“…THAT! WAS! THEM! SLANDERING! ME—!”

In the morning rain outside the Five Lakes Inn, the two factions were still locked in a standoff when some of the more skilled fighters present caught what sounded like a grief-stricken cry from somewhere not far off.

Each side of the standoff numbered several dozen, with Shi Weiyang’s group, well-armed and packed with skilled fighters, clearly holding the advantage. But their original plan had already been thrown into disarray by the inn’s fearless defenders, and at this point, they had little attention left to spare for the strange commotion in the distance.

While the two sides continued pressing and trading curses, in the alley behind the inn, the boy who had just let out that anguished cry now stood facing off against the dark-skinned woman in the straw raincoat in front of him, while a small bald head poked out from the trash pile behind him, watching the scene with bewilderment.

The woman in the straw raincoat, standing at the front, looked entirely at ease. Having heard the boy’s cry, she wore an expression somewhere between amusement and mockery.

“Really? I don’t think so… come now, we’re practically family. Everyone knows how Friend Long carries on back in the southwest. Debauched and lecherous, never happy without some woman around — and you’re wondering why you had to run away from home this time? Don’t you know exactly why, deep down?”

Hearing this, the little bald head turned curiously back and forth, taking it all in.

In the cold rain, Long Aotian clenched both fists, his face flushing red.

“Black Girl, I’m warning you, don’t joke about something like this!”

“Oh, someone’s mad now.” The woman called Black Girl blinked. “Where am I joking? Everything I said is dead serious, and everyone already knows it. Oh, by the way…”

“Say one more word and I’ll kill you—”

“Kill me?” The woman across from him, who’d been smiling, tilted her head, her eyes going wide, and then she gave her wrist a light flick in the rain — the raindrops around her scattered with a splash, as if a whip had cracked against water’s surface. She said approvingly, in a leisurely tone, “Well now… so this really is the famous five-foot Pervert, made quite a name for yourself, haven’t you — even your own big sister isn’t safe from you now. I’d love to see just how you plan to kill me…”

The little bald head turned this way and that in the rain, thoroughly entertained.

Long Aotian, who had been radiating pure adolescent bravado just moments before, froze in place. “I… I… you know they slandered me!”

“I don’t know any such thing.” Black Girl shook her head. “In this world, you can know a person’s face but never their heart, Friend Long. If this reputation you’ve built for yourself out here makes its way back to the southwest, you know exactly how that’s going to go, don’t you?”

“You… just don’t spread lies about it and it’ll be fine!”

“That’s not really up to us, is it? Everyone already knows, after all.”

“Everyone…”

“But there is one way to handle this. You’ve been running around out here for four months now, made a spectacular mess of a reputation for yourself, and haven’t accomplished a single thing you set out to do. Today big sister here has caught you — call it fate. Why don’t you just come along quietly, don’t put up a fight, let me rough you up a bit and bring you back, and then we, your elders, will smooth this whole mess over on your behalf. Family scandal is family scandal, after all — we still have to keep face out in the world. Sound good?”

In the alley, the autumn rain fell steadily, soaking into the woman’s straw raincoat, her dark-skinned face wearing a warm smile as she spoke these words slowly. The boy’s bravado had been thoroughly deflated, his face flushing red then pale by turns — but by the time she’d finished, he suddenly exploded.

“Bullshit! I’m not done with what I set out to do, I’m not going back with you people!”

“Sigh, four months on the road for some girl, and you still haven’t found her…”

“I’ll skin her alive sooner or later…”

“One night as husband and wife, a hundred days of gratitude, little Long. Come on, let big sister teach you a thing or two about life.”

The two of them traded words back and forth, each having now made their positions clear. The woman in the straw raincoat clasped her hands together, her knuckles cracking, and stepped forward. The boy across from her clenched both fists in the rain as well, gritting his teeth, ready to fight.

“Don’t get cocky.”

“I’m not being cocky, I’m just waiting for you to try and kill me.”

The dark-skinned woman smiled broadly as she approached, flashing white teeth between her lips. This standoff between the two of them had clearly happened more than once before — they seemed thoroughly familiar with each other. The little bald head, peeking out from the trash pile behind, asked in a low, curious voice, “B-big brother, who is she?”

“An enemy!” Long Aotian’s fists trembled in the rain, and he shook his legs. “Get ready — let’s beat her to death!”

The little monk didn’t quite buy this, asking quietly, “Would it really be okay for the two of us to gang up on one person?”

“…Huh?” Long Aotian tilted his head, his expression suddenly complicated, unsure how to explain.

Black Girl, over on the other side of the rain, had caught this last remark and now smiled all the more warmly. “This must be Little Sage Equal to Heaven, Young Brother Sun, isn’t it? You two seem close — go on, call me Sister Black Girl.”

“Don’t pay her any attention!” Long Aotian said.

“Amitabha.” The little monk pressed his palms together. “Sister Black Girl.”

“What a well-behaved little monk.” Black Girl laughed. “It’s fine if you help him, big sister’s touch is light — it’ll only hurt a little bit, have a good cry and you’ll be fine…”

Just as she finished speaking, her steps suddenly came to a halt. Long Aotian, who’d been keeping careful watch all around, seemed to notice her distraction and slowly retreated a step, then also stopped, his puzzled gaze drifting to a side passage nearby.

A faint disturbance stirred somewhere in the rain.

What had alerted both sides at this moment was that faint sound from the side passage — but what brought the shift into sharper focus was a weathered, long-neglected rooftop more than ten zhang away. Two figures had suddenly clashed atop that roof, their movements strange and swift, shattering several roof tiles in the process. One figure retreated rapidly, then landed in the courtyard below with a couple of soft thuds, apparently having used lightness technique to absorb the impact.

“Someone’s watching us.”

A voice came from atop the roof. Black Girl’s brow furrowed, and the boy beside her frowned as well. The one who had spoken from the rooftop was clearly none other than the most dangerous sniper currently in the Huaxia Army’s ranks — Yuwen Feidu. He had evidently gone up there out of habit, seeking high ground, and ended up clashing with someone from one side or another. The moment he spoke, his figure vanished swiftly from everyone’s view.

And now, with both Black Girl and Yuwen Feidu having shown up…

The boy took a few steps to the side, glancing toward the nearby side passage, and saw, amid a pile of debris there, the faint gleam of a blade slowly emerging — someone who had been lying in ambush there all along, revealing himself now not only because both Black Girl and Aotian had turned their attention that way, but because, a little further down that same passage, another figure in a straw raincoat had been standing silently for quite some time already.

This man’s skin was also somewhat dark, tall and lean, with arms bulging with muscle like iron beneath his raincoat. Long Aotian gritted his teeth and snapped at Black Girl, “You’re a snake in the grass! Shameless.”

Growing up together, he and Black Girl had fought each other more times than he could count, and each knew the other’s strength inside and out. She was a bit older than him, and girls developed earlier besides — she was in the same league as Sister-in-law Chuyi. Over the years, he’d been beaten to tears by her more times than he cared to remember, so even now, despite his outward fury at her words, that was really just bluster that would fade soon enough.

If a real fight actually broke out, that side passage — which looked like a difficult path to navigate — had been exactly the escape route he’d chosen. But now it seemed that even if he made a run for it, he’d likely end up caught by that dark-skinned figure lurking over there.

Talk about a woman’s poisonous heart!

By comparison, Yuwen, at least, couldn’t very well go around shooting his own people casually, making him, ironically, the least threatening one here.

Of course, right now, Black Girl — practically a fellow disciple of roughly the same generation as him — was already more than he could handle on her own; Dark and Yuwen were a generation above even her, true masters who’d received the full teachings of Aunt Red and Uncles Chen and Du. He couldn’t beat any one of them, let alone all three together.

Still, these two unexpected, thoroughly troublesome villains who’d shown up out of nowhere might just turn into his one shot at survival.

“I’m not the one hiding in the shadows — how is that sneaky or shameless, that’s got nothing to do with me,” Black Girl said with a smile, quietly taking a jab at her own companion, the eavesdropper, at the same time.

Over by the side passage, Dark let out a sigh, then spoke. “This friend hiding over there — mind telling us which hero you might be?”

The middle-aged man who stepped forward with his blade drawn had clearly trained with proper discipline as well. “Everyone’s hiding, might as well come out then. I am Lu Xian, vanguard under Wei Tiansha’s command. Where might you fine friends be from — care to give your names?”

The autumn rain fell, and for a moment, the three parties stood locked in a standoff. Long Aotian gave a small wave behind him — he knew, this was his chance…

After discovering the trouble at the Five Lakes Inn, Lu Xian had quietly passed word about the two Perverts to Shi Weiyang at Zhong’an Ward, then spent the whole morning continuing to keep watch nearby with his master, Li Duanwu.

In theory, if Shi Weiyang had maintained basic caution, a search of a place like the Five Lakes Inn should have been carried out by surprise. But on one hand, Shi Weiyang had considerable confidence in both his own forces and his father’s reputation, and on the other, Lu Xian could hardly reveal the details tying the Five Lakes Inn to the Study Society. As a result, Shi Weiyang had marched over in full, open force, only to find the inn already prepared for him — the two sides had ended up in a standoff out front, leaving Lu and Li’s hoped-for scenario of “the inn smashed open, chaos everywhere, everyone forced out into the open” entirely unrealized.

They couldn’t help but grumble inwardly about how unreliable these young masters were when it came to actually getting things done — but their surveillance from the rear of the inn still paid off. The moment the two figures slipped furtively out the back and, with reckless disregard for their own safety, lingered on the rooftop to watch the excitement, Lu and Li, lying in wait like the sparrow behind the mantis, were perfectly positioned to catch their movements.

The bigger matter at hand was the connection between the Five Lakes Inn and the Study Society; the even bigger matter beyond that was whether the Study Society’s backing truly had ties to the southwest. Capturing these two Perverts was, by comparison, hardly important at all. For this reason, when the two figures climbed out, Lu Xian was in no hurry to move against them directly — he only needed to trail behind and see whether their next destination had any connection to the crowd at the Five Lakes Inn, and perhaps that alone would be enough to untangle the Study Society’s threads from this whole mess.

As it turned out, following them into the alley behind the inn, they actually overheard something rather significant.

But just as the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the sparrow behind it, Lu Xian found himself in much the same position. Just as the woman in the straw raincoat was about to engage the five-foot Pervert directly, Uncle Duanwu, who had climbed up to a nearby rooftop to keep watch from above, was suddenly spotted; after a brief exchange of blows, Li Duanwu made his way back down, choosing to retreat rather than press the engagement — which, from a distance, gave Lu Xian some measure of relief, since his uncle hadn’t panicked outright. But a quick glance back revealed that the tall, dark man had already taken up position on the other side of the passage as well.

Lu Xian, trained for years under Li Duanwu, had spent his career living on the edge of a blade; even facing some danger now, in a one-on-one or two-on-one situation, he wasn’t the type to panic easily. He gave his long saber a flourish and stepped forward, though in his heart, he already understood: this time, he had genuinely run into something formidable.

The people in front of him and behind him were, in all likelihood, the real deal — bona fide southwestern Huaxia Army.

Over these past two years since its founding, the Fairness Party had expanded its influence with startling speed, and in borrowing the Huaxia Army’s banner, it had also painted the southwestern forces as something mysterious and formidable. Lu Xian’s own martial skill was considerable, and working under Wei Xuwen, he’d built up a certain amount of standing and reputation within the organization — but in his day-to-day work, even the most dangerous situations he’d faced had amounted to little more than purging the occasional lunatic, or dealing seriously with a Study Society member here and there.

Facing genuine people from the southwest — this was truly his first time, now that he’d risen to his current position.

He steadied his breathing.

“…I am Lu Xian, vanguard under Wei Tiansha’s command. Where might you fine friends be from — care to give your names?”

His words carried a deliberate edge, meant to provoke a response.

In the cold rain, within the alley ahead, the woman in the straw raincoat said, “Good man.”

Across from her, the boy called Long Aotian spoke at the same moment: “Bad man!”

Off to Lu Xian’s side, the tall, dark man who had spotted him and now blocked his escape route let out a faint sigh. “Ah…”

As their gazes crossed each other in the rain, the boy called Long Aotian gave a small wave, seeming ready to make a run for it. Lu Xian’s long saber flashed, and his left hand reached into his robe, pulling out a signal flare tube. In the curtain of rain, the tall, dark man’s gaze darkened, and his figure surged forward at tremendous speed, hand reaching out to seize him!

Lu Xian’s blade cut out in a slash.

In the alley ahead, the woman in the straw raincoat’s figure burst through the rain with a resounding thud, calling out as she moved: “He’s yours—” and charged straight at the boy across from her, who was trying to flee. The boy’s feet came to a sudden stop, his legs settling into a horse stance in the rain, both hands crossing to form a broad, expansive boxing stance. “Come on, then!”

Though he’d been beaten to tears by her countless times in the past, when it came to facing off against this lifelong rival, he’d never once been truly afraid! As his father always put it, he was still young, after all — once everyone hit their twenties, who could say who’d come out on top?

He had his pride.

If he was going to run, that would happen after he’d taken his licks, not before.

Black Girl’s fist tore through the rain, driving straight at him. Long Aotian’s own footwork surged forward like a bull plowing through a field, closing the distance twice in rapid succession, and then his raised elbow, putting everything he had into it, deflected her incoming straight punch.

Splashes of rainwater burst between the two figures.

In the next instant, their swinging fists crossed in midair — the boy’s upward diagonal punch landed against Black Girl’s ribs, while her wide swinging punch nearly caught him square in the face. In the next instant, she turned her fist into a grab, seizing the back of his collar, her other hand sweeping in to wrap around him at the same time.

The two of them had grown up fighting each other since childhood, with little concern for maintaining proper distance between a man and a woman — but without weapons in play, grappling technique could sometimes prove far more dangerous than fists. Ning Ji knew that once she got a solid grip on him, he’d likely end up beaten half to death with no way to escape, so with a shout, he threw everything into breaking free, driving a punch straight at her face while yelling out, “Monkey steals the peach!” — though his actual movements bore no resemblance to the name at all.

“I’ll kill you!”

Black Girl let out an indignant, embarrassed growl, and the two of them traded blow after blow in the rain, each landing several strikes on the other in short order.

Meanwhile, the instant Lu Xian pulled out that signal flare, the blade in his hand had already come slashing out. The tall, dark man charging at him moved with the force and speed of thunder, both hands sealing shut around Lu Xian’s prized saber, clamping it fast between his forearms so tightly it couldn’t even be pulled free. A chill ran through Lu Xian’s heart, and he understood at once — his opponent was using the Thirteen Guardians Iron Body technique, the Golden Bell Cover.

This Thirteen Guardians Iron Body technique was, at its core, a hard-body art, but even against blades and spears, it wasn’t the sort of thing meant to simply take the blow head-on with flesh and bone — more often it was used to seal, to block, to seize an opponent’s weapon. With his forearms clamped shut like that, Lu Xian immediately understood that the man’s hard-body cultivation had reached an extraordinarily high level — even if he genuinely took a cut from the blade, it likely wouldn’t cause him much serious harm.

He knew an opponent like this would be a nightmare to deal with, but he himself was no mediocre fighter either, and was just about to start wrestling for control when he suddenly heard a shout ring out from somewhere in the distance: “Watch out!”

Off in the distance, atop a rooftop in the rain, a figure suddenly raised a long blade and slashed down at another figure across the way, who was drawing a bow. It was Li Duanwu, who had spotted the archer’s intent on the rooftop and, left with no choice, had charged back in to save him.

An arrow tore through the curtain of rain, streaking toward them. Lu Xian abruptly abandoned his blade and threw himself into a dive, his body tumbling gracelessly through the rain; he’d barely scrambled back to his feet when the tall, dark man’s fists and feet were already coming at him in an unrelenting chain of blows. In an instant, the ground, the debris, and the walls around them exploded in rapid succession — this tall, dark figure moved like a war chariot, his limbs swinging like an iron club, smashing everything in his path to pieces within moments.

Lu Xian, caught off guard, scrambled desperately to dodge, and in this razor’s-edge situation, nearly every movement he made was pure instinct. One of those club-like blows grazed past his face, leaving a searing, burning sensation. In that same frantic instant, he yanked open the signal flare tube in his hand.

Flares like this had a certain chance of failing to fire in the rain, but the moment he pulled it, he felt the rush of the charge igniting inside. And in that same instant, the swinging fist came crashing down.

Through the curtain of rain came a series of muffled, tumbling sounds — the already-ignited flare, knocked loose, bounced off the ground and off the walls several times before finally bursting apart with a boom somewhere in the rain.

The signal never made it into the sky.

Out in front of the Five Lakes Inn not far away, the two factions still locked in their standoff caught the strange commotion drifting over from the rain behind the building.

Neither side had any idea what had just happened.

But by this point, the negotiations had gone absolutely nowhere, and Shi Weiyang’s patience had already run out. Sensing this sudden disturbance behind the inn’s premises — though he had no idea what it actually was — he assumed it could only be good news for his side.

“Damn it! Enough of this dithering, no more talking — go in there and grab them!”

Shi Weiyang’s fear of his father had by now reached its absolute peak; he knew full well that today’s business was likely to go badly regardless. But no matter what, with the other side so tense and desperate to keep him from going in — either this really was the Perverts’ den, or they had some unspeakable secret of their own to hide. Rather than come away empty-handed either way, he figured he might as well try to salvage some face out of this.

“Seize those two troublemaking Perverts who’ve thrown the wandering martial world into chaos! Anyone who stands in my way gets a beating—”

Both sides drew their weapons, and the road in front of the bridgehead erupted into a full clash.

The inn’s people fought back while sending men out to call for help: “Quick, go get someone! Ask Army Sage and Dragon Sage to see justice done!” Shi Weiyang’s side sent out men of their own as well: “Call in everyone we’ve got nearby, as many as we can muster — we are not walking away from this empty-handed today!”

The fighting broke out on both sides, descending into total chaos, with some already lying in pools of blood. Shi Weiyang, flanked and protected by several skilled retainers, pressed forward, forcing his way toward the inn. At that very moment, several figures came bursting out from a side road beside the inn — leading the charge was a young man, bruised and battered, clothes in tatters, with a bald little monk running behind him. The two of them ran while shouting at the top of their lungs.

“Help!” the young man cried. “Bandits! Murder!”

Amid the citywide clamor of fighting and shouting, a cry like this hardly stood out at all; the two figures blended into the crowd, drawing little attention at first, even as they occasionally threw in bizarre lines like “The sky’s falling! The earth’s caving in! The little yellow dog is missing!” — nonsense that, unless you were listening closely, wouldn’t raise any alarm at all.

But Shi Weiyang’s nerves were strung tight, and in that moment, his gaze suddenly locked onto the bald little monk.

Watching the two figures slip into the chaos of the brawling crowd like fish returning to water, blending seamlessly in, he suddenly made the connection, stomping his foot on the spot and shouting at the top of his lungs, “Catch them!”

“Grab that bald one, and that other thing up ahead—”

“Those are the five-foot Pervert and the four-foot Pervert—”

Shi Weiyang was practically bursting with excitement. He’d never actually seen either of their faces, but after days of cold, silent fury from his father over this whole affair, he’d turned over the description of these two Perverts in his mind countless times already — two young men, the younger of the two a monk — how could there be any mistaking that!

Trailing right behind the two Perverts as they charged into the crowd was the dark-skinned woman in the straw raincoat, with the tall, dark man and a limping figure following a bit further back — but at this point, none of them drew much attention at all.

“The sky’s falling! The earth’s caving in! The little yellow dog is missing—”

Having teamed up with the little monk and finally managed to break free from Black Girl’s pursuit, Long Aotian charged into this brawling mass of people, finding himself thoroughly in his element, practically buzzing with excitement — until he noticed the young dandy bouncing around by the inn’s entrance, pointing straight at him and shouting, along with a crowd of people now closing in from all sides, at which point he faltered, just slightly.

I haven’t even started offending you yet!

Within the crowd, Black Girl and the others crept closer.

A moment later, Long Aotian let out a furious, grief-stricken curse.

“Shit Baby, what the hell is wrong with you, is your father dead—”

Shi Weiyang, bouncing on his feet, kept shouting, “Catch them! Catch them!”

Several of the Equality King’s enforcers had already closed in nearby. Having finished his tirade, the boy suddenly dropped low in the middle of the crowd and vanished from everyone’s sight in an instant.

In the next moment, his ground-fighting blade technique unfurled, and several people nearby silently dropped a head shorter, without a sound…

The boy, seething with fury and grief, charged straight at Shi Weiyang, with Black Girl and the others already closing in from behind him as well.

“What’s going on…”

“How did it come to this…”

“Grab them and sort it out later, this looks like it’s about to blow up big…”

Amid their murmured exchange, the group casually knocked down anyone who came near them. A street brawl like this was nothing compared to real battlefield combat — as long as no one had them specifically marked, handling it was almost effortless for them.

More people came surging in from farther off, and the fighting spread out across the long street…

At the northern edge of the city, He Wen entered through the rain, watching the crowds kneeling and kowtowing along the roadside from within his carriage, his expression giving little away.

The Fairness Party’s great kings had all now arrived; with his own entry into the city, what looked to the outside world like the opening of a grand gathering was, in truth, to those within the Fairness Party, the beginning of negotiations that would shape the party’s entire future — negotiations that might well determine whether the Fairness Party survived at all.

In his heart, he had already settled on his course, but now that the moment for action had truly arrived, he couldn’t help but feel a certain unease and apprehension all the same. And toward the people kneeling and kowtowing along the roadside, he felt something even more complicated — a deep sense of guilt.

But now that the moment had come, there was nothing to do but summon his courage.

Caught up in such thoughts, at a certain point, he became aware of some commotion stirring at the other end of the city.

“What’s happening over there?”

“…Sounds like it’s Shi Baofeng’s people, brawling somewhere in the city.” The distance was considerable, but before long someone brought back preliminary word.

“…”

He Wen fell silent for a moment. In truth, this sort of thing had become the new normal within the Fairness Party these days — nothing particularly surprising about it. After a while, more detailed information arrived.

“…It’s the Shi family’s second young master, Shi Weiyang — he’s gotten into a clash with some people under the Farming Sage, and now Dragon Sage’s forces are getting involved… Mr. He, given that you’ve just entered the city, should we perhaps…”

“How lively.”

He Wen let out a sigh, shaking his head with a laugh.

He paid the matter no further mind.