The pale moon had already risen, casting its gentle, mellow glow. At Yinan Manor, scattered torch-fires wandered through the ruins, guard soldiers held the perimeter, watching the high ground, while wave after wave of visitors came and went.
By this point, the number of people arriving at the heart of the manor had thinned considerably. With two distinguished “guests” now on the scene, everyone else had been swiftly cleared out. Yue Yun, who’d originally meant to leave but ended up staying, was now giving the newcomers a general account of what had happened, his manner steady and composed—steady and grave.
“…According to the interrogation and subsequent investigation, this is roughly how it happened. Fan Zhong set the trap, gathering upward of a hundred men in total, though only seventy or eighty were actually here. Someone reminded him about setting up more ambush points, but Fan Zhong said this operation wasn’t just about killing one man—if there was a mole among them, the one surrounded ought to have some chance to fight back, or at least show a small enough opening for the mole to reveal himself. That’s why they didn’t set up any additional traps around the perimeter… they could have…”
“…The Sun kid’s reactions were extremely fast. When Fan Zhong got close—about here, roughly—he fired the first shot immediately, bang——”
“He fired first?”
“Yes. Fan Zhong reacted, but didn’t dodge in time… or rather, he dodged partway, but the Sun kid had trained for this—the firearm hit Fan Zhong square in the right chest, and by then he’d already lost about half his strength, retreating to about here… The Sun kid closed in, struck the first blow with his blade, Fan Zhong raised his fan to block it, still retreating, and the Sun kid threw a lime packet off to the side…”
The torches occasionally crackled and popped, casting flickering, scorched light across the ruined village. In the silhouette of the small square, Yue Yun gestured animatedly, reconstructing the battle step by step. That afternoon, when government forces had arrived, they’d captured eleven wounded survivors; by evening, only eight remained. Of those, five had already been crippled. Having lived through that midday slaughter, many of them had lost their nerve entirely, cooperating fully with the government’s interrogation, which allowed everyone to piece together the whole sequence of events fairly quickly.
Among those captured, of course, was that local underworld fixture known as the Fish King, along with several of his disciples—claiming to be allies of Sun Wukong, they too answered every question without holding back, though since their accounts tended to run a bit too flattering and embellished, Yue Yun and a few of his army colleagues decided not to put too much stock in what they said.
“…This here is Fan Zhong. By His Majesty’s decree, the scene hasn’t been disturbed too much; the coroner has already confirmed his identity and examined his wounds. Honestly, Little Sun-dog… uh, no, Little Sun—that kid really had a method to his madness. He wounded Fan Zhong, chased him down, cutting away—reacted fastest of anyone here too—handled the first few who came at him, then threw a grenade, and by then everyone around had nearly been scared witless, their nerve completely stolen…”
That afternoon, when the news reached the city, Princess Imperial Zhou Pei’s face had gone pale; she’d slammed the table, demanding to know how such a thing could have happened. But moments later, word came that Young Hero Sun had handled the situation and was unharmed—and then, further still, that Young Hero Sun had chased down Chen Shuangran and her several hundred men, cutting them down, dozens killed and wounded. Zhou Junwu had listened as though hearing some wild tale, and wanted to go see for himself right away, wondering if his subordinates had simply exaggerated—but with matters still pressing, he’d had no choice but to have his men preserve the scene, to be examined once he found the time.
Preserving the scene was, of course, not merely for entertainment’s sake. The southwest’s special forces system had delivered such an astonishing showing that everyone in the city could immediately grasp its significance. Various skilled fighters, soldiers, and government officials were promptly dispatched, and with Yue Yun’s involvement, the entire sequence of events was gradually reconstructed.
At this point, the small group had drawn close to the two bodies covered beneath an awning, still gesturing animatedly. After an entire afternoon in the heat, a foul odor hung over the little square, making everyone’s brows furrow.
“Which one is Fan Zhong?”
“The one right there in front…”
“Ha, so you’re the one they call Fan Zhong, damn it, We——ah…”
Beneath the flickering torchlight, the Emperor let out a contemptuous snort and kicked, sending the two corpses lying on the ground toppling over—the kick was so forceful he slipped forward, nearly falling flat himself. He’d wrenched his groin.
A small commotion broke out around him.
“What are you doing——”
“Your Majesty…”
“I’m fine—I’m fine! No need to come over… ugh, my beautiful dragon boots, they’re filthy now…”
“What did you go and do that for, it stinks, someone clean this up quickly…”
“I’ve been on a battlefield before, this smell’s nothing… tch…”
The siblings walked off to one side, supporting each other, the Emperor scraping the sole of his boot against the ground the whole way. Zhou Pei waved her hand at those nearby. “Take it away, it stinks!”
“Some grandmaster he was, no match for a single blow.” Jun Wu put his hands on his hips, then murmured quietly to Zhou Pei, “That was from my gun. My gun did that.”
“That’s got nothing to do with you.”
“…Have someone record that.” The Emperor said quietly.
Zhou Pei’s eyes went wide. “Record it how…”
“It was my gun…”
“How’s the court diarist supposed to write that up?”
“…”
“…”
“…Well then, I’ll just have the unofficial histories record it…”
“Unofficial histories have nothing to do with us.”
“We’ll write our own book…”
“…”
“Now I finally understand the joy our teacher must feel, wandering the martial world… ugh, my shoes reek…”
“…”
“That bastard Fan Zhong stinks something awful…”
Their murmured bickering continued in low voices as Yue Yun kept explaining the battle up ahead. “The Sun kid’s fighting style was extremely risky, but also formidable—he chased down and cut Fan Zhong first thing, took out a few of the leading first-rate masters right away… aside from Fan Zhong, who took the most damage, nearly everyone else has just one or two wounds each, all fatal blood-loss points hit dead-on. He got here, spotted Qian Dingzhong, but Qian Dingzhong had already reacted, so he immediately turned toward two lackeys standing off to the other side instead—textbook bullying the weak…”
“…He pinned one of them down right here, took his head off clean… not really necessary, honestly, but it made for a horrifying scene, scared a lot of people badly, so he threw a grenade off toward the side… right here, this intersection. Some people thought he’d thrown someone’s head at them, and by the time they realized what was happening, it had already exploded… he charged right out from here…”
“…Intimidation, tearing them apart, using the grenades to keep them from banding together, always moving toward wherever there were fewer people, all while dodging thrown weapons and stones… sounds simple enough to describe, but the Sun kid must have drilled this countless times to stay this calm under fire like that… his actual martial skill isn’t even that high, but combined with his tactics and cunning, this fight was fiercer than even Lin Zongwu could have managed… one man, chasing down and killing over a hundred…”
Yue Yun, usually a bit lazy and lackadaisical, spoke of the battle now with a serious, animated focus, showing off genuinely professional expertise. He continued this way through nearly half the village, until running into Cheng Zhouhai, exchanging a few words before finally taking his leave.
“God, it reeks…”
The group of three crossed toward the edge of the village, heading somewhere with a bit of breeze, the escorting guards patrolling at a distance. Once things had grown relatively quiet, Zhou Pei finally spoke up.
“Master Cheng, about this afternoon—you really let him go in alone? Yue Yun just said there were stones and weapons flying everywhere, one hit in the wrong place could’ve been serious trouble… No matter how skilled he is, he’s still just a child. Didn’t you make any other arrangements?”
Cheng Zhouhai’s calm gaze rested on her for a moment before he bowed. “There were some arrangements made…” He then lowered his voice further, saying a few more words.
Under the moonlight, Zhou Pei nodded, thinking it over for a while. “…Well, the outcome turned out well enough. Him pulling off something this big, being exposed like this—he probably ought to rein in his recklessness now. Master Cheng, what you’ve had to manage… it can’t have been easy. Any family with a wild, unruly boy like that on their hands would be at their wit’s end—how does he even manage to pull off things like this, actually fighting his way out alive…”
By the end, though her expression still betrayed disbelief, a touch of relief and ease had crept into it as well. Cheng Zhouhai sighed inwardly.
“The southwest’s so-called special forces system has been in development since the days of the Bamboo Records, later joined by Grandmaster Zhou Tong himself, and further honed over the years fighting the Jurchens in the southwest and along the Xiao Canghe—it’s produced a handful of exceptional individuals this way… Since the Zuo family’s children returned, we’ve been studying it here too, but the ones who’ve truly understood it in any depth are General Yue’s Beiwei Army, if anyone. Honestly, though, Ning Ji’s case is quite exceptional…”
“…He was young at the time, yet had to go into battle. Ning Yi had him accompany people like Zheng Qiming and made every effort to protect him, but for him to have survived through it all, it must have taken real luck. I only recently heard from Zuo Wenhuai that after the southwest’s great war ended, when Ning Ji was staying at Zhang Village, he was often surrounded and harassed by ten, even dozens of veteran soldiers—even while eating or using the privy, he faced constant harassment. I suspect Ning Yi lived with real fear the whole time, perhaps… had already made peace with the possibility of losing his own son.”
Zhou Pei could feel the weight of that sentiment. The surroundings fell quiet for a moment, the Emperor scraping his boot sole against a rock nearby, before he turned back and said, “I think you’re just jealous of my little brother in learning.”
“Uh… this humble servant is overwhelmed…”
“Hmph, I said it yesterday, didn’t I—maybe my little brother could solve this problem. Master Cheng, you’re just too jealous, aren’t you—the moment I finished saying that, you went and secretly set a trap to expose them behind my back. See, Sister, this is exactly what jealousy of talent looks like…”
Zhou Pei gave an irritated little laugh.
Cheng Zhouhai said, “Then perhaps… this servant should still have them come back…”
“No need for that.” Jun Wu waved his hand. After a moment, he added, “My little brother in learning has traveled so far to get here, and all he does is run around out there fighting all day. I want to catch up with him, but I can’t even find him—it makes me look useless as his senior brother. I’m useless, and you’re all useless too, isn’t that right?”
“That is our failing.” Cheng Zhouhai sighed.
“So this small matter—if you all can handle it properly, then go handle it. As for me, I’ll make sure to treat this little brother in learning well. Oh, and since he’s so skilled in martial arts, it just occurred to me—couldn’t we have him stay here and train a special operations unit for us?”
He’d been in unusually high spirits today; Zhou Junwu’s tone, initially a bit flippant and joking, gradually grew more animated as he spoke, until finally he slapped his thigh. “That’s it! What a great idea!”
Zhou Pei and Cheng Zhouhai fell silent for a moment. Cheng Zhouhai said, “Your Majesty’s idea… does have some genuine merit.”
“He might not be willing to stay, though…”
“Why wouldn’t he stay? Someone of such importance, traveling thousands of li all the way from the southwest, facing so much danger along the way—if he’d been captured or killed, our teacher would be devastated, the realm would have lost a talented young man! No, this won’t do, I must lighten our teacher’s burden…”
“Your Majesty…” Zhou Pei cut in with a reminder.
“I know, I know, I’m doing this for the good of the Wu dynasty too.” Jun Wu waved a hand. “The rebels are too powerful to suppress right now, of course I have to play along for the moment—can’t beat them, so what can I do? Heh, so I win over his son instead… Ning Ji’s sixteen this year, a young hero rising, give it a few years, he’ll be twenty, he’ll have grown attached to us by then, I’ll grant him the title of Great General, let him lead troops into battle—and when the Black Banner comes marching in and runs into our own Wu dynasty’s Great General Sun Wukong, hahaha… hahahaha, let’s see how they can bring themselves to strike him down! I’m telling you, they won’t be able to do it, whatever inner demons, whatever careful calculations, hahahaha, I’ll make his jaw drop clean off… I’m not joking, I’m really not joking, this could actually work——”
The young Emperor, long weighed down by suppressed emotion, found himself unusually relaxed now, his mind racing ahead, hands on hips, laughter growing increasingly unhinged. Zhou Pei said, “You’re not even worried he might usurp your throne one day.”
“Usurp what! Let him usurp it, he doesn’t even need to… I’ll marry my daughter to him…” Jun Wu clapped his hands together. “Right, right, you’re all always going on about how the Zhou family, how the imperial line, can’t be allowed to fade away—well, here’s the solution! You see, I’ll marry Zhou Fuyang to him, and let him have the throne through her, that’ll settle it… then when our teacher comes marching in someday, and finds the Wu Emperor is Ning Ji himself, how’s he going to fight? He’ll be dumbfounded, his eyes will pop right out and roll on the ground, he won’t be able to pick them back up… face saved, the Zhou family preserved, the imperial line preserved…”
Cheng Zhouhai’s expression turned pained and troubled. “Your Majesty… this is far too reckless a notion…”
“How is it reckless, it’s actually workable, Teacher Cheng…”
“Even if you married Fuyang to him, he’d only be a Prince Consort!” Zhou Pei said.
“What’s wrong with being a Prince Consort? A Prince Consort is just a matrilocal son-in-law—our teacher was one too, and look how impressive he turned out. Perfect, Ning Ji can marry in the same way—two matrilocal sons-in-law facing off, who’s going to dare look down on that arrangement ever again——”
Beneath the pale moonlight, amid the flickering torch-fires, the Emperor found this all so amusing he couldn’t help laughing for quite a while. Zhou Pei, too, was drawn into an irritated laugh of her own, and Cheng Zhouhai, standing to the side, held himself back with great difficulty for a long while before finally cracking a few chuckles himself. Then all three of them simply gave up trying to contain themselves, laughing loudly, doubled over, all sense of dignity forgotten.
Far off, Yue Yun watched this scene, utterly baffled, as though he’d seen a ghost.
After a good long laugh, Cheng Zhouhai finally steadied his expression. “For Your Majesty to make a joke like that shows you’re in good spirits—this servant is glad to see it.”
“It’s not a joke, I really do think it has some merit.” Jun Wu was still laughing. “Zhou Fuyang’s a foolish little thing—if I could marry her into the Ning family, I’d feel I’d finally repaid some debt owed to our own Zhou family. Ever since Emperor Jinghan’s tyrannical misrule, our family owes the realm’s people a great deal—decades of blood debts and grievances piled up like mountains. If it could all be set down somehow, even in some roundabout way, wouldn’t that be a fine thing? And if Ning Yi himself won’t have it, well, Ning Ji could always change his surname to Zhou…”
“Your Majesty’s benevolence is a blessing to the realm’s people, but matters of imperial succession may not be so simple to resolve. The rift between the Zhou and Ning families isn’t something that can be settled by one side simply yielding, Your Majesty…”
“I still think it’s workable!” Jun Wu waved a hand. “I’ll think it over some more!”
“…But winning Ning Ji over, having him stand with us and help with certain matters—that’s not a bad move at all.” Cheng Zhouhai cupped his hands. “It’s just that, since Your Majesty has already decided to move forward with this, there’s one thing this servant needs to confess to you in advance.”
“…What thing?”
Jun Wu’s brow furrowed; beside him, Zhou Pei’s brow furrowed too, both their gazes turning toward Cheng Zhouhai.
Cheng Zhouhai’s gaze remained steady and open.
“This morning,” he said, “this servant accidentally… already gave Ning Ji away.”
“…”
Beneath the moonlight, the Emperor’s silhouette erupted into a furious, flailing tirade of curses.
The peaceful moonlight illuminated the fields and mountain woods; beneath its glow, the mood across Fujian’s martial world was slowly beginning to shift.
“Just found out—Nian Tong’s already left…”
In a temple deep in the barren mountains, by the light of a campfire, Qian Dingzhong relayed recent news to Pu Xingui. “And just now, Ren Changying came by to say his goodbyes—said he had no face left to say anything more, no face left to keep rebelling, he’s heading back to the countryside.”
“Back to the countryside to farm! Doesn’t dare fight for anything, and how many acres of land is the court going to give him anyway!” Pu Xingui cursed, suppressing his rage.
“A lot of people have lost their nerve completely, lost the will to keep going.”
“We’re not the only ones doing this work! Duke Fei, Elder Yao, Elder Ai—how many of their people never even mobilized? We’re just the catalyst here, if this thing really gets going, thousands upon thousands will rise up, do they really think we’re the only ones who matter…”
“…”
Qian Dingzhong sighed and said nothing more. The people who’d come to Fuzhou to stir up trouble were meant to be the catalyst for the uprising, but these were all men of the martial world, blades bloodied countless times, thriving on violence and daring—seventy or eighty of them, even a hundred, all men with real skill and real nerve, not some rabble of petty freeloaders. Yet all of them, together with a grandmaster of decades’ renown like Fan Zhong, had been cut down like dogs by a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy, struck down and killed on a whim. For these men, it was simply too shattering an experience—it had overturned worldviews built over entire lifetimes.
“It doesn’t matter.” Pu Xingui fell silent for a long while, then shook his head. “As long as tomorrow’s plan goes through… today’s affair at Yinan Manor will end up nothing more than a joke. Anyone who brings it up will just sound like they’re spouting madness. That black-hearted witch… how’s Chen Shuangran’s situation?”
“The group she personally brought along, like Chen Yan’s water bandits, haven’t left, but their morale’s fallen too. And a few of the ones she’d recruited have quietly slipped away…”
“Good, that’s fine too.” Pu Xingui nodded, then paused. “My numbers are down, hers are down too—at least now there’s a sense of shared hardship between us… She probably won’t try any more tricks before tomorrow. Right, I’ll go talk with her again, confirm tomorrow’s big plan.”
A blessing in disguise, Pu Xingui thought to himself, deciding today’s events hadn’t turned out entirely badly after all. He rose at once. “And besides, after what just happened, the court’s bound to think our momentum’s badly shaken—their defenses tomorrow might well be lighter than expected. Good, that works out well too.” Accompanied by Qian Dingzhong, he made his way past the temple grounds, through the tall grass, and higher up the mountainside.
At that very moment, up on the mountainside where he was headed, the tall figure of the monk Tunyun swayed in the firelight, his face dark, having just finished hearing the full account of that midday’s defeat.
“So, the reason you sent me away was because you were afraid I’d side with that Sun Wukong and beat the lot of you brainless bastards to death——”
“——And you too——”
“——You damned little bitch?”
In the flickering light and shadow, Chen Shuangran, standing opposite him, nodded and gave a slight bow.
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Damn it——”