The joke about tofu pudding eased some of the stiffness in the air, but it did nothing to resolve the underlying matter—both of them understood this well enough in their hearts.

Calling Ning Yi a “madman” was, for Chen Fan, perhaps just a way of finding some small excuse to convince himself, in a situation where nothing could truly be done.

If anyone else had been present, they might not have believed what Ning Yi said about family, farmland, and the hope of retiring to some quiet corner of the world—but Chen Fan could sense, to some degree, that it was genuine. Of course, back when they’d first met in Hangzhou, he’d mostly just thought Ning Yi was a somewhat contradictory sort of person. Birds of a feather flock together, and such contradictions showed up in many people—Xigua raised her blade in rebellion while still holding onto ideals of universal harmony; he himself had once felt lost amid the corruption within the rebel army; and Ning Yi… in the end, what this man wanted turned out to be nothing more than a simple, quiet life.

Looking back now on the road behind them, none of them had been spared the storm of blood and violence. The upheavals in this man’s own life were, if anything, no smaller than anyone else’s—the scheming and betrayals back in Hangzhou, the ruthlessness that had brought down the entirety of Liangshan, and now this pursuit, in which he’d briefly overwhelmed even Sikong Nan and Lin Echan with something close to madness. And yet, at the end of it all, what this man said he truly wanted was simply to retreat to some quiet corner of the countryside… He had even, not long ago, killed his own would-be master figure.

By the simplest code of the martial world, Chen Fan knew that at this moment he could do nothing but act—kill him, because a father’s death demanded vengeance.

But on the other hand, Chen Fan also knew, with equal clarity, that he could not kill him here. From beginning to end, this man’s pursuit of them had come from a place of true sincerity—treating him as a brother, treating Xigua as family. That attitude, before he raised the blade and after, likely hadn’t shifted much at all. Chen Fan could even see clearly that, at that moment, his Master had already been beyond saving; if Ning Yi hadn’t rushed forward, if he hadn’t struck the blow himself—that had originally been a simple decision, one whose cost would have amounted to little more than his Master dying a little later, facing a little more risk of capture. The other side understood this too, and yet he’d still gone through with it—and this act, as far as Chen Fan’s side was concerned, had actually come from a wish to avoid adding further risk, to force the situation to a swift, immediate end…

Xigua understood all this too. But understanding was one thing; making peace with it was another entirely.

He’d redirected his emotion toward the court, demanding the elm-wood cannons from Ning Yi—a way of transferring his hatred, an excuse of sorts. But such an excuse fooled no one, least of all himself. Ning Yi had once said that clever people rarely lived happy lives. If he didn’t kill Ning Yi, Chen Fan could only carry, within himself, the guilt and self-reproach he felt toward Fang Qifo. Ning Yi could sense their feelings well enough, but he would never apologize for what he’d done—he could only bear whatever helplessness came of it. As for Xigua, it seemed likely she would spend a long time yet caught between these same two feelings, suffering through them both.

Understanding all of this, and yet still sitting there rambling on with jokes about tofu pudding—Chen Fan could only regard him as a madman, plain and simple.

So he tucked the booklet inside his robe and stood up. Between the two of them, this atmosphere of harmony could only deepen his own guilt further, and so he had no choice but to leave. “I hear Fang Shuchang and Qian Luoning are in your hands.”

“I’ll arrange for their care,” Ning Yi said, nodding.

“One copy of Master Deng’s ledger has already gotten out. An Xifu has another copy with him, still somewhere around here. But I don’t know where he is.” Chen Fan walked toward the door. “If you think this information is useful, keep an eye out.”

Ning Yi, still by the table, nodded. Just as Chen Fan reached the door, he suddenly spoke. “What about Sister Qian’er?”

“Hm?”

“I didn’t see her that night. I remember you fancy her.”

Ning Yi smiled, and only then did Chen Fan’s expression finally, briefly, show a trace of a genuine smile.

“She’s waiting for me outside… we’re going back to the Miao territory. Of course, we haven’t yet, uh… yeah.” Shrugging slightly, Chen Fan shook his head, and as his hand reached the door latch, he paused for a long moment before saying quietly, “Over the next few years, we probably won’t see each other again. Xigua either. Anything you want me to bring her?”

“…I’ll come find her myself.”

Chen Fan waited a moment, and hearing Ning Yi say nothing further, finally opened the door and left.

Led by Zhu Biao, he walked out through the winding little courtyard and back into the distant darkness, where someone stood waiting by the roadside. The woman asked him something; he walked on, shaking his head, though his gaze and his footsteps seemed, somehow, to carry more weight than before.

After Chen Fan left, Ning Yi sat at his writing desk for a while. He closed his eyes, as if about to drift off into a heavy sleep. A long while later, he finally rose, pushed open the window—outside lay a shallow pond. The night had grown deep; fireflies of midspring flickered through the darkness, and the small town slumbered peacefully in the dark, the distant mountains silent, the starlight faint and thin.

Beneath that same thin starlight, hundreds of li away, in a dim mountain valley, a girl led her companions still trudging tirelessly southward, her eyes, in the darkness, carrying a faint glimmer of light.

The mountain road curved ahead, and far, far off from these mountains, along the great river’s shipping lanes, the lights of passing vessels traced their paths through the dark.

On such a peaceful spring night, every window, every point of light, seemed to carry its own weight—sometimes still, sometimes crossing paths with another. Like the paths of every life, moving through that darkness, we never know what turns they’ll take, what collisions they might meet, and what they carry is never only the precious joys and delights along the way. On the road ahead, each of us also carries the weight of failure, the weight of danger, the weight of humiliation, the weight of pain. Only when time has passed on, when some dawn finally comes, when the morning wind sweeps away so much of what we once thought mattered but never truly did, might we finally be able to distill from it all—

the weight of life itself.

The trailblazers of an old era had passed on. Here, time turned to a new page.

…

The sunlight grew warmer by degrees, the morning breeze stirring pink and yellow petals. On the twenty-third of the second month, the Ministry of Justice’s paperwork process had finally run its course, and Ning Yi and his group packed up and set out by carriage for Jiangning.

Over these past few days, aside from one incident in which bandits’ attack allowed two prisoners in the Bureau’s custody to slip away amid the chaos, nothing else of note had occurred. The Ministry of Justice’s side set out escorting the captured remnants of the old Yongle rebels to the capital, and after more than ten days under a pall of grim tension, the atmosphere around Siping Ridge finally began to dissipate. Thanks to this extended period of clearing operations in the area, local security in the surrounding prefectures and counties would remain remarkably good for the next year or two, and several county magistrates would go on to earn excellent marks in their official evaluations as a result—an unexpected windfall.

The battle at the edge of the Dabie Mountains soon spread through the martial world, and it firmly cemented the reputation and weight carried by the name Demon of the Heart, Ning Yi, throughout the greenwood. After all, in the aftermath of the Liangshan campaign, given the limited time and limited means by which news spread, people in the southern regions hadn’t necessarily had much real sense of what that name meant. Upon hearing of the Liangshan affair, some had thought a formidable new figure had simply emerged in the martial world, while others had thought to head to the capital themselves to take his head, hoping to make a name in the process. After this, though, such foolhardy ambitions would likely grow much rarer.

For certain well-informed, deeply established forces within the martial world, the reappearance of Sikong Nan, Lin Echan, and the others was, likewise, news that could not be ignored. Still, those who truly understood the strength of this group were already a small minority in the martial world, and word that this whole Mani Sect faction had immediately suffered a setback at the hands of Demon of the Heart only reinforced, in others’ eyes, just how formidable his methods were. As for most people in the martial world, what they first received was simply a piece of news that seemed, on the surface, almost laughably absurd.

That was the challenge letter Lin Zongwu sent to Zhou Tong.

Much like the Secret Investigation Bureau’s initial reaction, the small portion of martial-world figures who heard this news at first simply laughed it off. But before long, they too would feel the ripples that name would bring.

By the end of the second month, this group re-emerged in the martial world under the name “Great Radiance Sect,” and its leader, Lin Zongwu, chose the simplest, most direct way possible to announce his presence to the world. Alongside issuing his challenge to Zhou Tong, he sent formal challenge letters, one after another, to every renowned school and grandmaster across the martial world, working his way from south to north, challenging one after another.

Though behavior of this kind carried more than a whiff of open provocation toward the entire martial world, the Great Radiance Sect’s own conduct proved far from reckless. Its members championed the weak and wronged, lending aid to the poor and powerless, while sweeping away, in a single night, a number of viciously predatory bandit strongholds within the greenwood. Though Sect Leader Lin Zongwu went door to door issuing his challenges, he maintained a courteous manner in every case; once opponents crossed blades with him, they invariably found his skill overwhelming, often defeating them within just a few exchanges—yet he still treated each defeated opponent with a spirit of mutual exchange and improvement, which won him considerable goodwill.

Among martial-world figures, face and reputation mattered above all else, and to be outmatched in skill while still being treated with such respect made it easy for many masters and grandmasters to accept defeat gracefully. After their bouts, they would openly acknowledge their loss throughout the martial world while praising their opponent’s skill and character. Through this steady process, the Great Radiance Sect rapidly expanded its influence.

Of course, this is a matter for later.

At the end of the second month, just as the name Great Radiance Sect first began to circulate, Ning Yi had already arrived in Jiangning. When they had left Jiangning before, relations with the Su family had grown somewhat strained—but this time, upon their return, the entire Su household turned out almost as one to welcome them outside the city gates. Standing at the front, faintly recognizable by a small scar now marking her face yet still every bit as adorable, was Little Seven; seeing the carriage procession approach, she had already begun bouncing and waving her hand eagerly from a distance.

At the same time, in Bianliang, at the Right Chancellor’s residence—

Reports on the situation at Siping Ridge in the south had been arriving one after another at the Chancellor’s study. A couple of days earlier, Qin Siyuan had, in fact, already read through them one by one, even remarking with a smile to Yao Zunian about how Ning Yi had handled the affair. To them, the ripples of unrest in the greenwood mattered little in themselves—what was truly worth noting was the skill and adaptability Ning Yi had shown throughout. As for whatever private motives Ning Yi might have had in all of this, they might have escaped others, but they were unlikely to escape Qin Siyuan. Still, since Ning Yi hadn’t overstepped any real boundary, Qin Siyuan considered it no cause for concern.

What arrived today was a new piece of intelligence, brought in by Ji Kun, his expression cold—clearly he had already read it through. Qin Siyuan was in the middle of handling official documents; after reading it, his own expression darkened as well.

“This Lin Zongwu—whoever’s backing him, have we identified them yet?”

Ji Kun answered in a low voice. Qin Siyuan nodded, thinking for a moment.

“We have backing of our own, and so do they. Since this matter hasn’t come out into the open, we can’t afford to push too hard against this Great Radiance Sect. As for matters of the greenwood, that’s still Liheng’s to handle. But this piece of information—” Qin Siyuan pointed at it, “—hold it back for now. Don’t send it south. No need for Liheng to see it… he and this group are already locked in a fight to the death anyway.”

“Understood.”

“…The two remaining members of that household—see to it that they’re properly taken care of.”

—On the twenty-seventh of the second month, the family of Hao Jinhan, formerly in charge of the Secret Investigation Bureau’s post at Chongping County and recently reassigned, including his eldest and second sons and three disciples, were killed at their ancestral home in Shuanghao Village, three hundred li from Chongping County. Only his daughter, Hao Yaomei, and her husband, Chen Sinong, survived. The perpetrators remained unidentified for the time being, though based on traces left at the scene, it appeared to be retaliation carried out by Lin Echan’s faction.

Not long after, Qin Siyuan issued a few further instructions, and Ji Kun nodded and left. A single piece of intelligence was set aside in a corner of the Secret Investigation Bureau’s archive and sealed away there.

The door closed behind him; the light receded. The archive fell silent once more, and there, sealed away amid the settling dust, only time itself remained…