hand to brush it away — but whatever it was that floated in the air was impossible to grasp.
The air was cold and utterly still, like stepping inside a sealed mountain cavern. Xiao Nanhui slowed her pace, and once her eyes had adjusted to the light, she quietly took in her surroundings.
The vast hall was entirely empty of people. Enormous decorative porcelain vases taller than a man lay toppled this way and that. Overturned low tables lay strewn together with shattered porcelain plates and glass cups. Here and there across the floor lay a withered fruit or two, blanketed in a layer of gray-green mold.
She knew now what this place was.
According to rumor, the hall within which King Kang had received his guests was called “Snow Confusion” — a place reserved only for honored visitors. Inside the hall, the air remained cool as early autumn throughout all four seasons, which in perpetually sweltering Tongcheng was a miraculous thing. Many who came to call upon King Kang had heard of it and wished to see it, yet few had ever actually set foot inside.