The sky after the rain was exceptionally clear and bright, a deep blue canvas across which drifted a few wisps of crystal white.

Beneath the drifting clouds, a carriage and a horse stood at rest.

Crystal-clear water leapt over layer upon layer of smooth river stones, and Shen Zhuxi carefully cupped her palms to scoop up a handful and splash it over her face.

Droplets fell one after another, sending fish-scale ripples dancing across the surface of the stream.

A pair of gorgeous, jewel-bright almond eyes appeared and vanished in the mirror of the water, flickering in and out with the rise and fall of each wave.

“Shen Blockhead——”

Li Wu’s voice made Shen Zhuxi turn around.

He stood transformed beneath the blue and white sky, wearing the indigo brocade robe with the linked-pearl paired-duck pattern that had been custom-made at a cloth shop in Xiangyang, and on his feet were the jet-black leather boots he had grumbled and complained about for ages before finally buying for five hundred coins a pair. Even the rough cloth he used to bind his hair had been replaced with a silk ribbon.

Li Wu had changed so dramatically that when Shen Zhuxi first looked at him, she nearly failed to recognize him, almost mistaking him for a dashing and handsome stranger who had suddenly appeared before her.

Shen Zhuxi’s awestruck gaze pleased Li Wu greatly. He strode over with his chin tilted skyward in proud satisfaction and said with a swagger:

“Once your old man cleans himself up a bit, he’s no worse than that fellow surnamed Han.”

“What are you comparing yourself to him for?” Shen Zhuxi asked, bewildered.

She had urged him many times before to put on his new clothes and new boots, yet he had refused every time, saying it wasn’t the right occasion for new clothes — so how was it that one Han Fengyue was all it took for him to set aside his stubbornness?

“When he was sitting there drinking, you kept stealing glances at him.” Li Wu shot her a glare. “Your old man saw every bit of it.”

“And what’s wrong with me looking at him? He was so strange — it would be stranger still if I didn’t look!”

“You can look at him all you want, but that expression on your face wasn’t right.” Li Wu said.

Shen Zhuxi: “……”

She had no desire to keep arguing with this insufferable man about this particular subject.

“When will we be able to enter the city?” Shen Zhuxi asked. It had been two full days since she had bathed, and last night she had made do sleeping in a crumbling temple. She was now seriously beginning to wonder whether she had picked up fleas.

“We should reach the nearest town later this evening.” Li Wu said. “I know you’re overdue for a good scrub — when we get there, we’ll find an inn and let you have a proper soak.”

This insufferable man always complained that she took too long to bathe, forever saying she was shedding her skin. Shen Zhuxi was indignant and had just opened her mouth to fire back a retort——

“You all seem to be in quite a hurry — is there some urgent matter pressing you?”

Han Fengyue, from whom they had parted only half a day ago, emerged from the dense forest surrounded by his guards. He held an open folding fan in his hand and swayed it gently, his lips curving into a smile that reached his mouth but never his eyes, as he watched the group.

Li Que touched his waist, gave Li Kun a light kick, then walked a couple of steps in Han Fengyue’s direction. Li Kun, muttering something under his breath, ducked into the carriage.

“As the saying goes, fate brings people together across a thousand miles. It seems the bond between Brother Han and our brothers is no trifling thing——” Li Que said with a cheerful grin.

“Indeed it is not.” Han Fengyue smiled. “You are my lucky stars. If I ever rise to greater heights and fortune, you will all deserve half the credit.”

“Who would have thought we would be of such great benefit to Brother Han.” Li Wu stepped forward, positioning himself to block Han Fengyue’s line of sight to Shen Zhuxi. “Since we can help Brother Han rise to prominence, how does Brother Han intend to repay us?”

“Let me think——” Han Fengyue raised his lips into a smile. “How about leaving you with whole bodies?”

“We help you rise to glory, and all you offer us in return are whole bodies — Brother Han, not only do you eat all the meat and leave not a drop of broth, but you also want our lives.” Li Wu let out a cold laugh. “Truly worthy of being Han Fengnian’s younger brother — you have fully inherited your elder brother’s finest qualities.”

“……You know me and my elder brother?” Han Fengyue’s expression darkened.

“I don’t know you personally, but I’ve heard your names — or more precisely, your elder brother’s name.” Li Wu tugged the corner of his mouth into a sardonic smile. “Brother Han, the next time you go out wandering the world, perhaps don’t lay all your cards on the table so openly. Born into the Changsha Han family, heading to the Northern Capital to seek shelter with your elder brother, casually attended by dozens of escorts wherever you go, and even giving yourself a pseudonym that sounds like your real name——”

Li Wu disregarded Han Fengyue’s increasingly ugly expression and smiled:

“It would be rather difficult not to figure it out.”

“Who exactly are you? A man like you cannot be a nobody!” Han Fengyue’s gaze turned dark and suspicious as he scrutinized Li Wu, seemingly trying to match his face to some name in his memory.

“Brother Han flatters me——” Li Wu gave a sly chuckle. “Your humble Duck here is nothing more than an obscure poet. But one day, your humble Duck will certainly publish his very own collection of poetry. At that point, your humble Duck will no longer be a nobody.”

“Stop trying to fool me! Don’t think I don’t know that Duck, Vulture, and Magpie are all fake names!”

Li Wu shook his head and said: “The world grows more deceitful by the day, and human hearts less honest — you’re the one using a fake name, yet your humble Duck is the one being falsely accused of it……”

Han Fengyue laughed coldly: “I don’t care whether you’re called a chicken or a duck — today you must die regardless. Though Brother Han bears no grudge against you three, my future prospects are at stake, and I can only ask you to offer your lives in service to me.”

“Since you’ve already resolved to take my life, can Brother Han answer one question for me?” Li Wu said.

“What do you want to ask?”

“Where are the other thirty-odd men who were traveling with you?”

“To take three lives, I hardly need that many. I had them escort the carriages and follow along at a slower pace——”

Li Wu said: “Brother Han, I have one more request——”

“What more do you have to babble about?!” Han Fengyue lost his patience.

Li Wu remained unhurried and perfectly composed: “You see this new outfit I’ve just changed into — could you spare me the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, so I might change back into my old clothes before we begin?”

Han Fengyue swayed his fan, the jade bird charm on its tassel spinning along its cord.

A vicious smile spread across his delicate features:

“Going to meet King Yama in brand new clothes — isn’t that rather fitting?”

Li Wu let out a sigh and said: “You’ve gone to all this trouble — surely it isn’t simply because you felt like killing someone for amusement?”

“That is none of your concern. If you must blame someone, blame yourself for marrying the wrong person——” Han Fengyue snapped his fan shut with a sharp crack, his expression shifting abruptly. “Attack!”

Before his words had even faded, twenty of his men simultaneously drew the swords at their waists and charged at the group. From behind Shen Zhuxi came a thunderous roar — Li Kun, wielding two massive battle-axes, leapt down from the carriage. He hit the ground with a heavy thud, then came barreling toward Han Fengyue’s men on his two enormous feet.

Li Que drew the crossbow at his waist and swiftly fell back, ceding the close-range ground to the furiously raging Li Kun.

Li Kun’s battle cry, channeled from the depths of his core energy center, crashed against the shouts of the enemy in the open air, shattering the peace that had until then held beneath the vast sky.

Shen Zhuxi’s heart had leapt into her throat, yet Li Wu remained perfectly calm as he placed a hand on her shoulder and gently turned her to face the direction of the carriage.

“Get in the carriage and wait — your husband is off to collect some heads.”

Afraid of becoming a burden, Shen Zhuxi hurried into the carriage.

After watching her climb inside, Li Wu turned to face the battle, with Han Fengyue looking on as a detached spectator from the sidelines, and slowly drew the long blade from his waist.

“Twenty men to take your old man’s life——” Li Wu said. “Time to wake from that dream. You should die.”

Han Fengyue had just been about to mock him for overestimating himself, when one of his guards was suddenly hoisted bodily into the air by the nine-foot giant. The man screamed in panic in midair, his arms and legs flailing desperately, grasping at nothing but empty space.

Whoosh——

A crossbow bolt flashed through the air and pierced clean through the guard’s chest in midair.

He had not yet hit the ground when he breathed his last up there in the sky — not even a single scream escaped him before his eyes went wide and still.

“Ahh!!!”

Li Kun casually seized one of the guards who had been slashing at him, grabbed him by the topknot, and swung him around like a spinning wheel of wind and fire!

The guard, forced to spin through the air, screamed without cease as his swinging legs were slashed repeatedly by his own comrades’ blades. In no time at all, he was drenched in blood from the cuts. Li Kun flung him aside like a used and filthy rag, then raised his twin axes and began swinging them with the ferocious force of a tiger.

Li Kun dispatched enemies with ease, ten to one — not a single soul dared step forward to throw their life away.

“What are you all standing there staring for?! Attack! Don’t forget — your families are in my hands!” Han Fengyue bellowed furiously.

Under Han Fengyue’s threats, the remaining guards glanced at one another, then gritted their teeth and charged forward together.

Li Kun swung his twin axes without the slightest technique — relying on brute force alone, he drove his enemies back step by retreating step. With Li Que providing cover from behind with hidden bolts, more than half of the twenty men had fallen in no time at all.

One of the guards seized what seemed to be an opening, gathered every last ounce of his strength, and drove his blade toward the nine-foot warrior’s back!

Before the blade wind had even reached that man’s back, he himself had already been cut across the neck by the long blade behind him!

Blood sprayed. He turned his head with an expression of shock, and looked at the impassive perpetrator behind him.

Li Wu withdrew his long blade from the guard’s neck and, in the same motion, drove it into the attacker who had been coming up from behind. He pivoted sharply and delivered a kick to send the ambushing guard — blood pouring from his mouth — sprawling away:

“Trying to ambush your old man — you’re still too green for that!”

Only now did Han Fengyue understand where these three drew their confidence from.

These three brothers who called themselves Jia — one excelled at close-range combat and possessed overwhelming physical strength; one specialized in aiming hidden bolts at lethal spots, ruthless and vicious; and then there was the third, who could hold his own in a direct fight and had no qualms whatsoever about striking from the shadows. All three of them appearing on the battlefield at once left absolutely no opening to exploit.

Not one of the three showed the slightest sign of fatigue. In contrast, the ten men remaining on Han Fengyue’s side had long since collapsed in morale and had no strength left to resist.

In just that short span of time, four more of Han Fengyue’s remaining ten had gone down.

Seeing that things had turned against him, Han Fengyue abandoned his subordinates without a moment’s hesitation, swung himself onto his horse, and shouted: “Ride!”

The horse had barely reared up on its front hooves when a crossbow bolt came tearing through the air and struck one of its forelegs. With a pained cry, Han Fengyue tumbled to the ground along with his wounded horse in a cloud of rising dust.

Seeing that their master had already fled and left them behind, the few remaining guards also abandoned the fallen Han Fengyue without a second thought and bolted for the forest.

Han Fengyue cursed every last one of these disloyal, faithless wretches to hell and back in his heart. He kicked away the wounded horse and scrambled up from the ground. He had barely started to run when a long blade speckled with bloodstains came to rest horizontally across his throat.

He turned his head in trembling terror and looked at the person behind him who now held his life in their hands.

Li Wu bared a mouth full of white teeth in a grin: “Brother Han — you came all this way, so why the rush to leave?”