Just as Zhou Tong had said, whether people of the greenwood lived well or poorly, what they truly cared about, above all, was face. That was true enough of others, but Zhou Tong himself was not entirely above it either.

As a sage of the martial way nearing seventy, there was little to fault in the old man’s character. For the sake of famine relief he had, within a span of months, personally visited over a hundred bandit strongholds; on hearing of the matter concerning Ning Yi, he had traveled a thousand li at his advanced age. So long as a thing was good at heart and in keeping with righteousness, the old man would never begrudge the effort — or even far more — even without reward, even if no one else would ever know of it.

Yet over the years he had also become the most respected man under heaven. Though he himself likely cared little for the empty title, wherever he went people treated him with the utmost respect, and any idea he put forward was bound to be taken seriously. Even a disciple like Yan Huan — not the cleverest of men — could be spurred by the old man’s arrival to risk life and fortune without hesitation.

Yet on this trip south, though Ning Yi had treated him with courtesy, he had not, in truth, given him much face — in both of their meetings, this had held true — and Zhou Tong did not particularly resent him for it, but neither was he about to press his warm face against a junior’s cold backside. And so, on the second day, once he had finished what he felt duty-bound to do — leaving behind his thoughts on improving the battle formations — he took his leave directly.

When Tian Donghan handed Ning Yi the pages containing the improved formation ideas, Ning Yi felt something of a pang in his heart. But by then his mind was already elsewhere. The matter of revenge and deterrence had been settled with the explosion in the middle of the small county town, and next he needed to return to the capital and then set out north immediately. Because of this whole wedding-disruption episode, things had already fallen behind his original plan — he had earlier sent a letter to Hongti telling her he would be coming to Lüliang, and now he had no idea whether she’d grown anxious waiting for him.

Ever since learning of the Qiyan tribe and of Börte Chigin Temüjin, many of his plans had needed reworking. And for Ning Yi, with so much information still unclear, it was hard even to calculate an endpoint for these plans: which enemies he would need to face in the future, what the minimum bar for self-preservation was, and what the maximum should be — since the strength of the enemy could not be calculated, and the scope of what needed to be dealt with could not be estimated, even the minimum standard for self-preservation became impossible to pin down.

With no fixed standard, plans could expand without limit, and so, however much time lay ahead, it would basically never be enough — even doing everything humanly possible, the work at hand still had to be raced through against the clock. And yet, even under such pressure, he was unwilling to give up his family or the people he cared about; during his time in the capital, he still spent much of it with his wives and children.

Fortunately, he was no longer the bare-handed entrepreneur slowly feeling his way forward that he had once been. Even amid such tension, he could still, in an orderly fashion, keep more than a dozen threads moving forward at once: the growth of the Bamboo Trading House, the training of the household guards, control over storytelling and propaganda, the development of new products, the application of gunpowder, the plan to operate in Lüliang, attention to the Miao Frontier situation… Once he had settled his thinking on these matters, the plans surrounding them expanded rapidly.

Though some of these things were still in a foundation-laying stage with no visible results yet, looking back from where things now stood, starting from February of this year, the plans and projects at Ning Yi’s fingertips had expanded almost to the point of madness. On the matter of improving and applying gunpowder alone, within a single month he had selected more than a dozen directions — including landmines and phosphorus fire — for the fireworks craftsmen in the workshops to experiment with.

Since most of these craftsmen were hardly geniuses, and each had limited ability, many of the projects ran into trouble at first even with Ning Yi’s guidance. The projects around him were like a walk along a high steel wire — but before long, people would find that, taken as a whole, these projects began growing rapidly within a few months. Some failed and were shelved, but many of the ideas, in that state of frenzied, aggressive expansion, still managed to land safely on the shore of success. Whoever was walking that wire was clearly a seasoned acrobat.

Compared to the development of new goods, the enrichment of the Bamboo Trading House’s product line, the expansion of business, and the confrontations with the various clans involved in the famine-relief affair, all of that could only occupy a portion of Ning Yi’s attention — and as for that band of greenwood men in Taoting County, it was an even smaller fraction of a smaller fraction. It was, after all, because things in the capital had already grown so heated — at the gathering to marry Yun Zhu and Jin’er, a group of troublemakers had shown up, and though some were caught and killed on the spot, others had escaped.

That gathering had not been especially grand, but no small number of people from the Right Chancellor’s household had come to offer congratulations — Yao Zunian, for instance, and Ji Kun, and the monk Juemin. Though they seemed mild-mannered in ordinary times, the webs of connection around such people ran deep in every direction. Yao Zunian, a great Confucian scholar of the age, in fact had his own family standing behind him; Ji Kun was the chief steward who handled all the dirty and difficult work for the Chancellor’s household; and the monk Juemin was, of all things, of imperial blood. Ordinary greenwood men and underworld figures would never dare provoke people like these.

At the time, their faces had darkened with anger — and then, because news of the heroes’ gathering in Taoting County arrived at just the right moment, Ning Yi had conveniently made time to head south, in the nature of “you happened to stand in exactly the wrong spot, so I couldn’t help but kick you.” By the time the matter was concluded and Zhou Tong arrived, Ning Yi was already occupied with other business.

The hunt in Taoting County had ended swiftly; as for the problems directly involved, most were left for the authorities to resolve. But the indirect fallout — the spread of the “Demon of the Heart” infamy, the righteous outrage of more greenwood men — carried far more tangled causes and effects, too complicated to attribute to this single incident alone.

Of this whole tragic affair, the only thing that left any real trace on Ning Yi’s mind was, perhaps, seeing Zhou Tong again — the meeting had hardly been pleasant, but the old man’s presence was not easily forgotten. Still, it remained no more than a faint impression lodged in his memory.

Only, unpleasant as their meeting had been, after leaving Taoting, Zhou Tong had gone to considerable lengths on Ning Yi’s behalf across many places. It was not until a year or two later, through some fairly direct gathering of information, that Ning Yi came to know, piece by piece, that the old man had made a point, in his meetings with many people, of bringing up this matter, offering explanations and vouching for Ning Yi’s conduct during the famine relief — though by then the infamy of the “Demon of the Heart” had already spread far too widely, and the Taoting tragedy had already been deliberately publicized, so that Zhou Tong’s words and guarantees could not, in truth, have played any decisive role.

But regardless, thinking back on it at the time, recalling these two unpleasant meetings, it still left an extremely complicated feeling in Ning Yi’s heart.

That, however, is a matter for later, and will not be spoken of further for now.

…

Summer arrived, and in the distant northern lands, after the collapse of Emperor Tianzuo’s power, the Jin state was busy sweeping across the lands west of the now-fallen Liao. And after Zhang Jue’s death, neither Guo Yaoshi’s Ever-Victorious Army nor the forces of the Wu Dynasty stationed north of Yanmen Pass made any further major advances, turning instead to a posture of passive defense.

The situation in the north was delicate, and in the court to the south, an atmosphere of grim vigilance had already begun to brew. That spring, Tong Guan was made Prince of Guangyang for his achievements in recovering the Six Prefectures of Yanyun, after which he retired from office, withdrawing cleanly and completely. Tan Zhen, who succeeded him, began energetically building up his own record of accomplishments — chiefly by making every effort to pacify and win over the displaced people and mountain bandits of the north, and attempting to induce the surrender of Tian Hu, the “Tiger King,” in order to build up a defensive line centered on Taiyuan.

Whether such an indiscriminate scramble for manpower could actually serve its intended purpose remained untested for the time being, but it was easy enough to foresee that the figures on paper would soon look very fine indeed, even as they widened the deficits and gaps in the ledgers of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of War. Qin Siyuan and others had once tried to submit petitions of remonstrance, but the newly appointed Military Affairs Commissioner enjoyed the emperor’s trust, and knowing nothing would come of it, Qin Siyuan, after a token rebuttal, had no choice but to let the matter drop.

In any case, compared to a master strategist like Tong Guan, in the eyes of men like Qin Siyuan, Tan Zhen was no more than a mediocre scoundrel — and a mediocre one could only do limited damage.

Of course, “limited” was only relative to Tong Guan. The slightest stir at court could still whip up enormous waves among the common people. Since what Tan Zhen needed for this first show of accomplishment was results, he was not strict in vetting, leading, or disciplining the troops, and the officials beneath him eagerly answered the court’s call.

Along several routes in the north, greenwood men with criminal records and mountain bandits who made their living by robbery had already begun using this favorable wind to launder their pasts — killing and burning their way to a pardon, drawing supplies and rations from the court, becoming, as it were, tall, rich, and handsome, marrying fair and wealthy brides, reaching the peak of their lives — a transformation exciting even to imagine. Though this shift was still in its early stages, it had already drawn no small number of greenwood men, who rushed to join mountain camps and bandit strongholds with the right connections, and along the way submitted their identities to be laundered clean.

Naturally, the ripples caused by Tan Zhen’s rise to power went well beyond what showed on the surface. Not all court officials were fools or mediocrities; alongside the pacification efforts, they naturally wanted to retain command authority, while the various bandits in the mountain strongholds hoped to keep their independence while still drawing court stipends for free. Some bandits who accepted pacification later realized, to their dismay, that they had foolishly handed over command while the other side had not — becoming nothing more than miserable common soldiers — and so began scheming again from below.

In any case, the issuing of a single court decree meant a shift in the invisible ruling power across several northern routes, and in history, every transfer and handover of power and interest, great or small, was never a quiet affair. The conflicts among bandits, government troops, and greenwood men did not settle simply because of the pacification — under the banner of these half-baked pacification policies, they only grew fiercer with each passing day.

Across the northern land, the court, and the whole realm of the Wu Dynasty, currents of survival churned like the intricate food chain of a great grassland — sometimes calm, sometimes violent, sometimes hidden, sometimes appearing with sudden ferocity. And beneath such a sky, there were still far more people living out what seemed like simple, unadorned lives — only occasionally rippled when the cruel laws of survival happened to take notice of them.

In a small village near Yuying County in the Eastern Circuit of Shandong, Lin Chong sat beneath a tree by the edge of a field, watching a stream flow quietly past before him.

The season of spring plowing had already passed, and this stretch of time was the village’s idle season. Lin Chong often went out to see if there was any work to be found. Sometimes he tagged along with a rather capable local man surnamed Fang to pick up short escort jobs, but he still preferred not to touch anything long-distance or too troublesome.

As for this life he now led, these days in the countryside — he thought he was content. And yet often — as now — he did not want to go home, only wanted to sit a while by this stream and think. Sometimes he would sit thinking for half a day.

The winter before, after seeing Young Master Gao in Daming Prefecture, the confusion in his heart had grown ever more pronounced — a confusion mixed together with enormous hatred, self-blame, and pain. That day he had followed Young Master Gao all the way to the end, thinking that he ought to strike, ought to stake everything, that the time had come for this monster whose crimes overflowed to pay for them. And yet in the end he still had not managed to kill him — and it was then he suddenly discovered just how cowardly he had become.

The village widow Xu — now his woman — was, in some sense, someone who satisfied him, though not for her looks; he no longer cared much for such things. She made him feel warmth. Though at first this widow had seemed sharp-tongued, even fierce, once she was with him she had, in truth, become utterly compliant toward him — perhaps because, having lost one husband, she cherished this man before her all the more. She depended on him, and he, too, had come to feel a certain dependence on her — as if she were the one remaining treasure left after he had lost everything else.

But ever since the winter before, the pain and hatred in his heart often made Lin Chong reluctant to hurry home. Somewhere deep down he thought that he should not so willingly enjoy that warmth; if he found himself enjoying it, wouldn’t that only make him seem all the more cowardly? He carried a hatred this deep, had reasons he could not fail to avenge — and yet not only did he not seek revenge, he was here, feeling warmth…

And at the same time, another part of him, cold as dead ashes, told him he should forget everything, live out his life quietly in this small mountain village and let that be the end of it — that was what he had once thought, until the moment he saw Gao Muen in Daming Prefecture, and the pain piled up all over again.

In his occasional meetings with that “Brother Fang,” he also picked up bits of news from the outside world — mostly from the greenwood, about the Great Radiance Sect, or about Zhou Tong. What perhaps unsettled him most these days was hearing his master’s name. Such feelings kept him sitting beneath the tree, unwilling to go home, sunk in low spirits.

But regardless, when the sun set in the west, he still rose and started back. The woman would be waiting at home, dinner cooked, and at night she would do her best with her body to please him, warming his heart through and through. Thinking of this, he felt a pang of guilt for coming home so late. And it was on this very day, as he reached the gate of his own courtyard, that he heard the sound of quarreling.

“Get out! Get out of here! I’ll chop off your hand… just try it…”

“Heh, and here’s this shrew still acting fierce — your man hasn’t come back yet, has he, and you know he has no intention of coming back at all…”

“Get lost — you know he’ll beat you to death when he gets back…”

“Beat me to death, go on, then! Beat me to death! You loose, filthy woman — you’re my cousin’s woman…”

“Whatever we owed your family, we’ve paid back — now get out—”

“Hmph, still so fierce, are you. Let me tell you, that wild man of yours is no good — look at the scar on his face, he’s clearly a fugitive the authorities are after, branded with a mark… you want me to go report it—”

“Go report it then, go on and report it! Let me tell you, you’ve picked the wrong person to mess with! Now get out — I won’t hold it against you if you leave now, but if you don’t get out, if you keep spreading your filthy talk here, I’ll hack you to death with a knife. And I’ll kill your whole family too, worst comes to worst I, Xu Jinhua, will die right alongside you — you think I can’t do it—”

Lin Chong’s face darkened. The man arguing with Xu Jinhua in the courtyard was someone he knew too — the cousin of Xu Jinhua’s late husband, a man the villagers called Geng the Second Mangy Dog, notorious in the village as a lazy, idle good-for-nothing. Since he lolled about doing nothing and had nothing to his name, no woman would marry him, and so, whenever he laid eyes on a woman, he tended to get out of hand — something he’d been beaten for by the villagers more than once.

After Xu Jinhua’s husband — Geng the Second’s own cousin — had died, this man had no doubt set his sights on her more than once; Lin Chong had noticed as much even before. But back then, having just arrived, looking tall and imposing, with the widow Xu being sharp-tongued herself, Geng the Second hadn’t dared try anything. Now, it seemed, having figured out what he thought was Lin Chong’s soft spot, he couldn’t resist coming to try his luck — and this was probably not even the first time.

Affairs between men and women in the countryside were, in many ways, far more simple and honest than in the cities — but in other ways, far more chaotic too. When an idle man like this came calling on a widow with such loose talk, if she resisted too little, the possibility of assault was not out of the question. Men of this sort were already notorious, with hardly any sense of shame left, and in many villages there was, more or less, always one or two of them around.

Lin Chong picked up a stick and walked in through the gate. At the doorway across the yard, Geng the Second noticed Xu Jinhua’s gaze shift and turned around, saw Lin Chong, and his eyes flinched.

“You, you, you — what are you going to do… surnamed Mu, what are you going to do…”

Lin Chong raised the stick toward him. Though he was in some ways a man of a cowardly disposition, he had spent half his life in the army — a body full of martial skill, a body full of killing intent, and with the scar on his face, when he truly showed the will to kill, few men could keep their composure before him. The vile village lout’s legs began to tremble. “You, you, you’re going to kill someone… you can’t… don’t you know if you kill me the authorities will come, surnamed Mu, you’re a fugitive, that scar on your face must be a brand, you dare kill me…”

Lin Chong’s hand, gripping the stick, paused for a moment — and it was at that instant that Xu Jinhua burst out of the room and shoved Geng the Second flat onto the muddy ground of the courtyard. “Get out! Get the hell out of here—”

The village lout scrambled up from the ground, but kept his eyes fixed on Lin Chong. “Ha, so I was right, weren’t I, surnamed Mu — if I report you, what’ll happen to you… ha, go ahead and kill me if you’ve got the guts, kill me… Xu Jinhua, the two of you filthy adulterers, you must have killed my cousin together, you’ll get what’s coming to you, you…”

Seeing Lin Chong walking straight toward him, he stumbled at the gate and fled in a panic, disgracing himself utterly. Lin Chong stood at the gate, held back by Xu Jinhua. His eyes were shot through with blood, his whole body trembling. A moment later, he swung the wooden stick downward — there came a resounding crack, and a stone slab in the courtyard split clean through with a crack, the front end of the stick shattering too, still humming from the blow. Anyone who had once known him might well have been startled to see how far his martial skill had advanced.

In truth, with his skill, if he had really meant to kill Geng the Second, why would he have needed a stick at all — why would he even have let the man notice him? He could have walked straight in and killed him with a single finger. But he was, in fact, wary of drawing in the authorities; he was only afraid of throwing the widow’s life into chaos, dragging her into all manner of trouble.

He stood at the gate for a good while. Xu Jinhua reached out from behind him, rubbing his back to calm him. “Calm down, calm down, he won’t dare, he won’t dare.”

But after a while, Lin Chong finally spoke. “I’ll go kill him.”

The widow suddenly threw her arms around his hand. Her eyes were complicated, unreadable, and she shook her head almost without thinking. After a moment, she looked at Lin Chong. “Don’t kill him. Let’s leave — take me with you…”

Lin Chong’s body stiffened. He turned to look at the woman behind him.

“You… you’re willing… to come with me?”

“Why wouldn’t I be willing? Whatever the Geng family was owed, I’ve already paid it all back. This household’s an empty shell now anyway, and they still come around every few days making trouble. You’re my man — wherever you go, I go. You… you can’t leave me behind.”

After saving Lin Chong, though she had never asked, she surely had her own guesses in her heart — whether Lin Chong was an outlaw, a bandit, a wanted fugitive, none of it mattered to her anymore. In fact, she plainly didn’t care whether Lin Chong killed Geng the Second either; her only worry was that if he killed a man, he would have to flee alone.

“The rice in the fields… it was only just planted…” After a moment, Lin Chong said, almost without thinking.

“Forget it, forget the fields too.” The woman shook her head. “You — can’t you still find work? I’ll go with you, I’ll be happy eating chaff and thin gruel. Take me with you, let’s find somewhere no one knows us and settle down. I’ll bear you children — don’t leave me behind alone…”

By the time she finished speaking, she too had grown emotional. Lin Chong stood there for a while, then slowly tilted his head.

That night, as darkness fell, they gathered up what few belongings and money they had in the house and left that small mountain village. They agreed to settle somewhere friendly, where no one would know them, farm a few acres of land, raise a brood of children, and grow old together. This was their own new beginning.

At the same time, a little further north, a woman named Lou Shuwan sat on a set of stairs in a mountain stronghold, gazing up at the stars. This was one of the strongholds under the command of Tian Hu, the Tiger King; while she sat there, not far off, a number of men were pointing and staring at her.

There had once been a time when she might have enjoyed being looked at like this, might even have enjoyed exchanging company with certain men. But now, whether it was some pale scholarly pretty boy or some rough greenwood hero, all she felt toward them was ugliness and disgust.

Though plenty of men were watching her, few of them dared come over to say or do anything. She had her own journey to make; she was only passing through here for a single night’s rest. Tomorrow, this woman, acting on the Tiger King’s orders, would lead her escort party northwest. Her destination was Lüliang Mountain, to meet with a great stronghold there and negotiate cooperation, opening up a road for trade.

Since throwing in her lot with Tian Hu, she had already accomplished no small number of things.

This time, too, there would be no problem.

So she thought, gazing off into the distance, her eyes distant and unfocused.