The strange sound that suddenly appeared put Li Chi on high alert. Watching the birds in the forest take flight, Li Chi guessed that some kind of danger was coming.

Over seven hundred Ning Army soldiers quickly formed a circular formation, with each branch of troops taking their positions in coordination.

Shortly after, waves appeared in the distant undergrowth, rising and falling like the surface of water, so Li Chi immediately judged that whatever was rapidly approaching was not a single creature.

At the outer perimeter of the circular formation, soldiers had already raised their shields, and the soldiers behind the shields had already lifted their repeating crossbows.

Something suddenly burst out of the undergrowth, and Li Chi instantly loosed an arrow at it — the thing tumbled head over heels and collapsed to the ground.

It was only a wild rabbit.

Before anyone had time to even exhale in relief, a grey-black python slithered out of the undergrowth, its thickest part comparable in girth to a human thigh.

A creature like this, the moment it glided out, could instantly make one’s scalp crawl.

Yet it probably had no idea what it was about to face — seven hundred battle-hardened Ning Army soldiers were not the sort to be frightened by such a thing so easily.

Perhaps accustomed to running roughshod over everything, it glided toward the crowd without any wariness.

But before it could get close to the circular formation, several javelins were hurled, pinning the python to the ground with precision.

One of them was thrown by Dantai Yijing, striking the serpent square on the head. Never mind whether the thing liked living or not — a direct hit to the skull left no choice but death.

After the first python slithered out from the distant undergrowth, more and more pythons appeared one after another, large and small.

“This should be the final trial,” Li Chi said with a smile. “Tonight we eat roasted snake.”

They unhooked the iron javelins hanging from their backs. Whenever a python crawled toward the circular formation, a volley of iron javelins would be hurled — none could get close.

After roughly a quarter of an hour, a ring of slaughter had been completed all around. Counting them up, there were no fewer than a hundred and eighty.

The largest were as thick as the base of a thigh, the smallest as thick as an arm — had any ordinary villager seen this sight, they might well have been frightened to death.

Yet before soldiers as elite as the Ning Army, unless these creatures could wield sorcery, they posed no threat whatsoever.

Up on the cliff, that group of white-haired figures watched the scene, each face twisted with an expression of extreme displeasure.

The one called Elder Brother murmured to himself after a long silence: “If Dachu has already fallen, and the soldiers of the new dynasty are this elite, why should one worry that the Central Plains will not flourish?”

He gave an order: “Go lead Zhulong away. I want to go meet the one commanding these soldiers and ask what the world looks like now.”

Someone acknowledged the order and headed down the mountain.

Elder Brother led the remaining people out of the forest and walked to the edge of the cliff — so that Li Chi and his men could see them.

Li Chi and his group waited for a while and saw no more pythons emerging. The circular formation opened, and the soldiers dispersed to retrieve their javelins.

Before long, an elderly man who appeared to be around sixty emerged from the side, walking while waving his hand to signal that no one should shoot.

As he walked, he called out: “We did not know what you came here for, so we took precautions. Do not shoot — let me come forward and explain.”

Li Chi waved his hand, signaling to let the man through.

But at that very moment, a massive python suddenly burst from the undergrowth, rearing up half its length before the crowd — standing taller than a man.

The creature swept its two eyes across its surroundings, apparently agitated by the countless python corpses it saw before it, or perhaps by the smell of blood. It opened its mouth and flicked its tongue, making a sound like the crying of a cicada with broken wings.

“Zhulong!”

The elderly man who had been running over immediately cried out, quickening his steps, wanting to stop the violent creature.

The python seemed to sense something rushing toward it. It suddenly whipped its head around to look at the elder, then lunged and bit down.

The creature was truly enormous. The elder had not expected the thing he had raised for so long to suddenly turn on him, and was so startled that he sat down hard on the ground.

The python bit down — the elder had only time to jerk his head aside, and the serpent clamped its jaws onto his shoulder, its body immediately beginning to coil.

In that moment of desperate crisis —

Li Chi took one great stride forward, his long blade drawn, a flash of lightning blazing through the air.

Li Chi grabbed the elder’s arm with one hand, and with his right hand swept the blade upward — with a wet thud, that enormous creature, before its body could finish coiling around the elder, was severed by Li Chi’s single stroke.

How fast can a serpent coil around its prey?

Not as fast as Li Chi.

Li Chi pulled the elder, dragging him free — the massive severed head still hung from the old man’s shoulder.

Half an hour later, in a cluster of wooden cottages behind the forest.

The dozens of elders in the cottage looked at Li Chi with complex expressions on their faces.

Li Chi and his men had not expected the inhabitants here to be such a group of people — the youngest looking was already around sixty, and the oldest could no longer stand straight.

The elder Li Chi had rescued had already had his wound dressed. Fortunately, the python was non-venomous, and herbal medicine had been applied. As long as the wound did not become infected, there was no danger to his life.

“Many thanks for saving my life.”

The elder bowed deeply.

Li Chi made no move to stop him, simply watching them.

“Is the world still Dachu’s?”

The elder who led the group suddenly asked.

Li Chi looked at the old man — he appeared to be around sixty-seven, his beard and hair completely white, yet his bearing was still upright. He carried a broadsword on his back and still carried the air of a military man.

“Not much longer.”

Li Chi answered, then asked: “Who are you people?”

“Not much longer… I never imagined Dachu could hold on this long.”

The elder let out a heavy sigh and clasped his hands in a bow: “I was formerly a fourth-rank Martial Might General of Dachu. My name is Di Chi.”

Although Li Chi had had some premonition, hearing those words still gave him a small jolt of surprise.

He had only just heard the story of Di Chi searching for an immortality elixir on behalf of the Dachu Emperor — and now the very subject of that story was standing before him. Anyone would find it somewhat surreal.

By the reckoning of time, Di Chi leading the Martial Might Fleet in search of immortality medicines had already been an event of forty years ago.

Everyone had assumed they had all perished. Who could have imagined they were secluded here?

“General Di.”

Li Chi clasped his hands in return.

Di Chi asked: “And you… who might you be?”

Before Li Chi could answer, Yu Jiuling said: “This is our Prince Ning. He has already taken half of the Central Plains, and destroying Dachu — it won’t be long now.”

Had Di Chi not witnessed Li Chi’s soldiers forming their battle array, had he not seen Li Chi strike, Di Chi might not have believed Yu Jiuling’s words — after all, Yu Jiuling was somewhat unattractive.

This sounds unreasonable, but it is in fact a sad truth: unattractive people find it harder to be believed, while attractive people are more readily trusted.

Hearing this now, Di Chi pondered for a moment, then bowed again: “I pay my respects to Your Highness.”

After another half hour or so, Li Chi and his group finally came to understand the full story of how these elderly people had come to live here.

In those years, Di Chi had been commanded to trace the whereabouts of Yang Sheng. Di Chi devoted himself fully to the task, consulting many ancient records and painstakingly seeking out the descendants of Master Zhou’s eighteen disciples to make inquiries.

After sailing with the fleet for roughly two years, he had in fact already confirmed that Yang Sheng had long since died.

He reported the truth, but the then-Minister of War, Yuwen Mei, suppressed the memorial he had submitted.

Yuwen Mei sought out Di Chi and told him: if you report truthfully, His Majesty will think you are being perfunctory. Even if you present abundant evidence, His Majesty will not believe you.

What His Majesty wants is not evidence — His Majesty wants the elixir of immortality. If you report it this way, how can His Majesty tolerate you?

You will be heavily punished, and then someone else will be sent to continue searching. Rather than that, why not simply continue searching?

All you need to do is give His Majesty hope from time to time — say this year you discovered a clue in Liangzhou, next year say you traced the truth in Yuezhou.

As long as you keep searching, His Majesty will not trouble you, and will instead see you as one who labors with great merit.

That was what he said outwardly — but Di Chi also understood that what Yuwen Mei truly wanted was money.

As long as he kept sailing the fleet on inspections everywhere, Yuwen Mei, as Minister of War, could continuously demand funds from the Ministry of Finance.

Di Chi understood this, yet he was also swayed by Yuwen Mei’s argument, and so continued leading the Martial Might Fleet in its search, as long as he never stopped.

Little did he know that Yuwen Mei, on account of this affair, had over several years embezzled twenty million taels of silver from the Ministry of Finance.

Compared to the military expenditure of an eight-hundred-thousand-strong northern campaign, this sum was not a small amount at all.

Such brazenness — if spoken aloud, most people would not dare believe it. And of course, how much the Ministry of Finance officials had split with Yuwen Mei need hardly be questioned.

Di Chi had even less imagined that when the Emperor finally noticed something was wrong, Yuwen Mei placed all the blame squarely upon him.

Fortunately, he had a close relationship with a senior imperial guard, who sent him advance warning. Di Chi thereby escaped the worst of it — yet his three clans were implicated, and hundreds of people were beheaded.

The Emperor sought to track down his whereabouts, and Yuwen Mei wanted him dead even more than the Emperor did.

With Di Chi dead, who could ever trace the matter of that enormous sum landing in the Yuwen family’s hands? And even if someone suspected it, they would not dare offend the Yuwen family.

Di Chi’s fleet was disbanded. When he fled, more than three hundred of his personal soldiers escaped with him. Now only these few dozen elderly men, like candles guttering in the wind, remained.

“This place.”

Di Chi looked at Li Chi, then gestured around them: “This is where Yang Sheng, the most gifted disciple of Master Zhou, passed from this world.”

Li Chi looked around — this place was not one he liked at all.

Di Chi said: “I searched for many years and found no immortality elixir — but I did uncover a great many things about Yang Sheng.”

Slowly, the story of Yang Sheng unfolded in Di Chi’s measured telling.

Master Zhou had eighteen disciples in total, and the one he loved most was Yang Sheng, the youngest of them all.

They say the Master was a perfect man, a sage — but even this perfect sage suffered from a weakness that most men develop in old age.

He favored his clever, youngest disciple, who appeared devoted and obedient and had a particular talent for reading the Master’s mind.

So the Master showed him exceptional favor, teaching him extensively and entrusting him with many important matters.

Yang Sheng was a classic two-faced man. The greatest and most terrible thing he ever did was betray the Master’s trust.

In his final years, the Master administered Great Zhou, intending to make a grand tour of the realm — but he was far too old, so he entrusted this task to Yang Sheng.

Yang Sheng traveled the realm in the Master’s stead, which was equivalent to traveling on behalf of the Son of Heaven.

He used this opportunity to enrich himself extravagantly, corrupting the official discipline that Master Zhou had spent twenty years restoring, all at once.

Someone came to inform the Master of the misdeeds Yang Sheng had committed while touring in his name — but the Master simply did not believe it.

Yet the Master was troubled nonetheless, and sent for Yang Sheng. Upon returning, Yang Sheng wailed before the Master, crying about how hard he had worked only to be envied and slandered in such a fashion.

The Master, in a rage, harshly punished the one who had brought the accusation — who was himself one of the Master’s disciples.

This man’s name was Li Shu, and in his injustice and grief, he dashed his head against the palace gate and died.

From that day forward, Yang Sheng dreamed every night of his blood-soaked fellow disciple coming to find him, and became too frightened to continue living in the Zhou capital. He resigned all his official posts and set out to wander the realm again.

But the man was incorrigible. During his second journey through the realm, he did something even more shameless.

And because of this thing, Li Chi’s eyes went from slightly narrowed to wide open and blazing with light —

Blazing with fierce, bright light.

—