The ninth day of the sixth month. The ordinary summer heat blanketed the land, waves of it pressing down, cicadas droning like the sea. Within Yinan Manor, more than seventy of Fujian’s most renowned first-rate martial artists, led by a grandmaster, had already surrounded the young man who’d entered the place.
A brutal, unremarkable scene, really—nothing much worth remarking on within the martial world. For men like Yu Hezhang and Meng Biao, this was merely the appetizer before their formal alliance. For those like Nian Tong, once saved by this very young man, however conflicted they felt, they understood well enough what it meant for circumstance to overpower a man—in their negotiations with Pu Xingui, the best they could manage was: “Crippled but alive will have to do.”
The reconciliation between Pu Xingui and Chen Shuangran, and the unity of the rebel faction led by Duke Fei, Elder Yao, and Elder Ai, was a matter of great importance. With the Emperor’s consort-taking ceremony set for tomorrow, everyone knew they had little time left.
If this young man really was a spy sent by the court, then each of the seventy-odd men taking a few cuts at him would serve as a fitting blood oath of loyalty.
Fan Zhong took the lead, dominating the whole scene, while the assembled masters of various skills around him drew their blades and spears. Just as Fan Zhong had said, in a setting and scheme like this, even if the legendary world’s foremost martial artist Lin Zongwu himself had appeared, or even the once world-dominating transcendent master Zhou Tong of years past, the outcome for either would have been all but certain.
The Fish King, Gao Xingzong, didn’t even think to resist, his mind flashing instead through countless images of proud martial masters, surrounded and beaten down, finally breaking.
Until that sudden explosive crack.
The young man raised a hand, and Fan Zhong dodged.
From the moment he’d appeared, Fan Zhong had been the focal point of everyone’s attention, and so when his figure suddenly shifted several zhang in an instant, appearing beside a crumbling wall off to the side, more than a few people instinctively turned their heads.
Some of the masters, having spent years honing lightness skill themselves, nearly cried out in admiration.
Except his footing, retreating, showed a slight stagger.
A long blade, like a shark’s fin breaking the water’s surface, suddenly cleaved downward.
Boom——
An even louder crash than before—blade and iron fan collided in midair with the force of hammer striking anvil, Fan Zhong hastily spreading his fan only halfway, its slats scattering wildly through the air. Only then did the crowd see that, facing down this grandmaster, the young man, amid Fan Zhong’s ghostlike shifting, had somehow already closed the gap—and though his frame was considerably smaller than Fan Zhong’s, in the instant blade met fan, his stature suddenly seemed to swell, bearing down and striking straight at Fan Zhong’s head.
“Fuck your mother——”
“Whaaa——”
The crowd heard the young man’s furious roar, and heard too the sound tearing up from deep within Fan Zhong’s throat, a renowned hero of the martial world fighting back with all his strength in that instant. Some seemed to glimpse, for a moment, the illusion of two grandmasters of the martial world facing off, still unable to fully register what was happening—but there were always a few first-rate masters, blades bloodied many times over, standing at the front, who reacted in that same instant.
A master from Putian hurled his long blade—just as the young man finished his first downward stroke against Fan Zhong, he threw something back with his other hand, and before everyone’s eyes, smoke and dust erupted. Fan Zhong, still retreating from the collision of blade and fan, silently crashed backward into an earthen brick wall; his right hand shot forward in an iron palm strike, and with a boom, the released internal force sent brick and stone exploding outward—an ordinary man taking that blow would likely have died on the spot.
But the young man, having paused for that instant while throwing the lime packet, had avoided the strike’s range, and in the next moment his figure surged forward again, the long blade shifting direction for a second downward cut.
Amid the crumbling brick and stone, blood sprayed in every direction—no one could tell who’d been hit—and the crowd only heard, at the edge of the swirling dust, Fan Zhong let out another roar, this one like a wounded beast trying to frighten off its attacker through sheer ferocity and authority, yet somehow carrying, too, a note of a man’s suppressed sob. They saw him, having crashed through the wall, still retreating, right hand gripping the iron fan, left arm flailing desperately through the dust—except that arm seemed a section shorter than it should have been, blood and dust mingling in the air, a long blade already lodged in his shoulder.
The young man’s figure was hard to make out within the dust, but in the next instant, a blade swept sideways through the air—he’d simply snatched up the lime-coated blade someone had thrown at him and swung it backward, and with a wet sound, the very master who’d thrown that blade at him staggered out from the drifting cloud of lime dust, his whole body freezing for an instant as his own neck collided savagely with his own blade’s edge.
The young man drew his blade back, stepped forward once more, and with both hands brought it down again toward the top of Fan Zhong’s head.
Every move he made, in advance and retreat alike, seemed to dance to some rhythm and music of its own—a violent charge, a downward strike, a single pause to throw the lime packet, then forward again, another cut. This strike landed—Fan Zhong’s forearm was already broken, the blade lodged in his shoulder; he couldn’t even be bothered to pull it free, snatching up the fallen long blade instead, cutting backward, then forward again. Blood was already welling steadily from Fan Zhong’s chest; even drawing on every ounce of his life’s experience in self-preservation, he could barely keep up.
He could only keep retreating with everything he had, swinging the iron fan, falling back, collapsing to a sitting position, rolling with the momentum—the desperate final burst of a lifetime’s martial skill fighting to survive. But the third strike sent the iron fan flying, drawing more blood with it.
The young man was roaring.
“…What is Lin Zongwu, compared to me——”
Other masters were already charging in from all sides, and within the swirling dust, in everyone’s line of sight, blades crossed and blood sprayed in gruesome arcs. Two figures, including Yu Tiedan, cut their way through to trade blows with the young man, then a third joined—someone, overcome by the choking smell drifting through the dust, sneezed, and had his throat split open by the blade in that same instant.
In this moment, every master who rushed in to fight the young man was pushing their internal skill to its absolute limit, shouting and bellowing hysterically—yet to everyone watching, the young man’s movements seemed anything but hurried. Advance, retreat, sidestep, pivot—each step simple, abrupt, yet unhurried all the same. His long blade split open the throat of the man who’d sneezed, then abruptly turned to slash open the thigh of the man behind him. Fan Zhong, rolling on the ground, had managed to open up a bit of distance and was about to leverage himself upright, when the young man’s blade came crashing down at him again. In that sudden flash, his figure and expression looked like some wrathful guardian deity, and Fan Zhong heard him cursing.
“——How dare you even be spoken of in the same breath as me!”
In truth, Fan Zhong no longer had any attention to spare for what the young man was saying—he was relying purely on instinct now, fleeing for his life with everything he had, trying to use the men rushing in nearby as cover, seeking any sliver of a chance to survive. One of his most devoted admirers in the martial world grabbed hold of him, and three or four others tried to shield him from the young man—but the moment they’d opened even a little distance, a violent shockwave sent earth and stone flying everywhere. Even as he retreated, the young man had thrown something else near everyone’s legs.
It was a hand grenade.
Shrapnel exploded outward, slicing across faces and bodies, tearing through clothing and flesh. The person closest spun once in midair before crashing down.
The heat-laden air, already distorted by dust and explosion, rippled and swept outward. The young man surged forward again, closing nearly two zhang of distance in the blink of an eye, and delivered another strike to the blood-drenched Fan Zhong, now being supported by a wounded man behind him—a man who hadn’t even understood how he’d suddenly become wounded himself.
It had all begun only moments before.
The smoke and dust in the air could hardly cover the entire field, of course, but it hung there, still settling.
The furious slaughter erupted along the edge of that drifting dust—the young man cutting forward, backward, left, right, no one could keep count of how many he’d cut down, and before anyone could steady themselves, the shockwave of another explosion joined in, swirling together with the smoke, swallowing several figures whole and leaving them shredded.
In the courtyard room some distance away, Chen Shuangran pushed open the window, unable to tell what was happening. Pu Xingui, too, hadn’t yet made it out of the crowd; turning back, what he heard most clearly was the young man’s words: “Fuck your mother——what is Lin Zongwu, that he dares be spoken of alongside me.” The words sounded utterly reckless and self-important—yet this Fan Zhong, a grandmaster of his generation, was being hacked apart, blow by blow, in the very midst of that cursing.
Supported by two figures standing beside him, swaying unsteadily, missing a hand and his fan both, his body drenched in mud, lime, and blood—aside from that last unsteady sway, he seemed to have already stopped breathing. The young man’s final strike had lodged directly in his neck. This was the last image the martial world’s grandmaster would ever leave behind.
Under the fierce sunlight, the young man casually picked up a weapon from the ground and turned to walk this way; with a single step, he’d crossed a full zhang. Pu Xingui’s legs went weak, and he nearly fell.
He’d allied himself with the young man a few days earlier, which had won him the chance to negotiate with Chen Shuangran; after much deliberation the night before, he’d finally concluded that his own uprising in Fujian would, in the end, have to be settled through reconciliation with Chen Shuangran—but the young man’s elder brother had been killed by the woman, and there was simply no reconciling that, not even room for vagueness. So, however unpleasant, this was the choice he’d been forced into. When he’d explained all this to Qian Dingzhong, even Qian Dingzhong had been won over by his ability to make such hard calls when it counted.
Who could have imagined it would come to this?
In truth, as the young man walked this way, the one standing at the center of the field was Qian Dingzhong himself—Pu Xingui’s bodyguard, the one who had volunteered from the start to stand between the two sides, even smiling at the young man just moments before. In this instant, more than seventy men had all had their advantage stolen from them by the young man’s opening moves. Qian Dingzhong, now the target of the young man’s gaze, felt a chill run down his spine—but he was, after all, seasoned in the ways of the martial world, and standing now on the brink of life and death, he raised his sword and bellowed: “Everyone, close in—don’t give him room to maneuver——”
Close in, deny room to maneuver—that was the one true rule of the martial world’s tactic of swarming an elephant to death with ants.
At Qian Dingzhong’s shout, the others came to their senses—some reaching for their fishing nets, others for hidden weapons. Ahead of the Fish King’s group, Yu Hezhang and Meng Biao cried out, “Charge!” and drew their blades and spears to join the encirclement. Yu Hezhang, wanting to shout something more, had just raised his sword when a chill went through his heart—because the young man, weaving through the crowd as though through empty space, had suddenly turned his head, fixing him with a cold, indifferent stare.
That figure seemed to grow larger before his eyes.
Yu Hezhang stumbled backward, sword raised, trying to grab hold of someone to shield himself, but the men beside him were retreating too—only Meng Biao, the “Mountain-Pushing Blade,” having exchanged a few words with the young man earlier, seemed to think him less frightening and stood his ground slightly ahead. Pushed forward by Yu Hezhang’s shoulder, he cried out and swung his blade—a weak, feeble strike—and in the crossing of their bodies, his throat was already sliced open, the young man’s blade cutting through as cleanly as an explosion.
Yu Hezhang nearly wept. He dropped his sword, meaning to fall to his knees and beg for mercy, but before his legs could even bend, the young man had already seized him by the hair, lifted him up for an instant, then slammed him down onto an abandoned millstone by the roadside with a crack, and with one clean stroke, as if slaughtering a chicken, severed his neck. Then, pulling something from his person, he tossed it toward another cluster of men further off.
By now everyone had finally registered what was happening. Though caught off guard, they’d drawn their weapons—those with fishing nets and the like rushed in from a distance, a few threw darts. Men were charging in from every direction now, trying, at Qian Dingzhong’s urging, to trap the young man’s movement, but the explosion sounded again—those quick enough on their feet at the intersection had already dodged clear, while others, too slow to react, were caught up in the grenade’s blast.
The shockwave of gunpowder swept past his side—not necessarily fatal, though it left ears ringing and blood spraying everywhere—and the young man’s figure was already sweeping his long blade through the group again, drawing blood and shattering bone from three more men in that single pass.
The young man’s figure never paused, charging through the crowd, sweeping along the street, moving faster and faster, until finally, using a nearby water vat and a crumbling wall for leverage, his blade shot skyward, landing on a tall building at the far end of the street that served as a watch tower.
From the very start of this operation, Fan Zhong had set up numerous observation posts around the village—the distant ones to gauge how quickly government troops might respond, confirming whether this “Sun Wukong” was truly a pawn of the court; the closer ones to keep watch on the manor itself, checking whether there were any hidden agents planted by Cheng Zhouhai or Tie Tianying among their own ranks. As a former chief constable, Fan Zhong had laid out an extraordinarily meticulous plan, one that had even given Cheng Zhouhai a headache—but nobody could have anticipated the scene now unfolding.
From a vantage point similar to that of the courtyard room nearby, looking down from this rooftop, one could see with perfect clarity everything that had just unfolded across the village. As the young man’s slaughtering figure charged this way, the men on the rooftop found their hands trembling; only at the last moment did they raise their bows to return fire, but a throwing knife had already buried itself in one man’s face before the arrow could fly. The young man climbed higher, pulled the knife from the corpse, and casually picked up the man’s longbow, nocking an arrow.
The crowd below was some distance away now. An arrow shot from another watch post came flying at him; he didn’t so much as blink, drew the bow, and fired it right back, then nocked another arrow, sweeping his gaze from above across every figure below.
Some were still charging this way; others were so startled by the very motion that they rolled off into the ditch beside them.
The patrolling arrow swept a full circle.
Not far off, at a second-floor window, Chen Shuangran’s mouth fell slightly open.
The young man’s cold gaze, from that high vantage, had already locked onto her.
“Got you.”
The midday sun blazed overhead.
Without the slightest hesitation, the young man on the rooftop released the bowstring.
“Ah——”
Chen Shuangran screamed, collapsing to the floor.
Beside her, an attendant collapsed at the same instant.
The light went from bright to dim with a crack; someone slammed the window shut. Chen Yan rushed over, trying to help Chen Shuangran up—Chen Shuangran turned to look beside her, and saw the attendant who’d collapsed alongside her lying with an arrow through his chest, his back slamming against the floor.
“We need to go——” Chen Yan bellowed.
Outside, chaos reigned—some rushed toward the rooftop, some hurled stones and darts, some fired arrows, some shouted. Amid this blazing chaos, the young man leapt down from the rooftop, paying no mind to the enemies chasing him, and charged straight this way instead.
“Block him——”
“He’s charging north——”
“Cut him off——”
Standing amid the bustling crowd, the Fish King and a few of his disciples watched all of this, stunned into silence. In the midst of a killing field made up of dozens of men, as the young man made his moves, everyone had all but forgotten them entirely—because in this moment, the young man, single-handed, was slaughtering their entire leadership.
Farther off in the sky, signal fireworks burst open, scattering their warning to all.