Chapter 12: Their Encounter
At the fighting area
Suddenly, four masked assassins leapt from the rooftops, their blades catching moonlight like death's silver fangs.
He fought fiercely — blade flashing, movements precise — but he was outnumbered, and one cut grazed his side, blood blooming on his robe.
Just as one assassin lunged for his throat—
A second shadow dropped between them.
A figure dressed in black and grey, with a slender frame and a silver fox-shaped mask covering their face.
With fluid grace, the newcomer parried the assassin's strike, spun, and slashed cleanly across the man's shoulder. The attacker cried out, falling back.
The rest circled warily now.
"You're late," the masked figure said coolly, voice feminine but steady.
"Who the hell are you?" Wei Li hissed, staggering to his feet.
"Someone who doesn't like to see five against one."
"I had it under control."
"Clearly."
She threw two darts, striking another assassin in the leg. With Wei Li back on his feet, the two stood side by side — strangers with blades, fighting as one.
When the last man fled limping into the shadows, silence returned.
They stood facing each other, both breathing hard. The tension between them wasn't just from the fight — it was charged, like thunder before a storm.
"Why did you help me?" he asked after a long pause.
"I don't like bullies," she said simply.
"You're not an ordinary city girl."
"You're not an ordinary wanderer."
For a moment, their eyes met — his, dark and sharp with suspicion; hers, hidden behind the silver fox mask but unwavering.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"What's yours?" she countered.
They stared at each other. Neither answered.
"Then let's call it even, stranger," she said, turning to leave. "You owe me your life."
"Don't think this means anything," he called after her. "I don't trust people who wear masks."
She paused.
"Then you'd hate mirrors," she said, and vanished into the shadows.
...
That night, Hua Rui returned to the manor quietly, removing her mask and washing off the bloodstains from her hands.
Her mother slept peacefully in the next room.
She sat by the window, moonlight brushing her face, and whispered to herself,
"Whoever he was… he wasn't just some street rat."
...
And near the Cold Palace, Wei Li wrapped his wound and stared at the spot where the woman had stood.
"That sword style… that presence…"
"Who the hell was she?"
He touched his chest where her hand had briefly pushed him aside mid-fight — the first time someone had touched him with something like concern in over a decade.
His fingers clenched.
"This city is changing," he muttered. "And now… so must I."
He started watching for her — not that he would admit it.
The masked girl with the silver fox mask who fought with the grace of a shadow and the sharpness of ice.
And every time Wei Li left the Cold Palace under cover of night, he hoped he'd see her.
She never gave a name.
She never stayed long.
But she always arrived when danger stirred — saving someone in need, silencing a pickpocket, escorting an injured beggar to safety. And always in disguise.
"You're everywhere," he murmured once after she helped him fight off a pair of thugs robbing a merchant.
"Maybe I'm a ghost," she replied, voice teasing beneath the mask. "You do haunt the wrong places, don't you?"
He smirked. "You're not the only one who haunts."
Each time they met, they fought together without a word — the rhythm between them uncanny, like they'd trained together for years.
Their swords never crossed each other. Their backs were always covered.
And afterward, they'd stand close, breathless, cloaked in moonlight.
"One day you'll tell me who you are," he said quietly one night.
"And ruin the mystery?"
"Mystery isn't safety. Trust is."
"Trust gets people killed."
He had no answer to that.
But for the first time in years… someone wasn't afraid of him. Someone wasn't repulsed. And that made her dangerous in ways even he couldn't fight.
One day...
It wasn't a trap. It was worse — it was love and duty.
Hua Rui's mother, Xiao Lan, had always been watchful, but now, she noticed the signs. The torn sleeves, the bruised wrists, the late returns and silent glances out the window.
"Where have you been going, Rui'er?"
"Nowhere important, Mother."
But one night… she followed her.
And what she saw shattered her.
Her daughter — masked, cloaked, wielding a blade like she'd been born with it — stepping out of shadows like a rogue of the streets.
That night
"No more," Xiao Lan said that night, voice trembling. "No more of this life. You will not throw yourself into danger again."
"Mother—"
"Do you think I've raised you all these years, protected you, only to watch you disappear into darkness like your father's women? Do you think I can survive losing you?"
And Hua Rui… stayed.
She couldn't break her mother's heart. Not after everything. Not after all the years they'd fought to survive.
So she put away the mask. She folded the cloak. And she stayed home.