Next morning, she woke to a loud crashing sound. Gathering her senses, she stood up looking at her surroundings she realised that she had fell asleep in the shed. Going back to the hut she heard the man inside moaning in pain.
On entering the hut, she saw the bowl of medicine she had placed on his bedside table broken on the ground. Well, that explains the crash, she thought to herself.

She started making another batch of medicine, since he had wasted the previous one. Shaking her head, she focused on the bowl in her hand. He kept groaning and moaning in pain while she worked. Hearing his pain, she felt a little helpless. She couldn’t use magic to heal him and couldn’t put him under a sleep spell right now because this batch of medicine needed the patient to be conscious to work. With the medicine ready, she moved to his bedside and saw he was waking up slowly.

When the man opened his eyes, he had no idea where he was. The last he remembered was falling into the lake. He shuddered remembering the pain of being crushed under that huge boulder. the memory of that made him realise the pain his body was in now. ahhh, how could he have missed this excruciating pain before, he thought. Groaning in pain, he looked up and his gaze got stuck on the sublime vision before him.
Feng jiu saw that the man had woken up. Moving to his side, she helped him sit up.
“don’t move around too much. Your body can not take that much movement.” She told him.

She picked up the medicine bowl she had placed on the side table. Stirring the liquid, she spooned it to his mouth.
“here, drink this, it will help you deal with the pain and speed up your recovery. It is very bitter though. Do you want me to get something to balance the flavour?” she asked.

The man was mesmerised by the beauty in front of him, feeding him medicine, he didn’t want her to leave him. So even though he desperately needed something to remove this horrible bitter taste from his mouth, he shook his head in no. after the medicine was finished, he said, “who are you? How did I get here?”

“my name is xaio jiu. I heard your horse’s cry yesterday. When I went looking for him, I found him badly hurt. He led me to you and you were heavily injured too. I brought you both back to my hut to treat your wounds.”

“but I was stuck under a huge boulder, how did you got me out of that?”, he was confused. This beauty looked so soft and frail, she did not look like some one who could lift a boulder that size.

she saw the problem in that situation and carefully answered, “when I found you, there was no boulder in sight. I saved you from drowning. I have no idea what boulder you are talking about.”

Pondering on her statement, he thought maybe he had finally succeeded in moving that rock off of him but there was still one thing, he didn’t understand.

“how did you bring me and my horse back?”

“I tied you up and dragged you here,” she shrugged.

“ouch” he cringed.

“there was no other way around it. Going back and forth from here to there would have just proven more harmful than beneficial. Your treatment required continuous monitoring.”
Satisfied with her reasoning, he smiled.
“thank you for saving us. I owe you my life. If it had not been for you I don’t think we could have survived. How is little white?”

Little white, she assumed, he was referring to his horse but before she could answer, she heard a sound outside. It felt like the sound of a horse stampede. Closing her eyes, she tried to find out the source of the sound.

“xaio jiu?” he inquired.

She lifted a finger to her mouth indicating for him to keep quiet for a minute. She knew he couldn’t hear it yet but something was coming towards them. She stood up moving towards the door of the hut.

He didn’t understand what was going on and when she started moving towards the gate, he panicked.

“where are you going?” he asked but then he heard the answer to his question.

He could hear the sound of a battalion approaching. Worried for her, he told her, “they are coming for me. I will go with them. They won’t hurt you if I go with them willingly. Rest assured, you will be safe.”

Exasperated, she looked at him. “I do not want or need your protection. Please save your self-sacrificing and righteous actions for someone who wants it. you just need to answer one thing for me. Are they your enemies, ones that you would usually kill without thinking much about it?”

She had surprised him again, dumbfounded he just nodded in answer to her question.

Now, that she had her answer, she told him to stay put and moved out of the hut. Outside, she materialized her tao zhu sword and jumped up in the air. As soon as the army appeared, she slashed her blade through the air. The impact was such that the whole army was blown a few miles back.

“if you still want to continue, I will happily oblige.” She called out to the soldiers.

Most of them left scared for their life but there were always few who were too stubborn for their own good. A couple of troops of around ten soldiers got up and blazed forward.

“Why don’t they understand?”, she thought to herself.

As they charged at her, she just side stepped their attacks again and again. it looked like she was just playing with them.

Angry at being played by a woman, they surrounded her and charged from all sides at once. As their swords came flying at her, she jumped up and landed smoothly at the juncture where their swords were now connected. Pushing down the swords, she leaped into the air once again. this time landing behind one soldier and slashed his head off his shoulder in one fell swoop. Before the others could even see what happened, she jumped behind the soldier at the opposite end of their little circle and slashing his head off too. They had not even realised what was happening when she landed back in the middle of the circle. As she landed swiftly, all the soldiers heads fell on the ground at once. She had just sliced all of their heads off before they could even blink to see what she was doing.

Looking at the mess in front of her, she shook her head at their stupidity. She had given them the opportunity to run after all. They were idiots for not making good use of their opportunity.

“men!”, she thought exasperatedly, “always overestimating themselves and underestimating women.”

Done with this, she turned to go back inside, when she saw the man leaning against the doorway with his eyes bulging out and mouth trying to catch flies. He looked very close to the edge of collapse. From his expression, he had definitely seen this little display. She shrugged her soldiers in response to his expression, not knowing how to answer.