Wind swept across the wild hills; the afternoon sunlight lay tranquil and still. In the wilderness by the riverbank, leaves stirred in the air, and the sunlight itself seemed to sway along with them. The steel spear broke free of restraint and shot forward, cutting the wind in an instant.
Blood, and the corpse of a friend, came rushing to meet it.
That was the other leader standing slightly closer to the woman in red. The moment she stepped toward him, his first instinct was to retreat, but his hurried footwork couldn’t outpace her measured advance. Just as Lin Chong swung up his steel spear and thrust in at an angle, the hand with which this leader drew his blade was already overtaken by the red shadow — his entire body was flung spinning into the air, then sent flying straight at Lin Chong, trailing a spray of blood and torn flesh.
In an instant she’d seized the blade, flung the body aside, and driven a palm strike home mid-slash with the single sword. Lin Chong, already charging forward at full force, dipped his spear tip downward and thrust it beneath the flying body of the leader as it passed overhead. His whole body followed the momentum of the spear, sinking low; after piercing through the corpse, he thrust the weapon abruptly upward — clang — blade and spear exchanged blows. Lin Chong rolled on the ground and thrust three times in quick succession at the red shadow, then swept his spear around in a wide horizontal arc, striking the woman in red solidly — yet it seemed only to strike a leather ball; the red figure went tumbling away.
By then, the second leader who’d been sent flying had been caught by Shi En and the others. The red shadow lunged toward “Demon King of Chaos” Fan Rui, who was charging in with great strides — having been swept along by the force of Lin Chong’s spear stroke, her speed was too great for Fan Rui to dodge in time. He swung his long sword down at the ground below, and the blade caught half of her wide-brimmed hat, sinking into the earth, while her body rolled straight beneath him between his legs. In that instant of passing beneath him, the stolen steel blade in her hand flashed upward in a single stroke, the gleam of the blade sweeping past.
Passing beneath Fan Rui, the red shadow surged upright again, charging toward another minor leader three meters away. Their forms crossed, and in an instant she’d switched techniques — the minor leader drew his blade and slashed, but took a fist to the chest, his blade knocked from his grip and seized by the woman in red. A deep, furious roar suddenly rang out through the air as a monk’s staff came slashing down with ferocious force. The red shadow pushed the minor leader backward, then turned — and when Lu Zhishen swung his staff a second time, what he struck was already the man’s back.
Lu Zhishen abruptly reined in his strike, reaching out to grab the man’s armor from behind. On the side the minor leader faced, the double blades were already rising in a slash.
In an instant, the minor leader’s crown, face, neck, chest, and belly seemed to be assailed by a whirlwind — struck by the woman’s twin blades so many times it was impossible to count. As Lu Zhishen gripped the armor from behind, he could feel nothing but the man’s body shuddering violently against his hand. Lu Zhishen paused for a moment; there, the woman with the double blades stepped back once, as Xiang Chong’s three throwing knives came flying at her in quick succession. Lin Chong charged in, Shi En charged in, and Xiang Chong moved to take a flanking position as well.
“Demon King of Chaos” Fan Rui still stood frozen in the stance of his downward sword strike, his whole body now unable to move, blood pouring continuously from between his legs. In the time since the exchange began — not even five breaths — the first minor leader had had his chest shattered by the woman, the second had been flung away with his neck slashed open in the same motion, and now, on this side, the man Lu Zhishen had seized from behind had blood gushing continuously from his front.
In an instant, four men were dead.
Some of this might have come from the advantage of a prepared attacker against unprepared victims, but from the moment that first minor leader had gone flying, they had already understood something.
In all his life, the only person Lin Chong had ever seen capable of felling a man this thoroughly with pure force alone, in a single strike, was his own master, Zhou Tong.
Though he couldn’t fathom how this woman had trained, one thing was clear — she was no madwoman. Her earlier questioning, stopping her raft to ask them things, hadn’t been the ordinary reasoning of someone seeking fairness — it was simply offering a path to anyone she deemed reasonable enough to take it. A figure of this master-level caliber, too, carried her own kind of pride. She could reason with people, but reasoning wasn’t the same as teaching a student — whatever the reason the argument failed to land, once she chose to act, everything truly became “no longer relevant.”
I gave you a way out. If you didn’t take it, that’s not something I owe you an explanation for. You threw it away, so I do what needs doing. That was the unspoken subtext behind everything she’d done.
Lin Chong, Lu Zhishen, and the others could never have anticipated running into a figure like this so suddenly — and now, in the aftermath of an assault that had left everyone momentarily stunned, Lu Zhishen’s body began to tremble as well. Watching the brother who’d taken the frenzy of double-blade strikes finally collapse, he hefted his staff and, with a furious roar, charged at the woman now walking sideways with her bloodied twin blades.
Xiang Chong loosed his throwing knives; Lin Chong and Shi En closed in together; the last remaining minor leader drew his blade and charged as well. This time, they no longer underestimated her — in the blink of an eye, it had become a true five-against-one.
Among them, Lin Chong’s martial skill was the highest, while Lu Zhishen’s Whirlwind Staff technique was the fiercest and most overpowering; the coordination between Lu Zhishen and Lin Chong was also the best of the group. The other three, though somewhat lesser in skill, were far from mediocre — Xiang Chong supported with throwing knives to harass from range, while Shi En and the remaining leader had both seen plenty of battle. Yet facing the onslaught of five men closing in, the woman in red, gripping her bloodstained twin blades, her eyes now gone cold, suddenly chose a response none of them could have anticipated.
Facing Lu Zhishen, who charged in with wild abandon while Lin Chong covered him from the side, the woman paused her twin blades for a moment — then charged straight at Lu Zhishen.
Lu Zhishen let out a great shout and struck, his momentum at its very peak — and in that flash before his eyes, a gleam of blade found an opening in an instant, slashing toward his neck. From the side, Lin Chong’s spear thrust in violently, and the woman parried it aside with a single blade.
On the riverbank, the group clashed together in the blink of an eye. Yet facing five opponents at once, when the woman charged straight into the strongest point of their formation and met it with her twin blades, the sound that rose wasn’t the chaotic clash of a storm of weapons — it came in a strange, rhythmic cadence, ping, ping-ping, ping-ping-ping-ping, like the ringing of a blacksmith’s hammer. She used one blade to defend against Lin Chong’s attacks, while the other knocked aside strikes or projectiles — yet every stroke she made was an attack aimed precisely where it forced a response, and even as Lu Zhishen charged in with the most reckless ferocity, every stroke she made pushed her one step further forward. After just a few exchanges, Lu Zhishen had retreated three steps, breaking out in a cold sweat.
Then it was Lin Chong who forced her back a step; Lu Zhishen bellowed and swung his staff like a shovel, and before him the woman’s form dropped low, her ground-level blade sweeping at the backs of all four men’s knees. The group stepped back slightly, and from the side, Xiang Chong loosed his throwing knives in succession — at the same moment, something shot out from within that red skirt, crossing paths with the flying knives in midair.
Xiang Chong leapt aside, dodging one flying blade, but before he could land, another spinning blade sliced across his chest and belly in a single arc, then flew on toward the trees behind. Xiang Chong’s body spun twice in the air before falling to the ground. At the same instant, “Golden-Eyed Tiger” Shi En stepped forward, swinging his steel whip to strike at the woman as she rolled along the ground — but a flash of steel came curling up along the whip and his arm, tapping him once on the side of the neck.
With that single sword-stroke, the woman surged forward, swapping positions with the four men. Lu Zhishen swept his staff across horizontally, and the three of them pressed after her; the woman in red, retreating and flipping back, struck out with her sword again, tapping at Lin Chong’s spear, then at the hand with which Lu Zhishen gripped his staff. In an instant, a clattering, cracking sound rang out; Lu Zhishen, decisive as ever, gave a shout and flung his staff outright, hurling it straight at the woman. She spun and rolled away as Lin Chong pressed forward, Lu Zhishen following close behind, taking a great stride, his monk’s robe billowing with the motion of his arm. “Take my fist—!” That punch drove straight into the cloud of red, and at the same moment, the woman, tumbling behind her red skirt, switched her ancient sword to her left hand, using it backhanded to deflect Lin Chong’s spear upward, while her right fist tore forward, breaking the wind.
Two impacts sounded in quick succession, and the woman went tumbling seven or eight meters across the ground before rising to her feet. She drew a breath, then spat something from her mouth, and looked back toward them. Lu Zhishen’s body froze for a moment; he took several steps, picked up his staff, propped it against the ground — then spat a mouthful of blood from his lips. Those two strikes just now — Lu Zhishen had landed his blow on the woman’s shoulder, and her own fist had struck him in roughly the same place, but while the woman in red had rolled with the force and been thrown seven or eight meters, Lu Zhishen, caught in his own forward momentum, hadn’t been able to retreat and had taken the full force of the blow. Setting aside the internal injuries, with his bones damaged and blood coming up, the strength in his hands would no longer be what it had been a moment ago.
Behind them, “Golden-Eyed Tiger” Shi En stood with his hand clasped over his throat, blood flowing steadily between his fingers. His throat had been pierced clean through by a sword — these were already the last moments of his life.
In a span of time that wasn’t especially long, nine had become three. Lin Chong and the others barely had time to feel shock. They too were first-rate fighters of the greenwood, yet this woman had taken one of Lu Zhishen’s punches without injury — her martial skill had already reached a transcendent level. And in this brief exchange, her style was simply too different from anything else seen among the greenwood’s other skilled fighters.
“Iron Arm” Zhou Tong had, for a very long stretch of time, been revered as the greatest fighter under heaven. During his time teaching archery and combat at the Imperial Bow Hall, though he had also taught various ground-fighting techniques and life-saving methods that spared no measure, in actual practice he had still carried himself with considerable restraint. It was the custom of the Wu Dynasty to prize the bearing of the scholar — anyone of any standing cared about dignity and composure, and this held true even among the greenwood’s people. For a woman possessing such overwhelming power to still roll along the ground, or even slide beneath a man’s legs to land a strike, was something rarely seen at all.
They had no way of knowing that the woman before them had, since childhood, lived through famine and hunger, and had clawed her way out from mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Her martial skill had been forged so that she and those around her could simply eat their fill — not out of some pursuit of “meaning” through honorable combat, born from having studied the martial arts.
Now the tall woman in the red skirt switched her ancient sword back to her right hand, her gaze deepening, and walked toward them once more. Lin Chong drew a breath and charged forward with a shout, Lu Zhishen following close behind. This time, the woman’s swordsmanship turned steady and austere; within a few strokes, the edge of her blade left a line of blood across his face.
Lu Zhishen, however, seemed to fight all the more fiercely after being wounded, swinging his staff like a man possessed, sending grass and stone flying. But the gap in martial cultivation could no longer be bridged by brute strength alone — by comparison, someone like Chen Fan, trained under Fang Qifo, could unleash a single punch and turn raw power into an overwhelming advantage against her. But for Lu Zhishen, even with strength enough to uproot a willow tree, one strike from him only needed her to find an opening to force him back. If not for Lin Chong at his side, however brave and reckless he was, he likely wouldn’t have lasted much longer.
This exchange went on for several more strokes; the minor leader beside them had his throat slashed open by a single sword-stroke and fell. After that, Lu Zhishen took blade wounds to the hand and shoulder in succession. The woman’s swordsmanship was aimed to kill, and it was only because Lin Chong fought desperately at his side to save him, and because Lu Zhishen himself had already resolved to fight to the death, that neither strike landed a killing blow.
Having come down defeated from Liangshan, they had thought there would still be many things left to do, still some time left to live — and then, without warning, they’d run into something like this. Just as the sense of despair was growing ever stronger, from the forest along the road, a group of men suddenly emerged — one of them, seeing the fighting and the corpses here, charged forward at once: “Who dares hurt my brothers!”
That young man was tall and broad, wielding an iron cudgel, rushing in to help. The woman frowned; after a few exchanges, she suddenly retreated, leaping back onto her bamboo raft. This newly arrived man was formidable, and behind him came another twenty-odd men — she chose not to press the fight further, and with a thrust of her pole, drove the raft away from the shore. The young man with the iron cudgel and the others rushed after her, charging toward the raft: “Trying to run!” The pole thrust out toward them; after a few exchanges, the pole suddenly burst apart with a crack, sending more than a dozen splintered bamboo shards sweeping through the air, knocking several men to the ground — one of them had his throat cut in the process.
Under the bright sun, the raft drifted toward the far bank. Some threw stones wildly at her, but none struck true. Just as Lin Chong called out “Stop chasing her,” two men skilled in water had already gone under. As the raft drifted to the center of the river, one of them suddenly thrust a blade up from beneath the water. The woman leapt into the air, single-handedly gripping her sword, and thrust down at the water beneath the raft in midair — to those watching, it looked exactly like a graceful waterbird spotting a fish, diving down to strike the water’s surface with its long beak before flying off again. After this single stroke, the woman landed, and red blood was already beginning to well up from beneath the water.
The moment the corpse floated to the surface, the rope binding one end of the raft’s bamboo poles suddenly snapped — another Liangshan soldier had struck from below. The woman sheathed her sword, bent down, and seized one of the long bamboo poles, holding it level in the air; after a single breath, she thrust it straight down into the water with a heavy blow. The figure beneath the water struggled for a moment, and then more blood came welling up. The woman in red, leaning on the long pole, made it to the far bank just before the raft fell completely apart. She glanced back once, then walked off into the trees on that side, and disappeared.
Only then did the men on the shore come back to their senses from their shock. The young man with the iron cudgel looked back. “Brother Lin, Brother Lu — what… what happened here? That woman… was she alone?”
Lin Chong nodded, turning to look at the bodies of Shi En, Fan Rui, and Xiang Chong, his eyes filling with tears. “Brother Shi, it’s fortunate you arrived when you did…”
The one who’d just arrived was “Nine-Dragon Tattoo” Shi Jin. Though he’d only exchanged a few blows with her just now, it had already shaken him deeply — if that woman really had fought alone, then she’d nearly killed nine skilled men of Liangshan single-handedly. After a moment, he asked, “So who is she?”
Lin Chong recounted everything that had happened, and the woman’s questions, in full detail. “It seems she knows that bloody-handed butcher. Her original questions — perhaps she meant to offer us a way to live… This woman’s martial prowess is terrifying; in all my life, only my master Zhou Tong could compare. Brother Shi, you weren’t with Brother Zhu and Chief Song and the others?”
This time, the affair at Liangshan had been managed jointly by Zhu Wu and Wu Yong, and the Strategist Zhu Wu was closest with Shi Jin — Lin Chong hadn’t expected to see Shi Jin here. Shi Jin shook his head as well. “Brother Zhu told me earlier it would be best for me to stay out of this business. And I didn’t like the way they were picking people to go, so I looked after some of the brothers coming down the mountain instead. Later I heard Brother Lin and Brother Lu were over this way, so I came looking for you — good thing I made it in time.”
As he said this, he suddenly remembered something and turned to look at the forest. “Right — that woman… will she come back?”
Lin Chong said, “I’m afraid once we’ve settled the brothers here, we’d better hurry and leave. That woman struck with resolve and left without the slightest hesitation — I doubt she’s the type to let this go easily…”
At this, the whole group felt a chill run through them. Ordinarily, when someone means to leave and withdraw, they at least say a few parting words — but that woman had been utterly efficient, without a single word spoken. By now, there was no way anyone could track her down. Given that she’d fought off nine opponents alone, if she came trailing after them for revenge, their group of some twenty-odd men might not hold up against her at all. With that thought, they hurried to dig graves on the riverbank, ready to bury the dead and be on their way.
In the forest on the other side, Lu Hongti had walked some distance, emerging from the trees, and wiped her face with a damp cloth by a small stream. She glanced up at the sky, then turned back, sat beneath a large tree, took out a simple map to look over, and then rested quietly, sitting cross-legged in meditation. By dusk, she returned to the small river, ate half a hard biscuit, and examined the several graves by the riverbank along with the footprints and clues left in the area.
Lüliang Mountain was no peaceful place — robbing, killing, avoiding being killed herself, hunting for food when there was nothing to eat, fleeing across the hills when the Liao raiders came through on their plundering runs. On her journey here, hearing of the tragedy that had befallen the Su family had left her somewhat saddened; hearing of what he’d accomplished in Shandong had made her somewhat glad for him. But in truth, thinking it over, there probably wasn’t much she herself could actually do to help him. Since she’d run into this by chance, though, she figured she might as well deal with it while she was at it — Liangshan or not, heroes or not, with only twenty-odd men, hunting them down one by one shouldn’t be difficult.
Beneath the setting sun, the woman in the red skirt with the ancient sword, hard biscuit in hand, followed the trail of footprints into the forest, the feeling in her heart much like tracking down a few wild boar in the winter mountains.
At the same time, dozens of li away by another small river, Ning Yi was eating heartily, without a care in the world, discussing the situation of Song Jiang’s flight with some of the people around him…
Before long, the two of them would cross paths unexpectedly…