“…I saw it, just now… you… were… spying.”
The air was stifling and hot, the dim yellow lamplight illuminating only a small portion of the shop’s interior. Dried fish and seaweed were piled high in the worn-out shelving and across the tables, and the shadows of the men climbed up the walls, growing monstrously large in the darkness.
The youth who had entered held a piece of dried cuttlefish, tapping it against the tabletop beside him as he watched the Fish King, his tone far from friendly. From the back of the shop, dark figures pushed back their stools and rose to their feet.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, little brother. The shop’s closing up… was there something you wanted to buy?”
As the local kingpin, the Fish King wasn’t especially tall, but his frame was broad-boned, and though he’d grown older, his lean, hardened face and the scar slashing down over his right eye still made it plain he was no one to trifle with. Perhaps because the constables had already come through a few rounds earlier, the figures at the back of the shop, though now on their feet, didn’t immediately close in.
A basket of fish goods crashed to the floor with a thud, followed by a scattering clatter of dried fish. The youth who had entered casually swept aside the goods laid out on the table in front of him, then pointed a finger at the Fish King.
“I hear the local gangs around here talk about you,” he said. “Something about fish balls, or fish… something, surname Gao — said this territory’s under your control. No point denying it. You. Were spying. Upstairs.”
The flame in the oil lamp burned quietly on. The Fish King stood there, showing, unusually, no anger, no reaction at all — but seeing the fish goods knocked to the floor in his shop, one of the men from the back had already stepped forward, crossing past the Fish King, reaching a hand out across the table to grab at him.
“You little punk, do you know whose—”
Before he could finish shouting, his outstretched hand seemed to be sucked forward as if by some invisible force. In the darkness, his hundred-some pounds of body weight was suddenly airborne, and the next instant, with a resounding crash, he flipped backward and slammed straight into a display cabinet of goods by the doorway. The bean-sized lamp flame swung wildly, shadows lurching across the room. The youth’s body hadn’t seemed to move at all — he remained facing the Fish King the entire time. From the back, the sound of weapons being drawn could be heard, and several men moved to charge forward, only to be blocked by the Fish King’s outstretched arm.
“One.”
The youth pointed to the man now embedded in the shattered shelving behind him, then turned back and pointed at the Fish King’s chest.
“Two.”
He slowly turned toward the others in the shop.
“Three, four… five, six… any more?”
The youth pulled over a stool and sat down at the table where he’d just cleared the goods away, looking at the men across from him.
“You’re all locals, aren’t you… Do you have family? Wives, children? Good friends? Tell me — how many people am I going to need to kill tonight, to make sure this gets cut off at the root?”
Someone at the back roared out: “Just who the hell do you think you—”
“Shut up—”
The Fish King bellowed sharply to cut off the reckless outburst behind him. He drew a breath. “Little brother, I, Gao, have never once given you any offense…”
“Don’t give me that shit, still saying you weren’t spying.” The youth gave a cold laugh. “Some idiot surnamed Ni comes looking for trouble, you’re the one who arranged the boat, your own man was rowing it, and you’re the one who was spying from upstairs — now that you’ve seen something good…”
The Fish King hesitated. “Friends from the martial world came asking to borrow passage — this Gao was only following the usual courtesy of the road. As for whatever I might have seen…”
But the youth sitting across the table paid no attention to his words at all. He idly tapped the dried cuttlefish in his hand against the table, then, with a sudden crack of his fist, shattered the sturdy solid-wood frame of a nearby cabinet. In the flickering lamplight, the fish goods collapsed inward like a small avalanche into darkness.
“You lowlifes… let me tell you how this world really works. You go running down to Jiangnan, fighting and killing everywhere you go, and it makes me sick just looking at you. Then you say you’re coming to Fuzhou to see the sights, set up a little stall, live as a decent, law-abiding man — and one after another, none of you can leave me alone. Some Zhan Yunhai, some Yue Yun, fighting it out every other day — a whole pack of stray roosters and dogs, and every one of you still yammering about accomplishing great things, accomplishing your own damn funeral more like it… Fine, and now it’s even more absurd — you people’s Ni Po just killed some chief constable from the Ministry of Justice, so pleased with himself he could burst, and he still dares to come cause trouble for me? What, trying to bring the law’s wrath down on an upstanding, law-abiding citizen like me? You people from Fuzhou, sick of living, are you…”
His words rambled on and on, a menacing violence practically seeping out of him. Toward the very end, he fixed his gaze on the Fish King once more: “…Damn it, out with it.”
“Out with… what?”
“Tell me why Ni Po came looking for me!” The youth slammed his palm down on the table and stood up. “Talk! What the hell are you people, sick of living, daring to mess with me! Why did he come after me!”
The furious roar echoed through the room, loud enough to be faintly heard even out on the street beyond. The Fish King, standing there, spoke in a low, steady voice: “We were simply lending passage — that’s a matter of honor among us in the martial world. As for why that Ni Po went and provoked you, brother, that I genuinely don’t know—”
He sensed the youth was on the verge of losing control entirely, and his own words came out hurried, though he did his utmost to maintain some semblance of composure, neither servile nor defiant. But no sooner had he finished speaking than the youth had already closed the distance and swung a vicious slap across his face — the dried cuttlefish still in hand crumpling against his cheek. The Fish King’s head rang with a dull roar; he hadn’t intended to fight back, and his first instinct was to sweep a hand out to the side.
But it was already too late.
Someone beside him roared out furiously: “You son of a—”
The men he had beside him now, the ones he could summon on short notice, were mostly rough, hot-blooded types from the fish market who loved a good fight — and having taken no part in tonight’s spying, they burned with righteous fury, utterly unwilling to accept such humiliation. In that instant, a thin man armed with a water-piercing dagger was the first to brace against the table edge and leap forward; behind him, another man swung his blade down in fury.
While the thin man’s body was still in mid-air, a fist had already slammed into his chest, sending ripples through his entire body, his figure momentarily frozen in the air. Beside him, the charging man’s steel blade came slashing down — but in the next instant, the thin man’s water-piercing dagger was flung upward and, with a swift flick, stabbed clean through the wrist of the man holding the blade, then continued downward into the back of the thin man’s own hand as it still gripped the table, driving with a thunderous crack straight through the thick tabletop, pinning both men together to the surface.
By the shop’s doorway, the man who had earlier been smashed into the display shelf struggled up, trying to flee toward the door. Ahead, the thin man’s body slammed down onto the table, the blade still lodged through the other man’s palm, his upper body pitching forward. His long, curved blade was seized by the murderous youth, who kicked backward at the shattered cabinet behind him, then, with the stolen blade whirling in a howling arc, brought it down in a furious slash aimed at the two men pinned atop the table.
“No fighting— no fighting—”
The Fish King’s hoarse cry shook through the room. By the shop’s entrance, the last unclosed door panel was now blocked by scattered cabinets and fish goods, sealing off the escape route for the man trying to flee. Some of the fish goods clattered noisily out into the street beyond.
At the far end of the long street, Deng Nian, watching this fish-goods shop from a distance, saw the door shudder, the flying cabinet blotting out what little light there had been. The Fish King’s screaming rang out, hoarse and desperate, making it sound as though a full massacre were unfolding inside.
This vicious…?
In his mind rose the memory of the youth’s ruthless, decisive killing of Ni Po earlier — but that time, it had happened in a hidden spot unseen by anyone. Now, at this very moment, with constables having only just swept through the Fish King’s shop, this youth actually dared to stage such a scene, right here in someone else’s home, in plain view of anyone nearby.
If he moved closer, he could see and hear more clearly what was happening inside — but considering the man’s extraordinarily keen “devotion to the martial path,” Deng Nian didn’t dare approach any further, instead hiding at the street corner, ready to flee at any moment.
If the man realized he’d been seen committing violence and turned around to wipe out the whole household — and if he then discovered that this second massacre had also been witnessed — Deng Nian couldn’t even imagine what might happen next…
…
Inside the dried-goods shop, the lamp’s shadow on the wall swayed violently, nearly guttering out entirely.
But in the end, it didn’t go out.
The small flame stubbornly held on, keeping the room from plunging into total darkness. The Fish King waved his arms amid his shouting, having now blocked the remaining two men behind him. On the wooden table before them, the two figures remained pinned in place, hands skewered by the water-piercing dagger.
They didn’t cry out.
The howling long blade had already come crashing down with tremendous force, striking against the neck of the man who’d held it, the edge already breaking through the skin, sinking slightly into the flesh before finally stopping there. Meanwhile, ahead, the youth gripped the steel blade steadily with both hands, his entire bearing around the weapon entirely unlike the desperate energy the man had wielded it with before — grand, commanding, and menacing, a bloody atmosphere spreading recklessly outward.
The man whose hand had been pinned to the table wet himself — because in that split second, it would have taken only the slightest further push of the blade’s edge for his head to be completely severed from his neck, and the arc of that swing would very likely have caught the thin man pinned beside him on the table as well.
“No fighting—”
The Fish King’s hoarse cry rang out; from beginning to end, he was pouring every ounce of effort into making one thing clear: we are not fighting.
Perhaps it was precisely because of this that the youth’s beheading strike hadn’t come down all the way.
In that brief shift from violent motion to sudden stillness, the room fell quiet for a moment. The youth’s gaze slowly drifted toward the oil lamp beside him, then back to the Fish King.
“You know, if that flame had gone out just now… all of you would be dead right now.”
The Fish King nodded.
Then nodded twice more.
In a tense standoff like this, in the dark of night, if the lamp had gone out, then regardless of who was more skilled, both sides would very likely have thrown themselves into an all-out slaughter in that same instant. It was that stubborn little oil lamp on the wall that had saved the lives of all six men in the room.
“…Talk.”
“I…” The Fish King swallowed hard. “It was… it should have been Chen Shuangran… Last night, earlier in the evening, one of the Chen family’s pirates came to find me — a man called Shan… Shan Xiaolu — came by suddenly and asked me to keep a boat ready these past few days, in case someone needed to be picked up and taken away. He… he paid me for it. I’ve always operated this way, doing this kind of work. I just never expected them to actually show up tonight. But… it must have been Chen Shuangran. It has to be Chen Shuangran…”
“Of course it’s Chen Shuangran.” The youth stuck out his tongue and licked his lips. “Killing officials and raising rebellion in the city, and just now killing a chief constable no less — how could it not be Chen Shuangran? But why is she coming after me? Old Gao, are you playing me for a fool? Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“I…” The man struggled for a long moment. “Little brother, I… I really don’t know why this Ni Po suddenly came after you like that. You said it yourself — there’s no way they’d tell me any of that. As for your side arranging the boat, of course I’d go up top and check what was going on — but as for anything I might have seen… us brothers of the martial world… this Gao has always kept such things buried deep, never breathing a word…”
“TELL. ME. SOMETHING. I. DON’T. KNOW—”
The youth’s roar erupted, and in the next instant, the steel blade in his hand spun around. A crashing thud sounded through the room as he brought it down against the face of the thin man pinned to the table, blood immediately filling the man’s mouth, two teeth flying out from between his lips.
A agonized scream reverberated through the room.
The Fish King clenched his teeth and raised a hand. “There’s a way — there’s a way…”
“What is it?”
“This Gao… this Gao has old ties with a chief constable at the Ministry of Justice — we’ve crossed paths a few times privately, formed something of a grudge over it. Now that Ni Po’s killed Song Xiaoming, Chen Shuangran owes me a great favor for that. She’s stirring things up in the city right now — she’ll surely need to repay it eventually. This Gao carries some weight on the water… some weight. If this affair grows large enough, that debt is bound to come due again, and when it does, I can ask around — I’ll do everything in my power to find out for you—”
“Stalling for time, trying to string me along?”
“This Gao swears it on his own life — swears it on his ancestors—”
Ning Ji’s gaze fixed on him for a long moment, then swept around the room, taking in the expressions of the several men there — some wailing, some frozen with fear. If he brought in someone to torture the truth out of them properly, he might learn something more. But right now, he couldn’t tell much more than this.
After staring for a while longer, he set the steel blade down on the table, pulled over a stool, and sat down. Then he picked up a piece of dried cuttlefish and fanned himself with it like a fan.
“It’s fine.” He tapped his fingers against the tabletop. “Lying, stalling, hiding something — when’s a good time not to kill somebody? Fish balls, fish… fish what was it again?”
“Whatever the young hero says it is…”
“Mm, you’re the local kingpin around here…”
“This Gao wouldn’t dare…”
“You’re such a—”
“Yes.”
“Right, you’re the local kingpin around here… which means you’ve got plenty of connections, know people from every walk of life.”
“…I do know a fair number, yes.”
“Well, here’s the thing — this brother of mine ran into a bit of a situation today. This little bitch Chen Shuangran is out to get me. Now look, I’m completely innocent here — I came to Fuzhou, never went looking for trouble with anyone, don’t want to fight and kill people, and I certainly don’t go around massacring people’s entire families for no reason. I’m a peaceful, gentle sort. But one after another, for some reason, people keep wanting to come after me. So if I go find them and take care of them — that’s not asking too much, is it?”
“That’s… only fair, entirely reasonable.”
“You’re right about that.” Ning Ji nodded, then extended a finger. “So here’s what’s convenient — you’re the local kingpin, you go around asking, finding people, whether it’s figuring out why Ni Po came after me, or tracking down Chen Shuangran, either one works.”
“This brother will surely…”
“You’ve got… two days.” Ning Ji held up three fingers, then folded one back down. “If you’ve got results by tomorrow, come tell me. Otherwise, I’ll come ask you again the day after tomorrow. And if there’s still no word by then… that just means none of you were really trying. You’re locals — you’ve got families, maybe children, friends. They’ll all die. All six of you. Seems fair, doesn’t it?”
“…” The faces of the men in the room changed slightly. No one spoke.
Ning Ji slowly stood up. “Of course, if you all manage to handle this well for me, from now on, you can say you’re under the protection of me, ‘Great Sage Equal to Heaven’ Sun Wukong, around here. Going forward, if anyone gives you trouble, I promise to step in and help you once. I think you should treasure this opportunity.”
“We… we will.” The Fish King stood up as well, then added, “We definitely will.”
Ning Ji glanced at him once, then walked toward the door.
Since the open space was already blocked by the cabinet, he raised his leg and kicked the remaining two door panels to splinters, then walked out.
Farther down the street, Deng Nian turned and slipped away.
A little further off, two constables who had noticed the commotion here were also approaching.
One of them looked at the wreckage of the Fish King’s shop, pointing and murmuring; the other, watching Ning Ji approach, exchanged a few uneasy words with his companion, suspecting this might be the very Sun Wukong who had vanished after his fight with Ni Po in front of the ward earlier.
For a martial-world figure capable of holding his own against Ni Po to disappear for such a long stretch, only to emerge from the Fish King’s shop now with a distinctly unfriendly look on his face — the implications there were rather intriguing to consider.
The two sides approached each other.
Ning Ji spoke first: “Officers, there’s been a fight in that shop back there.”
Being addressed as “officers,” the two constables were briefly taken aback. One of them thought it over. “Oh, that’s the Fish King’s shop…”
“I hear that’s your local underworld around here.”
“…huh?”
“You know — bad guys, local strongmen, thugs, maggots…”
“That’s right.”
“So that would be gangsters killing gangsters, then. Are you going to go check it out?”
“Gangsters killing gangsters, well, that’s… none of our business, really…” The constable managed, with some difficulty, to keep the conversation going, then added, “May I ask, young sir — are you by chance the Sun Wukong who was set up at the front of the night market earlier?”
“Yep, that’s me.”
“Young Master Sun had that fight earlier with the criminal Ni Po…”
“That’s right, I’m the victim here.” Before the man could finish speaking, Ning Ji had already thrown an arm around his shoulder. “Did you people catch that bastard?”
“Uh… huh?”
“Still haven’t caught him? What exactly are you people getting paid for…”
The lamplight along the market street had dimmed somewhat further; with the curfew already in effect, there were noticeably fewer pedestrians out by now. Ning Ji walked back with the two constables toward the front market of Silver Bridge Ward. Seeing that Qu Longjun hadn’t been given any trouble, and glancing around at the surroundings, he felt reassured enough.
After that, naturally, a few more veteran constables came by to question him. Ning Ji insisted he was simply the victim, chasing the criminal for half the length of the street without ever managing to catch up, and expressed his frustration at length, along with a fair share of complaints about how slow the authorities had been to respond. Some of the constables naturally wanted to press further, even raising the entirely reasonable question — as any detective worth their salt might — of why the man had come after him in the first place. In truth, that was indeed a valuable line of inquiry for solving the case, but it could only remain a private line of thought. If the man they were questioning happened to have considerable fighting prowess, asking such a question was guaranteed to earn you a beating, along with the retort “And why shouldn’t I have a problem with you asking me that” — which was, in its own way, also a perfectly natural part of human behavior.
Given how little combat prowess the constables actually possessed, the case, for the time being, made no real progress on Ning Ji’s end.
The questioning dragged on for a while longer, and as the curfew hour drew near, Ning Ji and Qu Longjun finally packed up the cart and started back toward Huaiyun Ward. Along the way, Ning Ji went over the various things he’d learned that evening with her in detail, letting her weigh in on the whole affair…
…
The bell struck the hour of Zi, and the chaotic second day of the sixth month finally came to an end.
Soldiers patrolled the streets on fixed rounds enforcing the curfew. Since the conflict that had begun on the first hadn’t yet died down, occasional disturbances still flared up now and then — most likely the Ministry of Justice carrying out another raid on some bandit den somewhere.
Around the hour of Chou, Zuo Wenxuan, who had only just gone to sleep, was woken by someone. It was the hidden lookout stationed at a contact point outside the courtyard, bringing news concerning Zuo Xingzhou.
A wave of relief washed over him. He hurriedly got up, left the Zuo family’s main compound, and made his way through a secret passage to the small room where he had previously arranged to meet Zuo Xingzhou — only to freeze slightly upon arrival.
The figure in the room wore a ridiculous headgear, but the moment Zuo Wenxuan laid eyes on him, he knew exactly who it was.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m the masked lecher, here to take you out to play.” The figure pulled off the head covering — it was Ning Ji. “Somewhere good.”
Zuo Wenxuan drove the carriage, following the man’s directions as they made their way east through the city. Along the way, Ning Ji asked, “Still no sign of Zuo Xingzhou?” Zuo Wenxuan froze slightly, then realized there was little point in continuing to hide the matter.
The two of them arrived at a dilapidated warehouse across from the fish market in Silver Bridge Ward. After several turns, and after moving aside a stack of hay, Zuo Wenxuan saw a tall, well-built man lying there, wrapped in somewhat haphazard bandages — though naturally, it wasn’t Zuo Xingzhou.
“This…”
“Dosed him with anesthetic powder. He’s yours now — do whatever you want with him.”
Ning Ji nudged the man with his foot, then said, “There’s something else I need to fill you in on…”
“What exactly are you up to now? Do you even realize how sensitive your position is…”
“I’ve set up a little scheme — it might help you track down that little bitch Chen Shuangran,” Ning Ji said, looking at him calmly. “The moment I find her, I’ll cut her down on the spot. Sound good to you?”
Zuo Wenxuan opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“…You know how to run schemes too?”
…
Given the court’s need to maintain a certain dignity, an outright, heavy-handed lockdown of the city wasn’t currently feasible. But conducting household registration checks one district at a time, while trying to avoid disturbing ordinary citizens too much, remained an option. In order to maximize the pressure this operation could bring to bear on the Chen and Pu factions, even Tie Tianying himself had stayed up in the palace planning out every step of the process until the early hours of the morning.
Dawn was approaching.
His disciple Song Xiaoming had been assassinated the previous evening, but even with some updates on the investigation’s progress coming in from outside, he still hadn’t managed, up to this point, to leave the palace to look into the matter himself, or even to view his disciple’s remains.
Past the midpoint of the hour of Yin — the darkest moment just before daybreak — he sent the staff of the Imperial Guard Office, who had worked through the entire night, off duty. Someone came in to summon him from outside. He went out to the plaza beyond, where Zuo Wenxuan stood waiting, sleeves drawn in, dressed in a single thin robe.
“Lord Tie, you’ve had a hard time of it.” Zuo Wenxuan said. “No sleep all night?”
“With bandits running rampant and my own disciple murdered, it’s hard to find much sleep.” Tie Tianying gave a cupped-hand bow. “The arrangements for the household registration sweep are more or less complete now… Has something kept Lord Zuo from sleep as well?”
“I was asleep, but someone woke me up.”
Zuo Wenxuan smiled, then led Tie Tianying outside.
They made their way out of the palace together, Zuo Wenxuan steering the carriage south. “Any progress on Chief Constable Song’s case?”
“The case itself is clear enough — it’s the criminal that’ll be difficult to track down. Some updates have come in from outside; I may go investigate myself tomorrow.”
“Any progress regarding Silver Bridge Ward?”
“…” Tie Tianying’s gaze turned toward Zuo Wenxuan. After a moment, he finally said, “That’s precisely the matter at hand — why does Lord Zuo…”
“The people at Silver Bridge Ward aren’t a problem. I’d like to vouch for them — I hope Lord Tie will show them some leniency…”
“Oh… so the information they know…”
“There are, in fact, a great many details I need to discuss with Lord Tie…”
As the hour of Yin drew to a close, the first pale light of dawn was just beginning to break at the horizon. Zuo Wenxuan brought the carriage to a stop in front of a quiet courtyard. There was no one around, and the room inside was fairly small. Both Zuo Wenxuan and Tie Tianying checked their surroundings before Zuo Wenxuan prepared to unlock the door and enter.
“Within the Zuo family, I’m the only one who knows about this,” Zuo Wenxuan said, gripping the lock. “As for the court at large, I intend to tell only you, Lord Tie, and no one else. To prevent any leak, Lord Tie must remember — this cannot be spoken of to anyone.”
“…Understood.”
“Also, Lord Tie — whatever information you manage to extract from questioning, it cannot be acted upon. You must consult with me first before any decision is made.”
Tie Tianying thought about it for a moment, then laughed. “I’d need to see the goods first, before I could decide whether to agree to that or not. Or is it that if I don’t nod along, Lord Zuo won’t even open the lock?”
Zuo Wenxuan looked at him for a moment, then finally turned the key and opened the door.
Inside the room lay a man, still unconscious, now bound with several additional iron chains. Tie Tianying walked over, studying him quietly for a moment, then, frowning slightly, turned to Zuo Wenxuan. “Ni Po?”
Zuo Wenxuan nodded.
Tie Tianying began to laugh, and looked the scene over more carefully. As he lifted the gauze bandages to examine the wounds one by one, his expression gradually shifted into disbelief, and he began counting them off one by one.
“…Fifteen… eighteen… twenty… this…”
“Across his entire body, there are thirty-seven cuts in total, none of them fatal, though he’s lost most of his blood by now. The dose of anesthetic powder should hold out a while longer, but from here, he’s yours to deal with however you see fit. Just one condition — whatever useful information you extract from him, it cannot be used without my approval first.”
“With a gift like this, a small request like that is nothing — just say the word, Wenxuan.” Tie Tianying looked down at the unconscious Ni Po and gave a cold laugh. He had spent many years moving through the martial world, and though these days he carried himself in the name of righteous cause, keeping most of his methods proper and above board, with a disciple he’d loved like a son now lying dead before him, at this moment he was hardly any picture of pure benevolence.
He then glanced back at Zuo Wenxuan. “Though I must say, Wenxuan — the way things look now, your Zuo family really does grow more and more unfathomable by the day.”
Less than six hours had passed since Song Xiaoming’s death, and constables across the entire city were still running around like headless flies chasing leads — and here was Zuo Wenxuan, delivering a critically wounded, unconscious criminal right into his hands, no less. Especially given the thirty-seven wounds covering the man’s body, none of them fatal — simply imagining the kind of fight that must have produced such precision sent a genuine chill down anyone’s spine.
Zuo Wenxuan pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and in that moment, it was hard to tell whether the sound that escaped him was one of pride, or a quiet sigh.
“…Ah… who’s to say otherwise.”