She looked at each of them once and said, "You came here with tools because you wanted to force your way in. You used words like fairness because you were afraid to say stealing out loud. Now you are trying to hide your shame behind your sex. That is not protection. That is cowardice." One of the men swore under his breath and lifted the hacksaw again. "You really think you can talk to us like this?" Bai Li said, "Yes." The answer was simple and made the man even more furious. He felt humiliated in front of the others, and his pride twisted that humiliation into anger. The building manager tried to calm him, but the man was already past listening. "Teach her," he snapped to the others, and then the whole little group rushed at once, not in any organized way, just in that ugly messy way people attack when they are too embarrassed to keep pretending they are civilized.

Bai Li had already expected that. She did not step back. She simply moved. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

The first man reached her with a raised arm, thinking he could scare her with his size. Bai Li caught the movement, turned slightly, and slammed the side of her palm against his wrist. The sound was sharp and hard. The hacksaw fell from his hand before he even understood what had happened. Before he could recover, Bai Li kicked his knee and sent him stumbling sideways into the wall. He hit it hard enough to lose the breath in his chest. Another man came in from the left, trying to grab her shoulder. Bai Li ducked under the hand, struck his ribs with a short fast elbow, then turned and drove him backward with a sweep to the ankle. He went down badly, swearing and grabbing at the floor. The building manager shouted something useless and tried to pull one of the others back, but Bai Li was already moving again. Her motions were not showy. They were efficient, clean, and fast, the kind of fighting that came from years of surviving and not wasting movement. One of the women tried to pull at her sleeve, shouting that Bai Li was going too far. Bai Li caught the wrist, twisted it just enough to make the woman yelp, and pushed her away without mercy. "I told you not to come," Bai Li said coldly. "You insisted anyway." The woman stumbled backward into the group and nearly knocked someone else over. The first man was back on his feet by then, angry and red faced, and he charged again with more force, thinking brute strength would solve what shame had made him lose. Bai Li stepped into him this time, took him by the collar, and shoved him so hard his back hit the wall with a dull thud. He made a choking sound and went pale for a second. Bai Li looked down at him and said, "You were talking too much just now."

The fight went on for only a few minutes, but to them it felt much longer. Bai Li did not draw her sword because she did not need it. She used her hands, her feet, and the full weight of her presence to break their nerve. One by one, the loudest people stopped sounding loud. The first man who had talked about teaching her manners now had one hand held awkwardly against his side and could barely stand straight. The second man who had tried to sound brave by talking about women staying behind men was crouched on the floor, covering his face after Bai Li had slapped him once for reaching out again. It was not a hard slap, not enough to break bone, but enough to make his pride burn. He had never expected a woman to strike him back so easily and so openly. The building manager, who had tried to remain in the middle of everything, was now backing away with his hands half raised, trying to act neutral again. "This does not have to go this far," he kept saying. Bai Li turned her head and said, "It already did the moment you brought tools to my floor." He shut up after that. Another man, who had been chanting about justice, found himself on the ground clutching his wrist after Bai Li had kicked the hand away from her supply bag. She stared at him and said, "You wanted to go upstairs and demand supplies. Now look at you." He gritted his teeth, too ashamed to answer. A few of the others had not even managed to get close before their courage collapsed. They saw how easily the first ones were handled, and the fear on their faces grew as their bodies began to back away on their own.

Some of them still tried to keep their dignity while losing the fight. That only made them more ridiculous. One of the men, his face now pale and sweating, still tried to keep speaking as if he had the upper hand. "You should not hit people like this. We are all residents. We were only trying to survive." Bai Li looked at him and said, "No. You were trying to take." The man swallowed. "If you had just shared some, none of this would have happened." Bai Li’s eyes went even colder. "That is where you are wrong. This would have happened no matter what, because people like you never stop at some. Once you get a little, you always want more." He had no answer to that. None of them did. She took a step forward and the whole group reflexively stepped back. That alone made the scene almost funny. A few minutes ago they had been so proud, so loud, so full of self righteous talk about helping the building. Now they looked like a scattered pack of scared people who had forgotten why they had come. Bai Li’s voice was calm when she spoke again.

.

.

.

TO BE CONTINUED.