Old Yellow charged straight ahead, his momentum like a crack of thunder.

None of the bandits had expected this — the horse that had looked so frail and old exploded from stillness into motion with startling force, covering more than a full zhang in a single bound.

The bandits scrambled for their bows, but they had been standing close and assumed that with over a hundred men against one, nothing could go wrong. So in their haste only seven or eight scattered arrows flew out.

Dantai Yajing swept his lance in a single arc — three heads flew, blood spurting from the neck stumps like fountains.

Old Yellow hit the ground and lurched sideways — two or three men were sent flying backward by the impact, and his rear hooves struck upward and kicked two more men off their feet.

That lurch and those kicks carried enough force to kill.

Man and horse were as one.

Where the lance swept, heads rolled. Where Old Yellow’s rear hooves connected, chests caved in.

Dog-Wolf’s eyes went wide with shock. He had seen the brocade youth catch an arrow between two fingers — he knew this was no ordinary person — but he had never imagined anything like this.

Old Yellow kicked two bandits airborne and surged forward again, both front legs rising in a leap.

In the midst of the charge, his front legs bent — the knee joints slammed with tremendous force into one bandit’s chest.

That bandit flew backward at tremendous speed, a horrifying concave dent punched into his chest from the knee strike — Old Yellow knew that technique.

The force behind it must have weighed several hundred jin — perhaps more.

The man struck by the horse’s knee hit the ground and never moved again. He didn’t even manage a groan before his life ended.

Up above, the hawk let out a few sharp cries and then flew back the way it had come.

Dantai Yajing swept his gaze across the bandits, gave a shout, and Old Yellow reared up on his hind legs with a long, fierce cry.

—

Several li away.

Li Chi’s group had been waiting for word. Moments before, the hawk had given its warning cry from high above, and Li Chi was about to send men forward to investigate — when Dantai Yajing had said he would go instead.

Dantai Yajing had probably felt the journey so far had been rather dull, and that with Tang Pidi still undefeatable, scouting ahead might at least be entertaining.

“How’s his thinking coming along?” Tang Pidi asked, looking at Li Chi.

Li Chi smiled and shook his head. “A man that proud — how could he be so easily persuaded? But he should be about one-third won over.”

Gao Xining, sitting to one side, laughed: “You’re quite good at winning men over. I don’t see you winning over any women, though.”

Tang Pidi narrowed his eyes at Gao Xining, thinking privately: *what kind of courage does it take to say that, with you sitting right here?*

Then he thought it over — she hadn’t been won over through deception. He’d heard about Gao Xining’s work as a matchmaker, and it occurred to him that winning women over was probably her specialty, not Li Chi’s.

Li Chi also laughed. “Winning men over is easier.”

Tang Pidi: “…”

He looked toward the distance, where nothing had stirred yet, and went on: “Dantai was just telling me about the training method for the Liangzhou Blood Cavalry — brutal in the extreme. Of ten thousand fine horses, only two thousand survive.”

“We can’t afford that,” Li Chi said immediately.

By Tang Pidi’s account, if they started with ten thousand horses and only two thousand came out, and Tang Pidi wanted fifty thousand elite cavalry, that would mean fifty thousand horses used just to get ten thousand — with luck.

What a cost.

Even as he finished speaking, the hawk’s cry came again from the distance. Li Chi’s expression changed, and so did Gao Xining’s.

They had trained the hawk together — both of them understood its calls at once.

“Move — there’s a fight.”

Li Chi said urgently.

Tang Pidi slapped his horse’s flank with his left hand and charged forward, a hundred fierce soldiers falling in behind him.

Tang Pidi was anxious. Places like this often harbored great bandits — out in the wilderness, those bandits would be vicious. If a fight had broken out, Dantai was formidable, but he was still one person against an unknown number, and if surrounded he might be in danger.

By the time Tang Pidi reached the pass, his expression changed immediately.

Dantai Yajing’s snow-white brocade was soaked completely red. All across the pass, along the official road, bodies lay sprawled in every direction.

Every body was a scene of grim horror.

Dantai Yajing stood in front of one man. That man was on his knees — clearly begging for his life, voice audibly trembling.

Dantai Yajing looked down at the man and said: “Those villagers must have been begging you just like this.”

His eyes were blood red. He grabbed Dog-Wolf by the collar and hauled him to the roadside in a few long strides, drove a fist into Dog-Wolf’s chest — Dog-Wolf let out a howl of agony and crumpled.

Dantai Yajing went back and collected several long blades, then seized Dog-Wolf’s right hand — with a heavy blow, he drove a blade through the hand and pinned it to a tree.

Dog-Wolf’s right hand was nailed to the tree. He pressed his back against it, shrieking and struggling — but he could not pull free.

Dantai Yajing seized Dog-Wolf’s left hand and wrenched it backward by force, bending both arms into an unnatural reverse embrace around the trunk.

Then a second blade — left hand pinned through as well, driven so deep it nearly pierced through to the other side of the tree.

He crouched down, lifted Dog-Wolf’s legs, and drove blades through them both, nailing them to the wood as well.

Dog-Wolf was now pinned backward around the tree, both legs not yet reaching the ground — suspended there, as though kneeling in midair.

Tang Pidi watched Dantai Yajing’s killing fury and called out to him: “Dantai! What are you doing?”

He was afraid Dantai Yajing had gone past the edge of reason — that a man could break this way.

Dantai Yajing looked back at Tang Pidi, expression blank, and replied: “Doing what must be done.”

That blankness — that was fury that had passed beyond all expression.

He spotted some of the tall wild grass nearby, with stalks as thick as a thumb. He went and snapped one off.

Then he took his knife and opened a cut in Dog-Wolf’s leg at the vein, and drove the hollow stalk into the opening.

Blood quickly began to run out through the hollow tube, falling drop by drop onto the leaves below.

Dantai Yajing stepped back two paces and looked at Dog-Wolf’s wailing figure. “I will stand right here and watch you until you die.”

Dog-Wolf begged frantically, then broke into screams of abuse — but Dantai Yajing’s expression did not change.

Tang Pidi swung down from his horse and walked over to Dantai Yajing’s side. He looked sideways at his face.

It was a bloodless, white face — rage that had gone so far beyond itself that it looked almost calm.

“They are bandits under the Northern Madman’s command.”

Dantai Yajing forced his voice to stay level. “On the road I traveled here, I saw the villages they had ravaged.”

He pointed at Dog-Wolf: “This is exactly what they do — they nail villagers to walls through all four limbs, drain them with bamboo tubes.”

Tang Pidi’s eyes went cold and hard.

He had always known that once the evil in human nature was unleashed, it would make the demons of hell tremble.

But he also knew that no one could ever truly measure the depths of human evil. The balance between good and evil lay in the heart — and when it tilted toward evil, atrocities of any kind became possible.

“They opened pregnant women. Pulled the unborn child out alive.”

Dantai Yajing seemed to be speaking through clenched teeth.

“I had taken down the bodies they had left hanging on the walls. When they came back and found the bodies gone, they slaughtered every last villager.”

At those words, Dantai Yajing could hold it no longer. He drove a fist into Dog-Wolf’s eye socket.

The force of that fist was absolute.

*Crack* — the orbit shattered outright. The eyeball was likely burst by the blow, and blood erupted from beneath Dantai Yajing’s knuckles.

“I want to find them.”

Dantai Yajing looked at Tang Pidi. “You all go do what you need to do. I won’t be coming with you for now.”

He looked at Dog-Wolf, who had just fainted from the pain, and drove a kick into his groin. The man who had just lost consciousness jolted awake again, howling.

“Where is the Northern Madman?”

Dantai Yajing demanded.

Dog-Wolf spat a mouthful of blood and teeth — and suddenly broke into a savage grin, eyes locked on Dantai Yajing’s: “He’ll come find you himself. He’ll rip your heart out — and make soup.”

Dantai Yajing was about to press further when Old Yellow suddenly cried out. The cry seemed to summon him.

He snapped his head around — and saw an arrow jutting from beneath Old Yellow’s neck.

Dantai Yajing’s eyes went wide. He bolted toward him.

Half an hour later, Xiahou Yili crouched beside Dantai Yajing and said softly: “I’ve treated Old Yellow and dressed the wound. As long as he doesn’t gallop or tear at it, he should recover with some rest.”

Dantai Yajing exhaled a long breath, and said quietly: “Thank you.”

Then he stood, walked to Li Chi, and said: “Go on without me.”

He looked at Old Yellow — lying flat on the ground, stretching his neck to nibble at the nearby grass, same as always, eating only the tender shoots.

Dantai Yajing said to Li Chi: “Help me take Old Yellow with you — look after him. Once I settle what needs settling here, I’ll come find you all… and if you would lend me a horse.”

Li Chi was silent for a moment, then said: “Your horse, you look after it yourself.”

He clapped a hand on Dantai Yajing’s shoulder. “The people you want to kill — we kill together.”

He paused, then said: “The Northern Madman will come looking when his men don’t return. We wait here.”

Then he looked toward Yu Jiuling: “You and the brothers of the Blade-Hanging Sect escort my godmother’s group back fifteen li.”

Yu Jiuling opened his mouth, wanting to stay — but he knew his own fighting ability was honestly quite ordinary, and so he nodded. “I’ll get them to safety.”

He had already made up his mind — once Lady Xiahou and Gao Xining and the others were settled safely, he would come back.

Whether or not he could fight, if his brothers were putting their lives on the line, he was going to come back.

Li Chi nodded, then looked at the assembled soldiers and called out: “Clean this place up — we’re getting ready for a fight!”

*Hah!*

The soldiers answered in unison and scattered immediately to deal with the bandit bodies.

Dantai Yajing said: “The Northern Madman’s forces are over a thousand. We’re outnumbered.”

Tang Pidi, standing to one side, replied with perfect calm: “Ten each — that’s all.”

Dantai Yajing drew a deep breath — and finally managed a faint smile.

These bandits had pressed his heart down into a place of suffocating darkness. But in this moment, Li Chi and Tang Pidi brought a light back into it.

“The bandits chose this location for an ambush — decent eye for terrain.”

Tang Pidi looked around at the surroundings, then looked at Li Chi. He said nothing, and Li Chi gave him a nod: “Your call.”

Tang Pidi made a sound of acknowledgment, raised his hand, and blew a whistle.

All hundred soldiers turned toward him at once. Tang Pidi said: “Finish up and come here — I’ll give the orders.”

Li Chi walked to Gao Xining’s side and said with a smile: “Don’t worry about anything — it’s just a band of horse bandits.”

Gao Xining said quietly: “But you’re still not fully healed.”

“If I were fully healed,” Li Chi said, “there would be no need for Old Tang or Dantai at all. I’d be enough on my own.”

Gao Xining laughed with him, hiding the worry behind her eyes.

“All of you be careful.”

She said that, then went back to the carriage. “I’ll sit with Godmother.”

Li Chi nodded, and waved them off.

Yu Jiuling led the convoy in retreat. The brothers of the Blade-Hanging Sect looked back at Li Chi’s group with complicated expressions in their eyes.

Li Chi walked to the mouth of the pass and looked north. Tang Pidi moved to his left. Dantai Yajing moved to his right.

Three young men standing side by side — each one standing just as tall, just as straight.

If people were sorted by rank — which of these three would not place at the very top?

—