Frostblade in Red

Shen Ranshuang hated two things more than anything in this life: fire and rainy nights. Fire had burned down her home, and a rainy night had taken all her family from her. In the autumn when she was ten, the rain fell without stopping for three days and nights. She remembered that it was the third day after the Mid-Autumn Festival. Her mother had promised to make her osmanthus cakes. But before they were done steaming, an orderly march of footsteps sounded outside the courtyard, followed by the metallic clatter of swords against their scabbards. Then came shouts, screams, and flames. Though rain was falling, fire spread everywhere through the estate. The attackers had used tung oil, and rain could not put out that kind of fire. She watched her father draw his sword to face the enemy, only to be pierced through the chest by dozens of crossbow bolts. She watched her eldest brother shield their mother, then take a blade straight through the belly. She watched her mother clutch her hand, fingertips cold, lips trembling as she kept whispering something: “Stay alive.” At last, her mother’s hand went limp. Uncle Yuan wrapped her in a blanket and escaped through the waterway in the back courtyard. She remembered being soaked to the bone, desperately looking back over Uncle Yuan’s shoulder as she was carried away. Flames swallowed the outline of the family estate, and thick smoke billowed through the rain like a monster with its jaws wide open. A masked man caught up with them. Uncle Yuan put her down and grabbed an oar to fight him, but the man struck him with a single palm and sent him flying. When the man came to kill her, she found strength from somewhere, picked up a red-hot piece of iron beside the waterway, and hurled it at his face. The man screamed and clutched his left cheek. Uncle Yuan picked her up again, and together they stumbled away into the rainy night. From that day on, Shen Ranshuang ceased to exist. The only survivor was a boy named Ran Jiu, who sold bruise medicine in a small town in the south.