The city’s night was heavy with a restless, oppressive unease. With the alarm already raised by everyone in Taiping Lane, gongs now sounded far off through street after street. The army might still be some time in arriving, but at least here in Taiping Lane, the scene had fallen into a tense, deathly quiet. Beyond the standoff already forming, hardly anyone dared speak at all for the moment.
The two sides facing off were, of course, wildly mismatched. On one side stood only Ning Yi, a lone scholar; on the other, Shi Bao and his men, all seasoned fighters of the martial underworld. That Fang La had sent them into the city to sow chaos was proof enough of their formidable skill in itself — though not especially numerous, between the girl called Liu Xigua’s earlier display and Shi Bao’s own casual slaughter, the whole force Taiping Lane had managed to organize stood utterly powerless before them. And now Ning Yi, with a single sentence, had pulled their entire attention squarely onto himself.
He had, by now, built up more than enough standing within Taiping Lane, and on the other side, his hand in the covert scheme against them had also come to light. In this brief moment, seeing him stand there in his scholar’s robes, empty-handed, expression grim, people found themselves instinctively sensing something dangerous about him — especially those of Taiping Lane, who might well have been half-expecting the Su family’s son-in-law to suddenly strike, turning the tables on this whole gang of bandits.
“What I mean to say is — since you’ve all come, perhaps you won’t be going back…”
Drawing a deep breath, his expression grim, Ning Yi sighed as he spoke, then raised his head, clasped his hands lightly, and laughed. “Good people of Taiping Lane…”
His voice rang out through the night air.
Even for Ning Yi himself, what was unfolding now was genuinely unexpected — infuriating, and rather demoralizing too.
All along, helping Hangzhou weather this crisis had simply been a matter of self-preservation under the circumstances — doing what he could, since doing more couldn’t hurt. He’d genuinely, sincerely wanted to help; of course, having no place in official circles himself, he’d never presumed to meddle in the inner workings of the bureaucracy. And yet, even so, to be the very first one exposed and betrayed — it truly felt absurd. He had to admit, he’d never once anticipated something like this happening.
Still, the measures he’d prepared beforehand for just such a scenario weren’t nonexistent — though, admittedly, he’d hoped never to have to use them unless truly pushed to the brink.
“I haven’t lived here long, but… I’m truly grateful for everyone’s care all this while. Being able to get along with all of you so well — that’s not something easily come by. If possible, I’d have liked to keep a good name in everyone’s eyes for as long as I could. But tonight’s business — I never saw this coming. So, what comes next… may be somewhat excessive of me.”
Caught in a standoff, surrounded on every side, Ning Yi spoke these words slowly, a smile still on his face. Meanwhile, the group of Su family members had begun trying to withdraw, which naturally drew the attention of Shi Bao’s men as well; a few exchanged glances, intending to move over and cut them off. But as Ning Yi’s words unfolded, a faint, mounting sense of menace had already begun to coalesce in the air — for whatever the reason, Ning Yi’s manner at that moment carried genuine persuasive force. In this regard, whether true or false, Ning Yi was, without question, the single most convincing performer present.
As he reached this point, a low ripple of unease stirred through the crowd. Nearby, the girl called Liu Xigua turned her gaze toward him; Shi Bao and the others frowned as well. Ning Yi bowed slightly, offering a formal salute.
“I’m sorry for all this, but there’s no other way. Everyone, run — and… may fortune favor you.”
“Seize him!”
The moment Ning Yi’s words fell, Shi Bao, with a great roar, had already broken into a charge — whatever Ning Yi’s reasoning, the priority was simply to bring him down first. In the same instant, the men positioned ahead, behind, and on the rooftops all sprang into motion at once, including the girl called Liu Xigua, who swung her blade and swept forward like a storm!
On the other side, closer to where the Su family members were, two more figures suddenly lunged into motion. In the darkness, across several courtyards, shifting shadows burst from stillness into a violent, converging rush!
Fang La’s men here weren’t many, but every one of them was formidable, the distances between them no more than ten or twenty meters — the moment they broke into a run, they’d close the gap in an instant. Ning Yi, naturally, had no intention of simply waiting to be struck down. He drew his blade with a reverse motion and darted off to one side; after only two or three meters, he abruptly changed direction — and then, a deafening explosion rocked everyone’s eardrums at once.
The ground itself seemed to burst open, a tremendous roar erupting from a spot near the edge of the courtyard, farther from everyone else — but the light and shockwave from the blast still seized everyone’s attention instantly, blossoming outward like some enormous firework.
That firework was still scattering when two more booming blasts followed, and then, one after another, a chain of explosions began spreading outward in a steady rumble.
The locations of these blasts weren’t fixed — some within this courtyard, some several courtyards away, some even out on the street itself — but this was only the beginning. Caught in the midst of it, the massive shockwave enveloped everyone in an instant; flame, dirt, and debris filled every field of vision, sound pounding against every eardrum. The man nearest to Ning Yi, only a few meters off, was blown off his feet by a blast; the explosion sent his robes fluttering, and a flash of light burst before Shi Bao’s own eyes, drowning out even sound itself — he saw the scholar casually wave a hand toward him, and almost instinctively, he froze in place as flame burst open just a short distance ahead of him.
Meanwhile, the Liu girl’s massive blade came sweeping toward Ning Yi with a force that hardly looked like a person wielding a blade at all — more like a maddened weapon dragging the girl herself into a spinning whirl through sheer momentum. She closed the distance almost instantly; Ning Yi had already dashed into a nearby thatched shelter, and just as her blade tore through its side wall, flame burst outward from within the shelter itself, while Ning Yi leapt out through a window on the opposite side…
“Watch — out—”
But the eruption of fire and smoke seemed, in that moment, to slow time itself, even the spread of sound growing sluggish; screams and chaos had already broken out along the street. Several of Fang La’s men, closing in on the Su family, began to fall back.
Truthfully, the whole range of the explosion, though it had begun here, had within moments spread across nearly the entire length of the long street. By Ning Yi’s own reckoning, these explosions were, of course, nothing especially powerful — nowhere close to a later-era minefield or artillery barrage. But to people of this age, this sudden, blooming light in the darkness played out like a symphony of death, powerful in force, its placement seemingly random — though naturally it had all been planned out beforehand by Ning Yi. The densest concentration of explosions now surrounded the retreat route he and the Su family were taking; one after another they went off, and unless one already knew the general range in advance, anyone charging in blind couldn’t possibly know when a burst of flame might rise up from beneath their feet or beside them.
Even seasoned warriors of the martial underworld, veterans of countless battles, found themselves momentarily stunned — some froze in their tracks, some instinctively tried to flee, and some still charged toward Ning Yi regardless. The explosions out on the road proper were fewer, but even there people were caught in the blast — just moments before, one bandit had charged toward a group of local residents, thinking that sticking close to people who lived here would keep him safe, only for him and two or three of the residents to be blown apart together in the blast.
Had it not been for tonight’s thoroughly disastrous turn of events, Ning Yi would never have wanted to use this contingency at all. He’d laid these traps here not as insurance against his identity being exposed, but as a last resort meant for use only if Fang La actually breached the city. No one in this era was particularly inclined toward large-scale gunpowder ambushes of this sort as he was — anyone else facing a situation like this would have had plenty of other options available. But these past few days, helping Qian Haiping had made it considerably easier for Ning Yi to draw on gunpowder resources than before, and he’d simply laid this trap as a matter of course, never expecting it would come into use quite like this.
To bury an entire street with this much gunpowder just to deal with a handful of men was, of course, hardly economical — but Shi Bao himself ranked among the very best fighters under Fang La’s command, and against the men he led, one-on-one, Ning Yi likely couldn’t have beaten even a single one of them. If he hadn’t struck now, his entire household would likely have been wiped out tonight.
As a man of a later age, Ning Yi certainly wasn’t without compassion — the sight of the poor suffering moved him, the sight of starving refugees troubled him, and given the chance, he was more than willing to lend a hand and do what little he could. But he was, after all, a hardened survivor of ruthless struggle; when it truly came down to making hard choices, the residents of Taiping Lane were no longer among his priorities. Naturally, the courtyards they were passing through and the escape routes themselves held the densest concentration of gunpowder, while the streets outside were somewhat lighter — but casualties there were unavoidable regardless, amid such chaos.
Shi Bao now found himself trapped in a wall of flame, his side already struck by one blast, blood streaking across him. Not far off, Ning Yi moved through the dangerous field of fire, and glanced back at him once — his gaze cold as ice, contemptuous and utterly without mercy. Under ordinary circumstances, such a look would have been the most fierce provocation imaginable, but even Shi Bao found himself momentarily stunned by it now.
A figure staggered near Ning Yi, wounded by one of the blasts — it was Gou Zheng, who’d come with Shi Bao, another of Fang La’s trusted and formidable fighters, his skill considerable. But his luck hadn’t held as well as Shi Bao’s — his chest and back had each taken a blast, leaving him a bloody mess. His weapon was already gone, though he still seemed conscious; seeing Ning Yi approach, he swung a fist and charged. Ning Yi seized him by the chest with his left hand, hauled him close, and shoved him toward the other side with a casual push.
“Over there… stand still!”
Amid the explosions, a cold, detached voice seemed to carry through.
“Kneel down!”
Ning Yi delivered a casual chop to the man’s thigh, blood spraying; Gou Zheng staggered and fell, and Ning Yi had already walked past him without pause. A moment later, in full view of everyone, Gou Zheng’s body collapsed — and just as his chest was about to touch the ground, a burst of light surged up from beneath him, blasting the body apart, scattering it in every direction.
“Ning Liheng—” Shi Bao’s eyes were bloodshot, wide with fury. “I’ll kill your whole family—”
Amid the rising and falling waves of flame, Ning Yi swung his arm forcefully from where he stood, calling out crisply.
“Come on, then—”