No one noticed exactly when Zhuang Wudi had slipped into the retinue of the young lord’s attendants — more precisely, into the rearmost ranks behind those attendants.

By now the sky had gone completely dark. Though the main streets of Jizhou were lit with night lanterns, it was still impossible to make out the faces of people even a few steps away. Those wind-proof lanterns cast little real light and offered people little more than a faint measure of psychological comfort.

Zhuang Wudi had actually been waiting at his post for some time. Li Chi had told him to wait by the roadside — he could pretend to be a customer eating casually at a street stall, and to keep things natural. Zhuang Wudi was a man of straightforward instincts; when Li Chi said to play the role of a customer, he did exactly that, and found himself a roadside stall to eat noodles at.

As it turned out, the wait stretched past two full hours. By the time it was over, he had eaten six bowls of noodles, and the stall owner had begun to suspect he was dealing with a troublemaker — the kind who eats his fill and then refuses to pay. Surely, he reasoned, anyone with money would have settled his bill by now.

Fortunately, Zhuang Wudi was no such person. Before he slipped into the ranks of the young lord’s retinue, he paid his bill with great thoroughness — a thoroughness that can only be described as deliberate, given that he counted out his coins one by one. The stall owner watched him count and found it strangely moving.

Zhuang Wudi himself was suffering by that point. Another bowl and he was going to have a problem; a man can only take so much. You might be able to control how fast you eat, but you cannot control how fast things make their exit.

So when he caught Li Chi’s signal — the arrow thudding into the side of the carriage — he shouted immediately.

—

Luo Jing stood with a face like still, deep water. He had not yet revealed his anger, though his fury had already been roused; he was simply watching to see how much audacity these people truly possessed.

From the beginning he had suspected that Prince Yu’s people might take advantage of the situation to eliminate Military Governor Zeng Ling. What he had not anticipated was that Prince Yu’s first target would be him.

A man of Luo Jing’s proud temperament — how could he simply swallow such an insult?

In character he and his father were nearly identical: outwardly appearing modest, inwardly holding everyone beneath contempt. He had never once openly claimed to be the foremost warrior of the northern reaches, but in his heart he knew that was exactly what he was.

He looked over the masked figures arrayed before him, and the contempt in his eyes deepened.

“Go convey my orders.”

Luo Jing issued the command in a flat, unhurried tone, then stepped forward. His attending soldiers immediately acknowledged and one of them wheeled his horse and rode off. Had those attendants grasped the full gravity of the situation, they ought to have stopped that soldier — but they dared not, and in any case they could not have imagined what was about to happen.

The whole affair had erupted without warning, and most of them did not even know that the man they had been brought here to confront was Luo Jing. This had been a deliberate calculation on Young Lord Yang Zhuo’s part — he feared that if his attendants knew the target was Luo Jing, they would lose their nerve before it even began. Yet that very deception now meant that the moment they realized who this man was, not a soul dared make the first move.

One of Luo Jing’s personal soldiers unsheathed a standard saber and called out: “General — your blade!”

“No need,” Luo Jing said without breaking stride.

Before him stood several dozen men, yet with every step he took forward, the men directly in his path began steadily retreating.

At that moment, Young Lord Yang Zhuo, watching from the shadows, knew that things had gone badly wrong. His original intent had been merely to have Luo Jing beaten senseless — a masked ambush, leave him crippled, teach him a lesson, vent some grievances. He had never anticipated that anyone would cry out the order to execute the traitor Luo Jing in the name of the young lord. He couldn’t fathom which fool had shouted that.

If he had any sense, he should have ordered everyone to disperse and let the matter end there.

But circumstances had driven things to this point, and Yang Zhuo was suddenly struck by an impulse: why not simply use this opportunity to be rid of Luo Jing once and for all? Luo Jing was one of Zeng Ling’s most ferocious generals — removing Luo Jing would be like severing one of Zeng Ling’s arms.

“Kill him — a thousand taels of gold to whoever does it!”

Yang Zhuo thought it over for a moment and decided the plan was sound. Luo Jing had only those three or four personal guards; on his side he had hundreds of skilled fighters. How could he possibly lose? They would kill Luo Jing first, then kill Zeng Ling afterward.

His father had always wavered and hesitated, and Yang Zhuo had never been satisfied with that. Now that the thought had taken root in his mind, it grew beyond his power to contain. After killing Luo Jing, he could strike while Zeng Ling was still off his guard — lead these hundreds of fighters directly to the military governor’s residence and kill Zeng Ling too.

A great reward draws bold men. Those attendants knew Luo Jing’s fearsome reputation; they knew he had once held an open challenge in Jizhou City where challengers had come in relays and still none could defeat him. But they had the numbers on their side, and numbers gave them courage.

So someone charged at Luo Jing immediately. Whether he was the foremost warrior of the northern reaches or not — the man could still take a club to the head.

Misfortune was upon them. These men had come to beat someone, not to kill — so they carried no edged weapons, only wooden clubs. One man brought his club crashing down toward Luo Jing’s skull. Luo Jing raised his arm; the club snapped against his forearm. He seized the man by the collar, yanked him close, and drove his right fist into the man’s eye socket. A single punch — the man was dead.

One punch to kill a man. The killing intent inside Luo Jing stirred to life. He was by nature a god of slaughter who placed no value on human life — now that his hands were moving, why hold anything back?

Every general who had led troops into battle understood: once the killing starts on a battlefield, whoever flinches first is the one most likely to die.

His second punch hammered into a man’s temple. That man flew sideways through the air and was already dead before he hit the ground.

Luo Jing fought without weapons, relying only on his fists. When he sparred with his soldiers as a game he would naturally pull his punches — but to kill these attendants, one punch apiece was sufficient.

At this level of martial attainment, bare fists become an instrument of death.

He grabbed a man, turned him head-down, and drove his skull into the ground; the man’s cranium shattered and blood pooled across the stones. In one fluid motion he seized the man by the ankles and used the corpse as a weapon — swinging it back and forth, that shattered head pulping whatever other heads came within its arc.

The killing took hold of him. He took up a corpse in each hand and swept them side to side, smashing up and down, and no one before him could impede his advance.

Young Lord Yang Zhuo watched with his heart in his throat. He had seen how savage Luo Jing was on the battlefield — but there Luo Jing had wielded a heavy spear and worn armor. Now he had no weapon and no protection, and yet all those men with all those clubs could not take him down?

Indeed they could not. Luo Jing seemed to be made of iron and steel.

He snatched a wooden club from someone in front of him. Both hands gripping the shaft, he snapped it across his knee — it broke in two. He drove one half into a man’s chest, the other through a man’s temple, then snatched another club and caved in another skull with a single blow.

Who could look upon such a method of killing and not be afraid?

Those attendants, most of whom possessed little genuine skill, watched Luo Jing cut down more than ten men in rapid succession and felt their courage desert them entirely. Some had already turned and run.

Luo Jing paid no heed to those behind him or to either side; he simply kept walking forward, killing one man with each step, and by the time he stopped, there were no living men before him.

He turned and moved toward the remaining groups. The others had no stomach left to fight him and scattered in flight.

Young Lord Yang Zhuo, seeing how ferociously Luo Jing moved, no longer dared to remain, and fled with a few men to protect him.

Luo Jing had killed several dozen in total. Bodies lay sprawled across the ground in every direction, and still he had not killed enough — he searched left and right for more men to kill.

From behind came the thunder of hoofbeats: three hundred personal cavalry charging in on horseback.

Luo Jing turned to look at the spot where Yang Zhuo had been standing. It was already empty — Yang Zhuo had evidently fled. Luo Jing let out a cold snort, his contempt boundless.

He stood where he was and spread both arms wide.

“Armor!”

Two personal soldiers leapt from their horses and helped Luo Jing into his battle armor, piece by piece. When the full suit of iron plate was fastened, the quality of his bearing shifted once more — he became like a cold, gleaming lance.

“Spear.”

He extended his hand again. Two soldiers carried out his heavy spear. Luo Jing closed one hand around the shaft and vaulted into the saddle.

“Young lord’s residence.”

Three words — and three hundred personal cavalry wheeled their horses and thundered after him through the streets, the drumbeat of hoofbeats rolling like a clap of thunder.

—

**Young Lord’s Residence.**

A crowd hustled Yang Zhuo back through the gates in a frantic rush. The moment he was inside he shouted at the top of his lungs: “Send someone to my father’s residence at once — tell Prince Yu to bring soldiers to rescue me!”

His men were no less afraid of dying, and they understood that this time they had well and truly awakened the god of slaughter. Once Luo Jing’s true fury was roused, who in the world could stop him?

Someone sprinted out of the young lord’s residence and ran at full speed toward Prince Yu’s manor.

Yang Zhuo ordered the gates sealed and every man inside to arm himself and hold fast. The distance between here and the prince’s manor was not great — two quarters of an hour at best, three at most; his father would hear the news and lead soldiers to the rescue.

The gates of the young lord’s residence slammed shut. The attendants brought heavy beams to brace them from the inside, and the courtyard fell into frenzied confusion. Yang Zhuo ran back to the main hall, ordered every man to block the entrance, and stood there already regretting giving the order to attack.

The messenger dared not delay, and made it to Prince Yu’s manor before Luo Jing had time to arrive — he was half-collapsed from running by the time he reached the gate, though perhaps it was fright more than exhaustion that had turned his legs to water.

The guards at Prince Yu’s manor heard that Luo Jing intended to kill the young lord and wasted no time — they ran inside to report to Prince Yu immediately.

Prince Yu was in the midst of drinking himself into a sullen haze. Wine could not dissolve his worries, but without wine his worries were even harder to bear. For days now he had been scheming over how to dispose of Zeng Ling. The way things looked in Jizhou, without soldiers of his own in hand he could not rest easy — and only by removing Zeng Ling could he seize control of the sixty or seventy thousand Jizhou troops in this city. But of course he knew Zeng Ling would not be easy to kill, and so he brooded.

Just then a servant came running to report that Luo Jing had brought soldiers and was about to kill the young lord. Prince Yu lurched to his feet.

“That savage Luo Jing — how dare he?!”

He strode toward the door, issuing orders as he went: “Muster every man in the manor — follow me to the young lord’s residence.”

A few steps further and he remembered something. He stopped and called back: “Send someone to the military governor’s residence — tell Zeng Ling to bring soldiers here!”

The military governor’s residence was roughly a quarter-hour’s walk from Prince Yu’s manor. Prince Yu sent the messenger on horseback, so the man arrived at the governor’s gates before long.

The gates of the military governor’s residence were already closed. The messenger hammered urgently at the courtyard door; a crack appeared and a voice demanded: “Who is this, knocking so brazenly?!”

The messenger rapidly explained the situation, and the men inside were equally alarmed — they hurried off at once to report.

Zeng Ling was standing in his study before the map mounted on the wall, contemplating the enemies pressing in on Jizhou from all sides: the Qingzhou army to the left, the Yuzhou army to the right, and the Yanshan Camp at his back — a force he now could not afford to ignore. The situation in Jizhou was truly difficult.

A servant ran to the study door and, without even entering, called out that something had happened. Zeng Ling was so startled he whipped around with a furious glare.

“Insolence!”

The servant gasped out the message between ragged breaths: “Forgive me, my lord — Prince Yu has just sent word that General Luo Jing is leading soldiers in a siege on the young lord’s residence. The young lord’s life is in grave danger, and His Highness requests that you bring troops immediately.”

Zeng Ling’s expression shifted abruptly. He moved instinctively toward the door, took a few steps — and then stopped dead.

His gaze sharpened. In an instant, everything became clear.

“Well played, Li Chi.”

He said it softly, to himself. Then he turned back and sat down at his desk.

After a moment of quiet thought, he spoke: “Go and tell that messenger I’ll be mustering troops and coming at once.”

His subordinate hurried out.

Zeng Ling raised his voice toward the corridor: “Have Jinzu come to me.”

Before long Jinzu arrived at the study door, just beginning to bow when Zeng Ling spoke: “Go to the main camp now and convey my orders: apart from General Luo Jing’s Tiger-and-Leopard Cavalry, not one soldier or trooper is to leave the camp. Anyone who defies this order will be executed.”

Jinzu did not yet know what had happened, but he answered immediately: “Understood, my lord.”

He turned and left at once.

Zeng Ling sat behind his desk, his fingers tapping lightly on the surface. After a moment — he began to laugh. It started as a low chuckle, then grew louder and louder, rolling free and unrestrained.

—