Central China is vast beyond reckoning. Any man who claimed true invincibility would always find someone ready to dispute it — even the most powerful and self-assured rarely dared speak those words aloud.

Yet when Xu Suqing had been called the unmatched warrior of the northern frontier, no one had ever questioned it.

Because at nineteen, Xu Suqing had accomplished something no one else could in a lifetime.

At nineteen, he had challenged the entire jianghu of Yanzhou — spending a full year visiting the great masters one by one.

And somehow, not a single one of those venerable seniors had a bad word to say about him afterward.

This was the kind of thing that made no sense, and people puzzled over it for years — until eventually, some small part of the story began to come out. A secret Xu Suqing had never shared with anyone.

Every time he challenged a sect, he had requested that the match be conducted behind closed doors — no witnesses from outside the sect.

At first people assumed he was afraid of losing and wanted to spare himself public embarrassment, given that he was the one who’d initiated the challenge.

But gradually it emerged: it didn’t matter who he faced, defeating them was never difficult — and while fighting, he would identify the specific flaws and weaknesses in their martial arts.

After the bout, he rarely left immediately. He would stay with the sect for a time and help whoever he’d fought work to correct those weaknesses.

Over time, every sect in Yanzhou’s jianghu owed him a debt they could never fully repay.

Which was precisely why, when he fell into trouble in Yanzhou, so many men and women of the jianghu had been willing to risk their lives to save him.

*The world grows distant when people let it — because a heart met only a heart.*

*The world draws close when people allow it — because kindness answered kindness.*

When Liao Tinglou was captured, Xu Suqing didn’t hesitate for a single breath. He got on a horse and rode for the frontier.

The journey was not short — two days at a minimum under ordinary conditions. He rode without rest or sleep.

When the horse could go no further and collapsed mid-road, he abandoned it and ran the rest of the way on foot.

From his camp to the frontier normally took four or five days. He covered it in two days and two nights.

He arrived as the sun was just coming up, standing alone outside the fortress gate, breathing hard as he looked up at the walls. In the morning light, the deep red battle banners snapping above the ramparts caught his eye.

He didn’t know why, but those red banners seemed to him almost beautiful.

The soldiers on the wall spotted him immediately and shouted him away. No one recognized him. Someone ran to inform Lord Ye, who arrived at the wall shortly after with his Senior Commissioners.

Lord Ye looked down at the figure below — travel-worn and haggard, yet the unbroken arrogance in his bearing came through clearly enough.

Fifteen years ago, the jianghu of the northern frontier described Xu Suqing as gentle and warm as fine jade. Lord Ye had never met him, yet had always harbored a kind of admiring longing for this man. Now, seeing him in person, he felt only a deep, wordless sadness.

There was no warmth left. Lord Ye saw only cold.

“Let the man go.”

Xu Suqing’s voice carried up from the ground below, loud and clear. “Let him go, and I promise not to kill any of you.”

That single line ignited everyone on the wall. Every pair of eyes blazed.

Senior Commissioner Yan Lie unslung the great bow from his back — a three-and-a-half-stone draw-weight weapon that most soldiers couldn’t fully pull, let alone most officers. Yan Lie was the finest archer among them; the iron-feathered arrows he used could fly nearly twice the range of an ordinary war arrow. A single volley from him hit with the force of a siege bolt.

Seeing that brazen figure below, Yan Lie held himself no longer. He drew, and with a resonant twang the iron-feathered arrow streaked downward like a falling star.

Xu Suqing watched it come. He didn’t move a single step. He waited until the arrow was nearly upon him, then raised a hand — and caught it.

The arrowhead stopped a mere inch from his face, as if it had struck solid stone mid-flight.

Xu Suqing held the shaft in a closed fist. The arrow had stopped so abruptly that even the iron fletching was still vibrating, humming faintly in the quiet morning air.

He tossed it aside, and looked back up at the wall.

“Who has authority here?”

Lord Ye answered. “I am the commanding officer. I have authority.”

Xu Suqing looked up at him. “With my skill, I could rush these walls right now, kill a few dozen men, and walk away. Do you believe me?”

Lord Ye said nothing.

Xu Suqing didn’t wait for an answer. “With my skill, I could slip inside these walls at night and kill hundreds before dawn. Do you believe me?”

Still Lord Ye said nothing.

“Then if you will not release my man,” Xu Suqing’s voice rose, “I will simply keep killing until you do. Refuse me now, and I will kill until you change your mind.”

Lord Ye said: “I know who you are. I know your capabilities. I know you would come the moment you heard your man had been captured. Do you believe me?”

Xu Suqing considered for a moment. “I believe you.”

“Then knowing all this — Liao Tinglou is already dead, on my order. So what, precisely, do your threats accomplish?”

Hearing it spoken plainly — *already dead* — Xu Suqing went still.

When he went still, the entire world seemed to fall silent with him.

A moment later, he unclipped the great wineskin from his belt, tipped it back, and drank — long and deep, in great swallows, not stopping until every drop was gone.

He exhaled slowly, and stepped forward.

A rain of arrows from the wall.

As he came on, he tore the wide travel cloak from his shoulders. He caught it in one hand and set it spinning — and the cloak *turned*, spinning before him like a wheel. Every arrow that flew into its path was deflected without a single one piercing through.

The display of skill made Lord Ye’s expression darken considerably.

This was the same art at the heart of Lord Ye’s own Flowing Cloud Sleeve — inwardly identical. But Lord Ye knew himself: faced with such a dense volley, his own sleeves might not catch every one.

Xu Suqing’s combat intelligence was as frightening as his physical ability.

Standing below the wall, he had already calculated exactly how far to run and where to stop. He came on with the cloak before him, unable to see ahead — yet arrived precisely one step short of the wall’s base before launching himself upward.

The cloak kept spinning before him, but his body was now parallel to the ground, feet running vertically up the stone face.

One technique to spin the cloak — Iron Shirt’s inner cultivation. Another to run up the wall — the Taoist lightness method known as the Cloud Ladder.

After four or five running steps he was halfway up. As his upward momentum began to fade, he drew a short blade from his belt and drove it into a gap between the stones, then pulled himself higher. He planted a foot on the embedded blade and pushed — and his speed surged again.

As he neared the top, the soldiers on the wall thrust down with spears and long-bladed weapons.

He seemed to have already mapped every one of them — their positions, their reach, their timing — as if he could see through the cloak that blocked his view.

Just as several spears descended at once, the cloak changed its pattern. Where before it had spread wide like a spinning canopy, now it wound and snaked like a python.

The cloth caught and coiled around the shafts. Xu Suqing wrenched — and the soldiers gripping those weapons were all pulled forward at once, stumbling into the stone parapet. One nearly went over the edge entirely.

Before they could let go, it was already too late.

Using the drag of their resistance as force, Xu Suqing vaulted up and landed on the wall.

The moment his feet touched stone, an iron-feathered arrow came for his face.

This one was faster, harder, and fiercer than the one below.

In the instant Xu Suqing landed, the arrow was already there.

A crack.

As before — outside the gate, below the wall — he caught it bare-handed. His eyes went colder.

He looked at the Senior Commissioner who’d fired it.

“You die first.”

He flung the arrow back. It moved faster than it had been shot.

At that range, Xu Suqing had caught the iron-feathered arrow bare-handed. At that same range, Senior Commissioner Yan Lie could not evade the same arrow coming back.

In the fraction of an instant before it struck — a sleeve swept in from the side.

Like a sail seized by a roaring gust, it struck the arrow with a heavy crack and knocked it flying.

Lord Ye stepped forward, putting himself between Yan Lie and the arrow’s path.

Xu Suqing glanced at him — a brief flicker of surprise — but his body kept moving.

He came on. All around him, weapons reached and struck and were turned aside. It was as if he meant to demonstrate something for Lord Ye’s benefit — those two vast sleeves moved with a life of their own, covering up, down, left, right, front, and back, turning what came from any direction.

Every weapon, no matter how fast or how many, was swept aside.

Senior Commissioner Shang Qingzhu seized two iron javelins and hurled them. Two black shapes drove in like thunder.

A single sleeve swipe — and both javelins spun away into the air.

As the sleeve swept open — like a screen parting — Senior Commissioner Yu Hongyi appeared from behind it as if stepping out of nothing, driving a sword straight for Xu Suqing’s throat.

Xu Suqing turned his head aside. By any measure, that blade came within a hair’s breadth of his face as it passed.

And in that instant, Xu Suqing *bit down* on the blade.

His jaw closed on the flat of the sword. He bore down — and wrenched it free.

For a Magistrate’s Court Senior Commissioner, being disarmed was humiliation. Being disarmed *this way* was something that couldn’t even be put into words.

The wide sleeve swept for Yu Hongyi’s chest — and Yu Hongyi, already injured, seemed to have no room to dodge.

A boom.

Two sleeves tangled and collided — like a dragon and a tiger locking jaws, circling, straining, and a roaring rush of wind.

Lord Ye’s sleeve and Xu Suqing’s sleeve struck each other dead on. A muffled concussion — and both sleeves burst apart at once.

Lord Ye pulled Yu Hongyi back and retreated.

He had meant only to save his man and step clear — but the force in that sleeve had been extraordinary. Lord Ye’s retreat was unsteady, his steps stumbling.

Even Lord Ye’s face had gone slightly pale.

Xu Suqing stepped back only once before arresting himself completely — yet something in the fierce killing intent behind his eyes had faded, if only slightly.

He was looking at Lord Ye, who had moved to shield the other man. And suddenly — he didn’t know why — an image rose in his mind. Yanzhou. Fifteen years ago. Those jianghu fighters charging the soldiers one after another, on and on, to save him.

Perhaps the wine he’d drunk was finally catching up with him. Or perhaps something deeper had been stirred.

He stood still for just a moment — and that was all the opening needed. Weapons came from everywhere at once.

The Ning soldiers surged in from all sides, and the tide of battle cries broke over him and snapped him back to the present.

He looked at Lord Ye — one long, searching look.

Then he turned and simply stepped off the wall.

From a height like that, he didn’t hesitate. As he plummeted, just before he would have hit the ground, he kicked off the wall face — and shot horizontally outward.

A single motion, seamless from drop to launch. By the time anyone looked, he was already far away.

Arrow after arrow from the wall fell behind him. Not one could reach him.

The men on the wall watched him go — and for a long moment, none of them quite knew what to think.

He came because he chose to come — and left because he chose to leave.

—