The moonlight was soft, and the stream murmured.
Xie Zheng tilted his head slightly, watching Fan Changyu without a word for a long moment.
Fan Changyu met his gaze, freezing for an instant. Then, as if realizing the intimacy of her action, she awkwardly withdrew her hand and placed it on her lap.
The atmosphere between them grew a little delicate. Just as she was about to say she should leave, Xie Zheng suddenly spoke. “If you're still feeling down, I can spar a few rounds with you.”
To just leave now, after she had subconsciously patted his head to comfort him, would be strange no matter how she looked at it.
Fan Changyu recalled his phantom-like speed from before and found that she did indeed have the urge to test her skills against his, so she nodded.
She had only brought a boning knife. Xie Zheng put his top back on but didn't even grab a weapon, preparing to fight bare-handed.
Feeling slighted, Fan Changyu pursed her lips and said, “You should at least grab a dagger.”
Xie Zheng placed one hand behind his back and simply said to her, “Come.”
This posture, as if giving her a one-hand advantage, made Fan Changyu’s lips press together even more tightly. Without another word, her gaze instantly became as sharp as a hunting leopard, and she shot forward like an arrow released from its bow.
She used one hand to try and control Xie Zheng’s single arm while her boning knife slashed straight for his neck. But upon closing in, she found Xie Zheng was as slippery as a fish. She wanted to grab his hand, but he always managed to evade her a step ahead, unhurried and with ease. As he sidestepped her dagger, a gust from his palm swept toward her face. Fan Changyu quickly dodged, but his hand hooked her elbow and pulled it down and back. Her entire center of gravity was thrown off, and she nearly tumbled backward.
Xie Zheng changed the downward pull to a tug on her arm, preparing to pull her up, but a sudden coolness touched his neck.
He asked with a smile, “What’s this? Repaying kindness with enmity?”
Fan Changyu pressed the boning knife against the side of his neck and said, “All’s fair in war.”
The smile on Xie Zheng’s face brightened. He looked at her and said, “You have a point.”
Fan Changyu gazed into his smiling dark eyes, then withdrew the knife and pursed her lips. “My skills are inferior to yours.”
Noticing her dejection, Xie Zheng said, “Close-quarters combat relies on speed. You’re used to heavy-handed weapons. When you switch to a lighter blade, you can’t use your wide, sweeping moves. If I, after more than a decade of hard training, couldn’t even beat you in the speed of drawing a knife, that would be what’s truly unreasonable.”
Fan Changyu thought of the move he had used to take her down and asked, “That move where you hooked my elbow and pulled down, what was that?”
Xie Zheng didn’t answer. Instead, he once again hooked her elbow and pulled it down and back. Fan Changyu’s body instantly tensed, but this time, her feet didn’t move an inch.
Xie Zheng asked her, “Understand now?”
Fan Changyu recalled the moment she had almost fallen. His palm strike had forced her to dodge, so her body had been turned to the side, not standing firmly in place.
She frowned. “The key wasn’t the pulling move?”
Xie Zheng nodded in approval. “Sometimes you don’t need to use brute force. Go with the momentum, use their strength against them. A small force can deflect a great one.”
Fan Changyu tightened her grip on the boning knife and said to him, “Again!”
The brief, restrained exchange had only just warmed up Fan Changyu’s joints. Her strength was in fierce attacks, so she stopped trying to counter Xie Zheng’s moves with finesse and simply went on the offensive. Each slash of her knife was sharper than the last. Though it was only a boning knife a little over three inches long, she somehow managed to swing it fast enough to leave afterimages.
Xie Zheng was somewhat surprised to see her play to her strengths, using offense as defense. A flicker of astonishment crossed his eyes. So she had been holding back earlier, merely probing his style of martial arts.
This realization brought a hint of a smile to his eyes, but he didn’t go easy on her in his moves.
Only through this kind of real, practical sparring could Fan Changyu learn the fastest and improve her martial arts.
Having learned her lesson, Fan Changyu no longer tried to grab Xie Zheng’s free hand. Her knife hand was for attacking, and her fisted hand was also for attacking. She struck again and again, trying to force Xie Zheng into a defensive position so he wouldn’t have a chance to counterattack.
But this exchange lasted only a little longer than the previous one. After a few rounds, Xie Zheng once again circled behind her like a phantom. Following the momentum of her knife strike, he used the force to push her shoulder and back. Fan Changyu was sent flying a good distance, half-falling into the grassy field.
In a way, Fan Changyu was a martial arts fanatic.
She lifted her head, a small flame seeming to burn in her eyes as she shouted, “Again!”
Xie Zheng stood not far away, the night wind making his robes flutter. Against his cold, jade-like face, he had an air of immortal grace.
Like a little calf, Fan Changyu raised her knife and charged at him again.
In less than a moment, Xie Zheng smoothly deflected her knife-wielding arm, and she stumbled and plunged into the bushes once more.
The black horse grazing nearby, perhaps annoyed that she had crushed a patch of fresh grass, even nudged her with its head.
Fan Changyu clutched her boning knife and climbed up, spitting out the grass she had accidentally gotten in her mouth. She glared at Xie Zheng and roared, “Again!”
…
After being thrown for the umpteenth time, Fan Changyu’s clothes, stained with grass juice and mud, were a complete mess. Her face was grimy, and a few blades of grass were stuck in her hair.
She lay flat on her back, gasping for air as she stared at the sky. Every muscle in her body ached so much that she didn’t want to move a single finger, yet she felt utterly and thoroughly exhilarated.
Her mind was also empty, free of all distracting thoughts. She could truly fall asleep the moment she closed her eyes.
Xie Zheng took a water flask from his horse and handed it to her. “Have some water.”
Fan Changyu had sweated a lot and was indeed terribly thirsty. She sat up. Perhaps from being thrown so many times, her head was a little dizzy. She took the flask and guzzled it down like an ox.
When she finished, she handed it back to Xie Zheng. He glanced at it, then tilted his head back and took several large gulps himself.
Fan Changyu stared blankly, her brain finally processing what had happened. That was Xie Zheng’s water flask. She had drunk from it, and now he was drinking from it. What did this count as?
Before the embarrassment could fully set in, she remembered him kissing her on horseback on the way back. Fan Changyu subconsciously wiped her lips a few times with the back of her hand, and suddenly felt that sharing a water flask was no big deal.
The back of her hand was also covered in grassy mud, so this wipe only succeeded in smearing it onto her lips.
After drinking, Xie Zheng screwed the cap back on. Noticing her strange behavior, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
Fan Changyu said awkwardly, “There’s dirt on my face. I’m going to wash up.”
With that, she got up and walked toward the river.
Xie Zheng’s voice came from behind her. “You’re covered in mud. Do you want to wash your clothes too?”
Fan Changyu thought he was being fresh with her and immediately turned to glare at him. But seeing Xie Zheng’s dead-serious expression, it didn’t seem like he was deliberately teasing her, and she couldn’t help but frown.
Xie Zheng saw that she had misunderstood. “The army breaks camp tomorrow. We’ll be heading to Chongzhou to join the Jizhou army and annihilate the rebels. I’m afraid there won’t be a change of clothes on the road.”
As he spoke, he took off his own outer robe and hung it on a nearby tree branch. “You can borrow my outer robe for now.”
He then turned and walked into the woods, perhaps to deliberately give her some privacy.
After watching him walk away, Fan Changyu’s gaze fell on the robe hanging from the branch.
Her hair was also full of grassy mud. After a moment’s hesitation, she finally went over, took the outer robe, and hid behind a large boulder by the riverbank. She placed the robe on the rock, undid her hair, and shed her mud-caked soldier’s uniform, immersing her entire body in the icy water.
Although it was late spring, the river water at night was still bone-chillingly cold. Fortunately, Fan Changyu had a strong constitution and wasn’t afraid of the cold. After washing off the mud, she began to scrub her long hair.
The crackling sound of burning firewood came from the riverbank. She peeked out from behind the boulder and saw Xie Zheng sitting with his back to her in front of a fire. It was clear that when he went into the woods, it was to find firewood.
Fan Changyu stared at him for a while and saw that he never once turned his head. After washing her hair, she shivered as she stood up, wrung out her hair, and picked up the robe draped over the boulder to wrap around herself.
Only when she was tying the sash did Fan Changyu notice a problem. The robe was far too big for her. Even with the sash tied, the collar gaped wide open.
She frowned, then decisively wrung out her own clean under-bodice as much as she could, put it on, and then wrapped the outer robe over it.
Once all this was done, she walked out from behind the boulder and knelt by the river to wash her uniform, which was caked with grass juice and mud.
Xie Zheng must have heard the noise. He turned to look at her and asked, “Aren’t you going to dry your hair first?”
Fan Changyu wanted to finish washing her clothes first and then dry them by the fire. “I’m not cold,” she said.
Footsteps approached from behind. Just as they reached her, she looked up to see Xie Zheng walk right past her and step into the river, his upper body bare.
Fan Changyu frowned and asked, “Are you going to bathe?”
Xie Zheng glanced at her. “I was swimming here before you came over.”
With that, his entire body dove into the water like a silver fish. In a moment, he had swum several dozen feet downriver.
From the looks of it, he intended to continue swimming in the river?
Fan Changyu figured that with her washing clothes on the bank and him swimming in the middle of the river, they wouldn’t be bothering each other, so she lowered her head and continued to wash her clothes.
The water in front of her suddenly rippled. Fan Changyu looked up to see Xie Zheng emerge from the water holding a fish. The splash he made soaked her. Water dripped from his dark hair and his fine-boned jaw. Like a young boy, he laughed heartily. “We have fish to eat!”
The fish in his hand was also struggling fiercely, flapping its tail and splattering fishy-smelling water droplets all over Fan Changyu’s face.
Fan Changyu had no choice but to turn her face away and block with her sleeve, saying with a mix of helplessness and exasperation, “Get that fish away from me!”
But because of this arm-raising motion, the wide collar of her robe, which she had just gathered, fell open again. Fan Changyu almost instantly felt a chill.
The man in front of her also fell silent at once, staring at her dumbly. The fish escaped from his hand and splashed back into the water, drenching his face, but he didn’t seem to react.
Fan Changyu realized something was wrong and looked down. She saw the outer robe’s collar gaping open. Her under-bodice was wet, clinging to her body and outlining its round curves, even faintly revealing a bean-like protrusion.
Her face instantly turned red enough to steam. Without thinking, she kicked out and cursed, “You damn pervert!”
Kicked squarely in the face, Xie Zheng was sent back into the river. Caught completely off guard, he choked on a mouthful of water and couldn’t get up for a long time.
Fan Changyu was mortified and furious. At first, she thought he was faking it, but when he didn’t surface after a good while, she finally realized something was wrong. She called out to the water, “Yan Zheng?”
She still habitually called him Yan Zheng.
There wasn’t a single ripple on the water’s surface. Afraid she had knocked him unconscious with her kick, and with a life at stake, Fan Changyu couldn’t care about anything else. She tossed his outer robe onto the bank and jumped into the water to save him.
A moment later, she hauled the choking man out, threw him onto the bank, and pressed hard on his chest a few times. Seeing Xie Zheng turn his head and spit out a mouthful of water as he slowly came to, she finally sat down beside him, exhausted.
She was tired, her breathing heavy, but it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say her face was expressionless.
What in the hell had happened today?
When Xie Zheng opened his eyes, he saw Fan Changyu sitting beside him, wearing only her long trousers and under-bodice. Her long, wet hair was loose, and the skin not covered by her dark hair and bodice was as white as frost and snow in the moonlight. The expression on her face was hard to read—was it cold indifference, or had she simply given up after too many blows?
But her entire being seemed to pluck at his heartstrings. He was stunned at first, then a rush of heat surged into his nose.
Realizing what it was, Xie Zheng quickly raised a hand to cover his nose, his ears turning completely red. He hastily averted his gaze, more flustered than he had ever been in his life. “S-sorry…”
Fan Changyu was so irritated she wanted to hit someone. “Shut up!” she snapped.
She picked up the outer robe she had dropped on the ground and wrapped it around herself. With no outlet for her pent-up frustration, she continued to warn him fiercely, “You didn’t see anything!”
With that, she walked a good distance away and sat down to question her life choices.
Xie Zheng looked at her back, wrapped in his robe, then at the clothes by the river that were still not finished. He splashed some cold water on his face to force back the heat, then finished washing her clothes. He set them up on branches a short distance from the fire to dry, then went back into the river and caught two more fish. After gutting and cleaning them, he skewered them on branches and stuck them by the fire.
When the fish was cooked, he took one over to Fan Changyu, choosing his words carefully. “Have something to eat.”
Wrapped in his outer robe, Fan Changyu seemed not to have recovered from the successive blows. She just stared at him with wide almond eyes and threatened him again, “You are not to speak of tonight’s events to anyone!”
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