Living somewhere like Mount Lüliang, everyone carried a shadow of the past in their hearts. The overall situation here was inherently unstable — repeated raids from the Liao and the border troops, resources already scarce to begin with. There were those who genuinely wanted to farm the land honestly, but growing the grain only to be killed and robbed of it was the ordinary state of things. Nobody chose from the outset to pick up a blade and go rob others; it was that living honestly simply wasn’t possible, and those who survived, hungry and with no legitimate path open to them, had no choice but to go out with knives in hand.

A village or stockade with even a little strength could hold its own small patch of land, grow some grain, raise some livestock — but the soil itself was never especially fertile. Beneath the shadow of the Liao and the border troops there was also the greed of the locals; everyone around was underfed, and the moment things got even a little better, the greed only grew, and the more it grew, the greater the protection needed, and the higher the cost of simply surviving, and the higher that cost climbed, the more ruthless and merciless people had to become, until finally it all formed a vicious cycle, each generation worse than the last. Everyone here had gone hungry, every single one of them.

Lu Hongti’s tears now — everyone knew how gentle she was with her own people, but none of them mistook that for weakness. Though she hadn’t spoken any harsh threats, the people around could still hear the resolve in her eyes. Of course, words like these could never move those who had already settled themselves on the other side. Lu San and the others hesitated only a moment before gritting their teeth. “Fine words — but you’re just refusing to let go! I’m no coward either. Since I’ve lost today, if you mean to kill us…”

“But I’ll let you go with your lives.” Lu Hongti cut him off. “Remember what I’m about to say — this time I’m sparing you, and it’s only this once…”

An uproar broke out at these words. Lu Hongti lowered her eyes, and when she raised them again, her voice, carried on a thread of inner strength, quiet and unhurried, managed in a moment to press down the entire clamor. “I don’t know how many of you truly follow me and how many don’t. This time I’m sparing your lives — and more than that, I’m letting you leave! Those of you who think Lu San has a point — gather your families, your belongings, and go with him, out through the gate—”

She lifted her head and pointed toward the distant stockade gate. “If you think times are good, then go out with them and carve out your own future. If you meet someone worth robbing or killing along the way, kill them clean, follow your own rules, no need to answer to a woman like me! Whoever leaves today — our accounts are settled, we start fresh from here. Those who stay are my family, they follow the rules of this place, and if you’re willing to listen to a woman like me, I’ll look after you… you can live, have food to eat…” She smiled. “You can live like a person…”

“But if, after tonight, anyone still stays here while playing both sides — I’m only a woman, my reach is limited, but if I mean to kill you, there’s nowhere on earth you can hide. I will kill you, and then I will kill your whole family, so they don’t have to go on suffering in this world. I mean exactly what I say.”

The night wind blew cold, stirring the skirts of the sword-bearing woman standing in the square. Silence fell over the crowd at first, then a faint stir, murmurs passing back and forth. What was happening here was something rarely seen anywhere on Mount Lüliang — in any other stockade, Lu San and the others would already be dead men, and yet here was someone offering the rest of the stockade a choice, which seemed almost like clipping her own wings.

But it had to be said — among the crowd, there were at least some who felt tempted. After all, Qingmu Stockade’s earlier expansion to unite the surrounding villages had happened for the simple reason that people could finally “get enough to eat.” When people had joined, they hadn’t necessarily understood the full situation, but once their stomachs were full, their own ambitions began to stir, and they started wondering whether being ruled by a woman really felt so satisfying, whether this stockade master was perhaps a bit too soft, and so on.

Amid this faint unrest, the rebels — who had expected certain death — grew even more astonished, muttering among themselves in confusion. At the front of the crowd, the tall man standing beside Lu San, once he was sure he wouldn’t be killed, looked around at the situation and finally gritted his teeth and stepped forward. “You talk well, but why should it be us leaving the stockade? The strength Qingmu holds now, we’re the ones who built it — why shouldn’t it be you who…”

“Brother Li!” Lu Hongti cut him off coldly. “Say another half a sentence today, and I’ll kill you on the spot, and then personally send your sister-in-law and your niece after you. Do you believe me?”

She swept her gaze over the man surnamed Li, then over another woman in the crowd holding an infant. After a moment’s silent look, she turned and walked aside, waving her hand. “That’s settled, then. Send them off. Anyone else who wants to leave, tonight as well. Pack your things, take some provisions.”

The crowd first fell into confusion, then broke into an uproar; some ran forward as though hoping to change Lu Hongti’s mind, others muttered on about other matters. But some of these arrangements had already been prepared in advance, and Lu Hongti’s most trusted men had already begun overseeing the departures. Paying the noise no mind, Lu Hongti walked to a stone at the edge of the small square and leaned against it as she sat down. The night wind blew, firelight mixing with starlight; she was half covered in blood but seemed not to mind, simply drawing her feet together, pulling her skirt down over her shoes, and turning her head to watch the stockade in the darkness.

On the other side of the square, the old man she had greeted earlier turned and left, leaning on his cane.

This was destined to be an uneasy night; the noise in the stockade went on and on. Some prepared to leave, others stood discussing matters, and a few who had taken part in the rebellion began having second thoughts, kneeling at the edge of the square to say they wanted to stay. Lu Hongti finally nodded. She left the square and went to a house halfway up the hillside, where the old man was already standing outside in the night wind, watching over the state of the stockade. Lu Hongti went to support him. “Grandpa Liang, it’s windy — let’s go inside.”

“It’s a warm night. I’m still not sure whether what you did today was right or wrong. Plenty of people will probably leave.”

“Staying would only cause more trouble.”

“True enough. That young Master Ning had his reasons for saying what he said.”

“Mm.”

“Only… using one of Tian Hu’s own men to do this — I wonder if it’ll scare off too many people. I’ve been wondering about that.”

“If they truly can’t share hardship with the rest of us, then let them go.”

She helped the old man inside. He nodded, smiled, and patted her hand. “Whatever else, you truly looked the part of a stockade master today. Mu Li’s a born troublemaker — seems loyal but is actually cunning — he’s always been the one with the smoothest tongue, and you stopped him cold with a single sentence. Well done.”

“I learned it from someone.”

“Oh?”

The old man looked at her; Lu Hongti smiled and lowered her eyes. During the time she had followed Ning Yi, though she hadn’t spoken much, she had made an effort to remember and imitate the way he handled things, and had eventually concluded that “I’ll kill your whole family” was the most terrifying thing one could say. It was also because Lu Hongti had trained in martial arts since childhood and had little formal education — otherwise she might well have written it down in a notebook.

This upheaval within the stockade had already been anticipated in advance; though it hadn’t gone entirely according to plan, once trouble broke out, plenty of people already had a clear sense of what needed to happen next. While Lu Hongti was dealing with Cao Hong’s attack, the old man here had already taken control of the wider situation. Now the two of them could finally sit together and take stock — who would leave, who would stay, what would come next. As they talked, the old man took out from his bedside the small notebook Ning Yi had given him, while Lu Hongti sat on a stool nearby, keeping him company.

The notebook had already anticipated something like this happening. Of course, Ning Yi could only guess at the general shape of it, based on human nature. Up here in the mountains, as a woman, unmarried, the people Lu Hongti could truly call her core, trusted circle numbered only a handful. That kind of arrangement could sustain a small stockade, but was bound to run into all sorts of trouble as it grew larger — this was also why family-run businesses struggle to expand, there are simply too few people one can trust. These things could of course be addressed later through proper systems, but there had to be some way to handle it beforehand as well.

Gathering the discontented together, letting them rebel, made it much easier to expose the two-faced quickly, and simple slaughter afterward would only serve to vent anger — better, at a moment like this, to take the opportunity to give them a choice. Since there were already ringleaders, why not simply let the stockade split once, weeding out the unreliable elements, so that whoever remained afterward would be true to the core.

Of course, Ning Yi hadn’t anticipated that Lu Hongti would end up dealing with one of Tian Hu’s own men in the process. It was simply that this Cao Hong had walked right into the line of fire. Mount Lüliang was scattered with stockades everywhere, and everyone there feared nothing — Qingmu Stockade killing one of Tian Hu’s men was something that could be made either a very big or a very small matter. Looked at broadly, the Prince of Jin in Hebei commanded forces far beyond anything Qingmu Stockade could match. But looked at more narrowly, the two sides were still fairly far apart; though they occasionally did business together, actually mounting a campaign against Qingmu Stockade would be an entirely thankless effort for Tian Hu. Cao Hong had gone to Qingmu Stockade looking for trouble on his own account, and though he had died, the matter between the two sides wasn’t beyond negotiation.

But offending Tian Hu would still weigh psychologically on the people of the stockade, and some who had been sitting on the fence and wavering might well choose to leave because of it. This was perhaps also because Lu Hongti herself, as a woman, was inclined to place great weight on personal loyalty and cared deeply about whether the people under her could truly be trusted. And once this purge had passed, the vast majority of those who remained would no longer need to be worried about in terms of loyalty; when Qingmu Stockade grew large again, these people could all become its core, and there would be no more worrying about finding someone to serve as its “political officer.”

The two of them discussed the aftermath with Tian Hu’s side for a while, and then Lu Hongti suddenly remembered something and asked, “Grandpa Liang, ‘that place’ wasn’t caught up in the trouble, was it?”

“Doesn’t seem to have been, but let’s go take a look just in case.”

“Mm.”

Lu Hongti nodded, lit a torch, and set out with the old man, who carried the little notebook, out the door. They crossed a short path through the forest behind the house, and in a clearing among the trees stood a structure that looked to be built only halfway. It hadn’t been touched by the upheaval. The old man flipped the notebook open to its final few pages and, as he always did, compared it against the diagram. Lu Hongti frowned. “I was too impatient about this too — I should have waited before building it. These past few days, who knows if someone with ill intentions might have seen it…”

The old man shook his head. “It’s fine. Something this simple — how could they possibly guess what it’s for? The only thing I don’t know is… whether this thing will actually work…”

“He said it should work…” Lu Hongti looked at the structure, reaching out to touch the stones. “He wasn’t entirely sure himself, and right now we don’t have enough materials on our end, but I thought… we should go ahead and build it anyway…”

Two months earlier, in the days before she said goodbye to Ning Yi, he had come to her one day to talk about something. “I have something that isn’t hard to make, though I’m not sure how useful it will be — but it’s worth trying. The materials you can find right now might not be quite enough, but you can build one according to the design for now, and when you get the chance, try it out and see how it performs. Um… it looks like this…”

Ning Yi handed her several sheets of diagrams. “Still, be careful with this — try not to let it fall into anyone else’s hands.”

A breeze passed through the forest, stirring the torchlight; in that flickering light, the writing and diagrams in the little notebook were dimly, intermittently illuminated. Since the paper wasn’t large, the writing was packed densely, meant only as a plain record. In the corner the old man’s finger had turned down, four characters served as the heading: crude-method steelmaking.

The faint light spread forward across the clearing, where only dark outlines could be seen — the beginnings of, built up from stacked stone…

…half a blast furnace!

The mountain wind stirred through the forest, blowing past the old man and the woman standing in the clearing, sweeping through the mountains, gradually building, like the rumble of distant thunder…

…

As the wind rose, points of scattered light.

The crowd that had streamed out of Qingmu Stockade split into several groups, scattering off into the mountains. This was the largest group, led by Lu San and Li Li. Looking back, the torchlight of Qingmu Stockade was swallowed up in the distant mountain forest, like another world entirely.

Once out of the stockade, the ones gathered at the head of the group were no longer just Lu San and Li Li — organizing a rebellion in the first place had never been a two-man affair, and several others who had taken part now stepped forward as well, some skilled fighters, some quick-witted, those with the ability to speak up. Now, gazing back at the firelight of Qingmu Stockade, their hearts were unwilling, but there was no going back.

“What now?”

“Of all the stockades around these mountains, Qingmu’s position is the best! If we’d taken it today…”

“What’s the use talking about that now! I’m going to go join Chen Daxing — over there it’s meat by the chunk and wine by the bowl, none of this fussing over a woman like this…”

“I can’t swallow this! Everyone had a share in building this stockade — now we’ve been chased out, and that’s just supposed to be that?”

“Be glad you’re still alive! Could you beat that Lu woman? If you could beat her, we wouldn’t be out here now — one woman holding that gate, ten thousand men couldn’t take it. Could you take Qingmu Stockade?”

“I really thought more would leave…”

Among the leaders, opinions varied, but in the end, most of them couldn’t swallow the humiliation. Lu San’s son had been killed in the upheaval; the men behind him were dragging the young man’s corpse, and his eyes were red, his expression somewhat dazed. “I won’t let this rest. I’m going to Tian Hu — I’ll tell them General Cao was killed…”

“Tell Tian Hu, and then what! Tian Hu has no control over what happens up here — even if he took Qingmu Stockade, what good would it do him! He’d lose men and gain nothing worth having!”

“You think our luck was just bad today?” Li Li, his face cold, looked around at the others. “Liang Bingfu and Lu Hongti — that old man and that girl — had all this planned out ahead of time, haven’t you realized that? The moment we made our move, they struck back instantly. They’d already wanted to drive us out for a long time!”

His words left the others stunned for a moment, then it dawned on them. “So it was Liang Bingfu’s plan… the old bastard, deep and calculating after all…”

“It wasn’t Liang Bingfu — he’s not that sharp…” Li Li shook his head.

“Lu Hongti? Impossible.”

“How could it be Lu Hongti — that woman, aside from being skilled with a blade, what else could she manage? When the old stockade master passed the position to her in the first place, it was only because he thought she was kind-hearted, too soft to abandon the people of the stockade… Haven’t any of you noticed? When did the stockade start changing? Ever since Lu Hongti went south that time to avenge her family, and came back, all sorts of new arrangements started appearing — setting rules, doing business with people — hasn’t everyone been saying so…”

“Right, I heard something like… she met some kind of expert…”

“Brought back some kind of manual? I heard that too.”

“What expert… a scholar.” Li Li said. “I made inquiries once. Back then Lu Hongti hadn’t guarded her tongue much around the people close to her, and word had slipped out. She’d run into some scholar — a man with real ability, planning things out for her, same as Liang Bingfu. She’s used all this to expand the stockade. That manual, I’ve tried more than once to get my hands on it, but Liang Bingfu is sharp as a fox, I never managed it…”

“So what are you bringing this up for now, what do you want to do?”

“Heh, what do I want… don’t you know? A few years back, Lu Hongti was ready to just marry off into whatever household up here would have her — if someone proposed, she might hesitate, but she wouldn’t flatly refuse… though in the end she always did refuse. But ever since she came back from the south, whenever someone proposed marriage, she’s refused every time. Put all her mind into the stockade, and won’t marry. What’s she after? Last year, the second time she went south, I overheard some of this — Liang Bingfu wanted her to just go find that man and marry him. Lu Hongti said no on the surface, but in truth… the look on her face in those last few days before she left, I saw everything I needed to see…”

Li Li gave a soft snort. “Grew up in the mountains, killing people her whole life — she may be good-looking, but does she really understand anything? A woman like that sees the glittering wider world, and she can’t tear her eyes away… She’s fallen for that scholar, that’s all it is. Pity the man doesn’t want to come out to a place like this — if he’d been willing to marry her, I’d bet she’d have stayed down in Jiangnan as some fine lady of the house and never come back, and we’d have been spared all this trouble. But a family of scholars — who’d want to marry a woman that skilled with a blade, that unruly!”

Li Li’s tone dripped with contempt; the others, after thinking it over, nodded reluctantly. “So what if that’s true?”

“What? Heh.” Li Li laughed, and a cold glint flashed across his face. “Lu Hongti’s temperament runs deep with feeling — she has little family left now, so what she has to hold onto is limited. But that man — she must care for him a great deal. You know, that trip south the year before, she brought back another little notebook. You can all go wherever you like, join whatever stockade, go tell Tian Hu if you want — I won’t stop you. I’m going to the capital.”

“What?”

“I know that man’s name. Heh, I heard it. Ning Yi, Ning Liheng, Jiangning’s foremost talent — but he should be in the capital. Ha ha, I heard it clearly. I can’t beat Lu Hongti, but that man is nothing but a scholar full of fine words — foremost talent or not, we all know what kind of man that is. Still, I won’t deny he has plenty of useful ideas in his head. To get anything done, you need the right method — squeeze the soft persimmon. We can’t beat Lu Hongti, but going and grabbing a scholar will be easy work. Once I have him, I’ll make his life a misery, and drag him back to Lüliang — given Lu Hongti’s temperament… by then, the stockade will be ours, and so will the notebook. Now I’m only asking — who’s with me on this? Well?”

Amid the wind, a silence fell, and then someone shouldered his blade. “I’m in.”

Someone beside him spoke up. “Count me in too!”

“Let’s do it!”

“Ha ha, grab her lover boy, let’s see how proud she stays then!”

In the faint light, one hand after another went up, and in a moment the mood turned fervent. Having come out of Qingmu Stockade, even with this many people around him, the road ahead wasn’t going to be easy — though it was manageable for now, come winter they would likely go hungry again, and building a new stockade and establishing themselves would be no small problem. The best option, in the end, was still to take back Qingmu Stockade. Now that they could see a path forward, the mood of the group surged as though they were forming a great righteous league.

The night was still deep; the men stood in the wind, facing south, and in that windswept moment carried an ambition and resolve that felt as though even the mountains themselves could not stand in their way. Li Li crossed his arms over his chest — in moving against Lu Hongti, they had, in truth, acted recklessly; they should have taken a hostage from the start. In this moment, they finally felt they had found the right direction.

A thousand li away, in a room in the city of Bianliang, Ning Yi rolled over in his sleep, his arms around Xiao Chan, who wore only a stomacher, snoring peacefully beside her. In his embrace, Xiao Chan opened her eyes, blinked, and in the faint light watched Ning Yi’s sleeping face; after a moment she smiled, pursed her lips slightly, and pressed a light kiss to Ning Yi’s mouth, then went on blinking as she watched him a while longer, finally gave a small yawn, curled up in his arms, and drifted happily back to sleep…