Carrying the long bundle out of the room, Ning Yi could still hear the sound of strings and flutes drifting from the main hall below—no sign yet of the disturbance he’d been dreading, no hint of chaos.
He’d only caught fragments of the conversation, and he genuinely wasn’t sure whether they’d really been talking about “Qin Siyuan,” or whether they truly intended to do anything that would upset everyone. It was entirely possible he’d misread the situation, misheard something.
He hoped that was the case. This shop had only just opened, and Bamboo Records couldn’t afford too much trouble right now. Things had been peaceful for quite a long stretch, and part of him felt his own suspicions might simply be an overreaction. But those men had genuinely given him an uneasy feeling—better safe than sorry, even at the risk of one chance in ten thousand.
As he approached the corner of the corridor, the door ahead had already opened again, and several people emerged, all heading toward the landing outside. There were five of them in total—besides the burly man, the tall gaunt man, and the wealthy young master Ning Yi had already seen, two more men, both rather large in build, were dressed in short fur-lined jackets. One had a scar across his face; the other, somewhat heavier-set, was likewise powerfully built.
These men looked like the sort who traveled widely—wandering martial artists or itinerant merchants, perhaps. They glanced at Ning Yi as they passed but paid him no particular mind.
Quite a few people were milling about or standing near the landing overlooking the main hall, along with restaurant staff moving back and forth. Song Qian, following Ning Yi’s earlier instructions, now stood near the top of the stairs, cracking sunflower seeds between his teeth. The five men walked out of the second-floor corridor and paused on the landing overlooking the hall, glancing this way and that. Ning Yi followed a short distance behind them, and gave Song Qian a look, signaling who he needed to keep an eye on.
A serving boy carrying a tea tray passed by just then, and Ning Yi leaned toward the railing, brushing shoulders with the tall, gaunt man who was intently watching something below. “Sorry, sorry,” he said with a smile. The gaunt man shot him a glance. A bit further along, the wealthy young master, who had apparently been speaking with one of his companions, fell silent as Ning Yi approached, only lowering his head to resume talking once Ning Yi had moved past.
Passing by Song Qian, Ning Yi headed down the stairs. Yun Zhu and Old Qin were still seated at their table some distance away; Ning Yi had no wish to draw attention at this moment, hoping to avoid having either of them call out a greeting to him. He blended into the crowd and glanced back—up on the landing, the five men were still leaning against the railing, frowning as they discussed something.
The bustling hall showed no sign that anything was about to happen—people milling about, pleasant music playing. Over there sat Old Qin, a man who’d always presented himself as detached from worldly affairs; his life had only recently seen a slight ripple of change. Today he’d simply come to check out this newly opened restaurant. Ning Yi took a breath, unable to fully settle his racing thoughts. He looked around for anyone he recognized, but there weren’t many staff members here he actually knew. After a good while, he managed to find a serving boy, pulled him aside into a corner, and had just begun giving him instructions when he noticed the veiled Yuan Jin’er standing not far off by a window near the wall, glancing his way several times before coming over with a smile.
“Ning Yi, what are you doing? Have you seen Sister Yun Zhu?”
“I saw her.”
“Mm, she’s right over there.” Jin’er pointed across the crowd toward Yun Zhu. “That old master from the Qin family came by too. By the way, that Old Master Qin… he’s someone of real standing, isn’t he?”
“I suppose so…” Ning Yi eyed her with some confusion. “Something wrong?”
“Nothing.” Yuan Jin’er clearly had something on her mind, but at this she simply nodded, her smile bright yet somehow sly. Whatever was on her mind probably wasn’t important. Ning Yi glanced up toward the landing above and abruptly frowned—the five men appeared to have finished discussing their plan; one of them nodded and began heading toward the stairs. The wealthy young master remained behind, gesturing instructions to the other three. At the top of the stairs, Song Qian turned his head and looked over toward Ning Yi.
Behind him, Yuan Jin’er asked, “What did you need with Zheng Quan…” Zheng Quan was the name of the serving boy Ning Yi had just called over.
Ning Yi turned his head abruptly and signaled toward the boy named Zheng Quan. “Go intercept that tall fellow with the scar on his face. Apologize to him, remember.”
At the same time, he shot a look toward Song Qian. Song Qian, already standing at the top of the stairs, turned and started down first. The scarred man followed him down as well. Halfway down, the serving boy Zheng Quan, carrying his tea tray, stepped forward to meet him; the two shuffled left, then right on the stairs, and finally collided, sending tea and pastries spilling everywhere.
It was only a minor mishap. The boy immediately apologized, pulling the cloth hanging at his waist to wipe at the water stains on the man’s clothes. The scarred man, his eyes fixed on the scene in the hall below, impatiently tried to brush him off and continue down the stairs, but the boy kept getting in his way. The four men still up on the landing noticed the commotion on the stairs too, glancing over briefly, but didn’t think much of it, and the wealthy young master went on talking. During all this, the singer on the small stage at the front of the hall was performing “Song of the Pipa,” just reaching the line: “The icy spring runs cold and choked, the strings freeze and fall still; frozen and blocked, the sound briefly pauses.” Song Qian crossed the hall and reached Old Qin’s side, bending down beside him.
Up on the landing, the wealthy young master stopped talking and stood up straight, staring in that direction. The others around him, including the scarred man still on the stairs, all turned to look that way too. Ning Yi, standing off to the side, looked over as well, brows furrowing, a breath caught tight in his chest. Behind him, Jin’er was chattering something.
The singer’s melody slowed, reaching the next line: “There is another kind of sorrow, hidden and unspoken; at this moment, silence surpasses sound.” Her fingers paused on the strings, the music briefly stilling, her gaze sweeping across the hall. At the table ahead, Song Qian had already finished speaking with Old Qin, gripped the old man’s arm, and helped him to his feet, turning to head outside—but as he did, he glanced back up toward the landing above. Up there, the most powerfully built and imposing of the men suddenly straightened, and the wooden railing gripped beneath his hand abruptly split apart.
Ning Yi, standing in the corner, drew a deep breath. Behind him, Jin’er let out a soft cry of surprise, though he had no idea what she was reacting to. In the hall, the strings of the instrument shivered with sudden tension.
The singing abruptly turned urgent, the next line ringing out: “The silver vase suddenly shatters, water bursting forth; armored horsemen charge out, blades and spears clashing…”
Song Qian and Old Qin were making their way through the crowd. Yun Zhu, dressed all in white, had no idea what was actually happening and stood up in confusion, glancing this way and that. On the stairs, the serving boy Zheng Quan let out a cry and tumbled down. Hardly anyone registered any of this in the moment—only Ning Yi, off in the corner, suddenly stepped back. “Damn it…”
The scarred man charged straight down the stairs. The tall, gaunt man beside the wealthy young master and the somewhat heavier-set man both rushed out in opposite directions, taking the two other staircases leading down. The suspicion that had been gnawing at Ning Yi’s mind now locked into certainty. Behind him, Jin’er, seeing something happening, exclaimed, “It’s really happening, it’s really happening…” Ning Yi only barked out in a low voice, “Find somewhere to hide, quickly!”
Before he’d even finished speaking, a deafening boom erupted in the hall. Below the landing, a table suddenly seemed to explode outright, all manner of objects flying through the dust in every direction, the people seated around it thrown backward, caught completely off guard. Something shot across the hall through the air, hurtling straight toward where Old Qin and Song Qian stood, but missed its mark and instead struck a man seated nearby, hurling him more than two meters across the floor.
Almost no one had time to register what was happening—the singer on stage was still performing. Only Ning Yi, who had been watching from above the whole time, had any real sense of what was unfolding. At this moment, the scarred man was charging through the crowd, the tall gaunt man and the stocky, powerfully built man rushing down the two separate staircases, while beside the wealthy young master, the most imposing of the men had simply kicked off a large section of the railing, hurled it toward Song Qian, and then leapt straight down into the hall below, landing squarely on a table and smashing the eight-immortals table to splinters.
Someone was sent flying through the air.
Only now did the screaming begin.
Caught in the middle of it all, it was difficult in the moment to make sense of what was happening, but chaos had well and truly broken loose. The hall had already been crowded to begin with, and with staff moving about and tables and chairs everywhere, once the panic set in, the crush of people only grew worse. Viewed from above, the crowd seemed to split into four distinct paths, as if torn open. The four men accompanying the wealthy young master were all burly northerners—even the one Ning Yi had thought of as “tall and gaunt” only appeared so relative to the others’ truly staggering height. All four now surged forward like battering rams, converging on Song Qian and Old Qin as they made for the door. Guests too slow to get out of the way were sent sprawling, tables and chairs smashed and kicked aside in their wake.
“Old Bastard Qin—!” the most powerfully built of the men bellowed amid the chaos. “I’ll have your worthless life!”
The music had stopped entirely; the singer on the small stage stared out at the scene below in open-mouthed shock. The wealthy young master had by now rushed down along with the other four; despite his fine clothing, his face carried the same savage intensity as the rest, and he’d drawn a war blade, hurrying to follow behind them. He glanced briefly off to one side, then fixed his gaze back on Song Qian and Old Qin.
In the midst of the chaos, Yun Zhu, dressed in white, stood frozen by the eight-immortals table, still utterly unable to comprehend what was happening—everything had unfolded far too fast. Nearby, the stocky, powerfully built man came charging straight at her; the next instant, the table before her was sent flying, her hand struck in the process, drawing a startled cry from her. Ahead, a massive hand reached out to grab her.
Up on the landing moments earlier, the men keeping watch on Qin Siyuan had, of course, also taken note of the woman sitting beside him. The stocky man’s charge carried the momentum of a battering ram, and just as his arm was about to close around her throat, some force wrenched her body sideways out of the way. In that same instant, what looked like a length of bamboo tubing shot past her ear, straight toward the heavyset man’s head and face.
Ning Yi’s hand had seized Yun Zhu’s shoulder, pulling her body aside, while in his other raised hand, a fire-lance’s fuse burned bright, the spark already traveling down into the barrel.
The stout man’s pupils widened for an instant.
A deafening boom erupted, ear-splitting in its force.
In the hall, it was as though a pair of butterfly wings had suddenly spread open. Flame blossomed, thick smoke billowing upward, nearly engulfing an entire body within it, while on the other side, a spray of blood and shredded flesh burst outward in a fan-shaped arc, almost symmetrical to the smoke, splattering everywhere in a gruesome spray. By now Ning Yi had already pulled Yun Zhu close against his side, holding her tight. The stout man’s body plowed through the smoke, past the two of them, and continued forward four or five more meters before collapsing to the ground, shattering a stool to pieces on impact, his head and neck now a mangled ruin, blood spraying from the wound as his body convulsed.
These men, charging down from above, were formidable fighters in their own right, utterly resolved in their intent—for a moment, almost no one could have reacted in time to stop them. Yet in the very midst of that overwhelming charge, at its absolute peak, the counterattack that met them was every bit as ferocious and astonishing. The powerfully built man, who had seemed all but certainly dead the instant before, dropped without a chance. The scarred man, who had also closed the distance by now, staggered to a stop a few more meters on, stunned for a moment—then let out a furious roar and charged straight at Ning Yi.
The fastest-moving and most imposingly built of the men, however, hadn’t even noticed what had happened over there—he had nearly closed the distance to Song Qian and Old Qin in mere moments and was already almost at the door. At the same time, Song Qian, pulling Old Qin along, had just made it outside—only to see, out on the street, a formation of what looked like several dozen men marching straight toward the Bamboo Records branch shop in grim, purposeful ranks. Where they’d come from was anyone’s guess, but their intent was plainly hostile.
In that instant, it was truly a case of no way forward and pursuers closing in from behind…