As soon as Wu Ling said 'everyone loses', dozens of Blade Winged Birds launched themselves from Wu Ling's zither, throwing the room into confusion amidst their wingbeats before they dove at their targets. Wu Ling's mastery of his birds had grown even greater since the banquet and this time he held nothing back as his flock mercilessly targeted the vital areas of the gangsters and gamblers in the room. Most of them were early-stage Brawlers, petty criminals that wouldn't amount to much even if they plundered countless elixirs and resources.
Blood flowed like water and San's eyes bulged open when the sharp wings of a bird tore through his throat and like a knife through tissue paper. His feet had barely left the ground when the first bird struck him and he only avoided the second bird by virtue of his panicked thrashing as he tried to stop the flow of blood from his torn throat. Martial energy surged as he tried desperately to stop the flow of blood. No matter how much he struggled, however, nothing could stop his knees from going week or his world from slowly turning dark as he struggled to cling to life on the cold floor of the room.
All around the room, men crumpled where they stood. The few who were lucky enough to survive the first attack of a diving bird or to avoid it entirely, quickly found themselves targeted by Wu Ling's second wave of birds that struck even more mercilessly than the last. Aside from the fresh recruits who had arrived later, the men who had been listening to Wu Ling's zither playing for more than an hour found that they could barely summon a trickle of their energy, and even then their minds had become too sluggish to direct it effectively. Without the strength of their cultivation to draw on, they fell like chopped bamboo.
"What sorcery is…" Little Boss Nalan shouted as he tried to leap to his feet. Instead of the surge of power that he expected, however, he realized his body had become numb and no matter what he tried, he was unable to budge as much as a centimeter! Even his head would barely move, leaving him to watch the carnage unfolding, powerless to do anything to stop it!
"Well, that takes care of the trash," Wu Ling said, opening his eyes and turning to face the paralyzed boss. "Yue," he called, summoning the fluffy rabbit and placing her on the table. "If anyone is still alive and tries to move, freeze them for me," he said gently, giving her a brief, reassuring pat before turning all of his attention to Boss Nalan. With a twitch of her whiskers, a pale mist began to spread from the rabbit, flowing out over the already cool room and giving it a biting chill as she surveyed the carnage of Wu Ling's Blade Winged Birds.
"Nalan Jiang," Wu Ling said coldly, stepping forward and lifting the man's bushy beard to reveal a thin scar that ran all the way around the man's neck. "I have questions about a friend of yours," he said, letting go of the man's beard. "You're going to answer them for me. If you don't, things will become unpleasant very quickly."
"Who, who are you? What did you do to me?" Boss Nalan asked, his eyes wide and trembling as Wu Ling began pulling out several small pieces of parchment, an inkstone, and a brush.
"You were bitten by an Asp of Paralysis," Wu Ling said as he arranged his tools, carefully writing a word on the first slip of parchment. "Even for an early-stage Soldier like you, you shouldn't expect to move or use your martial energy for the next hour. Now, over the past several years, you've been accused of forcing yourself on women no less than seven times," Wu Ling said, placing a slip of parchment bearing the character for 'Itch' on Nalan Jiang's hand.
"Each time," he said, beginning to write a different word on the next piece of paper. "You were brought before the Deputy Lord Mayor of the Outer Blossom Ward. Do you remember his name?"
"You think I'm telling you anything, witch?" Nalan Jiang spat. "Go to hell. When that asp's venom wears off, I'll show you what I do to women who think they're stronger than this Boss!"
"I don't think you understand," Wu Ling said, placing the next talisman on the paralyzed bandit. Instantly, the word 'Pain' produced an intense, searing pain that spread through Nalan Jiang's hand, ripping a startled cry from him as it felt like his hand was being crushed in a blacksmith's vice. "I can place these far more creatively than just on your hands, you know," he purred next to the man's ear.
"Aaaarrgggg, fine! Fantian Wong, Deputy Lord Mayor Fantian. Happy now, witch?"
"You went before Deputy Lord Mayor Fantian seven times," Wu Ling said, picking up where he'd left off and writing out another talisman. "Each time, your friend, Fantian Wong, found problems with your accusers. Not enough evidence. Not credible, or, his best excuse, 'too ugly to be assaulted.' How much did you pay the good Deputy Lord Mayor each time he helped you, Nalan Jiang?" Wu Ling asked, slicing the man's tunic open and placing the character for 'pinch' directly on his hairless nipple.
As maddening itching continued to plague one hand, crushing pain tormented the other and now an intense pinching sensation assaulted the only sensitive spot on his thickly muscled chest, sweat began to pour from Nalan Jiang's bald scalp. This Vixen had already told him that she'd get 'more creative' about where she put her cursed slips of parchment. Each one held a different power… already he desperately wanted to scratch at the itching hand or sever the left hand to make the pain throbbing from it stop… what… what else was she going to inflict on him?
"It, it was different each, each time," he stammered, staring at the silver-eyed demon who had come to torment him. "As little as one hundred spirit crystals, or as much as a thousand. You're after Fantian Wong, right? You don't care about me, you want him! I can tell, tell you where he is," the bald man stammered, staring at the Vixen's brush and trying to figure out what word she'd write next.
"Oh? That would be helpful," Wu Ling said, setting down the brush and pulling out a map from his cosmos bag. "I heard he fled the city when you did last year and that he joined your Mountain's Bones gang. Where are you hiding him?"
"On, on the other side of Dog Mountain," Nalan Jiang confessed readily. "At the base of Deadfall Cliffs, there's a hideout in the caves. It's just a small place," he said. "Just a place where people can hide from, from people like…"
"Where they can hide from people like me?" Wu Ling said with a dark smile. "But Nalan Jiang," he continued, his delicate fingers retrieving the brush and writing out the character for 'squeeze.' "I heard that Fantian Wong has been selling his services to your boss, helping to plan raids and giving him all sorts of information about the forces of the city that have been hunting him. I'm sure he wouldn't be holed up in some little cave hideout. The base of Deadfall Cliffs," he purred, moving Nalan Jiang's beard aside and placing the next talisman directly on his throat.
"That's where your gang's headquarters is, isn't it?" Wu Ling didn't need the man to give words to his answer, the terrified look in his eyes told him enough. He'd tried to convince Wu Ling that it would be an easy place to attack, to lure him into a trap and now he knew that he'd been caught.
"A year ago," Wu Ling said, turning away from his calligraphy to remove the thinnest string from his zither. It was the same string he'd used to cut his finger earlier when he unleashed the Asp of Paralysis against Little Boss Nalan. "A year ago, an assassin snuck up behind you and nearly killed you with a cord around your neck. That's when you fled Silver Sword City," Wu Ling said, his voice leached of all feelings as he fought back the bitterness and tears that wanted to spill from his eyes.
"But before you fled, you had your way with her, didn't you? Six families pooled what little they had to send an early-stage Understudy after you, but she had no clue you'd become a Soldier by then," he all but whispered as he walked around behind the already choking man. Threading the zither string across the scar left by the last assassin on Little Boss Nalan's throat, he looped the ends of the string around the hilt of a knife before slowly twisting the string tighter.
"The ghost of Senior Sister Xuan Lu sends her regards," he whispered, giving Nalan Jiang the last words he'd ever hear in this life.