The great river rushed on, the sun blazing bright, a cool breeze stirring the grass and trees across the plains. Carriages and horses rattled along the roads, people moving like shuttles on a loom. Around the Dragon Boat Festival in the fourteenth year of Jinghan, the capital grew lively once more.
After the devastation of the Jurchen invasion from the south, the prosperity of the capital that summer looked very different from years past. Merchants and travelers from other regions filled the streets and alleys of Bianliang even more densely than in previous years; inside and outside the city, people came and went ceaselessly from every direction, carrying every manner of purpose.
Everything lay in ruins, waiting to be rebuilt.
The fifth of May, Little Candle House.
The sun stood high overhead. Inside and outside the crescent-shaped building, crowds had gathered. On the platform in front of the building, two martial artists were locked in a fierce bout, and from every level of the building came bursts of cheering from men and women alike.
Little Candle House had once been one of the capital’s most famous pleasure houses, but what appeared before this building today was no song-and-dance performance. Those gathered on every floor were mostly figures from the martial world, renowned names of the jianghu — among them, boxing masters and experts native to the capital, veteran elders of the Imperial Boxing Hall, and even more, itinerant martial artists from elsewhere, each with a different look and bearing.
Some were tall and imposing, exuding calm authority, bringing young disciples or attendants along — these were master teachers who ran schools elsewhere. Some carried blades or swords, their eyes arrogant, typically young men newly out to make a name for themselves, with some skill to their name. There were monks and Daoist priests, elderly men and women who looked utterly unremarkable but were in truth the most formidable of all. Today being the Dragon Boat Festival, several hundred heroes of the martial world had gathered here, adding color and spectacle to the capital’s grand martial gathering, and also seeking a path to fame.
At the front of the upper floor sat various officials of the capital, along with the heads of great and prominent households, who had come to lend support and scout for talent — though this wasn’t the season for the martial examinations, the capital, having just suffered the ravages of war, had seen martial artists become highly sought after. Amid all the various goings-on, gatherings like this had also sprung up, effectively amounting to a martial world convention. Though whoever was chosen “the greatest under heaven” might not truly command universal respect, it was still a chance to make a name, drawing martial artists flocking to the capital during this period.
Seated slightly off-center in the middle of the hall, one hand resting on his great blade Juque, sitting composed and upright as a pine tree, occasionally exchanging comments with those beside him, was none other than Tie Tianying, chief constable of the Ministry of Justice.
…
At the end of last year, the land for a hundred li around Bianliang had turned into a battlefield; enormous numbers of people had fled the area, and when the Jurchens laid siege to the city, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians had died in battles large and small. As a result, by the time the Jurchens withdrew, the capital had already seen massive gaps open up — in population, in goods, and likewise, in power.
The Wu Dynasty flourished, and so people from other regions flocked here in droves.
Merchants pursue profit; they may fear war, but they never shy from opportunity. In the wars between the Wu Dynasty and the Liao before, the Wu side had also suffered repeated defeats. After negotiations, paying annual tribute might sound like a humiliating loss of sovereignty, but the mutual border trade that followed filled every gap that had opened up. The Jurchens were brutal, but they could only strike so many times before perhaps falling into that same old cycle. The capital wasn’t entirely at peace, but such a vacuum — how often could that happen within a hundred years?
Major merchant houses from other regions had their eyes on the profits from border trade, while smaller and mid-sized merchants could make a fortune simply by hauling goods to the capital. Meanwhile, wealthy clans and prominent families elsewhere eyed the power vacuum now open in the capital, pushing their officials and merchants to come and seize a share of the opportunity. Scholars who’d heard of the southern invasion, carrying hopes of saving the nation, came to the capital as well, either promoting their ideas for national salvation or seeking to serve under some powerful figure, hoping to find a path into office. In every respect, the capital grew ever livelier because of it.
With matters on the open, legitimate side flourishing as they were, the underworld and the martial world were far from calm either. Having mastered both scholarship and martial arts, and selling one’s skills to serve those in power, remained a common path for people of the martial world — even if one couldn’t enter the grand halls of the imperial bureaucracy, latching onto some great and powerful household or clan was often a way to make a living. At this time, all sorts of underworld and martial figures were converging on the capital as well — some alone, hoping to make a name through skill in arms, some in small or large bands, each harboring their own ambitions. And after the Jurchens’ departure, the promotion of martial prowess had had no small effect, so much so that in these recent times, gatherings of grandmasters and skilled fighters kept springing up both inside and outside the city, with a fair number of renowned veterans and spirited young men managing to make names for themselves in the capital through sheer nerve.
And beneath the surface of this wave of martial fervor, assassinations and private duels born of various power struggles and conflicts of interest kept erupting one after another, endlessly.
The renowned underworld figures and martial masters who’d originally held sway in the capital were thus hit hard as well. Those experts and powerful figures who’d survived the siege of the city now found themselves challenged by newcomers, or had quietly retired. As the saying goes, the waves behind push the waves ahead; one generation buries the last. Those who managed to hold their ground through this period were, in truth, not many.
The struggles among lower-tier martial figures, the infighting over official positions, the power struggles among great and prominent families — all of it converged, in tangled complexity, in and around Bianliang, this city of a million people. At the same time, all manner of new developments and new policies were being rolled out. The more than one hundred thousand troops gathered outside the city had already begun planning to reinforce the Yellow River defenses. The convergence of every kind of news and rumor brought the officials at every level of the capital an enormous workload and a state of near-constant confusion. Among them, the Kaifeng prefectural office, the City Patrol Bureau, the Ministry of Justice, and similar departments bore the brunt of it most directly; the Ministry of Justice’s chief constables — including Tie Tianying, Chen Qinghe, Fan Zhong, and others — were all operating well beyond capacity, run entirely off their feet.
The Ministry of Justice had seven chief constables in total; ordinarily, Chen Qinghe held the fort in the capital, handling major cases of great importance. But in ordinary times, though the capital had many great powers, the state of the martial world had actually been fairly calm — if something truly serious happened, it typically wasn’t something the Ministry of Justice’s constables could handle anyway; that was something the great powers would naturally resolve on their own. Now, the situation had changed; Tie Tianying, who’d originally returned to the Ministry to report on his duties, had been kept on, and later Fan Zhong had been recalled to the capital as well — both were first-rate masters of the jianghu, their reputations widely known, and having them hold the fort here was enough to deter no small number of people.
Not long ago, Tie Tianying’s close watch on the Qin household and Ning Yi had been the result of reading the situation from above. The Secret Investigation Bureau and the Ministry of Justice had clashed over various matters more than once; back when the Northern Campaign had been the dominant theme and the Right Chancellor’s household had enjoyed the emperor’s full favor, even Cai Jing had kept a cautious distance, let alone Wang Fu, who was even more careful to stay in line. Later, during the affair with Fang Qifo, Tie Tianying had also been thoroughly outmaneuvered by Ning Yi. Now that the opportunity had come, naturally he wanted to even the score, and bit by bit, the two of them had come to a real head-on confrontation.
After the affair with Su Tan’er, Tie Tianying suddenly realized that if the two sides fought it out to the end, his side truly might not be able to bring the other down — he’d already been wary of Ning Yi’s strange temperament, but to Chen Qinghe, Fan Zhong, and the others, it seemed he was making far too much of a small matter. Once they confirmed Su Tan’er hadn’t died, they set their minds at ease and hurried to deal with the mountain of other business piling up in the capital.
Tie Tianying, meanwhile, had all sorts of matters weighing on him too, kept busy to the point of dizziness — but of course, with more business came more profit as well. Whether great and powerful households or up-and-coming underworld newcomers hoping to make their mark, anyone wanting to establish themselves in the capital, however bold and fearless, still had to show the Ministry of Justice some respect, smooth things over through the right connections.
Endless rounds of banquets, hands cramping from counting money — sometimes drawing in and encouraging promising newcomers with backing, sometimes rapping the knuckles of those who’d overstepped. Amid all this busyness, Tie Tianying still harbored a lingering wariness toward Ning Yi. Yet ever since Qin Shaoqian’s imprisonment, the case against the Right Chancellor had dug ever deeper, and many who’d once been watching from the sidelines had now clearly read the situation and begun joining the ranks of those working to bring the Right Chancellor down. Mirroring the capital’s current prosperity was the steady decline and eventual collapse of the Right Chancellor’s faction.
As Ning Yi had said that day — watching him build his crimson towers, watching him host his guests, watching his towers come crashing down. To an outside observer, every transfer of power, however dramatic it might seem, rarely held much that was truly out of the ordinary. Before Qin Siyuan’s imprisonment, or in its early days, the Right Chancellor’s faction had still been quite active, with others still watching to see how things would unfold — but before long, the faction turned solely to self-preservation. In truth, over the past few decades of the Wu Dynasty’s court, under the joint suppression of the Cai and Tong factions, there had been very few ministers capable of real resistance.
With the Right Chancellor’s imprisonment, the family most deeply implicated was the prominent Yao clan of the capital — beneath the great scholar Yao Zunian, many family members had been arrested by the Ministry of Justice, shaking the very foundations the family stood on. Master JuemÃng, a monk who’d long had close ties with the Qin family, was soon ordered to remain in his temple for self-reflection, no longer able to act on anyone’s behalf. Various disciples and family members closely tied to Qin Siyuan were, to varying degrees, swept up in the fallout as well. As for Ning Yi, during these months of April and May when new stars kept rising in the capital, the Bamboo Notes shops under him had also been shut down one after another in various places — some, egged on by those with ulterior motives, had been smashed and vandalized, the storefronts ruined, never to reopen.
Had Cai Jing, Tong Guan, and others not already turned their attention to this man, few would have paid much notice, in the broader context of the Right Chancellor’s fall, to this faction connected to him. However large Bamboo Notes’ business might be, as a mere merchant enterprise it wouldn’t attract too much attention — every great and prominent household kept clients and retainers like this, mere underlings after all. It was precisely because of the attention from Cai Jing and Tong Guan that officials like Wang Fu came to notice this particularly unusual figure among the Qin household’s advisors — a man of humble origin, yet one who’d repeatedly produced brilliant, unconventional strategies, contributing at several major turning points. Only, after his initial period of activity, this man had quickly grown cautious and low-key, especially after his wife was caught up in the fallout in late April and narrowly survived — the forces under his command had swiftly gone quiet on the bustling stage of the capital, seeming to have no further intention of stirring up trouble.
So everyone else had turned their attention elsewhere.
Only Tie Tianying still kept part of his mind on the matter. Amid the rising fame of “Taiyi” Chen Jianyu in the capital, the southern martial figure “Eastern Heaven Divine Fist” Tang Hensheng and his disciples sweeping eighteen martial schools in a row, the convergence of Longxi’s various heroes on the capital, the Great Brightness Sect beginning to spread its influence toward the capital, and the underworld’s near-daily bloody clashes — every time Tie Tianying passed one of Bamboo Notes’ shuttered shops, an uneasy feeling stirred within him.
From what he’d come to understand, over these past years, backed by the power of the Right Chancellor’s household, “Inner Demon” Ning Yi had held a position of considerable weight in Bianliang’s underworld. He certainly never involved himself in petty things like challenging rival schools, but back in the day, not one of the capital’s underworld bosses had dared fail to show Bamboo Notes proper respect. Some of that, of course, was due to the Right Chancellor’s standing — but no small number of jianghu figures had wanted to kill him to make a name for themselves, and once they entered the capital, they often never returned. He’d had a falling-out with Lin Zongwu, head of the Great Brightness Sect, and had even managed, over the past two years, to keep the Great Brightness Sect firmly pinned down in the south, unable to push north — that alone spoke to real strength.
To great figures like Cai Jing and Tong Guan, this kind of second-rate power wasn’t even worth a glance — but after the Right Chancellor’s fall, the forces Ning Yi still retained in hand turned out to be the most substantial remaining of all. Though Bamboo Notes’ shops had been shut down, and no small number of people had left the organization, its core strength remained untouched.
From what Tie Tianying had come to understand of Bamboo Notes over this time, the enterprise Ning Yi had built was structured quite differently from ordinary shops elsewhere. Though its staff came from all walks of life, once someone joined Bamboo Notes, after a series of deliberate kindnesses and favors, its core members tended to become exceptionally loyal. Over the years, they’d lived together in clusters, working and living side by side, gathering every few days to talk things over, and periodically holding performances or sparring matches.
They’d been through several major events together, including the earlier disaster relief campaigns, and later the scorched-earth resistance against the Jurchens — Bamboo Notes had, internally, promoted these events with tremendous fervor. Were it not for the lack of any formal doctrine like the Manichaean or Great Brightness sects, Tie Tianying genuinely would have wanted to paint them as some kind of underground cult and report it upward.
Among Bamboo Notes’ guard corps in particular, there was a remarkable toughness — some of them were devout Buddhists, given to strange mutterings, performing acts of asceticism unlike those of ordinary martial artists. The Ministry of Justice had preliminary intelligence suggesting they’d once been surrendered bandits from Liangshan, who’d joined Bamboo Notes after a change of heart, seeking to atone — something Tie Tianying, for now, didn’t believe. But these men, when fighting, seemed to take pleasure in self-inflicted pain, fearless of death, and were extremely troublesome. The other group consisted of jianghu martial artists Ning Yi had taken in over time; after several major events, their loyalty to Ning Yi had risen to the level of outright worship — they often saw themselves as fighting for the nation, for the people, for all under heaven. Tie Tianying scoffed at this, but found no way to turn any of them.
Taken together, these people had rarely met their match in the capital, and quite a few among them had even faced the Jurchens directly on the battlefield. Now, with new stars rising throughout the capital, they had drawn back, lying low in secret. Ever since Ning Yi had said to him, “Bring me Fang Qifo’s head again and I won’t hand it over to you,” Tie Tianying had carried a constant sense that the man would never simply let things rest.
Even with his wife now safe, he would still choose to seek revenge.
Because of this feeling, in these days of late April and early May, Tie Tianying had, on one hand, been handling all sorts of matters in the capital, and on the other, using whatever spare effort he could find to try to investigate and infiltrate Bamboo Notes, to figure out what the other side was planning and how they were positioned — only, after the Jurchen siege, the Ministry of Justice’s manpower was already stretched thin, and for the time being he couldn’t spare much effort for this. With Chen Qinghe and Fan Zhong unwilling to wade any further into this murky business, in late April he’d written a letter to Zong Feixiao, asking him to pay closer attention to Bamboo Notes’ movements.
It had been Zong Feixiao, after all, who’d driven Su Tan’er into the river not long before; if Ning Yi wanted revenge, Zong Feixiao would surely be the first target. Tie Tianying believed Zong Feixiao understood the stakes involved.
While attending to these matters on one hand, on the other, the trial concerning Qin Siyuan in the capital seemed to be drawing to its close. Throughout Bamboo Notes, there was still no movement at all. On this day of the Dragon Boat Festival, Tie Tianying had been invited to lend his presence at the martial world gathering at Little Candle House, and there he heard talk of Ning Yi once more.
The speaker was a renowned figure from the Huainan martial world, known by the nickname “Red Fist” Ren Hengchong. Having entered the capital and already defeated two well-known masters, he spoke up while commenting on the capital’s fighters: “Before I came to the capital, I’d heard talk in the jianghu of the notorious ‘Inner Demon.’ This man, hiding in the capital, relying on the Right Chancellor’s power, committed all manner of evil deeds. Yet in this recent time, with so many dragons and tigers gathering here, with the winds shifting as they have — I haven’t heard his name come up at all.”
Someone nearby said, “This man made his name by relying on power in the first place — now that the Right Chancellor’s notorious reputation has come out and he’s fallen in disgrace, this fellow, nothing more than a running dog, hardly dares show his face and act arrogant again. Besides, I’ve heard of this ‘Inner Demon’ too — mostly winning through underhanded tricks and borrowed power. Any person of true discernment in the martial world wouldn’t even deign to mention him. With so many heroes gathered in the capital now, this man’s probably hiding somewhere.”
“He is indeed hiding.” Someone spoke up from nearby, a man holding a fine sword, his bearing tall and upright as a pine — this was “Taiyi,” Chen Jianyu, whose fame had risen sharply over the past two months in the capital. His nickname had originally been “Taiyi Sword,” but since his own name already contained the character for “sword,” people had dropped it from his title, leaving simply “Taiyi” — quietly carrying the ambition of being the greatest under heaven, and lending him an even more imposing presence.
Everyone turned to look at him. Chen Jianyu, watching the bout on the platform, said, “This Inner Demon’s residence in the capital isn’t exactly a secret to anyone who cares to ask around — he lives over near Huangbai Alley, in a heavily guarded estate, likely too afraid of enemies seeking revenge to even dare go outside. Quite a few people have gone to challenge him recently — I went there myself yesterday and formally issued a written challenge. Hmph, and the man didn’t even dare face me, only sent his steward out to answer in his place… I’d once heard people say this Inner Demon had killed countless men in the jianghu, that he might even rival Grandmaster Zhou Tong for the title of greatest under heaven. This time, I’ve learned that meeting the man in person is far less impressive than his reputation.”
“Hahahaha,” Red Fist Ren Hengchong laughed loudly. “Greatest under heaven — how could it possibly fall to him. Back in the day, the jianghu had rebels like Fang La and Fang Qifo, whose names shook the southern skies — rebels, yes, but their martial skill was truly formidable. Sikong Nan’s lightness skill was unmatched, his Soul-Seeking Blade impossible to guard against; Grandmaster Zhou’s iron arms were invincible; Red Face White Hair, though a fleeting presence, still earned his name through real, solid fighting. How is it, now, that someone famous purely for scheming and cunning gets talked up as the greatest under heaven? In my view, among today’s grandmasters, most have become withered flowers — there are a few who might still contend, though — the rebel Chen Fan, for instance, Fang Qifo’s disciple, who personally cut down Sikong Nan avenging his master — he’d count as one…”
“If we’re truly speaking of the greatest under heaven, this old man happens to know someone who’d take that title without question.” Before Ren Hengchong could finish, someone nearby cut in — it was the man known as “Eastern Heaven Divine Fist” Tang Hensheng, founder of the Eastern Heaven Martial Hall, with countless disciples across the southeast, a name of considerable renown. He now said, “If we’re speaking of the greatest, then it’s Lin Zongwu, head of the Great Brightness Sect — not only is his martial skill unmatched, but he’s a man of righteous and gentle character, quick to aid the desperate and the poor. Today, when it comes to the greatest under heaven, there’s no second candidate besides him.”
Ren Hengchong said, “Old Tang, greatest under heaven is something you only know by crossing hands — it’s not something decided by character alone.”
Both men were renowned for their boxing skill; though Tang Hensheng was highly skilled and well-known, Red Fist wasn’t one to be trifled with either — rivalry among martial world figures wasn’t anything unusual. Tang Hensheng smiled. “Brother Ren, what do you make of my skill with my fists?”
On this point, Ren Hengchong had no wish to offend him too much, and cupped his hands. “Master Tang’s boxing has reached a state of true mastery — I too am a practitioner of the fist, and I have great admiration for it, truly.”
Tang Hensheng smiled proudly. “My skill with my fists is hardly worth calling the greatest under heaven, but when it comes to judging the depth of one’s mastery, I do know a thing or two. Early last year, I crossed hands with Sect Leader Lin of the Great Brightness Sect, and a few years before that, I sought instruction from Master Zhou Tong himself. I won’t hide it from you all — I lost both times. But as for who has attained the deeper mastery, I believe I’m qualified to speak on that.”
Iron Arm Zhou Tong and Great Brightness Sect leader Lin Zongwu — these two, one after the other, were figures the jianghu looked up to as towering peaks; even half a year ago, the Inner Demon’s name would have found no place beside them, and now, of course, everyone scoffed at the very idea. That Tang Hensheng had crossed hands with both these men, one after another, made it no wonder he’d swept through the capital’s fighters — everyone present, hearts full of admiration, stopped to hear him continue.
He went on: “Master Zhou Tong — I have always held him in the deepest reverence. In terms of skill, both these men have reached a state of true, transcendent mastery. But if one must truly rank them, I would say Sect Leader Lin’s mastery is unmatched through the ages, surpassing Master Zhou by half a measure. None of you have had the fortune of crossing hands with Sect Leader Lin — should the chance ever come, don’t hesitate to seek his guidance. Sect Leader Lin is broad-minded and humble; far from taking offense at those who spar with him, he often offers pointers freely. I myself received his guidance and benefited greatly from it. Under him, there is no shortage of talent — Mad Tiger Wang Nantuo, Swift Blade Lu Bingyuan, Monkey King Li Ruoque, all grandmaster-level fighters… As for this talk today of the Inner Demon and his sort, they’re nothing more than common curs by comparison. But since we’re on the subject, perhaps in the next day or two, we ought to head over to this Inner Demon’s residence and issue him a formal challenge ourselves.”
As Tang Hensheng spoke, he made this proposal. Everyone present wanted to make a name for themselves — like “Taiyi Sword,” who hadn’t gathered others to go challenge the man before, and so the others hadn’t known of his valiant effort in challenging the Inner Demon, only to be avoided — something he found rather regrettable, and so brought up at this gathering. Now that someone had proposed it, the others agreed one after another, deciding to go together the next day to Inner Demon’s residence and deliver a written challenge.
Hearing them scheme this way, something stirred in Tie Tianying’s mind. His instinct told him Ning Yi wouldn’t be moved by this at all — but regardless, if it could cause the man some trouble, provoke him into losing his temper, his side might find an opening, catch hold of some leverage against Bamboo Notes, or perhaps even get a glimpse of the strength Bamboo Notes was currently keeping hidden. With that thought, he immediately spoke up to encourage them.
These people were, of course, minor, disreputable forces within the capital’s underworld — neither they nor Tie Tianying had any idea that, just a few days later, a massive clash involving Bamboo Notes’ forces, one they’d have no way of taking part in, would unfold right before their eyes.
It all began with the Qin Siyuan case finally being settled, and though there had been some hints of what was to come, the way things developed still went beyond even Tie Tianying’s expectations…