“…After the ninth year of Wu-Jianshuo, when the Jurchens came south for the fourth time, everyone here already knows how things unfolded along the way.”

Meng Zhutao’s voice rang out through the spacious courtyard, quieting the murmurs that had arisen over the news of his junior siblings’ marriage.

“Once the great army passed Xuzhou, Wu’s forces north of the Yangtze fled south in a panic, and hundreds of thousands of common folk fled in terror as well. I had a stockade up in the mountains, off the main roads, and so we avoided the worst of the impact. The stockade had stores of grain — grain I’d painstakingly accumulated over the preceding years — and later I took in refugees as well, saving several thousand extra lives in the process!”

“As for the people of Yu Family Village, I had them relocated ahead of time. Any able-bodied young man or woman among them willing and able to contribute, I found a place for within the stockade. Naturally, there was some conflict along the way — some strongmen, even officials of the Wu court, seeing how well prepared we were, tried to come and seize what we had, and so I killed them. I won’t hide it from you all — during this time, I, Meng Zhutao, even raided the government’s own grain stores. My hands are certainly stained with blood, and I can’t claim to be entirely innocent when it comes to killing. But when it comes to saving lives, I daresay I did a far better job of it than many an official ever did!”

Having said this much, quite a few among the martial-world crowd were already nodding along.

Someone said, “Even if the government grain had stayed put, it would have ended up in Jurchen hands eventually anyway.”

Another added, “For Master Meng to have accomplished all this really is no small feat — worthy of the name ‘Heaven-Measuring Ruler.'”

Yet another remarked, “But does doing all this mean he’s earned the right to kill his own master?”

Meng Zhutao was evidently rather proud of these years of lifesaving work. He paused, his gaze sweeping over the crowd.

“Between my master and me, there were, in truth, two points of real disagreement — and I don’t mind telling you all what they were.”

He said, “The first was that my master was a man of unbending, straightforward temperament. When the Jurchens came south, he kept hoping I would lead troops out to strike directly at the Jin army, to die a righteous death in battle…”

At these words, another wave of murmurs rippled through the crowd — everyone felt this Ling Shengwei had been asking rather too much of him. When the Jin forces came, even the Wu court’s hundreds of thousands of troops kept retreating in defeat; what could Meng Zhutao’s one small mountain stockade possibly have accomplished by charging out, other than dying uselessly before the Jurchen ranks?

Meng Zhutao shook his head. “My master’s ideals were admirable, and I understood his feelings completely. It’s only that, in this world, in circumstances like those, it’s hard to say who was right and who was wrong in the choices each of us made. I held to my own convictions, and on this point, I differed from these junior disciples and my junior sister here — though Elder Ling had tried to persuade me otherwise at times, in the end, he came to understand my thinking as well…”

“But at the same time, Master… always felt that I sometimes went too far, killed too many. And honestly, thinking back on it now, perhaps there were indeed times I shouldn’t have killed so many. But caught up in the chaos of those first couple of years, there were many times when it was impossible to tell right from wrong.”

After the Jurchens withdrew, leaving the wreckage of Jiangnan behind, the Fairness Party’s large-scale uprising had followed — killing the rich, seizing food — and during this period, the various warlords who rose up were, every one of them, scheming and slaughtering one another as well. Though Meng Zhutao didn’t spell it out directly, the crowd could almost smell the blood soaked into every word of it.

Meng Zhutao let out a long sigh.

“My master refused to come up the mountain with me. Later… conditions north of the Yangtze grew dire, people were already trading children to eat down below, and my stockade didn’t have much to spare — under my command, some… incidents occurred. Every time Master came to reason with me about it, large matters and small had already tangled together, until finally there was nothing left to say… Master said, we martial artists take the way of the blade as our path — if words could no longer settle it between us, then let the blade defend the way instead.”

“…We fought — a proper, honorable duel. Elder Ling called it a farewell gift from teacher to disciple. From that day, he released me, sending me out on my own.”

Meng Zhutao stood there quietly for a moment, then raised one hand, looking at it.

“Heroes, all of you, these years I’ve spent fighting my way through turbulent times. The skill in my hands isn’t some flashy display meant to look good. My ruler, my hands, have been stained with too much blood — and given that, my technique was bound to grow fierce and extreme. My master, using several of his finest techniques with the steel whip, struck at me — and I couldn’t hold back in time. I wounded him. This is my sin. But to say that Elder Ling died because of me — that, I do not accept. In the end, even he never said I was in the wrong. He only said that our paths had diverged, and so we parted ways. And as for the Ling family’s whip techniques — I, Meng Zhutao, have never once betrayed them.”

“It was this world that killed Elder Ling!”

Meng Zhutao turned and slowly climbed the steps beneath the eaves, then turned back around and spoke clearly.

“All of you — the disagreement between Elder Ling and me was a disagreement over the way of the martial path. He wished to die a noble death, and I, Meng Zhutao, admired him for it in my heart. But my own path was to let more people live… and I did let them live.”

He pointed toward the four people standing at the center of the courtyard.

“In the mountains, I let the people of my stockade live… In Yu Family Village, I let the people of Yu Family Village live… When the Jurchens came, I let several thousand common folk live. And beyond that, the tens of thousands who now belong to the Fairness Party — I let them live too.”

“If you ask whether innocent people died along the way of all this — I’ll tell you, yes, and likely no small number of them either… In a world like this, if you let some people live, then inevitably, others cannot. Why is that? Because after the Jurchens ravaged this land, there simply isn’t enough grain left in this world to feed everyone—”

“At a time like that, if one household still keeps enough food stored to feed ten people, would you call that man guilty? He is guilty even though he’s innocent! With those ten people facing starvation before our eyes, we had no choice but to seize that one man’s food, so that ten others might live. Heroes, all of you — the Fairness Party cannot cook a meal without rice, and across all of Jiangnan, millions upon millions were about to die! We could only take certain measures, to make sure a few less of them died. And once things eased up a little, we’d do everything we could to save even more — perhaps, one day, everyone.”

“I heard someone earlier questioning whether Meng Zhutao is fit to lead the ‘Assembly of Grudges.’ Heroes, all of you — whether one is fit to lead the ‘Assembly of Grudges’ isn’t a matter of sentiment. It’s not because I, Meng Zhutao, am good at winning people over, and it’s not because I charged bravely at the Jurchens and died a glorious death. It’s because I am capable of letting more people live — because I am capable, when faced with two bad choices, of choosing the one that is not the very worst.”

“All of you — an assembly of grudges is exactly that: the moment you make a choice, the grudges gather upon you forever. You let some live, and the ones who died will hate you for it. You uphold justice for one side, and the ones punished for it will hate you too. That is what the ‘Assembly of Grudges’ truly means. But he who makes no choice at all accrues no karma…”

Meng Zhutao looked toward his junior siblings standing in the courtyard below, while all around, the crowd murmured among themselves — in the end, this was simply not a matter that could easily be judged.

If Meng Zhutao had claimed to be a man of flawless virtue, there might have been grounds to condemn him further. But having openly admitted to being a man with blood on his hands many times over, an ambiguous figure walking the line between righteous and wicked, his parting of ways with Ling Shengwei over a genuine difference in principle was not entirely unreasonable either. Most importantly, this speech he’d just given, though outwardly calm and composed, carried an unyielding force beneath it — and for a moment, hardly anyone dared step forward to judge him by simple standards of morality.

The junior disciples and martial sister’s expressions shifted uneasily. The fourth disciple, the one who had married their junior sister, gritted his teeth and finally forced out a reply: “With your clever tongue and endless twisted logic, you think you can talk your way out of this monstrous debt of vengeance?”

“That’s not it at all.”

Meng Zhutao shook his head, speaking with candor. “The disagreement between Elder Ling and me is a matter of principle, spoken here for the whole world to hear. As for right and wrong — it lies with neither Elder Ling nor with me. On the day of our duel, when Elder Ling released me from his tutelage, his heart was at ease. What do the rest of you truly know of that? You are my junior siblings — I once thought of you all as children, but you’ve grown up now, and it’s only natural, only right, that you’d come seeking revenge.”

He continued, “Yu Bin, all this time you wanted to come seek revenge, yet kept hesitating, worried I might simply have my men deal with you without a second thought — that shows just how little you think of your own senior brother. A martial artist takes the blade as his way; if your resolve is firm and you wish to strike me down, your senior brother’s heart holds nothing but joy at the thought.”

“So then — today, right now, will you come at me one at a time, or all four together? I, Meng Zhutao, will face you regardless… how about it?”

Having said this, Meng Zhutao spread his hands out before him.

The onlookers grew excited, sensing that despite all the verbal sparring that had come before, Meng Zhutao’s anger had genuinely been stirred, and that a real fight was, after all, still coming.

The Ling family’s four might not be especially skilled, but if all four came at him together, everyone would get a rough sense of just how formidable the martial skill of Meng Zhutao — “Heaven-Measuring Ruler,” one of the Eight Executors — truly was.

Once Meng Zhutao’s words fell silent, the courtyard fell quiet for a moment. The four who had come seeking revenge, despite their impassioned words earlier, now hesitated slightly at his direct challenge.

A murmur ran through the crowd. Up on the second floor, Jin Yongsheng, the chief steward under the “Equality King,” spoke up: “Since matters have come this far, let us stand as guarantors. The Ling family’s pursuit of revenge is honorable and above board; whatever the outcome should this fight break out with Master Meng, whoever is wounded or killed, the matter ends here. Even if Master Meng should die here today, no one is to seek further revenge for it — and if it’s the Ling family’s people, or that young Yu Bin fellow, who falls, no further grudges are to be raised over it either. What does everyone say?”

“Heavenly Blade” Tan Zheng said, “That’s only right.”

Li Yanfeng, Guo Shengtian, and others chimed in as well: “We’ll stand as guarantors too! Anyone who won’t let this go is showing no respect to all the heroes and elders who’ve gathered here today!”

As the crowd’s words settled, someone stepped out from the group and called out: “Amitabha.” Everyone present felt a jolt at the sound — the deep, resonant power behind that single utterance of the Buddha’s name seemed to sink straight into every listener’s heart.

Out stepped a tall, elderly monk with a grizzled beard, dressed in a worn gray robe, carrying a crescent-moon spade. The monk walked out from the crowd toward the center of the courtyard, and the four standing there seemed to find in him a savior, each pressing their palms together in greeting. The monk, who looked to be around fifty, raised one palm forward and said with a smile, “Benefactor Meng, do you still remember me?”

“So it’s Master Tanji.” Meng Zhutao cupped his fists in greeting. “It’s been a long time.”

“Ten years ago, when I met Benefactor Ling, your skill was already remarkable. This old monk predicted then that you would one day bring the Ling family’s whip technique to great glory. Who would have thought that ten years later, when we meet again, it would be under circumstances such as these.”

The monk smiled, then his expression turned solemn. “Not long ago, these junior siblings of yours came to find me, asking this old monk to see justice done for Benefactor Ling’s death. Recalling what I saw of you ten years ago, and knowing you to be a man of insight, I let them come forward first today, to provoke you into speaking and clarify the truth of the matter. Hearing it now… it truly is… a tangled web of karma.”

Hearing this, Meng Zhutao let out a soft breath. “So that’s how it is. I’d sensed that my junior siblings might have been put up to this by someone behind the scenes, and worried they were simply being used by bad actors. To learn it was Master Tanji all along — then there’s no issue at all.”

“As for there being no issue — that may not be so.”

“…What does Master mean by that?”

Meng Zhutao’s expression shifted slightly, taken aback.

The monk Tanji, facing him, raised one palm and let out a faint sigh.

“Amitabha. Before I took the tonsure, Benefactor Ling and I were old acquaintances. Back then, Benefactor Ling and I spent whole nights discussing martial arts together, and he generously shared the essence of his whip techniques with me without reservation, which allowed this old monk to complete what I had learned, and ultimately kill the enemy who wronged my family, avenging that great debt… Benefactor Meng, you and Benefactor Ling walked different paths, but even so, you have spoken openly and honestly, and this old monk cannot say that what you did was wrong. On the greater principle, then, this old monk has nothing further to say…”

“But beyond that — when it comes to this smaller matter of personal debt, this old monk finds himself bound by causality, with something he cannot avoid doing…”

……

The old monk’s gaze, tinged with weariness, turned toward Meng Zhutao.

……

Meng Zhutao’s expression grew complicated. His mouth opened slightly, closed again, and this continued for a moment — until at last, he let out a sigh.

……

“…So be it.”

The night was hazy, and in the firelit courtyard of the Golden Tower, the gathered martial-world crowd drew back, clearing a wider space for the two men about to fight to the death.

Chen Juefang, Jin Yongsheng, Tan Zheng, Li Yanfeng, and the others had by now come down from upstairs as well.

Everyone had assumed the fight to come would simply be Meng Zhutao bullying a few obscure young upstarts — but the appearance of this old monk had changed everything.

This monk Tanji, hailing from Mount Wutai, was no obscure figure within the martial world. His skill was formidable, and more importantly, during the decade or more when the Central Plains lay under enemy occupation, he had been active throughout the territories on both banks of the Yellow River, performing no shortage of chivalrous deeds.

His martial prowess combined with his reputation made him a figure that even the assembled heroes here couldn’t help but respect — even men like Tan Zheng and Jin Yongsheng could only address him now as an equal, while Li Yanfeng, in his presence, could only refer to himself, as Meng Zhutao did, as a junior.

This time, the three men and one woman of the Ling family had come forward bearing the memorial tablet, ostensibly seeking revenge and justice — but as one of the Eight Executors, what Meng Zhutao had actually been worried about was manipulation by other hidden interests. He’d used his rhetoric to push Yu Bin and the others toward a duel, hoping to pressure his junior siblings and thereby flush out whoever might be pulling the strings behind them. But with Tanji’s sudden appearance, that same rhetoric had ended up trapping Meng Zhutao himself.

He was the one who had, after all, admitted the legitimacy of the other party’s pursuit of personal vengeance.

At this point, Tan Zheng and the others tried a bit of persuasion, some arguing that both men were valuable assets who should preserve their strength for the fight against the Jurchens together, others saying that endless cycles of revenge served no one, and that, after all, old hero Ling Shengwei hadn’t technically died directly at Meng Zhutao’s hands… But Tanji, as a monk who had achieved clarity of mind and was well accustomed to sparring in verbal repartee, was hardly one to be swayed by such simple arguments. As people tried to talk him down, he could only shake his head and smile helplessly.

His bond with Ling Shengwei had been too special. Now that Ling Shengwei was dead, he had no choice but to act on this personal debt himself. It wasn’t a matter of grand righteousness, only something that had become, in the end, unavoidable.

Meng Zhutao stood firm in the courtyard, leaning on his iron ruler, eyes closed, gathering his focus.

Tall and powerfully built, he had studied under three masters over the course of his life — first staff technique, then spear technique, and finally the whip technique of the steel chain-whip. The iron ruler he now held was longer than an ordinary steel whip, looking much like an iron staff, but given his physique, he could wield it single- or double-handed interchangeably — by now it had practically become a weapon style of its own, founded uniquely upon his own use of it. Though the ruler had no blade, its striking power when swung was every bit as devastating as a steel whip, while its recovery allowed him to block incoming attacks much like a staff. Over the years, there was no telling how many bones it had shattered.

The monk Tanji turned to give a few final words to the Ling family members, then walked toward Meng Zhutao, gripping his heavy crescent-moon spade. “This old monk practices the Demonic Staff style — once the fighting starts in earnest, I lose control of myself. Today’s matter is only for personal grievance, yet it cannot be avoided. I feel truly ashamed.”

Meng Zhutao opened his eyes. “If the Master should die, where shall I bury you?”

“Just burn me to ash and scatter it wherever’s convenient.”

“…So be it.”

Meng Zhutao let out a sigh.

Tanji suddenly raised his crescent-moon spade and, with a great roar, came howling forward!

……

At this moment in the night, out on the street beyond the Golden Tower, Yan Yunzhi, dressed in her straw raincoat, watched the crowd surging forward.

“There’s going to be a fight, there’s going to be a fight…” someone said excitedly.

“Wasn’t there already fighting going on? What’s the big deal!”

“This one’s different — it’s Master Tanji against Meng Zhutao of the ‘Assembly of Grudges,’ a fight to the death—”

The onlookers gathered by the street were mostly people eager to join the gathering but held back by insufficient skill or standing, and their words now carried a distinct note of excitement.

Yan Yunzhi frowned and pressed forward. She knew little about Meng Zhutao of the “Assembly of Grudges,” only that the banquet inside had been held in his honor. But she had heard her father, Yan Taiwei, speak many times over the years of the righteous deeds Master Tanji had performed in the Central Plains.

Just as she wondered at all this, a furious roar erupted from within the courtyard, a battle cry reverberating through the surroundings, followed by a deafening “BOOM—” — she couldn’t imagine what force could produce such a sound from two pieces of iron colliding. The crowd along the street immediately erupted into startled gasps once more…

At that same moment, on the other side of the city, near the streets by the Five Lakes Inn, a group of men approached in the darkness.

“…It’s just ahead, like I said.”

The one leading the way turned back to report.

Leading this group was Lu Xian, the small squad leader under Wei Xuwen tasked with capturing fugitives, carrying his long-and-short twin blades on his back. Beside him, somewhat older, was his deputy, the village’s most senior figure in the martial world, the one who had trained Lu Xian himself — Li Duanwu.

Having taken on Wei Xuwen’s assignment, Lu Xian had spent his nights putting on a show of patrolling while sending men out during the day to scout and gather information. After a few days of this, they had finally located what seemed to be where Long Aotian and Sun Wukong were staying.

For anyone coming into the city from outside and wanting to find a proper place to stay by the book, the options were limited enough. Li Duanwu, a former lead constable, had brought Lu Xian up with the same seasoned instincts, and having caught only a faint trace of the smell of sleeping rough on the two boys, they had been able to narrow down the search considerably.

“They’re flying the banner of Zhao Jingci, one of the Fairness Party’s minor agricultural worthies,” Li Duanwu said, examining the sign carefully.

“Zhao Jingci, the Farmer Worthy — a hands-off sort, it’s rare to see anyone flying his banner,” Lu Xian said with a smile, then surveyed the surroundings near the inn and gave his orders. “There’s smoke coming from under that bridge near the inn. Zhuzi, go check who’s there, see if they’re keeping watch. Chuanwen, you go in with Uncle Duanwu, pretend you want a room, and see what you can find out. Two young men, the smaller one’s a monk — barring any surprises, this shouldn’t be hard to get out of them. Pay for it if you need to. Chuanwen, learn from this.”

Having said this, the young man named Zhuzi headed toward the bridge underpass near the inn. Drawing close, he saw a figure struggling to light a fire with damp firewood beneath the bridge — the original fire had likely gone out, leaving only a small pile of embers, and the ragged, kneeling figure was carefully laying a few slightly drier twigs on top, blowing gently on the coals, coughing repeatedly from the smoke.

There was another weak figure lying on the upwind side of the underpass, sick and sleeping fitfully.

As the young man named Zhuzi drew near, he must have disturbed the airflow at the mouth of the underpass, because the small flame flickered and nearly went out. The beggar tending the fire turned around, and Zhuzi stepped out, drew his long blade, and pressed it to the man’s throat. “Don’t speak.”

The tiny flame flickered, and the beggar trembled in fear before the blade.

Zhuzi studied the trembling beggar carefully for a moment, then stepped forward to look at the other figure lying on the ground. This one was a woman, thin nearly to the bone, gravely ill. Seeing him approach to examine her, the beggar who’d been tending the fire crawled forward pleadingly, eyes full of desperate entreaty, but Zhuzi swung his blade back toward him before lifting the woman’s tattered clothing to check her.

The situation inside Jiangning was complicated these days — some places housed only ordinary folk, while others, though appearing perfectly normal on the surface, actually harbored dangerous men, requiring caution. Lu Xian’s group wasn’t familiar with this area yet, and after a careful look, Zhuzi confirmed that these two were simply ordinary beggars. The woman was sick, drifting in and out of consciousness, seemingly near death; the man had a lame leg and spoke in a stammering, garbled voice — seeing the blade, he did nothing but weep and beg for mercy.

Zhuzi, growing impatient, nearly felt like finishing them both off with two quick strokes.

After a moment, someone above the waterway signaled for him to come up.

He jogged over and found Lu Xian and the others also running through the dark streets nearby; the young man named Chuanwen had someone slung over his shoulder, though it wasn’t clear who. The group made their way to a nearby ruined building, threw the unconscious figure down on the ground, and lit a fire. Only then, talking it over, did they learn what had happened at the Five Lakes Inn.

“Damn it… looked like a perfectly ordinary inn, not many people inside either, but who’d have thought the waiter there would be so sharp. We asked him about the two young men, and he said he didn’t know — but something about how he acted seemed off… Uncle Duanwu pulled me back outside, then we circled back and saw the waiter heading further in, clearly about to report us. We caught him in the corridor right away, knocked him out with one punch, found a room with a window, and jumped out…”

The young man named Chuanwen rambled on, then spat. “Damn it, something’s definitely going on there…”

Someone lit a lamp, and Li Duanwu bent down to search the unconscious waiter thoroughly. At that moment the waiter began to stir groggily, and just as he seemed about to struggle, several of the younger men rushed forward to pin him down, one of them clamping a hand over his mouth. Li Duanwu rummaged around for a moment and pulled a small cloth pouch out from the leg wrappings on the man’s calf. He opened the pouch and frowned.

“Blind cat stumbles on a dead rat — looks like we’ve actually netted something valuable here…”

Li Duanwu muttered, handing the item over to Lu Xian. What came out of the pouch turned out to be two small hand-copied pamphlets.

Lu Xian frowned, looking down at the waiter on the ground. “Reading Society, is it?” He drew a knife and crouched down, waving a hand. “Let him speak.”

The man holding the cloth gag over the waiter’s mouth pulled it away.

Lu Xian and the waiter stared at each other for a moment, the waiter panting for breath, his eyes darting with fear and uncertainty. Lu Xian let out a sigh. “We didn’t come here to hunt down your lot this time… just picked up a few books, no need to make such a fuss over it. Tell us about that Long Aotian and Sun Wukong, and we’ll let you go. Why make this difficult on yourself?”

The waiter gasped for a moment. “You… since you already know about the Reading Society, this… this can’t be a small matter. You… which side are you with?”

“Sent by the Equality King,” Lu Xian said offhandedly.

The man clearly didn’t believe him, staring back at Lu Xian for a moment before speaking. “You… running rampant like this… grabbing people at random… you… look at the state of this city… if the Fairness Party keeps doing things this way, it’ll never succeed. To accomplish anything, there have to be rules… there have to be rules…”

He spoke these words as if reciting some kind of code phrase. Lu Xian frowned. “We’re not here to arrest your people. We’re asking about those two — one calls himself Long Aotian, the other Sun Wukong, a young monk. If you know anything, tell us, and this’ll be over. Deal?”

“…I don’t know anything about a young monk… I thought — I thought you’d come to arrest me…”

Lu Xian stood up, sighed, and finally said, “…Ask him a bit more.” He glanced to the side. “Chuanwen, come here and learn the trade.”

In the dark streets, after a while, a muffled scream, ghostly and suppressed, rose into the night. Jiangning, since the great chaos, was littered with ruins, and sounds like this, real or imagined, hardly counted as anything out of the ordinary anymore…

The Golden Tower.

In the courtyard, the monk Tanji’s Demonic Staff whirled like a spinning mill-wheel, and the two combatants, locked in furious exchange, swept across the courtyard like a hurricane.

The heavy blows landed one after another without pause; the Demonic Staff carried tremendous weight and momentum, its attacks almost entirely forward with no retreat. Yet the power Meng Zhutao’s iron ruler unleashed was equally beyond what most could imagine — wielding it two-handed, he could block the crescent-moon spade’s ferocious strikes head-on, and when wielding it single-handed like a steel whip, the force he could bring to bear was even more astonishing.

In the early stages of the exchange, Meng Zhutao seemed to be holding back somewhat, pressed largely into a defensive posture by the monk Tanji’s onslaught. But by the middle of the fight, once he had let go of restraint, the weight behind his swinging iron ruler grew steadily heavier. Even as Tanji pressed forward with the Demonic Staff, Meng Zhutao’s steel whip-strikes several times managed to counterattack directly, and amid the fierce clashing blows, he repeatedly forced back the momentum of his opponent’s assault through sheer power.

A decorative stone pillar at the edge of the arena was struck by one of their weapons, exploding into a cloud of stone dust; a table set nearby was smashed to splinters in the ensuing whirlwind. The crowd gathered around the edges of the courtyard couldn’t help but retreat further back, knowing that anyone caught in the crossfire of these two ferocious fighters would never survive even a single blow to their flesh and blood.

Watching this fight, everyone present felt a quiet shudder of awe, agreeing that reputation this vast was well deserved indeed. That the monk Tanji, already renowned for years, could hold his own was one thing — but that Meng Zhutao, not yet even forty, could fight him to something like a draw, even gaining a slight edge at times, made it clear why he’d risen to become a power in his own right. Though he had joined the Ling family under a nominal master, it seemed the entire sect, Ling Shengwei included, likely wouldn’t have been enough to match him even combined — and it made sense, in hindsight, that he’d left them behind.

The frenzied exchange between the two left the watching crowd trembling with fear. The monk Tanji, originally gentle-featured and kind in appearance, had by now, deep into wielding his Demonic Staff, worked himself into a killing frenzy — with another great roar, he closed the distance between them in an instant. He pinned Meng Zhutao’s iron ruler with his staff, lunged forward, and drove a fierce headbutt straight at Meng Zhutao’s face. Meng Zhutao dodged hastily, and the monk’s headbutt landed instead against the side of his neck; Meng Zhutao wrapped both arms around him and drove a knee straight up into his opponent’s stomach!

The two figures grappled together, and having taken the knee strike, the monk Tanji immediately returned a punch. At close range, pinning each other’s weapons, the two of them exchanged brutal blows — the monk Tanji opened his mouth and bit savagely at Meng Zhutao’s neck. Meng Zhutao twisted free, narrowly avoiding the vital point at his throat. He raised his iron ruler, trying to create some distance, while the old monk seized his crescent-moon spade and swept it fiercely toward him. Meng Zhutao’s body spun violently as he retreated, and the monk Tanji, swinging his heavy spade, charged forward, his body slamming into Meng Zhutao’s shoulder.

The old monk swung his spade to strike back — but Meng Zhutao’s body, spinning in midair, executed the same “turning back to gaze at the moon” counter-strike, the tip of his iron ruler slamming into the old monk’s head with a resounding thud.

The old monk never had the chance to turn back; his body pitched forward — his head had already been shattered by the iron ruler in that single blow.

Meng Zhutao landed heavily, stumbling back several steps as well. This ferocious battle had ended almost in the blink of an eye, and for a moment even Meng Zhutao himself seemed stunned. By his own reckoning, he would have preferred, if at all possible, to spare his opponent’s life — but once a fight escalated to this level of intensity, he simply couldn’t hold himself back. Just as in that final duel with his own master, once he committed to a strike he couldn’t pull it, and had ended up dealing his master internal injuries. This time, with the monk Tanji’s skill even greater than his master’s, he’d found himself even less able to control the outcome.

The watching crowd, for a moment, could hardly process what had just happened.

But in that very instant, a figure had already leapt out from behind Meng Zhutao — it was Yu Bin, the second disciple whom Meng Zhutao had singled out earlier, surging forward with both whips raised, bringing them down with all his strength at Meng Zhutao’s head.

“Stop—”

“Watch out!”

“How dare you, insolent wretch—”

All around the courtyard, people sprang to their feet in alarm. “Heavenly Blade” Tan Zheng drew his sword with a ringing hiss; “Cold Crow” Chen Juefang lunged forward toward the scene; Li Yanfeng casually flung a piece of fruit… Meng Zhutao’s figure shifted, his iron ruler raised to block — no one could tell exactly where the double whips had landed, but the next instant, Meng Zhutao’s ruler swept sideways, sending Yu Bin’s body flying through the air.

“Don’t act rashly—”

Meng Zhutao shouted, though his words were now directed at the other three junior siblings, who were just then surging forward from the crowd. The four Ling siblings were, evidently, all fierce and unyielding in temperament — earlier, when Meng Zhutao himself had proposed the duel, they had feigned hesitation and even drawn some scornful looks from the crowd for it; but now, with the monk Tanji’s attempt having failed, these three, who’d been dismissed by onlookers as cowards, seized their chance and charged forward with everything they had — clearly, this had all been planned in advance.

But things were not, in fact, quite so simple.

Just as the crowd’s attention was entirely fixed on the Ling siblings, a figure leapt up onto a nearby wall and, with a sudden sweeping motion of the arm, hurled something down into the crowd like a shower of falling blossoms — the objects exploded with a series of sharp cracks amid the crowd, and smoke and dust billowed up instantly.

You Hongzhuo, who had already been carefully observing his surroundings, suddenly realized with a jolt that whatever was exploding among the crowd was a type of hidden weapon once known as “Thunderclap Fire” — in truth, a low-yield gunpowder toy, not much good for actually injuring people, but quite effective at sowing chaos. Even as these Thunderclap Fires went off, a figure burst out from within the crowd, shouting: “Kill Chen Juefang—”

Chen Juefang’s long whip swept across the courtyard’s air, and an assassin fell from above.

The explosions of the Thunderclap Fires threw the crowd in the courtyard into utter panic, and as the figure shouted “Kill Chen Juefang” at the same moment, You Hongzhuo very nearly mistook the man for an ally and almost drew his blade to join in — but in the midst of this chaos, he quickly realized the man’s intentions ran deeper and more complex than that.

At the front of the courtyard, Tan Zheng swung his blade to deflect an incoming throwing knife; “Monkey King” Li Yanfeng snatched up a staff and, with a series of whistling strikes, blocked the path of a suspicious-looking fighter. And close by the others, taking advantage of the chaos, another figure suddenly darted out and swept past… right in front of Liu Guangshi’s delegation’s chief envoy, Gu Anhe.

After that figure swept past, Gu Anhe clutched at his own throat and slowly sank to the ground.

The crowd watched as that figure sped across the courtyard at incredible speed, sending two Undying Guard members who’d rushed to intercept him flying, all while laughing loudly and boastfully: “Hahahaha, you pack of pathetic curs, too slow!”

“Chen Juefang!” Li Yanfeng roared. “Don’t let him get away—” As Liu Guangshi’s delegation’s deputy envoy, with the chief envoy killed right in front of him, he’d surely be held accountable back home.

“No one’s getting away—” Chen Juefang, said to have the finest lightness footwork under heaven, gave chase with a whistling burst of speed.

“Don’t let a single one escape!” Elsewhere in the crowd, other assassins were still taking advantage of the chaos to muddy the waters further. “Heavenly Blade” Tan Zheng let out a furious roar of his own and stepped forward — with Chen Juefang gone, he now became the one holding the line in the courtyard.

Watching the assassin’s figure sprint past the surrounding wall, Chen Juefang sped after him at full speed, and You Hongzhuo felt a surge of delight as well. Hearing “Heavenly Blade” Tan Zheng’s roaring command, he let out a shout of his own: “Surround them, don’t let a single one get away—”

The moment he said this, the numerous seasoned martial-world veterans present, who had been struggling to maintain their composure amid the unfolding chaos, immediately erupted into panic. They were all men who lived on the fringes of the law — with an incident like this unfolding, would they really wait around to be captured and interrogated one by one by the Fairness Party’s men? Even knowing themselves to be innocent, who among them could truly trust the moral standards of the other side? At once, some rushed for the entrance, others scrambled toward the surrounding walls.

Out on the street beyond the courtyard wall, Yan Yunzhi, caught up in the crowd, heard the fighting inside suddenly erupt into full chaos after a brief lull. She had no idea what exactly was happening, only that a figure burst laughing over the wall, shouting “…you pack of pathetic curs, too slow!” and, with a casual sweep of the arm, scattered another wave of objects like falling blossoms.

Firecrackers popped and crackled among the crowd on the street — people who had been pressed up against the wall listening to the commotion inside were now thrown into a cloud of smoke and utterly confused shouting. The figure plunged into the panicked crowd, sending an oncoming “Undying Guard” member flying. On the wall behind, Chen Juefang had also come vaulting over, his cloak flaring in the darkness like a cold raven’s wings as he sped across the rooftops above the street.

The figure who had first burst out was laughing as he charged off into the distance, calling back: “Come on then, little crow, let’s see who’s more formidable — you, or Zhou Tong!”

Atop the wall, at the courtyard gate, more figures now came bursting out, one of them shouting: “Watch this spot, don’t let a single one escape—”

The Undying Guard members stationed along both sides of the street immediately sprang into action, instinctively following the direction of that shout and trying to seal off the street to block anyone else from leaving — whatever the truth of the matter, keeping the situation under control for now seemed the right move regardless.

Kuang Wenbai, single whip in hand, charged off down the far end of the street, trying to call out to the “Wheel-Turning King’s” men stationed at either end to set up roadblocks and seal off the intersection. Just as he was running, he heard that same voice ring out right beside his ear: “Don’t let a single one get away!”

Thinking it was one of his own men, he turned his face to look — and the figure running alongside him swung a fist straight into it, landing squarely on his still-unhealed broken nose.

Kuang Wenbai’s vision went black, and his whole body tumbled end over end, crashing through several worn-out tables and chairs by the roadside, blood beginning to seep from behind his shattered nose…

At that moment, “Cold Crow” Chen Juefang seemed to have already caught up with the assassin ahead, the two figures darting across the tangled rooftops, exchanging blows like lightning. Meanwhile, further back along the street and within the courtyard, chaos had fully erupted.

Yan Yunzhi, caught in the panicked crowd, scrambled and covered her head, fleeing for cover.

Not far from this spot, along the edge of a street, the two young men known as Long Aotian and Sun Wukong were crouched in front of a griddle-cake stall, watching intently as the vendor cooked their food.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.

“These griddle cakes you make are really delicious, sir… are you secretly Wu Dalang reincarnated?”

Long Aotian was busy sharing his usual brand of utterly pointless commentary…