"Hurt me and my father will have your head, you f.u.c.king wh.o.r.e!" Chang Chang gritted furiously.

"I think before this day is over I'll have your head instead," An Ning said with a cold expression on her face.

"Brave words since you know I can't do anything about it," Chang Chang sneered. "Come on, you and me. The two of us in a fair fight. I promise to go easy on you."

"You'll have that chance later, I promise you," An Ning said. "First, let's have a talk, shall we?"

"We have nothing to talk about."

"Tell me about Zhengyi."

"f.u.c.k you," Chang Chang spat.

"You'd better give me the correct answer because believe me, I don't mind roughing up that sweet and innocent body of yours."

"Screw you...ahh!"

Chang Chang gasped in shocked pain as An Ning extended a foot in an upward motion then slammed it viciously against her crotch. An Ning was wearing hard and pointed shoes and the pressure against the soft and feminine flesh was unbearable, causing Chang Chang to almost double up in pain.

"Now, tell me about Zhengyi."

"f.u.c.k....ahhhh!"

An Ning extended her foot again and the pointed toe caps slammed against the girl's delicate parts with almost careless force, the pain so excruciating that it brought tears to Chang Chang's eyes.

"Tell me."

Chang Chang couldn't stop crying, completely and utterly humiliated.

"Zhengyi plans to take advantage of what it thinks is chaos in the capital and attack, am I right?" An Ning prodded.

Chang Chang nodded pitifully.

"Is your father really this stupid?"

"You didn't make use of the army," Chang Chang said, her tear-stained face mocking. "Instead, you paid civilians to defend the capital. Yuqui has gone weak. You don't even have enough men to defend against another attack."

"Is that what your father is planning? Attack the capital?"

"We will win," Chang Chang said with a scornful smile. "You don't have a chance."

"How many men?" asked An Ning.

But Chang Chang refused to say anymore just glared at An Ning, her eyes contemptuous.

"Why don't you just roll over and give up? We won't kill you. Just hand you over to the army and make you their wh.o.r.e."

This time, the empress dowager calmly walked over to the chained girl and quick as a snake, two of her blunt fingers went down the girl's crotch and pulled. The move was so unexpected that it even surprised the burly man calmly standing to the side. He watched stupefied as the empress dowager then started an obscene movement with her fingers, the cloth of the girl's robe pressed against her pads creating a rough friction with each lewd thrusts.

"I don't think so," An Ning said, her expression cold.

Chang Chang was beyond humiliated by this time. She was whimpering in shame and pain, wiggling her lower body to try and escape the empress dowager's rough manhandling. There was nothing s.e.xual or arousing in what the empress was doing. It was simply an act intended to degrade and humiliate nothing more. The empress' eyes were devoid of curiosity or pleasure. She was calmly looking at Chang Chang's distressed face as she would an ant crawling up a mole hill.

"How many fighting men in Zhengyi?" she asked, the fingers still stabbing at the girl's now bleeding crotch with the same calm yet angry force.

Chang Chang shook her head, whimpering. The fingers kept their steady yet rough pumping on the girl's crotch.

"Around...around twenty thousand," Chang Chang sobbed brokenly.

"Including your father's students?"

"Yes," Chang Chang cried even harder. "Stop, please stop. You're hurting me," the girl pleaded, the once proud look on her beautiful face now replaced with pain and extreme misery.

"Walk me through this plan of yours."

"We...we we're supposed to send word to my father after we've captured the emperor. Then the bulk of our forces will enter the capital and...aahhhh!!! Please, stop!"

The empress dowager stepped back, her bloodied fingers falling to her sides. The girl chained against the wall sobbed in abject misery, completely shocked and broken.

"Remove the chains and tie her up with something," An Ning ordered. "We'll return her to her father with her head still intact. I think that's a concession, right?"

The burly man stepped forward and did as he was told. Chang Chang slid to the ground in a near faint, the front of her robe stained with red.

The man was tugging at a rope dangling from a beam on the ceiling when Chang Chang scrambled clumsily to her feet and run to his side, pulling out the sword on his hip in one quick move. It happened so fast that the man barely had time to move before the sword was plunged into his stomach, the blood spurting from the wound in a quick gush.

An Ning kicked Chang Chang on her side which sent her flying across the room, the bloodied sword still gripped in her hand. An Ning quickly moved to the man's side and examined the wound.

"She didn't hit a major artery so you're going to be fine," she said, giving the man an encouraging smile. She then tore a fragment of cloth from the robe she was wearing and pressed it on the man's wound. "Here, put your hand in there and don't move. That will stop the bleeding for a while. What's your name, by the way?"

"Li Cang, your highness," the man groaned, trying to smile through his pain.

"Well, Li Cang, wait here while I try to get rid of this trash, okay?" she said, straightening up and in one swift move, her sword was already blocking Chang Chang's fierce strike, the two swords emitting flames as they met and clashed viciously.

Chang Chang was a very strong and determined fighter. Her movements were agile and swift. Her martial arts even more surprising and deadly. It was evident that between the two of them, she was the stronger and fiercer fighter. But she lacked An Ning's menacing focus, her almost predatory thirst for conquest.

The two women circled each other, their swords clas.h.i.+ng, their bodies leaping and flying in fierce combat. One powerful kick sent Chang Chang cras.h.i.+ng against the wall. The st.u.r.dy wall collapsed like thin boards, stunning the prisoners being kept and guarded in the next room. The crash splintered the wood, sending Chang Chang spinning to the ground. The men scrambled to get out of the way as the young empress bounded towards Chang Chang, her sword slas.h.i.+ng mightily.

Chang Chang scrambled to get up, the hem of her robe tangling around her leg. The empress' sword swung in a downward move but Chang Chang was quicker and foiled the attack by kicking instead at the empress' thigh. The empress staggered at the force. Chang Chang's sword thrust forward, grazing her arm and drawing blood.

Chang Chang again swung her sword but the empress dodged the attack. Her body turned sideways, grabbing Chang Chang's sword arm with her left hand then ramming her right elbow hard against Chang Chang's chest. Chang Chang howled in pain, struggling to lift the sword and put it between her and the empress' next attack. But she was not quick enough. An Ning's sword caught her in her mid-section, tearing the garment and skin open until blood gushed out.

Someone gave a loud angry shout. With a roar, a young man lunged at An Ning with a small yet lethal-looking sword but was bludgeoned to a stop by a hard object nearly splitting his skull in half.

Chang Chang roared in anger and rushed forward, her sword swinging and slas.h.i.+ng in the direction of the man who had bludgeoned the young man but was stopped when something hard and round suddenly struck her on the face.

An Ning had pulled a small cannonball from the fake ring and thrown it at her, stopping Chang Chang's murderous attack on the man who had bludgeoned the young man to death. Blood started dripping down Chang Chang's face, staining the front of her robe. She staggered but regained her balance and swung at An Ning again.

"Enough! I don't want to have to kill you," An Ning shouted, meeting the attack with an upward swing of her sword.

"Die you, f.u.c.king wh.o.r.e!" Chang Chang screamed, leaping through the air, her body straight as a projectile, the sword in her hand glinting menacingly. An Ning dodged the attack by jumping high and out of her way, her feet touching the rafters before using it to propel herself forward, straight at Chang Chang who braced herself against the attack by slas.h.i.+ng at her with her sword.

An Ning timed her attack and when she saw an opening she struck viciously, the two chopsticks she had suddenly pulled out of her hair impaling Chang Chang's eyes with deadly precision. The chopsticks punctured the naked orbs with an ugly squishy sound, literally stopping Chang Chang on her tracks. Chang Chang screamed and continued screaming as she staggered about drunkenly, the blood dripping out of her sightless eyes like hideous streaks of red tears.

The men watching the outcome of the fight swallowed their bile. They looked aghast at the girl with the two bloodied chopsticks still protruding from her punctured eyes. The beautiful and proud daughter of Zhengyi, the incomparably talented Chang Chang of the brave and powerful Taoist sect had been reduced to something like this, a howling, whimpering animal who can't even claim a dignified defeat.

The sight was too scary, too gory even for the hardened hearts of most of them that they immediately averted their eyes, staring instead at the young empress who had taken her sword out and was watching the girl still hobbling about like a drunken chicken, her hands stretched out in front of her.

The sword struck silently yet accurately. They watched as the decapitated head rolled about on the ground like a bouncing ball. The headless body was still standing, still moving about as if slow to understand the lack of impetus from its missing head. Then it slowly crumpled to the ground, folding gently without making any sound.

The group of men watched wide-eyed as the young empress pulled the severed head up by its hair from where it landed on the ground. The decapitation was clean and true. The severed head was not even oozing blood, the expression on its face somewhat foolish, the gruesome twin chopsticks still embedded in the now dead eyes.

The young empress held the severed head with steady hands. She was not even squeamish, her expression hard to read. The decapitated head looked somewhat uncanny held against the rich background of emerald green worn by a young girl whose age belied her fierceness.

The empress walked over to one of the guards and handed him the severed head like it was a gift.

"Give this to Xiang Yu. He'll know what to do with it," she said.

The guard swallowed then accepted the head gingerly. He pulled out a burlap bag and threw the head inside then with a bow of his head, he left.

The empress then walked over to Li Cang who was lying sprawled on the wall, his hand still pressed on the piece of torn cloth protecting his wound.

"Come, take him upstairs and call for the doctor," the empress called out then turned to the injured man. "You're going to be fine. Do as the doctor says and rest."

"Thanking her grace," Li Cang mumbled, face wet with sweat and grimacing in pain as the guards took and carried him away.

An Ning finally turned to the waiting men.

The prisoners watched her approach, knowing that their lives were over even before she opened her mouth to speak. They underestimated her. They underestimated her strength. The sect master had a.s.sured them that with the capital in ruins and many of its civilian defenders dead, Yuqui's glorious capital was ripe for the picking. It needed only strength and cunning and Yuqui would crumble as its capital will crumble. Timing was of the essence and what better time than the Battle of Talents.

But it didn't turn out the way the sect master had a.s.sured them it would. Or perhaps even he was hoping that it would be as he said it would.

The palace walls and its gates were rebuilt in record time. The ministry of public works even added layers to its fortification, making it even more difficult to attack. The structures and houses that were torn by enemy fire had been cleared away, giving way for new structures to rise.

And the people...it would have been much better if people in the capital had went about bemoaning their faith, blaming the emperor for the attack and the many dead. But again, even that went beyond their expectation.

The capital was in a flurry to rebuild, which was not exactly how a supposedly oppressed and tyrannized citizenry were expected to behave. And then there was the matter of the staging of the annual Battle of Talents.

The entire contingent of partic.i.p.ants were actually invited to the hard-to-get-to imperial banquet, even the previous winners who had been shut out of the festivities for years. n.o.body was left out except for the hangers on and matchmaking mamas, that is. And one can feel everybody's excitement just to receive the invitation, which was not actually doing anything much in their favor since how can someone sow discord and anarchy when all everyone could think about was going to an insignificant little party?

Then there was the emperor and his stepmother, the young empress dowager. These two should have been sad, angry even vengeful for what happened except that they were not. The only one who angered the emperor the most was Chang Chang, and that was because she tried to pull the ent.i.tled bratty behavior which had intimidated hundreds before and worked so well in the past.

The emperor's decision after that shocked them near brainless. He immediately kicked their team off the roster then banned them for life from ever competing in the Battle of Talents. All those hours of practice wasted, the dreams of fame and glory turning to dust.

And now they come to this, being held prisoner by the very same men whose defeat should have paved the way for their triumph but instead the opposite again happened. And Chang Chang dead and many of them soon.

The sect master was a terrible prophet, a deluded prognosticator of things yet to happen. They wondered if he, too, will die under the young empress' sword.

"Kill them all."

The words were the final words they heard before the hail of something small yet hard struck their bodies and they knew no more.