At the third crow of the rooster, as the sky at the horizon showed the first pale light of dawn, the people of the estate had already begun stirring.

Far removed from the prosperity of the Wu Dynasty’s south, life around Dulong Ridge amounted to little more than simple living. There wasn’t much entertainment—villagers tilled the fields and worked, the women did needlework, and during slack farming seasons, they visited each other’s homes, gathering in front of someone’s door to enjoy the cool air together. This was the daily life of the vast majority of Wu Dynasty farming households, day after day, year after year. Here at Dulong Ridge, if there was anything more to it, it was that to protect the estate, the villagers were organized for combat training—and much of the region’s fierce, hardy character had been forged through exactly this kind of training.

Places like Dulong Ridge and Wanjia Ridge had originally formed much like bandit strongholds. First came the local gangs that controlled an area, then as population gradually grew, and with proximity to trade routes, a new order gradually took shape—no longer relying on plunder and killing, methods that would exhaust resources and draw government attention, but instead collecting protection fees and engaging in various gray-market businesses. Though conflicts and armed clashes still occurred, these were mostly over the acquisition and defense of territory. In Shandong, especially near Liangshan, such things were unavoidable, though most villagers, given a relatively peaceful situation, still returned to farming.

Dulong Ridge enjoyed a uniquely favorable location, and its three estates housed numerous workshops employing local villagers. Though nowhere near as prosperous or specialized as the great cities, these small workshops, operating together, could both meet the self-sufficiency needs of Dulong Ridge’s twenty to thirty thousand residents and produce surplus goods for trade with the outside world, generating substantial profit. Businesses like salt and iron, tightly controlled by the government elsewhere, could be freely stockpiled and traded here at Dulong Ridge—as long as things weren’t taken too far, life could be quite comfortable.

Ordinary farming life, martial training for village defense, and various profitable trading ventures—these were the three pillars advancing side by side at Dulong Ridge. Of course, in recent times, with Liangshan’s growing might, villager drills had become the most pressing concern. All across Dulong Ridge, tension had set in, and at dawn, one could see villagers beginning their drills under the direction of their instructors in every corner.

Hu Cheng walked along the bluestone path ahead, and upon reaching the threshing ground, saw his sister arguing with a villager. She stood with one hand on her hip, laughing as she tilted her head back and shouted, “If you’ve got the guts, come fight me!” The one arguing with her was Liao Sibao, son of the estate’s chief steward, who had grown up alongside her and her brother since childhood. Such quarrels between them were nothing new.

Both were shouting, though of course no actual fight broke out. His sister had shown remarkable martial talent since childhood, and now stood taller than most men, carrying twin blades of sun and moon on her back, her swordplay sharp and fierce—few in the estate could match her. Liao Sibao would never actually fight her; in truth, he’d long harbored feelings for her. San Niang was pretty, and children who’d grown up together often developed some fondness for each other, but being unable to beat her in a fight made it all moot anyway.

Among the young people across the three estates, only Zhu Biao of Zhu Family Manor could hold his own against San Niang, if only slightly. Once San Niang was betrothed to Zhu Biao, no one else had much to say about it.

“Alright, Sibao, stop arguing with her already, take everyone off to drill. And you, San Niang, arguing first thing in the morning…”

As her elder brother, Hu Cheng stepped in to smooth things over, and both sides gave him due respect. Among villagers, bickering and squabbling were common enough occurrences, and once married, men and women alike would trade all sorts of crude jokes without restraint. His sister, not yet married, was still relatively reserved in this regard, and things never got too heated. Once this small commotion settled, the sister walked aside with her brother, tilting her chin to ask, “Who’s that over there? That… young master doing business?”

Following her gaze, on one side of the threshing ground, several people were doing simple exercises—not villagers from their own estate. The young man in the middle wore clothes so gaudy they bordered on ostentatious, and he too was looking this way, hands on his hips, hips swaying, twisting his body like noodles, looking rather grotesque. He waved a greeting their way, and Hu Cheng cupped his hands in response.

“Ah, that’s the Lei Feng, young master Lei who arrived here the day before yesterday, come to discuss business.”

“What’s he doing, so strange? I hear he knows martial arts?”

“He claims he does. The few guards with him seem decent enough, but he himself looks like someone who just dabbled with a teacher for a few years, all flashy moves and no substance—typical wealthy family kid from the capital. Says he goes by some outlaw name, Thunderbolt Hand of Primal Chaos, probably learned a few palm techniques or something… When he arrived, he said he was quite interested in the possibility of fighting here, said he wanted to stay and watch…”

“These city boys, do they think this is some kind of game? I’d take him with one hand.” The young woman named Hu Sanniang glanced sideways at him. “But him coming at a time like this—could he be sent by Liangshan? Why let him into the estate at all…”

“That shouldn’t be the case.” Hu Cheng shook his head. “We already confirmed with the local authorities yesterday. This young master from the Lei family has real standing. The day before yesterday he dropped over six thousand taels of silver at the Zhu estate, all on purchases and orders. His family sent him out to handle business, but what he’s really interested in is warfare. Though the kid’s useless at martial arts and talks nonsense about fighting, he’s got real family training in business—he’s quite sharp. Yesterday morning, discussing things at the Li estate, Uncle Li couldn’t stop praising him.”

Of the three estates at Dulong Ridge, Zhu Family Manor led the way, since Zhu Chaofeng had the best overall vision, but when it came to business, the master of Li Family Manor, “Sky-Soaring Eagle” Li Ying, was truly formidable. This newly arrived young master Lei Feng had won over both Zhu Chaofeng and Li Ying with his business acumen, and yesterday afternoon he’d been invited over to Hu Family Manor as well, with Old Man Hu asking his advice on improving several of the workshops—apparently big cities like the capital used new methods now, and this young man’s talk of business matters was genuinely quite convincing.

“Only thing is, after a few words about business, he has to steer the conversation to martial arts and warfare, going on and on about what we should do when Liangshan attacks. Really unlucky talk, and honestly he doesn’t even make sense half the time. I really wanted to smack him, but since Uncle Li said he’s a business genius we should learn from, I held back. I don’t even know how young master Zhu Biao managed to restrain himself over at Zhu Family Manor.”

Among the three Zhu brothers, Zhu Biao had the highest martial skill, and though he was to be Hu Cheng’s future brother-in-law, Hu Cheng and the others all knew his arrogant, hot-tempered nature. That this annoying young master hadn’t been beaten was quite something.

Having said this much, since the estate’s armed defense and its business dealings were essentially two separate matters, Hu Sanniang wasn’t particularly interested and changed the subject. Talk turned back to Liangshan. Though the atmosphere was tense at present, as far as actually striking here went, it still felt somewhat distant, at least to young people like Hu Cheng and Hu Sanniang. They’d grown up here, had even taken part in clashes involving several hundred men, but Liangshan openly rebelling, throwing its full strength of tens of thousands into an assault, would be true warfare.

“Instructor Luan Tingyu from the Zhu estate came back these past few days—I hear it’s because he thinks fighting might really be coming.”

“Our estate’s got good terrain and plenty of people. If these bandits really dare attack, my sun-and-moon blades will take dozens of their heads!”

“Just be careful. Zeng Family Market got hit hard last year, but our Dulong Ridge isn’t a pushover either. If they really attack, we’ll make sure they know what’s what.”

As the siblings discussed this, they paid no further attention to the wealthy young master and his companions on the other side. Meanwhile, over there, Ning Yi, Wang Shanyue, Su Wenyu, and the Qi brothers were also stretching and chatting.

“Brother Lei, you said… you’re interested in a certain young lady—was it that Hu Sanniang? She really is tall…”

Ning Yi was slowly beginning his tai chi form. “I’m a bit disappointed too, honestly. Pretty enough, sure, but she looks like just an ordinary village girl to me…”

Wang Shanyue, sitting nearby on a wooden post, his expression placid—he actually looked even more delicate than Hu Sanniang herself—watched him practice. “This Miss Hu is quite skilled in martial arts, ranked among the best at Dulong Ridge. She’s already betrothed to the third young master of Zhu Family Manor, Zhu Biao—you two nearly came to blows the other day… I should remind you, this young master Zhu received true instruction from Instructor Luan, and can go a hundred rounds against him without losing. If you have any interest in this Miss Hu, you’d best think twice.”

Scholars often fancied themselves romantic figures, and Wang Shanyue, from a family with deep roots in such matters, had seen plenty of this kind of thing, and now offered this warning. Ning Yi nodded while continuing his form. “I know. Probably not too far off from the martial skill of people like Lin Chong—about… on par with Fang Shuchang and that crowd from Overlord Blade Manor, I’d guess. Brothers Qi, could you three beat him?”

Qi Xinyi said, “About evenly matched… if it were Fang Shuchang, we might come up a bit short… in short, winning would be hard, but we could probably hold our ground without losing.”

“Oh, so Brother Wang must be quite formidable then?” Ning Yi had heard that the Wolf Bandit leader was said to be a martial arts master who came and went like the wind, striking fear into all who heard his name—whatever the truth of it, it sounded like he could at least fight Lin Chong to a draw. But when he asked, Wang Shanyue said, “My martial arts aren’t high at all. You’ve misunderstood.” He paused. “I’ve been physically weak since childhood, and practicing martial arts has always given me poor returns for the effort. If it came to a real fight, forget Zhu Biao or Hu Sanniang—even Zhu Long or Hu Cheng might be more than a match for me…”

“What?” Ning Yi was taken aback for a moment, then shrugged indifferently. “Well, no matter, I was just curious. Now that I’ve seen it, it’s settled.”

“Why were you curious?”

“Secret.” Ning Yi laughed. Though he wasn’t especially well-versed in the affairs of the Water Margin and Liangshan, he’d certainly heard the name Hu Sanniang—said to be highly skilled in martial arts, beautiful, and tragic. Seeing Zhu Family Manor had made him want to come take a look. Having now seen her, though, he found she was really just an ordinary village chief’s daughter—decent looking, more confident than the average woman, not particularly coarse either. But honestly, she was more like a taller version of Guo Fu.

It seemed that without having been assaulted by that vile little dwarf, and with her whole family still alive and well, this Hu Sanniang’s appeal was somewhat lacking…

This was just a minor diversion along the way to his real business, and Ning Yi didn’t dwell on it much. As far as he was concerned, the timing of this trip was fairly good—intelligence from both official and underworld channels indicated that Liangshan had already prepared for a decisive battle to secure the area around the marsh, with fighting likely to break out before the end of the month.

After staying two days at Dulong Ridge, Ning Yi also made a trip to Wanjia Ridge, again under the pretext of “discussing business,” meeting with the head of the Ji family there. But by comparison, Wanjia Ridge’s scale was only about sixty percent the strength of Dulong Ridge. After this brief meeting, Ning Yi returned to Dulong Ridge, and sent Qi Xinhan along with Su Wenyu to Jizhou city to contact local officials and spread some simple rumors.

Wang Shanyue, accompanying him throughout, remained somewhat puzzled by what Ning Yi was actually trying to accomplish. The rumor he’d had the officials spread was simply that “Song Jiang wants to negotiate amnesty with the government”—nothing elaborate in the way of planning or arrangement. Such a rumor, spread this way, would carry extremely low credibility; compared to the Secret Investigation Bureau, the local government’s efficiency around Liangshan was shockingly poor. Even spreading rumors across the whole realm wouldn’t be enough to shake Liangshan’s core.

On the other hand, Ning Yi’s methods and plans for doing business with Dulong Ridge and Wanjia Ridge were remarkably solid. Ning Yi had essentially laid out a smuggling scheme spanning the entire Shandong region, with Dulong Ridge and Wanjia Ridge as key links in the chain. If they could guarantee safe passage of the roads, and combine forces with merchants from the capital, they stood to gain enormous profits—even processing some goods right there at Dulong Ridge and Wanjia Ridge. The plan could even extend vaguely northward—if a route through the Lüliang Mountains could be opened, goods could cross into Liao territory as well, reaping enormous profits from trading salt, iron, tea, and the like.

Wang Shanyue, with his family’s deep background, could tell at a glance whether certain things were feasible. After a few days, he’d begun to doubt whether Ning Yi had really come here to do business at all. Staying at an inn in Dulong Ridge one night, he finally asked directly.

“If you’re truly serious about dealing with Liangshan, you should be gathering all the surrounding forces together—Dulong Ridge, Wanjia Ridge, even the smaller strongholds nearby could all unite right now. You’ve already prepared your government credentials—why, these past few days, have you only discussed business and not a word about confronting Liangshan? Once the fighting actually starts, there won’t be this opportunity anymore…”

Over these days, aside from moving between Dulong Ridge and Wanjia Ridge, Wang Shanyue had spent most of his time relating information about Liangshan’s various heroes for Ning Yi to organize. That night, he finally voiced his doubts. Under the lamplight, Ning Yi, snacking on peanuts while sorting through notes, clapped his hands together.

“Not the right time yet. Brother Wang knows this too—Dulong Ridge, though it’s cleaned up its image somewhat, has no goodwill toward the government either, or rather, everyone knows exactly what kind of outfit the government is. The Wuru Battalion already fought Liangshan before and lost badly, losing all face. When I came, both Consort Kang and Chancellor Qin told me—pressuring them into deploying troops isn’t impossible, but at most they could gather twenty thousand men for one engagement. With everyone valuing their own lives, even in the best-case scenario, twenty thousand from the Wuru Battalion plus maybe fifteen or sixteen thousand from Dulong Ridge and Wanjia Ridge combined… even if we scraped together forty thousand total, none of them would really want to put in the effort. There’d be no point.”

“So by Brother Ning’s reckoning, the Wuru Battalion will definitely hold back to protect themselves, and Dulong Ridge and Wanjia Ridge might fight if pushed to the extreme, but even then, it wouldn’t accomplish much. If they got beaten down to just a few thousand men, even fighting desperately, they still couldn’t take Liangshan. Wouldn’t it be better, rather than letting them be defeated piecemeal, to try to bolster their strength and maintain the current standoff?”

“I don’t want a standoff. I want to break Liangshan apart.” Ning Yi shook his head, looking at Wang Shanyue, then tapped a point on the small map beside him. “As long as Wanjia Ridge and Dulong Ridge aren’t crushed immediately, that’s enough. These are their own homes they’re defending—they’ll definitely fight hard for that. I just need them to hold out, back and forth, for ten days or half a month.”

“Ten days… half a month?” Wang Shanyue frowned. “That could turn the tide?”

“Maybe even destroy Liangshan entirely.” Ning Yi smiled. “There’s no other major power left in this area, so leveraging their strength is essential. I don’t have time to wait until they attack Jizhou itself, so for now, this should be the only opportunity.”

Wang Shanyue thought about this for a long while. Places like Wanjia Ridge and Dulong Ridge represented the very lives and livelihoods of their villagers—defending them, they could certainly hold out for a while. But… Liangshan had already swelled to over fifty thousand men, heading toward sixty thousand. With merely a dozen or so people, at most forty-some, could this man really turn the tide and destroy Liangshan within ten days or half a month? What exactly was he thinking…

“So… what else do we need to prepare going forward?”

“Actually, not much else.” Ning Yi closed his eyes, thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Wenyu’s side has already spread the rumor, your people should be arriving soon too. Now… it’s just a matter of waiting for the fighting to start. The only thing we need to make sure of is…”

He smiled. “When the fighting begins, we need to be inside the estate…”

Wang Shanyue thought about this. “Then I’ll wait and see what happens.”

After getting up and heading out, he shook his head. The Wolf Bandits held sway over this region, feared by good and bad alike, yet even he had no clear strategy against Liangshan. And now, this matter, this person, genuinely left him with an inexplicable sense of unease and difficulty in understanding.

In just six or seven days, it was hard to say what he really made of this man. Facing outsiders, he seemed somewhat reckless, yet he genuinely managed to hold his own in certain respects. And when everyone was alone together, he was constantly organizing the intelligence on Liangshan they provided, cross-referencing and revising it against what he already knew, arranging tasks for others to carry out—racing against time, meticulous down to the smallest detail. He looked younger than Wang Shanyue himself, yet at those times he carried an indescribable sense of pressure, the kind Wang Shanyue had only ever seen in his grandfather and his master. From this end, he could tell the man was serious about what he was doing, but couldn’t tell what he was actually thinking.

When word came from the capital that someone would be sent to handle the Liangshan matter, Wang Shanyue had wondered how such a person would approach it. Perhaps by mobilizing government forces and troops, forging alliances among the powers around the marsh, and so on—inevitably a tedious, difficult undertaking, the situation vast in scale but still needing to be dealt with, likely dragging on for a long time. But what was actually happening now had never appeared in any of his speculations.

He had indeed arranged matters requiring the cooperation of local officials and troops, using his own people to do it—only by staying here for a while could he actually get the army and officials moving—and had even arranged contingencies in case things went wrong. But none of this seemed to be the center of his plan. He didn’t seem to want to overly force the military and officials into confronting Liangshan. And with barely seven days having passed, with only some forty-odd people currently at his disposal, he was already preparing to face Liangshan directly.

Once the fighting started, if they stayed in the estate and Liangshan broke through Dulong Ridge, there might well be no chance to escape at all.

Perhaps in three to five days, the fighting would begin. What followed now seemed to be nothing but waiting. For a moment, Wang Shanyue even found himself wondering whether he should be making a decision right now that could potentially cost him his life—though his master’s letter had indeed told him to cooperate fully with this man’s plans…

Thinking this over, he felt a faint sense of unease, not knowing that shortly after he left the room, a dark shadow moved through the darkness outside and knocked on the window of Ning Yi’s room.

May twenty-third, the night black as ink. Counting backward, only five days remained until that battle—one whose outcome, it seemed, held little suspense…