In the tenth year of the Jinghan era, summer, the eleventh day of the sixth month, and Liangshan was in the grip of a heavy rain.

The pouring downpour dragged clouds across the whole sky, and the occasional flash of lightning and roll of thunder churned the eight-hundred-li marsh into turmoil. Within that vast expanse of water, the Liangshan peak rose from the surface, crouched there like some primordial beast of ancient chaos, huge and unmoving in the gloom, weathering wind and rain, resolute and terrible.

Ever since Song Jiang and the others had risen up at Liangshan, they had swept through the mountain strongholds around the marsh, forming alliances near and far. Entrenched in that natural stronghold, they had beaten back the government troops’ assaults time and again, and since the battle at Zengtou Market, their momentum had only grown more overwhelming. Riding further on the momentum of the imperial court’s northern campaign and Fang La’s failed uprising, they had entrenched themselves and grown ever stronger, rising higher and higher — in the eyes of some, as fearsome and immovable as the very island the mountain stood upon in the middle of the water, as though not even the might of heaven and earth could bring it down.

Just how it had been defeated at Dulong Ridge remained, to many, a mystery even now.

On the evening of the eighth of the sixth month, the Liangshan main force had broken free of the Wurui Battalion’s blockade, and through the whole of that night, some of its chieftains had struggled to regroup their forces and flee, only gathering by the following morning at General’s Ridge. Thinking back to how, barely half a month earlier, everyone had stood here full of high spirits, it now felt almost like another lifetime. After regrouping briefly at General’s Ridge, they moved on to Wanjia Ridge, which they had already taken; when they counted heads there, of the twenty thousand who had originally set out for Dulong Ridge, fewer than eleven thousand could now be gathered together.

Of those who were missing, more than half were dead; some had been captured, others had simply fallen behind during the flight and could only be hoped to catch up eventually, or make their own way back to Liangshan. Among these men, it was quite possible that some had grown disheartened with Liangshan and, having no family to tie them down, had simply used the chance to slip away for good.

At Dulong Ridge itself, the men who could actually be reorganized numbered little more than ten thousand — this battle had gone from a strong opening to a loss of over ten thousand men by the end; put plainly, it sounded almost like a farce. But there was no time to spare for reflection now. They had escaped that eerie nightmare at Dulong Ridge, but its aftershocks were still spreading. Even the dullest of minds could see that the Bloody-Handed Butcher Ning Liheng, in the middle of this campaign of revenge, would not stop here — he would surely gather whatever forces he had and press a full assault while Liangshan lay weakened.

When one side wanes, the other grows.

That cold, hard reality faced them, and along with it, an equally overwhelming and pressing situation. The roughly eleven thousand men now regrouped weren’t necessarily reliable in morale, either, and getting them back to their former state was no small task, not something that could be done overnight. What was worse, quite a number of men who had already been swayed might well be mixed in among them.

Yet a purge on the spot was out of the question. That kind of thing could only be done after a victory — the more crushing the defeat, the weaker the authority above, and the tighter the men below would close ranks together. On Liangshan, where brotherhood and loyalty formed the very cohesive force holding everything together, attempting a purge at a time like this would only invite mutiny and rebellion from the many heroes gathered there from all corners.

Given the gravity of the situation, all such troublesome matters could, for now, only be left to look the other way on. On the ninth and tenth, Song Jiang and the others did what they could to have the troops originally assigned to attacking Wanjia Ridge ferry the various supplies from Wanjia Ridge back to Liangshan; only after that came the more than ten thousand men from Dulong Ridge itself. By the tenth, only one or two thousand of them had actually been ferried back to the mountain. On the eleventh, torrential rain began falling from dawn onward, delaying things further still. Wu Yong and the others kept a close watch on morale — and in truth, morale was actually holding up rather well… or so, at least, it seemed to be.

Wanjia Ridge had been won, but exactly how Dulong Ridge had come to be lost was a matter of curiosity to the soldiers, chieftains, and family members who hadn’t been on the battlefield themselves; most had at least heard that the first few days of the assault on Dulong Ridge had gone quite smoothly. What happened after that sudden reversal, only the chieftains and soldiers who had actually taken part in the battle really knew. And yet the soldiers who had made it back to Liangshan chose, almost without exception, to keep their silence toward those around them, saying nothing at all of what had happened — though that silence, in truth, sprang from the unease and fear in their hearts.

When faced with the test of life and death, the principle of rational calculation for the greater good — something every individual caught up in the situation had begun to weigh for themselves — had at last emerged among the people of Liangshan; in a certain sense, that was in itself some small comfort. Amid the storm, in a room to one side of the Hall of Righteous Gathering, as the matter was being discussed, even Zhu Wu showed a measure of composure.

“…At the very least, if it comes to real fighting, morale can still be relied on. Everyone’s family is here on Liangshan — the vast majority of them won’t want to see Liangshan fall.”

Several chieftains sat in the room; when the door opened, wind and rain gusted in, sending the burning torches guttering wildly. Behind the desk, Wu Yong propped his forehead in his hand. “Dulong Ridge has more or less exhausted their forces by this point — even if they wanted to, they couldn’t bring many men. If… if this Ning Liheng really has that treacherous chancellor’s backing, the Wurui Battalion will move out — but as I see it, they aren’t so resolute about it. As long as we can crush the Wurui Battalion head-on in our first engagement, given Liangshan’s terrain, we should still be able to hold.”

“For now, we don’t know how that man will move, but as long as we can win a single decisive battle, we can start restoring order to our own ranks, and after that, everything should go smoothly. In any case, everything we do now has to be aimed toward that one goal.”

“The several thousand men originally under Brother Huyan, together with the five thousand of us who stayed behind to guard Liangshan, still have their spirits up — put together, that’s ten thousand men, and with the advantage of terrain, holding the line shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

“We could hold a great memorial rite for our fallen brothers, to raise morale…”

Ever since returning from Wanjia Ridge, everyone had already been working at a feverish pace, preparing for a possible attack — how to defend the surrounding islands, which chieftains to assign where, how to control the talk circulating on the mountain, how to gauge the enemy’s coming moves, and so on and so forth. By this point, at least between Wu Yong and Zhu Wu, there was no longer any question of who resented whom.

Xi Junyu, too, had by now been folded back into the group, though for this stretch of time he had chosen to keep a low profile and stay quiet. He had also tearfully confessed to Song Jiang that it was he who had brought this calamity down on them, causing so many brothers to lose their lives — but at a time like this, how could Song Jiang possibly hold him to account? He clapped a hand to his chest and declared that among brothers, they would share both fortune and misfortune alike; Xi Junyu, moved to tears of gratitude, and the others all agreed that Brother Gongming was, indeed, a man of true loyalty.

They understood, too, that even if they handed Xi Junyu over, the other side likely wouldn’t spare Liangshan regardless — at the very least, the brothers who had charged into the Su household that day were surely already on that man’s list for vengeance as well. If they truly sent all those brothers out to be dealt with, it would go far beyond a matter of face — Liangshan, built on loyalty and brotherhood above all else, would fall apart entirely and thoroughly.

And in truth, as for how best to defend against the government troops or any enemy by relying on the terrain, Liangshan already had countless strategies laid in place long before this. Going over them a hundred more times now would produce nothing new — but with the situation still uncertain, doing a little more at least gave everyone’s hearts some measure of steadiness.

They assigned tasks to each of the various chieftains, telling those who had stayed behind on the mountain that this was merely a small, unexpected setback, and set busily to work on every preparation they could make — that, too, was the best way to raise morale. By around noon that day, the rain had eased somewhat, no longer accompanied by thunder and lightning, and when the first boat reached Liangshan, it brought news from the area around Wanjia Ridge.

“…Among the brothers who fell behind or got scattered on the road, several hundred more had regrouped again by this morning — only, among them, some were men that Bloody-Handed Butcher released back to us… Brother Huyan has settled them all together for now and sent me back to ask what should be done about it. He’s also sent along a few of the men themselves, for the chieftain and the strategist to question directly…”

Hearing this news in the meeting hall, Wu Yong’s hand trembled; he exchanged a glance with Zhu Wu. Though the matter was urgent, in truth, they had already had some sense of what to expect. His lips moved, and he gave a faint smile. “They… they let more of them go again?”

A little further questioning revealed that of the several hundred men regrouped near Wanjia Ridge, no one could say exactly how many had been released back — not even Huyan Zhuo could get an accurate count — but what he had done, keeping them isolated for the time being, was the right call. And what worried Wu Yong and the others most now was what the other side had actually done, and said, to these prisoners; they no longer dared to take it lightly, and hurriedly summoned the few prisoners who had been brought to the island, questioning them in the greatest possible detail about the entire affair.

Outside the meeting hall, the rain still fell in a vast curtain; this round of questioning went on continuously for several hours. By the afternoon, a soldier came to report that someone had rowed a small boat back to the island in the midst of this heavy rain, was stopped by the naval guards at the water fortress, and claimed to have something to report to the assembled chieftains.

When the man was brought up, the questioning in the meeting hall was still ongoing, and everyone’s minds had already begun to grow numb. When they had this man speak, it turned out he too had been one of those released; by his own account, he judged the matter serious enough that he’d found a small boat to come back and report the whole affair as quickly as possible. The others had already been questioned several times over, covering everything from the more than a thousand prisoners who had all been released, to the entire interrogation process, to what Ning Yi had said. The soldiers had at first been somewhat evasive about repeating those words, but once Wu Yong and the others lost their patience, they finally recounted everything, word for word, and Wu Yong and the others were at last able to grasp the true weight of that speech.

“I’ve come to kill. Can you take it?”

It was almost as if that terrifying image of the man had, through these words, taken solid form and appeared face to face before every one of them — because they could all but see, now, the deadly earnestness behind those words, and the consequences that might follow from them.

Among those more than a thousand men, over five hundred had been captured twice over by the enemy, and with the man’s record of tearing Liangshan down from its very peak in just three days’ time added on top of that, there was no telling anymore just how many would now feel the weight of the threat he posed.

Wu Yong’s voice came out hoarse; only now did something else occur to him. “Have the water fortress stand ready — check… check how many more have made it back to the island under cover of this rain…”

After a bit more questioning, Song Jiang rose and walked out of the meeting hall without a word, rain sweeping past the eaves as he made his way forward, one hand braced against the wall. Behind him, Li Kui caught up carrying his axes, and heard Song Jiang murmuring through the sound of the rain: “I, Song Jiang, called upright and honorable my whole life, have never once done a thing to trouble my own conscience — how could this…”

Li Kui, thinking he was angry over the matter of Xi Junyu, said, “I’ll go kill that surnamed Xi scoundrel right now! A man like that…”

“Iron Ox, don’t act rashly!” Song Jiang turned back to him. “You… what good would killing him do now, wouldn’t it just show that all of us on Liangshan are afraid? Besides, how can we take that villain’s word alone at face value — Brother Xi, Brother Xi…”

In truth, it wasn’t really over the matter of Xi Junyu that he was troubled — he was simply anguished over how impossible the situation had become to resolve. He got a few more words out, then finally found nothing more to say, his gaze sweeping past the eaves of the hall, out over the whole of Liangshan sunk in the curtain of rain — the houses near and far, the watchtowers, the figures, the points of light, the pavilions clustered across the hillside, the great ships upon the water — his eyes were shot through with blood.

“This is going to… this is going to drive people to their deaths—”

He lowered his voice, growling out the words in a furious, muted rage.

At the same time, on one side of Liangshan hidden in the curtain of rain, a small incident was taking place.

Xi Junyu had a small bundle strapped to his back, a wide hat on his head and a straw rain cape over his shoulders, standing by the water and looking at the still-unpromising rain, when he finally bent down and began pushing a small boat into the water. Just then, a voice rang out behind him: “Brother Xi, could it be you’re leaving!?”

Bent over as he was, Xi Junyu froze for a good while before finally straightening up and turning around. “This whole affair with Liangshan happened because of me. Though Brother Gongming and the rest have been loyal enough, what face do I, Xi, have left to stay on Liangshan? That matrilocal son-in-law of the Su family has come all this way for my sake — perhaps if I leave, he’ll follow my trail and go…”

His face carried both regret and worry as he spoke, and though the explanation was somewhat weak, no one had seen it — but the instant before, as he’d bent to push the boat and the voice sounded behind him, the expression that had flashed across Xi Junyu’s face had been neither regret nor sorrow, but something like a strange, satisfied smile, as though he had been waiting a long while for exactly this to happen.

Yet by that evening, once the rain had stopped, word that Xi Junyu had tried to slip away had already spread among the chieftains one by one, and he was placed under temporary house arrest as a result. That night, there was fine moonlight in the sky; Xi Junyu sat in his darkened room, until at last another figure came quietly from beneath the eaves, silently waved off the guards stationed at the door, opened the door, and slipped inside without a sound.

“Brother Xi has suffered an injustice.”

“This whole thing happened because of me — a bit of scolding is nothing… Are you looking into it?”

“Already looking into it.”

The other man gave his answer; Xi Junyu nodded, gazing at the faint light outside, a trace of vicious satisfaction breaking through into a smile on his face.

“This has only just begun, and if people are already so concerned over whether I stay or go, it can only mean one of two things — either their hearts already lean toward surrendering to the court, or they’re the mole Ning Yi planted among us from the very start. In this afternoon’s little scene, the latter certainly wouldn’t have been absent. Once we pull the thread, and peel it back layer by layer, we’re bound to root the man out eventually…”

Having said this, the other man nodded, was silent a moment, then Xi Junyu looked up. “I heard the words those men brought back — is it… already too late?”

This time, the other man looked out the window and said nothing. As for the state of Liangshan, the hearts and minds of these tens of thousands of people, it was already beyond estimation.

Moonlight bathed the earth. Liangshan’s stronghold, at that moment, looked like a walled city trapped by a vast, boundless marsh — men’s hearts adrift, while the more than a thousand men released from the enemy camp also circled around this city, each making his own choice. Some, under cover of night, tried making their way back to the marsh only to be intercepted, or found out and dealt with; others, though, had already gone to ground somewhere in the darkness of the mountain stronghold, seeping malice into it, thread by thread.

This time, it wasn’t merely a matter of a few cracks forming in a sheet of ice. If anyone could have seen the whole picture, they would have sensed that Liangshan’s fortress, from this very moment — even before the attack itself had truly begun — was already, because of these cracks, gradually splitting, peeling apart, and beginning to crumble…