Jiangning.
On the seventeenth of August, having endured half a night of unrest, the city’s atmosphere had turned grim and forbidding.
In the afternoon, word spread from “Wheel-Turning King” territory that Lin Zongwu would soon challenge the “Million Troops Arena” in a few days’ time, and for the rest of that day, this news dominated conversation across every market and district in the city.
On one hand, people admired Sect Leader Lin’s extraordinary martial skill; on the other, they had already begun to sense the sheer domineering arrogance of “Wheel-Turning King” Xu Zhaonan. Having endured an entire night of surprise attacks from Zhou Shang’s forces, his side, far from considering a retreat, was now preparing to challenge yet another of the remaining factions, Zhou Shang included — which meant this fire, once lit, would now be almost impossible to put out.
Some well-informed individuals had also caught wind that, that very afternoon, the scale of “Wheel-Turning King” forces marching into the city from outside, amid the clash of gongs and drums, had grown noticeably larger — Xu Zhaonan had clearly begun rallying his banners in earnest. At the same time, “Yama King” forces entering from the west of the city had also swelled considerably; following the previous night’s large-scale clash, Wei Xuwen had likewise begun calling in reinforcements.
Across the city, the various districts controlled by established factions began ramping up their defenses on a large scale. Some of the small-time opportunists who had drifted into the city hoping to “strike it rich” grew anxious and were already planning their escape from the city, while far more of the reckless, desperate types sensed that their moment had finally arrived, sharpening their blades in eager anticipation — hoping to either make a name for themselves or seize a fortune, and, more often than not, hoping for both at once.
Every so often, of course, someone would still be heard lamenting how “the world was in decline” and how “order had utterly collapsed.”
Some brought up the “Fairness King’s” enforcement squads patrolling the city, and “Dragon Sage” Fu Pingbo’s efforts to bring the various factions together for negotiations — though, in the end, it had all amounted to little more than a farce. Neither Wei Xuwen nor Xu Zhaonan had shown him the slightest deference: the main force behind “Heaven’s Slaughter’s” attack had already been withdrawn from the city the moment their business was finished, so by the time Fu Pingbo called both sides together, they were long since far away. As for Xu Zhaonan, he simply pinned all the blame on Sect Leader Lin and told Fu Pingbo to go take it up with the man directly — something Fu Pingbo, naturally, wouldn’t dare to do.
These specific details, embellished as they passed from mouth to mouth, spread quickly through the city, growing richer with every retelling.
With the other four kings each flexing their own particular brand of power at this moment, the so-called “Fairness King” seemed left to merely patch up what he could, showing no ambition to push forward, unable even to properly deal with troublemakers within his own ranks. People across the city couldn’t help but mock him a little for it, feeling that the “Fairness King” was, in truth, genuinely powerless to control the situation within the city.
Amid this atmosphere of gossip and mounting tension, the daylight gradually faded and night fell over the city. Each faction reinforced patrols within its own territory, while the “Fairness King’s” enforcement squads patrolled the relatively neutral zones of the city, maintaining order in a somewhat halfhearted, passive fashion.
People held their breath, waiting for the next outbreak of violence to erupt…
Midnight.
Near a deserted village more than twenty li south of Jiangning, groups of armed men gathered silently, converging at a predetermined location.
In a nearby village, bonfires burned, with the figures of various martial-world wanderers gathered around them — some already asleep, others still fooling around.
From the surrounding hills came faint, scattered sounds.
“Reporting to Lord Fu, the outer lookouts have been eliminated…”
A scout, having slipped soundlessly through the sparse woodland, reported back to “Dragon Sage” Fu Pingbo, who had arrived at the edge of a hill overlooking the village without a sound. Fu Pingbo nodded.
“Move in,” he said. “Kill anyone who resists.”
A moment later, rank upon rank of armed men rose up out of the darkness and converged on the village from all sides. Sounds of slaughter soon followed, flames rose over the deserted village in the night, and figures fell amid the fire as the fighting raged on…
The night gradually faded.
As dawn broke, in a courtyard within Jiangning where the “Undying Guard” was concentrated, the people who had stayed tense all through the night looked utterly exhausted.
Kuang Wenbai sat applying medicine to the wounds on his face with the help of a bronze mirror, wincing and cursing under his breath whenever the pain in his broken nose flared up.
Everyone had expected that they would be sent out the previous night to clash with “Yama King’s” forces, to settle the score from the early hours of the seventeenth — but for some reason, the order to move out had never come. When they asked around among those with better information, all anyone could say was that something unexpected had happened up top, prompting a change in plans.
Those who’d risen to join the “Undying Guard’s” upper-tier action squads were, for the most part, seasoned veterans well accustomed to violence. Though they’d stayed tense through the night, each had their own way of unwinding, and by morning most only felt mildly fatigued, without much real impact on their overall condition. Kuang Wenbai, however, was in a rather worse state — a few days earlier, during that capture operation, he’d been knocked out cold by a single punch, and upon waking had found his nose broken by the blow, his upper lip split open as well, and a couple of his teeth left slightly loose.
These weren’t, by the standards of the martial world, particularly severe injuries, but with his face and mouth both affected, even the slightest movement brought a jolt of pain, and even eating had become something of a chore — to say nothing of his usual visits to certain half-open doors around town, which were now entirely off the table. Combined with too many sleepless nights, the whole ordeal had left him thoroughly miserable.
Simply terrible luck.
He hadn’t even managed to catch a glimpse of the culprit’s face.
Having finished applying medicine to his broken nose, he wrapped a fresh strip of gauze across the bridge, doing his best to make it look presentable — though no matter how he arranged it, it still came across as faintly ridiculous. This was, without question, the single most humiliating injury he’d sustained in his several decades traveling the martial world — never mind that he still carried the title of an “Undying Guard” member on top of it. If people saw an “Undying Guard” walking around with a bandaged face, they’d probably snicker about it behind his back: so much for “Undying” — turns out you still get hurt just fine, ha ha ha ha…
Once he’d finished patching himself up, he was about to have a bowl of meat congee in his room and then catch up on sleep, when one of the men below came knocking at his door and said, “Something’s happened.”
Whatever had happened, it wasn’t on their side.
As the morning sunlight burned off the mist, “Dragon Sage” Fu Pingbo returned to the city through the southern gate with his troops. The entire column was drenched in blood and radiating menace — a number of prisoners and wounded men were bound roughly with rope and driven forward, while a large cart piled high with severed heads rolled along behind them.
Word of this grim spectacle spread rapidly through the city, and curious onlookers began gathering in the great square at the vegetable market in the city center. Kuang Wenbai and a group of fellow “Undying Guard” members claimed a spot as well. Among the crowd, representatives from every outside faction had also gathered, blending into the throng to observe what was happening on the platform.
By the time the square had filled almost to bursting, the middle-aged man known as “Dragon Sage” rose to his feet and began addressing the crowd below.
“…As you all know, in the early hours of the seventeenth of August, this city was invaded by bandits who slipped in from outside, armed with blades and spears, killing and setting fires throughout the city… From that early hour until dawn, over the span of more than two hours, upward of a hundred buildings within the city were set ablaze, resulting in nearly a thousand casualties. These vicious, depraved bandits killed, burned, looted, and then fled…”
“…I, Fu, entrusted by Master He Wen to maintain order within this city and root out lawlessness, launched an investigation immediately following this incident! By last night, we had traced the hideout of these bandits and moved to make arrests — but these men, these depraved criminals, resisted us fiercely. Having failed to persuade them through words, we had no choice but to strike them down with decisive force.”
“…As you have all seen… during this operation, many of our own men were wounded, and some gave their lives, resisting the fierce defiance of these bandits! But fortunately, we did not fail in our duty — we have brought every one of them back, one by one! Some resisted fiercely and were killed on the spot; others knelt and begged for mercy, and we spared their lives. But there are also those among them with blood debts too great to be forgiven lightly — and today, we will give all of you the reckoning they deserve!”
Fu Pingbo’s voice rang out deep and resonant, his gaze sweeping across the crowd below, his delivery rising and falling with practiced cadence. The prisoners on the platform had been divided into two groups — most were made to kneel toward the back, while a smaller number were driven forward, beaten with clubs in full view of the crowd, and forced to kneel there properly.
“Oh, right,” Fu Pingbo added. “…In the course of our investigation into this matter, we found that some people have been claiming these bandits were actually subordinates of General Wei Xuwen… And so, yesterday, I personally went and questioned General Wei about this myself. According to General Wei’s own clarification, this has been thoroughly proven to be baseless nonsense — a false rumor, a malicious slander! How could such vicious, depraved bandits possibly be General Wei’s men… Shameless.”
“So here, in front of everyone, I want to formally clear this matter up! To restore General Wei’s good name and clear him of any blame.”
The morning breeze swept across the square, and somewhere within the crowd, voices began cursing and jeering loudly — clearly members of the “Yama King” faction. Fu Pingbo turned his gaze that way, and the soldiers guarding the square, spears and clubs in hand, began striking the ground rhythmically, calling out in unison, “Silence! Silence!” Their voices rang out in perfect coordination, clearly the work of elite, disciplined troops, while others up on the platform even drew out crossbows, taking aim at the restless crowd.
Fu Pingbo simply stood there, watching in calm, cold silence. After a moment, the jeering crowd, overwhelmed by this sheer pressure, gradually fell silent. Fu Pingbo looked forward and spread his arms wide.
“Today, these criminals will be executed here, on the spot! To give every victim of this atrocity the justice they deserve—”
Watching this unfold, Kuang Wenbai and the others among the crowd finally began to understand why their own side hadn’t launched a corresponding retaliation the night before — they had likely gotten wind of exactly what Fu Pingbo was capable of. Wei Xuwen had struck in the early hours of the seventeenth, then withdrawn his men from the city entirely — only for Fu Pingbo’s forces to raid them that very same night. If their own side had made a move today, Fu Pingbo might well have marched straight at them too, under the same banner of hunting down criminals.
At the edge of the square, on the second floor of a teahouse, “Heaven’s Slaughter” Wei Xuwen — a man with a somewhat effeminate look and narrow, snake-like eyes — watched the scene unfold in silence. As the seventeen prisoners condemned for the most serious crimes were forced down and the beheadings began, he slammed his teacup down onto the floor with a loud crash.
At one corner of the square, Zuo Xiuquan, along with Yinping, Yue Yun, and the others, watched the executions unfold. After the seventeen men had been beheaded one after another, the rest were subjected, one by one, to punishment by rod. Perhaps it was only at this moment that everyone finally recalled that the “Fairness King’s” own laws could be just as brutal — either death, or being beaten into a permanent cripple with military clubs.
It was much like the mass brawl at the old Su family estate, when several hundred people had been captured — one after another, they’d been beaten so thoroughly that a dozen or more clubs had broken in the process; after just one round of beating, most of them had been left permanently disabled.
“The ‘Fairness King’s’ authority hasn’t slipped a bit. ‘Heaven’s Slaughter’ can’t hold a candle to ‘Dragon Sage,'” Zuo Xiuquan murmured. “Given this, it might well be worth quietly reaching out to this particular side.”
Zuo Xiuquan and his party had come this time representing the southeastern court, with the clear purpose of finding one faction among the Fairness Party’s five branches with whom they could see eye to eye, form a working relationship with, and ultimately use to establish a foothold within the Fairness Party.
“Master Cheng and the others have already come by several times. This Master He seems to hold quite a grudge against us…”
“That was then, this is now. Now that Master He has openly opened his doors to outsiders, there’s surely no harm in trying to talk with him again.”
Among the crowd, the various outside representatives who had witnessed this spectacle naturally each had their own calculations running through their minds — but in this particular instance, it was the “Fairness King” who had clearly gained the upper hand.
For the small, ordinary people of the city, the political maneuvering above them might register in some vague way, but it never truly sank in deeply.
While “Dragon Sage” Fu Pingbo paraded his prisoners into the city with great fanfare, Xue Jin, under the bridge, was setting up a hard-won clay pot to brew medicine for his frail family member.
At that very moment, the small, chivalrous hero who had left behind the medicine for him — now more widely known by the name “Five-Foot Lecher” Long Aotian — was walking past the bridge, munching on a steamed bun. He glanced down and, seeing that they were still doing all right, tossed down a bun to Xue Jin. As Xue Jin dropped to his knees to kowtow in thanks, the youth had already left the bridge behind.
He made his way through the city streets, his eye settling on a small stall that sold newspapers and a few odds and ends.
The stall wasn’t large — only five or six papers on offer, printed in rather poor quality. Ning Ji looked them over and found the particular paper that had been spreading slander about him. This issue, too, was filled with all sorts of gossip and scandal, thoroughly unpleasant to read.
“If you’re not buying, quit staring.”
The stall owner spoke lazily.
“I’m buying, I’m buying,” Ning Ji said, nodding. “But, boss, you’ve got to answer a question for me first.”
“What question?”
“This newspaper of yours — who makes it? Where do you get your stock from?”
“…Can I even tell you that?”
The stall owner eyed him suspiciously.
Ning Ji reached into his pocket for money.
Among the training he’d received in the Huaxia Army, there had of course been lessons on intelligence gathering — pure surveillance took a great deal of time, whereas small matters like this could often be settled simply with money. Having played the chivalrous hero a few times along the road, Ning Ji had some coin on him — though in his usual dealings with people, he tended to rely on charm rather than bribery. Now, hinting at money in front of the stall owner and raising the offer twice over, things weren’t going smoothly at all.
“You little punk… what are you up to… why are you asking about this… I think you’re up to no good…”
One key rule when trying to bribe someone with money was not to reveal too much wealth at once, lest the other person get ideas about simply robbing or killing you outright — so Ning Ji had kept his price increases fairly modest each time. But his innocent, gentle face ultimately did little to intimidate the man, and the stall owner’s suspicious glare only grew more hostile by the moment.
“…Forget it, I’m not telling you.”
Ning Ji sighed, shook his head in frustration, and walked off.
By now the sun had risen, and there were a few more pedestrians along the road, though it still couldn’t be called crowded. Ning Ji trudged off dejectedly, thinking he’d try another news stall instead. After a few steps, though, he stopped, sighed, and turned back, walking straight toward the stall owner. The man let out a cold snort and stood up — only to be kicked flat to the ground by Ning Ji a moment later.
The man tried to scramble up and fight back, but Ning Ji grabbed hold of him and gave him a proper beating, kicking him repeatedly in the corner without holding back too much force — just enough to keep him from getting up, without doing him any serious lasting harm. Passersby walking past simply watched, some giving the scene a wide berth out of fright.
“…Good sir, spare me, good sir… I give in, I’ll talk…”
Ning Ji stood there, his expression complicated.
“Why didn’t you just say so from the start? I’m not a bad person, you know!”
He felt genuinely aggrieved — a corrupt world had a way of turning good people bad.
He then got an address out of the man, handed over a few dozen coppers as compensation for medicine, and hurried away, looking rather sheepish about the whole affair.
Once you’d obtained information and hadn’t silenced the source, matters like this needed to move to the next step as quickly as possible — otherwise, word might get out, and whatever intelligence you’d gathered would be rendered useless.
Ning Ji hurried swiftly through the city.
Meanwhile, in the direction he was headed, three figures — two in black, one limping — were standing in front of a cluttered, ink-scented courtyard, studying the run-down two-story building within.
“Is this the place?”
“Smells like it.”
“‘Wheel-Turning King’ territory.” Yuwen Feidu pointed toward the banner planted beside the courtyard.
“Why’s he picking a fight with our own Brother Tian?” Little Blackie frowned.
“This all started in Tongshan — that’s Li Yanfeng’s territory. Li Yanfeng’s thrown in with Xu Zhaonan, and that young mistress of the Yan family manor is set to marry into the Shi family — this is probably just someone stirring up trouble on the side,” Yuwen Feidu reasoned.
Little Blackie nodded, finding this quite sound — the case was already half solved, in his view.
Blackie the girl hadn’t taken part in the discussion. She’d already rolled up her sleeves and stepped forward, pushing open the front gate. “We’ll know once we ask.”
“Don’t be so hasty.”
“A girl ought to be more gentle about things…”
“They’re just a bunch of pen-pushers, what’s there to be afraid of… wait, no, I am gentle…”
“…”
“…”
“…R-right, I just think we should try being polite before resorting to force.”
“Right, right, let’s pretend to be Shi Baofeng’s people…”
Little Blackie and Yuwen Feidu talked her down as best they could, then followed her inside, resigned to it. Yuwen Feidu, bringing up the rear, glanced back outside once more.
The gate closed shut.