The speed of those two sword strokes defied description.

They were like a streak of lightning, arriving in an instant, passing through two flawlessly white snowflakes.

And in the moment the lightning passed through, the snowflakes were not shattered — the electric gleam flickered across them, dazzling and brilliant.

The first stroke: the sword tip traced a blazing straight line, yet in the span of a breath, the blade had already swept through the side of the throat from one end to the other.

The second stroke: Zao Yunjian did not hesitate for even a fraction of a heartbeat, no pride to slow him, no reluctance — he turned and drove his sword through Zhang Tang’s body.

His blade remained inside Zhang Tang’s body. He looked back at Mu Fengliu and said: “They are both dead now. I return alone. That is more reasonable.”

Mu Fengliu’s face had gone somewhat pale.

Zao Yunjian’s decisive ruthlessness had completely blindsided him. He had not anticipated it at all.

He had prepared far more words — he had intended to maneuver Zhang Tang, a man of such caliber, into their control.

To have Zhang Tang in hand would be equivalent to controlling nearly half of all officials beneath Prince Ning.

Given Zhang Tang’s actual authority and his methods, how many men could hold out against his combination of pressure and enticement when the time came?

The paramount objective of the entire plan had never been to kill Zhang Tang — it had been to bring him over.

But that one sword stroke shattered every hope Mu Fengliu had.

He stood there in a daze for a moment, then stepped forward to look at Zhang Tang — he wanted to see whether the man might still be saved.

“Out of the way!”

Mu Fengliu shouted, stepping around Zao Yunjian.

The long sword was pulled from Zhang Tang’s body — and a flash of light blazed like a white ribbon.

Mu Fengliu’s head fell to the ground.

Zao Yunjian bent down, his left hand shooting out to catch Zhang Tang’s waist and sling him across his shoulder. His right hand swung the long sword behind him in a throw.

The sword became a streak of light, running through three or four black-clad assassins in succession.

Zao Yunjian charged forward. As he leapt, his heel hooked out, sweeping Mu Fengliu’s sword free of its scabbard.

Mu Fengliu still stood there, blood spraying from his neck.

And through the spray of blood, Zao Yunjian, carrying a man and claiming a sword, had already burst into the inner room.

The sword he had thrown pierced through three or four men and, impossibly, still had momentum — it came flying toward Proprietor Zhou.

In the chaos of this sudden reversal, Proprietor Zhou too had only just caught up with what was happening. He drew a blade and knocked the long sword aside.

When he looked again, Zao Yunjian had already carried Zhang Tang into the inner room.

In the next instant, several straight, crisscrossing gleams blazed inside the room.

The rear window was cut open. Zao Yunjian hooked a stool with his foot, flicked his foot, and the stool flew out through the window.

The stool sailed out first. He then slung Zhang Tang to the back of the building.

Outside the back, black-clad fighters were everywhere. Seeing movement from the broken window, they immediately took aim — only to find it was a stool.

In that single instant, Zao Yunjian had already emerged.

The long sword in front, several sparks flashed, and gashes appeared across the faces of the black-clad fighters before him.

Then their heads split open — into four, five separate pieces.

Zao Yunjian flung Zhang Tang forward — the man flew more than a zhang upward — and in that moment, Zao Yunjian danced among the crowd.

Has anyone ever seen lightning cleaving through a butterfly?

Zao Yunjian’s sword was exactly that.

He sliced through the crowd, caught the falling Zhang Tang with a single grab, and charged forward again.

In his wake, more than ten men had fallen.

But at that moment, a crossbow bolt struck Zao Yunjian’s leg. His body lurched forward and he nearly fell.

“Put me down! You run yourself!”

Zhang Tang cried out hoarsely.

“Too slow.”

Zao Yunjian replied in three words, gritted his teeth, and charged forward again.

He thought to himself: if he gave up now, that sword stroke he had just driven through his lord Zhang Tang — would it not have been entirely wasted?

That stroke had pierced through Zhang Tang’s body, yet had steered clear of any vital points — only a clean wound through flesh and muscle, front to back.

“Put me down, I can run.”

Zhang Tang called out again.

“Too slow.”

Again just those words, seemingly empty of all feeling. Zao Yunjian strode forward.

In the instant he cut the enemy’s throat, he had already seen Mu Fengliu’s hand close around the sword hilt, with the beginnings of a surging force.

And so he concluded: if they truly came to blows, even against Mu Fengliu alone he had no certainty of victory.

What’s more, behind Mu Fengliu there was still Proprietor Zhou, whose martial skill might well equal his own — and behind him still, at least several hundred black-clad assassins.

That had all been decided in the space of a lightning flash. He had abandoned his original intent to draw the sword back, and instead drove it into Zhang Tang.

His own body, at that very moment, happened to block Mu Fengliu’s line of sight — and that was the only chance to kill Mu Fengliu.

Zao Yunjian carried Zhang Tang forward. Zhang Tang’s upper body was out in front, his lower body trailing behind, no vital points exposed — and even if a bolt struck his legs, it would not be fatal.

As Zao Yunjian ran and cut, he said: “I must apologize, my lord — I need to use your legs as a shield for my back.”

Zhang Tang made a sound of acknowledgment, tore open his garment, and pressed cloth into the wound to staunch it — but he could plug the front, not the back.

Zhang Tang of course understood Zao Yunjian’s thinking. If a bolt struck Zao Yunjian in the back, both of them would die instantly.

Zao Yunjian’s ruthless decisiveness was something Zhang Tang had witnessed and acknowledged long ago.

If Zhang Tang was ruthless, then Zao Yunjian’s ruthlessness was in no way inferior.

And this ruthlessness was rooted in calm.

Yet the pursuing black-clad fighters were too many. The crossbows in their hands were the standard-issue weapons of the Great Chu Imperial Army — their destructive power was enormous.

After running only a few dozen zhang, a second bolt struck Zao Yunjian’s leg.

He staggered again, finding it difficult to hold on. So he gave a word of warning: “My lord, take care.”

And he flung Zhang Tang forward — there was a pile of firewood stacked against the wall of a household ahead. Zhang Tang landed on it with a muffled groan.

Zao Yunjian used his sword for support, barely keeping himself upright, and looked back. The black-clad fighters were almost upon him.

“My lord, into the courtyard. Do you still have the short blade?”

Zao Yunjian asked in the same steady voice.

Zhang Tang struggled upright, kicked open the gate of that household with one foot, and felt at his waist — the short blade was still there.

“Here!”

He called back.

Zao Yunjian breathed deeply twice, then gripped his sword and took his stand in the gateway: “My lord, go inside. If I cannot hold them off, my lord’s short blade—”

Zhang Tang caught his breath and said: “I know what this blade is for.”

Zao Yunjian gave a sound of acknowledgment.

Then, at that moment, he heard the sound of thunder.

“Tingwei Army!”

“Charge!”

From behind those black-clad fighters, sixty or seventy Tingwei black armor soldiers came cutting through — all of them bloodied, armor in disarray, yet their momentum rolling like thunder.

More than two hundred black armor soldiers had been besieged by over a thousand men of the martial world. They had lost more than half their number to death in battle, and still they had broken through layer upon layer of obstruction.

All along this road of slaughter, dozens more were felled by crossbow fire.

More than two hundred black armor horsemen — by the time they broke through to this point, only sixty or seventy remained.

But!

Sixty or seventy — those were sixty or seventy tigers.

Even surrounded by a pack of wolves, a tiger’s authority endured.

With one battle cry, black cavalry broke the formation.

Sixty or seventy men — cutting hard out from among a mass of black-clad assassins, their battle blades carrying not only the blood of the enemy, but the battle spirit of the Tingwei Army.

Dozens cut a bloody path through to the courtyard outside.

The leading Tingwei soldier called out: “My lord, please mount!”

Having said this, he leapt from his horse’s back, yielding the warhorse to Zhang Tang, then turned and walked to the back of the formation, gripping his blade and taking his stand.

His back to his comrades. His face to the oncoming enemy.

Black armor stained with blood — yet he stood there, as solid as a mountain.

From all four directions, innumerable black-clad figures appeared rapidly, looping around from the other side to cut off the way forward.

Having merged with the fighters on this side, their numbers were still perhaps seven or eight hundred strong.

Surrounding from all sides, pressing inward slowly.

“It seems none of us are getting out.”

Zhang Tang said: “Then we fight to the death!”

“Hu!”

Sixty-odd wounded Tingwei soldiers let out a unified shout. They dismounted together, rapidly forming into battle array.

Through the rear of the black-clad crowd, Proprietor Zhou came rushing up. He looked at those Tingwei soldiers now encircled once more, and finally let out a breath of relief.

If Zhang Tang and the Tingwei soldiers had slipped away like this, there would be no explaining today’s affair.

Mu Fengliu was a figure of high standing within the Mountain-River Seal. Even he had died — if the target also escaped, Proprietor Zhou knew he too would meet a grisly end.

Most critically, the one overseeing this operation was watching from some place he could not see. There would be no opportunity to offer lies.

“Don’t give them the chance for a death-battle.”

Proprietor Zhou called out loudly: “Everyone who still has crossbow bolts, step forward! Shoot them dead — they want to fight to the last? It won’t be that easy for them!”

The black-clad fighters who still had bolts stepped forward quickly, spreading into a great arc formation.

Proprietor Zhou extended his hand, snatched the crossbow from the hand of a nearby black-clad fighter, and strode to the front of the formation, leveling the crossbow at Zao Yunjian.

“You brought this on yourselves!”

Proprietor Zhou bellowed, and his finger squeezed the crossbow trigger.

Thud!

A spear came flying over.

With a dull impact, the spear pierced clean through Proprietor Zhou’s body. Under the tremendous force, Proprietor Zhou’s body tilted backward — the bolts he had already fired went shooting upward into the sky.

The spear through his chest slammed him onto his back, pinning him to the ground.

Then a torrent of spears came flying over.

That great black mass of assassins was immediately mowed down in swathes by this dense barrage of flying spears.

They fell into chaos at once, looking in every direction — black-armored cavalry had appeared from all four sides.

What came from all four directions did not seem like cavalry at all — it seemed like heavy, rolling stormclouds, with lightning crackling within.

“Those who murdered my comrades: death!”

With one thunderous roar, another volley of spears was hurled.

After the volley, Tingwei Army Thousand-Officer Shang Qingzhu raised a hand and pulled down the visor of the iron helm on his head.

Black armor. A night-fiend’s face.

With his motion as signal, countless Tingwei black armor soldiers raised their hands and pulled their visors down.

Countless night-fiends.

“Attack!”

Black cavalry moved forward.

Slaughter.

Half an hour later, the black armor soldiers who had spread out in pursuit returned from all directions — some with corpses dragging behind their warhorses, others with severed heads hanging from their saddles.

The most ruthless force beneath the clear sky is the faceless black — the most fearsome force in the light of day is black armor.

Tingwei Army Thousand-Officer Shang Qingzhu leapt down from his horse. As his visor slid upward, blood was flung into the air.

He walked with great strides to stand before Zhang Tang and Zao Yunjian: “Under orders of the Chief Tingwei, I have come to bring you home.”

One of the wounded Tingwei soldiers standing at the courtyard gate rasped out a shout, raising his long blade: “The Tingwei Army is unrivaled!”

“Hu!”

Every Tingwei Army soldier raised their battle blades.

Sunlight poured down. The bodies on the ground were still bleeding.

The earth does not remember the smell of blood — but the enemy will always remember the killing blades of the Tingwei Army.

Some four or five li away, a middle-aged man standing in a wooden tower, watching all this through a far-seeing lens, let out a soft sigh.

He turned and walked downstairs, saying as he went: “Zhang Tang, who is not easy to kill. The Tingwei Army, who is not easy to provoke.”

He reached the back courtyard at the base of the building, where a horse carriage sat waiting.

“Back to Jizhou. We shall plan again.”

He said this, pulled open the carriage door, and stepped inside — then froze.

Inside the carriage sat a refined-looking man in white robes, holding a booklet and reading.

Seeing him get in, the man in white smiled warmly: “Go and drive the carriage. Take yourself to the gate of the Jizhou Tingwei Office.”

The middle-aged man asked: “And you are?”

The man in white answered: “Ye Zhangzhu.”

The middle-aged man stood still for a moment, then sighed.

He walked to the front of the carriage himself, and when he picked up the reins, his hands still could not help but tremble.

He turned and asked: “Master Ye, why would you be here?”

Master Ye replied in an unhurried tone: “Because Prince Ning placed me here.”

Master Ye set down his booklet and asked: “Do you know the way?”

The middle-aged man exhaled heavily: “I do.”

He flicked his wrist. The horse stepped forward.

—