The four figures robed in long gowns walked into the teahouse. One of them glanced toward where the proprietor stood. “Everyone out, or die.”

The proprietor froze for a moment, then snapped back: “Where did you lot crawl out from, daring to cause trouble in my establishment?!”

He called out to his workers, ready to have them deal with the intruders — but then one of the robed figures threw a casual punch in a sweeping arc, and a pillar inside the building snapped apart.

From the ceiling above, a great deal of debris came crashing down — shattered wood and roof tiles — though fortunately it had merely been shaken loose rather than collapsing entirely.

A moment later, nearly everyone inside had fled. Only Fang Zhuhou remained, seated there in perfect composure.

He extended his left hand to shield his teacup, and only moved it away once the dust had mostly settled.

“Please come with us, Master Fang. There is someone who wishes to see you.”

The one at the front was a woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties, quite striking in appearance, though her tone carried a trace of haughty condescension. She had used the word “please,” but her meaning was clear enough: *If you don’t come with us, we’ll cripple you and drag you there.*

Fang Zhuhou still didn’t move, still didn’t speak. He was wondering whether he had ordered a bowl of noodles just now — and then wondering whether he had perhaps forgotten to order one at all.

If he had ordered one, he could wait a little before leaving. If he hadn’t… then at the very least he ought to finish his tea. He had been both thirsty and hungry from the road.

So his mood was not particularly good.

Seeing that Fang Zhuhou offered no reply, the woman frowned. “Please come with me, Master Fang. We have a carriage waiting outside.”

Fang Zhuhou finally raised his head. “Who are you people?”

The woman replied, “The Four Manifestations disciples under the Holy Master.”

The four of them were two men and two women, two older and two younger. The two standing at the back were somewhat advanced in years — though no more than their mid-forties, far from decrepit.

Fang Zhuhou asked again, “And who is the Holy Master?”

The woman replied, “The Holy Master is simply the Holy Master. You need not concern yourself with the details. If you continue to stall, we will have no choice but to physically escort you, Master Fang.”

Fang Zhuhou’s mood soured further.

He had already been hungry and thirsty. Now add irritated to the list.

He studied the four figures’ positioning — there was clear method to it. Judging by their bearing and stature, each of them could rightly be called an expert.

“Did your Holy Master ever mention that the four of you might not be enough to move me?”

Fang Zhuhou took a sip of tea.

The woman gave a cold snort. “Don’t think we know nothing about you. When you were in Chang’an, you killed a number of highly skilled fighters, and you even frightened off the seventh greatest warrior in the land — but in our eyes, the seventh greatest is nothing but a worm crawling in the dirt.”

The younger of the two men standing beside her said, “You once crossed blades with the sect master of the Sacred Blade Sect, and you didn’t win easily. So your strength is only marginally above his.”

The woman continued, “We know you inside and out. Since the Holy Master sent the four of us, it means the four of us have more than enough capability to bring you back.”

Fang Zhuhou gave a quiet sound of acknowledgment. “That does sound like a fairly thorough understanding of me.”

He looked up at the woman. “Then tell me — how old is the information you’re basing all of this on?”

The woman’s brow creased. “Stubbornly obstinate.”

She extended her left hand forward, and from within her sleeve flew out a long coiling rope, sinuous as a living serpent, winding toward Fang Zhuhou’s neck.

Fang Zhuhou’s stool slid back a length, and the rope extended further still as it tracked his movement.

In the next instant, the rope looped around Fang Zhuhou’s neck — the woman’s hand, still tucked inside her sleeve, jerked back, and the loop snapped tight.

In the instant after that, the rope returned to the woman’s side — but what it had snared was a teacup.

Fang Zhuhou still sat in the same chair, in the same position, as though his backward slide had been a shared illusion among the group.

The proof that it wasn’t an illusion was the teacup itself.

“Attack!”

The command came from the older of the men. He was the senior disciple of the Four Manifestations, given the name Elder Yang by the Holy Master. The woman in her mid-forties standing beside him was Elder Yin. The two younger ones at the front were respectively called Lesser Yin and Lesser Yang.

Lesser Yin struck — the long rope shot toward Fang Zhuhou’s neck once more. Fang Zhuhou reached out and picked up a chopstick, flicking it with a lift and a pull so that the flying rope looped around the chopstick instead. He then drove the chopstick to the side, lodging it neatly into a crack in the wall.

He slid back again, evading Lesser Yang’s assault.

This person wielded a long whip, different from Lesser Yin’s coiling rope — the tip of his whip was bound with a cluster of bronze coins whose edges appeared to have been sharpened to a keen edge, gleaming and visibly lethal.

Fang Zhuhou lightly touched his feet to the floor and drifted backward, and the whip cracked down upon the chair, shattering it completely to pieces.

The moment Fang Zhuhou landed, Elder Yang and Elder Yin moved simultaneously, flanking him from the left and right with astonishing speed.

Two long whips flew out from their sleeves, shaken so taut they were perfectly rigid — each looking for all the world like a spear.

Fang Zhuhou flung both arms outward, his wide sleeves striking against the two whips. With the impact, the whips were deflected. One drove into the window frame, punching a hole clean through the shutters; the other struck the wall and gouged a crater into the grey brick, sending fragments of stone scattering.

Fang Zhuhou’s expression grew marginally more serious. The weapons these four wielded were unusual, and the coordination between them was seamless.

It was evident that whoever had sent them after him had not dispatched just anyone.

Just then, Lesser Yang’s whip came stabbing in again — it shivered once in midair, snapping out a crisp crack, the tip accelerating as though it had been flung from a sling.

A whip studded with sharpened bronze coins — one could well imagine what manner of wound it would leave.

And this stroke, too, was aimed at Fang Zhuhou’s neck. Evidently, they had strict orders to bring him back alive.

It was precisely because of this that Fang Zhuhou’s displeasure was now nearing its breaking point.

He retreated once more to avoid the whip. Elder Yin and Elder Yang closed in from both sides, their whips cutting off his retreat on either flank.

With the whip in front to evade and the two at his back to guard against, his only option was to launch himself upward.

He bent his knees slightly, and the brickwork beneath his feet sank under the force.

At that precise moment, Lesser Yin’s flying rope shot out. She had been waiting for exactly this — the moment Fang Zhuhou rose into the air, the rope would inevitably find his neck.

The coordination of these four was clearly the product of countless repetitions honed over years of practice.

But Fang Zhuhou’s feet did apply force — he simply did not jump.

At the very instant the rope came for him, Fang Zhuhou’s body plunged sharply downward instead, pitching forward like a toppling plank, still perfectly rigid. And just as he was about to slam into the floor, he pushed off hard, his body launching forward like a bolt loosed from a heavy crossbow, hugging the ground as he shot ahead.

As he flew forward, he shot out a hand and seized Lesser Yang’s ankle, wrenching him directly off his feet so that he crashed face-first to the ground.

Dragging him along that rough, uneven brick floor, Lesser Yang’s rather handsome face made an extended acquaintance with the surface.

Fang Zhuhou’s momentum halted abruptly, and he swung the man in his grip forward and hurled him ahead.

Lesser Yang would have taken a terrible landing, but his reflexes were extraordinary — mid-air, he cracked his whip out, caught it around a pillar, and swung himself back to his feet.

Meanwhile, Elder Yin and Elder Yang came charging in, their taut whips held like spears thrusting at lightning speed, striking at Fang Zhuhou in rapid succession.

“A nuisance.”

Fang Zhuhou cast a glance toward a nearby table. His bundle was sitting on it.

In that instant, Lesser Yin caught his gaze, and her flying rope swung around to snatch up his bundle.

Fang Zhuhou let out a quiet sigh.

The bundle was snatched into the air and was still aloft when a considerable amount of lime powder began leaking and scattering from within — which gave Lesser Yin quite a fright. If lime got into someone’s eyes under these circumstances, there would be no way to treat it.

These people did have a thorough understanding of Fang Zhuhou — they would not have dared to come otherwise.

And yet, precisely because they knew him so well, it was the last thing any of them would have expected: that a supreme master of Fang Zhuhou’s caliber would be traveling with a packet of lime powder.

It was, admittedly, rather undignified. At the very least, it was inconsistent with the image.

And yet Fang Zhuhou had brought it deliberately — because in Gao Xining’s letter to him, she had mentioned that the enemy might know him extremely well, and that he ought to carry some unexpected self-defense tools along the way.

Fang Zhuhou didn’t entirely grasp the concept of “unexpected,” but he did know that lime powder was useful.

Yes, one might say such a trick was a little beneath the dignity of a master — and yes, perhaps just the tiniest bit undignified.

But it worked, and that was enough.

Master Fang had deliberately glanced toward his bundle to tempt them into grabbing for it.

As Lesser Yin stumbled backward in a panic, the formation the four of them had maintained was thrown into disarray.

An opening. Fang Zhuhou slipped free from the encirclement, and in the next breath, he had alighted outside the teahouse, light as a falling leaf.

The four of them assumed he was fleeing and immediately gave chase — but when they burst out the door, they found Fang Zhuhou standing at no great distance, sword now in hand.

It was a longsword that looked like a pool of still autumn water — the gentlest of women trailing her fingers across a tranquil surface.

But this sword was not gentle in the slightest. Its name was Armor Breaker.

He had not been carrying the sword at his side because Fang Zhuhou had not imagined anyone capable of forcing him to draw it.

But these four had been selected specifically to counter him — three long whips and one flying rope, an ensemble of weapons set like a trap laid just for him.

Even so, drawing his sword now felt like a slight indignity. But the sword was in his hand.

Because Gao Xining had also warned him that the enemy was cunning and potentially numerous.

If that was the case, then better to end this swiftly.

The flying rope swung toward him once more. Fang Zhuhou lifted his sword to meet it — not letting the rope find him, but actively threading his blade into the coiling loop.

A flick of the wrist, and a breathtaking flower of sword light bloomed at the tip.

The rope split cleanly in two. Lesser Yin was visibly stunned.

Her rope had been made from a special material — braided to look like hemp cord on the outside, but threaded through with fine silver wire, making it extraordinarily difficult to cut.

The intelligence report had mentioned that Fang Zhuhou carried a renowned sword. She had not forgotten. She simply had not imagined that sword could be so razor-sharp.

Then, in the next breath, Lesser Yang’s whip came sweeping in, the bronze coins buzzing with a resonant hum.

Fang Zhuhou thrust his sword forward and began rotating his wrist — his blade actively wound itself around the whip.

Then with a pivot of the sword, a sharp crack rang out, and a significant number of bronze coins were sheared free from the whip by Armor Breaker.

Fang Zhuhou swept his wide sleeve, and those coins shot outward like a volley of shooting stars.

Lesser Yang began spinning his whip in a rapid circle before him, weaving a shield of swirling motion — and every coin was intercepted.

But in the very next instant, a streak of sword radiance flew out from within the swirling vortex.

A flash of lightning, brilliant and cold.

In the breath that followed, a thin red line appeared across Lesser Yang’s forehead — as though a third eye had suddenly been opened there.

—