Yun An pinpointed the trajectory of the coming lights and stepped to her left. This way, every knife would miss her.

Conveniently, she reached out to grab the nearest one as it passed by.

The tip of her fingers clammed onto the body of the light. It felt almost like a real object but the light knife disappeared seconds later.

 

<Are people of this world capable of manifesting these things? Is this what martial arts in this world are like?>

 

“How dare you!” The boy yelled, feeling insulted by Yun An grabbing his attack. “Tyrant Blade!” His hand procured a serrated blade made of blue light. “See how I discipline you today!”

 

The boy lunged at her with the light blade.

 

<His form is passable. His speed is a bit more troublesome but it's not something these eyes haven’t seen.>

 

As he swung down the blade, Yun An stepped deep into his space. She gripped his wrist. By past experience, Yun An surmised his passable speed to be only mediocre strength. Her intent was to wrest him into control with her strength.

 

A minuscule fraction of time went by but it was enough for her advanced perception to know she had failed what she set out to do. Strangely, his hand carried more force than her veteran mind expected. 

 

As soon as she touched the weight of his attack, Yun An abandoned the intention of restraining her opponent's hand. In one leap, she easily created distance.

<Thankfully, his reflex was not the best so he couldn't capitalise on my plunder.

This is weird. Are speed and strength not the prime factors in the weight of an attack? I couldn’t have miscalculated. I did this for most of my last life. Is there another factor? Could it be related to the strange phenomenon exploited by the people of this world?>

 

“Slippery brat!” He yelled again.

 

<Now that I am thinking. Who is this guy? He is probably not the head of the Chen family, or perhaps he is but I just oversell the words of that servant. Anyway, let’s hear him out.>

 

“Are you people of the Chen family?”

 

“WHAT?!”

 

The men behind him also shared a similar reaction. 

 

<This means he is not a Chen. Then who are these people? Why did he attack me?>

 

“YOU LITTLE!” The boy suddenly lowered his voice. His expression underwent a change as if he obtained a revelation. “I see. So you are pretending to be crazy.”

 

<Huh?>

 

“You hurt the young master of the Chen family. Then you’re afraid of taking responsibility, so you pretend to be crazy. Yup! That’s it. Your acting is good, else you would have dropped to your knees upon seeing me.”

 

<Putting his conclusion aside, what’s with that last sentence?>

 

“Why do I have to kneel to you? Am I your servant or something?”

 

“Hoh! This brat. Still acting. I am not falling for that. I don’t know what happened to you the last few days but you have guts. This is better than seeing you crying and begging. For someone from Dong clan, it makes me sick to have the same blood as you weakling.” The light blade disappeared.

 

<I don’t know why but this teenager is getting on my nerves. He is about four years older than me. He didn’t even manage to land a hit but he ran his mouth like he was the winner.

Moreover, I don’t like how he treated "this form" (Dong Yun An). Even if she was a crybaby, it didn’t give him the right to humiliate her like forcing her to prostrate to him.>

 

“What are you doing over there? I am in a good mood so I won’t beat you half dead. Get over here and apologise for your insolence!”

 

“I gave you a question. You haven’t answered me. Who are you?”

 

“This stupid brat-“

 

“Are you deaf?”

 

“YOU!” The light blade was manifested again. “Today, If I don’t discipline you properly, my name is not Dong Bai (hundred)!”

 

Closing the distance, his blade hand swung down with intention of cutting the little girl in front of him in half. The edge effortlessly went through the fabric of her shirt and bit into her left shoulder.

 

Yun An could had dodged the blade but somehow she was not in the mood to do so.

 

The more the blade went down, the greater the resistance of her flesh and bones. By the time it was halfway through her collar bone, only a tenth of the initial force remained.

 

<Think of this wound you caused me as the consolation prize.>

 

“ARRRRGGGH!” That was not Yun An's scream. It was the scream of an idiot that had his arm bone broken in two places.

 

As his hand brought the blade down, Yun An fists crashed onto the boy's arm horizontally. Her left hand struck near the elbow of his right arm, while her right fist drilled into the place near his wrist. For an amateur like this boy, he had absolutely no idea that something like this could had happened.

 

The fractured bone pierced his skin making a hideous wound.

 

A pair of indifferent eyes turned downward. 

 

The brat of today might be older but these idiots wailed all the same to her ears.

 

The men rushed over to his side. Their eyes met hers. Fear was their dominant colour. They helped him up, then pulled him backward. The entire time their eyes barely averted to check on their little master. They dared not break eye contact.

 

An alien sense of satisfaction poked at the low end of her consciousness. Yun An threw a glance at the bloody wound. Her muscles were doing their best to minimise blood loss. 

<Am I supposed to feel catharsis by sacrificing this good shoulder...> Her gaze went back to defeated kid and his men. <...just for this?>

 

It was at this time that Yun An firmly believed something unknown was subtly living beneath her dominion. Wrath flared up within every cell of her being, the irritation of having some worthless parasites swimming leisurely inside that she could do nothing to get rid of. Her intuition told that her future action would likely be interfered yet again, and this feeling gnawed at her patience. Truly, nothing could rally the ire of the strong better than challenging one's authority.

 

Despite Yun An showing no change in her expression, those around her could tell the fury of her soul. They all froze on spot, an instinctual reaction to prevent drawing attention of the deadly threat before them.

 

In one breath time, her extremely perceptive mind concluded its next course of action. Violence was always the superior option over some mental expression of anger. She only needed a target.

 

<It (the wound) wasn’t too serious. Also, this was not the time to worry about it.>

 

“You.” The guy being pointed at skipped a heartbeat. “Tell me. Who are you guys?”

 

Her question weirded him out, but he quickly answered. “We-we are servants of Dong family.”

 

“And who is that guy?”

 

“Young master Dong is the second young master of the Dong family.”

 

“What is his relationship with me?”

 

“L-lady Yun An, you are young master Dong's cousin.”

 

“And what are you doing here?”

 

“Uhm…”

 

“Speak.”

 

“This morning, the young master heard that lady Yun An hurted the young master of the Chen family… so the young master set out… to get the lady and to apologise to master Chen.”

 

<This cleared things up for me. 

If I do insult people of a different family without justification, mother would tell me to apologise too. However…>

 

“Did you know that kid picked the fight first?”

 

“So what?” Dong Bai's arrogance retorted. “It’s the young master of the Chen family! Do you think you could just hit him? You should have just played along. Just cry like you usually do and beg him. When he gets bored, he will let you off the hook. Do you even know what you have caused? Because of you, my father has to go over and apologise to the Chen family.”

 

Before Yun An could choose her reply, a middle-aged man landed in front of people of Dong family. Ignoring Yun An, he turned to Dong Bai. “Bai, my son. What happened to you?”