Li Chi was utterly unmoved. He had just killed Chudong without a flicker of hesitation, and all the color had drained from the old man’s face.

Que Nan cried out: “Master — it was them! They’re the ones who killed Eldest Martial Brother and the others! One of them is a little Daoist from Dragon Tiger Mountain — a bit fat—”

Before she finished speaking, her master, the wandering Daoist Quanyuan, shifted his gaze to Peng Shiqiu.

Peng Shiqiu shrank behind Li Chi. “The hell are you looking at me for…”

Quanyuan breathed out slowly. “Since we have met, it is simply the retribution of this world that no one escapes. You killed my beloved disciples; I shall kill you. If you had a master of your own, you could have that master come and kill me.”

He continued walking forward. “My Daoist name is Quanyuan — but since I have returned to the Central Plains, I shall use my given name again. I am Fang Yuzou. Though it makes no difference — you will have no chance to tell anyone. After I have killed you, I will write my name in your blood on this spot, so that if your friends and family come looking, they will know whom to seek.”

*Well, I’m ever so grateful,* Peng Shiqiu thought sourly.

But just as Fang Yuzou was still speaking, a great mass of horse bandits came surging around from behind Li Chi’s group.

Earlier, when Peng Shiqiu had vaulted off the wall and Chudong had followed, the drop was nothing for the two of them — but for the bandits it was another matter. They had gone around to find the rampart access slope and only now came running up in force. When they saw the pale chubby Daoist still standing there, the whole mob charged with a roar.

White and chubby — hard to miss.

A hundred-some men bearing down.

Fang Yuzou, still advancing, came to a stop. He didn’t know who the bandits were or who they were after.

Peng Shiqiu saw his hesitation immediately. He flung his arm out and pointed directly at Fang Yuzou: “Kill him! All of you, come over here and kill this old villain! Right here, kill him!”

Then, to Fang Yuzou: “Ha! Old villain, you’re finished now! Look who’s surrounded this time!”

Something visibly shifted in Fang Yuzou’s expression. He looked again at the bandits. He was arrogant, but at this moment he couldn’t honestly claim to like those odds — and so after a moment’s hesitation, he backed away.

“I will find you again.”

With those words, Fang Yuzou turned to Que Nan. “Let’s go.”

Que Nan was urgent, anguished: “Master — how can we just leave, what about Martial Sister—”

Fang Yuzou paid her no heed. He had already launched himself backward. Que Nan looked down at Chudong’s body, and finally, with no recourse, turned and followed.

Li Chi smiled. “Interesting.”

“Making a living on that trick,” Peng Shiqiu said.

Li Chi mused, with something that might have been faint admiration: “By that measure, you’re actually more like my master’s true disciple.”

Without thinking, Peng Shiqiu said: “Is your master that shameless?”

Li Chi: “…”

Peng Shiqiu: “…”

The two of them looked at each other for a moment, both somewhat at a loss.

“Should we… hide for a bit?”

Peng Shiqiu asked.

Li Chi made a sound of assent, then looked down at the iron talons still on Chudong’s hands. He bent and removed them, tried fitting them onto his own fingers.

He wasn’t sure why, but with a few iron talons added, something about the sensation felt powerfully right — an irrational but vivid conviction that he was some manner of wolf.

The two of them turned and set off, bandits howling in pursuit behind them.

But how clever they were. How devious.

They deliberately ran in the direction Fang Yuzou and the others had retreated — so that to anyone watching, it looked exactly as though they were chasing those people.

Peng Shiqiu even shouted as he ran: “Men, keep up with me! Smash that old wretch to pieces! Kill him, and I’ll see you all richly rewarded!”

The bandits chased those two; those two chased Fang Yuzou’s group; Fang Yuzou’s group ran faster and faster.

Spotting a lane entrance, Li Chi yanked Peng Shiqiu’s arm and turned them down it, then cut off in a different direction.

By the time Fang Yuzou looked back, there was no one behind him.

—

Inside the lane, Li Chi pointed at a courtyard wall: “In there.”

Peng Shiqiu, anxious: “What about you?”

The corner of Li Chi’s mouth curved slightly. “Don’t you think this place is made for killing?”

Peng Shiqiu froze.

It was a dead-end lane — no exit from this direction.

“Trust me,” Li Chi said. “A hundred or so men. That’s nothing.”

“Easy for you to say. One person against a hundred-plus — they’re not here for games. Those are hardened killers.”

“Just find Zhang Yuxu and the others. I can handle this alone.”

He turned and walked to the far end of the lane, stopping at the dead end, turning to face the entrance. Behind him, the wooden door of a courtyard was shut fast.

He had barely taken his position before the bandits came pouring in — and when they saw one man standing there alone, they surged forward with weapons raised.

Peng Shiqiu hauled himself over a courtyard wall. He told himself he couldn’t simply leave — if Li Chi couldn’t hold them, he’d need saving.

The lane was barely half a *zhang* wide. Four men shoulder to shoulder, that was the width of it.

The first bandit reached Li Chi before his blade was even up. Li Chi’s hand swept out; the iron talons opened his throat. In the same motion, Li Chi caught the man’s long saber from his falling grip and brought it crashing down — splitting the next man’s skull halfway through.

He left the saber embedded there. His left hand came out from below in an upward slash, the iron talons catching a bandit from the belly, tearing upward all the way to the jaw. The man was disemboweled; the glistening mass of his innards spilled out and thudded onto the ground.

This lane was only this wide. No matter how many bandits there were, they couldn’t deploy freely. In here, Li Chi was their nightmare.

He killed with extraordinary speed, each strike a single, certain kill.

The bodies mounted. The bandits behind had no choice but to trample their comrades’ corpses to push forward.

In the courtyard, Peng Shiqiu crouched and grimaced so hard his face contorted with the effort.

Two voices argued without cease inside his head. One said: *you two aren’t even that close — don’t throw your life away for someone else’s.* The other said: *what are you talking about, you pathetic coward — men of the jianghu don’t act like this, we’re friends.*

He stood up. He sat back down. He stood up again.

Getting into a real fight, staking his actual life — that had genuinely never been his way. Since coming down from the Daoist school he had never truly fought to the death; his answer to every situation had always been to find an escape. But the hesitation tearing at him now was unbearable, and he wasn’t sure how long he struggled.

In the end, he made his choice.

He let out a battle cry — *what the hell, I’m going for it* — and launched himself back over the wall into the lane.

Then he went completely still.

The color drained from his face. A wave of cold rose through him; his spine went rigid with a sudden chill.

The lane was carpeted with bodies.

Li Chi stood at the far end, drenched in blood. He had killed his way from the back of the lane to the entrance. Behind him, corpses blanketed the narrow alley floor. Bodies on top of bodies. The stench of blood was so thick it made the stomach heave.

Li Chi heard the sound and glanced back.

He saw Peng Shiqiu shaking.

“Oi,” Li Chi called out. “Let’s go.”

For some reason Peng Shiqiu flinched at the sound of his name. He stepped forward. Every step landed on a body. Every time he lifted his foot, it came away with a wet, adhesive sound he knew immediately for what it was. His scalp crawled.

—

On the other side of town.

Zhang Yuxu ran and looked back at the bandits still relentlessly pursuing him. He wondered whether Peng Shiqiu had gotten clear.

That fellow’s martial skill was nothing remarkable — his mouth was his most formidable weapon, but you couldn’t talk enemies into retreating.

*Or could you?* Zhang Yuxu had no idea that Peng Shiqiu had just done exactly that.

He was still turning this over in his mind when a figure swept past him from ahead — robes and long sleeves billowing, like a banished immortal descending to earth.

“You go first. I’ll cover your rear.”

Mister Ye didn’t stop. He walked straight toward the bandits, closing the distance in long strides. The force chasing Zhang Yuxu was sizeable — well over a hundred.

But Mister Ye’s killing intent was running heavy today.

So these bandits had drawn the short lot.

*Cold wind. Killing intent.*

The bandits charging toward him saw a middle-aged man who looked like an educated gentleman, and felt nothing but contempt. A blade came sweeping down at him.

Mister Ye extended his hand and pressed his palm against the bandit’s chest.

*Crack.*

Something exploded outward from the man’s sternum — a burst of force that sent him flying backward, the shockwave carrying him into the five or six men behind him and bowling them all down.

Mister Ye’s sleeve swept wide. It passed across a bandit’s face like a length of iron — half the man’s face simply ceased to exist.

Zhang Yuxu watched this, his eyes going wide.

He knew Mister Ye could fight. He had understood that since the clash with Qitian. What he had not understood was that what he’d seen then had not been Mister Ye’s full power.

Mister Ye walked alone into the mass of enemies, and seemed to carry some invisible but overwhelming field of force. No one could get close; each man who tried was sent flying.

The bandits were draped along the wall like fallen leaves, dead the moment Mister Ye touched them. The billowing sleeve had become the most lethal weapon in existence — one sweep, one death, the impact tearing through a bandit’s chest, shredding his clothes to fragments in a shower of cloth and blood.

Zhang Yuxu saw what was happening and remembered with a start: he couldn’t just leave Mister Ye to hold off the bandits while he stood there stupefied.

He shouted a warning and moved up to provide support.

“No need,” Mister Ye said, still dealing blows as he spoke. “Li Chi and I made a wager just now — who kills more of these animals today.”

*That’s a wager that counts as normal?* Zhang Yuxu thought. *One person against more than a hundred — no sane mind frames a contest like that.*

In truth, Mister Ye’s situation was harder than Li Chi’s. Li Chi’s terrain had been exceptional — the lane’s width forced the bandits to face him one at a time. The wall section was considerably broader, which meant the bandits could surround Mister Ye from multiple sides.

Not that it seemed to make any difference.

Where Li Chi’s kills had been precise and pointed — one strike, one death — Mister Ye’s kills were like an autumn gale stripping bare a tree.

Zhang Yuxu watched with growing amazement. He had always been a confident person — Dragon Tiger Mountain’s emissary to the world had to be — but after coming to know Li Chi and the people around him, he had found himself confronted at every turn with people who were, in some way or another, simply not normal.

“Mister Ye!” Zhang Yuxu called out. “That fighting style — does it have a name?”

Mister Ye moved through the bandits like a figure from another world, unhurried even amid their surrounding assault. Between strikes, he answered: “None yet. I arrived at it myself, feeling my way.”

“The way it moves — like a startled swan, like drifting clouds,” Zhang Yuxu said. “I think Mister Ye’s technique ought to be called *Flowing Cloud Flying Sleeves.*”

Mister Ye seemed to pause for just a moment.

Then he broke into a long, pleased laugh.

“A fine name!”

When he was happy, the bandits suffered all the more.

What had begun as the bandits surrounding Mister Ye became, after dozens of deaths, the bandits fleeing in every direction. Mister Ye pursued them down the wall, sleeves drifting, killing with a grace that evoked something otherworldly — yet the bodies left behind were anything but.

—