Previously, the assassin Qiange—the one who plotted to kill the princess—split the street like a crack of thunder and rooted herself between the prowling punks and Kelor.

She didn’t reach for a naked blade, like a hunter who knows the city stones aren’t a killing field.

The rush came like a dirty wave, and Qiange flipped her grip and popped the first two heads back down like whack-a-mole under a spring rain.

She stole a heartbeat of stillness, bit her thumb like a seal cut in cinnabar, and drew a line of blood from guard to sheath-end like a red thread.

Wind curled around the sheath in a tight vortex, like a coiling dragon waking, and Qiange leveled the sheathed blade at her left like a drawn bow.

She lowered her stance like a cat before the pounce and breathed out names that rang like iron on stone: “Qi Blade, One Line… Grand Whirlwind Slash…!”

She stepped and spun, a storm-lantern flaring in the dusk, and the sheath-tip dragged a slicing vortex that slapped everyone down like reeds in a sudden squall.

If she’d drawn steel, the alley would’ve bloomed like a butcher’s yard, and half the crowd would’ve fallen in two like split bamboo.

She slid the sheath behind her hip like a calm tide, brushed dust off like dandelion fluff, and let them writhe and wail like fish flopping on a dry bank.

The hits wouldn’t kill, but ribs might crack like kindling, and breath would saw in their chests like winter wind through shutters.

The elf codger jolted, his hand stuttering like a broken sparrow, and his birdcage hit the cobbles with a sharp clang like a dropped bell.

His knees folded like wet paper, his back thumping the wall like a loose shutter, and his shaking finger spat curses like sparks at Qiange and Kelor.

“Remember this—remember it!” he croaked, face blotchy like spoiled fruit. “I’ve got royal backing, like mountains at my back! Slap me, and you slap the state! Just wait and see how I skin you!”

Kelor’s temper flashed first like a struck match, then she lunged and grabbed him like a hawk snagging a rat, her words snapping like banners in wind.

“You pampered brats are piles of dog crap in gold shoes, like stink under silk,” she barked, eyes bright like flint. “You preen in the mirror and see a saint, but you’re mud with perfume.”

“You cling to royal blood like barnacles to a hull, and you call it glory,” she pressed, voice hammering like rain on tiles. “They polish their name, and you smear it with dung.”

Her lines landed one by one like drumbeats, and the old man gulped air like a fish, his bluster shrinking like a punctured lantern.

From the crowd, a voice cracked like a whip: “Good!”

“Well said!” another rolled in like thunder, and cheers rose like a tide pounding a jetty.

Courage swelled in the small folk like sap in spring, and they surged as one like a river in spate to give the elf lord and his crew a proper thrashing.

It was a storm of boots and fists like hail on a tin roof, and the bullies bolted with tails tucked like dogs from a kicked bucket.

They forgot all about big names above them like clouds that don’t stop rain, and they vanished into the alley like shadows at noon.

“Thanks,” Kelor said, breath steadying like a lake after ripples. “If you hadn’t stepped in, I’d have had a long night.”

“No need,” Qiange said, bowing with her sheathed blade like a reed bending to wind. “My courage is a firefly’s glow, and yours is moonlight over a plain.”

“You saved someone knowing trouble would come like thunder, and you spoke with spine like a straight pine,” she added, soft and clear. “I’m a mere swordswoman; you’re the hero bright as the sky’s cold moon.”

“Alright, alright, cut the rainbow fluff in my ear,” Kelor said, grinning despite herself like a cat in sun. “We’re both heroes, fine.”

An assassin and her target walking side by side felt like a fox sharing a path with a goose, and the world held its breath like dusk before lamps.

“You look a lot like someone I met once,” Qiange said, studying Kelor up and down like a painter measuring lines.

Still floating a little like a kite on a breeze, Kelor tossed back, “Who?”

“You look like the princess sitting in the palace,” Qiange said, voice level like a blade on a whetstone. “But there’s a difference, like twin mirrors with a crack in one.”

Kelor’s throat went dry like sand, and she pulled a bottle from her pack like a squirrel with a nut, the cap clicking off like a pebble.

“What’s different?” she asked, pride warming her chest like tea in winter, the praise sweet as ripe peach.

“You’re brave and steady, kind and just, like a lantern that doesn’t go out in wind,” Qiange said, eyes calm like deep water.

Then her face hardened like ice over a river, and heat flared in her words like oil on a flame. “But the reigning princess is a coward who twists the law.”

“Pffft—!” Kelor sprayed water like a startled fountain, coughing hard like a bellows gone crooked.

“Why would you think that…” she tried, testing the air like a cat at a door.

“Don’t mistake me,” Qiange said, lifting a hand like a quieting fan. “I meant likeness of form, not heart.”

“If the princess had your sense of justice, this country wouldn’t reek like a clogged drain,” she went on, and her anger beat like wings against a cage. “The puffed-up would not swagger like roosters at dawn.”

The words clawed at Kelor’s ribs like thorn vines, and she swallowed her fury like hot coal, breathing slow like waves smoothing sand.

“Pampered noble girls never see common folk as people, like riders who forget the horse’s sweat,” Qiange said, scorn sharp as frost. “She sits and does nothing, a pretty ornament with no weight.”

Keep smiling, Kelor told herself, a porcelain mask under rain, each breath a counted bead like prayer on a string.

“To call her an ornament flatters her,” Qiange said, voice cutting like sleet. “She’s useless, like a broken tool tossed in weeds.”

Smile my ass, Kelor thought, the words thudding in her skull like a drum.

“Enough!” she snapped, her hand slicing the air like a fan, then she saw Qiange’s puzzled look and reined herself in like a rider on a skittish horse.

“Ahem… we shouldn’t go that far,” she said, smoothing her voice like silk. “You curse this… this worthless princess so hard, but have you even met her?”

“To be blunt, once,” Qiange said, shaking her head like a willow after rain.

“How?” Kelor asked, the word light as a feather but heavy as a stone.

“No point hiding it now,” Qiange sighed, the sound long like wind through pines. “If I keep silent, I’ll drag you down with me like a net pulls fish.”

“I’m the wanted one who tried to assassinate the princess half a month ago,” she said, every word falling like a nail. “I had her cornered like a rat in a jar, but she slipped away by luck.”

Kelor froze on the spot like a statue catching frost, her mind cursing like a pot about to boil over.

Damn, she thought, the blame arrow flying straight to Lingcai like a hawk to prey, and her tongue tied in knots like wet rope.

So Qiange still thinks Lingcai is the true princess, she realized, a thought rising like mist—wasn’t that good?

The thought should have been sweet like candy haw, but it stuck in her teeth like grit, and joy wouldn’t come like a stalled dawn.

“Then why do it?” Kelor asked, anger banked like coals under ash, curiosity lifting like a kite in fair wind. “No matter the outcome, it’s a heads-on-the-block crime.”

“You risk your own neck like a gambler throws dice, and you could drag family down like a flood,” she pressed. “What hatred runs that deep?”

Qiange didn’t look like a devil with blood on her hands, more like a blade with a purpose, bright and cold like starlight on water.

Let the facts speak—cue the 60 Minutes sting, Kelor thought, then shook herself like a dog from rain. Stop. What nonsense.

Qiange let out a long breath like mist leaving a valley. “It’s a long story…”