In the early morning of the second month, the air still held a hint of chill. In the open courtyard of the inn, a group of people were exercising. Off to one side, Ning Yi shadow-boxed while chatting with Zhu Biao, who swung a long spear nearby. A little further ahead, on the steps, Xiao Chan sat holding a restlessly wriggling Ning Xi, smiling as she watched the goings-on, occasionally murmuring something to the child.

“…Speaking of Jiangning, the Qinhuai River is quite famous. When we get there, if you want, Zhu Biao, I can find someone to take you around… By the way, I heard you met with the young ladies of the Wang family and made a good impression. Did I ruin a promising match by pulling you out here?”

Grasp the Bird’s Tail, Raise Hands and Step Up, Single Whip—Ning Yi moved slowly through his Tai Chi forms, looking rather like a venerable master, while off to the side, Zhu Biao swung his spear with vigorous energy, though he came across a bit more like a background extra by comparison.

“A real man shouldn’t let romantic entanglements distract him from important matters. Brother Ning, I’ve always been curious about the Qinhuai River—but on this trip south, will there be any formidable masters worth crossing paths with?”

“All muscle and no brains—Zhu Biao, stop saying lines that only sidekicks get to say… As for Jiangning, sure, there might be some third-rate street-level fighters, but as for genuinely formidable masters, the good ones in peaceful, prosperous regions usually eat off the government payroll, and the ones bold enough to strike out on their own mostly got swept up in Fang La’s chaos. A year or so ago, if you’d gone to Hangzhou, you could’ve picked almost anyone at random and gotten thoroughly beaten senseless. Nowadays, though… eh.”

“A martial artist ought to cross swords with the best to truly improve. I, Zhu Biao, would never be afraid!” The young man lifted his chin. “Though—Brother Ning, back when you were trapped in Hangzhou, you must have seen those masters yourself. Were they really that formidable?”

“Of course. Back then, under the Sage Lord Fang La, Fang Qifo trained a disciple named Chen Fan. As for the four grand marshals—Shi Bao, Deng Yuanjue, Li Tianrun, Si Xingfang—they’d all made their names in the martial world before joining the army, and their skills were, if anything, a match for Chen Fan’s or better. Then there was Minister Wang Yin—I never saw him fight myself, but they say his skill nearly rivaled Fang La’s, mostly because the man was clever and full of tricks. And the rest—the Eight Chargers, the Twelve Spirits, the Twenty-Four Generals—on the battlefield, sure, some of them might not have fully lived up to the names, but in terms of pure skill, they could all more than hold their own. And now… they’re just—gone. Wiped clean.”

Ning Yi sighed, thinking back to those events in Hangzhou, not without a touch of feeling. Of course, this was also because that group had lost in the end, while he himself was still doing quite well. The Jiangnan uprising led by Fang La had been on a far grander scale than the hundred-odd chieftains proclaimed at Liangshan—it had drawn in, if not all the elite of the martial world, then at least half the martial forces of the entire south.

Among the Eight Chargers, Twelve Spirits, and Twenty-Four Generals, some had been undermined by Ning Yi himself in secret, but truthfully speaking, among Liangshan’s mid- and low-ranking chieftains, few could match them in strength. And a force of that scale had, within the very period he’d spent dealing with Liangshan the year before, already crashed against the shore like a wave and shattered into scattered snowflakes across the sky.

“…Shi Bao was surrounded and defeated after leaving Hangzhou. Li Tianrun died in battle at Qingxi. Si Xingfang was killed by Xin Xingzong. Wang Yin was accomplished in both scholarship and combat, but like Deng Yuanjue, he lacked leadership ability—after the great battle, the two of them vanished, presumably dead or maimed. That leaves only Fang Baihua. She’s a remarkable heroine in her own right, but she’s still a woman after all, and with her brother and family all dead, she probably doesn’t have much fighting spirit left either… This time heading south, even if we do end up helping Wenren Buer and the others, you won’t find much in the way of real masters to face. Of course, we might see Fang Qifo—though I hear he’s already crippled…”

As Ning Yi talked, the others nearby, also exercising, listened in—these were all people carrying titles from the Secret Investigation Bureau, guards or retainers. Since returning from Liangshan, Ning Yi had gathered close to fifty people he could call on, of whom over twenty had come along to Muyuan this time. Some were originally household guards from the Su family; some were martial-world figures who worked for pay but could still be trusted; and the rest had been assigned to him by Qin Siyuan from the Secret Investigation Bureau—beyond these, there were still more he could call upon who normally handled matters elsewhere.

For a mere advisor to gather over fifty guards purely for his own personal safety was, admittedly, the sort of thing that easily invited criticism. After all, even someone as eminent as Right Chancellor Qin Siyuan typically kept no more than a dozen or so guards, seen and unseen, when going out. But Ning Yi’s situation really left him no choice—ever since the name “Demon of the Heart” had spread, even in the capital, people had come looking for trouble with him within a matter of months. Most were small fry looking to make a name for themselves, but who could say some genuine master wouldn’t show up out of nowhere—the still-living, still-grudge-bearing Monk Tunyun being a case in point.

That he’d gone to the trouble of assembling this many people was mostly because he had the money to spend on it, but Ning Yi hadn’t just thrown the arrangement together carelessly either. The Su family’s original household guards could be trusted outright; among the martial-world recruits, he’d tried to pick the more simple-minded, honest sort, and even then he’d screened and filtered for reliability. As for those assigned from the Secret Investigation Bureau, all of them had already worked alongside Ning Yi before.

Once he’d brought them into his fold, Ning Yi treated them generously, mostly like family, and even arranged for masters like Yan Qing, Lu Junyi, and Zhu Biao to train alongside them. On the other hand, though Ning Yi was good to them in every way, the actual rules and discipline he expected them to follow remained quite strict. Management of this kind had always been one of Ning Yi’s strengths, and since most of these people already knew something of what Ning Yi had done in the past, no one dared show him the slightest disrespect, warmth toward him notwithstanding.

The name “Demon of the Heart” had by now spread throughout the martial world as that of a truly formidable arch-villain. Most had heard something of the events at Hangzhou, and quite a few had personally taken part in the process that followed at Liangshan’s downfall. Ning Yi could make everyone around him feel warmth, but there was always a certain authority beneath it too—no one wanted to face this scholar when he truly lost his temper. And beyond that, there was the formidable master standing behind him: Lu Hongti.

Working under Ning Yi on one hand, being trained and cultivated on the other—this was the core group Ning Yi intended to keep close to him going forward. But however much their loyalty could be counted on, when it came to the matter of Fang Qifo, they couldn’t offer much real help—even someone as reckless as Zhu Biao, Ning Yi had no intention of asking to help rescue a rebel like Fang Qifo. This was also his reason for turning down Chen Fan: he simply didn’t have people on hand who could take part in an operation like this. Of course, if it was just a matter of going to see the man, that was another story.

If they were ever truly likely to follow Ning Yi’s orders to rescue a rebel like Fang Qifo, that would take at least another three to five years, once Ning Yi’s control had fully penetrated every corner of this circle of interests…

As he expounded on all this, Zhu Biao occasionally asked a question about the old ranks under Fang La, sighing a little over how all these masters had now withered and vanished. But such sighs from the young man naturally weren’t to be taken too seriously; a moment later Zhu Biao had already perked back up, his spear whirling like a dragon, whistling through the air.

The display delighted little Ning Xi under the eaves nearby, who clapped his small hands and watched, laughing. He couldn’t yet manage many sounds, only babbling “ah-ah… ba-ba…” with delight. Ning Yi broke off his Tai Chi stance and came over, somewhat put out, to pick him up. “Clapping is fine, but yelling ‘baba’ randomly won’t do—I’ve been teaching you for so long and you still can’t get it right, you little rascal…”

He lifted Ning Xi up. Seeing his father approach, the child, who by now recognized people quite well, waved his hands even more happily and pressed his little mouth against Ning Yi’s face, leaving drool behind. “Ba-ba-ba… ba!” This set Ning Yi laughing again.

Around the yard, amid everyone’s own training, quite a few were discussing the current situation in the south in low voices, and some laughingly told Zhu Biao that the name “Demon of the Heart” now carried enough weight in the martial world to be spoken of in the same breath as the Sage Lord himself—that if he really made a show of it, he could frighten a whole crowd. Zhu Biao laughed along in agreement. In fact this wasn’t mere flattery—the Secret Investigation Bureau had extensive contacts throughout the martial world, and after Liangshan’s fall, the name “Demon of the Heart” truly did carry tremendous deterrent power within it.

Some people classed the Demon of the Heart among the villains, but those within the Secret Investigation Bureau didn’t much care—quite a few of them, in fact, deliberately spread word that the Demon of the Heart’s backing came from the very top of the imperial court, that he answered directly to their own superiors. With the record of breaking Fang La at Hangzhou combined with his deep court backing, this title had, in the hearts of the martial world, come to seem quietly more terrifying than even the Ministry of Justice’s chief constables.

Amid all this laughter and talk, the morning’s training session had, in fact, already come to a natural close. Before long Ning Yi, carrying the child, wandered over to chat with everyone for a bit, laughing. “My own martial skill is really quite mediocre—this whole ‘Demon of the Heart’ title is a fraud, if I could help it, I wouldn’t even want it. Everyone here knows what kind of person I really am; it’s really unfair of those people to slander me like this… And look, isn’t little Xi here just too adorable to be any kind of little demon? Right, Xi?”

By now his martial skill was in truth no longer mediocre—though certainly not top-tier either—but most of the people who had witnessed what Ning Yi had actually done found themselves thinking privately: Fang La’s whole uprising at Hangzhou had been played like a fiddle, Liangshan had been turned around at its moment of greatest advantage, tens of thousands had died for reasons no one quite understood, most of them killed by their own side, and Song Jiang himself had been disemboweled right there on the battlefield—if there was ever a case for calling someone a true demon, it really wasn’t much of a slander at all… Of course, that he could still be this warm and approachable in daily life was part of his charm too.

These people had all spent half a year now training under first-rate masters; with a solid foundation to begin with, and half a year of real training behind them plus having weathered several assassination attempts, most of them had become quite capable in their own right, and felt fairly confident about it. After a brief rest, they were called off to breakfast. As for this trip south to Jiangning, no one was particularly worried—it was meant to be a simple outing, and even if someone did try to make trouble, they could handle it without much difficulty.

At around the same time, several hundred li away, at the camp where the column escorting Fang Qifo north was gathered, things were rather lively and chaotic. People were being brought in from all directions—the dead, the wounded, a dozen or so newly captured prisoners, and various clattering weapons collected after the battle.

The morning breeze was cool, mist hanging over the mountains. Zong Feixiao watched this batch of prisoners pass by, then turned to glance toward the prisoner cart where Fang Qifo seemed to be sleeping.

But of course he wasn’t asleep.

This was after dawn, the second batch of prisoners brought in. The first batch had come in during the night—those captured right after the government troops closed their encirclement. As for this second batch, over a dozen strong, most of them were skilled fighters, and the ones escorting them here weren’t ordinary soldiers either—the handover had taken place right at the camp gate.

In the prisoner cart, Fang Qifo’s hair hung loose and disheveled, but he still seemed to be following the situation closely. That this group had been captured meant that most of those who had come to rescue him had already been wiped out. But Zong Feixiao hadn’t come over to remind him of this, to gloat—nor had Tie Tianying. The two of them stood together, brows furrowed, speaking quietly.

“…She wants to see Fang Qifo.”

“…Not everyone’s been captured yet.”

“…I hear it’s nearly over. Only a few dozen got away, and Fang Baihua herself is badly wounded… They put more stock in this than we do—they won’t let this last remnant slip away.”

“…We’ve never dealt with her before. If she has some other agenda…”

“…We’ll just have to be careful. Their background these days is hard to pin down—if things go sideways, who knows what might happen.”

A cuckoo’s cry cut through the mist of the mountain valley in the early morning; every small sound around them—the movements of the camp, the movement of the wind, the movement of all creation—seemed to reach even the small prisoner cart. Fang Qifo sat there, quietly taking it all in, quietly sensing too the strange tension in the air. Not long after, when Tie Tianying and Zong Feixiao gathered their masters as if facing a great enemy and surrounded the cart, he understood: someone was coming.

Of course. For the enemy to have truly scattered Baihua and her people meant someone considerably more formidable had gotten involved… In the cart he opened his eyes slightly. Before long, a small green-canopied palanquin came into view from a distance, moving in a way that seemed slow yet was in fact swift, and yet somehow remained utterly still amid all this commotion.

Someone lifted the curtain.

In the cart, Fang Qifo’s half-closed eyes, as though everything in the world had already been set beyond his concern, trembled ever so slightly.

A long while passed. A sigh disturbed the air in the morning mist.

“…Ah…”

…

The morning wind blew across the cliffside, sweeping over the wide sleeves of his robe. He stood atop this cliff, gazing down at the mountains and homes stretching below.

“Demon Buddha” Lin Echan, having returned after more than a decade in seclusion, remained as solemn and silent as ever, though about his heavyset frame now hung an air of grandmaster-level presence, deep and immovable as a mountain. He was, at present, the new leader of the Mani Sect.

Generally speaking, an ordinary person’s physical peak arrives around the age of thirty.

But for a martial artist, at thirty, one’s own worldview and philosophy have only just matured, only just begun to look at the world with deeper eyes. The peak years for an inner-strength master usually come between forty and fifty—during those years, they can do almost anything.

After that, even a master like Zhou Tong, capable of continually pushing his cultivation to new heights, would still see his physical condition inevitably decline. Though the Zhou Tong of now was more formidable than the Zhou Tong of fifty, every punch he threw now was already thrown with the strength of his very life.

Lin Echan was forty-seven this year.

Back before the Mani Sect had split, before Fang La and the others had launched their rebellion, he had already been a Guardian of the Mani Sect, one of the very top figures in the martial world. But in those days, Fang La and his followers had truly been at their zenith—fortune and circumstance had aligned in their favor. By that time Fang Qifo and Fang Baihua were both already extremely skilled, and because Fang La kept such a wide circle of acquaintances, a great host of masters had gathered around them, including Deng Yuanjue, Shi Bao, Bao Daoyi, and also, from the world of blade arts, the foremost figure of his generation, Liu Dabiao, along with the entire Hegemon Blade Manor. Though during that great upheaval Liu Dabiao—formidable enough to be spoken of in the same breath as grandmasters like Sikong Nan and Zhou Tong—never personally took part in the fighting, the Hegemon Blade Manor still cast an enormous shadow of deterrence behind Fang La.

Under those circumstances, however great his own skill, he’d had no choice but to withdraw in defeat.

In that earliest period, Fang La and his people had remained wary of their return, but as Sikong Nan herself had once said, if Fang La’s cause had gone on succeeding uninterrupted, they would never have been able to reemerge at all. Even through all these years, while Fang La devoted himself to rebellion and he devoted himself to martial cultivation, so long as Fang La still held control of the situation, there was no chance for them to resurface.

Even ten Iron-Armed Zhou Tongs together could never have broken through the sheer number of masters Fang La had gathered under his banner.

But heaven, in the end, remained fair. Just as his own skill reached its very peak, the small remaining faction of the original Mani Sect, hidden beneath the surface all this time, was finally able to emerge. Heaven, it seemed, wanted something done through him.

As he stood gazing at the scenery below, someone approached from behind—it was Wang Nantuo, his arm wrapped in bandages. He walked to the cliff’s edge, stood there for a while, then turned and spoke.

“Sect Leader, what next?”

Wang Nantuo’s voice was somewhat rough, but this was the first time he had addressed him this way, and there was a certain pleasure in his tone. Lin Echan glanced at him.

“Your wound all right?”

“Just a scratch, hardly worth mentioning.” Wang Nantuo raised his head. “Of course, I’m only asking out of curiosity. If you and Elder Sister have settled on some secret plan, there’s no need to tell me.”

“There’s no secret to it.” Lin Echan clasped his hands behind his back. “Fang La and his people have already all but destroyed the Mani Sect. We’ve already come to an agreement with that person of note—we’ll be the ones to clean up what’s left. Whoever among the sect’s brethren still lives shouldn’t have to die any further. Elder Sister feels the same, and so do you and I—after all, we’re still sect members too. None of us want to see several centuries of tradition come to an end.”

Wang Nantuo looked off into the distance, saying nothing. He hadn’t taken much part in sect affairs these past years, but since he’d asked, Lin Echan, now Sect Leader, wasn’t about to withhold an answer. After a brief pause, he continued: “But debts must always be settled. The pressing matter right now, of course, is finishing off these last few dozen people. After that, we reorganize what’s left of the scattered sect membership from the ground up. There are things I mean to do to restore the Mani Sect’s standing—though openly, of course, we can no longer use the name ‘Mani.'”

The mountain wind howled past, and Wang Nantuo nodded. Lin Echan’s sleeves snapped in the wind. “And of course, I intend to challenge Zhou Tong.”

He stood, hands clasped behind his back, his form as unshakeable as a mountain, and spoke the words simply. Wang Nantuo turned to look at him all the same. The two of them then fell silent for a long while. Only after that silence had passed did Lin Echan smile.

“I’ll send out the formal challenge before long. His body is past its peak now, and I won’t take unfair advantage of him—I’ll settle it within ten strikes. Before that, you and I can go pay some visits to old acquaintances. Once the matter with Baihua and her people is settled, there are still other things to attend to… Word has it there’s a matter involving some account ledgers stirring up trouble down south—they’ve asked for our help with that. There’s a band of good fellows out at Chiqiu Ridge I mean to go meet; Tian Hu, too, I’ve an interest in visiting… As for that so-called Demon of the Heart who’s recently made a name in the martial world and caused the Qilu martial community a great deal of grief—if I find the time to head north, I’ll see to that too, and the Qilu martial world will naturally come back into the fold… None of this amounts to much…”

In the gusting wind, he laid out his plans to Wang Nantuo in an easy, unhurried tone, and only after a while, gazing out at the world before him, did he let out a sigh.

“For all the Mani Sect’s long history, this world beneath heaven is no longer within our reach—but we still can’t let the name fall into disgrace… the martial world, at least, is still ours to claim…”

Even during the sect’s most flourishing years, he had never been its leader. Now that he had reached his own peak, the whole old structure had already collapsed—all he could do was gather up what remained of that framework. In what years he had left, he meant, at the very least, to become the foremost figure of the martial world. His massive frame stood proud in the wind; he closed his eyes, and in his sigh there was, alongside pride, a measure of loneliness.

…

The small green-canopied palanquin receded into the faint morning mist, but that touch of green seemed to remain etched in his vision all the same. Fang Qifo sat in the prisoner cart; no one really knew what thoughts occupied him. But the Ministry of Justice masters who had been guarding him finally let out a breath of relief, and soon it was time to break camp. A cart of blades and swords went clattering by, the cloth covering it slipping off—and among the weapons piled there, the most conspicuous by far was a great blade of pattern-welded iron.

Fang Qifo’s gaze swept across it and lingered there.

Walking alongside, Tie Tianying bent down to pick up the fallen cloth, noticed the direction of his gaze, glanced over as well, then gave a faint smile.

“Marshal, what are you looking at?”

…

“I’d guess that’s the Hegemon Blade.”

…

“Don’t dwell on it. The blade’s here, which means the owner’s already dead.”

…

“The body’s right over there on that cart—though the dead have all been stripped. That one’s a woman’s body; Marshal, you might not want to look.”

…

“They’re all like that. Don’t think too much on it. I think you’ve come to accept things these past few days, Marshal, and that’s good… it’s good to have no more worries weighing on your mind.”

…

He tossed the cloth back onto the cart but didn’t bother covering the weapons again, only telling the man beside him as the cart moved on: “No need to cover it up. Most of them will recognize whose weapon this or that is… let them look, no harm in it.”

He walked on, his tone easy, his figure, from behind, carrying a certain careless grace.