This Venerable Demon is Grossly Unqualified

In the moment when Su Li kicked the young master, there were perhaps forty five people in the common room of the Rosewood Alley. Five Qi Condensation cultivators. Fifteen mortal men, a roughly even split between Granny Lao's muscle, the few male members of the house's staff, and a few customers too brave or foolish to leave after the cultivators had shown up. Twenty women, all of whom worked for the establishment in some fashion.

It should have been simple. Eight of Granny Lao's against the Heaven-Piercing Spear's three disciples. Thirty odd bystanders.

It wasn't.

Two men dived immediately for the pill. The third cultivator waded into the struggle, lifting one of the men by the belt. One of the girls jumped on his back, shouting.

The cultivator's neck snapped backwards, and she collapsed bonelessly, blood pouring from her nose. How dare he!

"Bastard!"

Two more men rushed the third cultivator, the pill disappearing in a storm of flailing limbs.

"Rude as well as bold, to start a fight and then look away from your opponent."

Su Li ducked, as a shadow passed over her. The flying man landed on an empty table behind her, the delicate furniture collapsing beneath his weight. She winced as a distant part of her mind began tallying up how much they would spend in medicine and repairs after this brawl.

I am Zhang Baihu, Inner Disciple of the Heaven-Piercing Spear Sect." The young master proclaimed loudly. "Surrender the thief, that he might face punishment!"

"Don't kill anyone!" Min Guo shouted, shoving a table. A pair of men on the far side of it doubled over, the wind knocked out of them.

Qi Guowei charged at him, grabbing the cultivator from behind and starting to squeeze.

"Shut up and stop worrying Brother Min." The young master said. "They started this. It is only right that I finish it."

Su Li shoved Shi Ping back.

"Run!" She shouted. They would need him, when the magistrate arrived, she could only hope he knew that.

Su Li's awareness narrowed, as Zhang's still sheathed saber whistled through the air. She parried with her club, hissing as the sheath's tip caught her finger on the way out.

The young master rained down blows upon her. She was fast enough to catch them, strong enough to block them, but a club was no weapon for a duel. She might be the young master's equal in cultivation, but his arms and weapon both far exceeded her reach. Instead she gave ground, forcing him to follow.

She had no techniques to leverage without a sword, and she couldn't kill a disciple of a real sect anyway. Even if he was merely bloodied, the magistrate might take his side on principle. There was nothing to do but buy time, withstand his fury.

"Pathetic." He said, throwing out a high slash she ducked under. Her responding thrust was aborted long before it got close, as his returning saber moved into a position to punish. "Have you already realized you have no chance? I thought this would be a pleasant diversion. Instead, you bore me."

She caught an overhead chop with a two handed block. Her stomach dropped as her club cracked, unable to withstand the punishment it was being subjected to.

She dropped it and rolled back over her shoulder to avoid the second chop, coming up in a desperate scramble. Zhang's sword whistled by her ear, right at her heels. She needed distance, time.

She shoved her way through the back door, escaping out into the alley.

"Stop running girl."

Well, she obviously wasn't going to do that, some irreverent part of Su Li thought. She poured qi into her limbs, trying to eke out a fraction more speed. Even if she found a blade, she couldn't hurt the young master. There was nothing to do but dodge, dodge everything he threw at her.

Distance protected her from the first two blows, but the young master's legs were longer. He closed the distance between them quickly. Su Li burned qi furiously, spinning around the line of a thrust, pushing off her leg to quickly jerk to the side.

The sword missed again.

She could see a trail through the shadows, dapples of moonlight marking a winding path. She felt the sword at her back, like a ghostly wind. Felt it the way he had taught her to. She saw her father in her mind's eye. Had he taught her to do that?

She blinked, forcing her head back to the fight. The flight, really.

She had felt a taste of it in her duel with Geng Ru of the Four Seas Union, a strange state of grace where she felt she was not moving her qi, but being moved by it. Desperate, she followed that feeling.

"Stop dodging!" The young master shouted, irritation creeping into his voice. She held onto that, it felt like a tiny victory.

She kept dodging, dancing an inch ahead of disaster, kept afloat by the moonlight.

Time melted away as she surrendered all of her attention to following that thread. She didn't know how long she danced, or where she was headed. All she knew is that so long as her steps were perfect, she was Untouchable.

When time and memory returned, noise surrounded her. She saw men in chainmail, bearing spears. The ward magistrate, atop a horse. Young Master Zhang was shouting, but her head swam and the words sounded like the cries of animals. His sword was back at his side. She saw Shi Ping, cradling his broken wrist as he half-hid behind Qi Guowei's great bulk.

She opened her mouth to speak. They had to explain.

What remained of her qi flickered violently. She hadn't realized how much of it she'd used. The moon overhead seemed impossibly large. She reached out to touch it, but it was too far away.

The world fell away, as Su Li passed out.

Su Li staggered as the influx of memories hit her. For a moment she felt like she was dying, shedding a lifetime of memories. Then she remembered them for the illusion that they were, and they became as weightless as dreams.

But she still felt hollow inside, and not just from the persistent ache of her near empty channels.

"Another one!"

"Looks like Elder Hu's disciple isn't just a charity case."

"Damn, there goes my wager. The Young Mistress certainly isn't failing her own trial."

Qi slowly seeped into her bone-dry channels without any action Su Li's part, easing half the ache. Was that her reward? The blessing the elders had discussed? She felt a foreign thing touching her qi, slowly seeping liquid moonlight into her channels, where it rapidly dispersed. It felt half like a dantian, and half like a pill in the process of being consumed, a mass of burning cold that she couldn't quite localize.

"What was it like?"

"What was the challenge?"

"The next attempt is mine!"

A disciple pushed past her, vanishing into the trial.

She opened her mouth to say something, but words failed her. She should have warned him. But about what?

“It wasn’t that bad. I just had to escape from a hundred mortals.” She heard Geng Ru's voice. “Did you truly lose some of your sisters to such a simple test?”

"How dare you!"

"It seems even the minimum of decency is too much to expect from your kind."

"Disciple Su! Did you hear me?"

The sounds all jumbled together in Su Li's ears. She tried to focus through the distraction, remember what she'd felt in the trial before it faded away. Untouchable.

If she could reach that state again, use it without losing herself to it. It would be an incredible trump card, the kind of edge she'd spent years seeking.

It slipped through her fingers. She knew it was real. Knew it was possible. But it was so very hard to remember how to do something you'd been taught in a dream.

"Is she injured?"

"Give the girl some space. She no doubt has better things to do than answer your inane questions."

That was a nice thing for Sister Hao to say. She still scared Su Li a little. She'd watched when Hao Yue challenged for the rank of inner disciple three years ago. Her opponent hadn't yielded quickly enough. Even Elder Su had been unable to put him back together afterwards, so his body had gone to the Sepulchre. She wondered what the corpse refiners had filled all the holes with.

The disciples stepped back to give her space. Her head felt cloudy. She bit her tongue, before she said anything aloud she might regret.

"Brother Geng, perhaps you ought to give your prize to one of your seniors for safekeeping, while you determine if it is suitable for you to consume." One disciple suggested.

"An excellent idea brother." Geng Ru said, clutching a phial of steel-grey liquid. "I will deliver it to Elder Su at the first opportunity."

"Of course." Titters of laughter punctuated the statement. It took Su Li a long moment to hear the joke.

Extortion. It was funny because it was ineffective. Ill-advised. She laughed too. It came out stilted. Wrong.

Several disciples stared at her.

It wasn't fair. How could a past that never was make her heart ache so much. She could barely remember the technique she'd touched, but there were holes in her heart for people she'd never known. People who perhaps never even were? She'd spent weeks in Xianyang, but she'd never met anyone like the friends she'd known in the trial. No kindly granny with eyes of steel, or boisterous sister with a heart of gold.

She couldn't remember Granny Lao's face. She hadn't appeared in person in the trial.

Anger burned in her chest, but she didn't know what she was angry at. She was so tired. She just wanted to curl up in a corner and stop existing for a while. To trust that that things would make sense again in the morning.

The was a commotion to her right. She watched as Meng Daiyu emerged from her own trial.

"Three for three. Perhaps the supposed challenges of these trials were merely your own failings." One of the Pathless Night's disciples gloated.

"Quiet." Meng Daiyu commanded. "It annoys me to hear you boast of a victory you had no part in."

The chattering stopped. Meng Daiyu's eyes passed over the crowd. Su Li shivered when their eyes met for a moment. Meng Daiyu would not have been shaken by something so small.

"Present yourself to the elders." She ordered. "Inform them of what you encountered in your respective trials. They will decide what knowledge shall be shared."

Su Li nodded, and started walking. Questions followed her but she ignored them all.

Eyes followed her too. She saw so many different things in them. Envy. Curiosity. Ill-concealed venom. She'd seen all these flavors of interest and malice before, after Elder Hu had first agreed to teach her.

"Come on, just tell us now!"

"Paper can't wrap fire. It's all going to come out anyway, give us a head start."

The outer sect was still harassing Meng Daiyu. A funny thought that. She forgot sometimes, that the young mistress was closer to her age than she was to an elder's.

"Mine was a test of patience and understanding." Meng Daiyu finally said, giving in. "It's reward was knowledge of a technique. I do not recommend it. No amount of struggle will avail those who lack the temperament or comprehension for it."

She hurried out of the chamber. She'd tell Elder Hu what happened, then she could rest.

She'd passed the test. No, she'd done more than merely pass, she'd touched something profound. She'd had a stroke of fortune. Perhaps even a genuine moment of enlightenment. It was all she'd wanted for so very long. Elder Hu would be proud of her. She was one step closer to Kang Guo. Her father would be proud of her.

But why did her heart hurt so much?