The rain poured down in sheets. Though it was a late-spring rain, it already carried the feel of summer; lightning occasionally split the sky over the black expanse of Jiangning city. The unrest first began spreading from the Jiangning prison and the Su residence, but because the wind and rain were both so fierce, it hadn’t yet drawn much reaction from the garrison troops within the city.
Because Wuchao’s wars on both its northern and southern fronts had grown pressing, the Wulie Army originally stationed near Jiangning had already struck camp and marched south, meant to coordinate with the other forces continuing to hem in Fang La once Tong Guan led the Imperial Guard north.
The Wulie Army had never been specifically responsible for Jiangning’s garrison duty, but its mere presence had considerably eased the burden of maintaining order in the area—at the very least, it meant no one had to worry much about something like bandits storming the city, a once-in-decades occurrence. But now that they had left, the defensive strength of a Jiangning that had long known relative peace had suddenly become hollow.
Among those tasked with storming the prison to free the captives, several dozen elite fighters infiltrated at once and met with almost no resistance around the prison’s perimeter. Partly this was because the Jiangning prison’s guards had little experience dealing with this kind of sudden assault; partly it was because the men who had come this time were all skilled fighters from Liangshan. Eight of the great chieftains were involved in the prison operation. Besides “Panther Head” Lin Chong and “Black Whirlwind” Li Kui, this group also included “Sick Guansuo” Yang Xiong, “Water God General” Shan Tinggui, “Eight-Armed Nezha” Xiang Chong, “Flying Sage” Li Gun, “Rivaling Ren Gui” Guo Sheng, and “Cloud-Wrapped Vajra” Song Wan.
These eight led their elite subordinates in a sweeping assault. Even the more capable guards among the jailers, caught completely unprepared, couldn’t withstand more than a few exchanges against men like Lin Chong, Li Kui, and Yang Xiong. What was more, Li Kui had once been a jailer in Jiangzhou himself and knew the layout of such places intimately. After one violent onslaught, the group had broken straight into the prison; even the soldiers who had escorted the prisoners there were caught off guard and scattered, cut off from one another.
By the time any resistance appeared, it was already too late. The soldiers who had escorted the prisoners, though they had only recently pulled back from the front lines and still had real fighting ability, were driven apart and scattered through the cell blocks, unable to stop the Liangshan men from beginning to free the prisoners. The Jiangning prison held no small number of inmates, and once they were let loose, the city would immediately fall into chaos. Li Kui advanced with his twin battle-axes, splitting locks and cutting down anyone who stood in his way, pressing forward relentlessly. As the group threw open the cells, the prison descended into utter disorder—and it was only after half the cell doors had been opened that something unexpected occurred.
It was a young military officer in charge of the prisoner escort, twenty-some years old, dignified in bearing, wielding an iron spear. He burst out of the chaos with three soldiers in tow. By this point Li Kui and the others were shouting, “The heroes of Liangshan have come to save you! Anyone with a grievance, join us in cutting down our enemies! Once this is over, come up the mountain and join our brotherhood—big bowls of wine, big cuts of meat!” Aside from the meek and the timid, most of those held in the prison were violent men who thrived on conflict, or those who had committed serious crimes; many of them knew full well that even if they got out through this door, they’d likely be caught again afterward. Even so, they picked up whatever clubs and weapons they could find and joined the Liangshan men in cutting down soldiers and jailers.
When the young officer appeared, several desperate men who had just killed a jailer came charging at him swinging blades and spears. Gripping his spear in both hands, he thrust straight ahead once, then swept the iron spear left and right like a wild dragon lashing its tail; the blades and spears in his attackers’ hands were knocked flying in every direction. Several men slammed one after another into the bars of the cells on either side, and when they hit the ground, blood gushed and their bodies convulsed—they couldn’t even muster the strength to struggle.
The man charging toward him was “Sick Guansuo” Yang Xiong, wielding a serrated broadsword, one of the top-ranked fighters on Liangshan. He had been cutting his way through without pause; along the way, hardly any jailer had been able to withstand three strikes from him. Seeing that this young officer was formidable, he rushed forward at once to take on the man’s assault directly. Blade and spear clashed with a ringing sound, sparks flying in all directions. The young officer’s skill was so high that the three soldiers following him couldn’t join the fight at all, but three Liangshan elites behind Yang Xiong caught up—men personally loyal to him, trained to fight alongside him, who now barely managed to insert themselves into the battle. What mattered here was speed in creating chaos, not a proper duel of the jianghu; in an instant, four weapons swung down on the young officer at once, meaning to hack him apart before he could even react.
Yet the young officer only swayed slightly on his feet, gritting his teeth and holding his ground; his footwork shifted forward and back within the space of a single step, never yielding so much as half an inch. His spear technique was plain and steady; in the opening exchanges he fought Yang Xiong to a standstill, and even once the other four joined the attack, the iron spear in his hands seemed to grow only heavier and more forceful as the fight went on, each thrust sharper than the last—every strike combined defense and offense, and even under this combined assault he kept driving the spearhead toward his enemies’ vital points. Beneath what looked like simple, sweeping spearwork lay something like the roar of thunder and the howl of wind.
They fought like this for a while, until, with a resounding crash and a burst of sparks in every direction, the young officer forced Yang Xiong and the others back half a step—then, with another crash, forced them back another half step. The way the iron spear struck and swung in his hands seemed, if anything, more powerful than the combined force of the four blades and spears against him.
This was, of course, an illusion. The reason he could force the four of them back was simply that his attacks were fierce and relentless, always striking where his opponents had to defend. But that a single young officer could mount this kind of counterattack against four opponents at once made his sheer skill plain to see. They fought on a while longer, the young officer’s gaze growing ever sharper as he forced Yang Xiong back yet another step. It was at this moment that a voice called out from behind: “Fine skill—get out of my way!” The two elite fighters flanking Yang Xiong leapt aside at once. There came the sharp whistle of wind as two battle-axes swung in from behind; the young officer raised his spear to block, and with a crash of sparks, the axes and Yang Xiong’s serrated blade struck all at once, driving him back four staggering steps until he braced himself with the spear shaft, planted it against the ground, and steadied his stance.
“Marvelous!”
The man who had just arrived was, of course, “Black Whirlwind” Li Kui. Even with both axes swung at full force, it had taken joining forces with Yang Xiong to drive the young officer back—and he let out a great laugh. “This one here is Black Whirlwind Li Kui, under Brother Song Jiang of Liangshan Marsh! Look at you, so young, and such fine skill with that spear. What hero’s clan do you hail from? Give your name to your grandfather here!”
Delighted by the encounter, he spoke with unusual courtesy for him. The young officer replied, “I am an honest son of this land—you’re nothing but mountain bandits and thieves. Don’t sully my name. Just accept your death.”
At this, every hair on Li Kui’s head and beard bristled with rage. He roared, “I’ll—your grandmother!” and charged forward, swinging both axes. The young officer raised his long spear, swept it forward with both hands, and the spear’s force met the attack like a wild dragon crashing headlong into it. In an instant, he was locked in combat with both Li Kui and Yang Xiong at once.
By now the prison had descended into total chaos. Skilled as he was, the young officer, facing both Li Kui and Yang Xiong together, could only barely hold his ground, and was helplessly forced to retreat step by step—no longer able to stop the rest of the Liangshan men from doing as they pleased…
While the Jiangning prison fell into complete disorder, the Su residence too had already sunk into terror and panic. When the Liangshan bandits burst in, though the Su family’s retainers organized what resistance they could, allowing some of the Su family members to flee and regroup, the flight itself had no real order or discipline to it.
Most people had already made their way toward the main hall, where the greatest concentration of retainers had also gathered, hoping to buy time until soldiers or reinforcements arrived. But many others had missed the window to regroup, and found themselves scattered across the various courtyards—some hiding, some fleeing aimlessly—and when they crossed paths with the black-clad intruders who had made it into the residence, they were run down and killed.
Seen from above through the curtain of rain, the slaughter was still unfolding across every courtyard, large and small, of the Su estate.
Some, unable to catch up with the main group, tried to flee together through the front or side gates, only to be met and killed by black-clad men the moment they neared the outer perimeter. Some banded together in groups of three or five, but even so, running into a single black-clad man was enough to crush any thought of fighting back. Xi Junyu knew the Su estate intimately—which paths, which directions needed to be guarded—down to the last detail. Some elderly people, unable to flee their courtyards in time, were cut down without a second thought by the black-clad men who came searching. In some courtyards, men killed the husbands and children, then chased the fleeing wives out into the pouring rain, knocked them to the ground, and tore off their clothes before dragging them back inside…
Ning Yi tore through several courtyards, ran across the Su family’s training grounds, and rounded a wide corner before he finally managed to shake off the men chasing him from behind, if only slightly.
The men who had actually broken into the Su estate couldn’t cover every corner of it, but wherever they did cross paths with someone, that person inevitably met a brutal end. In the course of his flight, he had already come across five or six bodies of Su family members he recognized, or at least had some impression of—one of them a child he had once tutored, now lying on the ground, cut clean in two.
Under normal circumstances, if bandits like these stormed the city, the troops of Jiangning would mobilize within a short time. But this time, ordinary logic might not apply. Xi Junyu was no fool—he had chosen this exact moment to strike, which meant something must have happened elsewhere in the city, something at least sufficient to delay any rescue. Even if Ning Yi charged out himself right now, he doubted he’d be able to find help anytime soon. Given the Su family’s current state, even if they banded together to hold their ground, they probably wouldn’t last long against a full assault from Liangshan’s skilled fighters—once the retainers broke, what followed would be nothing but a massacre.
As he ran through the rain, turning over what to do, part of his mind kept circling back to Yun Zhu, who had left earlier—in this rain, she and her companions wouldn’t have been moving fast; they might not have made it out yet. But he pushed the thought from his mind almost as soon as it arose. Until this was over, no amount of frantic worry would do any good—right now, all he could do was stay calm. Just as this thought crossed his mind, he rushed up to a courtyard gate, where a faint reddish tinge of blood was seeping out through the rainwater from within. A figure met him face to face in the gateway, and he knocked the man down with a single punch.
Another black-clad man came at him with a drawn blade, sending a long ripple of water swinging through the rain; Ning Yi ducked beneath it, and after a few exchanges in the downpour, he suddenly threw the man to the ground and struck him seven or eight times in quick succession, beating him half to death until he passed out. Ning Yi turned his head and glanced around—three bodies lay in this courtyard, a family he currently had to address as uncle and aunt within the Su household. He’d thought at first to simply slit the throats of the two men he’d subdued, but after a moment’s consideration, he gritted his teeth, dragged the two black-clad men into an out-of-the-way room in the courtyard, gagged them with rags, and tied them up with rope.
Passing the next courtyard, he heard faint sounds coming from within. He glanced over—there were bodies here too, but the door to one room stood open, and he could hear the sound of someone struggling and weeping. He went to look, and inside, beside a table, saw a black-clad man holding a knife in one hand while pinning down a woman on the table with the other, her clothes torn away, weeping and struggling as he did that to her.
The black-clad man’s body was moving back and forth, thoroughly enjoying himself, when a sudden gust of wind tore through the room like a runaway carriage. The woman on the table, who had already been weeping, let out a sharp cry of pain, and through her tear-blurred eyes she saw that the black-clad man was no longer in front of her—he had been slammed hard into the wall several feet away, a long blade driven straight through his body, pinning him there, still twitching. The reason he couldn’t cry out was that the man standing before him had one hand clamped around his jaw, which had likely already been wrenched out of its socket; even as he struggled, a cracking, splintering sound could be heard from the joint.
The woman had been one of those who had taken part in the mob confronting Yun Zhu a few days earlier—a cousin’s wife from the Second Branch. When she recognized that the man who had suddenly burst in was Ning Yi, she froze for a moment even in the middle of her sobbing. Ning Yi crushed the man’s jaw, tossed a piece of clothing back to cover her, and turned to walk out, saying, “I didn’t see anything happen here today. No one did.”
The woman clutched the garment to herself, then suddenly snatched up a stone from a nearby curio shelf, rushed to the wall, and began smashing it again and again into the black-clad man’s head, weeping the whole time. The man was already on his last breath; his body twitched weakly as his skull was beaten to a pulp. Just as Ning Yi was about to step out the door, he heard the whistle of a blade descending from above and lurched backward—a sweeping strike crashed down onto the floor where he had just been standing.
At that same instant, a loud crash sounded from behind him—a stone had shattered through the side window, striking the woman on the head. She was flung sideways, collapsing to the ground with blood seeping from her scalp; whether she had merely passed out or was already dead, there was no telling.
A figure appeared through the broken window, descending from above, gripping a greatsword heavier than any ordinary blade, blocking the doorway. Ning Yi took a breath, turned to the wall, and pulled the long blade free from the corpse pinned to it; the body dropped to the floor, entrails spilling out with a wet slap. Ning Yi raised his blade and pointed it at the man with the heavy sword outside. He recognized them both now—these were the two chieftains who had been standing beside Xi Junyu earlier—though he had no idea which of Liangshan’s ranked leaders they actually were.
As it happened, the two of them soon answered that question themselves.
“I am Wei Dingguo, God of Fire General of Liangshan! Where do you think you can run!” the man outside the window called out.
“And your grandfather here is Bao Xu, the Doom Star—all my life I’ve loved nothing more than killing!” the man holding the greatsword at the door laughed as well. “Look at you, running so fast—where do you think you can go now? Better to give yourself up and let your grandfather here cut you down quickly, save yourself the suffering! I’ll tell you this—if you fall into Brother Xi’s hands, you’ll wish you were dead, hahahaha…”
Outside the window, the rain roared like boiling water. The two men blocked door and window respectively, while in the room, blood had begun pooling beneath the naked woman’s body. Ning Yi stood with blade in hand, then tilted his head slightly, listening quietly to the commotion, the killing, the weeping carrying through the rain. At some point, he let the tip of his blade drop gently and stepped toward Bao Xu, the Doom Star, blocking the doorway.
The wind roared like a tiger, sweeping across the sky above Jiangning…