Their destination was Yunyinshan, and since they couldn’t possibly carry large quantities of gold and silver with them on the journey, Li Chi had discussed the matter with the Xiaoyao King and agreed they would collect the treasure on their way back — first they would go to Yunyinshan to accompany Lady Xiahou in visiting her fellow disciples.

What Li Chi hadn’t expected was that the greatest gain he took away wasn’t the gold and silver at all, but rather the Xiaoyao people’s attitude toward life.

After some reflection, Li Chi came to understand something: people are essentially gray by nature, poised between black and white — shift a little one way and they become black, shift the other way and they become white.

Whether a person turns out black or white depends not only on who they are as individuals, but on the entire environment in which they survive.

The people of Xiaoyao had purged themselves of nearly every vice. Their personal character was so elevated that each one, compared to people from the outside world, could be called a sage.

And yet, looking at it from another angle — it wasn’t that the people here were all sages. These people were simply ordinary. It was the people of the outside world who were all sick.

If the world could be changed in the future, it wouldn’t be enough merely to change a dynasty’s name.

What mattered most was ensuring that every person could study and come to understand right and wrong — just as in Xiaoyao, where they regarded theft and deception as boundlessly shameful.

So much so that even men like Old Luo and his companions, hardened veterans of the jianghu, had grown pure in spirit after living in Xiaoyao for a dozen or so days.

Because when everyone around you is wholesome, something in your heart compels you not to do wrong — you feel ashamed.

If the world of the future were an expanded Xiaoyao, that would be true success.

As Li Chi left, he walked alongside Tang Pidi and said: “If there ever comes a day when every person takes pride in belonging to this country — when every person studies and understands right and wrong — even if not all evil can be eliminated, at the very least the greatest goodness will be brought forth.”

Tang Pidi was quiet for a moment before replying: “Then that country would need to be extraordinarily powerful in military strength, commerce, and education — walking ahead of every other nation. Only then would its people feel genuine pride from the heart. Without that, it’s all empty talk.”

Li Chi looked at Tang Pidi and smiled. “First things first.”

“Don’t get happy so easily,” Tang Pidi said. “Yes, we have money now, and friends like the Nalan tribe — but those fifty thousand fierce soldiers, where are they coming from? Recruiting fifty thousand people at random isn’t enough. Right now we’ve barely taken the first step.”

“What I’m happy about,” Li Chi said, “is knowing what I want to do in the future.”

Tang Pidi had something he wanted to say, but held it back. He’d wanted to tell Li Chi that his ideals should be realized by Li Chi himself — not by placing his hopes in someone else, someone like Yu Chaozong, no matter how beautiful the dream might be.

A man like Yu Chaozong — born into a great family, and even though he’d risen through the ranks of the rebel forces, his thinking was simply different from that of someone who had grown up in hardship and poverty.

But Tang Pidi knew Li Chi too well. He was far more willing to be a supporting minister than to be a leader himself.

Tang Pidi said nothing because he felt the moment hadn’t yet arrived.

One day, when Li Chi witnessed the choice that Yu Chaozong was bound to make, he would understand that his expectations were nothing more than an illusion.

Tang Pidi looked at Li Chi and saw that hidden within him was an extraordinarily powerful and ferocious beast — but Li Chi himself didn’t know it was there.

There was a cocoon wrapped around Li Chi, binding him, and the threads that composed it were tangled and complex.

Two kinds of thread were notably thicker than the rest — and perhaps Li Chi himself had never perceived them either.

Those two threads: one was called gratitude, and the other was called self-doubt.

And so Tang Pidi simply smiled and said nothing more. Self-doubt — who didn’t have it?

Though self-doubt came in many varieties.

Long, long ago, Tang Pidi’s father had a very good friend who lived well enough, yet was shadowed by worry every single day.

Perhaps it was that worry which kept his life in order — but it pressed down on him, making his whole person seem oppressed.

He remembered that once, when his father was talking with that friend, the friend had said something that left Tang Pidi feeling oppressed himself after hearing it.

That man had said:

*I know what a strange sort of character I am. I suppose my thoughts are usually something like this… Someone like me — when I see good things happen to others, I think: it won’t be my turn. Someone like me — when I see bad things happen to others, I think: surely it won’t be my turn either.*

*Even when life is already going rather well, there is still a very deep, very deep self-doubt hidden in my heart.*

Tang Pidi felt no urgency, and offered Li Chi no counsel, because he knew that someone was already helping Li Chi — and that someone was called Heaven.

Following Li Chi all this time, just look at everything Li Chi had already encountered!

Even something as outrageous as Xiaoyao — not pies falling from the sky, but whole mountains of gold and silver raining down — had happened to Li Chi.

And so Tang Pidi thought: if Li Chi’s transformation needed a catalyst, that catalyst would surely come.

—

Meanwhile, some dozens of li away from Li Chi and his group, Zheng Gongru had halted his convoy for rest.

They had taken a different route, traveling westward along the foot of the Yanshan range.

So they had passed neither through the Nalan Steppe nor through the Great Western Mountains — at this moment they were on the northern side of the Northern Branch Mountains.

The landscape beyond the Northern Branch Mountains was bleak and desolate in every direction. Across the gobi, only scattered patches of green remained, tufts of grass huddled together in clumps as though the countless weak lives were clinging to one another for comfort.

Were it not for the Northern Branch Mountains stretching across the land, the gobi desert might already have swallowed the Nalan Steppe whole.

“Boss.”

Gao Lu glanced at Zheng Gongru, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and said: “How much longer do we have to walk?”

Zheng Gongru unrolled the map and studied it, brow deeply furrowed.

This map had been obtained from Yu Chaozong. The person who had drawn it was the seventh chief of the Yanshan Camp, and the routes on it had been recorded not through firsthand survey, but through hearsay.

And with hearsay, who could say how much of it was accurate?

Zheng Gongru looked north again. The sky was murky and oppressive, as though a great wind was coming — and that murkiness was likely yellow sand kicked up by the wind.

“Find shelter and rest. We’ll move on once the wind passes.”

He spurred his horse to a rise and spotted a large expanse of woodland ahead. He pointed in that direction and called out: “Into the forest to make camp!”

At his command, the column of several hundred men immediately urged their horses forward and entered the dense woodland.

Zheng Gongru ordered that the canvas tarps used for pitching tents be strung between the trees to block the wind, arranged in a circle, with all the men and horses sheltering within that circle against the coming dust storm.

While they were busy with this, some dozens of zhang away, a man crouched in a tree watching them — like a predator fixing its gaze upon prey.

After staring for a while, the man silently descended and retreated swiftly. His horse was outside the forest; he mounted and galloped away at full speed, quickly becoming a dark speck on the vast gobi.

Some ten-odd li away, a scout on horseback charged into an earthen town, flung his reins to a guard at the gate, and strode quickly into the large courtyard at the heart of the town.

This was a fortress that had lain abandoned for many years, originally built by the Mongol Empire — its walls had long since crumbled beyond recognition.

In the courtyard, the scout dropped to one knee before their leader and pressed his fist to his chest. “Big Brother, I’ve found a fat flock of sheep.”

The man called Big Brother appeared to be around forty years old, one eye clearly gone, hidden beneath a black eye-patch.

His hair hadn’t been washed in what seemed like ages, and so it had naturally formed a wild, flamboyant shape of its own.

He was using a small knife to slice a piece of boiled mutton when he heard his subordinate’s report and asked: “A fat flock? How many?”

The scout answered: “At least four or five hundred — two horses per man, that’s nearly a thousand eight hundred fine horses.”

At those words, the Big Brother’s eyes lit up.

He raised his head and looked at the tattered banner fluttering atop the earthen town wall, the wind stirring it aloft.

“The sandstorm will arrive by noon tomorrow at the latest.”

He stood, placed two fingers between his lips, and blew a piercing whistle.

At that sound, countless men rose to their feet all around — each one radiating a ferocious and menacing air.

“There’s a fat flock of sheep.”

Big Brother said with a grin: “It’s been over a month since we last ate this well — four or five hundred men, nearly a thousand eight hundred fine horses!”

His men let out a series of wild howls, brandishing their weapons.

“Tomorrow morning, before dawn,” Big Brother declared, “follow me, and we’ll drive that flock home. Once the Northern Madman sets his eyes on a flock, not even the gods themselves can take it back!”

*Howl!*

His followers threw their heads back and bayed toward the sky like savage wolves, wild with excitement at the scent of blood.

In the northern borderlands there was a great bandit who called himself the Madman — wherever he passed, not a blade of grass survived.

—

The next day, before dawn had broken, Zheng Gongru emerged from a night’s rest in the forest feeling considerably refreshed.

He stood inside the canvas enclosure and looked northward. The sky was still dark, and to the north not even a single star was visible.

“Looks like this won’t hold against the sandstorm.”

He muttered to himself, then turned and called out loudly: “Everyone up! Before the sandstorm hits, we need to swing south for a stretch and get into the mountains — find somewhere to wait it out.”

A grumbling crowd of men rose, rubbing their eyes, some muttering curses under their breath.

Gao Lu walked over to Zheng Gongru’s side, stifling a yawn, and said: “Boss, you could have slept in a bit more — hey, you there — yes, you — go fetch the boss some water to wash his face.”

The man called upon got up, pulled aside the canvas wall, and stepped outside, grumbling something in a low voice.

*Thwip.*

An arrow punched through his throat. Without even a cry, he toppled backward.

From all sides came a series of howling shouts — as though a great pack of wild wolves was closing in.

Arrows came flying from every direction, and many men were knocked down before they could even react.

They scrambled frantically for their weapons — but their attackers were clearly already very close.

The sentinels had evidently been silently eliminated beforehand, and by the time they managed to raise their arms, those ferocious men had already closed on the outside of the canvas walls.

Gao Lu’s face went pale. He shouted: “Who are you people?! We are the Green-Banner Army of the Yanshan Camp!”

Before his words had finished, a towering, powerfully built figure burst through the canvas wall from outside.

He was riding an extraordinarily magnificent stallion, which leapt high over the canvas barrier. The rider reached out with one hand and seized Gao Lu by the back of the neck.

He held Gao Lu in one hand, face to face, and when he spoke, Gao Lu felt as though a reeking gust had been blasted into his face.

“What in the hell is the Green-Banner Army of the Yanshan Camp?”

The man made a contemptuous sound. “Have you heard of the Northern Madman?”

Gao Lu was white-faced with terror, but still forced himself to say: “The Yanshan Camp’s Heavenly King Yu commands hundreds of thousands of troops — surely you can’t be unaware—”

He never finished the sentence. The Northern Madman headbutted him, slamming his skull into Gao Lu’s and sending Gao Lu’s eyes rolling back in his head, dazed.

The Northern Madman let out a booming laugh, seemingly unaffected by the impact himself.

Left hand still gripping Gao Lu by the neck, he drew a dagger from his waist with his right, drove it into Gao Lu’s chest, and dragged it downward with brutal force.

He sheathed the dagger, then plunged his right hand into the wound — his entire hand disappearing inside.

The sound of Gao Lu’s screaming shredded the last shreds of night.

At the moment the sun rose, a beam of morning light filtered through the forest and fell upon Gao Lu’s chest.

That blood-soaked hand seemed to be wrenching something out by force.

The Northern Madman gave a single order: “Kill everyone — take their horses and their goods. What the hell is this Yanshan Camp garbage.”

His wolf-like horse bandits immediately set upon their killing. The slaughter was gruesome in the extreme.

Though the Yanshan Camp men would not simply submit to their fate, they were so vastly outstripped in battle experience by these men of numberless kills that resistance could accomplish little.

The Northern Madman looked toward Zheng Gongru, who was searching for an opportunity to retreat. He bared his teeth in a grin. “And where do you think you’re going?”

He pulled something out of Gao Lu’s chest — a blood-soaked heart — and tossed it casually to one of his men. “Take that back and make soup.”

Zheng Gongru immediately dropped to his knees. “Great King — if you spare my life, I swear I can offer you far greater rewards. I… I know of a place — limitless gold and silver, and countless beauties.”

—