The local people called this lake the Little Xing Lake. The origin of the name had long been lost.

Living by the mountain, you live off the mountain; living by water, you live off the water. The lake was large, with numerous villages clustered around its shore, and many of the inhabitants had never fled — because they did not know where else to go, or how they would survive if they left.

Even knowing the Shanhai Army rebels were attacking Longtou Pass just thirty li away, they had clung to the hope that the rebels would not come to their village.

So when the rebels truly came, the villagers were badly frightened, with no means to protect themselves.

Mei Yan had people scour the nearby villages and bring back the largest fishing boat they could find. Though weathered and worn, it was five or six zhang in length — more than enough for dozens of people.

But to tow such a boat through the water by human muscle alone — how grueling would that be?

The fishermen were forced at knifepoint into the water, roped together, and made to swim forward while Mei Yan stood at the prow brandishing a repeating crossbow, savoring the terror on their faces and laughing out loud with self-satisfaction.

When he saw someone’s rope go slack, he would shoot at them with the crossbow. It wasn’t long before blood was spreading through the water.

Mei Yan was genuinely waiting for blood-hungry large fish to come and tear into the injured villagers. After a good long while with nothing appearing, his interest began to wane and he was growing irritable.

Then he noticed, coming from the far shore, a small skiff — barely a zhang in length, carrying only two people: a fisherman at the pole, and a man sitting cross-legged at the prow.

And so Mei Yan found a new amusement.

“Ram it!”

Mei Yan shouted down at the fishermen in the water: “Swim toward that little boat! Capsize it, and I won’t kill you. Fail, and I’ll kill every last one of you.”

The fishermen were terrified. They had no choice but to strike out unwillingly toward the approaching skiff.

The old fisherman on the small boat saw the larger boat bearing down on him and was immediately thrown into a panic.

The middle-aged man sitting cross-legged at the prow of the skiff saw it too. He frowned slightly.

“Don’t try to dodge!”

A voice came from Mei Yan’s boat, shouting at the small skiff: “The Tsunami King says — if that boat dares to dodge, we’ll chop you into bait!”

“Hear us? Stay where you are — don’t move! Let us ram you!”

“Stay still and behave, or we’ll chop you into pieces!”

A chorus of shouting from all directions. The old fisherman’s fear only deepened. Instinctively, he looked toward the man sitting at the prow — but the man showed not the slightest reaction.

How could the old fisherman not try to dodge? He strained against the pole to turn the boat around and flee. But one man polling alone clearly could not match the speed of the larger boat coming at him.

“He dares to run!”

Mei Yan shouted: “Shoot them dead!”

At his command, his personal guards snatched up their crossbows and unleashed a volley at the small boat.

“Sit behind me.”

The middle-aged man at the prow of the small boat said it quietly, his voice calm — yet carrying an authority that brooked no argument.

The old fisherman’s legs gave way and he crouched behind the middle-aged man without even thinking about it, his only thought being that he could not die like this.

The crossbow bolts came flying toward the small boat. The middle-aged man still sat cross-legged, unmoving — only raising his left hand, plucking the incoming bolts from the air one by one, and holding them in his right hand.

Could one call such a sight anything other than terrifying?

These rebel soldiers were no great marksmen, and not every bolt flew with precision. But however many flew toward that man, not a single one found its mark — all were caught in his hand.

Then, with a flick of his wrist, he sent them all flying back toward the large boat. More than a few men had no time to dodge — crossbow bolts punched into them, and they collapsed screaming.

The bolts left his hand like flowers scattered from the sky.

At least five or six men were struck. They cried out and crumpled.

The sight of this was enough to make even Mei Yan flinch — but he had his guards around him, so he immediately screamed: “Kill him! Kill him now!”

His guards began shooting wildly. But what a waste of the standard repeating crossbows issued to the Dachu garrison troops.

The middle-aged man was still as he had been — seated cross-legged at the prow, catching bolts with an easy hand. Very quickly, he had caught another fistful.

Another flick of the wrist. The bolts flew back, and more rebel soldiers were hit and sent sprawling.

By now the two boats were about one and a half zhang apart. The middle-aged man watched the rebels fumbling to reload their emptied crossbow cases, and rose to his full height.

“Do not go anywhere. I still need to come back to your little boat. Wait for me here.”

He said it to the old fisherman, then pushed off from the prow.

The old fisherman only felt the bow suddenly plunge down beneath him, the stern shooting up — and if his years of experience on the water hadn’t kept him from capsizing in that instant, he might have been thrown headlong into the water.

He watched in disbelief as the man who had seemed like no one special took a single leap — and covered more than a zhang to land on the big boat.

A heavy thud.

The middle-aged man’s feet came down solidly on the prow of the large boat, as though he weighed a thousand jin. The moment he landed, the bow of the large boat plunged deep and the stern flew upward.

The impact sent everyone on the large boat sprawling, tumbling toward the prow.

Mei Yan, who had been standing right at the bow, toppled forward and fell flat — directly at the middle-aged man’s feet.

The middle-aged man looked down at Mei Yan. His face showed nothing — as though he were not a person at all, but a stone, empty of emotions, of joy or sorrow, of desire or feeling.

“Are you Mei Yan?”

The middle-aged man asked.

Mei Yan struggled to raise his head and demanded: “Who the hell are you?!”

The middle-aged man actually answered: “Nie She.”

Mei Yan raged: “I don’t care who you are — you die right now!”

Around him, several of his personal guards had piled on top of him in the tumble. Bodies were tangled in a heap. The large boat rocked and turned, everyone scrambling, but the middle-aged man stood at the prow as though rooted there — perfectly still.

“Answer me. Are you the Shanhai Army’s Tsunami King, Mei Yan?”

The middle-aged man asked again, in the same toneless voice.

Mei Yan raged: “I am the Tsunami King! You know who I am, and you still dare to provoke me?!”

The middle-aged man gave a small nod. “Good enough.”

He bent forward slightly and brought a palm down on the crown of Mei Yan’s head with a flat crack. Mei Yan’s entire body went rigid at once, all four limbs jerking taut.

An instant later, Mei Yan’s eyes rolled back. The pupils vanished, leaving both eyes white as bone.

An instant after that, blood began to seep from all seven of Mei Yan’s orifices. His body remained rigid — it was as though one palm strike had simply frozen him solid.

At this moment, among the guards, someone finally found his voice. It came out trembling: “Nie She… the Blade Emperor Nie She!”

The middle-aged man glanced back — and his brow furrowed slightly, because he saw the old fisherman on the small skiff rowing with all his might, desperately trying to turn the boat around and flee.

He could have called out, and the old fisherman would have been too frightened to run.

But he said nothing. Because he did not think it necessary.

“A pity. It’s not Mu Fengliu.”

In his estimation, killing a Tsunami King like Mei Yan was nothing more than a side note to killing Mu Fengliu — a bonus thrown in with the real purchase. It barely even qualified as a bonus.

Nie She bent forward and pulled a saber from somewhere among the bodies. Then he swept it out in a single straight line — a clean horizontal stroke. Where the blade passed, people were cut in two.

But he did not use brute force. He appeared calm, almost indifferent — yet how to kill all the men piled together at the prow in the fewest possible strokes had already been worked out in his mind.

Five strikes. Seventeen dead.

Then he turned and leapt. The large boat tilted again under his feet — the bow sinking, the stern rising.

An instant later, he had landed on the small skiff. The old fisherman had not yet managed to complete his turn.

He had noticed the old fisherman trying to flee. He could have called out and frightened the man into staying. He had not. Because the old fisherman’s speed at turning the boat could not possibly match the speed at which he killed people.

“You promised to take me to the other shore.”

Nie She said it evenly, without accusation.

The old fisherman was already shaking so badly he could barely grip the pole.

Nie She settled back into his cross-legged seat at the prow and said, his voice just as flat as before: “I saw it — you have a wine gourd hanging at your waist. Have a few swallows to steady yourself. Then take me to the other shore.”

He produced a coin purse, counted nothing, and set it on the boat. “I frightened you. Consider this compensation.”

The old fisherman was not the only one who had been frightened out of their wits — so had the villagers still in the water.

Frightened — and yet somehow grateful. They did not know whether to call it good luck or bad.

Good luck, because that man had killed the Tsunami King Mei Yan, which meant Mei Yan would not kill them.

Bad luck, because Mei Yan had died before their eyes — the Shanhai Army would certainly take its revenge on them.

“Leave. When the war is over, come back… it shouldn’t be long.”

Nie She looked at the people in the water and said this once, then closed his eyes to rest.

The small boat cut across the lake toward the far shore.

The people in the water looked at one another. Every face was ashen.

—

On the hillside above the lake. Halfway up the slope.

Cao Lie raised his telescoping lens and watched the scene playing out on the water below. The corner of his mouth curved upward in a small, satisfied smile.

One of his subordinates had reported earlier that the number one name on the Cloud Mist Rankings — the Blade Emperor Nie She — was already nearly here, crossing the lake from the far shore by boat.

So Cao Lie had come to stand here early to wait. This was the most patient he had ever been waiting for anyone.

Because Cao Lie understood perfectly well: when Nie She made up his mind to kill someone, that person had already had their name checked in the Book of Life and Death in the King of Hell’s court.

And if the King of Hell looked at the Book of Life and Death and found that name had been checked off for death — and wanted to change it — he could not.

Because of those the Blade Emperor had decided to kill: not even the King of Hell could save them.

—

Longtou Pass.

The Shanhai Army had mounted another half-day’s fierce assault. And yet again, they failed to pose any real threat to Longtou Pass.

The Shanhai Army relied on nothing but overwhelming numbers — and their methods of attack were not the least bit sophisticated.

The Ning Army holding the pass was a force that Tang Pidi himself had personally trained and later assigned to Zhuang Wudi for posting to the northeastern corner of Jizhou.

In the crowd.

Elder Zhang Zhenren dropped his voice and said to Zao Yunian: “We have to make a move soon. That fellow is too single-minded. There’s no talking him out of anything.”

Zao Yunian gave a sound of agreement. He looked toward where Zhuang Wudi was standing and slowly exhaled.

Zhuang Wudi had gone without rest for a very long time. Old Zhang Zhenren had already remarked that if they didn’t get him out soon, the enemy wouldn’t be the ones to kill him — he would work himself to death.

“I’ll think of something in a moment.”

Zao Yunian said: “Old Zhenren, you leave first — that way Zhuang Wudi won’t have his guard up.”

The old patriarch blinked. Then he gave a heavy sigh.

“I almost forgot — you are also Prince Ning’s subject.”

Elder Zhang Zhenren looked at Zao Yunian. “Honestly, you also want to stay and hold this position to the last, to buy time for Prince Ning — don’t you?”

Zao Yunian’s expression flickered. Then he gave a helpless smile.

—