In a moment of dazed half-consciousness, countless clamoring sounds still buzzed in his ears; in the darkness, the scene before him kept turning into a sea of blood, waves rising and falling upon it endlessly.

The waves transformed into the surging crowd, and amid the frenzied slaughter came Wanyan Xiyin’s scream, and then a pillar of blood and a flying head.

Across his field of vision, that figure rose up out of the crowd — it was his wife’s silhouette. Her temperament had always been resolute and decisive; in midair, her hand touched that severed head, and she hurled it violently in his direction.

In that instant, he seemed to be able to see the resolve in his wife’s eyes — and even, deep within them, that faint trace of attachment and longing. And then she fell, charging toward the Jurchen generals, until at last she was swallowed up in the crowd and the sea of blood…

A man does not shed tears lightly, and he was already past fifty years of age — yet in that single instant, he tasted the salt of tears.

The night forest stirred with sound, and Fulu woke on the branch of a tree. His wounds had grown numb by now, leaving his spirit weary and dazed as well. He reached out and touched the head inside the bundle at his chest, gritted his teeth, and leapt down from the branch, running with great difficulty deeper into the distance.

Behind him, Jurchen cavalry were still closing in…

…

Corpses gave off a stench in the air; a dragon tattoo writhed among the ruins.

Across the body, countless wounds had torn what had once been a recognizable tattoo into fragments beyond recognition.

He crawled toward slightly higher ground, struggling to turn himself over. What descended from the sky was moonlight, pale as chalk.

As for why he was still alive, he no longer had the strength to wonder — but in that moment, surrounded by the tens of thousands of corpses in this ruined city that had already begun to reek, he looked up at the sky and, for the first time, thought: how beautiful this moonlight is.

Not long after, rain began to fall from the sky, drops entering his parched lips.

In the darkness, someone rose unsteadily to their feet…

…

The setting sun, carrying the moisture of the rain, cast its last light across the sky. Zhu Biao looked at the note Ning Yi had been reading, and stood there a while.

“That elder, Zhou Tong — I doubt he’d want to be put up on some kind of pedestal…” he said at last.

“He won’t mind,” Ning Yi replied simply, without looking up.

The wind blew across the open fields, making the autumn feel colder still.

Thinking back on it, his own encounters with Zhou Tong amounted to no more than two, and each meeting, it seemed, had ended on rather sour terms.

The first time was in Shandong, when Zhou Tong had come at the request of the Grand Marshal’s office to kill him. In the end he hadn’t gone through with it, but the exchange of three punches with Hongti had left Hongti injured, coughing blood. And afterward, Zhou Tong had meddled further, telling Hongti something about the bond between master and disciple, hinting that she would be better off leaving Ning Yi — which had left Ning Yi thoroughly disliking this stern-faced old man.

The second meeting had been at the start of the previous year, when Zhou Tong suddenly appeared during the roundup of that band of martial artists in Taoting County. At first it seemed he had come to plead for those martial artists, but it later turned out he had actually rushed over a thousand li through the night to stop that band from moving against Ning Yi himself. Even so, Ning Yi still hadn’t warmed to the old man.

After all, both of them were men whose worldviews had hardened into set shapes — each with his own coherent, mature way of doing things, each the very best in his own domain. Once they had seen through each other’s conduct, the points on which they disagreed proved very hard to conceal. And yet, even so, that righteous old man, going about his business in his own field with such upright integrity, had ultimately still earned Ning Yi’s admiration.

The war had only just begun, and every kind of news was piling up, pouring in on everyone all at once. That old man had always seemed so full of life, unbeatable under heaven — even someone like Lin Zongwu, who constantly clamored to challenge him one-on-one, was, when it came down to it, always met with nothing more than a laugh and a shrug. No one truly believed anything could happen to that man of upright integrity. And yet the war had barely begun before he had already died in the course of such an affair.

But thinking it over again, perhaps this was, after all, exactly the ending most fitting for that old man. Success or failure both could have meant death — but when it came to assassinating the commander of the invading army, how could that old man ever have fallen behind others? How could he ever have hesitated?

Seen that way, it came to feel almost inevitable…

Either way, the news of the old man’s death left something hollow in his chest.

“He killed eight commanders, but didn’t get Nianhan. And he only managed to gather a few dozen greenwood fighters — not even as many as the number of people sent to kill me. Really, it’s…” Ning Yi looked out at the rice paddies along the road, shaking his head, muttering to himself.

Hearing him speak this way, Zhu Biao found it hard to respond, his gaze carrying a touch of wistfulness as well. After a moment, though, he thought of something. “But then again… does that make sister-in-law the greatest under heaven now?”

“Hongti, huh…” Ning Yi thought about it, then glanced at Zhu Biao, a strange, wicked grin spreading across his face. “Yeah — ha, you’re right… that does seem about right.”

“Ha ha.”

“Ha ha ha ha.”

“…”

“…”

“You know, there are some people — while they’re alive, you look at them and can’t stand them, they annoy you no end. But then one day you suddenly hear they’ve died, and you think, he shouldn’t have had to go like that. People like that… they’re the ones who truly lived a full life…”

…

The same news spread rippling across half the realm, carrying different meanings to different ears. Some grieved, some rejoiced, some felt wistful, some were indifferent — and of course, far more people simply had no idea who Zhou Tong even was, in the midst of the great tide of the Jurchen advance south. A group of martial artists making a desperate last stand that failed to turn the tide was, in the end, just an unremarkable little wave, swallowed up in an instant by the surging tide.

In Xiangzhou, when the news of Zhou Tong’s death was first heard, Yue Fei happened to be raising money to complete the weapons and armor for his more than three hundred militia soldiers. He had gathered a hundred and fifty taels of silver and was about to hand it over to the officer in charge of military supplies when word came of Zhou Tong’s death.

He had not seen his master’s face in a long time either.

He had studied under Zhou Tong’s instruction, and after completing his training, Yue Fei had gone off to join the army. Zhou Tong had wandered the realm, righting wrongs wherever he went, and had passed through Tangyin three times, each time sending a bit of silver to Yue Fei’s family — but the two of them had met in person only once. As Zhou Tong’s last formally accepted disciple, the two shared a similarly stern disposition. Yue Fei understood his master’s thinking well enough — once a student had completed his training, Zhou Tong would not interfere much further in his affairs — but the hopes he held for his disciple had always been unmistakable, all the same.

“Walk the righteous path.”

That had been all the old man said when Yue Fei completed his training — those simple words alone. Perhaps because the old man’s spirit and body had always seemed so robust, the news of his death left Yue Fei somewhat dazed as well. He stood on the street for a moment, then walked with reddened eyes into the appointed tavern and handed the bag of silver to the officer distributing military supplies.

When the officer invited him to stay for a drink, he found an excuse to leave. The officer who remained opened the bag and looked inside — on the silver ingots were clear fingerprints, pressed in by hand.

“Bloody soldier…” the officer muttered under his breath with a sneer, then finished his cup of wine and left, humming a little tune as he went.

Not long after, the soldiers under Yue Fei’s command received their equipment.

Many greenwood fighters would gradually learn of Zhou Tong’s death through the Bamboo Chronicle’s propaganda — but that is a story for later. And related to this, a man once named Lin Chong, who had since changed his name to Mu Yi, would learn of this news only much later still, amid an even greater chaos yet to come, by which time news of the old man’s sacrifice had already spread across the entire realm.

…

In autumn, at an inn near the Miao territories, there came a sudden crash — the floorboards had collapsed.

Several important leaders of the Great Radiance Sect ran downstairs, and amid the chaos, they saw their sect leader at his most disheveled.

The massive figure of Lin Zongwu came crashing straight down through the floorboards from above, landing squarely atop a table below and smashing it to pieces; splashed soup and broth clung to his body, startling the few people eating nearby half out of their wits.

In Lin Zongwu’s left hand, he clutched the note that had brought the news; his right hand was clenched into a tight fist. He simply stood there, dumbfounded, amid the wreckage of the round table, utterly unaware of the soup and broth sliding down his body. After a moment, his jaw finally began to move, grinding with a cold, grim tension.

“AAAAAAH… AAAAH—”

A roar burst from his throat, and as he raised his head, it began to climb steadily higher and higher. Sunlight streamed in, his wide silk robes billowing as the sound expanded outward in every direction — like the bellow of a great ox, like the toll of a massive bell, swelling further still into something like the roar of the tide or the crash of thunder. Driven by his powerful internal energy, the entire inn seemed to tremble; the sound could be heard for miles, lingering long without fading.

“Who said… that he could just go and die like that…”

When the sound finally ceased, they saw Lin Zongwu, his eyes burning red, shake the note in his hand once, then finally begin walking outside in a daze. Passing a pillar outside the inn, he casually threw a punch at the wooden post. A moment later, half the already shoddily built inn collapsed behind him.

Dust rose into the air, passersby scattered and ran, and Lin Zongwu looked out toward that patch of sunlight — everything had gone pale and colorless.

There had once been an era that should have belonged to him, but for lack of sufficient strength, he and his kind had ultimately been forced out of the center of that era by men like Fang La. Now that he had finally emerged again, he had hoped this era might be his — had known, in fact, that it ought to be his. He had wanted to measure himself against that old man, to see who stood higher; if it truly were the Iron Arm himself, he would have been willing to pay any price for a single chance at victory.

The only regret was that Zhou Tong had already grown old — even if he had truly faced him, there would have been something less than honorable about the victory.

But now, even that one chance was gone from him completely.

In the moment he received the news, Lin Zongwu suddenly understood — from now on, no matter who he defeated, in the eyes of the world he could never again surpass that old man.

…

If there are heroes in this world, why begrudge this head to meet them…

…

The afternoon after news of Zhou Tong’s death arrived, the supply column approached the temporary encampment of the Wurui Battalion; at the camp gate, columns of soldiers came and went, cavalry moved back and forth, and the whole scene bustled with activity.

The heavily bearded Qin Shaoqian came out to meet them with his personal guards. This army of fifty thousand men, originally stationed to guard the area of Shandong and one that had lent its strength when Ning Yi campaigned against Liangshan, was now under his command as Chief Military Commissioner.

“You’re here,” Qin Shaoqian said, cupping his hands toward Ning Yi in greeting.

“I’m here,” Ning Yi replied, cupping his hands in return.

Wanyan Zongwang’s forces threatened Jinan, while Wanyan Zonghan pressed in around Taiyuan. As news of Zhou Tong’s death was worked into the propaganda alongside countless other orders being dispatched throughout the region, the vast scorched-earth campaign was already underway in earnest. And there was still far more work waiting to be done…