The Poppy War. R.F. Kuang

in unison as they huddled together under a large mimosa tree at the far end of the second-tier courtyard.

      Despite the cold, Jun refused to move Combat class indoors before the snowfall made it impossible to hold outside. He was a brutal teacher who seemed to delight in their discomfort.

      “Pain is good for you,” he said as he forced them to crouch in low, torturous endurance stances. “The martial artists of old used to hold this position for an hour straight before training.”

      “The martial artists of old must have had amazing thighs,” Kitay gasped.

      Their morning calisthenics were still miserable, but at least they had finally moved past fundamentals to their first weapon-based arts: staff techniques.

      Jun had just assumed his position at the fore of the courtyard when a loud shuffle sounded above his head. A smattering of leaves fell down right over where he stood.

      Everyone glanced up.

      Perched high up on a thick branch of the mimosa tree stood their long-absent Lore Master.

      He wielded a large pair of gardening shears, cheerfully clipping leaves at random while singing an off-key melody loudly to himself.

      After hearing a few words of the song, Rin recognized it as “The Gatekeeper’s Touches.” Rin knew it from her many trips delivering opium to Tikany’s whorehouses—it was an obscene ditty bordering on erotica. The Lore Master butchered the tune, but he sang it aloud with wild abandon.

       “I can’t touch you there, miss / else you’ll perish from the bliss …”

      Niang shook with suppressed giggles. Kitay’s jaw hung wide open as he stared at the tree.

      “Jiang, I’ve got a class,” Jun snapped.

      “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