The lamplight flickered gently as the modest evening feast drew toward its end. Noticing the oil in the lamp running low, Chan’er came over to add more, adjusting the wick to brighten the light a little.
Though the two men at the table differed in age by nearly double, their conversation had flowed rather smoothly, marked by genuine rapport. Qin Shaohe was no dry, pedantic scholar—his views and insight on many matters were every bit a match for his father’s. After expressing his thanks, he first brought up certain events from last year’s disaster relief effort. He’d largely implemented the relief strategy laid out in Ning Yi’s pamphlet, but in matters of this kind, countless unforeseen complications inevitably arose, and Qin Shaohe had handled these according to his own judgment at the time. Now, having returned, he wanted to discuss in detail the questions that had come up along the way.
His manner was sincere, without pretense. Ning Yi’s original pamphlet had been drawn from a combination of disaster-relief strategies and personnel-management experience he’d absorbed from his previous life, but Qin Shaohe, having now actually implemented it in practice, had in some respects come to understand the practical details even more deeply than Ning Yi himself. So Ning Yi simply exchanged his own perspective with him, asking a few questions about the actual conditions of the disaster at the time. This much counted, at least, as proper business.
Beyond that, the conversation naturally wandered to all sorts of topics. In these past few days back in Jiangning, Qin Shaohe had picked up on a bit of news, and he brought it up now with a laugh. “I’ve long heard of Liheng’s unmatched literary talent. Now that I’m back in Jiangning, I hear that Li Shishi of Fan Tower has come to visit as well, and that Liheng might be inclined to help give Jiangning’s side a bit of a boost—perhaps with some new work. Is that true?”
“Someone did come and ask me once, and while our acquaintance isn’t especially deep, it wasn’t easy to refuse outright either. But Jiangning has no shortage of talented writers—surely there’s no need for me to embarrass myself by trying. I hear this Li Shishi is a beauty beyond compare—there’s absolutely nothing to be gained from offending a woman like that…”
This was more or less the same answer he’d given Puyang Yi earlier. Qin Shaohe laughed upon hearing it. “Just joking around, of course. Though if Liheng really is curious about this Li Shishi, perhaps we could arrange to meet her one of these days.”
“Does Brother Qin know her?”
“No, I haven’t been back to the capital in years, and even when I do go, it’s always a brief, hurried trip—I’ve no idea how things stand among the capital’s courtesans these days. But I am acquainted with Mother Li of Fan Tower. If she’s come along, meeting this Li Shishi shouldn’t be any trouble at all…”
Ning Yi nodded. “So Brother Qin is on good terms with this Mother Li—about the same age too, I’d imagine…”
Qin Shaohe, in the middle of taking a sip of wine, very nearly choked and spat it out. Normally a rather serious, dignified man, he now sat there laughing for a good long while before finally nodding. “She truly was a beauty, more than a decade ago… My father served as an official in the capital back then, as Liheng knows, and I did visit Fan Tower a few times in those days—though mainly on account of your Second Brother Qin. That younger brother of mine ran wild through the capital back then, chasing every skirt in sight, practically a public menace. He was always frequenting Fan Tower, and I’d often have to go drag him back home, where he’d invariably get a proper scolding, sometimes worse. That’s how I came to know Mother Li reasonably well—still have some standing with her, I’d say… Oh, I hear Liheng’s taken an interest in martial arts?”
“Oh?”
“Shaoqian was just the same back then—admired the martial world, loved the fighting arts, was always sparring and exchanging blows with various martial artists, came home covered in bruises more than once. That’s actually how he ended up joining the army.”
“I hadn’t heard Elder Qin mention that.”
“Nothing especially impressive about his skill, honestly, just a bit of raw strength, that’s all. Not sure how far he’s taken it since. All I know is he’s earned a fair bit of military merit over the years, risen through the ranks quickly too—though that has nothing to do with personal combat skill, of course. He doesn’t talk about it much when he comes home these days, mostly to spare Mother the worry. He’s stationed at Sizhou now, so news reaches him faster than it does me—he ought to have gotten home before I did, in fact, but something must have delayed him. He still hasn’t made it back as of today. When he does, I’m sure the two of you will get along famously.”
They chatted a bit more about Qin Shaoqian, and when Chan’er stepped out to fetch more tea, Qin Shaohe finally lowered his voice slightly. “What does Liheng make of this assassination attempt and everything that’s followed?”
Ning Yi glanced at him, pausing with his wine cup raised. “Isn’t that the main reason Brother Qin came back—to look into this very matter?”
“Liheng really is sharp. Just a few days ago, discussing this with Father, he mentioned there were certain things you’d surely already figured out…”
“There isn’t much to figure out, really. It’s simply that Elder Qin deliberately let the assassins escape.”
Qin Shaohe studied him for a long moment before finally nodding, letting out a sigh. “Not entirely deliberate, actually. Uncle Kang’s side intentionally left certain openings—meant only to lure the fish out into the open. Who could have known the fish would turn out to be so large the net itself would tear, letting them actually snatch the man away. Father… he’d likely anticipated something of the sort from the start, but seeing it actually happen was still rather disappointing, all the same. Truthfully, though Uncle Kang holds the greatest sway here in Jiangning, even the Prince Consort’s own estate might not be entirely free of compromise.”
“The Martial Dynasty and the Liao have traded with each other for nearly a century now—the interests involved run deep and tangled. Even within this Su family I’ve married into, trace the connections back far enough and you’ll find business dealings with the Liao as well. This isn’t anyone’s particular fault—you could have guessed as much without even looking. Now that we’ve actually seen it confirmed, there’s really no cause for too much surprise.”
“Still, it’s rather disheartening, in the end.”
Their exchange sounded somewhat cryptic on the surface, but it was, in fact, addressing precisely the aftermath of the assassination affair. In principle, Jiangning ought to have been solidly the Martial Dynasty’s own territory, with Kang Xian himself pulling strings behind the scenes—there was no reason the enemy should have found it so easy to snatch away a captured, heavily guarded wounded prisoner. Kang Xian had originally meant to see whether any lingering hostile forces remained, deliberately relaxing his guard somewhat as bait—only to have the enemy actually take the bait and escape with it. From Qin Shaohe’s manner, it was clear enough that some faction sympathetic to the Liao was operating behind the scenes, and that this web of interests likely ran deep enough that even Kang Xian had been unable to move against it thus far.
At this point Chan’er returned, and the two men clinked their cups together, steering the conversation elsewhere. Still, Qin Shaohe’s attitude toward Ning Yi had shifted somewhat from before—he’d known of Ning Yi’s exceptional qualities already, of course, having heard plenty from his father along with certain examples to back it up, but he’d never witnessed it firsthand until now. This brief exchange finally brought this middle-aged prefect to a genuine, personal recognition of the man before him.
…
While the city of Jiangning glittered with a night full of scattered lights, several hundred kilometers away, in a mountainous region north of the Huai River and south of Xuzhou, certain events were already unfolding.
Wild, desolate mountains, utterly devoid of human presence. As far as the eye could see, black forest stretched in every direction, moonlight filtering hazily and eerily through gaps in the trees. Within the woods burned a fire, coming from a dilapidated mountain god temple.
Four travelers were resting inside.
They were four men, three of considerable stature and one tall and gaunt. One had lost an eye, his head wrapped in bandages, his build massive and imposing; another was even taller still, his skin darkened, apparently from prolonged sun exposure, his face marked with five or six knife scars of varying size, scars that extended down onto his body as well. An iron band was clasped around his forehead, giving him the look of some wandering ascetic monk, though his hair was far too wild and unkempt for that. He crouched there like some hulking beast at rest, radiating an unmistakable air of ferocity that anyone could sense at a glance.
Accompanied by the three of them was a man wrapped in numerous bandages, his wounds not yet healed, lying in a pile of straw in the corner of the ruined temple, staring blankly into the fire. Above the flames, a pot of rice porridge was nearly done cooking.
These were the very men who had carried out the assassination attempt in Jiangning; the heavily scarred giant had only joined later, during the rescue operation. Though they’d managed to slip out of Jiangning at the time, Kang Xian’s covert reach was hardly negligible along the way. Several more ambushes had been laid for them since, but fortunately the giant’s formidable skill, combined with the group’s quick thinking along the road, had allowed them to make it this far. They hadn’t been troubled for a few days now.
But another ambush was already closing in.
Four pairs of eyes were watching from the darkness of the forest nearby.
“…The information we received is accurate. He’s from the northern military, wounded but not seriously—shouldn’t affect his combat ability. The one-eyed one should be the easiest to handle; the tall, thin one still has full fighting capacity. Those two are manageable enough, but the one by the fire—there’s something composed and immovable about him, steady as a mountain. The firelight shifts with his breathing. That one’s trained in some genuinely advanced internal cultivation technique, and has clearly killed many times before. Very difficult to deal with.”
The night forest was silent, save for the occasional bird call or the faint rustle of some unseen creature moving through the undergrowth, deepening the stillness all the more.
“…Heh. They dared go to Jiangning and kill my own father… I’m not exactly easy to deal with either.”
“Want to try?”
“…A father’s blood debt… does that really need to wait for morning?”
…
Wind blew in from the forest outside, stirring the flames slightly. The massive man with the serrated broadsword strapped across his back rose from beside the fire and peered out into the thick darkness beyond.
A moment later, a sound rose up from the far side of the ruined temple, followed by the faint whimper of some animal. The tall, gaunt one and the one-eyed giant, upon hearing this first sound, snatched up their weapons and stood at once, only to relax slightly the next instant—they recognized it clearly enough as the howl of a wolf. There were wolves in these woods, and one had evidently triggered a trap.
Since tripping a trap always tends to put people on edge, and someone always feels compelled to voice it aloud first despite everyone already knowing the cause, the tall, thin man spoke up. “There’s a…”
Just as the word “wolf” was about to leave his mouth, in that instant when the tension in the air had just begun to loosen—it suddenly, violently constricted to its absolute limit!
With a whooshing roar, a flash of blade light came hurtling in through the temple entrance, accompanied by a sound like crashing thunder—a longsword, hurled with all the force one man could muster. Several voices rang out at once, tearing through the night sky.
“Whoosh—”
“Ahh—”
“Crash—”
The gust of wind surged in, and the dark-skinned giant, roaring in fury, swung his arm and knocked the flying blade aside in that same instant; his iron wrist-guard met the blade’s edge, sending sparks flying in all directions as the sword ricocheted up toward the temple’s roof. At the center of the ruined temple, the fire was whipped into a frenzy, flames whirling and dancing wildly. Within the pitch-black temple, dust and wind seemed to carry a shadowy figure hurtling straight in. The dark-skinned giant spun around, and a rapid series of thudding impacts rang out through the air—the light within the ruined temple dimmed momentarily, two shadows locked in furious collision cast against the wall. The intruder, riding the full momentum and razor edge of his peak charge, traded four bare-handed blows with the giant in the blink of an eye, forcing him back a single step—and before the others in the ruined temple could even react, the giant had already been struck open, a fatal opening exposed, and the man who’d charged in gathered his entire body—coiling, then releasing—exploding outward directly before the giant!
The most ferocious strike in the ancient Baji fist style: the mountain-leaning shoulder charge!