“…That young official’s son from the Beiwo Army, whom you sparred with, Young Hero Sun. Ever since last year, relying on his considerable martial skill, he and his sister have been rather insufferable around the city… those in the trade have long suffered for it… We all just assumed his arrogance would eventually get him beaten to death by someone. But this business now is even more vicious than killing him would have been… it’s meant to make him wish he were dead…”

Beside Gold-and-Silver Bridge, the river flowed quietly.

“…It only just happened, but privately those who’ve heard about it are already in an uproar… On the surface, this young official’s son failed in his moral conduct, letting his horse run down a little girl—there’s no washing that clean. Behind the scenes, many who know say it must be a scheme orchestrated by Chen Shuangran… To be honest, some of the outlaws rumored to be connected with Chen Shuangran have quietly gone along with it too… Young Hero Sun, this little wretch is formidable—she’s well-practiced at frame-ups and pinning blame on others, and by the look of her current methods, it’s honestly starting to seem more like… what do they call it… an inner demon.”

Amid the flowing lamplight, Ning Ji watched Fish King across from him.

“So in other words, it’s only a rumor.”

“…This just happened; how could there be real evidence for anyone to seize on yet… but this isn’t the first time Chen Shuangran’s done something like this. Two months ago, the matter with Zhong Ergui in Houguan County—everyone in the trade eventually understood full well how that happened, but she pulled it off beautifully. As for the authorities, they had their teeth knocked out and had no choice but to swallow the blood…”

“…And this time it’s Houguan County again, and under just this kind of situation… Young Hero Sun, look—the current… Emperor held the banquet on the first, meaning to divide the troublemakers. On the afternoon of the first, Chen Shuangran started killing officials; that evening the authorities struck back; on the evening of the second, Ni Po killed Song Xiaoming… this afternoon, the Imperial Guards were deployed, saying they’d inspect the whole city, and right away, the young official’s son ran straight into this huge disaster… Now everyone outside is saying this woman gives as good as she gets, never at a disadvantage, utterly ruthless.”

Fish King spoke in a low voice, watching the little malevolent star across from him. He’d meant to see whether the youth would be pleased about the matter with Yue Yun, but the face opposite showed only a faint mocking edge, and nothing else.

“…Young Hero Sun, and it’s not that I’m making excuses—in the past, this name Fish King could at least barely get me a word or two with these river pirates, but once this business spreads, Chen Shuangran’s reputation will grow even greater still… Now, inside and outside the city, among all those great figures pointing toward rebellion, who could possibly not support this woman? I see the other side—Young Master Pu, Alliance Leader Cao—have already been thoroughly overshadowed by her… And it just happens to be right now that I told her she needed to see me within a day—she may not be able to free up the time, what with arranging all of this…”

By the end, he was naturally still hoping the youth would grant him a few more days’ extension, but once he’d finished speaking, the youth across from him only gave a cold laugh.

“…That little dog Yue Yun’s got nothing but shit for brains—without his sister running interference for him, of course he’d get framed. But Fish King, old man, you think this affair hits Yue Yun harder than killing him would—why is that, exactly?”

“It’s…”

“It’s because that little dog Yue Yun likes to parade himself as a good man… So being manipulated, framed, and made to run down a little girl to her death—of course he’d rather die than live with it, and that hurts more than being killed outright. Fish King, do you have a daughter?”

“…Huh?”

“Bring her here—I’ll run her down right in front of you. Who’d feel worse, you or me?”

The youth’s gaze was cold and fixed on him. Fish King’s eyes moved with difficulty, and after a moment he lowered his head. “Young Hero Sun, this matter…”

“I feel like… seeing this little wretch Chen Shuangran act so fierce has made you look down on me a bit, hasn’t it? Fish King, old man—why not, once you’ve found Chen Shuangran, have her come frame me too? Let’s see who ends up soft-hearted, and who ends up wishing they were dead!?”

By the end his gaze had turned savage, his fury mounting. Fish King, too, had once been young and hot-blooded himself; he understood now that he’d finally said the wrong thing—this sort of dark-path master, feeling his edge had been challenged, was bound to want to assert his dominance. He hastily waved his hands and explained himself, and amid his flustered mumbling, the youth’s gaze finally shifted elsewhere.

“Tomorrow, no word… your whole family had better be able to run.”

“Yes, yes… we won’t run… we won’t run…”

Fish King’s face was bitter with distress. He offered a few more words of explanation, then, having no other choice, rose to leave—but just as he turned to go, he heard the youth speak up once more.

“Oh, right—now that Yue Yun’s made such a huge mess of things, how’s he holding up? And what has the government done about it?” Perhaps because of his old feud with Yue Yun, a touch of pleasure had finally crept into his voice.

Fish King considered for a moment.

“…Word on the street is that Yue Yun really does seem to genuinely wish he were dead. He carried the little girl to the physician’s, and afterward went about like he’d lost his soul entirely. When his sister arrived, onlookers saw him strike himself over and over, but no one knows what happened after that… The authorities weren’t finding it easy to handle this matter, but once that Miss Yue arrived, I heard she had Yue Yun put straight into a cangue and thrown into prison…”

“That Yue Yun, in prison—he’ll probably try to kill himself.” The youth laughed, apparently gloating over the misfortune.

“Indeed, but his sister’s a formidable one—she put a heavy cangue board on him right away, partly for others to see, and partly, I’d guess, out of fear that Yue Yun might end it all… But this matter is huge; there’s still plenty more to come from it, and the authorities won’t be able to smooth it over…”

“Understood… come tell me if there’s any more news.”

“Yes.”

Fish King nodded in agreement and left with a sigh. After he’d gone, Fat Auntie finally scurried over like a gossiping hen. “Y-young Hero, that Fish King… he’s scared of you too?”

“What ‘young hero’—hero’s fine, drop the ‘young.’ Where am I young? And how could you even tell he’s scared of me?”

“Oh, come on, the way he was talking to you just now—wasn’t that being scared of you?”

“Heh heh… do you even know who he is?”

“Who doesn’t know that? They say when he was young he was fierce, swinging a blade around and killing people…”

“And you’re not scared of me?”

“Well, I’m not scared of you…”

“…I once caught him sleeping with his own daughter-in-law—that’s the real reason he’s scared of me…”

“—Huh???”

Bantering all the while, Ning Ji paid for his rice cake and returned to his own stall. He casually picked up a string of beads and sat down, greeting Chen Hua of the Guitai Alliance as he passed by with an unchanged expression. After that, he watched the passersby on the street, idly turning the string of beads, his face perfectly ordinary.

Many threads were converging toward this place.

Ever since the decision several days ago to look into Zuo Xingzhou’s whereabouts, certain arrangements had begun to bear fruit, though whether Zuo Xingzhou was still alive by now remained unknown…

It was already late; whatever he did would be slow going, but there was nothing to do but wait.

The matter with Yue Yun had, in fact, come as a surprise. That muscle-bound loudmouth of a boy would have made a good friend on the battlefield, and their fight had been fairly evenly matched. He’d even thought he might arrange a truly satisfying rematch once the current business settled down—yet who would have guessed the boy would fall into a trap right away, and a trap of exactly this kind.

Two months ago, Zhong Ergui had suffered exactly this kind of false accusation—and, tracing the connection further back, so had he himself, back when he’d been framed in the Southwest. Yue Yun’s case was even more tragic. If the little girl ended up losing her life, given his temperament, he’d probably never be able to forgive himself, no matter what, and might even lose the chance to ever leave Fuzhou and roam the world.

An inner demon? This wretched woman had put her entire mind toward such filthy schemes, and no doubt was feeling quite pleased with herself over it. “A gentleman can be deceived through what seems proper”? She had no idea just how badly things could turn for her once she’d driven someone to abandon being a gentleman altogether. Take himself, for instance—he had no intention of being any kind of gentleman anymore.

He’d nearly lost his temper at Fish King in a way he shouldn’t have, but fortunately, the calm ingrained by long training still held; his choice of words hadn’t gone too far.

On another front, he now had a fairly settled conclusion as to whose orders lay behind the group of women who’d suddenly arrived tonight. He could even faintly sense that certain matters were beginning to bear fruit…

As for the authorities…

With what had happened tonight, the outlaws of the city wouldn’t let it rest…

Should he go find Zuo Wenxuan, to discuss things with him and offer some warnings…

The string of beads turned in his hand at a fixed, slow, fluid rhythm, even the beat of his heart and the flow of his blood falling into rhythm with it. On the night-shrouded street, the youth watched the crowds, occasionally glancing this way and that, occasionally standing to greet a customer who came by—but the string of beads never left his hand even for a moment. Few would have guessed that, within this seemingly ordinary scene, the youth’s body was climbing toward a peak state, as if he were about to step onto a battlefield.

He was waiting for certain things to happen.

As the Hour of the Boar was nearly half over, he began packing up the items on the stall and tidying up the carriage. By now, most of the pedestrians in the night market had already gone home, but Fish King’s figure suddenly reappeared on the far side of the street, his face relaxed, running this way.

“Young Hero Sun, Young Hero Sun…”

Ning Ji was somewhat surprised, but once Fish King drew close, he began excitedly telling him something. Ning Ji listened coldly to the whole thing, and after a moment of silence, nodded.

“If tomorrow… things really do turn out that way… you’ll live, and I’ll look out for you.”

“Of course, of course…”

Fish King, excited, wanted to help tidy up the stall, but Ning Ji waved him off. He finished packing the cart himself and harnessed the horse.

Sure enough, the threads were converging. The information Fish King had suddenly brought was, in fact, somewhat beyond his expectations.

He led the carriage away from Silver Bridge Quarter.

He hadn’t gone far before two figures appeared at the side of the road—Yu Hezhang and Meng Biao.

The street was dim; Meng Biao carried a lantern. Yu Hezhang came forward and greeted him with cupped hands.

“Brother Sun,” he said. “We brothers have an important matter—we came looking for you.”

“Speak.”

“Please, Brother Sun, come this way.” Yu Hezhang drew closer and whispered. “My master wishes to speak with you personally, Young Hero.”

“Is that necessary?”

“Regardless, please spare a moment for a meeting. If there’s any unpleasantness after this, we brothers will never bother you again.”

Ning Ji led the carriage and followed the two men down a side path.

In the darkness of night, one of the fruits was ripening.

Through these three days of sharp confrontation with the court, culminating in the frame-up of Yue Yun, Chen Shuangran’s reputation among the rebels had soared to far surpass that of her peers. Another faction, unable to sit still any longer, had come rushing to recruit him first—which either meant their own strength truly was inferior, or perhaps that they too had been present the day before when the incident with Ni Po occurred.

“By the way, where’s Young Hero Long?”

“He went to handle the matter with Ni Po. And besides, as for your side here, my elder brother has always looked down on it somewhat…”

“Heh heh, it’s true we don’t understand each other well enough yet—though it’s a shame, a shame, that Young Hero Long isn’t here today. If only we could have met him too…”

The two sides exchanged a few more words as they turned through several small streets. The road ahead had gone completely dark, and the surrounding residents had mostly already gone to sleep. After that, Ning Ji saw faint lamplight flickering on beside the road.

Some men struck their fire-strikers and lit the lanterns in their hands. As several orange glows spread out, they gradually revealed the dense foliage lining the road and figure after figure within the lamplight—it made for a rather intimidating display.

A middle-aged man appeared, encircled by the crowd around him, and walked toward them. He smiled and cupped his hands. “Young Hero Sun, it’s been a while. This one is surnamed Pu…”

Still leading the carriage, Ning Ji smiled back.

Beside them, Yu Hezhang and Meng Biao were both smiling too, preparing to say a few ceremonial pleasantries to give the coming exchange more atmosphere and grandeur.

The two sides closed the distance to about two zhang apart.

In the lamplight, the street had seemed utterly tranquil—but in the very next instant, as if thunder rolled and vast waves surged, before everyone’s eyes the youth’s figure took a single step forward, and his shadow unfurled like a ferocious tiger stretching out, spreading across the whole space of the street—

His footwork was too fast—only where the light fell did an afterimage remain—followed by a chilling gust of wind-splitting sound. An immense killing intent and the sense of sheer force crashing out of the darkness seized hold of everything. The smile had not yet faded from Pu Xingui’s face when, beside him, a fierce wind whipped up; someone let out an “Ahh—” as, driven by mystic power, a sword was drawn at the fastest possible speed!

Qian Dingzhong’s long sword struck out with all his strength into the darkness ahead.

Bang, bang, bang—

A piercing explosion of sound rang out as steel struck steel, sparks bursting upward and rearward in fierce arcs through the night. Ahead of Pu Xingui, the youth’s afterimage, launching forward in a bow-stance leap, seemed to cross the two-zhang gap in the blink of an eye. He pushed aside the light of Qian Dingzhong’s sword, tore through the darkness, plunged into the firelight, and then, both hands spreading wide toward the sky like some demon god, lunged straight for Pu Xingui’s chest!

Bang! He landed.

Yu Hezhang and Meng Biao in front, and the more than a dozen shadowy figures behind—at this moment, hardly anyone was able to react correctly.

The distance between Ning Ji and Pu Xingui had shrunk to zero.

Pu Xingui had only just begun to retreat when death had already seized him firmly by the throat.

He was even yanked and slammed straight into Qian Dingzhong’s sword nearby.

On the fourth day since learning of Zuo Xingzhou’s misfortune, the first fruit began to fall.

…

Pu Xingui seemed caught in an enormous whirlpool, his body dragged and spun through the boundary between lamp-lit brightness and the adjoining darkness.

Qian Dingzhong’s long sword was forced to retreat. Beside them, men surged forward swinging spears and cudgels, but one figure was kicked flying, crashing into and knocking down a fellow fighter wielding a blade nearby.

The youth’s figure was only a vague outline in the darkness. Gripping Pu Xingui, his fists became a lightning-flash illusion, striking down on the side of Pu Xingui’s head, his cheek, his neck, his chest, his ribs—crack, crack, crack, crack, crack—falling like a violent storm. Within a single dark breath, Pu Xingui lost count of how many blows had landed, and was helplessly spun around in several great circles like a pinwheel.

He was flung toward Qian Dingzhong, while the youth’s figure charged toward the side of the street, moving with astonishing speed. Seizing a long staff, he whirled and swept it through the air, felling three men, then smashed the staff to splinters against another. He then rushed along the weak points among the more than a dozen thugs, and five or six figures were struck and slammed to the ground by his onslaught.

No one could hold him back.

He ran up the trunk of a nearby tree and vaulted over the surrounding wall.

“Wait, wait…”

Someone shouted from behind.

“Stop, everyone stop…”

It was Pu Xingui—who, only moments before, had taken who knew how many blows and should by rights be dead—now supported by Qian Dingzhong, gazing toward the figure at the side of the street.

The youth stood atop the wall beside the great tree; in the thin moonlight, he looked down with disdain upon the scattered, stumbling “outlaws” across the street, no killing intent left in him now, only arrogance—as if they were, from the start, simply an entirely different species of creature.

“…My family is a noble house of the Central Plains.”

…

After a moment’s wait, everyone heard him speak from atop the wall.

“…My family is a noble house of the Central Plains, generation after generation serving as patrons and protectors of the Manichaean Sect… At fourteen years of age, my martial skill was already accomplished, and I fought my way out of my sect’s gate, granted permission by my elders to roam the world… This journey south to Fujian was, first, to broaden my experience, and second, to make a name for myself. Whatever business you people wanted to conduct could originally have been discussed properly—but what are you? Cowering and skulking about, day after day daring to probe and test me? Relying on nothing but a bunch of small fry like yourselves to try to recruit me as your hired muscle? You there, surnamed Pu, let this tell you: if I’d meant to kill you, just now, you’d already have died ten times over—”

His voice wasn’t loud, but driven by his mystic power, it fell naturally and clearly into the ears of every single person present, and combined with the moonlight falling down, it carried a certain sacred, austere, inviolable quality. Everyone watched as he lifted his chin slightly.

“Well? Feel reassured now? If any of you skulk about in front of me again, for the sake of my reputation, I’ll put every last one of you into the ground—”

…

Everyone present was struck with awe.

At the back of the crowd, Pu Xingui stepped forward and bowed deeply, with solemn respect.

His heart surged within him.

He had, at last, encountered a truly formidable figure.