Destiny in Cinders

An Jing knew quite a bit about Bai Qinghan. She was more playful than the rest. Like other children, she hadn't studied before and couldn't read, so it was really hard for her to learn any martial techniques. She couldn't understand the Imperial Sky Classic either.

An Jing had worried himself over this and used some of his personal time to help the illiterate children out in hopes that they would be able to learn to read and start training in martial techniques soon.

Bai Qinghan had picked up what he taught the fastest and was often praised and shown as an example to the rest. Though he had gained an impression of her through that, they hadn't really talked much. She would take An Jing's praise with a few shy hums and say nothing else.

He only truly got to know her during a sparring match. As the senior disciple, An Jing would sometimes play the role of assistant instructor to give some personal training to those who were struggling with the techniques, focusing on the movements and stances to exert force. That was especially the case when their training eventually involved striking their training partner down, so he had to give them personal pointers.

Bai Qinghan was one of the people who received help, though it was for a different reason than the rest. She needed pointers to hold back her power because she was too adept at martial techniques to the point that she could almost kill her training partner.

There were some moves that weren't supposed to be used during training, such as eye gouges, elbow strikes, foot stomps, strikes to the lower body, heart, and temples. It was all too easy to accidentally kill someone with moves like those.

However, Bai Qinghan used them unconsciously and struggled holding herself back. From the surface, she seemed just like a meek, academically challenged girl. Her usual silent demeanor made her appear no different from the average shy girl. Her inability to read almost seemed to add to her beautiful purity.

Yet, all that was but a mirage, a mere disguise. Though her irises were normally dark and dim, they glowed brilliantly with no warning during those training sessions. She was more like a dormant beast than a human, tapping into her instincts in the right conditions like hungry wolves in winter.

When her ferocity was on full display, the other disaster children weren't able to react in time and would subconsciously withdraw, but that reaction only seemed to signal to Bai Qinghan that she should double down on her efforts and charge.

She still managed to snap out of it at the last moment, finding herself within the safety of Direlife Manor, away from the bandit-ridden streets of her home. Her sparring partners were only left mildly injured. But when that happened a few times in a row, the others stopped wanting to spar with her.

That left only An Jing to face off against this instinctually sharp girl. It took but a few moves for him to completely subdue her and cure her of her tendency of going too far.

Bai Qinghan's affliction was simple. She had grown up in a really unstable situation, absent of a sense of security from her parents, where every single instance of conflict with others was a matter of life and death. Being a small girl, she needed to resort to the harshest of moves to protect herself. There was no way she would be able to survive the wilderness of Hanhai otherwise.

This extreme lack of security during her upbringing gave her a mental affliction that caused her to go for the kill every time she had to fight. The fact that she was able to stop at the last moment at all was a sign of her efforts; she had managed to correct a years-long habit in a matter of months.

None of that was really an issue for An Jing; it was easier to deal with a predictable martialist who only went for the vitals than someone more measured and skilled. An Jing easily raised his left arm to block her blinding strike and punched her breathing tract with his right hand, causing her to gasp for air.

As Bai Qinghan backed away and was tensing up for the next charge, An Jing closed the distance and struck her lower jaw to knock her out.

When she came to, she remained dazed for a good moment. Right as An Jing thought that he had somehow given her brain damage, she suddenly rose and bowed to him.

"Sorry... Thank you, Senior Disciple." Her voice was a complete mismatch for someone with her ferocious moves. She sounded like a soft, fluffy pastry. "I feel like I've woken from a dream."

"I see." He didn't really know what to say in response to being thanked for beating someone up.

"I will apologize to the people I've hurt." Bai Qinghan held her head low, voice still soft. "I keep telling myself that I'm safe, that there's nothing for me to fear. Even if I'm in the manor of a demonic cult, they wouldn't kill me for no reason..."

"Wait a second!" An Jing noted the operative phrase. He whispered, "Demonic cult?! You know this is a demonic cult too?!"

"That's right." She gave him an odd but firm look. There was a hint of blue glowing from the pitch-black depths of her eyes. "Senior Disciple, don't you know this as well? Aren't we all here to serve the demonic cult with everything we have? That's why they're keeping us alive, right?"

Since that moment on, An Jing often interacted with her. Unlike her soft, cute exterior, Bai Qinghan was a girl who had a really unique way of viewing things. Not only was she aware that she had been purchased by a demonic cult, she didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

Ten years ago, she was forced to flee her home due to a fiend calamity. A hornless draconic chi[1] suddenly left its usual habitat, causing the fiends that it had been subduing in the area to flee all at once. Many of them made it to human settlements and resulted in countless casualties.

She was born during that very crisis and had to accompany her parents on trips to forage for food from right under the noses of wild beasts and feys. As such, she had never seen any example of holding back in fights. Every time there was conflict, blood followed. If she didn't go all out, she would've ended up dead.

As Bai Qinghan's parents were dead, she chose to sell herself since nobody would bother to adopt a feral child from the wilderness of Hanhai, fearing that she would bite off their throats if they let her get close.

"Unlike the dangerous creatures of the wild and the powers across Grand Chen, all the demonic cult does is feast on humans. They do it with restraint too. Just look. It's been half a year, but they haven't even eaten all of us. They're really full." These were her honest thoughts on the matter.

Part of her talent was also her incredibly discerning observational skills, so she had long figured out the deeper meaning behind An Jing's warnings about the instructors and lecturers and knew the true nature of the demonic cult.

An Jing pondered for a moment in silence. "No, they're not full. They're waiting. If they pull out the shoots too early, they won't be able to harvest the rice paddy. If they kill livestock before they mature, they won't be able to get that much meat. The demonic cult has always been hungry. They're only waiting and building up for a grand feast."

"I see..." Bai Qinghan nodded and looked down at her feet. "At least, they won't eat all of us while they wait."

An Jing didn't say anything as he recalled the medicinal tanks. A moment later, he snapped out of it and asked her to not speak about this.

She merely shot him an odd look and said, "Senior Disciple, I may be illiterate but I'm not an idiot."

1. A chi is a creature from Chinese mythology, commonly described as a hornless dragon. See more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi_(mythology) ☜