From above, the scene would have looked like scattered points of light flickering across the darkness.

In Taiping Lane, the explosions stirred the very air, sending shockwaves through the ground; the shouts and running footsteps of everyone on the street merged into a single roar, painting the whole scene in an especially chaotic light. But in truth, from the moment the explosions began, the entire sequence of events had unfolded in barely ten or so seconds — no one had truly wasted a single moment of it.

Everyone ran, chased, struck, made their own snap judgments — the girl wielding the overlord blade came sweeping through, Ning Yi dashing in and out of the thatched shelter. Some were caught by the blasts; Gou Zheng and that clever man who’d leapt into the crowd were probably the two unluckiest of all — the former struck twice directly, the latter blown into the air entirely. Shi Bao, caught by the blast beside him and momentarily stunned, hesitated for just an instant — and in that instant, Ning Yi had already nearly made it out of the courtyard, seizing the blood-soaked Gou Zheng and shoving him out with a simple stroke: “Stand still! Kneel down!”

By the time Gou Zheng was blown apart, Ning Yi had already run several more meters further out.

From this courtyard to the canal bank at the far end of Taiping Lane was roughly two hundred meters. From the very start, the Su family, escorted by Steward Geng and the others, had never headed for the mouth of the lane itself, instead making straight for that stretch of the canal’s tributary the whole way. With barely twenty-odd people in the group, adults and children alike, moving briskly and in good order under Su Tan’er’s own carefully controlled, sharp commands, even when Fang La’s men tried to close in, the first wave had already been blocked by Steward Geng and the others, and the explosions had left the rest too shaken to press further.

Ning Yi, meanwhile, had in that same brief span drawn nearly everyone’s attention onto himself. To be fair, though these explosions had sounded fierce and dramatic in the moment, spread across such a wide area and continuing on and off as they were, the actual casualties caused at any given instant were, in truth, fairly limited. And even though Ning Yi had already been able to draw on considerable military resources beforehand, he hadn’t gone quite so far as to bury the entire street with gunpowder in some truly excessive fashion.

The blasts were concentrated mainly along the escape route itself; the open street and areas farther off naturally had fewer, mostly meant to guard against the enemy circling around from a greater distance. And even Ning Yi himself could only really predict the blast range for the first few seconds — beyond that, exactly which cache of gunpowder might go off and when became something even he could only guess at; there was no way he could pull off anything like that daring dash straight through the small shelter, timed perfectly to the explosion, more than once.

But the battle unfolding in these brief moments was, above all, a matter of psychological warfare. Ning Yi, cautious and composed when laying out his broader schemes, proved, when truly pressed to the wall, more decisive and ruthless than anyone. Once he’d made the choice, he’d immediately resolved to abandon everyone else in Taiping Lane; the direction of his initial dash hadn’t been fixed, but the first couple of men who’d tried to strike him down had each been stopped cold by an explosion — he’d made himself, quite deliberately, the bait, delivering a stunning show of force to everyone present. And when he’d cut down Gou Zheng like a dog, blowing him apart in the process, amid that blaze of flame, nearly everyone present found their own momentum thoroughly crushed.

These men had all been renowned figures in the martial underworld of the southwest — veterans who’d lived by the blade for years, and since joining the rebellion, had killed without number. Ning Yi’s own martial skill wasn’t especially great; in a straight one-on-one fight, a man like Shi Bao could probably have killed him within a few exchanges. And yet now, facing down over a dozen men who only moments ago had looked utterly savage, alone as he was, he’d somehow, before everyone’s eyes, come to seem as terrifying and immovable as a mountain. When Shi Bao had roared out “I’ll kill your whole family,” Ning Yi had merely waved a hand and said, “Come on, then—” and in that instant, even the onlookers found themselves genuinely shaken.

Of course, having conjured up such an overwhelming sense of control over the situation in mere moments didn’t mean Shi Bao and the others were suddenly a bunch of green rookies who’d simply crumble from fear. The more formidable the opponent, the greater the sense of danger one ought to feel — and as Ning Yi charged swiftly through another courtyard, Shi Bao finally let out a furious roar and broke into a full sprint, his eyes gone bloodshot with fury, while another figure closed in from the side to cut him off.

An explosion went off almost right beside him, flame dancing wildly; a flying pebble grazed his cheek, drawing a line of blood. Ning Yi moved fast, but stumbled all the same — there was no better path available to him now, or it would surely have meant certain death.

This whole explosion was essentially a branching chain reaction set off from several separate points; he had no way to precisely control the interval between each blast along any given line, and in the midst of such overwhelming chaos, trying to predict things based purely on the sequence of blast points already triggered was extraordinarily difficult. As he ran, his fingers twitched faintly at his side, half-instinctively, helping him keep track and calculate. Behind him, Shi Bao and the others sprinted along the very path he’d taken, having by now gained some experience of their own — following in his exact footsteps seemed, to them, the safest bet.

Fleeing like this through the flames for a while longer, when the man behind swung his blade at him again, Ning Yi leapt aside, rolled across the ground, and by the time he’d risen, his pursuer had already closed in once more. Their steel blades clashed together in the light; Ning Yi staggered back several steps, then suddenly planted his feet, adopting a stance as though waiting for the man to come at him again. His pursuer raised his weapon, about to charge in once more — then suddenly hesitated, glancing down at his own feet.

It was, in part, simply that Ning Yi’s aura of menace had grown so overwhelming by now that this sudden, uncanny shift in expression proved impossible to ignore. The man stood rooted in place for a full two seconds, locked in an unconscious standoff with Ning Yi, before finally reacting and lunging forward — and the ground beneath his feet erupted with a roar. The tremendous force of the blast sent Ning Yi himself staggering backward several steps as well; he braced a hand against the ground, muttering “that was close” under his breath, before turning and pressing forward once more.

By then, the Su family had already reached the canal’s tributary bank; someone had pulled back a covering cloth, revealing a simple but sturdy wooden raft beneath, and everyone began climbing aboard in turn. On this side, meanwhile, right behind Ning Yi, the whistling rush of a blade came tearing through the air.

Shi Bao had by now closed in from behind. Ning Yi gritted his teeth and pushed forward with everything he had, taking, this time, almost a straight line. Shi Bao surged forward and struck out with his blade — and an explosion erupted with a deafening roar, rising flame swallowing both men whole.

“We — we went the wrong way…” Not far off, aboard the raft, Su Tan’er stared fixedly at the scene, murmuring “husband” under her breath and starting to rush forward — but Steward Geng, Xiao Chan, and the others held her back on the raft. Within that blaze of flame, there was still movement — Shi Bao’s massive blade still swinging, though blurred now amid the flickering light and shadow. A pillar that had stood in a small patch of ruins nearby was cut clean through, swallowed up by flame; Ning Yi charged into the ruins, and two more explosions followed, blotting out the view entirely — amid the shockwaves of the blasts, two figures could be seen crossing violently. Farther back still, the girl called Liu Xigua had already come charging forward, but seeing the explosion, she finally halted, leaning on her massive blade. Her hat had already been blown off, her skirt flaring in the shockwave like a dark silhouette against the flames.

A few seconds later, Shi Bao — now covered head to toe in blood — was thrown backward. He roared several times, struggling to rise, staggering unsteadily before he could find his footing, then sank back down again. His body was covered in wounds from the explosions, only one actual blade wound among them — likely something Ning Yi had managed to land amid the chaos, though it didn’t look severe. On the other side, Ning Yi’s own figure came running toward the raft, teeth gritted; one side of his body was clearly stained with blood too, though far less than Shi Bao’s. Watching this unfold, the girl called Liu Xigua surged forward once more.

As the explosion rose, the girl swept a small detour around it. Ning Yi leapt onto the raft; Su Tan’er and the others moved to rush toward him, but he called out sharply, “Stay back,” and drew several items from within his robes. Behind him, on the bank, the girl came sprinting forward, blade dragging, and suddenly leapt into the air! Ning Yi gritted his teeth, turned on the raft, and aimed the object in his hand up at the girl now airborne above him.

A sharp crack rang out, as though a burst of flame had suddenly ignited in his hand.

The girl’s figure spun several times through the air before crashing down onto the bank below.

The raft pulled away from the shore, drifting toward the far side of the canal; someone raised a wooden barrier to guard against stones or arrows that might come from the other bank. In everyone’s view, the girl on the ground shook her head, one hand still gripping her blade, the other braced against the ground, slowly lifting her head to look back this way. In the darkness her face couldn’t be made out, only her eyes, strikingly clear, showing no trace of anger — if anything, something closer to curiosity and bewilderment. Ning Yi slumped down onto the raft, gave a mock wave of his hand, then reached his left hand over toward his own wounded right arm, gritted his teeth, and pulled out a small fragment — wood splinter or metal shard, he couldn’t tell — flinging it into the water.

“This one here is the blood-handed butcher, Ning Liheng…”

As the distance grew, he sat there murmuring these words to himself, though by now he no longer had the strength left to shout them properly. Feeling suddenly weary of it all, he finally lay back on the raft. Tan’er’s face, Xiao Chan’s face, Juan’er’s face, Xing’er’s face, Steward Geng’s and the others’ faces all swam through his field of vision; at the edge of his sight, a column of smoke rose, and at its center, a vast, clear sea of stars. What his body could still register was the din of war still raging fiercely around the city through the night — though at least, here around Taiping Lane, the army had finally begun arriving. What came next would be their headache to deal with…

This raft had never been meant to leave the city in the first place — the stretch of canal beyond the walls was surely already held by Fang La’s forces by now, so taking the waterway out would have been pointless regardless. The raft had only ever been meant to cross the waterway here, offering one more option, nothing more. Whoever had brought this sudden calamity down on them, one thing was certain — his family could never go back to Taiping Lane now.

The waterway wasn’t especially wide; as the raft neared the far bank, the girl in the blue floral-print skirt was still standing on the near shore. The middle-aged man who always accompanied her had already come over and taken the massive blade from her hands. “Miss Qianqian, we should go.”

“He’s really something.” The girl tilted her head slightly. “I want him… to be my strategist.”

On a rooftop somewhat higher up, overlooking this stretch of streets and lanes, two figures stood watching from the darkness. One of them lightly slapped his own thigh, letting out an exclamation much like the girl’s own. “Impressive… truly impressive…”

“Commander Fo, that man… should we try to…”

“Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter now…” The middle-aged man named Fang Qifo shook his head, his gaze turning toward Qiantang Gate, listening to the fierce sounds of battle still raging there. “There are formidable men everywhere, in every place. Running into one so suddenly does earn a measure of respect — but… it doesn’t matter now. The real outcome lies outside the city walls. Formidable as this man may be, with the larger picture already decided, there’s little more he can accomplish. Let’s go.”

The siege had already dragged on for several days now, the situation within the city chaotic and fraught, and precious few could truly grasp the full shape of what was unfolding across Hangzhou at this point. Even Ning Yi, unfamiliar as he was with the realities of war, found it hard to make sense of the state of the battle raging outside the city. In the eyes of men like Qian Xiwen, the Wude Battalion’s soldiers remained, in the end, an elite fighting force; according to the general intelligence that had come through, the fighting out there had gone back and forth, victories and losses on both sides. Fang La’s forces had breached the city several times, only to be driven back each time by the Wude Battalion’s well-prepared counterattacks.

With no way to get a clear picture of what was happening beyond the walls, Ning Yi could only focus his attention on the situation within the city, hoping to use the existing bureaucratic apparatus to catch Fang Qifo and the others within a day or two, rooting out these agitators in one clean sweep. Had it not been for tonight’s turn of events, real results might genuinely have come within a day or two more. But there was no use dwelling on regrets now — all he could do was gather himself and prepare for another round of counteraction with Qian Haiping and the others. Yet, beyond anyone’s expectation, by the very next morning, all of it came to nothing.

On the morning of the fourth day of the seventh lunar month, in the ninth year of Jinghan, under the Wu Dynasty, Qiantang Gate in Hangzhou finally fell to Fang La’s assault, the Wude Battalion’s defense collapsing and drawing back. What followed bought the people of Hangzhou roughly a day’s window to flee the city entirely — though even this may not have been anything they’d deliberately fought to secure; according to later accounts from those who lived through it, it was simply that Fang La’s army was in pursuit, and everyone else was fleeing, forcing a series of skirmishes along the way regardless. A day later, Hangzhou fell.

On the morning of the Qixi Festival, the eight-hundred-li relay dispatch carried this news into Bianjing — the final straw that broke the camel’s back…