“Faster, faster, faster…”
“Faster still—”
“Running that slow! Didn’t your mother nurse you…”
“Jump—”
“Got him, move—”
Excited shouting rang out through the heavy rain. In the dark, wild woods, one figure after another burst out from among the trees amid wild howls and curses, wading through the muddy surging water. In the dim light, most of the men were bare-chested, their muscles hard and powerful — plainly men who had been forged through relentless training, fierce and formidable.
They reached the edge of a cliff ahead and, with a great shout, leapt down. The cliff stood nearly two zhang high — for a man with some martial training, jumping from such a height wasn’t especially difficult on its own, but these men, once airborne, twisted themselves around so they fell backward, back first. Below, in the rain, two waiting comrades adjusted their positions and, with a heavy thud, caught the falling man. Then one of them ran forward at once, while the one who’d just landed scrambled up to prepare for catching the next man.
Nearly two zhang — some six meters — combined with the considerable weight of the men jumping, and falling back-first with no way to cushion the impact through any light-footed technique, each landing came down like a cannon shot. The two men below had to catch the falling weight with all their strength, their arms absorbing tremendous force — some were even driven to their knees by the impact — and the one who’d just landed often had no time to catch his breath before he had to spring up again to catch the next man. The whole scene was relentless, almost suffocating to watch, because if anyone failed to catch a man properly, or failed to cushion the fall enough, the one falling could land flat on his back and have his internal organs shifted from the impact, or worse.
At the cliff’s edge, a bare-chested overseer kept shouting through the rain without pause: “Faster!”
“Jump faster!”
“No hesitating—”
“Trust your brothers!”
“Remember whose soldiers you are — you’re Green Wood Stronghold’s men, you’re under my command, Han Jing’s men—”
“Remember who you are — you’re men of Lüliang—”
“Remember, you’re the strongest there is—”
This overseer, called Han Jing, looked to be somewhere in his twenties to thirties, his body marked with several scars, his skin dark, his muscles knotted and well-proportioned, his arms long, his joints large and heavy — every inch the look of a battle-hardened man of Lüliang. To a woman, he might well have carried a certain rough, powerful charm. Even as he shouted, a figure wrapped in a straw raincoat approached from the side and came to stand beside him.
The figure, wearing both a straw raincoat and a bamboo hat, was tall and broad-shouldered, his face beneath the hat rather rugged. He watched the men leaping down like so many dumplings dropping into a pot, then said, “Fifth Brother, isn’t this training a bit much?”
“Not at all, Third Brother,” Han Jing replied. “Look — not a single death yet. They can take it.”
“Train them like this, and sooner or later there’ll be an accident.”
“That’s exactly the point — only when there’s a real chance of accident do they learn what it means to put their lives in a brother’s hands!” Han Jing said. “Hongti said it herself, long ago — the whole point is to make them trust each other, to trust with their very lives. Only then, when the real fighting starts, will that trust actually mean something. It works well, this method — this is exactly how it should be trained… Hey! You there! Faster! Stop dawdling like a bunch of women—”
The tall, broad man nodded and watched the men leaping through the heavy rain. After a while, as the group neared the end of their turn, Han Jing spoke up. “Third Brother, you saw those outsiders too — they’re formidable. We can’t lose face in front of them.”
With that, he’d already stepped forward. Amid the pouring rain, the water running down the mountainside had long since become its own stream. He rushed to the cliff’s edge, shouted, “Catch me—” and flipped himself down. The rugged man called “Third Brother” shook his head and rushed forward too. “Catch me as well!” — and flipped himself over the edge.
Han Jing and another soldier struggled to catch him below, but the big man was no light weight, and the impact was hard to absorb; once he’d gotten to his feet, he rubbed his chest with one hand, then jogged after Han Jing toward the front.
“When I came, the Chief told me to fetch you for dinner.”
“I know. That outsider’s treating, isn’t he. Pretty-boy scholar… Third Brother, maybe I just won’t go.”
“The outsider’s treating, but it’s the Chief who suggested it. Old Four’s already gone over. You want to make the Chief lose face in front of an outsider?”
“Fine, I know.”
Han Jing frowned. Before long, they made their way with the soldiers to a small clearing in the woods ahead, where over two hundred soldiers had already lined up in neat formation. Han Jing barked a few final orders, handed things over to his deputy, and walked off to one side with the big man.
The rugged man he’d called Third Brother smiled. “You’ve been wanting to meet him for days now, and now that the time’s finally come, here you are getting all bashful…”
Han Jing ground his teeth. “I heard he came to marry the Chief?”
“Ha, I knew that’s what was on your mind,” the big man said. “Not clear yet, but it does look that way. The old man got along well with him, but whether she’ll actually marry him — hard to say. But… don’t bother thinking about it. Hongti doesn’t look down on you, and she does trust you — she just doesn’t want to marry you. No one can force that, no matter who. You’d best let it go, or… it’ll be awkward for all of us as brothers.”
“I know that,” Han Jing said, nodding without hesitation. “But surely I’m allowed to at least wonder. I hear this fellow’s some scholar from outside, a pretty-faced type. I respect Hongti, and so does everyone else — but if she really marries someone like that, what will people think? Will they respect it? Who’ll actually be in charge of Lüliang then — Hongti, or some pretty-boy scholar? I hear he’s even younger than she is…”
The big man shook his head. “The old man’s a scholar too, and maybe that’s part of why the Chief… likes him. There’s plenty still to work out, and it’ll all have to wait until we’ve actually met him. Besides, the man’s no pushover either — you heard what Zhao Si said about him, right?”
“Zhao Si…” Han Jing waved a hand. “Says he’s the Demon of the Heart, killed tens of thousands out there, and came in and smashed up Little Sparrowhawk’s place too. I believe some of it, but a man like that getting close to the Chief — who’s to say it isn’t for some scheme? Maybe he’s just trying to use us Lüliang folk. Scholars are all sly.”
After a moment, he added, “The old man’s different, of course. Him, I respect.”
Talking like this, the two of them made their way to the barracks built of mountain timber. Han Jing changed his clothes, then put his straw raincoat and bamboo hat back on, and set off with the rugged man toward the inner stronghold. Though the interior of Green Wood Stronghold felt crowded, a few areas were kept separate from the main settlement — the training grounds, for instance, and the blast-furnace research site farther up the mountain. The two of them made their way up the mountain path, exchanging greetings with patrolling stronghold members along the way, and then finally approached the small courtyard where Liang Bingfu, Hongti, and the others lived. A good number of people had already gathered there.
Green Wood Stronghold’s governing structure consisted of five chieftains in all, with Hongti at the head. Second Chief Zheng Ashuan and Third Chief Cao Qianyong — the very man who’d come looking for Han Jing — were both old hands of Green Wood Stronghold. Fourth Chief Peng Yue and Fifth Chief Han Jing had once each held their own mountain strongholds before merging into Green Wood Stronghold and becoming leaders there. By now the four other chieftains and several stronghold heads had already arrived, gathered in the main hall. After paying their respects to Liang Bingfu, they spoke among themselves in low voices — a lively scene despite the pouring rain outside.
Ordinarily, the stronghold placed great weight on authority, but most of the time things felt warm and familial all the same. This gathering was mostly made up of those who managed the stronghold’s affairs day to day, along with some of their family members — some twenty people all told. Liang Bingfu sat in the seat of honor, and naturally the largest cluster of people gathered around him; Zheng Ashuan, the steady, forty-something Second Chief, attended to him with great care nearby, though the old man, feeling it wasn’t fitting for a chieftain to be doing such things, sent him off to sit elsewhere. People sat on the threshold of the main hall, and under the eaves outside, others clustered together, murmuring quietly.
The mood at Green Wood Stronghold had been tense of late — rumors about Hongti’s supposed martial contest for a husband had drawn all sorts of outsiders, and the arrivals brought by the pacification decree were, if anything, even more formidable. Everyone felt some unease about how things would unfold. But amid all this, Ning Yi’s sudden arrival had, without question, drawn everyone’s attention above all else.
Among those seated, some had already seen this young man from outside the mountains, others had not. Rumors about Ning Yi had already spread among the stronghold’s core members through Zhao Si’s telling. The word was that he was quite the formidable figure out in the wider world too — though it wasn’t out of the question that this owed itself to his family’s vast resources, an army of skilled fighters he’d recruited, or close ties with the authorities. And amid all this, the rumor that Liang Bingfu meant to betroth Hongti to this outsider was, without question, the one that left people feeling most conflicted of all.
An outsider, a scholar utterly out of place in Lüliang, marrying their stronghold master — if it really came to pass, no one could say what would become of Green Wood Stronghold afterward. Even if he really was formidable out in the wider world, who could guarantee he’d devote himself wholeheartedly to the stronghold’s cause? And even if he did, who could be certain he wasn’t simply using Green Wood Stronghold to build up his own power, or satisfy some ambition of his own?
And so the whispers went on, and when someone finally worked up the nerve to probe Liang Bingfu about it obliquely, the old man simply tapped his cane, and everyone fell silent, turning their eyes toward him.
“I know exactly what all of you have been thinking and guessing today,” Liang Bingfu said with a smile. “Someone from outside has come — a friend of Hongti’s — and naturally you’re all curious, wanting to ask about it. That’s only human nature. As for this man, this old fool won’t say a word in his favor. He and Hongti are inside sorting things out right now, and what kind of man he is, you’ll all be able to see with your own eyes shortly. Whether he’s good or bad, whether what he says makes sense — you can all look, and think, for yourselves. That’ll do just as well, won’t it?”
The old man’s frankness left everyone smiling somewhat sheepishly, though the murmuring in their hearts surely hadn’t stopped. Some time later, at the side door of the main hall, Hongti lifted the curtain and stepped out. As the stronghold’s master, she was dressed today as an ordinary village woman, her expression cool and composed — the same look she typically wore when meeting the assembled crowd — and with the bearing of a martial grandmaster settling over the room, the hall fell instantly silent. Hongti’s gaze swept over everyone, and she spoke plainly.
“Some friends will be joining us today. Come inside and get ready for dinner.”
Everyone nodded quickly. Liang Bingfu spoke up with a smile. “This old fool’s a bit tired — I won’t join you all. Eat on your own.” Just then, someone came skipping over cheerfully — it was Zheng Xiaoshui, daughter of Second Chief Zheng Ashuan — and asked, “Sister Tizi, is that the Demon of the Heart? Is he going to marry you?”
Zheng Ashuan had long been one of Green Wood Stronghold’s elders, and Zheng Xiaoshui, having grown up alongside Hongti, was like a little sister to her; she knew Fu Duanyun and the others too, and never felt any fear around Hongti. Her blunt question struck everyone as nothing more than a joke, and people were about to laugh — but by the curtain, Hongti turned her head slightly, reached up to smooth back a lock of hair by her ear, and answered with a calm, easy smile.
“Yes, I’ll be marrying him.”
Hongti had always conducted herself openly, without pretense, and this moment was no exception. In an instant, everyone’s expression froze in place…