What finally began to cool the bloodstained scene at Pingchang Street was a sudden blast of war horns.

At this moment inside the city of Hangzhou, when Bao Daoyi and the Overlord Blade Battalion had erupted into open conflict, very few people could actually step in to stop it. Even Wenren Bu’er, who stood off to one side and wanted more than anyone for chaos to engulf Hangzhou, did not believe this battle could be allowed to rage on forever. This clash, which had already put the safety of the entire city at risk, was something that anyone with real authority would be watching with extreme sensitivity. Liu Xigua was reciting a long poem, word by measured word, and before she had even finished it, the sudden war horns and the first banner of the intervening force had already arrived.

By now it was not only Pingchang Street — the streets nearby had also begun to fill with soldiers who had seen Bao Daoyi’s signal flares and come rushing over, and all manner of noise and confusion rose up. But what was most startling of all was the thunder of cavalry hooves that had already begun, mingling with the horn calls. Though the riders had not yet reached Pingchang Street, the surrounding area was already being thrown into greater disorder. They too seemed to have been blocked by Bao Daoyi’s men, yet the hoofbeats kept closing in swiftly.

Several elite soldiers, holding aloft a great banner, took a shortcut, charging through a side gallery courtyard and up onto the rooftops, plunging straight into the chaotic melee between the Overlord Blade Battalion and Bao Daoyi’s men. On the banner was a single large character: “Li.”

Grand General Li Tianrun, guardian of the nation, was perhaps the one person in Hangzhou at this moment who could intervene in this affair with the most legitimate authority. Within the Eternal Joy court he himself held a position akin to Grand Marshal of the nation’s entire military, and this time he had rushed back specifically to bring order to the situation in Hangzhou. At the sight of this banner, the crowd could not help giving it a measure of deference. The banner-bearers who had come vaulting over walls and rooftops were themselves formidable in martial skill, and someone shouted: “Stop! By General Li’s order, both sides stand down!” Others rushed through the ranks of the fighters, heading toward Liu Xigua and Bao Daoyi respectively: “General Li asks that both sides cease fighting for now!”

Bao Daoyi and Li Tianrun had, within the rebellion, held equal standing from the start. He waved his hand and roared, “It’s too late to stop now!” Liu Xigua’s side fell into a brief silence. A moment later, a column of forty or fifty cavalry broke through the blockade at the rear of the street and came galloping in. At their head rode a man on a tall black horse, broad-shouldered and clad head to toe in iron armor, a red-tasseled spear in hand, radiating an imposing presence. They charged toward the rear of the Overlord Blade Battalion’s formation; the elite fighters there turned to look as the general closed in, reined in hard, and amid the horse’s long whinny, both man and mount reared up. Behind him, more than a dozen riders fell into a single line and came to a stop.

This man was clearly Li Tianrun.

The arrival of the cavalry, together with the “Li” banner and the horns beginning to fall silent, brought the fighting on Pingchang Street to a halt on both sides. The atmosphere grew tense and still once more. The onlookers all watched to see how things would unfold. Only Ning Yi, up in the wine house, had his attention entirely elsewhere. He stood by the window, exchanging a long look with the cloaked woman hidden in the alley below and to the side — until finally, someone approached from behind, forcing him to pull his focus back.

“General Li has arrived a bit early.”

The one who had come up to check on him was Liu Tiannan, and seeing Li Tianrun’s arrival, he seemed just slightly pleased with himself. Ning Yi surveyed the scene. “We’re the ones who sent word to him, aren’t we?”

“Mm. Too late would have been bad too — the matter wouldn’t have been containable.”

“How is Chen Fan?”

“Tough as nails. His wounds are nothing serious.”

Ning Yi nodded. At that moment, Li Tianrun’s voice carried over from across the street.

“Celestial Master Bao, Liu the Great Blade — is this matter over for today?”

The voice too carried the shocking force of deep internal power, ringing across the whole scene, commanding without needing anger. After a moment, Bao Daoyi ground his teeth and said, “Ask her!” Li Tianrun turned his gaze toward Liu Xigua’s side, but she remained silent. Li Tianrun swept his eyes across the crowd once more and said to a figure off to the side, from the Black Plume Guard, “An Xifu, tell me what happened here today, from beginning to end.”

This was no longer addressed to the crowd at large. An Xifu stepped forward and recounted the affair to Li Tianrun. He had some personal friendship with Chen Fan, though his own standing was not high, and he knew that trying to conceal the truth today would be useless. He laid out, in full, how Chen Fan had tried to assassinate Bao Daoyi. Li Tianrun looked over toward the Overlord Blade Battalion’s side. “So it seems Chen Fan overstepped his station in attacking a superior, and your Overlord Blade Battalion has taken up his cause and let it escalate to this point — isn’t that going a bit far? Celestial Master Bao, and what exactly caused you and this Chen Fan to come to such a falling-out? Everyone is here now — are you willing to say?”

“Li Tianrun.” Bao Daoyi looked across at him. “By what authority do you interrogate me?”

Li Tianrun lowered his head slightly. “I mean no such thing. It’s only that we’re all in the same boat, and I’d rather not see real bad blood form between us.”

“Who knows what fit of madness got into him! If he has some grievance with me, let him come out and say it himself!” Bao Daoyi’s eyes went wide, and he ground his teeth. “General Li, out of respect for you today, I’m willing to let this be settled peaceably — have him come out and give me an explanation. But let me say this plainly first: if this can’t be cleared up today, then no one from the Overlord Blade Battalion is walking out of here!”

This was only a temporary truce. The Overlord Blade Battalion currently had barely eight hundred men it could call on in Hangzhou, with just over two hundred gathered here, and it was unlikely there were more in reserve. Meanwhile, outside on Pingchang Street, Bao Daoyi’s men kept pouring in without end — given the seriousness of the matter, the number mobilized had likely already exceeded two thousand. He had the numbers to back up such words.

Yet the Overlord Blade Battalion’s side showed not the slightest wavering. Two hundred against two thousand — if the Overlord Blade Battalion tried to simply hold Pingchang Street, they would likely be buried under sheer numbers before long. But considering quality and morale, if Liu Xigua truly cut loose and let her men kill without restraint, regardless of the damage, her two hundred-odd elites could probably shatter the morale of two thousand ragtag fighters within a few charges — and then it would turn into nothing but a slaughter. But once matters escalated to that degree, there would be no going back, and it would be forcing Fang La’s hand to make a choice.

After Bao Daoyi finished speaking, the Overlord Blade Battalion’s men only sneered coldly, radiating a sense of “go ahead and try.” Liu Xigua’s side, too, had been sneering in silence for a long while, with considerable contempt. Just as Bao Daoyi was about to fly into another rage, she finally spoke: “I gave Celestial Master Bao a poem — I hadn’t quite finished it earlier. Now it’s done. Uncle Li, would you like to see it?”

As she spoke, someone brought forward a sheet of rice paper with the poem written on it — the handwriting was presumably not very elegant. Li Tianrun did not much care about such things; he simply read it through, but even after finishing, he could not see what it had to do with this fight. Liu Xigua said, “Uncle Li, do you know what I’ve titled this poem? I call it ‘The Ballad of the Wandering Knight.'”

“And what of it?”

“Why did Chen Fan want to kill someone? Ask our Celestial Master Bao what he’s done!”

Her tone was not loud, but there was a suppressed accusation running through it. Bao Daoyi froze for a moment. “Damn it, say whatever you’re going to say! Speak it in front of everyone! You old—”

“Do you know that Chen Fan has a girl next door named Cuihua—”

By this point in events, Bao Daoyi’s heart was full of both anger and grievance. He could, of course, vaguely guess at Chen Fan’s reason for attacking — it was for the sake of that group of children. But people in this line of work had to follow certain rules. If he really had let a cart of women pass through today and those children had intercepted it and exposed him, he’d have had to accept the loss and let the women go. But the problem was there had been no women in the cart — those children, not knowing their place, had come to make trouble, and the fault lay with their side; it was his turn to teach them a lesson. In his worldview, this was simply: if you’re wrong, admit it; if you get hit, stand and take it.

His plan today had only been to give the children a scare, not to kill anyone. But then Chen Fan had come charging out to kill him. Fine — since Chen Fan had thrown caution to the wind, he’d meet the challenge; whether Chen Fan lived or died was then his own business. Who could have known the Overlord Blade Battalion would come out and pick this fight, dragging the matter out to such absurd lengths, utterly unreasonably. To him, this really was the other side going too far — bullying people to the extreme. And yet, as the two sides stood glaring at each other, right as Liu Xigua cut him off, Bao Daoyi suddenly felt a strange unease rising in his chest — one he himself couldn’t quite name.

“What… what nonsense is this.”

“Do you know that Chen Fan and that girl Cuihua are deeply in love, and have already privately pledged themselves to each other?”

“…What does that have to do with me?”

“The girl Cuihua went missing a few days ago — her family has been searching for days! General Li, my Overlord Blade Battalion discovered a large group of abducted women of good families at the Old Paulownia Temple today, and that girl Cuihua was among them, having suffered terrible abuse… Celestial Master Bao, tell everyone what fine deeds you’ve been up to!”

Liu Xigua’s tone was calm and steady, pressing forward step by step. Bao Daoyi suddenly bellowed, “You’re slandering me with fabricated accusations!” Yet in his heart he was already unsettled: Have I taken in a girl named Cuihua recently? But he could not afford to lose the upper hand in appearance.

Li Tianrun’s brow had furrowed by now. He knew of Bao Daoyi’s bad habits, but this sort of thing wasn’t usually a serious matter — as Ning Yi had put it, compared to the countless atrocities the rebel army had committed, Bao Daoyi’s vice was, at most, a distasteful indulgence unfit to be spoken of in polite company. And Bao Daoyi was, in fact, fairly careful about maintaining internal unity — he was cautious about whom he took. For instance, the wives of officers within the ranks — even if he took a fancy to one, he would never touch her. This time, it seemed likely he simply hadn’t known whose woman he’d taken. If that really was the case, then a hot-blooded young man risking his life to kill Bao Daoyi would have every justification.

Bao Daoyi’s bluster began to falter, and Liu Xigua pressed forward without yielding a step. “Wasn’t a reason what you wanted? Wasn’t a confrontation what you wanted? Celestial Master Bao — an ordinary man’s fury can spill blood for five paces! If you dare to have done this, my Overlord Blade Battalion will not stand by and let it pass! What’s wrong with letting Chen Fan come and confront you himself!”

As she finished speaking, a stretcher was already being carried out from the other side. On it lay a man, half his body wrapped in bandages — Chen Fan, whose treatment had only been half-completed. An old physician followed alongside, frowning with clear displeasure. “His wounds haven’t even been properly treated yet — why is he being carried out? This is far too reckless, far too reckless…”

Chen Fan was still conscious, his eyes bloodshot as he glared at Bao Daoyi, his body straining as if trying to sit up, only to be pressed back down by the old physician’s hand. He raised a hand and pointed at Bao Daoyi. “Old thief… as long as I’m alive, I won’t let you go… Cuihua…” Before he could finish, a mouthful of blood spurted out and he fainted on the stretcher.

The old physician shouted loudly for the men to carry the stretcher back. The Overlord Blade Battalion’s men looked at Bao Daoyi. Liu Xigua looked at Bao Daoyi. Li Tianrun looked at Bao Daoyi. The young man up in the wine house looked at Bao Daoyi. The whole street looked at Bao Daoyi. Even the men under Bao Daoyi’s own command began muttering among themselves — there was nothing to be done about it, they all knew what kind of man their boss was…

Ning Yi’s mind had been entirely elsewhere just moments before, but now his eyes went wide too. At Chen Fan’s little performance, the corner of his mouth twitched as he fought down the urge to laugh. Damn it… that’s an award-winning performance if I’ve ever seen one…