Chaos boiled over, horses shrieking in panic.

The Yan family’s procession, traveling east to Jiangning to deliver a bride, numbered over eighty members. Though not all were master fighters, they were all seasoned in bloodshed, having seen battle and combat firsthand. In an age like this, “delivering a bride” was really just a pretext—after all, the world changed so quickly that whether Shi Baofeng, who had once had ties with Yan Taiwei and made a promise of marriage back then, would still honor that verbal pledge now that he commanded a strong army and held territory of his own, was anyone’s guess.

This was exactly why the escort of over eighty elite fighters mattered—on one hand, to ensure the whole party arrived safely at Jiangning; on the other, the wealth carried in the caravan, combined with the fighting strength of these eighty-odd men, was meant to demonstrate to Shi Baofeng, upon arrival, that the Yan family had real assets to offer. In this way, though the Yan family’s standing fell far short of Shi Baofeng and the entire Fair Party, the Yan family did have land, military strength, and wealth. Once the children on both sides were married and trade routes opened, it would count as a genuine alliance between equals, not a case of throwing good meat to a dog or offering a warm face to a cold response.

The youth who had provoked the Li family the day before was skilled in the martial arts, but with over eighty men present, few would have imagined that he would come after this group.

And yet it happened in an instant regardless.

The figure leapt onto the carriage and kicked the driver flying at once. Yan Yunzhi, inside the carriage, reacted quickly enough, drawing her sword to strike. The attacker knocked the short blade aside and grabbed for her face. At that moment, she still had a chance to resist—her foot shot up in a groin-kick—but in the next instant, her whole body was slammed down onto the wooden floor of the carriage, in a technique so overwhelming it left no room for counterattack.

It was as though someone had picked up a person and smashed them violently into the ground.

Yan Tiehe’s eyes nearly burst with rage. He reined in his horse and charged forward. By then, one of Yan Yunzhi’s senior martial brothers had already ridden his horse up alongside the carriage, shouting, “Let her go!” and thrusting with his sword—a strike that unleashed the full power of his life’s training, flashing out like a silver serpent’s tongue.

Inside the carriage, the figure simply slammed Yan Yunzhi down onto the floorboards once more, then spun around abruptly, seizing her again and swinging around to face the incoming attacker. He thrust Yan Yunzhi’s body directly into the path of the incoming sword. The man wielding the sword, his eyes bloodshot, jerked his hand back at once, wrenching his horse aside to avoid the collision, brushing past the carriage before plunging down off the road into the fields below, kicking up a spray of mud, his body crashing to the ground and coming up covered head to toe in dirt.

“Nobody come any closer—”

The two-horse carriage kept rolling forward along the road, and the whole procession had already descended into chaos. The youth’s shout tore through the sky, and even Yan Tiehe felt a chill of fear at the sheer power infused in his voice. But at this moment, the most pressing issue was no longer the man’s martial skill—it was that Yan Yunzhi had had her arms pinned brutally behind her back, forced against the carriage’s frame, the youth standing over her with a blade.

“Come any closer and I’ll finish this woman.”

The situation had erupted only moments before; a reversal could happen just as quickly. Words like these could not possibly restrain the actions of eighty-odd individuals. Yan Tiehe pressed closer still. The youth, having just finished his threat, wasted no time—his knee pressed into Yan Yunzhi’s back, and he yanked up her left arm.

“I’ll count to three, and you’ll get one of her hands. One, two…”

Up on the carriage, the youth’s eyes were bleak and terrifying; his words left no room for anyone to think it over, and the blade’s edge was already rising. Yan Tiehe yanked hard on his reins and shouted, waving his hand. “Don’t advance, everyone fall back! Spread out—” Then, “Hero, we have no quarrel with you—”

With those words from him, the crowd finally reined in their horses and stopped. By now the carriage was still moving forward, passing close by several of the Yan family disciples. If they’d wanted to strike, they certainly could have, but with Yan Yunzhi restrained and the man clearly ruthless, no one dared actually make a move to seize her back. The youth pointed the tip of his blade at Yan Tiehe. “You. Follow along. Not too close.”

The carriage veered off the main road onto a side path, and only then did Yan Tiehe realize the man had clearly scouted the terrain in advance, choosing to make his move specifically along this stretch of road. He was bold as well as skilled, and had timed his strike with precision.

He rode after them, calling out from behind. “Hero, my Yan family, sword-bearers of Tan Gong, has always conducted itself uprightly—”

The youth’s voice carried back from ahead. “You call yourself a proper assassin, my ass!” Then, “I’ve got a friend the Li family’s captured. Go tell them—bring my friend to trade for your young lady!”

“My Yan family has no deep ties with the Li family—how would they be willing to trade? By the rules of the martial world, every debt has its debtor…”

“To hell with your rules! Keep on with your nonsense and wait to collect the corpse instead!”

“I will do my best to arrange it, but if the Li family truly refuses, please do not harm the innocent…”

“If the Li family won’t agree, tell them this—once I’ve killed this woman, I’ll stay right here for a whole year, until every last one of the Li family is dead. Let’s see if you scoundrels still dare to keep on doing evil.”

Yan Tiehe opened his mouth, momentarily left speechless by the man’s ferocious arrogance. After a moment, he shouted furiously, “My Yan family has done no evil!”

The youth’s words came flying back. “You Yan family and the Fair Party are two rats in the same nest—what decent people are you? Ha! If you don’t like it, go call your family’s ‘Shit Baby’ to come and rain his displeasure on me personally!”

“…Who—who is Shit Baby—”

“Get lost! Liar!” The villain up ahead, deciding he was no longer being sincere, thought the man was mocking him, and cut the conversation short at once. “Go back and get the exchange sorted. Come near me again, and I’ll kill her on the spot!”

The horse beneath him let out a long whinny; Yan Tiehe reined in and stopped. The autumn sun was falling, and along the nearby roadside the leaves were turning yellow. In his field of view, the carriage was already racing off into the distance. He never could have imagined that this trip to Tongshan would take such a turn, such a strange twist.

Earlier, when he had imagined the Huaxia Army of the Southwest, he had still held many reservations in his heart. Now, only two thoughts kept crossing his mind: first, could this truly be the real face of the Black Banner? And then he told himself—if the Black Banner Army were not this kind of ruthless, merciless demon, how could they possibly have defeated that utterly inhuman Jurchen army? He felt he had finally seen the truth of it.

As for who “Shit Baby” was, it took him a moment before he understood the man meant Shi Baofeng.

His face dark, he returned to the group, and after some discussion, they regrouped and set off, turning back toward the Li manor. Seeing the Yan party return, the Li family was alarmed and confused, and only then learned of what had befallen them along the way. Li Ruoyao welcomed Yan Tiehe into the back hall to talk, and after a long discussion, they finally settled on a rough plan of action…

When she woke from her daze, it was already evening.

Yan Yunzhi found herself in an unmarked hollow up on a mountainside, a large boulder overhead offering shelter from the rain, surrounded mostly by loose rocks and weeds. The setting sun spread its light across the sky.

Her hands and feet were bound tightly, and a piece of cloth—whether a towel or a strip of clothing, she couldn’t tell—was stuffed in her mouth, leaving her unable to speak.

There was no one around. The youth who had assaulted and abducted her was nowhere in sight at the moment. Yan Yunzhi struggled to sit up, taking stock of her injuries—there was soreness in her muscles, but her bones seemed intact; there were scrapes on her hands and neck, but overall, nothing serious.

The Yan family’s skills leaned heavily toward assassination and killing, though they also had some techniques for binding people and escaping bonds. But when Yan Yunzhi tried, she found her strength wasn’t sufficient—she couldn’t free herself easily. She tried rubbing the rope against a rock to wear it through. After a while at this, the youth came back from somewhere. She wasn’t sure whether he’d seen her attempt or not, but the youth said nothing to her, sat down nearby, took out a steamed bun and ate it slowly, then closed his eyes to rest.

“Mmph… mm mm…”

Realizing she wouldn’t be able to free herself anytime soon, Yan Yunzhi tried to speak. She actually still had some measure of goodwill toward this Black Banner youth before her—after all, he had gone after the Li family to avenge a companion, and by the customs of the martial world, this kind of vengeance-seeking was considered honorable; once explained, most people would support it. She hoped he would remove the gag from her mouth so the two of them could talk, and that he might come to see that she, too, was a good person.

The sun had set. She made muffled sounds for a good while, until the youth finally got up and walked over. Coming closer, Yan Yunzhi could see clearly now—he had rather good looks, only his eyes were cold as ice.

He didn’t reach out to remove what was in her mouth. Instead, he lifted his leg and stomped straight toward her face.

“…Mmph!”

Yan Yunzhi’s body flinched, and she squeezed her eyes shut. A moment later, she opened them again to find that the foot hadn’t actually landed on her; the youth stood over her, looking down.

“Make another sound, and I’ll stomp your face flat!”

Yan Yunzhi glared at him for a while. In her eyes, the youth’s face grew more and more repulsive. She curled up and said nothing more.

Since childhood, she had loved the martial arts. Though as a daughter she had always been the treasured jewel guarded by the Yan family and her fellow disciples, she had never once slacked in her sword training. By the time she was fifteen, her father had led the resistance against the Jurchen, and she had taken part as well. Once, while smuggling supplies in disguise, she had been caught by two Jurchen soldiers and nearly violated—the most dangerous moment of her entire life.

Yan Yunzhi had been terrified, but by feigning weakness at first, she had made her captors lower their guard, and seized the chance to kill one and wound the other. After a life-or-death struggle with the wounded soldier, she finally killed him too. For a fifteen-year-old girl at the time, that had also been one of the proudest moments of her life. From that day on, she had made up her mind: she would never submit to evil men.

Since this youth was clearly a villain, she decided she wouldn’t communicate with him at all. Even if he wanted to speak with her, she wouldn’t say a word!

After a while, the youth left again. Yan Yunzhi struggled and squirmed on the ground, but in the end, gasping for breath, she got nowhere. The cold moon overhead watched her; various small animals seemed to rustle about in the surroundings. Near midnight, the youth returned, a hoe over his shoulder—she had no idea where he’d gotten it—his body covered in dirt.

Past midnight, the youth left again with the hoe, and returned near dawn, seemingly having finished whatever task it was, and sat back down to meditate. On it went like this, the two of them never exchanging a word. Only, sometime deep in the night, Yan Yunzhi saw a snake slithering across the loose stones, making its way quietly toward the two of them.

At that moment, the youth had his legs crossed, eyes closed, seemingly deep in sleep. Yan Yunzhi watched the snake, secretly hoping it was venomous, that it would crawl over and bite him. But after a moment, the snake, its tongue flicking, seemed instead to turn toward her. Yan Yunzhi, unable to move, couldn’t resist even now; she hesitated over whether to make a sound, but also feared that if she cried out, the venomous snake might strike immediately—what should she do?

Just as her fear peaked, there came a sharp “snap” in the air—she had no idea how the youth had done it—as fast as lightning, he seized the snake by the tail, and with a single motion snapped its neck like cracking a whip. This feat of skill was truly impressive; especially by the standards of the Yan family’s own techniques, the ability to maintain such sharp vigilance even while apparently resting with eyes closed left her genuinely envious. But considering he was a villain, she quickly suppressed the feeling of admiration.

A formidable villain was, in the end, still just a villain.

The youth sat there, took out a small knife, and in a few quick strokes gutted the snake, then skillfully extracted and ate the gallbladder. He then carried the snake’s body away out of her sight, and when he returned, the snake’s carcass was gone, and there was no trace of blood on him either—he must have had some way of masking the smell. This was an essential skill for evading pursuers, and Yan Yunzhi had considerable experience with it herself.

What a shame he’s a villain…

Thinking this, she drifted off into a deep sleep, no longer worrying about wild animals coming to disturb her rest while she slept.

At dawn, an arrow bearing a letter flew in from the surrounding mountains into the Li manor, stating the time and place for the exchange of hostages that day.

The people of the Li and Yan families set out at once, hurrying toward the agreed location.

Halfway there, another arrow came flying in—this time, the location had changed, and the number of people allowed to meet had been restricted as well. Li Ruoyao, Yan Tiehe, and the others changed course accordingly. Partway along, yet another letter arrived, changing the location once more.

The two parties finally met at a stretch of wild woods on the outskirts of Tongshan county. Li Ruoyao, Yan Tiehe, and the others positioned themselves in the open field outside the trees, while the murderous youth, Long Aotian, stood at the edge of the woods with the bound Yan Yunzhi—terrain chosen so that the slightest mishap would let him slip into the trees and escape.

Lu Wenke, his eyes vacant, was helped down from a carriage. His steps trembled, and when he caught sight of the two figures standing at the edge of the woods across the way, he could hardly comprehend what was happening. Standing opposite him, of course, was his traveling companion “Little Dragon”—but on this side, dozens upon dozens of fierce-looking men stood packed together; the two sides looked almost as though they were squaring off for battle.

“Both of you, release them together, each walking slowly around from a different side!”

He heard Little Dragon call out from over there, his voice resonant, seeming to ring directly in his ears.

“If you try anything funny, I’ll leave immediately! But after that, you can go check the funeral shops in Tongshan and see if they have enough coffins!”

His voice was fierce, utterly unlike the Little Dragon of before, who used to eat ravenously and joke around with everyone. From within the crowd on this side, someone waved a hand. “No tricks. Just hand over the person.”

Among the crowd, an old man leaning on a cane spoke up gravely. “This time, my Li family was indeed in the wrong! But you, sir, do not follow the proper rules—rather than coming to demand an explanation, you went straight to violence. My Li family will not simply swallow this, but if you would name your terms, my Li family will surely make it up to you in the future!”

The youth across the way sneered coldly. “No need for all that trouble! When I get to Jiangning, I’ll find that worthless Li Yanfeng and demand an answer from him face to face! Let’s see if he can give me one!”

“Very well! My Li family’s patriarch is named Li Yanfeng—remember that name!”

“Same thing.” the youth answered.

On this side, the old man thumped his cane against the ground again.

Someone gave Lu Wenke a push. “Go on.”

Little Dragon, over there, made a motion with his finger. “Come around.” Then he gave the woman beside him a push as well. “You go around that way, slowly.”

The two hostages walked slowly toward each other from a distance. Once Lu Wenke passed the halfway point, his steps grew unsteady and he broke into a stumbling run toward the other side; the woman’s gaze was cold, but she too broke into a run. When Lu Wenke reached “Little Dragon’s” side, the youth grabbed hold of him, his eyes still fixed on the other side. Then he glanced to the side as well, his gaze seeming momentarily confused, before he suddenly burst out laughing.

“Ha ha! Go tell Shit Baby, I’ve already had his woman—tell him to go to hell—”

At these words, the woman on the other side turned back, her expression now full of fury and grief. In the crowd, someone gritted their teeth and drew a sword, rushing forward; someone else asked in a low voice, “Who is Shit Baby?” Amid the chaotic commotion, the youth named Long Aotian pulled Lu Wenke and dashed into the woods, swiftly disappearing from view.

Some of the Yan family’s people tried to charge forward, but Yan Tiehe waved them back. On the open field, people cursed and shouted, the whole scene descending into chaos.

…

Ning Ji pulled Lu Wenke along through the woods. Along the way, Lu Wenke, weakened as he was, tried several times to speak, but each time Ning Ji’s gaze made the words catch in his throat.

As for the Li and Yan families conducting the hostage exchange so peaceably, without pursuit or any further schemes, Ning Ji found it somewhat strange.

He had no way of knowing that, the moment they’d realized he had ties to the Southwest’s Huaxia Army, the Li family had already found themselves in a difficult position. His martial skill was formidable, his background too solid—in open confrontation, the Li family would have a hard time gaining the upper hand, and even if they killed him, the resulting risks were difficult to predict. Such a confrontation left the Li family unable to fight, yet unable not to fight either.

What the Yan family’s misfortune had given them was a way out—especially once Yan Tiehe, offering some of their valuables as compensation, requested that the Li family release the hostage. In doing so, the Li family’s magnanimous gesture might well become a celebrated tale throughout the martial world—of course, if they had refused to hand him over, Yan Tiehe had also threatened to make public everything that Xu Dong and his wife had done, which would have turned the Li family into enemies of the grieving Yan Taiwei, and even offended Shi Baofeng. Naturally, once the matter was resolved satisfactorily, such threats would count as though they had never been made.

What no one had anticipated was the final parting words the youth Long Aotian had left behind—”for Shit Baby.”

Ning Ji and Lu Wenke made their way through the woods and found the horses they had left behind. The two then rode swiftly toward the Tang family village. Lu Wenke’s injuries had not yet healed, but given the urgency of the situation, having spent the past two days in what felt like hell itself, now freed from his cage, he summoned his energy and rode hard alongside Ning Ji.

At the inn in Tang family village, the two found Wang Jiang and his daughter Wang Xiuniang, still recovering from their injuries there. Wang Xiuniang, who had thought everyone had abandoned her, wept tears like rain upon seeing Little Dragon and the battered Lu Wenke.

In fact, Tang family village was also within Tongshan’s territory, still under the Li family’s sphere of influence. But over these two days, Ning Ji’s methods had been so ruthlessly effective that, after extracting the hostage’s whereabouts from Xu Dong, he had immediately rushed into Tongshan county, killed Li Xiaoqing, and used her blood to write “release the hostage” on a wall. In the short time since, the Li family hadn’t dared to muster the courage to try recapturing all of his companions.

Now, with the four of them reunited, Ning Ji said little. Instead, he found a large cart board outside and rigged it into a makeshift carriage. He had Lu Wenke and Wang Jiang sit in the cart, had Wang Xiuniang drive it, and after tending briefly to Lu Wenke’s wounds himself, mounted a horse. The four of them then quickly left Tang family village, heading south.

By nightfall that day, having made certain they were well clear of Tongshan’s territory, they found a house in a village and settled in for the night. Ning Ji had no wish to discuss the matter further with the others. Throughout the journey, he had played the harmless young physician, but now, having bared his fangs and become a fearsome warrior, he felt not the slightest fear toward the outside world—yet toward these companions, from whom he was now about to part ways, this fifteen-year-old boy felt somewhat awkward. Having shown his true colors, he found he didn’t quite know what to say.

According to the plan, in the days ahead, Sister Xiuniang would look after the other two here. Wang Jiang’s condition wasn’t looking good, but Lu Wenke would eventually recover, and this place wasn’t so far from his “promising” hometown of Hongzhou. He said to Wang Xiuniang, “If, after all this, Lu Wenke doesn’t treat you well, he’s not even human. If that happens, you can go find the Huaxia Army over in Chengdu. The Huaxia Army are all good people.”

These words might not have been entirely true, but it was the only way forward he could think of for her.

They ate their last meal together. Only then did Lu Wenke finally begin to weep, recounting through gritted teeth everything he had suffered in Tongshan county, describing the hair-raising, hellish scenes he had witnessed in the Li family’s black prison. He said to Ning Ji, “Little Dragon, if you had the power…”

Ning Ji thought for a moment, then said, “Brother Lu, isn’t this… something that should be your job now?”

Lu Wenke froze for a moment, then slowly nodded, and nodded again, twice more. “That’s right, that’s right…”

He said, “That’s right.”

Ning Ji finished his meal, cleared away the dishes. Without a word of farewell, he quietly slipped away. He didn’t know whether he would ever see Lu Wenke, Wang Xiuniang, and the others again, but the world was a treacherous place, and some things couldn’t simply be left unfinished.

He rode back toward Tongshan county, to make sure no pursuers were coming from behind, and in his mind, he kept turning over the horror Lu Wenke had described. He lingered near the Li manor for a full day, observing and thinking things through carefully, before concluding that the idea of storming in and killing everyone wasn’t realistic—and, following what his father had once said, it was quite likely that once another wave of villains appeared, they would simply move right back into Tongshan county.

It was the night of the twenty-fifth of the seventh month. He slipped into the home of the Tongshan county magistrate, took down several household guards, and while the man was enjoying himself with a concubine, went in and drove a blade straight into his belly.

The magistrate, named Huang Wendao, clutched his stomach and writhed on the floor. Ning Ji took a large writing brush, dragged him to the wall, and dipped the brush in blood to write on it.

He scrawled, crookedly:

“There are still more matters—some who continue to do evil in Tongshan. I’ll come back and kill them all again next time. —Long Aotian”

After writing it, he felt that the phrase “there are still more matters” rather undercut the dramatic effect, but since it was already written, there was nothing to be done about it. And since this was his first time writing characters on a wall with this kind of brush, the signature came out looking terrible too—the character for “Ao” ended up split into three uneven strokes, and even the character for “Long,” which he usually wrote rather well, came out shapeless. Utterly embarrassing.

“I should have had you help me write it. You write pretty well.”

He looked at Huang Wendao, now on the verge of death, his gaze already unfocused, then glanced at the calligraphy and paintings hanging on the walls around him. Ashamed of himself, he let out a sigh.

Far away in a village, Wang Xiuniang, having tended to her father and Lu Wenke, dozed off for a while at the scholar’s bedside. The marks on Wang Xiuniang’s face had grown fainter. Lu Wenke held her hand, quietly watching her. In people, some wounds—on the body and in the heart—gradually fade, while others remain forever. He no longer used his old catchphrase, “great things await.”

The scholars named Fan Heng and Chen Junsheng were, at this very moment, in different places, looking up at the stars. We do not know where they are.

The night sky was black as ink, the stars faint and scattered—some seeming ready to go out at any moment, others still blinking stubbornly on, refusing to fade.

The sunlight would come.