Severing Time & Space

Invitation to Dinner, Part I

Wu Jian breathed deeply through his nose and out his mouth as he blocked a punch from Wu Meiying, crossing his arms out of instinct. The sound of her fist hitting him echoed around them. He gritted his teeth but held tight.

Of course, he realized the moment she grabbed his wrist that this had been her intention all along. He soon found himself being flung over her shoulder as she used his weight against him.

Twisting his body and landing on his feet, Wu Jian tried to straighten back up, but he soon found a wooden training weapon soaring toward his face. It was so fast it cut the air.

He bent his body backwards to avoid being hit. Placing one hand on the ground, he lifted his feet and kicked at the weapon passing over his head. He managed to knock the weapon out of his opponent's hand—not that this meant much.

She had a second weapon.

Hou Jingshu swung her remaining weapon down. He dodged quickly, but then found himself running into Wu Meiying, who was already in the process of swinging her leg in a low kick to knock him off his feet. Wu Jian barely managed to leap over her attack.

Just as he was landing on his feet, Hou Jingshu appeared before him, swinging her single butterfly sword at his leg. He grimaced and angled a kick that hit the flat end and forced it away.

It was a strong kick. Swift. Sturdy. And it knocked his opponent off balance.

As the girl stumbled, he swiftly stepped forward and tried to attack, but Wu Meiying intercepted him. She fended off his strikes to give Hou Jingshu the time she needed to recover.

Then the two of them were teaming up on him again.

Hou Jingshu and Wu Meiying made a surprisingly good team. This was only their tenth day fighting against him together, but they already seemed to have an intuitive understanding of how the other fought—perhaps because they had sparred each other so many times.

Hou Jingshu struck fast and hard, aiming her butterfly swords at the gaps in his defense. She was very good at taking opportunistic attacks when he wasn't as attentive as he should have been.

On the other hand, Wu Meiying excelled at counterattacking and throws. All of her attacks were designed to toss him through the air using leverage and his own force against him. She usually preferred to make him attack because then she could unleash a devastating counter that stole the breath from his lungs. He had learned this the hard way during their last sparring session.

Wu Jian backed up as Hou Jingshu came in with several lightning fast thrusts that forced him to weave from side to side, then threw a punch when he saw a gap in her defenses. His fist was straight and true. It should have hit Hou Jingshu in the solar plexus.

Unfortunately, Wu Meiying was already in front of Hou Jingshu, apparing like a ghost and intercepting the attack. She redirected the force of his strike with a simple slap of her palm, then delivered a punishing blow that would have broken a normal person's ribcage.

He spun his body around, avoiding the fist, if just barely.

That was too close!

Backing up to give himself some distance, he set himself in a traditional combat stance, and eyed the two warily.

"Looks like you're still having trouble taking us both at once," Wu Meiying said as Hou Jingshu walked over to her fallen weapon and retrieved it.

The training weapons she was using were very small swords. They were called butterfly swords due to their unique shape holding a vague resemblance to the wings of a butterfly. Neither sword was very big, about half a chih in total.