The Northern Madman had five lieutenants under his command: Lion-Scar, White-Forehead Tiger, Cash Leopard, Soaring Eagle, and Dog-Wolf — each one a killer with a numberless body count.

These five had learned only one skill from the Northern Madman: slaughter.

Perhaps Dog-Wolf felt that the name “Dog” alone wasn’t imposing enough, and so he added “Wolf” to the right of it. One could ponder whether Dog-Wolf resembled a dog or a wolf more closely.

Within a thousand li of the Northern Branch Mountains, the Northern Madman had never once exercised restraint — going wherever he wished, killing whoever he wished, purely at the whim of his mood.

In his view, if no one feared you, it simply meant you weren’t fierce or ruthless enough.

If no one feared you, you weren’t above other men.

Dog-Wolf was the weakest fighter among the five lieutenants — though that said nothing of his actual ability; it was only by comparison among the five.

But he was the most savage among them. He worshipped the Northern Madman with a fanatic’s zeal, and whatever cruelty the Northern Madman displayed was amplified further still in Dog-Wolf’s hands.

When ordinary civilians or merchant caravans fell into the hands of others, if those captors happened to be in a decent mood, there was at least a chance of survival.

If they fell into Dog-Wolf’s hands, not a single person would come out alive — and every death would be gruesome.

Among the Northern Madman’s five lieutenants, the most capable and most favored was Lion-Scar, who commanded over a hundred men. Second was White-Forehead Tiger; third, Cash Leopard; fourth, Soaring Eagle.

Each of the five commanded over a hundred fighters, with the remaining forces belonging directly to the Northern Madman.

Dog-Wolf led his column to the mountain pass and surveyed the surroundings. Dense forest rose on both sides; the official road into the pass was not especially wide. The terrain was an ideal location for an ambush.

“Wait here half a day — if no business comes our way, move out and catch up with Big Brother. This godforsaken place probably doesn’t have any fat sheep anyway.”

Dog-Wolf waved his hand, and his men immediately dismounted, leading their horses into the forests on either side. Once the horses were secured, they returned and set up the ambush.

Some men dragged out ropes and used their blades to score a shallow trench in the road, burying the rope inside. Should someone come riding along, the rope could be yanked taut and horse and rider would be sent tumbling.

Men were stationed in the grass on both sides as well. Their bows were crudely made by their own hands, somewhat rough in craftsmanship, but at close range they were still capable of killing.

Once everything was prepared, Dog-Wolf went and lay down in the forest on one side.

He found a reasonably clean spot and even blew the dust off it.

Then again, given the filth crusted on all of them, any patch of ground probably looked cleaner than they did.

He sprawled out in the grass, a stem between his teeth, and waited for business.

He lay on his back watching the sky — pure white clouds drifted slowly overhead — and found himself idly wondering whether there might be celestial maidens up there among the clouds. And whether a celestial maiden might be inclined to oblige him.

Looking at the clouds, he caught sight of a hawk soaring past. The sight of it put him in a bad mood, because among the five lieutenants, Soaring Eagle liked to bully him, and he couldn’t win in a fight. He had no choice but to swallow the humiliation.

He had always thought that if he ever got the chance, he would gut that fellow — and not as a figure of speech.

So he spat up at the sky at the hawk. The spittle arced up and fell back down on his own face.

The hawk up in the sky seemed to notice. It let out a few contemptuous-sounding cries, as though mocking him.

Dog-Wolf wiped his face, muttering: “Cry all you want — let me catch you and I’ll pluck every last feather off.”

Growing impatient with waiting, he simply closed his eyes and lay still.

Without noticing when it had happened, Dog-Wolf drifted off — and was jolted awake by the sound of his own snoring, which was vigorous enough to startled himself, earning himself a muffled curse.

He sat up and looked at the sky. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep, but it seemed there would be no pickings on this road today.

He’d only dozed off for about a quarter of an hour, give or take. He simply had no desire to waste more time here.

Inside Yunyinshan, beauties were apparently everywhere — that was where he wanted to go. He was afraid of falling too far behind and finding nothing fresh left by the time he arrived.

He stood, stretched both arms wide, and called out: “Pack it up, boys — let’s go catch up to Big Brother.”

The men hidden in ambush responded and started to rise — just as a single figure came ambling lazily down the official road.

The figure was dressed in white brocade, riding an old yellow horse, swaying back and forth as though on the verge of falling asleep in the saddle.

Dog-Wolf immediately gave the signal, and everyone dropped back down into hiding.

“Damn — waited all this time, and this one man shows up. This is barely a grasshopper leg — not even worth calling a mouthful of meat.”

Dog-Wolf snatched up a stone from nearby and flung it at the ground, then gave the order: “You men up front — when that sheep gets within range, bring him down with arrows.”

The ambushers up front acknowledged the order immediately.

Up in the sky, that insufferable hawk called out a few more times.

The brocade-clad youth was almost at the pass now. The men up front let their arrows fly — sharp and clean through the air.

The figure swaying in the saddle seemed like someone who had genuinely dozed off from exhaustion.

He swayed left, swayed right — and every one of the arrows missed him entirely, as though it were pure coincidence.

Dog-Wolf flew into a rage. “Are you all useless?!”

He snatched a bow, nocked an arrow, drew back, and loosed — the arrow cut through the air and flew straight for the brocade youth’s throat.

The youth raised one hand. Two fingers opened and closed — *snap* — and the arrow was caught clean between two fingers.

Very impressive fingers.

Dog-Wolf was startled.

“Shoot him dead with a volley!”

He shouted at once. A man who could catch an arrow with two fingers was no ordinary person — and the way to deal with someone like that was to use overwhelming numbers.

His bandits immediately stood up, trained their bows on the brocade youth, and loosed all at once. In an instant, dozens of arrows flew toward him.

The youth’s riding whip began to spin — like a millwheel turning, it swept every single arrow out of the air.

Dantai Yajing tilted his head to look at the hawk circling overhead, thinking the little creature was actually rather useful. He wondered if he could ask Li Chi to hand it over.

He had no way of knowing that the little creature held Li Chi himself in complete disregard.

He brought his horse to a stop at the mouth of the pass and beckoned toward the grass.

Dog-Wolf was startled by the man’s fighting ability, but with over a hundred men at his back, he hardly needed to be truly afraid.

He led his men down from the slope, blocking the pass entrance.

Dog-Wolf stepped forward — but before he could open his mouth, the brocade youth spoke first.

“Whoever opened this mountain, whoever planted these trees — if you want to use this road, hand over your money.”

Dog-Wolf blinked.

A strange sensation — as though his own line had been stolen from him before he could say it.

The tables had been turned before the game even began.

“You think you’re funny?”

Dog-Wolf was not the type for lengthy conversations. He pointed straight at Dantai Yajing. “Dig out his heart — make soup for Big Brother.”

The crowd surged forward.

At those words, the corner of Dantai Yajing’s eye twitched.

“You’re with the Northern Madman?”

He asked.

Dog-Wolf grinned. “Since you’ve heard the name, you know what that means for you.”

With some reluctance, Dantai Yajing reached over and unshouldered his long lance.

His gaze went cold as iron. “I went looking for you people once before — but I never found you.”

The black lance with its faint metallic sheen trembled once. The blade sang like a dragon’s cry.

“You came looking for us?”

Dog-Wolf’s brow furrowed — then understanding broke across his face, and he burst out laughing. “Ten or so days ago, some arrogant fool went around asking everyone where Big Brother was hiding, left a message saying he’d kill the Northern Madman first and wipe out the Madman’s Army second — that was you?”

Dantai Yajing gave a single nod. “It was.”

He had left Liangzhou and traveled southeast. When he reached the territory around the Northern Branch Mountains, he heard tell of the great bandit known as the Northern Madman.

He had entered a village to ask for water. At the village gate hung the corpse of a woman — her belly cut open, blood pooled on the ground.

She had clearly been pregnant — someone had split her open alive and ripped out the unborn child.

At the sight, something ignited in Dantai Yajing’s chest: a fire of fury that could not be extinguished without finding the villains and ending them.

Before leaving Liangzhou he had known that horse bandits ran rampant beyond its borders — but he had never imagined anything so utterly inhuman.

Walking deeper into the village, he found a farmyard wall with over twenty peasants pinned to it.

Each person had been nailed through all four limbs — both hands and both feet, each fixed in place with long nails — and a bamboo tube had been driven into each one’s thigh to drain the blood.

The other villagers had all hidden far away. None dared come to help — because whoever helped would face retaliation.

Dantai Yajing took the bodies down one by one. Some villagers shouted at him to leave, not to bring trouble down on their heads.

Those words left Dantai Yajing standing at a loss.

Even something as simple as helping to bring down corpses had become an invitation for disaster.

Dantai Yajing learned about the Northern Madman for the first time that day. When he left, he told the villagers: if the Northern Madman’s people come again, tell them I’m looking for them.

Tell the Northern Madman: killing ordinary people is no skill. Come and kill me — I call myself the Northern Madman-Killer.

He even left a location: he would wait at the Red Blossom Pavilion ten li outside Xiaofeng Town — a place he had passed through earlier.

He returned to the pavilion and waited seven days. No one came.

So he set out to search. He asked every person he met — but the common people all said they didn’t know where the Northern Madman’s hideout was, and even those who might have known didn’t dare say.

After five more days of fruitless searching, Dantai Yajing had no choice but to continue south.

He could not have known he would encounter Tang Pidi’s group, nor that without that encounter he would not have turned back, and without turning back would never have run into the Northern Madman’s men. All of it was fate.

Dog-Wolf looked at Dantai Yajing and laughed until he bent double.

“You wanted to stand up for those villagers?”

He laughed until tears streamed from his eyes.

“After we raid a village, we usually don’t go back very quickly — you have to let the livestock fatten before you harvest, understand? But it happened that a few days later I suddenly felt like going back to have a look.”

“And when I got there, I found the bodies had been taken down. I was going to wipe out the whole village — but the villagers were all on their knees sobbing, saying it wasn’t them, they hadn’t dared.”

Dog-Wolf looked at Dantai Yajing. “And then they said there’d been a young man who declared himself the Northern Madman-Killer. So it was you. You really made me laugh.”

He wiped the laughter from his eyes. Then his smile vanished. He leaned forward with a low, eerie voice and said: “But those villagers ought to thank you. Without you, I wouldn’t have had any reason to slaughter that village. Die young, be reborn young — at least they didn’t have to go on living in suffering.”

Dantai Yajing’s expression shifted. The hand gripping the lance trembled slightly.

“One more thing,” Dog-Wolf said. “The Red Blossom Pavilion ten li outside Xiaofeng Town — we went. No blossoms, and the pavilion wasn’t red. Couldn’t find you. So we went ahead and slaughtered Xiaofeng Town while we were at it.”

He shrugged with an air of pure indifference — *what are you going to do about it.*

“I had my men kill and drain blood all over that pavilion,” he said. “Painted the whole structure red. That’s what you’d call a truly Red Blossom Pavilion.”

Dog-Wolf beckoned toward Dantai Yajing. “Still want to kill me?”

Without waiting for Dantai Yajing to answer, Old Yellow let out a long neigh and leapt forward.

He had felt the fury and killing intent radiating from his young master. Without waiting for the command, he charged — a fine horse with a fine heart.

In that moment, it was as though he had returned to his days at the head of the Blood Cavalry charge.

The rider’s eyes had gone red.

And so had the horse’s.

—