Li Chi hurried toward the fighting stage. He knew Zhuang Wudi’s character all too well — the moment Zhuang Wudi laid eyes on that notice, compounded by his deep hatred and resentment for the Dachu regular soldiers, the odds were eight or nine out of ten that he would go up against Luo Jing. That much was beyond question.

Li Chi had no idea how much of Luo Jing’s fearsome reputation was truly earned — but if the reputation existed, and it had been built on genuinely defeating all challengers, then Luo Jing was no ordinary man. He did not care whether Luo Jing truly was the Northern Reaches’ finest — what he cared about was Zhuang Wudi.

Luo Jing had chosen the most conspicuous spot possible for his stage: right outside the Jizhou Prefecture yamen. The stage itself had been thrown together hastily, yet it had an impressive presence. By the time Li Chi arrived, a sizeable crowd had already gathered around the platform.

On the high platform, a chair had been set up. The young general sat in that chair, eyes closed, as though this fight meant nothing to him at all.

On either side of the stage, a wooden post had been planted. The left post bore a banner that read: *Winning a hundred taels is a small matter.* The right post’s banner read: *In victory or defeat, together we build something great.*

These two lines, taken by themselves, were not especially insolent. Yet the air with which Luo Jing sat there gave the distinct impression that he had put up the stage simply to demonstrate that no one was up to the task. Anyone who lasted five moves would get a hundred taels, ten moves two hundred — but the feeling he projected was that no one would ever walk away with a single copper coin.

The first time Li Chi had seen Luo Jing had been on the road to Jizhou. At that time, he had been genuinely struck by Luo Jing’s bearing — it had been that bearing that first stirred in him the distant longing for a life in the military, though that longing was still somewhere in the realm of admiration. The second encounter had also been a brief, fleeting one, leaving no particular impression. But this time, Li Chi could clearly sense that something in Luo Jing’s state of mind had shifted.

Li Chi thought it through. Most likely it was because Prince Yu was on the verge of raising his banner — and Luo Jing intended to claim the name of the finest fighter under heaven in the midst of that rising tide. What he was after was not this title of *Northern Reaches’ finest* — he wanted *finest under heaven.*

*How arrogant.*

In the crowd, a burly man stared at Luo Jing’s bearing and felt his temper rising. When the soldiers had announced the rules of the contest earlier, both the tone and the manner had made plain that no one in Jizhou was a match for the general — it was not said outright, but everyone felt it.

“I have a question.”

The burly man raised his hand and called out, “You’ve only said what happens if someone survives five moves or ten moves — you haven’t said what happens if someone *defeats* you. What if I beat you outright?”

At the sound of this, a faint smile tugged at the corner of Luo Jing’s mouth. He turned to his personal guards and said, “Tell him: if he beats me, I’ll yield the post of vanguard general to him, gladly hold his horse and carry his weapons, and bow to him as my teacher.”

A guard promptly bellowed the words to the crowd. The burly man let out a scornful grunt. “I don’t want to be any general. I don’t want you holding my horse. If I beat you, all I ask is that you stand up here and say loudly that Jizhou’s fighters are better than you — and that you will never dare be so presumptuous again.”

Luo Jing, upon hearing these words, seemed to bristle slightly. He rose and walked to the edge of the platform. “I accept your terms. Come up.”

The burly man leapt onto the stage with a bound. He stood nearly a full head taller than Luo Jing, and was clearly a man of many years’ martial practice; even beneath his clothing one could sense the explosive musculature beneath.

Luo Jing studied him with hands clasped behind his back. The man studied Luo Jing in return, then turned to face the crowd and cupped his fist in salute. “Today, I fight this first bout on behalf of the fathers and folk of Jizhou. Watch closely, everyone — see how Jizhou men earn their respect.”

A burst of cheering erupted from the crowd. Whistles rang out.

Luo Jing’s brow furrowed slightly as he watched the man.

“Don’t say your name,” he said.

The man looked at Luo Jing and smiled. “Why? Afraid people will know who it was that beat you?”

“If you don’t say your name,” Luo Jing replied, “they won’t know who was humiliated.”

The man gave a short, sharp grunt, then cupped his fists. “General Luo, forgive my offense.”

With that he struck out sideways — not at Luo Jing, but at the wooden post beside him, which he swept with a kick. The post was as thick as a man’s calf. That single kick snapped it clean in two. The force behind that kick was staggering.

He looked at Luo Jing. “Your move.”

By now Luo Jing’s anger was visible on his face. His personal guards, seeing the general’s expression shift, instinctively took several steps back. They knew all too well what the general looked like when his temper broke.

Luo Jing stepped forward — unhurried, at ease. He stopped when he was directly in front of the man, raised his right hand with the palm turned upward: a clear gesture of *you first.* Then he went still.

The man smiled. “I’m from Jizhou; General is from Youzhou. General may hold a higher station, but you are the guest and I am the host. A host does not bully a guest — so General, please: first move.”

Luo Jing, utterly flat in tone, replied: “You are wrong. That counts as one move from me.”

The man froze. A moment later, the anger inside him was all but ignited. He had seen arrogant men — but never anything like this. Luo Jing had extended his hand in the gesture for *your turn,* and called it one of his own moves. The implication was that the man had already received one of Luo Jing’s moves.

“General,” the man said, his eyes blazing, “you go too far. Even if I am a commoner and you are a general, if this is how you mean to humiliate a man, people will say you lack magnanimity.”

Luo Jing raised his hand again in the same gesture. “If you don’t make your move, I’ll count it as your receiving my second move.”

“If you’re going to be like this,” the man said, “I will not make any move. A man stands upright in this world — I have my dignity.”

Luo Jing lowered his hand, then raised it again. “That is the third move.”

The man’s expression had grown steadily worse. The fury in his chest was now completely beyond his control. Luo Jing had said that those who survived five moves would receive a hundred taels — and now he had made the gesture three times, each time declaring it one of his moves, saying the man had already received three of them. For a martial artist, this was an unbearable humiliation.

He gave a thunderous shout and launched a fist straight at Luo Jing’s chest. He had trained in martial arts for over twenty years — more years of practice than Luo Jing had years of life — and this blow was driven by pure fury. One could only imagine the force behind it.

He had already snapped a wooden post with a single kick. This punch, by comparison, was far more devastating.

When the fist was nearly upon him, Luo Jing turned slightly aside — and then drove his shoulder forward. The fist crashed squarely into Luo Jing’s shoulder, followed immediately by a crack of bone — audible even to the people below the stage.

Everyone watching assumed it was Luo Jing’s shoulder that had shattered. But the crack had come not from Luo Jing’s shoulder — it had come from the man’s arm. On the impact, the man’s fist buckled, and the bone of his forearm burst through the skin at the elbow.

The man let out a howl of agony and staggered back several steps. Luo Jing observed the man’s ruin with the same flat, even tone. “That was me taking one of your moves — not you taking one of mine. Those three gestures I gave you, I offer as gifts. This one I cannot. We keep it honest.”

Having said this, he stepped forward. Exactly as the man had punched him, he sent a fist straight at the man’s chest.

The man’s right arm was already broken. He could only raise his left arm as a guard across his chest and begin to fall back to shed the force. The impact landed with a boom; Luo Jing’s fist drove the guarding left arm straight into the man’s chest. The arm broke, and then Luo Jing’s fist, pressing through the arm, struck the chest itself — a devastating impact. The man let out a cry and fell backward, blood spraying from his mouth. Ribs, clearly, were broken.

Luo Jing looked down at the man lying on the stage. “That was my fourth move. You could not take it. You will not be winning a hundred taels.”

He turned and walked away. Everyone assumed that was the end of it — but after a few steps, Luo Jing stopped, turned back, and looked at the man on the ground. “But just now you angered me. So I’d like to give you the hundred taels after all.”

He turned and came back.

Everyone understood. The next move — the fifth — would be the one to take the man’s life.

The man on the ground had gone pale as paper, sweat running down his face. Both arms were broken; he could only propel himself backward by pushing with his back, scooting inch by inch across the platform. As he moved he said, “I lost. I concede.”

But Luo Jing seemed not to hear him. Still he walked back toward the man, one step at a time. He was on the verge of lifting his foot to stamp down when a figure swept up from below — at the very moment Luo Jing’s foot fell, this person leapt onto the stage, caught the injured man by the collar and yanked him aside, while the other hand pressed on the platform and pivoted, using the motion to swing both legs up and kick against Luo Jing’s descending foot.

The blow knocked Luo Jing’s foot aside, and the injured man was dragged clear.

Down below, Li Chi had already broken into a run when this happened — but he was too far away. The figure who had just jumped up had been standing directly beside the stage, and had beaten him by a fair margin. Li Chi craned his neck to look — and his eyes went wide.

The one who had saved the man was Zhuang Wudi.

Zhuang Wudi glanced at Luo Jing, turned, and began to step down. Luo Jing’s brow furrowed. “You have skill like this and you don’t want to test yourself? If you leave now, that unfinished move of mine has nowhere to go — I’ll simply finish what I started on him.”

Zhuang Wudi turned back to face Luo Jing. He was silent for a moment. “I’ll take his place.”

A gleam of interest appeared in Luo Jing’s eyes. He said to Zhuang Wudi: “If you take my move, I’ll still give him a hundred taels — enough for his injuries. If you can’t take it, I’ll give you both a hundred taels — enough for the two of you to treat your wounds.”

Zhuang Wudi cupped his fists, then planted his feet. “No more words. Come.”

Luo Jing laughed. He found this man far more interesting than the one before. He threw the same punch he had used on the injured man — identical in form. Zhuang Wudi, seeing the fist coming, narrowed his eyes.

He raised his right arm and took the punch on the forearm, both legs driving downward at the same moment.

*Boom!*

*Crack!*

The first sound: Zhuang Wudi’s forearm catching Luo Jing’s fist. The second sound: the wooden boards beneath Zhuang Wudi’s feet splintered apart — thick planking, shattering outright. Zhuang Wudi’s body dropped sharply.

Luo Jing did not press the advantage. He considered it beneath him.

When Zhuang Wudi climbed back up through the gap, Luo Jing pointed at the injured man and said simply, “Give him a hundred taels.”

Zhuang Wudi’s right arm was trembling violently. He wanted to control it, but the force behind Luo Jing’s fist had been too savage — the trembling was entirely beyond his will. It was the body’s own response.

“Not bad.”

Luo Jing made the gesture of yielding a move. “I’ll give you this one. The last move too, consider it a gift. Do you dare take one more?”

Zhuang Wudi drew a slow, deep breath and let it out. He lowered his gaze to his right arm, still shaking. Then he nodded.

“Come.”

Just two words.

Luo Jing smiled. “Good.”

He stepped forward — left foot out, landed, the sole twisting against the wood. Then his right leg came up and swept sideways. The motion was not especially fast; every step of it was visible. But no matter who his opponent was, no one could dodge it.

Zhuang Wudi’s eyes snapped wide. In that instant he raised both arms up to cover one side of his head. Luo Jing’s foot arrived.

—