“So teach your class,” said Master Jiang. “Leave me alone.”

“We need the courtyard.”

“You don’t need all of the courtyard. You don’t need this tree,” Jiang said petulantly.

Jun whipped his iron staff through the air several times and slammed it against the base of the tree. The trunk actually shook from the impact. There was the crackling noise of deadweight dropping through several layers of dry mimosa leaves.

Master Jiang landed in a crumpled heap on the stone floor.

Rin’s first thought was that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Her second thought was that he must be dead.

But Jiang simply rolled to a sitting position, shook out his left leg, and brushed his white hair back past his shoulders. “That was rude,” he said dreamily as blood trickled down his left temple.

“Must you bumble around like a lackwit?” Jun snapped.

“Must you interrupt my morning gardening session?” Jiang responded.

“You’re not doing any gardening,” Jun said. “You are here purely to annoy me.”

“I think you’re flattering yourself.”

Jun slammed his staff on the ground, making Jiang jump in surprise. “Out!”

Jiang adopted a dramatically wounded expression and hauled himself up to his feet. He flounced out of the garden, swaying his hips like a whorehouse dancer. “If for me your heart aches / I’ll lick you like a mooncake . . .”

“You’re right,” Kitay whispered to Rin. “He has been getting high.”

“Attention!” Jun shouted at the gawking class. He still had a mimosa leaf stuck in his hair. It quivered every time he spoke.

The class hastily lined up in two rows before him, staves at the ready.

“When I give the signal, you will repeat the following sequence.” He demonstrated with his staff as he spoke. “Forward. Back. Upper left parry. Return. Upper right parry. Return. Lower left parry. Return. Lower right parry. Return. Spin, pass through the back, return. Understood?”

They nodded mutely. No one dared admit that they had missed nearly the entire sequence. Jun’s demonstrations were usually rapid, but he had moved faster just now than any of them could follow.

“Well then.” Jun slammed his staff against the floor. “Begin.”

It was a fiasco. They moved with no rhythm or purpose. Nezha blazed through the sequence at twice the speed of the rest of the class, but he was one of the only students who was able to do it at all. The rest of them either omitted half the sequence or badly mangled the directions.

“Ow!”

Kitay, parrying where he should have turned, hit Rin in the back. She jerked forward, knocking Venka in the head by accident.

“Stop!” Jun shouted.

Their flailing subsided.

“I’m going to tell you a story about the great strategist Sunzi.” Jun paced along their ranks, breathing heavily. “When Sunzi finished writing his great treatise, Principles of War, he submitted the chapters to the Red Emperor. The Emperor decided to test Sunzi’s wisdom by having him train a group of people with no military experience: the Emperor’s concubines. Sunzi agreed and assembled the women outside the palace gates. He told them: ‘When I say, “Eyes front,” you will look straight ahead. When I say, “Left turn,” you will face your left. When I say, “Right turn,” you must face your right. When I say, “About turn,” you must turn one hundred and eighty degrees. Is that clear?’ The women nodded. Sunzi then gave the signal, ‘Right turn.’ But the women only burst out laughing.”

Jun paused in front of Niang, whose face was pinched in trepidation.

“Sunzi told the Emperor, ‘If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, then the general is to blame.’ So he turned to the concubines and repeated his instructions. ‘Right turn,’ he commanded. Again, the women fell about laughing.”

Jun swiveled his head slowly, making eye contact with each one of them. “This time, Sunzi told the Emperor, ‘If words of command are not clear, then the general is to blame. But if words of command are clear, but orders are not executed, then the troop leaders are to blame.’ Then he selected the two most senior concubines in the group and had them beheaded.”

Niang’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head.

Jun stalked back to the front of the courtyard and raised his staff. While they watched, terrified, Jun repeated the sequence, slowly this time, calling out the moves as he performed them. “Was that clear?”

They nodded.

He slammed his staff against the floor. “Then begin.”

They drilled. They were flawless.

Combat was a soul-sucking, spirit-crushing ordeal, but there was at least the fun of nightly practice sessions. These were guided drill periods supervised by two of Jun’s apprentices, Kureel and Jeeha. The apprentices were somewhat lazy teachers, and disproportionately enthused at the prospect of inflicting as much pain as possible on imagined opponents. As such, drill periods usually bordered on disaster, with Jeeha and Kureel milling around, shouting bits of advice while the pupils sparred against one another.

“Unless you’ve got a weapon, don’t aim for the face.” Jeeha guided Venka’s hand down so her extended knife hand strike would land on Nezha’s throat rather than his nose. “Aside from the nose, the face is practically all made of bone. You’ll only bruise your hand. The neck’s a better target. With enough force, you could fatally collapse the windpipe. At the very least, you’ll give him breathing trouble.”

Kureel knelt down next to Kitay and Han, who were rolling around the ground in mutual headlocks. “Biting is an excellent technique if you’re in a tight spot.”

A moment later, Han shrieked in pain.

A handful of first-years clustered around a wooden dummy as Jeeha demonstrated a proper knife hand strike. “Nikara monks used to believe this point was a major ki center.” Jeeha indicated a spot under the dummy’s stomach and punched it dramatically.

Rin took the bait to speed things along. “Is it?”

“Nah. No such thing as ki centers. But this area below the rib cage has a ton of necessary organs that are exposed. Also, it’s where your diaphragm is. Hah!” Jeeha slammed his fist into the dummy. “That should immobilize any opponent for a good few seconds. Gives you time to scratch out their eyes.”

“That seems vulgar,” said Rin.

Jeeha shrugged. “We aren’t here to be sophisticated. We’re here to fuck people up.”

“I’ll show you all one last blow,” Kureel announced as the session drew to a close. “This is the only kick you’ll ever need, really. A kick to bring down the most powerful warriors.”

Jeeha blinked in confusion. He turned his head to ask her what she meant. And Kureel raised her knee and jammed the ball of her foot into Jeeha’s groin.

Mandatory drill sessions lasted for only two hours, but the first-years began staying in the studio to practice their forms long after the period had ended. The only problem was that the students with previous training seized this chance to show off. Nezha performed a series of twirling leaps in the center of the room, attempting spinning kicks that became progressively more flamboyant. A small ring of his classmates gathered around to watch.