The two men lay on the ground. Gang Cai’s hand still rested on Chen Youwei’s face. How much he had wanted to help his old friend wipe his face clean — yet he had not managed it. That, perhaps, was his last small regret in this world.

Locked inside the room, Gang Gang and Chen Dawei ran to the window, ready to jump out — and the moment they reached it, they saw this.

“Shifu!”

Gang Gang let out a howl, and in an instant his eyes turned blood-red — the whites flooded completely scarlet.

“Don’t let your masters down.”

Yao Busheng was not simply holding the doorway; he was shifting left and right to cover the windows too. The saber was covered in blood — blade, guard, and all — so the hand gripping it felt slick and unstable. The blade’s edge was already notched in numerous places. His body was riddled with wounds. But a man who had made up his mind to return a life he owed was no longer counting how many times he had been cut.

“They were good people. You two should be good people too.”

Yao Busheng cut down the enemy charging straight at him, and as he straightened up, someone came at him from the side — a saber driving into his lower abdomen.

Yao Busheng kicked that man flat, then cleaved his head off in one stroke. He staggered back a step, ripped open his own upper garment with one hand, and drove the saber into the ground beside him. He quickly bound his abdomen with the garment — to keep the intestines from pushing out — then picked up the saber again. He was breathing in great heaving gasps. Then he saw that Gang Gang and Chen Dawei had already jumped out through the window.

“Go,” Yao Busheng said, with a hint of dissatisfaction. “What are you playing the hero for? Your masters can’t have died for nothing.”

Gang Gang shook his head. “If we leave, we’re not the disciples our master raised. Shifu wouldn’t have left. We won’t either.”

Yao Busheng said, “You don’t know me. There’s no reason you should stay for me.”

Chen Dawei said, “You don’t know us either.”

Yao Busheng looked at the two figures lying on the ground, and smiled — the smile of a man at peace. “I don’t know you. But I owed them.”

The enemies paused their advance for the moment, simply surrounding the three of them — packed so tight there was no crack to slip through. Before Yao Busheng, the ground was densely carpeted with bodies. Some of the enemies had calmed down enough to look at the dead, and a chill crept into their hearts.

Whoever stepped forward first would die first. When there had been a mob charging in all at once, no one had thought about it. Everyone assumed they could hack Yao Busheng apart by sheer numbers. No one had expected so many dead.

Gongshu Yingying came out from behind the crowd. She looked at the three of them, then at the two old men who had fallen in battle.

“Move the bodies of those two elders to one side. Don’t leave them to be trampled. We are all people of the jianghu.”

“I don’t kill out of righteousness,” she said. “But I won’t be without righteousness after I’ve killed. Whether I kill someone and whether I respect them — those are two separate things.”

Her men went over and carried the bodies of Gang Cai and Chen Youwei, laying them carefully against the wall beside the room’s door. Then the pallbearers stepped back on guard.

“The three of you.”

Gongshu Yingying said, “By now you should all see the situation clearly. The three of you will certainly die today. I can offer you intact bodies. I have a few pellets here — if the three of you are willing…”

Her words were not yet finished when Yao Busheng began to laugh.

“Women — always so long-winded.”

Yao Busheng tossed aside his saber — too many nicks to be worth keeping — and bent to pick up another blade off the ground, noting with frustration that not a single one of these bastards used a sword.

He breathed out slowly, then smiled. “You two are lucky men. To have masters like that. If only I’d had masters like them… When you’re still a child — if you meet a good person who truly teaches you — you probably won’t turn out too badly, no matter who you are.”

“I’m not like you two. My family had money when I was small. I remember eating well, dressing well, without a care in the world. But my father was a bastard — he drank and gambled and whored, and he never once spoke a kind word to me. If I made a mistake, he would beat me on the spot.”

“Later I went to find a master. He turned out to be a bastard too — drunk every day, forcing us children to go out and steal money for him. I thought I had found a skilled master who would teach me properly. I had been deceived. He was just using children to steal for him. If the children came back empty-handed, he’d take a leather whip to them — flaying them raw. But his martial arts were genuinely good. So I endured it. I endured it until I was strong enough to kill him.”

Yao Busheng drew another deep breath — as though the sediment packed in his chest was very heavy, very thick.

“In the first half of my life, I met exactly two good people. And they were your masters.”

Yao Busheng turned his head to glance at the two bodies. Then he laughed again — a soft, private laugh, speaking almost to himself: “Back then, they saved me and my mother. Today, I return that debt.”

With those words, he suddenly stretched both arms out to the sides — seizing Gang Gang and Chen Dawei, one in each hand — and with a surge of force from both arms, flung them upward. The two of them had been keeping guard against the enemy while listening to Yao Busheng speak, and had no inkling at all that he would throw them.

Both had some martial ability, and decent enough at that — but they had almost no experience actually fighting anyone. Their two old masters had been like a pair of old hens, keeping the young ones sheltered beneath their wings no matter how fierce the storm. No wind or rain had ever broken through those wings — even as those wings had run with blood.

The two of them were thrown up onto the rooftop. Yao Busheng tilted his head back and roared at the sky.

*”Who among us doesn’t want to be a good person?!”*

And then he charged into the crowd.

One cut. Another cut. And another.

He was like a tiger gone mad — hacking and slashing, roaring as he went.

“Go. Leave something behind for your masters. Goodness needs to be passed on.”

A blade drove into his back from behind. He spun and cut the man down. Another stroke sheared the head off the one in front.

“Ha ha ha ha — turns out a saber isn’t so bad after all. I’m starting to like it.”

*Thud.*

A saber chopped into his shoulder. Yao Busheng raised his left hand and pressed it against the blade still lodged there, and with his right drove his own saber through the man in front.

Sword-light erupted.

A streak of blade-glare flew out from behind the crowd — Gongshu Yingying, small and slight, striking at last. Her long sword grazed the ear of one of her own men and came straight through, piercing Yao Busheng through the forehead.

The skull is hard — but this thrust was fierce.

The sword-point drove into the frontal bone, stopping short of breaking through the back of the skull. It lodged there. Gongshu Yingying pulled it back, and the sound of the blade grinding against bone was terribly clear.

Her sword came free. Yao Busheng’s body pitched forward.

On the rooftop, two men with blood-filled eyes watched Yao Busheng die. Chen Dawei grabbed Gang Gang’s arm: “Move!”

Gang Gang shook his head. “I don’t want to go. I want to get Shifu’s bodies back.”

“Dying like this won’t do,” Chen Dawei said. “We have to stay alive first. Then we avenge our masters.”

“You won’t get away.”

Gongshu Yingying looked up at the two on the roof. “Our people surround the outer courtyard as well. There is no way out. You may as well let me make you a promise — come down, and I will see that your masters receive a proper burial.”

At that moment, the courtyard gate exploded open with a thunderous *boom*.

Both panels flew inward and crashed into the courtyard, knocking several people flat before anyone could react.

Gongshu Yingying’s group instinctively spun around — and saw a figure standing in the gateway. Lean and tall but solid-built, a Night-Raksha mask over his face. On a night like this, in a place like this — the sudden apparition startled more than a few.

The Night-Raksha looked up at the two on the rooftop, then called out: “Jump back. No one can stop you.”

“Who are you!”

Gongshu Yingying demanded at once.

The Night-Raksha stepped forward. Walking, he spoke: “Those who block me, die.”

The courtyard was packed with Gongshu Yingying’s men. His words meant nothing to them. At her signal, the killers charged.

*Boom!*

The Night-Raksha drove his fist into the face of the first man — and the face simply exploded.

What kind of force was that — one punch to the face, shattering the nose, caving in the flesh, fragments of tissue flying in both directions.

The Night-Raksha stepped forward. Those same four words came again.

“Those who block me, die.”

Second punch. Face again. Exactly the same — one fist detonating another face.

After those two punches, every man who had been about to rush forward stopped dead. The shock of what they had just seen was simply too great.

Gongshu Yingying took in the sight — then immediately glanced left and right. On the rooftops of the side-rooms flanking the courtyard, black-clad figures had appeared.

Without the slightest hesitation, she slipped back once more to the rear of the crowd. In an unguarded moment she ducked into the left side-room, opened the rear window — and did not jump through. Instead she tapped a foot against the frame, floated lightly upward, and caught a roof beam with one hand, pulling herself up into the rafters. She wrapped her cloak tightly around herself — that cloak, woven from a material she used to hide herself in forests, like a fold of darkness.

In the courtyard, the Night-Raksha continued forward at a steady stride. The killers hesitated, then surged again — numbers gave courage, after all.

It made no difference. He drove his fist into the temple of the man in his path. The temple sank inward, leaving a crater.

Another fist, into the next man’s eye socket. The socket burst. The eye burst with it.

“Leave none alive.”

The Night-Raksha gave the order.

From outside the gate, black-clad figures poured in. Their movements were sharp, their killing merciless — Gongshu Yingying’s hired blades were no match at all.

Behind the main building, Gang Gang and Chen Dawei jumped down from the roof, only to find the rear passage strewn with corpses. Several black-clad figures stood there watching them — but made no move to attack.

Yu Jiuling came running over from the side, his expression apologetic.

“I’m sorry, brothers. I had followed you back from the carriage inn from the start — I wanted to see who had come looking for you there. Then I found you surrounded, and there was nothing I could do alone. So I went back to get reinforcements.”

Yu Jiuling knew what it was to lose someone you loved. He knew what it was to stand helpless as it happened. When the innkeeper who had treated him like his own son was killed — that was exactly how he had felt.

In the courtyard, the Night-Raksha moved through the crowd from end to end, using no weapon — just his fists, one punch per man. He cut a channel through the crush from this side to that, and no one before him lasted more than a breath.

The black-clad figures swept through what remained like a wind driving away scattered clouds, then went man by man to check — for any still alive, a blade across the throat. The brutality of it made one’s scalp crawl.

Yu Jiuling brought Chen Dawei and Gang Gang back into the courtyard. The two of them ran straight to their masters. They fell to their knees on the ground and broke into wailing sobs.

“Their masters?”

The Night-Raksha was quiet a moment, then said, “Bring everyone back.”

His men went over at once, helping Gang Gang and Chen Dawei to their feet and hoisting the bodies of the two masters onto their shoulders.

“Take him too.”

Chen Dawei looked toward Yao Busheng’s body. “He was a good man.”

—