The disciples of the Hundred Blades Alliance were now closing in from every direction.
The sudden turn of events left many people speechless for a moment. Far off, Su Tan’er watched the figure toss the rope aside, froze for an instant, then let out a soft “ha,” covering her mouth, her eyes brimming with tears. Nearby, a member of the Hundred Blades Alliance glanced at the equally bewildered Cheng Lie and Su Boyong. “Was… was that palm thunder?”
From where they stood, the figure had simply risen and raised a hand off to the side, and flames had burst out. The whole of Ten Step Slope was still echoing with that startling boom—by the sound of it, it was every bit like the legendary Daoist supernatural technique of palm thunder. But those standing closer could just make out the tube-shaped object in Ning Yi’s hand; after it fired, sparks danced and a faint glow lingered.
The horse had bolted in fright, thrashing wildly where it stood, and one of the Su family’s servants had to haul hard on the reins; the carriage rocked unsteadily for a moment. Yet the figure called Ning Yi stood there entirely unmoved, opening his hand and talking to himself. When Ma Lin fell, someone in Ou Peng’s group let out a cry of “Ah!” and made to charge forward, only for that faintly glowing cylinder to swing around toward them, and someone beside him suddenly grabbed hold and pulled him back.
Jiang Jing stammered wordlessly for a long moment, swallowed hard, and looked around.
There had been about twenty people on his side, and under normal circumstances they’d have had a real chance to break out just now. Breaking out might not have freed them from the shadow and threat of the Hundred Blades Alliance in the long run, but at least the odds in the moment had been decent. And now, they had been driven right back into the Alliance’s encirclement.
Looking up, they saw Ning Yi’s figure standing there, his expression impossible to make out. Most of them had at least heard of, or seen, this man Ning Yi before—because for months now they had been coordinating with Xi Junyu on the scheme against the Su family, and they’d made some inquiries into this son-in-law who had married into the family. But the impression they’d formed back then was one thing, and the impression that had taken shape upon hearing tonight’s news of the Su clan assembly was another—and before they’d even had time to digest that second impression, here he was, this bookish, frail-looking scholar who had once fooled them completely, suddenly appearing before them in a manner that left them utterly stunned. Even after the news of the clan assembly had come out, they likely hadn’t imagined anything like this.
Everything had happened far too fast, leaving them no time to think things through. Kidnapping Ning Liheng, or arranging a quiet “accident” to kill him, had been the plan Jiang Jing and Xi Junyu had settled on from the start; tonight had simply become a fallback, and the four men they’d sent, dressed in Su family servant uniforms, had been meant for exactly this. The situation moments ago had been dire, but once these clues had lined up, how could they not have been overjoyed?
But then, all at once, they realized that the direction which, only a moment before, had been their gateway to hope had suddenly been sealed off by that burst of light. Combined with the shock of learning that their four-month scheme against the Wu family had been exposed, and now the sheer force of this figure’s appearance and the power of that mysterious fire-weapon, Jiang Jing and the others were momentarily left almost dazed. The burly man wielding the huge shovel glanced around, ready to charge forward; Ou Peng also gripped his spear tightly. Everyone there was already wounded, spent, and short of breath, but for a moment no one dared charge forward.
That was because behind Ning Yi, several Su household guards were also drawing their blades and standing ready, while the Hundred Blades Alliance’s disciples closed in from this side too. The burly man with the shovel took a step forward, and the device—its red glow now dimmed—swung sharply toward him; he hastily stepped back again.
Ning Yi abruptly lowered the device in his hand and burst out laughing.
“I have science, you have supernatural powers… heh, just kidding.” His voice echoed across the slope. “It’s just something I threw together—swapped a bamboo tube for an iron one, packed it with gunpowder, and it’s really no different from a firecracker. A pain to reload, single-shot only, no rifling or sights so it flies wherever it pleases, and the effective killing range is less than ten feet…”
He stood there shaking his head, rambling on about things some people understood and others didn’t. In the distance, Su Tan’er, hand still over her mouth, tears not yet dried, felt something achingly familiar in it, and let out a “pfft” of laughter, her amusement deepening.
“Which is why, unless you’re firing it point-blank at someone’s head or face, it’s terrifying to look at but does almost nothing. This one here”—he turned to glance at the corpse on the ground, thought for a moment before choosing a word—”this brave fellow here happened to get hit on the very first shot. Gotta say, that’s some impressive luck. So I’ve decided to name this thing ‘Spray You in the Face.'”
He tossed the “Spray You in the Face” back through the carriage curtain behind him, then turned his head to speak to the guard beside him. “Have a monument put up for him later—died from running his mouth…”
By now the Hundred Blades Alliance had completed its encirclement. With him up there saying all this, Ou Peng and the others had no idea what to make of him—partly because of the old man’s earlier revelations, and partly because of the sheer composure of Ning Yi’s manner just now, both of which weighed on them psychologically. With no good options left, they had, if anything, gone a little quiet, conserving their strength for one last, desperate effort. Laughter rang out from the other side. “Ha ha, so this must be Worthy Nephew Ning.” It was Cheng Lie, striding over with blade in hand.
“This humble one is Ning Liheng. In the martial world I go by the nickname Bloody-Handed Butcher. And you would be… Alliance Master Cheng?”
His voice carried far on the night wind. Ning Yi cupped his hands in greeting, trotting out the flashy title to intimidate them. Cheng Lie blinked in mild surprise, and the Hundred Blades Alliance disciples around him began murmuring among themselves, more than a few looking puzzled—they’d never heard of such a famous outlaw nickname before. Ou Peng, Jiang Jing, and the others were likewise taken aback; they hadn’t expected that this Ning Liheng already carried such a reputation in the martial world. Perhaps that bookish-scholar persona of his had been nothing but a disguise all along.
A whole scene sketched itself out in their minds—that perhaps, even before marrying Su Tan’er, this Ning Yi had already been a figure of the martial world, having carved out quite a name for himself somewhere, known as the Bloody-Handed Butcher, before returning home to marry into the family. And their whole group had simply walked straight into an iron wall. No wonder he wasn’t the least bit afraid of them now…
After his brief moment of surprise, Cheng Lie composed himself again. “Heh heh, this old man is indeed Cheng Lie. Worthy Nephew Ning truly lives up to his legend. This time the Su family owes much to your masterful planning—just a small display of skill, and you’ve already cut off their escape route… Ou Peng! What do you have to say for yourself now!”
Cheng Lie’s voice rang out across the night sky. Ou Peng gripped his spear tighter, turning slowly toward Ning Yi, glancing too at the corpse lying on the ground, and spoke almost word by word: “My brother Ma Lin was struck down by your strange, underhanded weapon—you won this without honor! Bloody-Handed Butcher? Do you dare face me in single combat!”
“Ma Lin… Ou Peng?” Ning Yi turned to look again at the corpse on the ground, and for a moment his expression grew strange. After a long pause, he stretched out a foot and prodded the body—yes, it really was dead, blood pooling on the road. Ning Yi sighed, looked over at Ou Peng with his spear in hand. “Right now… what qualifies you to face me in combat?”
He carried about him a natural air of authority, one convincing enough that the moment these words left his mouth, their absurdity, their calm, their careless indifference all came through plainly. He then turned and walked back to the carriage, took up the reins, and turned the carriage around.
“No need to speak of the codes of the martial world with treacherous scum like these… everyone, close in together!”
For a moment, everyone found this man’s words strange indeed. Whether Hundred Blades Alliance or Ou Peng’s men, the truth was that in their daily lives of turf wars and bloody clashes, there wasn’t much room for romantic notions of martial brotherhood. But the meaning came through well enough in the end—everyone should close in together and finish this fight, as it should have been from the start. No sooner had the words been spoken than a bloodthirsty, murderous air suddenly gathered. From within the crowd, the huge man with the iron shovel let out a roar that tore through the night sky, and then more and more voices rose after him, like surging waves, setting the night ablaze once more.
“Kill!”
Cheng Lie charged first into the heart of the encirclement, his long blade sweeping down like thunder from the heavens. Many of the Hundred Blades Alliance members brandished their blades and rushed forward with him.
The carriage rolled off in the opposite direction. Ning Yi turned his head back to look at that surging tide of bodies, blade-light and blood-light mingling together. Ou Peng, spear in hand, and his companions began their final, desperate struggle; Xi Junyu too had been swallowed up in the middle of it all—though of course, this man mattered not in the least to him, not worth a second thought.
Ou Peng, Ma Lin… aren’t these figures from Liangshan? His mind was now entirely consumed with this thought—how interesting. True, the whole reason he’d stepped in to put on this little performance in the first place was that this bunch had run their mouths too much, and with barely any effort he’d sealed off the Hundred Blades Alliance’s encirclement to buy time and trap them. But honestly, after that one-against-three fight back in the Su residence courtyard just now, he’d gained a fair bit of confidence in his own second-rate internal skill. He’d had experience in his previous world too, wielding a blade in turf wars, so he’d come into this one with some measure of confidence. But the moment he heard those two names, he suddenly felt that, for now, strategic avoidance might be the wiser course.
After all, what he cultivated was only second-rate internal skill, and he hadn’t been at it long—why bother? Why come all this way just to pick a fight with celebrities? He glanced back at Ou Peng, cutting a bloody path through the crowd with everything he had, and found himself mentally picturing what Lin Chong, Li Kui, or Lu Zhishen might be like, what other formidable figures of the martial world might be like, or what the self-proclaimed Sage Duke Fang La—already risen in rebellion by this point—might be like. From what he’d heard over the past year or two, this Fang La was quite formidable indeed.
He thought too of Lu Hongti. The brawling and bloodshed of these men seemed somehow different from hers—more brutal, certainly, than the street fights of a thousand years hence, but still, it seemed, nothing compared to the sheer iron-blooded ferocity he’d felt from Lu Hongti during her assassination attempt back then. Ou Peng did look formidable, especially now, fighting for his life, his spear whirling almost like a man possessed, scattering all who stood before him. Cheng Lie, equally formidable, was for a moment forced back by him. And yet there still seemed to be method behind it all—Ning Yi couldn’t quite put his finger on the difference, only that it felt unlike the wild, almost primal quality he’d sensed in Lu Hongti’s skill.
She had once told him that her own skills had been honed entirely on the battlefield against the Liao, and that she’d had little dealing with the martial artists of the Central Plains. He wondered how many blows these men could withstand against her—how someone like Lin Chong, the finest fighter of Liangshan, or even Fang La himself, might fare against her.
Ning Yi found he wasn’t particularly invested in how this brawl would turn out. Ou Peng led his remaining men charging wildly back and forth across Ten Step Slope, though their numbers kept dwindling. Ning Yi simply watched from a distance, his mind wandering through all sorts of unrelated thoughts. Turning around, he pulled out his telescope and looked off toward Jiangning.
It seemed a column of torchlight was approaching from that direction—likely the authorities finally responding to the disturbance here. Ning Yi drove the carriage on, amid the shouting, roaring, and carnage, turning it toward where Su Tan’er and Su Boyong waited.
By the time the authorities arrived, this business here would surely have reached its conclusion one way or another. Whatever happens, happens—he was a scientist, after all; he didn’t get involved in fighting. He held that crude little firearm—or rather, little cannon—in his hands, thinking idly to himself.
Over there, the fierce brawl raged on. Here, Su Tan’er pushed her father’s wheelchair forward, surrounded by the household guards, coming to meet him. Beneath the night sky, the scene before Ten Step Slope looked like two utterly unrelated worlds, yin and yang at opposite poles—on one side, a reunion was unfolding; on the other, a farewell to the dead was being woven.