Special thanks to The Outlander for reviewing, and by request, I'm putting up this chapter earlier than I planned. Enjoy! :)
Hehua was on edge, with many of the villagers and farmers completely unwilling to part with their silver even to feed their family. Most of their clothes were torn and in patches, and most people looked like they were nothing but skin and bone.
All of them were shocked by the ferocity in Kia Min's voice when she asked them for the way to Yao Hong's house, and they all meekly pointed towards the far end of town without so much as stammering a word. She told herself that she ought to apologize, later, but she had no time now. Though Wayfarer Wei had bid her to leave town and not look back, she knew that she could not, in good conscience, leave without getting the man's daughter back to him.
Kia Min had no plan of action. She had very little silver, not enough to cover Wei's debt, and she had no interest in offering the services that Yao Hong would desire. Protection, maybe, and be his own personal body guard, but the state of the villagers told her that this would not do. That, and she knew that this would only last so long before Yao Hong would demand the other thing. But somehow, somehow, Little Qing would go home. She'd figure something out.
Yao Hong's home was a converted teahouse, she saw, back from a time when Hehua was more prosperous and free to do business with more than just Two Rivers. Unlike the rest of the buildings in the village, the house stood two stories tall, but like the rest of the village, the building was ill-kept and tattered. The ornate decorations had dulled from wind, rain, and snow, and strips of red paint were all that remained of what was once the pride of the town.
This was unacceptable. For all the high taxes Yao Hong levied on the town, surely he could have spent some of the silver to maintain the old teahouse!
"There was never any explanation," Wei's words came back to her. "Nearly ten years ago, suddenly, taxes were raised, and only one merchant was allowed to do business with only one town. When we could not pay our debt, Yao Hong took one of our family members to sell into slavery. We would never hear from those poor souls again."
Kia Min gritted her teeth. Yao Hong would pay.
"Yao Hong!" she yelled. "Get out here, and let those people go!"
No response. Kia Min walked closer to the door. If she would have to barge in, then so be it.
"Yao Hong!" she tried again. "I'm warning you. You said you know my school. I was one of the best students!" A lie, but Yao Hong did not need to know that. "If you do not wish to test my skill, open this door, now!"
For a moment, there was only the breeze. Then, finally, the massive doors to the old teahouse squeaked open. There stood Yao Hong, his hands clasped behind his back and his lips pursed with an agitated stare. On either side of him were men in rags wielding rusty long swords, their faces hard but their hands trembling. Kia Min gripped her staff. She had no intentions of harming Yao Hong's soldiers but as for Yao Hong himself, well, now she knew exactly how she would let the imprisoned villagers go free.
"Girl, I am pretty sure I told you that this was none of your business," said Yao Hong. "You test my patience."
"You test mine, Yao Hong," said Kia Min. "Let your prisoners go."
"The slaves? I cannot do that."
Kia Min threw her staff in front of her and used both hands to hold it. She narrowed her eyes. "Cannot? Will not, you mean."
Yao Hong did not budge. "I cannot."
She pushed her leg back and fell into a battle stance. "You can, Yao Hong, and you will. You call yourself a leader of this town? Enslaving your own people and their children, and enforcing such ridiculous taxes? Only allowing trade with one village and forbidding any others to come here? Look around you! Hehua is dying under your leadership."
"And it would be dead by now if it weren't for me!" roared Yao Hong. "You think I'm a bad man, don't you? The state of this old teahouse alone should tell you that I do none of this for personal gain or glory!"
"But the silk you don suggests otherwise," said Kia Min. "Let the prisoners go. They are not slaves. Not now, not ever."
Yao Hong looked to both sides at the armed men beside him. They met his eyes, and he gave them one short nod each. "I cannot expect the villagers to understand and so I cannot expect you, an outsider, to understand. This is your last warning. Leave Hehua."
The men raised their swords above their heads and threw their unoccupied arms ahead of them. The way they positioned their feet and held their bodies told Kia Min that they had training in the basics of swordplay but that they had only ever fought against a mannequin; at Two Rivers, they would not have been able to stand on their feet for more than a couple of seconds in a match. Was Yao Hong so desperate he could think to scare her off so easily?
She dashed forward and neatly landed her shin into the stomach of one man, who crumpled over coughing and gasping for air. The other bit his lip, and Kia Min hopped to bring her heel into the back of his head. As he fell, unconscious, she twirled her staff and jammed the end of it into Yao Hong, and he toppled over backwards.
Kia Min held the end to his throat and snarled, "This is your last warning, Yao Hong. Let them go."
He coughed, and he chuckled between gasps, his eyes hard and his sneer vile. "Girl, you may win this battle now, but if you kill me, you doom the town and all of its villagers. And, you will die."
She pressed the staff firmer against his throat. "You say that, but I'm the one at the advantage, here."
"You fool," he hissed, "do you often go attacking people without getting the full story?"
"Two Rivers was not granted that luxury," said Kia Min quietly, "and neither shall I grant it to you. Let them go, and you will live. If you do not, I will kill you, and I will free them. Either way, I win."
Kia Min ignored the shivers crawling down her spine as she spoke her threat. Surely Master Li never trained her to kill someone in cold blood like this, but he had trained the senior student and therefore the others to do some good in the world. What was the use of surviving if she could not help this small town today?
"Either way," said Yao Hong, "we all lose. Do what you will, girl. But I warn you, your actions here, now, will cost you your life. No matter what you do, no matter if you run, you will die."
"Or your barely skilled soldiers will hunt me down?"
Yao Hong snorted. "My men, my servants, are poorly paid but they are paid, and they are not slaves. I do not keep the slaves for myself, and I did not raise the taxes. Where do you think the slaves go, girl? There is a customer, and he is coming."
"Then I will deal with him when he comes," said Kia Min, and she pulled her staff back only to ram it through the throat of the slaver of Hehua.