Five people who had come south from beyond the northern passes for the first time were also, for the first time, learning what prosperity looked like.

Even though Jizhou today was far less prosperous than it had once been, to these five, it was paradise compared to the wild and desolate land where they had spent their lives.

This was why Qitian had been so intent on finding a path into the Yanshan Camp — it offered a way to stay in the Central Plains. With the combined strength of all six of them, he was confident they could carve out a name for themselves in the jianghu. But what would that amount to?

No matter how great their reputation in the martial world, no matter how unrivaled they became, they would still be nothing more than lowly commoners in the eyes of those with power and status.

Only by becoming people of power themselves could they live the lives others envied.

Before they had set out, Qitian had asked one of Zhang Chaozhen’s men why Li Chi needed to die. The man said he didn’t know the particulars, only that this person was a mortal enemy of the Eighth Chief.

If he was the Eighth Chief’s enemy, then that was all the more reason to kill him. Only by doing so could they forge a connection with the Eighth Chief and enter the Yanshan Camp.

Besides, now it seemed that the man the Eighth Chief wanted dead and the man who had captured their second martial brother Chedi were likely one and the same.

If that wasn’t fate, then nothing was.

Yesterday at this hour, with dusk beginning to gather, Chedi had encountered Master Ye Zhangzhu in this alley.

That one palm from Ye Zhangzhu had opened the door to an entirely new world for Chedi.

Today at this hour, with dusk beginning to gather, Qitian and the others walked into this alley and saw a group of craftsmen patching up a wall.

They did not know it — but they too were walking through a wide-open door into an entirely new world.

This alley, this crumbling wall — to Qitian and the others, none of it seemed particularly significant.

But to Quenan, the sight of that enormous gap in the wall brought the image of that terrifying Central Plains fighter rushing back unbidden.

Chedi had not managed a single blow against that middle-aged man.

“There’s no way through this alley.”

The young man selling sugar-roasted chestnuts looked toward Qitian and his group and called out a well-meaning warning. “The other end is blocked. Best not go in — some paths, once you walk in, you can’t walk back out. Worth thinking about.”

Yao Bei, the most hot-tempered of the Six Harmony Divine Blades, fixed the young man with a look of utter contempt. “Mind your own business. Lower class.”

The young man didn’t seem the least bit bothered. He simply shrugged his shoulders.

Yao Bei’s gaze shifted away from the young man’s face and landed on a cluster of pretty young women not far off. He smiled. And the meaning in that smile was… *Wait there. All of you are mine.*

The alley was not very wide — slightly narrower than the width of a single carriage. Four people shoulder to shoulder would fill it completely, packed in tight.

An utterly ordinary alley. Jizhou City had many like it.

Go back a few years, and this place had been the rear courtyard of the Surveillance Bureau. No one would have dared come anywhere near it.

Even a year ago, this stretch of ground had been open land — the Surveillance Bureau had permitted no residences to approach from any direction.

This wall was one Li Chi himself had commissioned when Shen Medical Hall opened here. The rear courtyard stored large quantities of medicinal materials, and without a wall, that simply wouldn’t do.

Qitian walked up to the craftsmen and studied the gap. The size of it was enough to give him a rough estimate of the force behind the palm strike.

“Truly formidable.”

He murmured these four words to himself, then turned to the craftsmen and said, “You can all clear off now.”

One of the young men looked up at him and asked, “You paying?”

Qitian didn’t immediately grasp what those three words meant. He turned it over, then understood — these craftsmen were waiting to be paid out for the day.

So he asked, “How much do you earn in a day?”

The young man replied, “My wages are quite high. Five pigs a day — not one more, not one less.”

Qitian blinked. Because he couldn’t believe that an ordinary man would actually dare to insult him in such a way.

But thinking about it — that was exactly what the young man was doing.

“It seems you don’t want to leave.”

Qitian gestured. Yao Bei stepped forward immediately. Two short blades slid down from his sleeves, each roughly a foot and a half long.

Six Harmony Divine Blades — each of them practiced blade techniques. The six of them each used different styles.

Yao Bei’s twin blades were especially ferocious. His reputation for violence was the fiercest among all six. He was not the strongest fighter among the six, but he was unquestionably the one with the deepest hunger for killing.

“Hold on.”

The young man waved a hand. He reached behind him and picked up a bundle. Yao Bei was in no hurry — killing a few ordinary people like this would be no effort at all for him.

The young man opened the bundle and rummaged through it for a moment. What he produced was — a small booklet.

He opened the booklet. It bore a few characters.

The young man pointed at the writing and said, “Before you make your move, let me teach you a few characters. I can see you’ve all come from beyond the northern passes and probably can’t read Central Plains script very well. Come now, repeat after me — these characters read: *My grandfather’s name is Yu Jiuling.*”

“You’re asking for death!”

Yao Bei erupted. He lunged forward, his left-hand blade sweeping toward Yu Jiuling’s throat in a burst of blinding speed. With Yu Jiuling’s level of skill, he had no hope of blocking it.

But Yu Jiuling had no intention of blocking. Or even of running.

Not intending to block was normal behavior for Yu Jiuling. Not intending to run was rather less normal.

The man standing beside him, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, extended one hand. At the very instant the blade was about to slash across Yu Jiuling’s neck — *snap* — he caught it between his fingers and stopped it in midair.

This man looked at Yu Jiuling with exasperated resignation. “You really weren’t going to dodge.”

Yu Jiuling said, “Master Ye, we wagered two taels of silver. They all said I’d dodge or run. If I lose, I have to give each of you two taels — where would I even find the money? But if I win, each of you owes me two taels.”

Ye Zhangzhu smiled faintly and raised his hand to remove his straw hat.

While this exchange unfolded, Yao Bei had first tried to yank his short blade free — and failed. Then he thrust with the blade in his right hand toward Ye Zhangzhu. Ye Zhangzhu gave the first blade a small shift, and deflected the second.

“It’s him! He’s the one who wounded Chedi!”

The moment Quenan saw Ye Zhangzhu’s face, she screamed out.

In an instant, Qitian sensed something was deeply wrong. He stepped forward immediately. “We’ve been set up. Fall back — I’ll hold them.”

He reached out and seized Yao Bei by his belt. “Let go!”

Yao Bei didn’t hesitate — he released the blade instantly. A surge of force came through the belt, and he was lifted clean off the ground.

But he didn’t fly backward, because Ye Zhangzhu’s hand shot out and closed around his right wrist.

Qitian was already pulling back with full force. Under that opposing tension, Yao Bei let out a howl of agony — the bones of his right arm snapped.

Ye Zhangzhu released his grip. Yao Bei was immediately hauled backward.

Qitian glanced at Yao Bei’s twisted arm, his brow clenching. Killing intent entered his eyes.

He stepped forward. His right middle and index fingers pressed together and drove like a blade toward Ye Zhangzhu’s heart. Ye Zhangzhu brought his own middle and index fingers together and jabbed to meet them.

Finger struck finger in midair — contact, instant withdrawal, both men looking down at their hands.

In his years of training in the northern wastes, Qitian had begun by plunging both palms into iron filings to temper his hands. His middle, index, and ring fingers had been driven and re-driven into wood over so many years that they were now nearly equal in length, all three stunted and hardened from the work.

From there, he had moved on to thrusting his fingers into trees. Over long years, every tree at his training ground was riddled with finger holes.

One could only imagine the force those two fingers could deliver.

Master Ye shook out his hand. Yu Jiuling immediately asked, “Are you all right?”

Ye Zhangzhu said, “My fingers hurt.”

Qitian’s fingers also hurt. He had not expected to meet his equal.

At the alley mouth, the stern-faced scholar selling calligraphy glanced at the young man selling sugar-roasted chestnuts and asked, “You first, or me first?”

The chestnut seller said, “I’m the chief here. You go first.”

So the calligrapher rose from his stall and walked into the alley.

The last among the five was Luoxi.

He heard footsteps and turned to look — it was that scholar he had just passed at the alley mouth. He understood at once: the people at the mouth of the alley were also lying in ambush.

He reached back, pulled his bundle from his shoulders, and gave it a shake. Two rod-like objects tumbled out, each a little over two feet long.

He caught them as they fell, and only then could one see clearly — they were not rods, but blades of a very unusual design.

The hilts of the two blades were facing each other. He brought them together with a press and a twist — and they locked into a single long double-headed blade.

He used the blade like an iron spear, thrusting it straight at the scholar’s throat.

“A spear technique repurposed?”

The scholar’s lips curved in a faint smile.

He was well acquainted with most spear techniques. Because he was Tang Pidi — a man who lived by the spear.

The blade thrust came in. Tang Pidi actually took a step back.

Then he began undressing.

At the alley mouth, Li Chi’s eyes grew slowly wider. He muttered under his breath: “Here it comes, here it comes — the good part is almost here.”

Luoxi drove thrust after thrust in a straight line. A double-headed blade this long was more powerful than any spear — two sharp points, and a full blade edge besides.

Tang Pidi dodged four or five strikes, and the long scholar’s robe finally slipped off his shoulders. He gave the robe a flick, sending it snapping through the air like a whip with a crisp crack.

His wrist turned. The robe spun through midair and wrapped itself around the double-headed blade.

Luoxi started, and instinctively yanked the blade back. But in the instant he threw his weight backward, Tang Pidi didn’t pull against him — instead, he closed the distance in a single stride.

The cloth that had been taut around the blade went slack. Tang Pidi’s hand flicked, sending the robe surging forward in a wave, then pulled sharply back — the robe coiled around Luoxi’s wrist.

Tang Pidi wrenched the cloth toward his chest in a single violent motion, his body tilting backward at an angle that seemed impossible. The force of it pulled Luoxi stumbling forward. Tang Pidi drove a kick straight into Luoxi’s chest, and the man flew backward.

Before he even hit the ground, the double-headed blade had already landed in Tang Pidi’s hands.

Tang Pidi seized it and charged forward. The blade tip drove into Luoxi’s chest with a dull thud, and with an upward lurch, he hoisted the man into the air — then slammed him down into the ground.

Tang Pidi stepped over him. His grip twisted the hilt. The upper half of the blade came free. He gave the shorter blade a clean flip in his hand, edge down. It drove straight for Luoxi’s throat.

A sound. The blade punched through the neck and buried half its length in the ground.

Those few strides — they were exactly the distance Tang Pidi had stepped back while taking off his robe. This position was exactly where Luoxi had made his first thrust.

Perfectly calculated. Not an inch more, not an inch less.

Tang Pidi regarded the body on the ground. His gaze settled on the blade still standing in the chest.

“They’re not the same length. A little off.”

He said this to himself, then clapped his palm down on the blade in the chest. It sank evenly, punching through the body and into the ground.

He looked again. The two blades now stood at almost exactly equal height. Satisfied, he gave a nod.

Much better to look at.

This whole sequence had unfolded with the speed of lightning. So swift that Luoxi’s fellow disciples, whose attention had been fixed on their senior brother, only registered what had happened when it was already over. By the time they turned, Luoxi had already been pinned to the ground.

“Ah!”

At the sight, Chudong let out a sound like a mother wolf and came hurtling toward Tang Pidi.

—