A tragic, piercing scream tore through the nighttime forest.
Roosting birds startled into flight.
On the dim road, the war horses stirred restlessly, running about in unease. Xu Dong’s right hand was severed—the hand gripping his saber snapped clean off after a flash of pain, blood spraying forth. He stumbled, staggering, before being slashed across the thigh and tumbling to the ground, crashing into a tree.
The saber-wielding demon was walking toward him.
This was the first time in his life he had encountered such a brutal massacre; his mind hadn’t caught up at all. He didn’t even know how his companions had died—but that had taken only a breath or two. The one who’d cut them down moved like a demon from hell, kicking up what looked like an all-consuming inferno with every step.
His old master had never taught him anything like this; he didn’t even know who this person really was. He couldn’t imagine having offended someone of this caliber. The loss of his hand felt like a hallucination. There was still a large saber on his back, and the throwing knives across his chest hadn’t been touched at all, but he didn’t dare reach for them. His once-imposing frame scrabbled at the dirt, his words coming out slurred and unclear, while the demon holding the saber advanced with unwavering steadiness, already close now.
“H-h-h-hero, hero… it’s a mistake, a mistake—”
He waved his good left hand. “We-we-we have no quarrel, no enmity! Hero, it’s a mistake…”
The figure was tall, radiating a crushing, apocalyptic pressure. Xu Dong couldn’t recognize him. But the figure paused, slowly raised his left hand, pointed two fingers at his own eyes, then turned and slowly pointed them at Xu Dong.
Xu Dong flinched in shock. He recognized that gesture—it was the one he himself often used to threaten people, meaning “I’ll remember your face.” When had he ever done such a thing to someone like this?
“H-h-hero… I didn’t… I was wrong… that wasn’t me…”
Spittle flew from his mouth, tears streaming down, blurring his vision. Yet the figure drew closer still, and faint starlight filtering through the gaps in the trees dimly illuminated a young man’s face. “After you assaulted that girl, it was me who carried her out. When you said you’d remember us, I thought it was rather funny, actually.”
The youth’s gaze was cold. “You really should have taken a few more cuts.”
Xu Dong’s mouth opened and closed several times. He truly could not connect this terrifying figure with the unremarkable youth from that group of scholars.
“I… I… I don’t know… I… ah…”
The shadow of the blade rose.
“…I have a hostage!”
Some strand of thought returned to his mind, and Xu Dong raised his hand, shouting loudly.
The youth, saber raised, paused for a long moment before slightly tilting his head. “…Huh?”
Xu Dong’s voice, hoarse and urgent, poured out the story, explaining what had happened, giving Lu Wenke’s name. The youth’s expression shifted, hard to read. Xu Dong wept and begged. “Hero… spare, spare… spare my life, I can trade for him, I can trade for him…”
The youth tilted his head back and thought for a moment.
…
“…What’s there to trade for?”
…
Killing intent bloomed among the trees, and blood and darkness swallowed everything.
Even on the most tense of nights, time marched on regardless, fair and unhurried.
While the people of the Li manor spent this long night planning their next moves, the following morning, Yan Tiehe and Yan Yunzhi and the others woke and, hosted by Li Ruoyao, began breakfast in the main hall. Outside the manor, a messenger came rushing in in a panic.
Through the previous night, the tenant households of the Li manor had stood on high alert, but the murderer who had killed Shi Shuifang had not come to cause trouble. However, outside the Li manor, the terrible incidents had not ceased.
Under the direction of the manor’s stewards, an emergency gong was sounded, and the tenants quickly assembled into formation. Soon, cavalry, carts, and a great crowd of tenant farmers streamed out through the Li family’s main gate, passing through the market below before turning toward Tongshan county. Yan Tiehe, Yan Yunzhi, and the others followed along in the procession, stopping at a spot not far off, beside a road that ran through a stretch of forest.
The tenant households spread out in groups, sealing off the area, while Li Ruoyao and the others walked inside.
It was the scene of a brutal massacre.
Five yamen runners were dead, one of them particularly large and muscular, clearly a man of considerable strength. His throat had been slashed open; his death expression was ferocious, his eyes still holding deep terror. Li Ruoyao introduced the scene to Yan Tiehe: “This is my nephew-in-law, Xu Dong, currently chief constable of Tongshan county… he had experience on the battlefield…”
All five runners had been fully armed, wearing thick leather armor. As everyone examined the scene, Yan Tiehe felt a chill of shock, and Yan Yunzhi too looked on with a pounding heart. She said, “This is different from yesterday evening’s fight…”
“All five were armored, and there’s a fishing net and lime powder on the ground,” Yan Tiehe said. “Your nephew-in-law clearly intended to overwhelm him all at once and finish him off in an instant. But… yesterday’s man was far beyond anything they imagined. In this one encounter, whatever the two sides brought out, it was likely the strongest technique of their lives… Three of the runners were felled with a single strike each—throat, abdomen, face—even wearing leather armor, the man needed only one stroke each time. That means yesterday, in his fight against Shi Shuifang down at the mountain’s base, he clearly wasn’t using his full strength at all. And when he faced Steward Wu Cheng, he didn’t even involve anyone else.”
“Skill like this isn’t something learned behind closed doors at home.” Yan Tiehe paused. “Word is that he came from the southwest last night, but even in the southwest… surely they wouldn’t send children to the battlefield?”
Though Yan Tiehe and Yan Yunzhi hadn’t been present for last night’s interrogation of Lu Wenke, they had roughly pieced together the outline of events, and what he was hesitantly voicing now was exactly what everyone else was privately wondering, even afraid to say aloud.
Li Ruoyao, leaning on his cane, stood in place for a moment, then, his bloodshot eyes opening, spoke further to Yan Tiehe. “Last night’s tragedy wasn’t limited to the killing here…”
“Ah…”
“Last night, my nephew-in-law and his men were killed in the first half of the night. In the second half, that murderer slipped into Tongshan county itself, and found my niece’s home. My niece… was killed sometime near dawn…”
“Isn’t Tongshan county under curfew…” Yan Yunzhi said.
“With the war raging north of the river, most of the available troops have already been redeployed by General Liu—how many men are left to guard the whole city… That murderer, after killing here, made his way straight to Tongshan county and found my niece’s household. My niece…” He couldn’t finish.
At this, everyone fell into silence, only the monk Cixin pressing his palms together, murmuring “Amitabha,” reciting scripture as if to deliver the dead.
The old man’s gaze swept over the scene.
“…Is there any law left in this world!?” His cane trembled against the ground. “Using martial force to break the law! Utterly lawless! Relying on a bit of skill to kill at will! This world has no room for such a man! My Li family has no room for such a man! Gather the young men of the manor, and the militia from nearby villages—send everyone out! I want him dragged out here, I want justice for all of us!”
His shouting rang out, deafening. The crowd gathered around, calling out their assent in unison. Yan Tiehe came forward and offered a few words of comfort.
On the journey to Jiangning, no one had expected such a tragedy to unfold along the way, but even having witnessed all this, the planned itinerary would not be disrupted. As the Li manor mobilized its surrounding forces, Li Ruoyao repeatedly apologized to Yan Tiehe and the others for the inadequate hospitality. As for the most important matter—the joint venture to open trade routes—that, naturally, wasn’t going to be settled amid all this. But since the other purposes of the visit had been achieved, that afternoon, after lunch, the Yan party gathered their people and prepared to take their leave.
Given the current situation, what was most complicated for the Li family was the involvement of the “Southwest.” Li Ruoyao naturally didn’t try to press the Yan family to stay any longer; he simply had gifts prepared and saw them off, reminding them once more to be wary of the murderer. The Yan family, for their part, assured him they wouldn’t let their guard down.
“The Li family kept a lot from us.”
There were some things that couldn’t be spoken of openly within the Li household. Once the caravan had traveled some distance away, Yan Yunzhi finally voiced these thoughts to her uncle.
“Of course they couldn’t tell us everything,” said Yan Tiehe, riding beside his niece’s carriage. “For instance, the reason all this happened in the first place is that this constable Xu Dong, blinded by lust, tried to defile a traveling performer’s daughter. When the girl resisted, his beastly attempt failed, and he wanted to beat her and kill her. Who could have known there was a young physician from the southwest among her traveling companions…”
“Uncle, how do you know all this…”
“Last night, while they were questioning the hostage, I was hiding on the roof, listening for a while.”
The Yan family’s skills in assassination were extraordinary, and their skills in stealth and gathering intelligence were no less impressive. Hearing this, Yan Yunzhi’s face lit up with a smile. “Uncle really is an old hand at this.”
“I really am getting old,” Yan Tiehe sighed. “Those five bodies in the forest this morning gave me quite a shock. How could someone so young possess such formidable skill?”
“Could it be… that this southwesterner who’s come this way isn’t the only one? As I see it, when that boy beat up that steward Wu yesterday, he was clearly holding back—the monk Cixin tried to strike him several times and missed, and the boy never once fought back. But then it came to the Miao Blade Shi Shuifang, and suddenly the killing intent surfaced… The man is undoubtedly from the Miao Blade lineage of the southwest, but no one witnessed either of last night’s killings, so we can’t be certain it was him.”
“That’s possible, but it’s even more likely that this land of demons in the southwest has bred all sorts of monsters, and who’s to say what.”
Yan Tiehe sighed at length. In truth, everyone in the realm now knew of the southwest’s might—its might lying in the fact that, with a mere corner of territory and an inferior force, it had utterly crushed the once-invincible Jurchen Western Route Army in open battle. But if one really thought it through, just how formidable had that Jurchen Western Route Army truly been? And what, in detail, made the southwestern forces so formidable? Those who hadn’t experienced it firsthand always had their own imagined ideas, especially within the martial world, where all sorts of strange rumors circulated, true and false intermingled, impossible to settle.
At this point, uncle and niece couldn’t help but turn over these strange rumors in their minds again.
Yan Tiehe said, “What Li Ruoyao truly feared today was really the connection between this youth and the Southwest. A skilled loner of the martial world, adept at wilderness ambush, striking fear into dozens or even hundreds with one man’s strength—that’s not so strange. But however formidable one’s skill, a single person is still just a single person. Even reaching the level of a grandmaster, one might inspire awe at first with full spirit and energy intact, but pitted alone against many, over time, a single opening is all it takes, and even a grandmaster can fall to a flurry of blades. If the Li family wants to stand firm in Tongshan, even if it means heavy losses, they could ultimately kill any troublesome martial-world figure—there’d be no real cause for such fear.”
“But what if this youth really does come from the Huaxia Army of the Southwest, or is out here on some mission?” Yan Tiehe went on. “Think about it—he pretended to be naive, hiding among a group of scholars, seemingly helpless, concealing himself for at least two months. Why? Perhaps he was heading to Jiangning to accomplish something important, but this time, the Li family’s niece and nephew-in-law did something so vile he couldn’t bear it. The Li family gambled and killed this man—but what if the next ones to arrive are a whole squad of the Huaxia Army…”
He lowered his voice. “These past couple of years, the Huaxia Army has been doing business with the world, and to protect their trade routes, they’ve sent people out. In General Liu’s territory, such people already exist. Out in the southwest, fighting the Jurchen’s most elite scouts to a standstill, every one of them ruthless and highly skilled—if a squad like that descended on the Li family, even with Li Yanfeng personally overseeing the defense, they’d likely all be cut down there. What the Li family fears most right now is exactly this.”
Yan Yunzhi nodded as well. “But the Li family’s in a bind now—riding a tiger they can’t dismount. With the nephew-in-law killed on the road and the niece killed at home, word is already spreading. If they don’t even dare to hunt the man down, the Li family will lose all face in this area.”
“They’ll have to hunt him down.”
“Can that boy get away?”
“As I said, when one skilled fighter faces many, he can strike terror into them at first, but no one can maintain full spirit and energy forever. Last night in that forest fight, the other side used fishing nets and lime, and yet his every strike was fatal—even against Xu Dong, he only needed three or five strokes. That fight probably didn’t take as long as his fight against Shi Shuifang, but in terms of the mental and physical exertion required, it was likely several times greater. Now that the Li manor’s tenants, along with the surrounding militia, have all been mobilized, in the end, he won’t come out of this well.”
Yan Yunzhi fell silent for a moment. “Uncle, I’ve been thinking. Setting aside whether this youth really came out here with other Southwest Black Banner troops—if he really did leave the Southwest alone, might there be other possibilities as well?”
“…Go on.”
“The Southwest is known for its ruthlessness in battle, striking terror into hearts, but in all the time before now, no one’s ever heard of them sending children onto the battlefield. This boy looks fifteen or sixteen. When the Jurchen attacked the Southwest, he would only have been thirteen or fourteen. To have trained to this level of skill, a great deal of it must come from family teaching.”
Yan Tiehe nodded.
“He’s from the Southwest, and because of some matter involving the Miao borderlands, he killed that Miao Blade Shi Shuifang—from this alone, we can tell that at the very least, an elder in his family must have had some connection to the Miao Blade lineage, possibly even being an important figure within it. Because of this connection, he trained his skills well, and perhaps even helped out on the battlefield. But if his parents were still alive, would they really send a boy like this out to wander the world alone?”
“What are you suggesting…”
“His parents may both have died,” Yan Yunzhi said, “perhaps as heroes who fell in that great southwestern war. That’s why he left the Huaxia Army and set out alone to travel the world. I think this is quite possible, Uncle.”
Yan Tiehe considered this, looking at Yan Yunzhi, who returned his gaze earnestly. After a moment, he smiled. “You’re saying…”
“If he’s on a mission, then never mind…” Yan Yunzhi lowered her voice. “Actually, even if he is on a mission, it’s the Li family of Tongshan who have a grudge with the Huaxia Army, not us, the Yan family. We could help him out, and it would count as a good turn done. But if it’s as I suspect, and he truly has no ties left in the Southwest, and he’s out here traveling the world on his own—a fighter of this caliber could be useful to us… You said yourself, Uncle, that if he really fights it out with the Li family, he can only gain the upper hand at first. If we can rescue him along the way, in the chaos to come, he could become a formidable general for us…”
The carriage moved forward. Yan Yunzhi’s tone wasn’t loud, but every word fell clearly into the ears of Yan Tiehe, riding alongside. He thought it over briefly, then nodded. “Formidable general or not, our Yan family has no real grudge with the Huaxia Army, and whatever this youth’s background, forming a bond with him would be a good thing… This isn’t simple, though. I’ll discuss it with your senior martial brothers. If that youth is still lingering around here, we’ll send someone to leave word for him—it’s no great trouble.”
He was well versed in tales of the martial world, with his own understanding of alliances and schemes, and now, thinking there was much room to work with here, he rode forward and called together the other core members of the group to discuss the matter.
The horses had gone only a few more paces, and he’d just begun speaking with one of Yan Yunzhi’s senior martial brothers, when suddenly, from behind, chaos erupted.
It was a figure that had been walking along the roadside, who in an instant leapt onto the carriage where Yan Yunzhi was riding. With a single kick, the driver—himself a fairly skilled fighter hired to drive for Yan Yunzhi—was sent flying, tumbling down the grassy slope beside the road, rolling and rolling.
In that instant, the figure tore open the carriage curtain. Yan Yunzhi drew her sword at once and lunged out, striking with a single thrust, but the man swept it aside with one hand. His other hand shot out in the same motion, seizing her by the face like grabbing a chick, and shoved her back into the carriage—the wooden panels of the cart shuddering with a loud crack—
The entire procession was thrown into alarm, and people tried to rush forward to attack.
The autumn afternoon sunlight fell pale and stark across the scene.