The Sect Leader's New Daughter Has Her Hands on My Hips novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Platform in the Rain
Yuxi is assigned to train her new stepsister, loses the first bout in five moves, and feels Wanning's hands correct her hips. Wanning invites her to the bamboo cottage at dusk.
The rain came down on the sword platform in sheets, and Lan Yuxi stood in it with her blade drawn.
She had been told to meet her new stepsister at dawn.
She had been standing there since before dawn, because she was never late.
The sect had been talking about nothing else for three days.
Her father had married a widow from a river town, and the widow had brought a daughter.
The daughter had come through the south gate on the wedding morning with an iron sword on her back and mud to her knees.
Yuxi had been holding the tea tray.
She remembered a crooked grin, a red sash, and a hand that took a cup without a word of thanks.
That was the whole of their acquaintance.
Now her father's order lay folded in her sleeve: train Su Wanning in the sect's sword forms, and make her fit for the mountain.
A figure came across the wet stone with no umbrella.
She was short, and sturdy, and soaked to the skin.
Her hair had been cut at the jaw, and it stuck to her cheeks in dark waves.
Her sleeves were tied back with a cord, and her forearms were strong and tanned, with one long pale scar down the left.
"You're early, jiejie," Su Wanning said.
"I'm not your older sister."
"You're twenty-six and I'm twenty-three, and your father signed me into your family in blood. Seems like you are."
Yuxi lowered her blade an inch.
"We share no blood," she said. "Not a drop. The oath is a formality."
"Good," said Wanning. "I'd hate to be related to someone who stands like that."
Yuxi stiffened.
"Like what?"
"Come on. Show me your first form. I'll tell you if I'm lying."
Yuxi set her feet and began.
She had done this form ten thousand times since she was six, and no elder had ever found a flaw in it.
Wanning watched her through the whole first sequence with her head tilted and her arms folded.
Then she drew her own sword, an iron blade with no ornament and a scabbard wrapped in red cord.
"Again," she said. "Attack me."
Yuxi attacked.
The first strike was perfect, and Wanning wasn't there.
The second one cut through rain and nothing else.
The third met a flat of iron that rang up her arm to the shoulder.
On the fifth move Wanning stepped inside her guard and hooked a foot behind her ankle.
Yuxi was on her back on the platform with rain in her eyes.
A blade rested lightly on her collarbone.
"Five," Wanning said, and grinned. "You're slow in the hips."
"I'm not."
"You are. Get up."
Yuxi got up, and her face was hot in the cold rain.
Nobody had put her on the ground since she was fifteen.
"Stand in your ready stance," Wanning said.
Yuxi stood.
Wanning walked around behind her.
She sheathed her sword, and her hands came down on Yuxi's hips.
Yuxi went rigid.
The grip was firm and warm through two layers of wet silk, and her fingers pressed in at the hipbones.
"Here," Wanning said, close at her ear. "Your weight sits up in your shoulders. Move it down here."
She pushed, and turned, and Yuxi's pelvis dropped and tilted by itself.
Something in her belly gave a hard, low pull.
"Better," Wanning said, and the hands didn't leave.
"Stop touching me."
"Why? It works."
"It's improper. We're..."
"Sisters. By oath." The thumbs pressed in once, slowly. "Does the oath say I can't fix your stance?"
Yuxi opened her mouth.
She could think of the rule for everything, and she could not think of one for this.
"No," she said.
"Then hold still."
She held still.
She stood in the rain with her stepsister's hands on her hips and her whole body listening.
When Wanning finally let go, the cold hit her where the warmth had been, and she almost leaned back.
Wanning came around to face her.
Rain ran down her nose and off her chin.
She looked Yuxi up and down once, without any shame at all, and her grin went slow.
"The oath runs out on my birthday," she said. "Double Ninth. Then I'm nobody's sister."
"Why tell me that?"
"Because I'd like to know what you want to do about it."
Yuxi said nothing.
Wanning picked up her scabbard and slung it over her shoulder.
"Come to the bamboo cottage at dusk," she said. "Bring dry robes, jiejie. You're going to need them."
She walked off across the platform, whistling, and did not look back.
Yuxi stood in the rain with her sword at her side and her hips still burning.
She had no idea how she was supposed to teach this woman anything.
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