When that event occurred, Ning Yi had for a moment believed he’d fallen into someone else’s carefully laid trap, but he later confirmed it had merely been a chance mishap born of sheer coincidence.

On the eighth day of the eleventh month, Ning Yi met Fang Qifo for the first time.

Though Chen Fan had let him know a full month earlier that Fang Qifo wished to see him, the matter having dragged on until now wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary. After all, to Fang Qifo, Ning Yi wasn’t a figure requiring especially close attention. Though he was a man who had surrendered after being captured, dozens if not over a hundred officials and generals had surrendered since Fang La’s uprising began—once surrendered, they became brothers of the cause. Even though Ning Yi’s exploits had stood out remarkably since the affair at Taiping Alley, Fang Qifo wasn’t inclined to view him with any especially particular regard.

In early October, the matter had been briefly mentioned to Chen Fan, but afterward Tong Guan’s repeated assaults on the city, along with all manner of other pressing matters, kept things delayed until November, when a bit of leisure finally opened up. On the seventh, word was sent to the Overlord Blade Camp arranging a meeting with Ning Yi, and on the morning of the eighth, Ning Yi left Xiliu Street and headed toward the residence where Fang Qifo was handling affairs. Xiao Chan and Lu Hongti accompanied him.

Regarding the errands he needed to run that day, Ning Yi had made some plans of his own. Besides meeting with Fang Qifo, he also intended to meet with Wenren Buer, to get a sense of the situation within the city and briefly discuss plans for protecting and relocating Su Tan’er and the others should the city fall.

At this point, within the city, tensions between the Overlord Blade Camp and Bao Daoyi, while still present, had cooled from the kind of open street-battle intensity seen earlier, with both sides showing some restraint. Fang Shuchang and the others had matters of their own to attend to, and with Lu Hongti serving as a convenient cover for his outing, Ning Yi went without additional escorts, and no one raised any objection. Though Lu Hongti hadn’t made any moves during her time staying here, everyone was well aware of her status as a martial artist; Ning Yi was by this point fully trusted within the Overlord Blade Camp, and since he judged Lu Hongti’s presence sufficient to guarantee his safety, no one insisted otherwise—he was, after all, no longer under any kind of surveillance.

Fang Qifo was currently handling affairs at a location near the former Hangzhou prefectural office, in what had originally been the Chang family’s residence, not too far from the Sijizhai where Wenren Buer was based. As they neared the destination, Ning Yi had Lu Hongti accompany Xiao Chan to look around the surrounding area for a while before heading over to meet at Sijizhai afterward. He went on alone to the Chang residence. This place now functioned much like a modern-day general administrative office, handling most of the day-to-day affairs within Hangzhou, with people coming and going constantly. After giving his name, Ning Yi waited a while in the main hall, during which time he also happened to run into Shi Bao.

Back at the battle of Taiping Alley, Shi Bao had suffered repeated setbacks, and the grudge between them was no small one. Ning Yi had not been particularly prepared for such a sudden encounter here. Shi Bao, leading several men, walked past the main hall, and everyone inside stirred slightly, murmuring about his identity, some even bowing in greeting. Shi Bao had apparently been glancing inward for some other matter, and paused for a moment in mild surprise before walking a few more steps, glancing back once more, then heading over toward Ning Yi—at which point everyone in the hall found themselves bowing in greeting as well.

“General Shi.”

“Grand Marshal Shi.”

“Greetings, General Shi.”

Amid such greetings, Shi Bao frowned as he walked up to stand before Ning Yi, and Ning Yi had no choice but to bow in return. As the crowd speculated about his identity, Shi Bao merely waved a hand to the side and said, word by word, “Ning Liheng. I remember you.”

“Back at that battle in Taiping Alley, you fought well. I still remember getting blown up on the shoulder. I hear you’re working with the Overlord Blade Camp these days?” He paused, then laughed and patted Ning Yi’s shoulder, pointing at him. “You’re good—very capable, a man of real ability. I, old Shi, admire men like you the most. From now on we’re standing on the same side, so we’re one family. Do your best, and if anyone gives you trouble, come find me.”

Compared to men like Li Tianyou, still nursing grudges and seeking revenge, Shi Bao’s magnanimity here genuinely surprised Ning Yi. Shi Bao then asked what had brought him here, and upon learning he’d come to see Fang Qifo, laughed again. “The Buddha Marshal is the best there is at recognizing and making good use of talent—seeing you must mean something good. No need to worry. I’ve got matters to attend to, so I’ll head off now. Come by my place sometime when you’re free. That gunpowder of yours works splendidly—I’ve long wanted to pick your brain about it, haha…”

Shi Bao left, laughing. Someone then led Ning Yi toward Fang Qifo. Along the way, Ning Yi noticed Bao Daoyi was also present here today, but since everyone had their own business, no one paid it much mind. Continuing on, when he finally met Fang Qifo, this capable, wise middle-aged man who supported half of Fang La’s military strength was in the middle of brewing tea—at the prime of his years, he looked full of vigor. Yet Ning Yi, having once been in a similar state himself, could still detect a certain weariness beneath the man’s smile.

The tea wasn’t brewed particularly well.

Though shrewd by nature, and regarded by outsiders as possessing wisdom as deep as the sea, Fang Qifo hadn’t been born into wealth—he was, after all, of peasant stock, educated but without the accumulated refinement of a wealthy household. His tea was nothing like that of men such as Qin Siyuan or Qian Xiwen—more like Longjing carefully brewed by an old farmer, imperfect, yet carrying a certain warm familiarity. Of course, set against this man’s remarkable strategic acumen, it took on a rather thought-provoking quality.

“Liheng’s great talent was already known to me back when the city fell. That you’ve come over to our side is truly a blessing for the common people. Your stockade lord was rather reckless—must have put you in a difficult position, eh? Heh heh, there are lines like ‘people come and go like tides, in vain one sighs how few return from the world’s rivers and lakes,’ and also ‘ten paces, one man slain; a thousand miles, no trace left behind.’ My personal favorite is ‘the flowers and grass of the Wu palace lie buried along the secluded path; the caps and robes of the Jin dynasty have become ancient graves. The three mountains half-fall beyond the blue sky; the two rivers split around the White Egret Isle.’ I’m no expert in poetry myself, but I do know that lines like these could only come from someone of truly great breadth of spirit.”

“Uh, that’s…”

“No need to explain, we understand each other well enough.” Fang Qifo smiled and gestured with his hand, then tapped the stack of papers on the table, his expression turning serious. “I’d originally wanted to meet with Liheng long ago, but after reading through what Ning Yi has been working on recently, I found it genuinely profound and far-reaching, and decided to wait until I’d finished reading before meeting with you. I have quite a few questions on my mind now—I wonder if Liheng might answer them for me.”

Fang Qifo then went on to discuss the series of things Ning Yi had been doing within the Overlord Blade Camp, including the essays he’d had those literati write. The two talked for roughly two hours before Ning Yi finally took his leave. In a sense, this had actually been an extremely well-executed gesture of reassurance and goodwill, indicating that Ning Yi was regarded as a highly valuable talent in Fang Qifo’s eyes. But Fang Qifo, being simply too busy these days, though he had read through all of Ning Yi’s material and had no shortage of thoughts and questions about it, hadn’t truly delved deeply into it—his questions touched only on matters of management and operation, never really reaching the core of things.

During their conversation, Fang Qifo also briefly touched on Ning Yi’s earlier involvement in the Overlord Blade Camp’s affair with Bao Daoyi, though the general gist of it was merely a casual, mild admonishment. He had looked into Ning Yi’s background, and naturally knew that Ning Yi had not, in fact, participated in the various actions taken against Bao Daoyi afterward.

What few people knew was that, at this very moment, in a courtyard just a few rooms away, Bao Daoyi had casually asked someone about the background of the young man Fang Qifo was currently receiving. He’d recalled that, back at Sijizhai, the now-dead young man named Lou Shuwang had once rather deliberately mentioned to him this young man’s connection to his own beautiful concubine. At the time, given the sensitive situation with the Overlord Blade Camp, he’d chosen not to act against that beautiful concubine, and the paths of everyone involved had simply brushed past each other without further consequence…

After leaving Fang Qifo, Ning Yi headed toward Sijizhai. Although the city remained under strict control at this point, with most commercial activity having ground to a halt, a small number of well-connected businesses still remained in operation, Sijizhai being one of them. It was still daytime, and business in the shop was slow; Ning Yi met with Wenren Buer in a private room on the third floor, and the two chatted for a while about the situation both inside and outside the city.

“Taking the city anytime soon looks unlikely now. Once it starts snowing again in earnest, taking the city will have to wait until after next spring’s thaw. And who knows what the situation up north will look like by then… sigh…”

From Wenren Buer, Ning Yi confirmed his own assessment—with the situation outside the city at an impasse and the intelligence network within the city also admitting its limits, the odds of any real turning point seemed slim. He then began discussing arrangements for relocating his family should the city fall. Just as they were talking, a light sound suddenly came from outside—like a pebble striking the door frame.

Then, from Wenren Buer’s man stationed outside, came a cry of “What—” followed by a crashing sound as a figure smashed through the door and tumbled inside.

“Two treacherous dogs, plotting rebellion here—let’s see how Liu Xigua explains this to me!”

The men who stepped through the doorway were Bao Daoyi and a tall, bald-headed monk. No one knew quite how they’d gotten there, but they had evidently been discovered outside by Wenren Buer’s men and had struck immediately. Caught red-handed like this, even Ning Yi found himself momentarily stunned.

A moment later, Ning Yi drew a breath, drew both his blade and his firearm, and turned toward the window at the back. “What else can we do—kill them, then see how many men are waiting below. Let’s go with the original plan.”

His so-called “original plan” was pure deception meant for Bao Daoyi and the monk. In truth, at that very moment, part of him genuinely wondered whether this might be some trap Wenren Buer had deliberately set for him, hoping to drag him into breaking the deadlock over Hangzhou. But even as Bao Daoyi and the monk registered a flicker of surprise, Wenren Buer too looked somewhat puzzled, on the verge of saying something—probably something like: “We don’t have any plan at all…”

A figure dropped down from above!

Bao Daoyi and the monk reacted almost instantly. The monk let out a wild roar and swung a heavy punch, while Bao Daoyi struck at the same moment—in an instant, three figures were spinning together in combat. Two nearby tables and a round stool nearby seemed to shudder violently all at once; a stool went flying, smashing into a shelf of antiques along the side of the room. One table was smashed to pieces by the monk’s heavy blow.

Everything happened so suddenly that even Wenren Buer couldn’t react in time to grasp what was going on. The assassin who had suddenly dropped down had already danced wildly through several exchanges amid Bao Daoyi and the monk’s combined assault, then, with a flash, drew a sword.

“Go block whoever’s downstairs…”

The commotion from below had already begun drifting up. Bao Daoyi and this monk were both master fighters, but he still carried the habits of the martial underworld—wanting to eavesdrop, he’d only brought the two of them up, leaving some followers below, who by now had surely been alerted by the monk’s furious roar. No sooner had Ning Yi finished speaking than Wenren Buer’s figure shot toward the door; the monk swung a punch that only clipped an afterimage of his body, and at the same moment, the assassin’s sword had already been drawn and swung, an ancient-sounding note trembling through the air.

The monk’s severed head flew up into the air.

Ning Yi raised the gun in his hand.

“…Just this once will do.”

He’d barely finished saying this when the figure that had dropped from above moved as swift as lightning—but Ning Yi still recognized her instantly. It was Lu Hongti. He still hadn’t fully grasped everything that was unfolding, nor did he have time to think about what might come of it, but with the situation now at a point of no return, he simply acted on instinct.

Bao Daoyi had never imagined the world held an assassin so terrifying.

Even as the monk who’d come with him lost his head, Bao Daoyi swung out his whisk, only to have it snatched away by that spinning figure with a reverse grip. The figure then suddenly rushed back around, pressing up against his back from behind—the sword’s edge curved beneath his ribs and thrust directly toward his face.

It was a woman.

He could only register this much in that brief instant, a string of names of renowned female martial artists from the underworld flashing through his mind—Fang Baihua on his own side, the courtesan-turned-fighter Cui Xiaolu, the former Manichaean Holy Maiden Sikong Nan… His body twisted and shifted desperately, but the figure behind him clung like a malignant growth fused to bone, sword-shadows constantly lashing in from behind, seeming to trap him within a mountain of blades and a sea of swords…

Wenren Buer rushed down the second-floor staircase, and upon seeing who it was, his steps suddenly slowed, turning hurried and awkward. At the same moment, a gunshot rang out from upstairs.

Lu Hongti turned in a single motion, sheathing her sword. Bao Daoyi’s head burst open, his body nearly flying off her back as it fell. She tossed aside the whisk. “I was following behind you—I saw them tailing you. No one else has come up yet. Let’s go, quickly.”

She walked over to Ning Yi and grabbed his hand, but Ning Yi’s body stiffened, and he drew a breath. “Wait.”

“Hm?”

“The people downstairs have already seen me come here. They also know Bao Daoyi was tailing me.”

He had never imagined a master of Bao Daoyi’s caliber could be killed so easily, but this wasn’t the moment to dwell on that. Ning Yi’s mind raced, searching for a way forward.

“So what? Bao Daoyi’s dead, this can’t be covered up—hurry back and get your wife, have these court people help hide you, that’s the only way now.”

“No. You go back with Xiao Chan.” Ning Yi drew a breath, set the firearm down on the table, walked over, picked up the whisk, and handed it to Lu Hongti. “From now on, listen to me. Take Xiao Chan straight back to the Overlord Blade Camp. As for what comes next…”

A moment later, Bao Daoyi’s retinue, who had been waiting downstairs, came charging up to the third-floor corridor and came face to face with Ning Yi, blade in one hand, gun in the other. By now, the blade in Ning Yi’s hand was dripping blood, his whole body drenched in it as well, his clothes slashed open in several places by the whisk, cotton wadding mixed with blood showing through the tears. His face bore scratches too, his bloodshot eyes giving him a look of fierce, ruthless intensity. Seeing the men rushing up, he turned and ran.

Bao Daoyi’s retinue at this point wasn’t large in number, and not necessarily all skilled fighters. One of them charged forward, trying to hold him back; after only a few exchanges, Ning Yi swung his blade in a fierce arc, the blade whistling through the air with startling ferocity. The man’s steel saber was actually severed clean by the single stroke, his chest split open along with it, and he collapsed to the ground, blood pouring out continuously.

Driving his internal energy from the Six Breakthroughs technique to its absolute limit, combined with the force-generation method of the Overlord Blade’s “Severing the Cloud-Wreathed Mountains” style, it was only now that Wenren Buer, amid the crowd, finally understood exactly how Ning Yi had killed Tang Kou that night. While everyone assumed a clever man would rely on all manner of schemes to break through a difficult situation, they had truly overlooked the simplest option of all—that he could genuinely push his own physical power to this level. Behind the facade of a mere scholar, hidden from everyone, lay the fruit of what must have been brutal, secret training.

But this was no longer the moment to dwell on such matters.

Ning Yi turned and rushed into a room, setting it ablaze. As Bao Daoyi’s followers, upon seeing his corpse, moved to hunt Ning Yi down without mercy, a good portion of the rooms on the third floor were already engulfed in flame. Amid this chaos, Ning Yi charged down to the second floor, continuing to set fires as he went—he had to buy time by any means necessary, and no matter who caught him, he absolutely could not fall into the hands of Bao Daoyi’s people. Meanwhile, Wenren Buer had already begun having his men erase any trace of their own activities at Sijizhai.

Being linked to court spies was the most serious charge imaginable—as long as that particular matter never came to light, there might still be some sliver of a chance to turn things around going forward…

…

When news of Bao Daoyi’s death and what Ning Yi had done reached her, Liu Xigua was near the north gate, overseeing a group of craftsmen reinforcing the city gate. Tong Guan’s assault had ceased for now, but it would resume come spring, and every kind of defensive measure around the gate had been designated top priority, with no excuse to let up. The Overlord Blade Camp was one of Fang La’s most trusted forces, entrusted with no small number of supervisory duties, and she made her rounds checking on things every day.

The sun was out, pale and washed-out, a cold wind biting near the gate. She sat wrapped in her cloak on a large stone, lost in thought, with Liu Tiannan standing beside her. Few outsiders truly knew her real identity, but one who did happened to be right there—Lou Jinglin. This chancellor’s son, his face and nose reddened by the cold wind, was still chattering away beside her, pointing out the wooden horse barriers and fences around them. The Lou family, too, had supervisory duties here, and the two of them had often been assigned together lately—thanks to the meddling of Aunt Baihua. Lou Jinglin had been talking for a long while now and showed no sign of stopping; Liu Xigua couldn’t be bothered to respond, and simply continued staring off into space.

For tiresome people, one either cut them down or ignored them entirely. Things had been rather troublesome for her lately—many people had come proposing marriage, all arranged through Aunt Baihua’s connections. Fang Baihua’s intentions seemed clear enough: it was either this group of suitors, or Lou Jinglin—she’d have to choose one herself eventually. She couldn’t very well draw her blade and kill Lou Jinglin outright during this period, and Lou Jinglin, apparently emboldened by Fang Baihua’s encouragement, had developed something of a death-defying spirit, pestering her with chatter all day long.

She could, of course, have simply turned and walked away at any moment, but doing so would make it look as though she’d been driven off—something she couldn’t accept. So she simply chose to ignore him. Before long, several warhorses came galloping up quickly—it was An Xifu, coming to find her. Liu Xigua’s friendship with him wasn’t particularly deep, but he was Chen Fan’s close friend, and though they hadn’t exactly bonded over crossed blades, he still counted, more or less, as one of their own. As he approached, he glanced somewhat hesitantly at Lou Jinglin, and Liu Xigua rose from the stone and walked off to one side.

Seeing An Xifu follow after her, Lou Jinglin felt rather put out for a moment, but Liu Tiannan blocked his way. Before he could even get properly annoyed, he suddenly heard Liu Xigua exclaim from over there: “What!?”

“…Bao Daoyi is dead. Liheng killed him. I hear that today, over at the Buddha Marshal’s place… right now, at Sijizhai, it’s already…”

“Where is Liheng being held?”

“Should be with the Buddha Marshal’s people… Chen Fan has already gone over. He asked me to come let you know…”

Once An Xifu had finished explaining, Liu Xigua nodded, turned, and hurried quickly toward the warhorses nearby. “Understood… Uncle Nan.” Liu Tiannan came over, and she quickly murmured a few words to him, his expression changing at once before he too nodded. Liu Xigua mounted her horse, yanked the reins sharply, and galloped off toward the city. Liu Tiannan, An Xifu, and the others followed closely behind. Lou Jinglin still stood there in confusion, but before long, he too understood: that scholar he’d seen at Sijizhai before—the man named Ning Liheng whom Liu Xigua had personally stepped forward to protect—had killed Bao Daoyi.

Though the Overlord Blade Camp and Bao Daoyi had never gotten along, once the siege began, both sides had set aside their conflict. To have killed Bao Daoyi now carried an entirely different weight—even the Overlord Blade Camp might not be able to bear the responsibility for such an act.

Recalling the resolute look on Liu Xigua’s face as she’d ridden off, Lou Jinglin thought it over for a long moment. “No way… you’re not still planning to protect him, are you… you must be joking.” Thinking this over, he too climbed into his carriage and hurried off toward the direction of the palace…