When Li Chi returned to the transport company, he could tell at once that something was off. On the surface, everything looked normal — everyone going about their business — but the number of people keeping watch had clearly been increased.

He knew immediately that something had happened, and quickened his pace without thinking.

When he reached the back courtyard of the transport company, he found his master there as well, examining a wounded man lying on a bed. Li Chi moved closer, and only then did he recognize — it was Qiu Qingche, the loyal guard of Yue Huanian.

“We found him outside the city,” one of Zhuang Wudi’s men told Li Chi. “Passed out in a roadside ditch. Boss said to bring him back — he wouldn’t have lasted much longer out there. His injuries were too severe. By rights, injuries like that should have finished a man long before now — but he held on until he reached the city outskirts.”

Li Chi nodded. He noticed that Qiu Qingche had no shoes — the soles of his feet were a bloody mess. Whatever distance he’d walked to get here with injuries like that was unimaginable.

“My lord!”

Qiu Qingche suddenly woke with a start, his eyes instantly filling with streaks of red.

Everyone moved quickly to hold him down. After a moment, Qiu Qingche came to himself, gazing around in confusion — from terror to bewilderment to despair, and then to what looked like a glimmer of fragile hope.

“You…”

“We found you outside the city and brought you back,” Yu Jiuling said. “Lie still — your wounds aren’t treated yet.”

“Thank you,” Qiu Qingche said, “but I have to go. The Magistrate — his life or death is unknown. I have to go rescue him.”

Li Chi pressed a hand on Qiu Qingche’s shoulder. “We’re handling Magistrate Yue. Your injuries are too severe — rest here. Once we get the Magistrate out, I’ll arrange for you both to leave together.”

He glanced at Zhuang Wudi. Zhuang Wudi read the look — something was happening, and Li Chi already had a plan.

“Tonight, after the second watch — Zhuang Wudi and I go out to handle things,” Li Chi said. “Yu Jiuling, go now. Find a few people and make sure they’re at the east side of the prefecture offices to provide cover after the second watch.”

“Who?” Yu Jiuling asked.

Li Chi leaned in and murmured several names. Yu Jiuling acknowledged with a sound and immediately sprinted out.

Li Chi looked at Zhuang Wudi. “Go sleep now. Get your strength up. What we have to do after the second watch won’t be easy. Brother Zhuang — whatever happens tonight, don’t act on impulse. Follow my lead. Can you do that?”

Zhuang Wudi gave a short sound of assent, turned, and walked away.

As the second watch approached, Li Chi stood in the courtyard checking his equipment. He looked at Zhuang Wudi, who was already prepared. Both wore dark night-traveling clothes — not the seven-tenths cut of Li Chi’s earlier days, though he hadn’t discarded that set. He was saving it for summer. The warm-weather edition of the night-traveling ensemble.

“No exposing your face. No speaking. No prolonged fighting.”

Three prohibitions.

Zhuang Wudi only nodded.

They pulled dark cloth up over their mouths and noses, and in the same moment swept out over the courtyard walls. They moved along the rooftops, their pace extraordinary.

Just as the second watch struck and the night watchman’s drum had barely faded from the street, Li Chi and Zhuang Wudi were already at the rear gate of the prefecture offices. Li Chi stepped forward and gave a light knock. The door opened from within at once, and a man led them through the back courtyard straight toward the jail.

In the jail, Jing Yanli’s subordinates wore expressions of contempt. The duty jailers on shift had all slumped over their tables in sleep — which Jing Yanli’s men found particularly disgraceful. In their eyes, jailers and constables were nothing but watchdogs.

The broken figure of Yue Huanian sat propped against the cell wall. He couldn’t sleep — not because of the thoughts weighing on him, but because injuries this severe would keep even the strongest man awake with pain.

He wanted to die. But he could not. He knew with absolute clarity that as long as he drew breath, Qiu Qingche and the others would come for him.

Though nothing bound him, he sat there like a corpse nailed to the wall. Four limbs broken, jaw dislocated, wanting death and unable to achieve it.

One of Jing Yanli’s subordinates walked over to look, saw that Yue Huanian’s eyes were still open, and snorted: “Don’t rush. I can see you want to die. Wait a little longer — when your associates arrive, we’ll send you all off together.”

Yue Huanian tilted his head to look at the man speaking, his face caked in blood and filth, his appearance surely wretched beyond recognition. But his eyes remained clear and proud — and his gaze was sharper than any cutting words.

Outside the cells, Jing Yanli looked at the men standing guard and asked: “Where are the prefecture people? Why is it just you all here?”

“The office men couldn’t stand having us around,” a subordinate said. “There was another altercation earlier. They pulled out in a huff and said they were leaving the whole jail to us.”

Jing Yanli said: “No matter. A useless lot anyway. Hold the perimeter well — signal at once if anything happens.”

His men acknowledged, and Jing Yanli stepped inside. He took one look at the jailers slumped asleep across their tables and felt his temper flare. He walked over and kicked one of them, sending the man sprawling to the floor. The jailer scrambled up and glared at Jing Yanli. Jing Yanli stared back at him.

“If you want to sleep, get out. Don’t clutter up the place.”

The jailers looked at one another. One of them said, fine, then we’ll go — and they all left.

Jing Yanli muttered: “If all the Prince’s men are this kind of waste, how will any great enterprise succeed?”

The words had barely left his mouth when two more jailers entered, each carrying a food box, heads bowed, walking with their official caps pulled low over their faces.

Jing Yanli felt immediately that something was wrong and raised a hand. “Stop!”

The jailer in front didn’t hesitate for a single breath. He swung the food box hard at Jing Yanli’s face. Jing Yanli sidestepped, and the box crashed past him — but the jailer made no reach for a blade. Instead, both fists came in a relentless chain, the speed of the strikes simply impossible to track.

Thud — thud — thud — thud — thud —

Jing Yanli crossed both arms in front of him, and in the span of a single breath, absorbed twenty-three blows that came crashing in within that same breath.

One breath. Twenty-three strikes.

Jing Yanli shook out his arms. Both had gone numb with pain.

The jailer raised his head. He reached up, pulled off his official cap, and flung it at Jing Yanli. Jing Yanli tilted his head to avoid it — and the next wave of assault was already incoming.

Jing Yanli dared not be careless. His mind flashed instantly to the corpses he had found in Pingchang County — many of them killed by a single blow.

“Yue traitor’s associates!” Jing Yanli shouted.

His men drew blades and came in from the flank. The jailer in front was Li Chi. He punched the flat of an incoming blade with his bare fist — the long sword flew out of the man’s hand, and the force behind that punch drove the spinning blade clean through the body of another attacker, the blade emerging from the far side.

Li Chi landed the next punch on the man’s temple. The temple caved inward. The opposite temple bulged outward. The man toppled sideways, and his head struck the floor hard.

Another attacker brought a blade slashing down. Before it landed, Li Chi’s fist drove into the man’s chest with a crack. The chest collapsed inward, the back ballooned outward, and the man flew backward — dead before he hit the ground.

Another punch to the second man’s throat. The neck bones broke. The man crumpled without even a reaction.

Jing Yanli gave a short sound and drew his long blade from his hip. One sweeping slash — Li Chi dodged aside and called out quietly: “Your turn.”

He moved clear and Zhuang Wudi’s blade fell.

Jing Yanli raised his blade to block. The two blades met with a sharp ring that left both ears ringing.

Jing Yanli and Zhuang Wudi locked in combat. Li Chi moved on two fists, nothing wasted, nothing elaborate — one strike per opponent. The men who had looked so fierce and terrifying a moment before crumpled like straw figures before Li Chi’s fists, without the slightest capacity to defend themselves.

After cutting through four or five men, Li Chi reached the cell door. He closed both hands around the heavy chains on the door and pulled. Chains that thick — torn apart with bare hands.

The snap of breaking links echoed. Li Chi grabbed the cell door and flung it outward. The door tore free, showering splinters.

Li Chi stepped into the cell. “Magistrate, I’m here to—”

He hadn’t finished speaking when he threw himself back at once.

From the ceiling above, a shadow came dropping straight down, sword pointed downward. Had Li Chi not moved, that strike — precise as a viper’s tongue — would have pierced clean through his skull.

The figure came down headfirst, tip of the blade touching the floor, the blade bowing slightly with the impact — then flipped back, not yet fully grounded, and attacked again.

The sword’s momentum was like an unbroken river current, fast as a cascade of stars.

Li Chi kept retreating. The sword flashed in front of him, sword light erupting in all directions, silver everywhere.

Li Chi dropped low. The sword swept over him. Behind him, the wooden bars — each as thick as a man’s leg — were sheared apart like bean curd.

Li Chi’s eyes went cold and sharp. This was the strongest opponent he had faced in all his time in this world.

As he retreated, he glanced: the figure was dressed in black, but slight in build — not like a man. The face was covered, leaving only the eyes exposed, and those eyes were very large.

The female swordsman lunged again. Li Chi sidestepped the thrust, swung his arm out, grabbed a wooden bar, and hurled it outward — the female swordsman immediately fell back, long sword weaving in continuous sweeps, shearing the bar down to a stump in moments. The floor around Li Chi was covered in wood fragments.

The female swordsman drifted into Yue Huanian’s cell and regarded Li Chi from behind the open doorway in silence. Then she raised a hand and beckoned — *you come in*.

Li Chi raised a hand and beckoned back — *you come out*.

The female swordsman gave a short breath and drove another lunge through the doorway. Li Chi suddenly ducked beneath the blade and shot through the gap into the cell, scooping up Yue Huanian. The female swordsman’s strike cut air — Li Chi slung Yue Huanian up over his shoulder, kicked the cell bars clean through — the wooden fragments flew and forced the female swordsman back.

Li Chi charged out with Yue Huanian on his shoulder — and stopped short.

Zhuang Wudi was doubled over, breathing hard. A long gash ran across his torso. Blood flowed freely.

Jing Yanli stood half a zhang away, long blade aimed at Zhuang Wudi from a distance.

Li Chi’s heart seized.

Zhuang Wudi’s martial skill — he knew it well. To have lost?

At that moment, from outside came a sudden sharp rush of footsteps — and then a great crowd of constables appeared at the jail entrance. Chief Constable Jiang Ran stood at their head, arm raised, pointing into the cell block, shouting loudly.

“Traitors! How dare you raid the jail — fire!”

The constables seemed to have no intention of sorting out who was who. Dense volleys of arrows came pouring in, and every person inside the cell block was a target. Nobody would be spared.

Jiang Ran’s voice boomed: “Aim carefully — let not a single one escape!”

—