We stood separated by thirty steps, as I looked down upon the familiar disciple from the Alley, shock and anger clearly wrestling for control as he stared up the stairs at me. I couldn’t help my own feeling of nervousness rise up at the sight of my once-neighbour. Why on earth is he here?

  “You stupid bastard.” The Outer Disciple jaw slammed shut into a stern grimace, his eyes narrowing upon me as he tossed the dust-pan to the side. “I should’ve known that someone like you would try to sneak in here.”

  Isabella was still too busy cradling her head in her free hand, leaving me to focus on the cultivator in front of me. “I’m…sorry?” I tried. “Listen buddy, I think right now this is well above your paygrade.”

  “Trying to get me to simply step aside?” The Disciple harrumphed and made to spit on the ground, but stopped as he thought better of it. “As if. I assure you that I am exactly where I need to be right now.”

  “...Cleaning?”

  “Providing information,” my neighbour insisted, arm sweeping out in a grandiose gesture. “Who else do you think provided your likeness and information to the Sect? When our honoured seniors came with questions regarding your betrayal, I was more than happy to oblige, and inform them of what a danger you were!”

  He’s responsible for the posters? At my thought, I heard a faintly muffled groan of annoyance from Isabella. Still, there was a chance to rescue this. “Danger? I’m the one who’s being attacked here. You know just as well as I how the blues don’t give a moment’s thought to any one of us. Is it somehow my fault that I had the audacity to live?”

  “So you admit your betrayal,” the Disciple muttered ominously, ignoring absolutely everything I said. “While your theft of the Ruby Tears has already spread, I also ensured that our righteous Elders understood just what evils you were responsible for. You terrorised your juniors, even as you sought to hide your foul deeds from your seniors!”

  Evils? Foul deeds? You mean taking back my door? “So you just turned up at the gates of the Main Compound and expected to be rewarded?”

  “I expected nothing!” my neighbour declared. “It is my honour to serve the Sect, just as it should have been yours! What trifling tokens I may have received had no impact on my decision to come forward with this information.”

  I scanned over his clothes, noting evidence of a much heftier money pouch on the inside of their robes, along with what appeared to be several pieces of jewelry that I certainly didn’t remember him wearing before. “Of course. You did this entirely altruistically, for the good of the Sect. That doesn’t explain why you’re cleaning a courtyard in some random corner of the Compound.”

  At this, my neighbour hesitated slightly, before putting on a stoic expression. “It’s for my own good,” he explained. “They made it clear that the information I had upon your behaviour was valuable, and if what I said was true then it would be in my best interests to remain here, to avoid becoming a victim to your blackguardry.”

  I nodded. “And the sweeping aids in this.”

  “It is my honour to serve the Sect,” my neighbour repeated in the exact same tone as before. Then, the stoic mask dropped, and the opportunistic Outer Disciple revealed himself in full, leaning in with both hands braced on top of the broom as if to deliver a valuable secret, “also, I’m getting paid the Inner Disciple rate right now for this. I’m getting four thousand yuan just for this courtyard!”

  Maybe it’s not too late to turn myself in- I wince again as a scythe’s shaft collides with my head again, and I whip around to see Death giving me a sharp glare. Sorry.

  “Thinking of escape?” My neighbour misunderstood my glance back, quickly stepping forward to the bottom of the stairs with the broom still in hand. “Do you really think I’ll let you walk away so easily? For those first few months when you blazed ahead, the rest of us could do nothing more than just pick up the pieces you left in your wake. Who else do you think suffered from those rich nobles, when they couldn’t take it out on you?”

  The broom in the Disciple’s hands spun to face brush-side up as the end of the haft slammed into the brickwork of the courtyard. “And even when you slowed to a crawl, forced to confront your own mortality, you refused to associate with us, your equals! Your passion for cultivation was entirely refocused into your own survival. No longer were you the aspect of a lion, you were little more than a rat! Scraping and scrounging! Such a thing could not be called a brother! Such a thing has no place in the Seven Falls Sect! That is why I am going to defeat you-”

  The broom was lifted up once more, whipping around to sharply stop with the brush firmly pointed in my direction. “-here and now, Ryan!”

  …

  “Wait,” my brow furrowed, “this is going to sound embarrassing, but am I meant to know your name?”

  My neighbour blinked. “We’ve been neighbours for three years. Since our group joined the sect.”

  “I’ve been busy,” I defended myself. “I’ve had things going on. Wait,” I snapped my fingers, “it was Boluo, right? I swear it was Boluo.”

  Boluo rolled his tongue around in his mouth, searching for the right words. “I,” he eventually decided, “am going to beat you into a bloody pulp.” And with that declaration, Boluo began running up the stairs, a roar upon his lips, the telltale sign of a technique washing out over his form as he let his qi loose.

  Seven Falls Stance, adapted for low qi reserves, I recognised. A far cry from the proper technique, but one could actually use it for more than a single second, the faintest trickle of the user’s qi doing just enough to elevate one’s strength and speed above any unaugmented Disciple. With the broom held firmly in both of his hands like a staff, he was clearly ready to make good on his promise to bludgeon me to death.

  Still, it was going to be a million years before someone like him would actually give me a challenge. Easily predicting the angle he was going to swing in, I stepped right-

  “Ryan!” Isabella stumbled into me with a yelp, “are you trying to die!?”

  “Ryan!” Boluo roared, broom sweeping down. “Die!”

  -I scrambled the other way towards Isabella, pushing her out in front of me into a lunge down the stairs even as Boluo crashed down behind us, dust flying up into the air.

  The dodge was just enough to avoid the broom’s impact, but it still left us in an uncontrolled descent downwards, the steps rushing up towards us. “Ryan!” Isabella shrieked, grasping onto my hand tightly as she fell.

  I pivoted once more, anchoring Isabella even as her free arm flailed wildly, swinging her back up and around, catching her by the shoulder as she landed on my step. I fixed her with a sharp look. There’s absolutely no other way you can keep me protected from the Compound!?

  “D-don’t you think I would have tried that first?” She hissed, before her eyes widened. “Behind!”

  It was my turn to be thrown around; Isabella pulled me forwards, and once more I felt the whoosh of a broom just barely missing my head, though the sharp bristles of the brush scored lines of fire through my shirt along my back. I fell into Isabella’s arms who thankfully kept us both from taking a tumble down the rest of the stairs, and tried my best not to scream in pain. Just what the hell kind of broom is that?

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  “How pathetic!” Boluo declared, heaving the bloodthirsty broom back up into a ready grip. “Is this clumsy mess really the Demon of the Alley we all feared?”

  “No one called me that!” I shouted back through gritted teeth, before rolling around Isabella to stand at her side, my left hand clasped with her right. Isabella, you’re going to have to work with me here.

  “How!?” She seemed surprisingly frazzled at the onset of combat, clutching her scythe tightly to her chest with her free hand even as her other hand squeezed down on mine.

  Haven’t you watched me die twice already? I shook my head, and refocused. I could already feel the wound on my back beginning to heal as the Remedy worked its alchemical magic, and the pain was fading quickly.

  Just move with me, and trust in me. I set one foot backwards onto the step just below, and lifted my right hand up towards Boluo, extending an invitation of violence. I can still win this.

  My neighbour was more than happy to accept. He advanced with short, sharp thrusts, the broom’s head leaping forward like a hungry Thousand-Tooth Tiger, its thin teeth desperate to taste my flesh once more.

  I weaved in and around the blows, continuing to make a slow retreat down towards the courtyard. I could only barely see Isabella out of the corner of my eye, my own gaze firmly focused on the onslaught that threatened to spear me through.

  The broom went left, right, left, always trying to find an opening, always just a hair too late to bury itself in my side. Boluo’s own expression grew more furious by the second, the first blood only stoking his rage to new heights. In a desperate burst, he surged forward, as if to run me through-

  And it was only after I’d dodged once more that I realised I’d been played; the broom’s head kept travelling, rotating up and back in the air, and Boluo’s face lit up in victory as the broomhandle span upwards to crack against my neck-

  Only for Isabella to pull me back once more, and for the tip of the broom’s haft to sail right past my face. I could feel my back stop against Isabella as she grabbed onto my shoulders and caught me before I cracked my head open on the steps. Like some sort of demented dance we twisted around the other, bleeding off enough of my speed to give me a chance to get my feet back under me as my sandals met the solid brick of the courtyard itself, side by side with Death.

  I straightened up from the low crouch, giving Isabella and our hands a glance. Thanks for the save.

  “No problem,” Isabella muttered, rolling her neck and tossing the scythe to the side with terrifying casualness. “You’ll have to forgive me, my parents didn’t teach me how to dance.”

  First time for everything.

  “Unbelievable…” Boluo muttered, tapping his fingers against his broom’s haft. “You’d always been so confident in your ability to predict my strikes. Are your instincts so sharp? No, I know you weren’t ready for my Misdirecting Thrust Stance…”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Misdirecting Thrust? Do you think if you put ‘Stance’ at the end people will actually take you seriously, o’ Seven Mops Elder?”

  “Shut up!” Boluo roared, racing down and leaping right off the bottom-most step, broom brought up again above his head.

  This time, I stood in place, waiting for the broom to begin swinging down towards me, only to step inside the reach of the broom’s head. Right hand outstretched, I wrapped my arm around the haft as it swung past, grabbing it from the bottom and firmly bringing it to a stop. With the entire tool firmly trapped in the crook of my arm, it left Boluo in perfect distance for a perfectly timed left-hand-

  Boluo stared at me and my fist, frozen there in the air halfway through a punch. “You’re not taking me seriously,” he bit out. “Do you think you’re just exchanging pointers with a child?”

  “Damn it,” Isabella hissed, her shorter arm unable to keep up with my longer reach, “do something other than wrenching my arm out of its socket!”

  In response to both of them, I headbutted Boluo, sending him reeling back with a hiss and the faint sound of his nose crunching. Even as his head reeled back, I chambered a kick and hammered it down on his kneecap, only to miss as Boluo let loose a burst of qi and rushed forward, pushing past me towards the fountain and ripping the broom out of my grip, quickly turning to face me once more as we switched positions, the stairs now behind me and the open courtyard and fountain behind him.

  Maintaining momentum, Boluo began swinging the broom wide, refusing to give me such an easy time of catching him again. No longer did I have the luxury of narrow dodges, ducking deep underneath the wild sweeping strikes, and even outright jumping over another as it came in to obliterate my ankles.

  However, the broom stopped directly beneath me, and I could feel my future children cry out in terror as Boluo’s arms flexed in preparation to leave me a eunuch. I snapped my legs together just before he could swing up, by sheer fortune blocking the strike and landing on the broom.

  We both paused for a moment as I stood there balanced three feet above the ground. Boluo’s jaw dropped wide open, even forgetting to drop the broom as I stood above him with absolute ease.

  I gripped onto Isabella’s hand tighter, keeping my balance, and promptly stepped along the broom to kick Boluo in the face. Once again, his head rocketed backwards as his nose crunched again, spurting blood, and beneath my feet I could feel the broom drop as both of Boluo’s hands raced to his face.

  Come on, keep moving! Even as he stumbled back, I moved forward. Isabella caught me with her other arm to slow my descent, and mid-air I aimed three ferocious kicks at Boluo. Each one made contact with a cry of pain, knocking his hands against his face, cracking against his sternum, and driving the air from his lungs with a well placed foot in his stomach.

  I landed softly, giving a quiet nod to Isabella, and for the first time in this fight I used my qi. I set my left foot forward, anchoring it firmly against the ground, and chambered my right leg, letting the smallest mote of power fill my muscles. Then, with a twist until my torso was parallel to the ground, I kicked.

  My foot slammed into Boluo’s chest, and with an awful crack my neighbour was sent flying into the fountain, a massive plume of water exploding up into the air. It came back down across the courtyard in a gentle drizzle, instantly turning the pile of swept dust and dirt into a muddy pile, and soaking into my own simple clothes.

  Slowly, I performed the entire kick in reverse, bringing my knee back in, before leaning back up and putting my foot on the ground, pulling my hands in to rest at my sides. This also pulled Isabella in, who stood next to me, brushing droplets off her face as we watched the contents of the fountain slosh about, slowly growing red as the blood from Boluo’s nose diluted the water within. His head lolled back against the central structure, eyes barely open as he looked up towards the sky.

  He took a breath, and I took one of my own, relieved. Well, I suppose that’s sorted. I exhaled heavily, pulling at Isabella who had kneeled down to pick up her scythe. Come on, let’s-

  “W-what was that technique?” My attention was stolen again by Boluo, not only alive but also, somehow, still conscious. His face was ashen, and not just from the nose bleed. “Those kicks. You weren’t falling right. A-as if your body was just…picked up.”

  Ah. That could be a problem. I ran through a few options in my head, before settling on the easiest. I mustered up the creepiest grin I could, and locked eyes with my neighbour as I began to approach him. “You shouldn’t have seen that.”

  This was clearly the right choice; Boluo only pressed himself further back against the fountain’s pump, whimpering even as I approached the edge of the basin to loom over him. There, I lifted my right hand to my chin, tapping it as I looked off thoughtfully into the distance. “To think that some mongrel would discover that I, An Wei, the Wailing Misty Ghost of the Main Compound, took over the body of a respectable, virtuous soul like-?”

  “Respectable?” Boluo coughed incredulously. “That rat Ryan, a virtuous soul?”

  “You know what, fuck this.” I leaned forward to grab him by the hair and slammed his head back against the central spout, knocking him out.

  “The Wailing Misty Ghost? Really?” Isabella asked, stifling a chuckle.

  I gave her a look. “What? I was improvising.”

  “Seems a bit childish,” Isabella couldn’t help but laugh now. “You expected him to believe that?”

  “Well why not?” I defended myself. “He believed I’d been possessed, why not a ghost?”

  “Ghosts aren’t real, Ryan.”

  I stared at the incarnation of Death herself.

  She stared right back, letting her scythe rest easily on her shoulder. “You calling me bad at my job or something?”

  I threw my hand up in the air. “Fine. Whatever. Ghosts aren’t real, definitive proof delivered by Death. Let’s just go.”

  We left the courtyard behind, the mist soon swallowing up Boluo’s unconscious form. Death’s giggles followed me for a little longer.