The evening rain fell in intermittent drizzles.

Beneath the overcast sky, in a run-down courtyard, the artificial rockery that had once served as a garden feature had long since collapsed; the pale stones, wet with rain, gleamed as if coated in vegetable oil, while the fire-scorched ground beneath had turned to black mud.

All around, houses that had collapsed in some past fire lay in ruins; only a few battered eaves still stood intact. Under this dim sky, set against the desolate ruined garden beyond, the whole scene had a ghostly, sinister air.

A slender figure burst silently out from beneath the eaves, footsteps landing on the wet stones of the courtyard, the light of her blade slicing through the curtain of rain — in an instant, several leaps carried her, ghostlike, into the shelter of the eaves opposite.

After a moment, the figure sprinted back the same way, footsteps eerily silent, her sword strikes fierce and swift. It was hard to say how many times that afternoon she had already dashed back and forth across the courtyard in this same manner.

Bursting once more beneath the eaves, the slender, black-clad figure’s legs had begun to tremble slightly. She stood there, slowly releasing a long breath, knowing today’s training had reached its limit.

This was one of the more extreme training methods of the Tan Gong Sword style — dashing across wet stone at such high speed in the rain was several times more dangerous than the stake-work she’d already mastered by day. Every ounce of focus had to be marshaled during each dash and strike; the slightest mistake could mean a twisted ankle at best, permanent injury at worst. Training oneself in an environment like this was, in principle, much like practicing boxing on a cliff’s edge — both were a kind of “stealing from heaven’s design.”

Yan Yunzhi sheathed her twin swords.

This kind of extreme training could accelerate one’s progress, but it exacted an enormous toll on the mind and spirit, not to mention the constant, nagging fear of injury looming throughout. Yet compared to the other things weighing on her lately, all of this counted as a minor matter.

Fatigue was steadily reporting in from every part of her body. She gritted her teeth, working to keep her breathing as steady as possible. Her family’s sword style demanded that one “conceal like flowing water, strike like thunder” — even exhausted as she was, she couldn’t allow herself to grow lax.

She stood quietly for a while, regulating her breath, then draped on the straw raincoat left beneath the ruined eaves and walked out of the courtyard.

During her earlier training, her clothes, inside and out, had already soaked through; putting on the raincoat now offered little more than a token gesture. Stepping out of the ruined courtyard, she found the streets outside cold and gloomy, the ground turned to a sea of mud by days of unrelenting autumn rain. Only a handful of pedestrians moved along the evening road, most of them carrying blades or swords beneath their raincoats; a gray horse picked its way through the dark, muddied road.

Perhaps because her clothes were still damp, the shabby streets and the gray-blue courtyards scattered near and far throughout the city all felt bleak and forbidding beneath the rain and mud.

Yan Yunzhi kept her head down, picking her way carefully and quickly along the more passable stretches of mud, heading toward the inn at the end of the street.

By evening, the inn was without lamplight, but the cluttered main hall, filled with all manner of people, was still lively enough. Yan Yunzhi entered with her head lowered, greeted the familiar waiter, then went upstairs to her room. A short while later, someone brought up a large basin of hot water.

The waiter closed the door and left. Yan Yunzhi didn’t light a lamp in the room; she had already taken off her raincoat, and was now unfastening her soaked outer robe when she seemed to remember something and walked from the inner part of the room toward the door.

Her steps were light. Reaching the door, she picked up a short sword and thrust it silently through the gap in the doorframe.

From outside came a yelp of pain, followed by the sound of footsteps hurrying away. The man’s voice called back from the corridor: “Heh heh, feisty little wench, aren’t you…”

The voice faded into the distance, and only then did Yan Yunzhi silently withdraw her sword. She stood in the room for a moment, as if only the faint rise and fall of her chest could prove she was still there at all.

After a moment, she found a scrap of cloth and stuffed it into the gaps around the door, then went to the basin of hot water, took off her clothes, and wiped down her body. Once dry, she put on a set of light garments, then took a small packet of medicinal powder from her bundle, poured some into the basin, set the basin down on the floor in front of a stool, and, removing her shoes and socks, soaked her bare feet in it.

The stinging medicine brought a faint pain to her feet. She bent forward, wrapped her arms around her knees, clenched her teeth, and her body began to tremble faintly. The room was utterly silent, and she fought hard not to let herself cry.

Seventeen-year-old Yan Yunzhi, at this moment, was utterly alone, a thousand miles from home, in a cold and unfamiliar city.

A moment’s outburst of anger had led to a complete rupture with Shi Weiyang, and she felt no regret over it. Her reputation might be ruined forever now, but in the end, that was a matter one could resolve with death, if it came to that. What truly mattered on this trip to Jiangning was the alliance between the Yan and Shi families — if her own actions caused that negotiation to collapse, the consequences wouldn’t fall on her alone, but on every last member of Yan Family Fort, young and old. That was the thought that weighed heaviest on her heart.

These worries, large and small, kept surfacing again and again in her mind. Seventeen-year-old “Cloud-Water Swordswoman” had already killed two Jurchen soldiers in her life — but now, alone behind a closed door, the guilt and confusion, the loneliness and fear, still threatened to overwhelm her.

At some point, someone knocked at the door outside.

“Miss Yan, are you there?”

Yan Yunzhi sat up.

“Brother Ping? I’m here.”

The voice belonged to Han Ping, the elder of the two brothers who had rescued her that day. Both brothers were highly skilled in martial arts; the elder came across as understanding and gentle, while the younger possessed monstrous strength and unmatched fist-power — though his name, Han Yun, sounded rather like a woman’s. The two were likely scions of some great clan, come to Jiangning to negotiate an alliance; they didn’t normally stay at this inn, and Yan Yunzhi suspected even their names might well be false. But being far from home herself, she naturally didn’t presume to pry.

She heard Han Ping speak from outside the door: “We just got back and heard some news. Let’s have dinner together tonight.” He paused there, as if catching the sound of water inside the room, then added, “Miss Yan, no rush.”

“…Oh, all right, I’ll…”

“Yun and I will wait for you downstairs.”

This elder brother named Han Ping always seemed to handle things thoughtfully; having settled the matter with just a few words, he was already turning to head back downstairs. Yan Yunzhi wiped her feet dry and changed into fresh clothes before taking up her twin swords and heading down.

By this time, night had fully fallen, and the courtyard outside the inn still saw intermittent rain, while the main hall inside had lit its lanterns, filled with all manner of people from every walk of life. As Yan Yunzhi came downstairs, she happened upon two figures fighting in the corridor outside — one of them was the sturdily built young Han Yun, who at that moment sent his opponent flying with a single punch, straight into the mud of the courtyard. The martial-world men in the hall let out a burst of cheers.

His elder brother Han Ping sat at a table toward the back of the hall, a small notebook in hand, reading. Seeing Yan Yunzhi, he waved to her.

“Brother Ping, what’s going on?”

“Young men, hot blood, wanted to work off some energy. Don’t worry about it.” Ping spoke lightly of it, showing a certain indifference toward his younger brother’s antics.

Just as he said this, the young man who’d been fighting came swaggering over, arms swinging, a bright grin on his face. “The waiter told me this fellow snuck around near your room causing trouble — didn’t know when to quit. So I taught him a lesson for you.”

Yan Yunzhi frowned and looked outside, only then realizing that the man who’d been sent flying into the mud was the martial-world man who had been spying at her door not long before.

“Thank you, Brother Yun.”

“Ah, it’s nothing, nothing, hahaha…” the man waved a hand cheerfully.

“Little Yun’s a bit of a fool,” Han Ping said with a smile, still reading.

Han Yun’s eyes widened at that. “Don’t call me Little Yun.”

“You’ve got a problem with ‘Little Yun’? What’ll Miss Yan think?”

“Miss Yan, I’ve got no problem with your name at all…”

The two brothers bickered back and forth, and Yan Yunzhi couldn’t help but laugh. Just then the waiter came over with the food, and once seated, the three exchanged a few pleasantries. Han Ping set down the notebook he’d been holding, and Yan Yunzhi, curious, glanced over — the little book was stained with blood and grime, clearly picked up from somewhere, but the cover bore the title On the Four Classes of People.

Noticing her gaze, Han Ping smiled. “Today, out with your Brother Yun, we came across some of the Undying Guard chasing down a fugitive, and I got curious and went to have a look. The fugitive dropped a few pamphlets on the ground while fleeing — this was one of them…”

Perhaps thinking Yan Yunzhi wouldn’t understand the significance, he added, “This is a hand-copied version of something that came from the southwest originally — it was put together by Mr. Ning’s people. Who’d have thought that even here in the Fairness Party’s territory, people are secretly passing this sort of thing around. Look at the annotations here, dense and detailed, and at the bottom it says ‘Reading Society’… The Fairness Party’s five great kings all pick these fierce, murderous-sounding titles for themselves, yet who’d have guessed there’s also this ‘Reading Society’ thing going on.”

“Does Brother Ping know a lot about the southwest?” Yan Yunzhi asked.

“Only a little,” Han Ping said, choosing his words carefully. “I know Miss Yan was wronged by bandits from the southwest, so you may not think highly of them. But from what I understand, the Huaxia Army is, in the end, mostly made up of good men.”

Han Yun, beside him, added gruffly, “There are good people and bad people everywhere. That fellow named Long, even though he’s from the southwest, if the Huaxia Army knew what he was doing, they’d deal with him too.”

Yan Yunzhi nodded. “I know that…”

In truth, even before all this, hadn’t she herself always admired the Huaxia Army of the southwest?

“We picked up some news while we were out today,” Han Ping said, seeing her expression shift, and changed the subject.

Yan Yunzhi nodded slightly, and heard him continue: “We heard word about that Long Aotian.”

“Ah…” Yan Yunzhi’s expression froze.

“He’s arrived in Jiangning.”

“…” Yan Yunzhi fell silent for a moment. “Indeed… he did say something once, about coming to Jiangning…”

She had, in fact, remembered this — but her thoughts these past several days had been almost entirely consumed with how to assassinate Li Yanfeng, the man behind the newspaper slander campaign. As for that reckless young thug, she’d only vaguely thought that if she ever found him, she’d want to take him down with her.

She found it hard, just now, to examine the distinction between the two clearly. Perhaps it was because she already knew what had happened in Tongshan, and the boy himself was, in his own way, something of a righteous vigilante — it was only his final remark that had ruined her reputation… or perhaps it was because the memory of how he’d subdued her with a single move was too heavy to bear, leaving her strangely unable to summon the will for vengeance…

These past few days, she had even spent money at the inn to have someone gather information on the “Wheel-Turning King’s” side for her. When Han Ping had first mentioned picking up some news, she had assumed it concerned Li Yanfeng. She hadn’t expected him to suddenly bring up news of Long Aotian instead — for a moment, she found it hard to make sense of her own reaction.

“That boy might be reckless as hell, but honestly, causing this big a mess takes real guts. Doesn’t know when to quit, that one…” Han Yun put in. “Of course, Miss Yan, if we do run into him, we’ll be on your side, naturally.”

Yan Yunzhi looked at him. “What… has he done?”

“Heh.” Han Yun grinned. “You wouldn’t believe it until you hear it — this kid’s managed to offend half of Jiangning. Even if we don’t go after him ourselves, I’d guess he won’t last much longer anyway.”

Yan Yunzhi frowned.

Han Ping, the elder brother, nodded as well. “We hadn’t picked up much city gossip before now, but the person we met today happened to bring it up, so we asked around a bit. Apparently, sometime after the fifteenth of the eighth month, this young Long Aotian entered the city, and in the days since, he’s already managed to offend all three of the ‘Wheel-Turning King,’ ‘King Yama,’ and ‘Equality King.'”

Han Ping went on: “By all accounts his most impressive feat, at first, was going after ‘King Yama’s’ man, ‘Heaven-Slayer’ Wei Xuwen — he hit several of ‘King Yama’s’ operations one after another trying to find him, and when that didn’t pan out, he put out word that he was going to kill Zhou Shang. Even though the ones he actually found were only mid- and lower-level lieutenants of ‘King Yama,’ this boy’s skill matches his boldness — he’s taken down quite a few capable fighters, slapping Zhou Shang and Wei Xuwen both hard in the face, and now it’s turned into an all-out mess…”

At this, Yan Yunzhi’s eyes very nearly widened as well. However she’d imagined it, she never would have guessed that after entering the city, he’d already stirred up something this outrageous. Here she’d been quietly plotting to assassinate one lieutenant of the “Wheel-Turning King,” and this fellow was out there loudly announcing he intended to kill Zhou Shang.

Just like back in Tongshan, one person against an entire faction — how formidable was this man, exactly? And who would have thought that, entering Jiangning, he’d be prepared to take on the entire Fairness Party in the same way? Was this simply what the southwest produced?

Han Ping said, “As for what he did to offend the ‘Wheel-Turning King,’ Miss Yan, why don’t you take a guess.”

Yan Yunzhi thought about it, then said, incredulous, “He… he did say before… that he’d come to Jiangning to settle scores with Li Yanfeng — could he really have…”

Han Ping laughed. “Not exactly, but close. What we heard is that this young Long Aotian went, single-handedly, and stormed one of the ‘Wheel-Turning King’s’ outposts — a base used for printing newspapers. And guess what — that’s the very place that printed the paper slandering you, Miss Yan. Which means the ‘Monkey King’ Li Yanfeng, in spreading rumors to slander you, also happened to pin that ‘Five-Foot Pervert Demon’ nickname on him — and this little demon went straight over and smashed the place up. That amounts to a declaration of war against Li Yanfeng.”

The sturdily built Han Yun added, “Given how reckless this style of his is, this boy from the southwest is bound to come after Li Yanfeng for revenge sooner or later. He just happened to set his sights first on Wei Xuwen and Zhou Shang, and hasn’t gotten around to it yet… heh, honestly, with that kind of nerve, I’d love to meet him myself and go a few rounds with him on the spot, that’d be something.”

Between the two Han brothers, the younger, Han Yun, was clearly the more hot-blooded and fierce. A few days earlier, when Yan Yunzhi had told him what had happened to her, he’d sworn that if he ever crossed paths with that southwestern scoundrel, he’d give him a proper beating — but now, hearing about all the trouble the man was causing in Jiangning, though he still spoke of beating him, there was clearly a certain grudging admiration creeping in as well. He seemed almost to envy someone who could court death so recklessly and still survive.

“Then… what about the Equality King’s side?”

“That one’s because of you,” Han Ping said. “News in the city is fairly chaotic right now, mostly pieced together secondhand, but from what we gathered today, it seems that after this young Long fellow smashed up Li Yanfeng’s newspaper office, Li Yanfeng both sent his men after him and leaked word to the Shi family. Since you were dragged into that rumor from what happened in Tongshan, Miss Yan, both the Shi family and your own Yan family would want to capture this man as the best way to clean up the matter afterward — so we hear that Shi Weiyang, that Manager Jin from the Baofeng Trading House, and your own second uncle from the Yan family have all quietly sent men out, or even put out bounties, to capture or kill this ‘Five-Foot Pervert Demon’… heh, who knows how Li Yanfeng came up with that nickname, it’s really quite vicious. If it were me, I’d never let him off the hook for it either…”

Han Ping brought up this “Five-Foot Pervert Demon” nickname several times, unable to help laughing at just how vicious it was.

“In any case, with the major issues in the city still unresolved, there are already three major factions here declaring they want to hunt down this young Long fellow. Your Brother Yun’s not wrong either — he’s probably bound to get caught and killed sooner or later… oh, and one more thing — apparently there’s also a highly skilled young monk traveling with him now, even younger than him, called something like… Sun Wukong, given the nickname ‘Four-Foot Pervert Demon.’ Does that name ring any bells for you, Miss Yan?”

Yan Yunzhi shook her head blankly.

“No need to rush this,” Han Ping said. “We’ll keep an ear out for more, for your sake.”

“Leave it to me,” Han Yun said, thumping his chest generously.

Yan Yunzhi hurriedly thanked them.

The light rain continued to fall in fits and starts, and the dim main hall of the inn was full of milling figures. The three of them talked a while longer, then, after finishing dinner and sitting a bit more, finally took their leave.

Yan Yunzhi walked them to the inn’s entrance and watched them disappear into the fading drizzle of the night. The two of them were part of a major faction, staying now at a courtyard just a street away, each with their own daily affairs — that they could occasionally lend her a hand at all was already a tremendous kindness. These heavy debts of gratitude, she supposed, could only be repaid slowly, over time.

Heading back upstairs, her mind was still turning over the news about Long Aotian.

Why would he act so recklessly?

What kind of family could raise someone with such an utterly fearless, reckless temperament?

If he died here, how would she ever find him to settle the score?

Her thoughts churned in a tangled mess…

Back upstairs, just as she was about to enter her room, the inn’s waiter came up and spoke quietly. “Miss Yan.” Most of the people staying at this inn were under the Heavenly King Gao’s banner, and thanks to a quiet word from the Han brothers, who might have had some connection there, the staff had always looked after her rather well. She had, in fact, quietly paid the man some money to help gather certain information for her.

Now she heard him say: “We just received a piece of news you wanted, about that Li Yanfeng.”

He handed her a slip of paper, then turned and left.

Yan Yunzhi returned to her room, lit the oil lamp, and carefully read over the message on the note…

……

Meanwhile, after leaving the inn, the two siblings, Yinping and Yue Yun, made their way back to their own lodgings.

Along the way, Yue Yun protested to his sister: “You’re not allowed to call me Little Yun anymore.”

Yinping raised an eyebrow with a smile. “You can say you’re not surnamed Han, but you’ll be named Yun your whole life regardless — how is that wrong of me?”

“‘Little Yun’ sounds too much like a woman’s name. Only someone like Miss Yan should be called Little Yun. If it bothers you, you can call me Little Brother, or just Brother Yun.”

“No, it doesn’t bother me.”

“…”

Yue Yun grew annoyed and shot his sister a hostile look. Yinping paid him no mind. The rain had briefly stopped, and the two walked along the dim street, Yinping still holding the small blood- and grime-stained pamphlet, turning it over thoughtfully in her hands as if pondering something.

“Why do you keep holding onto that thing?” Yue Yun asked, curious despite his lingering annoyance.

“I find it interesting. The southwest’s talk of the ‘Four Classes’ — you’ve heard of it, right?”

“These books come from the southwest, Fuzhou’s full of them too. Of course I’ve heard of it.”

“But you haven’t read it. This one, On the Four Classes…” Yinping considered her words. “It’s been revised quite a bit…”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I want to find Master Zuo… and talk it over with him.”

As they spoke, the two of them had already reached the large compound where they now lived together with Zuo Xiuquan and the others, and Yinping went off to find Zuo Xiuquan to discuss the pamphlet and the “Reading Society.”

A short while later, someone from outside came looking for Yue Yun, bringing him news of something…

……

The rain had let up slightly.

Beneath a bridge by the canal outside the Five Lakes Inn, wisps of black smoke rose from below, drifting up into a sky still damp even now that the rain had eased. Occasional coughing, caused by the choking smoke, sounded faintly through the night.

The pairing of “Five-Foot Pervert Demon” Long Aotian and “Four-Foot Pervert Demon” Sun Wukong were darting about nearby.

The two of them had been searching the area, working hard to gather some firewood for Xue Jin and Yue Niang, the couple living beneath the bridge. Because of the days of unrelenting rain, and given that they refused to simply take firewood from others by force, all the wood the two young men managed to find was damp. After considerable effort, they finally got a fire going under the bridge and piled some of the wetter wood beside it to dry.

Smoke and steam filled the air, genuinely unpleasant to endure — only marginally better than having no fire at all.

Having spent a while doing this good deed, the two of them, though not physically tired, were mentally worn out. Once done, they retreated to rest in the darkness by the roadside.

“Wei Xuwen and Zhou Shang are too cunning. These past few days they’ve been on guard, so we can’t keep searching head-on like before, or we’ll walk right into a trap.” Long Aotian analyzed the situation — ever since running into that blade-wielding man named Lu Xian two days ago, he’d known the man had probably figured out the pattern of their movements.

“Mm, waiting for a pig by a stump is too dumb,” the loyal little monk sidekick said, nodding in flattery. “A pig’s bigger than a rabbit, so why bother with the rabbit once you’ve got a pig?”

“Haha, you’re such a fool, ‘waiting for a rabbit by a stump’ doesn’t mean that — it’s a different kind of ‘stump,’ not the character for ‘pig’…”

Long Aotian planted his hands on his hips, laughing heartily, then began giving his little sidekick a quick lesson in literacy, before finally weaving together a new plan. “Since they’ve already spotted us, let’s leave them hanging for now and let them waste a few days chasing nothing. Instead, let’s go stir up trouble with those ‘Wheel-Turning King’ bastards…”

“Ahh…” The young monk’s jaw dropped, blinking, then he mumbled, “Big — Big Brother, shouldn’t we… stay focused on one thing at a time?”

“What do you mean ‘stay focused’! A real man knows how to adapt to circumstances!” Long Aotian smacked the young monk on the head, preparing to impart a bit more life wisdom. “Hmm, those cult people are always making a fuss, love showing off — different from scum like Zhou Shang and Wei Xuwen. Let’s go scope out that Li Damn Feng’s situation first, see if we can find a chance to take him out…”

“Uh… are we killing Li Damn Feng too? Are we killing everyone or what…”

“Of course we’re killing him first, I don’t know anyone else. And besides, I already told you what he did back in Tongshan — don’t you think he deserves it?”

“Mm, he deserves it… hehe, and here I thought you were going to kill that… fat monk…”

“Haha, Evil Monk Lin is our lifelong nemesis, but we can’t beat him right now — see him, run, got it? Don’t go throwing yourself at him, you silly thing…”

“Mm-hm-hm.” The young monk nodded repeatedly, relieved.

“Alright, it’s settled then!”

Long Aotian planted his hands on his hips. “Kill Li Damn Feng! Leave our names behind!”

“Make our names known, and let… the ‘Wheel-Turning King’ know just how formidable we are!” The young monk pumped his fists, thinking a little wistfully about how his master might react once he learned of his new nickname.

Traveling south from the Jin region, his master had often discussed with him what was right and wrong, telling him about the complexities of this world — but when it came to the actual choices, he’d usually left it up to him to decide for himself. There were bad people within the Great Luminous Sect too, and he’d been quietly cleaning house on his master’s behalf. Once his master found out, surely he’d be very pleased?

At heart, his master was a truly good man.

That was what he’d always believed.

……

Along the Qinhuai River, in the relatively prosperous streets under the “Wheel-Turning King” Xu Zhaonan’s jurisdiction.

The curtain of rain had lifted, and the lamps burned brightly inside the several buildings along the street that remained relatively intact.

That day, “Undying Guard” leader Chen Juefang was hosting a banquet here, entertaining Meng Zhutao, the recently arrived leader of the “Assembly of Grudges.” The banquet had taken over an entire floor of this Golden Tower, with people coming and going, gongs and drums sounding — a lively affair indeed.

You Hongzhuo made his way through the crowd and spotted Kuang Wenbai sitting at an unremarkable stall on the ground floor. This deputy commander of the Undying Guard was dressed in plain clothes, a bandage still taped over his broken nose, looking wretched and keeping a low profile.

He had come to observe the movement patterns of Chen Juefang, Tan Zheng, and the others, and seeing “Brother Four” now brought him a certain sense of relief. As long as the man was still alive, there would always be some chance for the future between them.

Night settled in, hazy and indistinct, countless undercurrents surging through the city — no telling at what moment their paths might cross…