Li Chi had anticipated that this woman would slip away again. She had a genuine gift for it — she had evaded disaster time and again, including once when Elder Yu himself had moved against her personally.

This time, she would not escape.

Two crushing blows. The woman’s body was nearly embedded in the wall. In the swirling dust, she lost all signs of life in an instant.

Mister Ye came sweeping across from a distance. At the sight of the scene he couldn’t help but let out a quiet sigh — even from here, the crater in the wall told him exactly how brutal it had been.

He’d been worried about Li Chi coming alone. He hadn’t expected Li Chi to finish this quickly, or to strike this hard.

“A woman?” Mister Ye stopped at Li Chi’s side and studied what remained. The face was beyond distinguishing.

Li Chi nodded.

“Do you know her?” Mister Ye asked.

Li Chi shook his head.

Mister Ye exhaled. “I believe this is the first time you’ve killed a woman.”

“Evil knows no gender,” Li Chi said.

He paused, then added: “Neither do enemies.”

Without another glance at the body behind them, Mister Ye and Li Chi turned and walked away together. The woman could never have imagined she would die this suddenly. She had known she might die someday — but she hadn’t imagined it would come so abruptly, or that she would die looking like this.

“That enemy you killed in town before — you didn’t know who he was either,” Mister Ye said as they walked. “The eighth-ranking leader of the Yanshan Camp, whatever he was called.”

“I didn’t know him,” Li Chi confirmed. “He was genuinely one of the ugliest men I’ve ever seen.”

“And that one just now — you didn’t know her either. But she was probably a very beautiful woman.”

“Is there some connection between the two?”

“An ugly man and a beautiful woman,” Mister Ye said, “both trying to kill you.”

Li Chi sighed. “And what kind of connection is that?”

“No connection at all,” Mister Ye said, still walking. “Ugly or beautiful, man or woman — kill the damn lot of them.”

Li Chi blinked.

Mister Ye was a man of refined and genteel bearing. He had just cursed. Li Chi looked at him; Mister Ye shrugged. “My killing intent is running heavy today. It pairs well with rough language.”

“Same,” Li Chi said.

Mister Ye pointed off to one side. “I’ll head over there. Since we’re both riding such heavy killing intent today, shall we make a contest of it?”

“What are the stakes?”

Mister Ye considered. “Whoever loses has to give Yu Jiuling a kiss.”

Li Chi stared at him.

After a long pause: “Mister Ye, if you want to, just tell him directly… I won’t compete with you — I don’t think you have any rivals among us for that particular prize.”

Mister Ye burst out laughing, rose to his full height, and swept away, his great sleeves billowing behind him.

—

Up on the wall, the two little chubby Daoists had drawn a sizeable crowd of bandits after them, each running in a different direction — round of figure, but not at all slow. Their whole career in the jianghu rested on a single word: *run.*

Down below, Xiu Luoluo had stopped overthinking. He turned to Chudong. “You take one, I’ll take the other. Deal with them first.”

Chudong nodded, picked a direction at random, and set off in pursuit.

Peng Shiqiu ran and glanced back. The bandits behind him weren’t as fast — he was deliberately leading them to scatter, so he had to regulate his pace. But at that moment, he caught sight of a woman leaping over the heads of the bandits behind him. She vaulted off shoulders and skulls, overtaking the column from above, moving with startling speed.

Peng Shiqiu spun back and accelerated. A round little figure in full sprint was, somehow, rather endearing.

“You’re the one — that little Daoist!”

Chudong had spotted the Daoist robes and the round build and assumed this was the one who had fought her senior brother in Jizhou — she wasn’t about to let him go.

Peng Shiqiu heard the accusation and knew at once something was wrong. He didn’t know who this woman was, but he was completely certain she was chasing the wrong person.

“I’m not the fat one you’re looking for! We’re both fat, but the one you want is uglier than me! Open your bloody eyes!”

“It’s you!” Chudong shouted, furious. “I’d know you if you turned to ash! How dare you act the coward now — are you really so pathetic!”

“Turned to ash my foot — you’ve got the wrong person entirely! You couldn’t identify the right pile of ash to save your life!”

Chudong was certain it was him, and pursued with gritted teeth.

Peng Shiqiu’s mind raced: *Zhang Yuxu, Zhang Yuxu — what on earth did you do to get this woman after you, and why is she half-blind into the bargain?*

In the heat of the moment it never occurred to him to think back to what had happened in Jizhou — and in any case he hadn’t personally witnessed it.

Chudong locked her conviction onto this chubby Daoist, drove herself harder, and the gap between them began to narrow. Their combined speed had left the bandit crowd far behind.

Peng Shiqiu was genuinely getting winded. He glanced back — the vicious woman was already only about a *zhang* behind him. He was alarmed.

Still running, he felt around his person, patting himself down, and flung back whatever he found. Chudong behind him had to keep dodging, and for a moment Peng Shiqiu managed to open the gap again — but there are only so many things a person carries. Once everything was gone, with no hesitation at all, he undid his Daoist robe.

He yanked it off and flung it behind him, hoping it would land over her head and at best trip her up.

She dodged it. The gap closed again.

So off came the under-robe too, hurled backward for good measure.

And now things became interesting. All of Peng Shiqiu’s soft, pale flesh was exposed to full daylight.

As he ran, his chest and belly moved like waves.

All that soft plumpness bounced up and down in a thoroughly jiggly fashion.

“Now you can see clearly!” he blurted, frantic, having totally failed to think through the logic — that if she’d mistaken him while clothed, she’d never seen the other person unclothed either.

Chudong assumed he was deliberately toying with her.

She let out a furious roar, launched off both feet like a hawk, and drove both heels toward his back. The gap was narrow enough for it.

Peng Shiqiu saw it coming and lunged sideways just in time. Chudong’s kick missed and she hit the ground.

But Peng Shiqiu had stopped. Running again was out of the question now.

He was reasonably sure he was no match for this woman — so without a moment’s hesitation he jumped off the city wall.

Gao County’s walls weren’t high, barely over a *zhang*. On the way down he pushed off the wall face to carry himself sideways, and rolled to his feet on landing.

He thought he’d shaken her. Instead, Chudong came jumping right down after him.

He ran. She caught his shoulder — her fingers drew blood — yanked him back, and drove her fist toward his throat.

A hand came in from the side.

In the instant before the blow connected, it closed around Chudong’s wrist.

Li Chi took her wrist, pulled, twisted, then drove a side kick into her chest. Chudong’s feet scraped the dirt as she was hurled backward into the wall.

Li Chi looked Peng Shiqiu over, confirmed the shoulder wound wasn’t severe, and exhaled with relief — then realized something.

Peng Shiqiu wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Li Chi stared. Peng Shiqiu raised a hand to cover his chest and said, “It’s her fault!”

Li Chi turned back to Chudong and walked toward her. “You wretch — of all the moments to be doing *that*—”

“It’s not what you’re making it sound!” Peng Shiqiu cried.

Li Chi paused. He turned back to Peng Shiqiu. “Not her idea — yours? And you’re *this* sort of person?”

“*Die—*”

Chudong was on her feet again. It didn’t matter anymore whether this was Li Chi or the chubby Daoist — both of them were her mortal enemies. By now she could see plainly that she had chased the wrong man, but what of it?

They would both die.

She swung a punch at Li Chi. Her hands bore something specialized — shaped like iron talons, sharp as blades. That was why Li Chi had seized her wrist earlier rather than blocking the strike.

As the punch came in, Li Chi didn’t move much — a slight lateral shift, his shoulder dropping.

The blow was aimed at his throat. He moved clear; the fist passed over his shoulder and punched empty air.

Li Chi drove sharply upward. His shoulder braced against her arm from below; his hand came down on the back of her elbow.

Shoulder rising, hand pressing down.

*Crack.* Her arm broke.

Chudong screamed.

Li Chi pulled her arm outward, then drove his elbow into her chest, knocking her back a step; he followed immediately with a kick to her abdomen.

All one flowing motion.

Chudong collapsed face-first. She struggled to rise. Li Chi stepped behind her, pressed one hand flat to the top of her head, and forced her back down.

Then his other hand seized her uninjured arm, lifted it, wrenched backward.

*Crack.* That arm broke too.

At that moment, several dark shapes came sweeping in from a distance — the foremost wearing long flowing robes, sleeves billowing. From a distance, in the wrong light, he might almost have been mistaken for Mister Ye.

The figure stopped a short distance away and called out to Li Chi.

“Stop.”

Li Chi looked up. The newcomer was an elderly man — around fifty or more, grey robes, a long beard reaching his chest.

“Release her,” the old man said, “and I will spare your life.”

Li Chi stayed where he was, one hand pinning Chudong to the ground, the other gripping her ruined arm. He looked at the old man. The old man looked back.

“She is my disciple,” the old man said, his voice cold with venom. “If you kill her, I will ensure there is not enough left of you to bury.”

“Mm.”

Li Chi lifted Chudong’s broken arm, then pressed her own iron talons against her temple, and shoved.

*Thud.*

The talon pierced her temple. Blood welled up immediately. Li Chi released her; her body pitched forward onto its face. Blood poured from the wound and spread quickly across the ground.

The old man on the opposite side had gone white.

“Martial sister—!” someone beside him let out a piercing cry, their voice cracking.

Li Chi looked over. He recognized her — one of the two women who had escaped from Jizhou City. One he’d already dealt with; the other he would not be letting go.

It seemed today was not a good day by any accounting.

Li Chi had now killed two women. And in front of him stood a third.

The old man drew a long, slow breath. He looked at Li Chi and said: “You have no path out of this alive.”

Li Chi said nothing. He couldn’t be bothered.

So this old man was the Dragon Tiger Mountain renegade that Zhang Yuxu had spoken of.

Rather than responding, Li Chi simply extended one hand, palm up, bent his little finger and ring finger inward, and crooked his middle and index fingers toward himself in a slow beckoning gesture.

—