Horses screamed, the night wind was bitter and sharp, and along the long street unfolded a nightmarish battle.

Amid the chaos, a flash of sword-wind cut through the air—a galloping warhorse had its foreleg severed at full speed, blood spraying skyward as the animal tumbled thunderously across the road. As the horse rolled past, another guard’s face erupted in blood and torn flesh, flung backward. The rest charged forward bravely, only to have their chests split open along with their blades.

The woman’s figure darted through at tremendous speed; five or six guards moved to intercept her from every side, yet none could slow her advance at all. That somewhat clumsy-looking longsword of hers kept finding gaps amid the crossing blades, drawing lines of blood with each stroke, sweeping forward through screams of agony. In the darkness, she was already drenched head to toe in blood, yet even now, with overwhelming pressure, she drove the fleeing Song Xian steadily toward the end of the road.

Both sides moved at astonishing speed along the street. The guards trying to block her pursuit rushed in from every direction while Song Xian sprinted for his life. One guard suddenly cut in from ahead, trying to halt her advance—in the next instant, a flash of the blade tore diagonally from his left shoulder down through his right abdomen, and his body shot backward like a cannonball, blood blooming outward like some enormous flower.

Blades slashing in from both sides tore through the air with a hiss; the woman dropped low, drawing a line of blood across the thigh of the man on her left, then spun upright, seized the back of his head, and slammed his skull into the face of the man coming from the right, all while snatching up a fallen sword and hurling it forward.

Song Xian had by now sprinted several meters ahead, reaching for the reins of a charging horse—the spinning blade she’d thrown sliced past his waist and buried itself in the horse’s leg. Amid the spray of blood, man and horse tumbled forward almost simultaneously. Behind him, the fighting raged on in chaos; he’d barely scrambled back to his feet when, in his field of vision, the woman’s figure was already closing in again, trailing violent sprays of blood.

“You bloody madwoman—”

Bang—

A burst of sparks, and Song Xian’s body was sent flying again, his back slamming directly into a wall’s corner. The guards around him hadn’t managed to slow her down even for a second; he’d barely lifted his head when that crude, ancient-looking blade came slashing down diagonally toward his skull. He tilted his head aside; the blade tore into the wall, gouging out a great spray of earth and stone. Before the lingering terror could even register, in his line of sight, the woman’s right fist suddenly loomed enormous.

A dull impact rang through his skull; the back of his head slammed against the wall behind him, his vision shuddering, blood spraying out. Time seemed to slow, though his reactions were no faster for it—the figures charging in, the sounds of battle, all seemed strangely distant within this trembling, blood-tinted scene. The woman turned, cutting down a charging guard with one stroke; he raised his blade on reflex, but her gaze had already turned back to him.

His arm swung out—but the blade that should have struck her body never landed. Blood sprayed from a severed wrist; the sword-gripping stump of his arm went spinning through the air, crashing into the guards behind him. The woman’s right elbow, carrying the full force of her entire body, slammed into his face, and darkness swelled to fill his vision.

Boom, hummmmm—

He had no idea what had happened, and then a third impact struck again. The wall behind him, which should have blocked his fall, vanished from his awareness entirely, and he found himself flying…

…

The carriage sat parked at a bend in this stretch of road. Ning Yi had arrived not long before, standing in the darkness beneath a tree, watching the scene unfold at the far end of the street.

He hadn’t witnessed the entire fight, but the devastation strewn across the street already told the whole story—the wreckage of two carriages, corpses upon corpses, pools of blood, warhorses with severed legs lying on the ground, some still struggling and moaning. Traces of the battle stretched along the entire length of the street, though the most astonishing scene was this final stretch.

Song Xian had originally joined the fighting himself, but the pressure the woman exerted proved simply too overwhelming—by the time Ning Yi arrived, he’d already been preparing to flee. But there was no escape. Most of the horses had been injured, and the guards who’d chosen to fight on foot were throwing everything they had into blocking the woman’s pursuit, the battle sweeping forward at astonishing speed. Still, they couldn’t hold her back. Blood flew almost without pause amid her attacks—guards lightly wounded, guards gravely wounded… they charged in from all sides, were sent flying, until finally Song Xian was run down at the end of the street.

Boom, boom, boom—three consecutive impacts, and then the entire wall at the end of the street collapsed thunderously into view… a chunk of brick went flying through the air, striking someone’s head directly, shattering into dust as the fighting continued…

“Just like that. Just like that…”

In the darkness, Ning Yi murmured to himself, then steadied his breathing, letting out a long sigh.

“This is what I wanted…”

Having watched this much, there was no need to keep observing—reinforcements would likely be arriving soon. Ning Yi turned and walked back toward the carriage. He glanced at a horse standing nearby, alone at the boundary between light and darkness here; its rider was already dead, blood pooling beneath him. Ning Yi walked over, felt through the man’s robes, pulled out a bamboo tube meant for signal fireworks, and tucked it into his own robe. Looking around, he judged there might be scattered households further down the street, but none here—no one should have seen him. He returned to the carriage, turned quietly, and drove off.

“…This is the final struggle, unite and tomorrow, the Internationale shall surely be realized…”

His fingers tapped lightly and quickly against the carriage frame as he calculated the layout of the nearby streets in his mind, the possible pursuit patterns, casually humming a tune that had come to mind, the flickering firelight playing across his face. On it now was an expression entirely unlike his usual one—beneath the humble facade, something wild and indescribable.

How many opportunities might there be—he couldn’t say. There were simply too many variables, and this might well stir up trouble instead. But by now he’d made up his mind: he wanted that thing. He wanted to obtain it…

If he didn’t make some effort tonight, he probably wouldn’t be able to sleep at all.

…

Fireworks rose over the city streets, though more often it was the urgent clang of gongs that filled the air.

This was a chaotic night.

As most of the crowd returning from Egret Island entered the city of Jiangning, the disturbance here had already affected a good portion of the city. Wulie Army soldiers and constables rushed about pursuing the woman assassin darting through the streets, clashing with her several times, more deaths and injuries resulting each time. As the returning residents flowed this way, the assassin seemed to try fleeing into the crowd, but the elite Wulie Army unit following Chen Yong cut across from that direction, forcing her toward the quieter parts of the city instead.

She must have already sustained serious wounds by now, yet her combat ability remained formidable—only someone with an inflated sense of their own skill would dare engage her directly; ordinary constables mostly just banged gongs and drums while giving chase. With so many pursuers converging, the woman darted left and right but could never quite vanish completely.

Tonight was different from Lantern Festival night—by now, the streets in this part of the city held far fewer people, and tonight the woman seemed unusually stubborn as well, unlike that earlier night when she’d fled the moment she was wounded. This time, she’d thrown everything into taking down Song Xian even at such cost, sustaining heavy injuries herself in the process, making it much harder to find an ideal hiding spot here. The Wu Dynasty had no curfew, and though most people, hearing the fireworks and gongs, simply shut their doors and stayed inside, a handful of idle wanderers were still out at this hour. Ning Yi, driving his carriage along the fringes of the unfolding situation, actually held something of an advantage—occasionally encountering soldiers or constables, exchanging a few words, then either moving quickly on or simply being ignored.

Humming to himself, he circled through several city blocks, watching the chaos unfold in the distance, mentally calculating the likely direction of every group he spotted, sketching out the overall situation across the area, estimating where the woman might be and what options she might choose. Making contact with her would be extraordinarily difficult—if he simply drove over there now, encountering her once would be easy enough, but pointless. If he tried some clumsy opening like offering to help her, the most likely outcome would be getting killed on the spot. This kind of thing couldn’t be forced from his side; he needed to find the right circumstances and let her be the one to initiate, leaving room for himself to reveal his intentions only afterward.

Calculating another person’s psychology was always immensely complex, and even though he still, in a sense, carried a mental “staff team” from his past life, he couldn’t say he had any real confidence here. For now, he was alone, and could only proceed on a gamble. A handful of city blocks seemed relatively promising, though within this short span of time, he’d already misjudged the woman’s likely direction twice—one of those missteps had actually offered a usable opportunity, but he’d let it slip. About ten minutes later, amid the occasional bursts of chaos reaching him, he finally spotted a possibility worth pursuing.

The carriage sped along, circling the long street toward the western part of the city, until it reached a secluded alley. The urgent clang of gongs came from somewhere distant, followed by the sounds of fighting—the woman was pushing through the chaos, moving this way. At a certain moment, the visible commotion faded once more. Ning Yi calculated the timing, pulled out the firework tube, popped off the cap, and a signal flare shot skyward, blazing bright against the night sky. He then cracked the whip, sending the carriage speeding away toward a nearby block.

In theory, the direction of the assassin’s flight was now temporarily narrowed down—if he could get ahead of her, his carriage might serve as an ideal bait, with perhaps a thirty percent chance of getting her to climb aboard, and only then might there be any possibility of negotiating something… Having driven two more blocks with this plan in mind, a group of constables suddenly rushed toward him from ahead, spotted him, and abruptly blocked his path.

Damn it…

If the fighting in the distance had still been going on, this group of constables likely wouldn’t have bothered with him—but at the moment, the woman’s trail had temporarily gone cold, so Ning Yi had no choice but to stop and let them search. The carriage bore the banner of the Consort’s residence, so the constables naturally didn’t dare give him too much trouble; after a quick check, they immediately spoke apologetically and waved him through—but considerable time had already been lost. By the time Ning Yi pressed forward again, the woman’s position had already moved well beyond where he’d predicted.

Unexpected setbacks were always to be expected—Ning Yi had known this from the start—but having one arise now genuinely felt like a real pity. Having already used up the signal flare, he no longer had any means of controlling the direction of her flight. Before long, the woman’s path continued shifting steadily eastward, and Ning Yi slowly drove his carriage away from the dangerous center of the action. Pressing further in that direction now would be pointless—even if he genuinely managed to save the woman, he’d likely be unable to avoid inspection by the Wulie Army soldiers and constables regardless, and the risk-to-reward ratio had tipped too far out of balance to justify the gamble.

What a shame—I wonder if I’ll ever run into someone this formidable again…

Thinking this, he drove back toward the Su residence. Behind him, the chaos had fallen silent for a long while, but when another signal flare and the clang of gongs caught his attention once more, he suddenly realized the direction of the commotion had swung back this way after all…

…

At a relatively secluded lakeshore on the city’s western side, Ning Yi drove his carriage along the road skirting the lake—on one side lay the quiet water and trees, on the other, high walls hung with lanterns around a grand estate. The occasional passerby could be seen on the road, likely returning from the flower-queen contest. In the distance behind the carriage, a unit of Wulie Army soldiers had rounded a bend in the road and seemed to be heading this way; ahead, where the road forked, constables were patrolling toward this same junction. Ning Yi recalled the location of the fighting not long before and, near the fork in the road, brought the carriage to a quiet stop, stepped down, and stretched lazily.

…

By the dark lakeshore, the woman lay wrapped in a length of black cloth, hidden silently in the deep grass beneath the trees, steadying her breathing, trying to keep still enough that the blood on her body wouldn’t leave too much of a trail, patiently waiting for the converging search parties to pass.

That carriage had stopped not far from where she hid, and she watched as the driver climbed down, stretched lazily, and walked toward the lakeshore, humming some odd, unhurried tune, bending down to search for something in the grass…