Transmigrated back into the body of her child self, can the mighty Celestial Bing Meilu survive in a Xianxia world all the while staving off the advances of arrogant young masters and wannabe protagonists alike?

Why is life so hard for the Icy Beauty?

Any corrections or criticisms are welcome, I hope you enjoy Chapter 39: Incitement of Violence is a guide, not a crime

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"Are you sure that's the name you want to go with?"

"I am."

---

Bing Meilu stood in the large metal cage. Her hands were folded behind her back as she silently waited. After enough time for betting passed, the challenge officially began. A decently large crowd of people had gathered for the fight, at least a few hundred. Her spiritual sense revealed several dozen potential challengers, in the Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment Realms. An announcer jumped onto the top of the cage, projecting his voice. His Qi was hidden, and he must have been at least in the Core Formation Realm.

"Welcome, guests, gamblers and fighting enthusiasts all. Today, we are graced with a special event. An open-ring challenge, launched by our very own fighter. Please clap for Ice Unrivaled Under all the Heavens, Without equal in the Nine Mountains and Seas."

Boos rang out at her completely ridiculous and grandiose name. She had been surprised they'd even let her put that many words into it. The girl suppressed a smirk. The more offended they were, the more would volunteer to fight, and conversely, the more money she made.

It was a simple solution to one of the main flaws of open cage challenges. If no one was willing to challenge you for a long enough time period, you'd have to leave with whatever prize money you'd win up to that point. If you seemed too strong, people would be unwilling to challenge you and lose for no reason, if you seemed too weak, the stronger fighters would feel shamed if they challenged you. The ideal would be to show just enough strength to avoid both scenarios.

Bing Meilu would instead sidestep the whole issue by simply making everyone in the audience want to kill her. A foolproof plan. Well, if anything did go wrong, she had an entire faction of (relatively) strong cultivators waiting outside to step in. She was confident at this point even a high-stage Core Formation Enemy would find it difficult to defeat her whole faction.

'Beyond just money, I have yet to have many real fights that have pushed my limits, due to my overwhelming advantage. Hopefully, I'll manage to temper my foundation with some real combat.' thought the girl. 'To make it fair, I'll only use techniques I learned in the Mortal worlds.'

"As always, fights are until unconsciousness or surrender. However, the open ring challenge has..."

Bing Meilu tuned out the announcer as he went on to explain how exactly the fight would work. Eventually, he finished.

"Hey! I came here all the way for the vaunted open ring challenge, and it's just a little girl?" a young man in the third stage of Qi Condensation complained loudly. "She can't be older than twelve. Is this a joke?"

"Heh, if you think she's so weak, why don't you take her on then?" the announcer egged on. "You can be our first combatant of the day!"

"Then I'll have to ask my brothers to forgive me for taking the prize money!" the young man shouted.

Bing Meilu stood calmly, watching as the young man climbed up the side of the cage and jumped in. Before he could even move, she blurred forward, palm raised.

Utpala Lotus Palm - First Form - Blue Lotus Blossoms

This was the simplest of the Moon Crying Swan Palace's martial arts. Her hand slammed into his chest. Blue-white ice Qi blossomed on his stomach, skin cracking and ripping as it froze and expanded. The man screamed, desperately clutching his chest.

"Do you surrender?" Bing Meilu asked.

The man nodded desperately, as the skin of his chest swelled and ripped with ice, courtesy of her freezing Yin Qi.

"Then we have our first win for the contest Ice Unrivaled Under all the Heavens, Without equal in the Nine Mountains and Seas. The prize pool has risen from five spirit stones to ten!"

Bing Meilu Qi flared, revealing her cultivation base, the peak of Qi Condensation.

"Although I am here to make money, I don't have a habit of bullying the weak. If you aren't in Foundation Establishment, you aren't worth my time."

More angered boos filled the air. Actually, per the rules, only Qi Condensation fighters could enter for the first five fights, given she was only a first-realm fighter. Bing Meilu was just insulting them all.

"Foundation Establishment? If you can defeat me then we'll see!" yelled a voice.

A woman in the seventh stage, first realm, leaped towards the cage. From the loud cheers and cries, she was well known as a fighter.

"Kick her ass, Blade Empress!"

"You can do it!"

The woman nodded politely to Bing Meilu as she landed. She drew two long hooked swords and readied into a fighting stance. Unlike the first man, the woman was obviously a real fighter. The subtle buzz of the Sword Qi gave her away as a weapon cultivator.

The woman leapt forward, swords blazing with yellow light.

'Dance of the Ghost Queen'

Bing Meilu cleanly sidestepped the attack, dodging and weaving through the woman's attack. With each step she took, invisible Yin Qi threads were left behind, wrapping around the 'Blade Empress'. As they tightened, the woman's movements grew dazed and slurred.

"A mental attack-" the woman questioned before her body fell limp, soul tightly wrapped in threads of Yin Qi.

The unconscious woman was removed from the ring, and the boos grew louder. From their perspective, Bing Meilu had defeated her with some dishonourable method.

'I need them to be even more incensed if I want the stronger foundation establishment cultivators to be willing to give up their face and challenge a small child to a fight. Ideally, each fighter thinks I am someone they can definitely defeat.'

The next three fights went the same way, Bing Meilu roundly knocking out the high-level first-realm combatants with her Yin Qi. At this point, the people in the crowd were intensely angry.

"Now, Miss Ice, with five wins, you may choose to take your seventy spirit stones or continue for another five. From now on, even those a realm above you may choose to fight."

"Given there is no one here capable of defeating me, I think I'll continue for another five rounds. Free money right?" Bing Meilu mocked.

"Let me be her opponent!" a muscular man shouted.

His aura pulsed, revealing him to be at the third stage of Foundation Establishment. He approached the page, turning to look coldly at Bing Meilu.

"Unrivaled under heaven? You cannot fathom the depth of heaven, child!" he dramatically announced, leaping at her.

This time, Bing Meilu did not bother with the mental attack. Using Frozen Genesis, a spear of ice appeared mid-air, floating. The man's leap was already underway, and being unable to fly, she could only helplessly slam straight into the waiting spear, his own force slamming his halfway down the shaft.

"Arggh!" he grunted, slamming into the ground. "A cheap trick!"

Golden light lit up his body.

"Allow me to end this! Extreme Yang Codex! Sunlight fist!"

Burning Yang Qi fired forth from him toward Bing Meilu in the form of a fist. She made an expression of disbelief. This was... one of the most commonly known attacks in the Bird Talon Continent. Did he really think she didn't know how to dodge it?

As it neared her, the sunlight fist exploded into three concentric rings of light. Bing Meilu leaped through the center, slamming her Qi-enhanced foot into the man's face.

The force of the blow knocked him to the side, blood and teeth flying out. His arms wrapped around her in a bear hug, but she covered her body in ice, sliding from his grip and falling to the floor.

'Heart Tearing Ice Claw Art!'

Longs claws of ice appeared around her fingers and she grabbed forward, ripping off a certain organ between the man's legs. He screamed, the pain shattering his concentration, and the Yang Qi reinforcing his body fading.

"Surrender," Bing Meilu ordered, dropping the pulped mass of flesh in her hands.

The man's body flared with golden light once more. He jumped at her, eyes burning red as let loose a scream of wordless rage and pain.

"Didin't learn your lesson last time?"

Five spears of ice ripped through the man's stomach as he jumped. He fell to the floor, leaking out copious quantities of blood. She could hear a young child in the audience vomit.

'What a weak bloodline! Already five and they haven't hardened that child's resolve. I fear he'd never be able to reach the Saint Realm,' she shook her head in disapproval. 'As the saying goes, all children deserve parents, not all parents deserve children!'

The yang cultivator twitched on the ground, desperately trying to move.

'At this rate, he'll bleed out before he surrenders- Fine, I suppose saving his life shouldn't cause me any problems. Nothing wrong with a good deed every now and then.'

Bing Meilu enhanced her foot with Qi and kicked it forward, slamming into the man's head. Two, three, four, five kicks and the man finally lost consciousness. At that point, he was removed from the ring.

"Are all foundation establishment cultivators this weak and pathetic or is he simply a failure?" Bing Meilu goaded loudly.

"How dare you speak about Yangfist Zhang that way!" another man shouted.

The boos grew even louder. Clearly, the man was popular.

"Am I wrong then? Either all Foundation Establishment fighters are worthless losers, or it was just him!"

Three men ran towards her cage. The first to enter was a tall, scholarly man in the second stage of the second realm. He barely lasted a minute, before falling to the ground, skin torn open by dozens of ice crystals that almost resembled blue lotus.

'What an elegant and refined technique! Much more civilized than the weapons I normally use. But with how short my arms are, the range of a spear is quite nice!'

The next man was significantly more powerful, in the fifth stage of Foundation Establishment. But, he was still weaker than Jiang Hu, who Bing Meilu had defeated when she was far weaker than she was now.

"Why don't you just surrender and save me some time?" the girl offered, as the man charged her, his entire body thrumming with Wind Qi.

"Gale Palm!"

She danced to the side, avoiding the technique. The man followed up with a downward slam of his fists. Bing Meilu slammed upwards, meeting his attack with a Blossoming Lotus Palm, her icy Qi chilling his hands.

"How the hell have you not run out of Qi yet?" the man shouted in bewilderment.

After all, an ordinary Peak First Realm would not have nearly enough Qi to last this long, let alone challenge attacks empowered by those a Realm above her. He couldn't know that Bing Meilu had seventy-two people's worth of Qi inside her, and had only used up five. It became even more ridiculous when you realized that most would never draw on the bottom ten or twenty percent, for fear of leaving themselves completely exhausted and undefended.

"Isn't it natural for those of us from the Twelve-Headed Avian Sect to far surpass provincials from a backwater?" Bing Meilu haughtily chuckled, fully committed to the act.

"Vortex sword!" a swirling cone of wind appeared in the man's hand and he slashed at her.

'Time to end this! Heart Tearing Ice Claw Art'

Large, clawed gauntlets covered her hands. She dashed forward, using the Dance of the Ghost Queen as a movement art, she avoided the slash. One hand shot up to his chest, ripping into his stomach and pulling out a chuck of liver, while the over slashed his throat.

Blood gashed from the horrid cut. Even as he desperately flooded the wound with his Qi to stem the bleeding, she stepped forward. In the blink of an eye, a dozen palm blows slapped into his chest, each injecting chilly yin Qi in the form of a seed.

Utpala Lotus Palm - Second Form - Blue Lotus Seeds

"Surrender or die."

If Bing Meilu flared her Qi, each seed would blossom inside him into a blue lotus of ice crystals, shredding his internal organs. He'd lost too much blood and vitality to resist the seeds.

"I-I surrender," the man spat, blood leaking from his lips.

'That's already three out of five.' she smiled, placing her hands behind her back and smiling as the man was escorted out.

"I'm next!" a woman in the crowd shouted.

A tall, foreign-looking woman with golden hair and pale skin ran towards the cage. She held a long spear made of gold and embedded with jewels.

'A yin metal spear cultivator? How unique,' Bing Meilu rolled her eyes.

There was a reason most weapon cultivators went with Yang metal... Well, she'd give the woman a chance to impress her.

"Show me your spear intent?" Bing Meilu asked.

"Spear Intent? You must be kidding," the woman shook her head. "I'm far from that realm."

"I suppose it would be too much to ask for every spear cultivator I meet to actually be talented, Oh well."

"Excuse me? I'm only fifty and I'm already almost done with mastering Spear Qi. That makes me one of the fastest Spear cultivators in all of Redscale City!"

"Yes, yes, go on," Bing Meilu rolled her eyes. "I'm sure that not even being able to dominate even a single weapon type in a backwater village is a wonderful sign of your unrivalled talent!"

"Why are you so rude? This is a duel, show me some respect!"

'Money basically!' Bing Meilu shrugged internally. 'But don't worry, even if I weren't putting on a show to intentionally piss off the audience, I still wouldn't respect you!'

The woman charged at her, spear thrusting. Bing Meilu batted aside the spear with her ice claws, watching in fascination as they flew through it as if it were made of liquid. The spear continued unimpeded towards her chest.

Bing Meilu snorted, ducking under the attack and leaping forward. Her Qi-enhanced foot shot into the woman's stomach, sending her flying backwards. The woman leapt at her, arms blurring with Qi.

"While your application of Yin metal Spear Qi is a novel way to fight, sometimes traditions exist for a reason. That spear was slow and lacked the destructive force of a Yang metal fighter." Bing Meilu lectured, dodging dozens of rapid attacks. "Although, if you are going to use Spear Qi of a yin element, water is a far better choice!"

A spear of ice formed in Bing Meilu's hands. Her stance changed slightly.

'Glacier Entombing Art!'

Her Spear blurred forward, impaling the woman in the chest and pinning her to the cage wall. Lines of ice grew out, wrapping the woman in a cell. The blow was too much for the cultivator, as with many weapon cultivators, she was a glass cannon. Falling unconscious, she was removed from the cage.

This was Bing Meilu's second fifth fight. If she won this one, she could leave with a full thousand spirit stones, and that was the most common departure point. Meaning, it was the most profitable round to defeat her. A half dozen high-level Second realm cultivators suddenly moved towards their cages, only to stop as a young man released his aura.

"Fellow challengers. I hope you'll show me some face and leave this fight to me."

The young man was at the peak of foundation establishment, his body peppered with scales and his aura burning with fire. A member of the Redscale clan. None of the other challengers moved to stop the man from jumping into Bing Meilu's cage.

"I hope to show the esteemed miss from the Armada just how strong this so-called 'backwater village' is!" the Redscale challenger said, a hint of offence in his words.

Bing Meilu smiled politely as the man readied for battle, a sabre and rapier of ice appearing in her hands.

---

Xi Fu sat outside of the red horse inn sighing in boredom. He was having a hard time not thinking about his Spear Intent, but the result last time from an accidental increase in his comprehension was a good motivation to find something to distract himself. He looked around the bustling street, mortals going about their lives.

There was a father carrying his daughter on his shoulders. Xi Fu paused for a second.

'I don't even know if my child is a boy or a girl...'

He felt antsy. Xi Fu was normally quite comfortable not thinking about his past life in Redscale City, but actually being here was putting him on edge.

'How the old brothel is doing? I suppose Mother is probably retired by now. It doesn't employ women over forty. If I wasn't wanted I'd go drop her off a few spirit stones so she doesn't starve to death. Hopefully, she's managed to convince some chump to marry and take care of her.'

Having grown up in a brothel, Xi Fu was well aware of how bad life could be for prostitutes and sex slaves who aged out of beauty without a plan B. It wasn't like they were paid enough(Or at all, for some) to have a lump sum to retire. Xi Fu was lucky enough to have had a talent for fighting that could have earned him a career as a mercenary if he'd ever lost his job as a male escort for wealthy noblewomen.

'Jeez, crazy to think that might have been my fate if I hadn't stumbled on that retired spear master and convinced him to teach me to use Qi...'

He rested his weight against his spear, sighing as he watched a man holding up his son, who playfully swung a toy sword in the air.

'I really want to see my kid at least once... At least make sure they're safe. Even that'd make me better than my own dad, whoever they are.'

"I'll be back in a few hours," Xi Fu suddenly said to Daoist Eartheart.

"Boss said to stay here," the man objected, sighing as Xi Fu ran off.