NOVPUBTang Yin fiddled with the knives and concentrated. Although she was not as good as her brother, it was hard to match the Thousand Hand Asura, she knew she was good.
They were heavyweight in her hand. She twirled her body, knives in hand testing them again flipping them through her fingers. Focusing on the faint sound of the blade cutting through the air.
"You go first." She told Meng Yiran, focusing on her cooly.
Meng Yiran was grim-faced when she glared at Tang Yin and nodded determinedly.
"Just so you know, when the knives do not hit the tree, they don't count, " she added haughtily, turning towards the Dragon Duke. "Grandpa."
Meg Yiran fixed the cloth bag around her waist, turning towards Tang Yin, who followed her movements clumsily, appearing like she had never done something like this before. Then, watching as Tang Yin resigned Meng Yiran felt more confident as Tang Yin kept holding the bag in one hand. Tang Yin appeared as if she had never handled a knife in her life before.
Meng Shu casually threw the cane in his hands against a tree. A loud cry echoed from it, and it turned briefly into a living silver dragon before it stuck to the big tree about twenty meters away. A muffled sound came from the tree as leaves sailed down from it like rain.
With a short, light shout, Meng Yiran used both hands, throwing out her knives in succession. The motion was smooth and nimble; all eighteen knives had been thrown in a single breath.
Meng Yiran let out a confident and proud huff as she saw that her knives had all stuck home, some even having pierced two leaves, not just one. Each and every single one counts.
The attention shifted to Tang Yin, who had been patiently waiting for Meng Yiran to finish before sighing and then readying herself. She was not her brother, after all. Focusing on the target, she eyed the cloth bag before throwing it upwards. It folded open midair as she moved, her hands striking fast as lightning as she threw each and every single one with deadly accuracy, taking them out of the bag midair.
Unlike Meng Yiran's knife, hers traveled in arches, each drawing an elegant arch around them as they pierced several leaves in succession before hitting home with a thud into the tree. She secretly sighed in relief that all the knives had hit home and she hadn't missed the tree. Her movements, despite her own feelings of relief that she had done it, sent tremors of shock and awe through the Dragon duke and his Wife, Meng Yirans eyes widened as she kept staring at the smaller and younger Tang Yin as if she was a ghost.
Behind her, her brother clicked his tongue. "We need to practice that, " he said, and she turned around, shooting him an annoyed gaze.
"Seriously." She growled.
"Seriously. I know you can do better." He said, ignoring Meng Yiran and her grandparents, who were still looking at her rather puzzled, that she had marched towards the tree. Loudly said. "Five leaves." Before taking it off and marching to Tang San.
"You see that? Those things a too bit, and they are heavy; what do you expect." She said, and he gave her a long look that said. That-is-your-excuse? 𝒏𝒐𝒗𝒑𝒖𝙗.𝒄𝒐𝒎
Then he started coughing, and Yin bowed down, patting his back and treating him carefully as she said at the same time. "Yes, you know how much I have trouble throwing heavy stuff." She told him and helped him lean back.
"Well, you suck; I need to show you how to throw in arches again," he said, cracking.
"Oh, shut up, will you? Get better first, then we get Xiao Wu, and then maybe I'll let you teach me." She growled at him while her hand stroked back his hair carefully, and she started inspecting his injuries. Her body angled toward the other party, so she was ready to intervene if anything happened. The results were clear, though. She had won. There was no arguing over it; there was no doubt she had won overwhelmingly.
Tang San got to his feet, shaking her off as Yin lightly smacked the back of his head and pointed for him to sit down. There was a second of nonverbal sibling communication before he settled down as she ordered him.
"Now we have settled this, I believe." She told Meng Yiran, who remained quiet, gripped teeth glaring at her.
"You cheated." She hissed.
"No, I did not." Tang Yin said and got up; she had enough. She was not about to listen to that brat again playing like she was the best. "If I had cheated, I would have won with far superior numbers; if I had cheated, I would have used spirit Power." She walked towards her and had the three rings around her rising.
"For I am stronger than you, " she said. "I encountered you in your chosen field of competition."
Meng Yiran wanted to return when she was stopped by her grandfather.
"Yiran, my dear, stop; you have lost fair and square, " he said, and Tang Yin's gaze flickered at him. "Even I doubt I could match the young Misses' skill, and from the sounds of it, her brother surpasses even her."
Meng Yiran turned around and left without her knives.
"Hey." Tang Yin called after her. Then, she used her weave to bring the knives to her, controlling it meticulously. "Take these with you."
"What..." She growled and ignored Yin, who was holding out the knives. Yin was about to shrug her shoulders and leave it be when her brother said from behind her.
"Don't feel insulted. We have been practicing with hidden weapons since we were three years old. It took nine years to reach this level of skill, and this was the best of it."
She looked at the knives and took them. Then she weighed them and looked at Tang Yin. "You said hidden weapons, and that these are chunky and heavy to what you are used to."
"Yes." Tang Yin nodded, took out a smaller knife, and twirled it in her hand. "Hidden weapons are weapons used not to display skill but for battle and unexpected attacks."
Meng Yiran stared at the knife and took it from Tang Yin's hand. "I have never seen a knife this small, " she said, weighting it in her hand.
"Well, that is standard for hidden weapons. It requires an entirely different technique and method than what you are doing right now. Honestly, I think, at the end of the day, if it comes purely to knife throwing, you might not be far behind."
Meng Yiran stared at her and then at Tang San, who nodded. "As my sister said, you are good. But using the wrong thing...do not give up, " he said and then leaned forward. "Sis, come here for a moment."
She leaned forward to him and eyed him when he took a piece of fabric from twenty-four moonlight bridges and then wiped her face beneath her nose. "You got dried blood there from a nosebleed."
