Chapter 93: Tussle in the Air

Kian laughed against Jia’s ear, the sound low and satisfied.

"She’s not stupid. She’s mine."

He kissed the side of her head, then bit the shell of her ear just hard enough to make her shiver.

Feimei shifted on the other side of the fire, stretching her legs out across the black sand.

"You seem stronger," she said, her red eyes glinting with amusement.

Jia twisted in his arms until she could look up at him, her eyes wide.

"Stage Six now?"

Kian nodded. "I was already close, now I am proper Stage 6."

In fact, he was stronger than most.

Her mouth fell open, and she pushed at his chest like she needed space to process it.

"You’re joking. You’re at Qi Building Stage Six right now?"

Kian caught her wrist and held it against his chest, letting her feel the steady thrum of his dantian.

"Why would I lie, dumbass?"

"Actually, I am not that surprised," Jia said. "I am just acting shocked to give you a high."

Kian’s nose twitched.

He flipped Jia onto her back in the black sand and pinned her wrists beside her head. She yelped, then laughed, the sound cut off when he covered her with a huge hug.

She squirmed under him, but her legs came up and locked behind his thighs, unable to escape.

Kian hugged her until she stopped fighting, then pulled back just enough to look at the other girls. "She needs to get smothered like this once in a while as a lesson."

She turned her face away, scoffing beneath him.

Kian shook his head and looked at his current cultivation.

A cold blue light flared behind his eyes. The system panel bloomed across his vision, sharp and familiar, and the campfire dimmed around it.

_

Name: Kian.

Cultivation: Qi Building Stage 6.

Qi Sparks: 312,470 / 1,000,000.

Fortune: 0

_

Kian let go of Jia’s wrists and rolled off her, landing on his back in the black sand with his arms spread wide.

"Hahaha!" He laughed.

She didn’t get up right away.

Then she sat, brushing sand from her hair, and shot him a look that was half annoyance, half barely hidden smile.

"You’re heavy, you know that?" she muttered.

"You like it."

"I don’t."

But she stayed close, her knee pressing against his side as she reached for a half-burnt skewer by the fire.

Mia stood up, shaking out her sleeves.

"Since the mountain of muscles is done sitting on my sister, how about some real fun? This is a campfire, so how about we... you know?"

She pulled Jia to her feet.

The firelight caught the hem of her robe as she spun once, slow and deliberate, then grabbed Jia’s hands and moved her into a small, laughing circle.

Jia resisted for exactly two steps before she gave in.

"You’re out of rhythm!"

"I don’t care."

They moved around the fire, kicks kicking up sand, their shadows stretching long across the clearing.

Kian stayed on the ground, head propped on one hand, watching them dance with a lazy grin.

Xiao Cui wiped her palms on her skirt and stood. "Actually..." she said.

She looked at the fire, then at the ground.

"I can sing, if you want," she said, barely above the crackle of the flames.

No one made a sound.

"Woah! Please do," Kian said, genuinely interested.

She took a breath, closed her eyes, and the first note came out soft and clear as lake water.

Kian’s grin faded, he closed his eyes.

He sat up slowly, not wanting to move too much and break whatever thin, bright thing she was pulling into the night air.

Feimei took out her own musical instrument and slowly started adding to the song.

Jia and Mia began to dance even more nicely.

Kian was lost in the beauty of it all.

At some point, the song ended, and the quiet held for a long moment.

Jiao Yin clapped so hard her hands went red.

"That was beautiful! Where did you learn that?"

Xiao Cui ducked her head, her whole face flushed.

"My mother sang it to me when I couldn’t sleep."

Jiao Yin wiped her eyes, though Kian wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying.

Then she tilted her head back and smiled.

"That reminds me—when I was a kid, I once saw my mother try to sing a lullaby to hundreds of goats, and it sounded exactly like this. They all fell asleep as well."

"Really?" Xiao Cui asked.

"No, I was joking." Jiao Yin said, showing her tongue.

Jia burst out laughing. "That’s crazy."

Mia slapped the sand.

Even Feimei hid her mouth behind her sleeve, her shoulders shaking.

Kian chuckled as well.

When the laughter settled, Jia pointed a skewer at Feimei.

"You’ve been too quiet, Mother. You haven’t said a single thing for a while."

Mia nodded.

"Yes, you’re just sitting there smiling like you know all our secrets."

Kian turned his head toward Feimei.

"She really was just listening."

Feimei lifted one shoulder, her red eyes bright and warm.

"And what’s wrong with listening?" she asked.

"Nothing," Kian said.

Feimei looked at her own hand and smiled. "Actually, let me show you guys something."

Feimei rose from the black sand and walked a few steps away from the fire.

She rolled her shoulders once, and then two long, wet rips tore through the back of her robe.

Kian’s breath stopped.

Wings of dark crimson blood unfurled behind his beautiful Feimei, veined and shining, wide enough to cast the whole clearing in red shadow.

They dripped but never fell, each drop curling back into the membrane like it had a mind of its own.

"Blood wings," Kian said, excited. "You can fly with those?"

Feimei glanced over her shoulder and gave him a look that was all answering.

"I can do more than fly, baby."

She lifted one hand. A dozen drops of blood rose from her wings, hung in the air like beads of dark glass, then shot into the night.

Pew. Pew. Pew.

They struck the far rocks with small, wet cracks, punching holes through stone.

Jia grabbed Mia’s arm. Jiao Yin clapped a hand over her mouth. Xiao Cui made a tiny, shaky sound.

Feimei let the wings fold back into her skin as easily as silk, leaving no blood on her robe.

Kian finally let out a long breath, his eyes bright. "That’s not the same energy you had before. Did you become stronger?"

He pushed to his feet, senses sharpening. The pressure coming off Feimei had changed—heavier now, deeper, the way the ocean feels before a storm.

"No way!"

He read her Qi without thinking. She wasn’t the same Stage Two woman who had sat in that villa, trapped and too weak to fight.

She was Stage Six. Exactly Stage Six.

Kian was speechless.

And her Qi pressed back against his own, strong and steady, like water finding its own level.

"You broke through to the Sixth Stage," Kian said, not making it a question.

Feimei shrugged one shoulder, the corner of her mouth lifting. "The blood pool did more than wake my eyes. It fed the bloodline and my dantian at the same time."

She tilted her head, and her red eyes gleamed. "Now you’re not the only monster here, baby."

Kian laughed, one sharp, delighted bark that startled Jia. "Good. That’s really, really good!"

He crossed the sand, grabbed Feimei by the waist, and spun her once before she could swat his hands away.

"But I am still stronger!"

"Oh, let’s see that."

Kian grinned, grabbing her with all his strength and throwing her far into the air.

Her wings expanded mid air and she flew at great speed into the air.

He followed quickly with Wind Steps.

The girls erupted. Jia pointed at Feimei, eyes wide. "Stage Six? Mother, you were Stage Two yesterday!"

Mia caught her sister’s flailing arm and pulled her into a hug, both of them half-laughing, half-shouting.

Kian closed the gap in three running steps, his feet leaving ripples of blue light in the empty air.

Feimei twisted mid-flight, dark wings banking hard, and flung a curved blade of blood at his chest.

"Too slow and predictable!"

He swayed past it, caught the edge of her wing with one hand, and pulled her close enough to smack her rear.

She yelped. "Oi!"

The spank echoed, sharp and clean.

Feimei gasped and tried to spin away, but Kian was already behind her.

She threw two more red darts, missed both, and lifted a wall of blood between them.

Kian appeared behind her and punched through her quick blood barrier, the barrier bursting into warm droplets.

His open palm landed on her backside again.

Feimei’s calm cracked.

Her graceful brows crinkling, she kicked back at him, wild now, and her wings flared to throw him off.

Kian let the kick graze his shoulder, caught her ankle, and yanked her into his chest.

"There is cultivation, but not strength. You are pretty good, but I could defeat you when I was a Stage 3 or 4," he whispered into her ear.

She frowned deeply. "That’s because I just broke through. I am not yet trained with using all this strength. And I am no brutish fighter like you."

From the clearing below, Jia jumped and waved both fists. "Mom, beat his ass! Stop getting spanked and hit him!" Her voice carried up through the night, bright and shaking with excitement.

Mia squinted after them, one hand shielding her eyes from the fire’s glow.

"Hey, Jia," she said, voice oddly confused, "is Kian spanking her?"

Jia threw a triumphant look at her sister. "What else?" She cupped both hands around her mouth and howled, "Mother, don’t you dare lose to that brute!"

Mia looked up, her eyes squinted in curiosity that soon had a moment of realization.