"Eat her," the lean thug hissed as he reached for the reed basket.
"Over my dead—" Meng Wujin lunged, his hands shaking, voice small.
Meng Qingluo moved before she named herself. She was already moving, every muscle remembering training the body didn't own.
"Back off!" she snapped. Her voice cut. She sprang up, grabbed a kitchen cleaver from the cracked mortar with the same motion as a soldier snatching a sidearm.
The thug laughed. "Storm girl thinks she's a soldier. Cute."
"You shut your mouth," she said. She stepped forward, blade flat in her palm, thumb along the spine like she had a pistol trigger under her finger.
"Think you'll scare us with a toy?" the second man said. He had a dull knife and a grin used by men who had robbed many women.
Meng Qingluo didn't waste words. She struck the man's wrist with the handle of the cleaver. Bone made a sharp sound. He dropped his knife, swore, and reached for her.
She twisted, moved under his arm, and with a practiced wrist toss flung him down. Her body was smaller, weaker—so she used speed and angles the way she used med kits: precise and with no mercy.
"Don't," she said to the first thug. He lunged like a dog and she met him with a palm strike under the ear. He clapped his hands to his face, staggered, and she hooked his jaw with the cleaver's butt. He
