The mist had lifted overnight and the river ran open and dark in the cold, and I worked the field the same way that I had been doing for the past couple of weeks by expanding my Qi awareness.
Then I drew the dagger and started moving.
The conditioning drills came first: Left to right, right to left, and practicing horizontal cuts that worked the elbow and shoulder on both sides. Then I practiced diagonal cuts that required firing my hip to initiate the movement so the arm was following the body's momentum instead of pulling against it.
Then I tried the qi.
The technique was simple in theory: direct qi into the blade edge before the cut, the way you directed qi to a specific meridian point before pressing it.
The challenge was that a dagger was not a body part. A meridian point had its own channel infrastructure but a dagger had none of that. The qi arrived at the blade and had nothing to hold it, which was why the edge bled the energy out unevenly on every attempt.
I opted to try and make three cuts at a low branch and evaluating the blade while I did it.
The first cut: qi committed late and the distribution was uneven. The branch showed a clean edge on the right side and a ragged one on the left.
The second cut: qi committed earlier before the motion started. The distribution held longer but still dissipated by the midpoint of the stroke. The branch showed a cleaner cut but it lacked a sharper edge to make it run deeper.
The third cut: qi committed fully at the moment of stillness before the motion, the way you held a breath before a precise movement. I held the commitment as the blade moved.
The branch fell in two pieces.
I stood with the dagger and looked at the cut face of the wood. Thankfully the qi had held for the length of the stroke.
I ran it six more times, got three clean cuts and three inconsistent ones. The pattern was clear: the commitment needed to come at stillness and be held deliberately through the motion.
By the time the training ground began to fill, I had what I needed to keep working it. I sheathed the dagger, cleaned my hands in the river, and went to review the session notes.
By midafternoon the notes were done and Wei Bolin had the cohort at the zone two riverbank and the Luan family clinic charts were finished and organized by Liu Jun.
Wei Suyin came out and sat on the low wall of the Pei House beside me with two cups of well water, one of which she set down next to me.
We drank together as the winter sun waned in a pale and thin light.
We sat in silence and watched the students meditate by the river bank while Wei Bolin instructed them. I could tell that they were perhaps itching to have a go at sparring, which in turn made me think about the last time I had sparred anyone. My mind was so preoccupied with the school and integrating Mother's clan and finding Father's clan that I hadn't focused on my own combat abilities.
"When did you last spar with anyone?" I asked Suyin out of curiosity.
She considered it. "Before the Luan cousins arrived. Liu Jun was trying to learn basic staff work and I was helping him but he hates hitting people. He kept apologizing after every contact."
"Which is why he's a healer," I pointed out.
"You're right about that," She shook her head and let out a huff. "It's been a while. Pei Yan works hard but she needs a drilling partner, and Duan handles that better than I would."
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"How about sparring me?" I asked.
She raised an eyebrow. "But you're always busy."
"I'm free now." I stood and held my hand out.
She took it and pulled herself up.
"I won't go easy on you," she said.
"Good," I said. "I was hoping you'd say that."
She went to get her staff.
We used the south edge as a mock training arena. It was far enough from Bolin's session that the cohort couldn't watch and be distracted by our fight.
Suyin had her practice staff and I had the practice dagger which was wooden and held the same weight and reach as the real one. I had been working the dagger drills for two weeks and I wanted to see what they were actually worth against someone who knew what they were doing.
She opened with a thrust and withdraw, testing my response. I stepped inside her weapon's reach and she pulled back before I could close. The pattern repeated three times, each probe at a different angle. Her fundamentals were clean and her weight was transferred correctly, withdraws covering her center with no movement wasted.
The problem was the pattern itself.
It was formation-trained movement, built for synchronized lines where the person beside you covered your withdraw. Good for working as a unit. In a one-on-one it became readable after multiple repetitions.
I read it and so on the fourth thrust I stepped across the line instead of inside it, took the angle she hadn't drilled for, and closed the distance before the withdraw could complete. She adjusted, bringing the staff butt toward me as a secondary threat, then I went under it.
I came up at an angle and my dagger tagged her left shoulder.
She grimaced and stepped back and looked at the wound on her shoulder. It was a superficial cut that didn't bleed out but it was still deeper than I thought it would be.
"Ugh, nice move," she said with a grimace.
"Were you letting me do that?" I asked. Even I was surprised that I managed to tag her so quickly in our spar.
She tilted her head. "A little." She sat down on the ground, cross-legged, and looked at her shoulder. "I've been wanting to try something."
She raised her left hand and formed a sign near the shoulder, the pulse-check configuration she used in clinic, two fingers curved with her thumb extended. I had seen it dozens of times above patients. Now she held it above her own skin, the apex point of the formation sitting just over the wound.
The tissue began to close.
I sat down in front of her, close, watching it happen in real time. The channel work was visible through the visualization, the pericardium pathway drawing down as it directed qi toward the specific point the sign was indicating.
I put my hand on her shoulder and I was feeling the tissue as it knit together. The warmth of the qi concentrating there was subtle underneath the skin as the repair completed. I moved my thumb across the surface of it, checking the work the way I would check a student's Mai channel while they cultivated. This level of healing was so precise that it was almost as if she had reversed time itself to when the wound didn't happen. She had definitely refined her abilities to a new level.
I didn't take my hand off of her shoulder.
She didn't flinch from my touch either.
The training ground sounds continued at a distance.
Wei Bolin calling something to the cohort.
The sound of the river crashing against the rocks.
The faint knock of Pei Yan's staff from the militia ground.
I was suddenly aware of all that was the things that were happening around me, yet my eyes remained fixed on Suyin whose gaze remained fixed on my own with a sense of longing.
Neither of us said anything.
Neither of us moved apart.
I have never been good at this....
I leaned in and pressed my lips to her cheek before I could stop myself. Her skin was warm despite the cold air, the faint herb-and-river scent of the clinic still clung to her, soft in a way that made me stay a breath longer than I meant to.
She stayed still, then she drew in a breath and turned towards me and kissed me back on the cheek, her lips were soft and the warmth of it made me lean into it even more and embrace her fully with my face buried in the crook of her neck, and I heard her gasp faintly and wrap her arms around my neck.
Her heartbeat was there and steady against my awareness the way Commander Xu had taught me to read it, and I realized it was moving the same way mine was.
We stayed close.
"We can't do that kind of relaxing here," I said finally. My voice came out lower than I meant it to.
She pulled back just enough to look at me properly. Her face was red and she appeared to have been slightly amused. "You're telling a lot more jokes lately."
Am I?
The thought resonated with me in a way that I hadn't expected it to. Was I really loosening up? Was it me or was it....someone else? I did notice that I was smiling more, crying more, and just...feeling more than I ever had before.
Suyin's expression shifted into a frown, perhaps she was upset that she may have ruined the sensual moment.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Did I say something wrong?"
"No." I shook my head. "I was just thinking that I'm tired."
She looked at me and nodded without the pressing the issue, which was something that I appreciated.
Then she stood and offered me her hand.
I took it and stood up as well.
Perhaps I really was changing, slowly but surely, this world was changing me. So why fight it?
I held Suyin's hand as we made our way back to the village.