The sound of killing tore through the night sky, firelight seethed, smoke and dust filled the air. On the high ground beside the ravine, people began throwing down lit balls of vine and rattan; though the interior of the ravine was not small, the smoke and fire forced the more than two thousand men out.
As blades clashed, some fought back with hysterical desperation, some wept from their wounds, some tried to surrender. But on this night at Zhanjia Hollow, slaughter ultimately became the theme. With Song Jiang fallen, and the chieftains fallen with him, having lost their backbone and their base, the Liangshan men — who had fled again and again while continually falling for one trap after another — could no longer muster the spirit of a grieving army. As the men of Dulong Ridge, leading the government soldiers and carrying their blood feud, pressed into the ravine, what was left in the chaos of battle was field after field of corpses and severed limbs.
There were also a small number who tried to seek revenge or break through the encirclement, fighting desperately at the current situation, tearing at the entire ring of siege — but they too could no longer organize any significant force of attack.
Hearts had scattered, courage had chilled; even those wishing merely to survive could at most struggle a little more stubbornly, but under the massive, overwhelming assault, they too would soon be submerged.
When Yan Qing and Guan Sheng emerged from the tents, what they saw was that stretch of humanity boiling and slaughtering in the ravine ahead. Their wounds were not light; even after bandaging and treatment, their whole bodies still ached and felt weak, but after only a brief rest, the restlessness in their hearts drove them to come out and look regardless. A soldier of the Zhu Family Manor followed them silently.
They climbed a small earthen slope. Ahead, across that stretch of ravine, countless torches and battle flags mingled together, arrows flew across the sky, fireballs rolled down from the cliffs on either side of the ravine. Among those trying desperately to fight their way out from within, there were faces they had once known fairly well. Ahead of the Liangshan men, the men of Dulong Ridge charged the most fiercely and killed the most ruthlessly, but the ravine was, after all, not wide — some could get through, others were pushed to the rear. Along the way, among the soldiers, some were hysterical with excitement, some laughed with reddened eyes, some wore fierce, savage expressions, shouting to be let through to kill. For them, this was a feast of vengeance.
Some of the wounded were carried back. As Yan Qing and Guan Sheng passed by, they could hear a man with a severed arm shouting from a stretcher: “I got my revenge! I killed two of them! I got my revenge…” Not knowing for whom exactly he sought revenge, as he spoke he began to weep — the weeping, though weak, was mournful and desolate. A physician beside him tried to calm him, but nothing worked. Finally, when he was carried far off, the sound ceased — whether he had fainted or died by then, no one knew.
The corpses of Song Jiang and the others still lay near the wooden platform. For Yan Qing and Guan Sheng, it was hard to say what exactly they felt. And with their perspective, they could also see that the current battle at Zhanjia Hollow had become a war of extermination with no mercy given. Driving men to a dead end, even though the Liangshan side could no longer organize a unified military force, killing them all to the last would still come at a price. Only in the words spoken by the men of Dulong Ridge here, in their excited expressions and reddened eyes, could one find the necessity for this war of extermination.
And a little further to the side, they saw the young scholar who had orchestrated it all, sitting on a chair he’d had brought out, right there in the midst of the clamorous battlefield. That too was a small earthen slope, beneath a large tree with no light; he sat there, leaning against the chair back, head tilted slightly upward as if lost in thought, his whole body seeming to merge into that patch of darkness. Shield-bearing guards surrounded him on all sides as best they could, and further ahead were the men of Dulong Ridge. On the Liangshan side, too, there were those who noticed this spot — led by Li Kui, Hua Rong, Sun Erniang, and others, struggling and howling, trying to kill their way over here. With fewer and fewer people left around them, they fought to carve out a bloody path…
And Ning Yi merely sat there in that patch of darkness, not knowing what he was thinking…
…
In the noisiest of moments, something would well up from the bottom of the heart, like the sugar glaze coating an osmanthus cake in spring, or like the light carried in the instant raindrops fell from the eaves. Refreshing to the heart, carrying a touch of warmth, yet elusive and hard to grasp.
In Jiangning, there had been that not-large, not-particularly-famous Yushan Academy, where there had once been a group of children who, through cloudy or sunny days across spring, summer, autumn, and winter, would come to attend classes. They may not all have been especially lovable — some a bit foolish, some mischievous and unruly. They should all have had a tomorrow…
Yushan Academy mostly taught the children of local families. There had been one such child, six years old, whom Ning Yi had summoned to attend lessons. A child that age is usually obedient enough; Ning Yi had taught him manners and the like. After that storm, that child’s entire body had been split in two. Among the corpses sorted afterward, there had been several more children he recognized…
In this world, a person will meet with tigers. This sounds like a rather callous saying, one that can console some people, himself included — it can help one shape oneself as not entirely blameless, offer some explanation for the bad things one has suffered, so that a person does not sink into pain and endless questioning. But such words should never have been applied to those children.
Great wisdom easily leads to injury; deep feeling shortens one’s life. Having walked such a road, he might be able to suppress the compassion and pity in his heart, but there would always be something that accumulated within, and at certain moments, it would well up and stir his emotions…
Though while doing what needed to be done, one should not have emotions — but the matter was, after all, coming to its conclusion…
…
In the darkness, the smell of blood lingered in the air; as the sounds of killing drifted over, the bracelet on his wrist, like prayer beads, turned bead by bead in his hand.
Far off, the one shouting was Li Kui, but what he shouted, Ning Yi had no wish to heed.
Some emotions, from the moment the steel blade had plunged into Song Jiang’s body, had been rising up from his heart, loosening the bedrock of reason he held in his mind — but by now it hardly mattered. He quietly felt these things, sorrow and anger intertwined — this was what he had originally pressed down in his heart.
From the moment he had realized the full scope of events in that rainstorm at the end of March, he had never once let these emotions show. Not when looking at those corpses, not when meeting the men of Liangshan, not when killing them one by one, coercing them one by one — even when he sometimes appeared coldly frightening or maddened, on the level of actual emotion, he had never once wavered, had never even been willing to let any anger dictate his actions.
If he had truly shown any anger, what Song Jiang and the others would have felt might not have been fear. Before everything was complete, all he needed to do was spread fear and despair completely and efficiently. But now, at this moment, those feelings finally welled up from his heart, winding through his entire mind.
Qi Xinyong, Wang Shanyue, and the others guarded him nearby, watching for any incident or stray arrows — only they, close as they were, could clearly perceive what was happening around here. They could also hear the strange, droning tune this odd young man was humming at this moment, just as he had hummed that night on the slope outside Dulong Ridge — slow and ethereal, counting his prayer beads, with an atmosphere entirely at odds with the slaughter of the battlefield.
Li Kui’s roaring continued to carry over.
“Kill you—”
“Ning Liheng! Come out here…”
“I’ll haunt you even as a ghost — I’ll kill your whole family—”
“Hahahaha, when we killed our way into your home that day, who knows if we didn’t touch your woman—”
“Come face me if you’ve got the guts—”
The men advancing with him had grown fewer and fewer; Sun Erniang and Hua Rong had died in battle along the way. Li Kui wielded his twin axes, pressing forward: “Who dares block me—” At this moment, wielding his twin axes like a blood-drenched demon god, he had already fought his way close. A spear thrust at him from the side, hook-ropes bound around his body; he exerted force to swing and pull, dragging a soldier down to the ground beside him. But by now his body already bristled with arrows, and several more hook-ropes flew in, sinking into his chest and belly, nearly tearing his stomach open. He pulled with both hands, forcing his way forward, until finally his legs were pierced and he fell to his knees — yet he still roared, pressing on.
Not far off, behind the ranks of shields, Ning Yi opened his eyes, rubbed his forehead, and after a moment walked out holding a wolf-tooth iron cudgel. By now Li Kui’s belly had been nearly torn open, his expression ferocious, glaring at Ning Yi: “You… damned bastard, if you’ve got the guts… look me in the eye. In my next life… I’ll still…”
Ning Yi looked into his eyes and raised the cudgel: “You can look for a whole lifetime, if you like…”
The cudgel struck Li Kui full in the face with all his strength; his head snapped backward, and then, across half the battlefield, a furious roar suddenly rang out: “You bunch of bastards!” The second strike came down, breaking Li Kui’s entire neck, his head lolling backward.
…
Life gradually drained away, the slaughter on the battlefield drawing toward its end. Ning Yi returned to the rear encampment, wiped the blood from his body, and prepared to begin the cleanup.
Just as he was making arrangements, Zhu Hu came in from outside the tent, looking travel-worn, somewhat excited that the Liangshan men had finally come to this end — but first he handed a note to Ning Yi.
Ning Yi unfolded the note and looked it over, and after a moment, turned his gaze toward Zhu Hu. Zhu Hu said, “The one responsible for gathering intelligence on the twelfth got this message and rushed it over. In truth… news from the rivers and lakes is inevitably unreliable…”
Ning Yi nodded, then nodded again, glanced at the people in the tent, and finally said, “Just now I said… take the heads of Song Jiang and the others to Wurui Camp. As for the rest, do as convenient — feed them to dogs or wolves, or burn them, whatever’s easiest… I… I have some business. Zhu Biao, will you come with me… to Jizhou?”
Over there, Zhu Biao was bandaging a minor wound on himself; he looked up. “Of course.”
“We have to leave right away. Go… gather two hundred men, anyone who can leave now and is willing to come with me. The rest should stay here to finish the killing and clean up. Actually, it’s already been arranged — Brother Wang, you’re in charge of dealing with Wurui Camp and the local government offices; Wenyu stays behind too; the three Qi brothers will come with me. Things are a bit urgent, so I’ll leave the rest to everyone here… I’ll explain more… when I get back.”
Seeing him in such a hurry, Wang Shanyue frowned. “Could it be that your master…”
“Heh.” Ning Yi nodded. “It probably isn’t anything too serious. Everyone should focus on the main business first — I’ll take care of it and come find you, or if you finish first, come find me there — either way works.”
With arrangements settled, before long, Ning Yi left the tent and boarded a carriage. Over in the ravine, the slaughter was reaching its final stage, the light spreading out toward the surrounding hills as they cleaned up the last of those who had managed to escape the fighting. The carriage pulled away from the camp, with Zhu Biao following behind leading two hundred men, some on horseback, some on foot. Inside the carriage, Ning Yi took out the note again and read it over several times, but in truth, could find nothing more in it.
— On the afternoon of the twelfth of the seventh month, Lu Hongti was ambushed and surrounded near Heiniu Ridge by Lin Chong, Shi Jin, Sun Li, Chen Jinxia, Lu Wenhu, and the newly arrived “Ten-Thousand-Li Lone Wanderer” Monk Tunyun, among others. She reportedly fled after being wounded and her whereabouts are now unknown; the outlaws of Anping County are still conducting a large-scale manhunt.
The twelfth of the seventh month — that was already a day and a half ago…
“I need to sleep a while. No matter how fast we travel, don’t mind me.”
So he said, straightening his clothes, and lay down at the side of the carriage. Before long, he fell into a dream.
In that dream, it seemed several children came to bid him farewell.
The carriage traveled on beneath the moon and stars, along a rugged, bumpy road.
Before long, rain began to fall from the sky…