A boom rang out, loud as thunder.

A figure was struck through the curtain of rain, flying across the street and smashing into a broken wooden table on the far side. Countless splashes of water burst apart in the sheet-like rain, and the figure rolled to the ground, blood already staining the rippling water beneath him. On the gloomy street, in the rain, two groups that had been facing off against each other watched this happen; one side rushed forward, trying to help the fallen man up, while the other — a dozen or so men — simply looked on coldly, unmoving, their eyes fixed instead on the tavern nearby.

The man on the ground was lifted up, already limp all over, barely breathing. Before this side could react, another series of booms sounded from within the tavern, wood splintering apart, and a middle-aged man staggered out clutching his chest, retreating a dozen or so steps before someone caught him. His eyes were bloodshot, his gaze wild with fury, as though he’d been holding back a breath for a long while before finally roaring out: “Chen Fan… you—!”

Inside the tavern, the sounds of fighting still raged on in confusion.

It had originally been a building damaged in the earthquake, and now, amid the standoff between the two groups in the street, figures could be seen moving and leaping about inside — impossible to tell exactly who was fighting whom, but clearly with great intensity. Each time the building’s outer wall took a heavy blow, dust and splinters of wood could be seen shaking loose. At one point, a roar sounded from within — “Ahhh—!” — followed by a tremendous crash, and from the side of the tavern, a section of pillar the thickness of a rice bowl came bursting out, dirt and debris flying with it. It was apparently one of the building’s main support beams, now being wielded bodily as a weapon by someone inside.

The pillar hung suspended for a moment in the rain against the wall, while the fighting inside continued unabated, and then it swung back inward again with a crash, leaving a massive gap torn in the wall. A few breaths later, the pillar smashed through what remained of the tavern’s doors and came flying out into the street. From within, someone bellowed furiously: “Chen Fan! I’ll have your life—!”

“Good!” a young voice called out in loud approval. “—Good! Good! Good!”

Amid the shouting from both sides, the sound of blows landing rang out — bang, and then bang again — thunderous crashes clearly audible even out on the street. Then another figure came crashing through the side wall, falling amid a heap of broken brick and tile and rainwater, while inside the young man laughed uproariously.

“Excellent! Hahahaha! Just like that! What a rush! I’d long heard of the boundless power of Zhangshan’s Thunderclap Force, and it truly lives up to its name. That was only a minor loss on my part. Come, come — let’s go again!”

With that laughter, a figure came striding out through the breach in the wall — half his body drenched in blood, wild and unrestrained. This man’s build was simply well-proportioned, nothing like a hulking eight-foot giant with an eight-foot waist, and his features weren’t especially rough either — but after the fight just now, his long hair had come completely undone, and combined with his current bearing, his bloody laughter, there was something distinctly manic about him. This was Chen Fan — the man who had, over the past half-month or so, given so many people in Hangzhou such a headache.

He strode over, laughing, grabbed the fallen man’s collar with both hands, and hauled him up onto his feet in the rain. He stepped back two paces, pointed a finger, and said, “Let’s go again!” Turning, he set his stance and threw a right hook, cutting through wind and rain. The punch seemed almost to sweep up the entire storm around it, like the crack of a whip — but before the force of the blow even arrived, the man in front of him had already collapsed again like a straw doll, and the fist swept past over his head, coming to an awkward stop.

The young man stood there stunned for a moment, then let the punch drop, straightened up, and scratched his head. “Uh, don’t do that…”

He walked over, grabbed the man’s collar, looked him over a few times, patted his cheek, checked for breath — finding none easy to detect in the rain — and then thumped him on the chest a few times more. The man who’d fallen was clearly the leader of the group on the street, but no one dared step forward now; they simply stood there dumbstruck, watching the young man fuss over the corpse in the rain.

“What a shame…”

Once he’d finally confirmed the man was truly dead, the young man stood up with something like genuine regret in his voice, then turned to look at the people gathered on the street. The dozen or so who were quieter, better disciplined, were the ones he’d brought himself; the other group’s faces carried varying degrees of unease. The two sides stared at each other for a moment, and not far from Chen Fan, the old building — already on the verge of collapse — finally came crashing down in the rain. The dust was pressed flat by the falling rain; Chen Fan glanced at it, then turned back around.

“I’ve said it before — I’m no good with words, I’d make a terrible official, and my temper’s bad. You lot, you troublemakers, don’t go stirring things up, and if you do, don’t come arguing with me about it. Well, this is what you get, isn’t it?” He glanced back at the corpse in the ruins. “Still — Master Chen and I fought fair and square today. He’s wounded, I’m wounded too, no need to hold a grudge over it going forward. Right, I’m off to tend my injuries. You lot carry Master Chen off to see a doctor too, and be quick about it. Fine warriors of Zhangshan, Chen Fan takes his leave. Don’t go stirring up any more trouble… and don’t argue with me…”

With that, the young man turned and left with his men. As for the “Master Chen” left lying in the wreckage, he had already exhausted himself completely in the fight inside and was, in truth, thoroughly dead. After walking a short distance, Chen Fan glanced back down the other end of the street, where a carriage had been standing for quite some time — clearly having watched the entire fight unfold. He looked at it for a moment, then walked back over. Reaching the carriage, the person inside lifted the curtain.

“Jixin.”

“Master Zu.”

Jixin was Chen Fan’s courtesy name. Inside the carriage sat a somewhat stout, mild-mannered middle-aged man. This man was, in fact, an old acquaintance of Chen Fan’s — or, more precisely, an acquaintance of Fang Qifo’s. His name was Zu Shiyuan; he wasn’t a military man, and his strategic gifts were nothing special, but he was skilled in matters of internal administration. Though a rebel army didn’t tend to concern itself much with governance — plunder a place and move on was more the usual approach — some administration was still unavoidable. There weren’t many people of this kind in the army, and Zu Shiyuan was well regarded; with Fang La about to declare himself emperor within the next few days, this was naturally one of his busiest periods. Chen Fan understood this well, and his tone was correspondingly respectful.

“Chen Damu of Zhangshan — running wild again, are you. Careful, or Marshal Fo will hear of it when he returns.”

“Master Zu, you saw it yourself — we’re all jianghu men, bad tempers, a few cross words got out of hand and things went too far. I got hurt too, you know… Old Master knows my temperament, he must have known this would happen when he put me here. Why don’t you just pick someone else to take my place, Master Zu? There’s nothing left to do in Huzhou — call An Xifu back…”

“Hahahaha.” The stout middle-aged man laughed and handed over a rain cape. “It’s pouring — the blood on you is all someone else’s, isn’t it, where exactly are you hurt? Speaking of which, Hangzhou’s been in chaos these past few days, and if it gets sorted out, I have you to thank. Chen Damu and his lot are Bao Daoyi’s men, and their conduct these past days has been far too greedy — squeezing land and gold out of people is one thing, but blocking the waterways, extorting silver everywhere they go — keep this up and Hangzhou won’t be able to sustain itself. It’s just that you’ve been rather too aggressive about it, always making yourself enemies. Chen Damu’s death is neither here nor there, but that Bao Daoyi is a deep and calculating man — you’d do well to be careful of him.”

Chen Fan put on the rain cape. “Huh? Is that so?”

“Well, that’s a matter for you to keep in mind. On that subject — the Lou family’s eldest son, Lou Shuwang, has come to see me several times over this. He says if men like Bao Daoyi keep this up, they won’t be able to hold things together either. I hear he came to see you and was turned away at the door — heh, given what you’ve done these past few days, I imagine he owes you a debt of gratitude. The Lou family patriarch and this eldest son are both quite capable men. That Lou Shuwang is around your own age — if you’re inclined, it might be worth making his acquaintance sometime.”

Chen Fan glanced at him and gave a rather uninterested nod.

Zu Shiyuan had business of his own to attend to, and having said his piece, he made to leave — but after the carriage had gone only a few steps, it stopped again. “Oh, right — that matter of Ning Liheng — how does it stand at the moment?”

“Interested in that too, Master Zu?”

Zu Shiyuan laughed. “I hear that man threw the whole Huzhou campaign into disarray. I never saw it myself, but I can’t help but be somewhat impressed. That business at court the other day settled things for the time being, but plenty of people still want him dead, and everyone’s looking for a way to make it happen. Since I’m the one handling these odds and ends in Hangzhou now, naturally some of them have come asking me about it too. Just the other day General Li Tianyou came specifically to tell me that the Li family brothers are determined to kill this man…”

“Then he can wait for that madwoman to come find him…” Chen Fan muttered under his breath, then added, “I wasn’t even part of that fight at court the other day — I had a fight of my own to deal with. If you ask me, that man’s got a deep and scheming mind — even gravely ill, he still managed to run circles around An Xifu and the others, and he’s barely past twenty. Better to kill him sooner rather than later — I hate clever people most of all. Why are you asking me about this, Master Zu?”

“Heh. Even though you weren’t involved in the matter of Ning Liheng the other day, everyone at court knows perfectly well about your connection to that young lady of the Liu family. When a matter of this size comes up and the Liu girl herself steps in to block it — mostly, I grant you, by persuading the Saintly Duke — well, if you say you knew nothing of it, I…”

Before Zu Shiyuan could finish, Chen Fan’s eyes had already gone wide. “Me — me and that woman? Master Zu, old man, are you joking? I’ve fought her a good half-dozen times — if I hadn’t been holding back… no, wait, I have no relationship with her whatsoever!”

Zu Shiyuan studied him for a while. “They say the Saintly Duke himself has been thinking of playing matchmaker…”

“Old men are all the same. I like gentle, sensible women. That woman’s a lunatic.”

“And yet both your master and I rather think… the two of you would suit each other quite well…”

“Right, two lunatics. That’s no way to live a life.” Chen Fan pursed his lips. By now the group had walked on some distance further; something seemed to occur to him, and he glanced off to one side, gave a slight gesture, and said, “Fine — as for that matter with Ning Liheng, I do in fact know something about it. Since you’re already here, Master Zu, and you’ve already asked — well, there it is…”

It was afternoon, the rain a soft haze. Zu Shiyuan followed Chen Fan’s gaze and saw, not far off, a small courtyard where someone in a rain cape was up on the roof, tapping at something with a brick — most likely a leak, being patched from above. Through the rain came the faint sound of a girl’s voice calling out: “Master, master, come down…”

The figure on the roof looked young, and rather thin. Zu Shiyuan was about to ask whether this might be Ning Liheng himself, but glancing again, he noticed a burly man sitting beneath the eaves at the courtyard gate, seemingly keeping idle watch, a blade slung across his back. Zu Shiyuan’s gaze drifted toward him, and the man’s eyes sharpened for a moment as he looked back, before lowering his gaze again. Zu Shiyuan thought it over — he recognized this man, in fact; he was one of the eight formidable blade-wielders under the command of the young woman known as Liu Dabiaozi’s daughter. If he was here, there were surely more of her people about.

The Liu family girl had a strange temperament, difficult for ordinary people to read. As for the matter of Ning Liheng, Zu Shiyuan had only been asking out of idle curiosity and had no wish to get further involved. He simply nodded, since Chen Fan had already told him what he’d asked. Just then, a boom sounded from that direction, followed by a girl’s shriek — the two men looked over just in time to see a great hole open up in the roof of that courtyard, with Ning Yi, who had been up there patching it, apparently falling straight through.

The bladesman immediately pushed through the gate and went inside; the two men in the carriage stared for a long moment, rather dumbstruck.

“Ha — a mere scholar. Even one skilled in strategy is bound to struggle at a craftsman’s work.” As the carriage rolled slowly onward, Zu Shiyuan remarked idly, then lowered his voice: “Earlier, at the Saintly Duke’s residence, I saw Marshal Fo’s messenger arrive with word — the fighting at Jiaxing is fierce, and the outcome remains uncertain for now. I also hear the young Liu lady has been wounded and may be returning within the next few days. I wonder how she’ll decide to deal with this man when she does… oh, does Jixin already know about that?”

“Wounded?” Chen Fan’s brow furrowed; he glanced at the other man, and after a moment turned his eyes forward again, taking the fact in as settled truth. “She can get wounded too?”

…

While Chen Fan and Zu Shiyuan were walking through the rain-soaked streets, Ning Yi, for his part, had no idea that his own predicament had once caused a brawl among the upper ranks of Fang La’s army.

He wasn’t a man to sit and wait passively for whatever came, but with no real opening in sight for now, all he could do was take things as they came. An hour or two earlier, he’d been racking his brain over the leaking room — the water had started coming in that morning. He’d gone to the academy to teach for half the day, and the only thing the little maid could do in his absence was scavenge every cracked bowl and dish in the room to catch the drips, then busily pour the water back out. By the time Ning Yi returned, she finally had someone to lean on; the two of them went around checking every spot where water was coming through, and Ning Yi volunteered to climb up and patch it himself — and that was when tragedy struck.

An engineer capable of directing the construction of a skyscraper isn’t necessarily a skilled roof-tiler. Ning Yi’s body hadn’t fully recovered yet, and the house itself was already half-rotten to begin with; halfway through the repair, a roof beam gave way, tearing open a large hole. Ning Yi himself came away unscathed, but Xiao Chan’s bed was now completely soaked. At least the repair work had managed to save a little more than half the room; they moved the other bed over and salvaged a relatively dry half of the space.

The rest of that afternoon, Ning Yi worked with a large shovel and Xiao Chan with a small one, building — as though playing at house — a little dike and drainage channel across the room, so that the rainwater coming through the hole could be routed out that way.

The room had already been sparsely furnished to begin with — two beds, a cabinet, a small stool — and now it felt even smaller still. Water dripped everywhere along the eaves outside; next door but one was half a kitchen they could still use, which became the cramped little world the two of them now occupied. While building the small dike, the two of them also made a trip to the kitchen to rescue what dry and damp firewood they could find.

As evening approached, the rain still hadn’t let up. Thick smoke rose from the fire and was scattered and broken apart by the falling rain. From the kitchen came the sound of the two of them fumbling their way through cooking dinner — since there was little else to do, Ning Yi lent a hand too. Xiao Chan, though she knew how to cook, wasn’t especially skilled at it either, if truth be told.

Then the torch was lit, and night fell quietly along with the rain. In this vast city of Hangzhou, this small courtyard of one and a half rooms, lit by a small flickering torch, seemed to be cut off from the world — like an island about to be swallowed by the rising water, surrounded entirely by the storm…