“…In the realm as it now stands, famine spreads everywhere, the common people have no way to live, the emperor is without virtue, taxing and extorting without limit, the fortunes of the Wu Dynasty are exhausted—and so heroes rise up across the land, for this is truly what the people’s hearts desire, the trend the times themselves demand…”
A dark room, an empty space all around, an atmosphere of solemn menace. Going by Ning Yi’s own experience, what awaited him next should have been a relatively formal and serious meeting—whether the intent behind it was friendly or hostile, if the other side had gone to the trouble of setting such a mood, they surely wouldn’t abandon it halfway or treat the matter lightly. And indeed, after that opening self-introduction, “I am Liu Dabiao,” the substance of what followed from behind the curtain did seem rather formal and serious in tone. Or, at the very least, whoever was behind this was clearly putting genuine effort into cultivating this atmosphere.
The other side had seemed earnest from the very start, so Ning Yi, in turn, stood there and listened earnestly as well. After all, the incense burning in the room couldn’t quite mask the smell of wound medicine underneath it—the person seated behind that curtain was very likely nursing an injury, and had summoned him here just after only just returning to Hangzhou. But the longer he stood there listening, the more he couldn’t help but feel that something about the mood in the room had turned rather strange.
“…I have long heard that Brother Ning is a man of great learning, with lofty ambitions rare among his peers. In times such as these, we men ought to seize the moment with hot blood in our veins, to put our learning to use and achieve some feat that will echo through the ages. Now, the Sage Duke seeks out worthy men with the utmost eagerness…”
Ning Yi himself hadn’t come up through any formal classical education, and while he could read classical prose well enough, he could hardly claim any real depth of accomplishment in it—still, he’d spent a fair amount of time in the company of men like Qin Siyuan. Listening to a passage or two now, he could tell right away that this seemingly impassioned proclamation of righteous rebellion was, in truth, utterly devoid of literary merit. If someone like Liu Dabiao, coming up through bandit ranks, wanted to put on a show of cultured refinement, that would be understandable enough—but listening to it now, the awkwardly gruff, halting delivery on the other side of the curtain sounded exactly like a student in class reading aloud some dreadful essay of their own composition.
Looking through the curtain, Ning Yi couldn’t quite tell whether the girl was holding a sheet of paper in front of her as she spoke, but one thing was certain: whatever she was saying now was definitely not something she’d come up with herself—either she’d read it beforehand and was now reciting it from memory, or, as Ning Yi suspected was more likely, she was simply reading it straight off the page in her hand. And sure enough, before long, the reaction from the other side confirmed his suspicion.
“…This humble one, Liu Dabiao—ahem—this humble one, Liu Dabiao, possesses formidable martial skill and extraordinary natural talent, having inherited the Overlord Blade lineage of the southern lands and surpassed my own masters in turn. I can seize dragons from the ninth heaven above and slay serpents from the five seas below; with a single swing of my blade, ten thousand men cannot stand against me. By nature I am bold and generous, yet gentle and refined of heart, and when I turn back my head to smile…”
Just as Ning Yi’s face began to twitch listening to this, the voice suddenly stopped. He heard her call over what was likely the maidservant in the room, and caught a fragment of the conversation: “Who wrote this thing…” A moment later: “This is so humiliating…”
The maid withdrew, and the room fell silent. Behind the curtain, Liu Dabiao’s silhouette seemed to shrink down somewhat, apparently now sitting there with her chin propped on one hand—whether sulking or simply at a loss, Ning Yi couldn’t tell. He blinked, momentarily unsure what to say himself. The two of them remained in this standoff-like silence for a while, time slipping quietly by, until at last a rustling sound came from behind the curtain—the girl shifting her position in the large chair, taking a drink of water, and then… apparently scratching an itch.
After some indeterminate stretch of time, Liu Dabiao seemed to have finally worked her way out of the awkwardness, or perhaps simply concluded that sitting there in silence forever wasn’t going to solve anything. She straightened up and spoke, her tone still carrying a touch of forced gruffness, though what she said this time was straightforward enough.
“Hey. I’ve got a mountain stronghold, over four thousand people in it. I’m not very good at running it—I need someone to help. Can you do it?”
Ning Yi was stunned for a moment. “Uh, sure…”
“Good, then.” The earlier embarrassment over that dreadful proclamation seemed to have taken the wind out of the girl’s sails; she nodded now without much enthusiasm. “From now on, you’re my man. No one in Hangzhou will be able to bully you anymore.”
She thought about it a moment, then added, “And you’re not allowed to go bullying other people either—your position isn’t exactly high anyway… You’re a smart man, I don’t need to say much more. Just be self-aware about it. From now on, someone will bring you whatever business the stronghold needs handled, every morning. I live here—if something comes up, I’ll send for you, and you can come find me too if you need anything… Oh, right, when we captured you, your things—the gunpowder, I can only let you keep enough for self-defense. Your blade is sharp enough, but it’s not well-suited to how you use it. If you’re ever interested in the way of the blade, you’re welcome to come ask me for pointers later. You may go.”
As she spoke, she grabbed a bundle and tossed it over. Ning Yi caught it—inside were, more or less, the things that had been confiscated from him when he was captured. Besides a bit of silver notes and loose silver, the most important items were, of course, his firearm and the military saber he’d had Kang Xian forge for him. The saber’s balance leaned forward, designed mainly for cleaving strikes—while his own style of bladework did favor a certain relentless, forward-driving spirit, it didn’t quite go to that extreme. Ning Yi understood well enough what this meant, nodded, and took his leave.
Just as he was about to step out the door, the voice behind him spoke up again. “Where you used to stand and where you stand now are different things—if anyone in the army has wronged you before, don’t hold it against them going forward… Your wife and the people you’ve been protecting have already made it to Huzhou, and they’re all safe for now. You can set your mind at ease. When the time is right, we’ll see to it that they’re brought over here… That’s all.”
Ning Yi nodded and closed the door behind him.
By the time he made his way back to the academy and picked up his ration of rice, it was already noon. Back at the small courtyard, he told Xiao Chan the whole story of his meeting with Miss Liu, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “How on earth is she supposed to be a stronghold leader, acting like that?”
In all the scenarios Ning Yi had imagined for this inevitable meeting, he’d never expected it would end up quite this farcical—no wonder Xiao Chan felt this Miss Liu hardly carried herself like a stronghold leader at all. No threats, no coercion, no oath of allegiance, none of the usual formalities—just a simple “I’ve got a stronghold,” and with that, he’d been recruited to help manage it.
And yet, as far as Ning Yi was concerned, he couldn’t afford to underestimate the wounded young woman sitting behind that curtain. That final remark of hers hinted that, in the course of capturing him—and during her own campaign at Jiaxing—she’d already extended her reach all the way to Huzhou, gathering information about everyone around him, and might well have already reached Su Tan’er’s side as well. Beyond that, everything the girl had implied throughout their meeting really amounted to nothing more than: “I’m friendly, I’m generous, and here, you have no choice but to rely on me.”
When all the leverage rested entirely in her hands, further threats and coercion would have accomplished little more anyway. Set the terms, have him do the work—if Ning Yi later proved duplicitous, the likely result would simply be a blade to the throat. Fools might need constant threats and warnings, but for clever people, a great deal could simply be left unsaid.
…
After this brief conversation, Ning Yi had, for all practical purposes, joined the ranks of the Overlord Blade Camp—no welcoming ceremony, no grand formal introduction. As far as Ning Yi himself could tell, aside from people beginning that very afternoon to deliver all sorts of supplies to the house he lived in, and starting to clean the place up and repair the collapsed sections, the only real change was that, each morning, someone would bring him a stack of documents that needed handling.
The Overlord Blade Camp’s affairs weren’t actually managed simply by having Ning Yi issue orders and be done with it. By the second day, Ning Yi had more or less grasped the whole system. Typically, whatever documents came up would be copied into several sets and distributed to a handful of advisors within the stronghold; each advisor would write down their own opinion, which was then submitted to Liu Dabiao. She would review them and choose a course of action, and quite often would summon someone to ask why they’d suggested handling things the way they had. Over the following days, Ning Yi found himself summoned nearly every afternoon, asked about whatever had come up the previous afternoon.
Ning Yi had no real knowledge of the inner workings of the Overlord Blade Camp; when handling matters, he’d typically call A’Chang and A’Ming over to ask them for details. Some of his initial approaches were, naturally enough, rather naive guesswork, but the young woman behind the curtain—whose face he still couldn’t make out—took the time each day to explain a great deal to him as well. And so, after those first few days, he found himself picking up a solid understanding of how the Overlord Blade Camp actually functioned.
Mornings were spent teaching a History class at the academy and handling various matters; afternoons were spent in half-day discussions with Liu Dabiao on the finer points of management. As for this girl who might have been named Liu Xigua but insisted, no matter what, on calling herself Liu Dabiao—Ning Yi found he genuinely admired her, in his own way. In the wider world, this young woman, slight of build yet wielding a massive blade, had a reputation for being domineering, brutal, eccentric, and utterly unpredictable. But over these past several days, Ning Yi had watched her, still nursing her injuries, work her way through everyone’s proposals each day, giving genuine thought to the reasoning behind every single one of them. If Ning Yi had truly been a university professor, this girl before him might well have been his most gratifying student.
The Overlord Blade Camp currently had five advisors in all. As for the other four, perhaps because the girl had already thoroughly absorbed their ways of thinking, she rarely called them in for face-to-face discussion anymore. Ning Yi had met the other four a couple of times as well; unlike himself, they hadn’t been press-ganged scholars—by all accounts, they were longtime members of the Overlord Blade stronghold who happened to be literate and showed some talent and aptitude for management, and Liu Xigua had simply drawn them together into this small advisory group. Since none of them were particularly renowned scholars, they proved easy enough to get along with.
As for A’Chang and A’Ming beside him, Ning Yi had by now come to understand their situation clearly enough. The two of them, along with six others, made up a group of eight who had been raised by the former stronghold leader himself, personally trained in martial arts, and kept as bodyguards at the young woman’s side. These weren’t their real names—the eight of them went by code names that together read: “Kill and pay with your life, owe a debt and repay it in coin.” It was said the young woman herself had coined these names, and in the mind of this girl called Liu Xigua, these eight characters more or less represented her idea of fairness.
The way the Overlord Blade Camp had originally protected Ning Yi had, at the time, caused quite a stir among certain people—but by the time Liu Xigua had returned, everything had settled into such quiet normalcy it was as though nothing at all had happened. Teaching in the mornings, chatting in the afternoons—for a time, life grew as calm and uneventful as it had once been back in Jiangning. Within just a few days, several new rooms had been added to the small courtyard, and Xiao Chan, with help from some of the others, set about furnishing them. This was to become the new home for the two of them, and Ning Yi got the distinct sense that he’d be living here for quite some time to come—a feeling that, as time went on, indeed proved true.
An injury still healing, a voice deliberately roughened—for a long stretch of time afterward, this remained Ning Yi’s impression of Liu Xigua: talking with her every day, always through that curtain. The only thing that changed was that, on his side of the curtain, Ning Yi now had a well-lit desk of his own. Sometimes Ning Yi found himself thinking that if he’d been some impoverished scholar hired to tutor the daughter of a noble household in poetry and letters, this might well be exactly what it would look like. Liu Xigua proved to be a remarkably quick learner, but Ning Yi was no half-baked tutor himself, either, and every now and then the two of them would even find themselves arguing over some fine point or another.
And so, over the course of this time, small matters were attended to, a few new people were met, and with that as its beginning, autumn had arrived…