At the Little Cang River, the sun shone bright. For the underworld figures who had come to attack, this was a brutal day.

Ever since Ning Yi’s regicide, throughout this past year or so, martial-world figures had come, month after month, attempting to assassinate him at the Little Cang River. They trickled in a few at a time, either killed outright or discovered on the valley’s outskirts and forced to flee, wounded. Sometimes they caused a handful of casualties within the Little Cang River, but nothing that affected the larger picture. Yet across Wu Dynasty society and the martial underworld alike, the name “Devil-Hearted One” had long since fallen into deeply negative repute.

Over the six-plus months since being assigned this task, Chief Constable Fan Zhong had been running himself ragged rallying underworld heroes, preparing for the assassination of Ning Yi. Before this, the Bamboo Registry had already dramatized Zhou Tong’s assassination of Nian Han into something tragic and heroic; when Fan Zhong went to recruit people, not a few righteously indignant underworld figures had instead been stirred up by the Bamboo Registry’s own propaganda—something Fan Zhong and Tie Tianying and the others found darkly amusing.

This time, the underworld figures gathered outside the Little Cang River numbered three hundred and sixty-two in total, a mixed bag from all walks of life—some who had once surrendered after being captured by Ning Yi, others who bore old grudges against him, all called in for this.

Take Guan Sheng and Qin Ming, for instance—men who had been defeated by Ning Yi back at Liangshan, later joined the army, and when Ning Yi rebelled, had gone unbothered at first—but were later purged and found their lives no longer easy. Now they’d been dispatched here to atone through service.

As for men like Lei Heng and Li Jun, after Liangshan fell, they’d been hunted relentlessly by the Right Chancellor’s forces, living in constant fear. When Fan Zhong found them, he offered generous rewards alongside veiled threats, and so they’d come along as well.

But among this group, those who had previously crossed paths with Ning Yi mostly wore complicated expressions when they saw one another.

Aside from its easily-defended front gate, the Little Cang River still had rugged mountain paths circling around on all sides. The attack was timed for daylight, because the cover of night would also make it harder to spot the surrounding traps and mechanisms—that Devil-Hearted One, Ning Yi, was known for his skill with firearms, mechanisms, and cunning contrivances. Since this attack involved several hundred men, choosing to strike at night risked, if anything, sudden chaos catching them off guard instead.

In any case, everyone had already resolved themselves to die if need be. Master Zhou had once nearly succeeded in killing Nian Han with only a few dozen men sacrificing themselves; their own side, with several hundred men together, would surely, even in failure, make that Devil-Hearted One afraid.

—That was how everyone had reassured each other while drawing up the plan.

Only now, faced with the reality of life and death, did the awkwardness set in.

…

To pin down the Little Cang River’s defensive strength across the valley, the underworld fighters chose three separate points for this attack.

First, a small group would sneak up the western slope; whether discovered or not, a group of roughly eighty skilled underworld fighters would attempt to break through the Little Cang River’s main gate at the mouth of the valley. The road there was narrow—easy to defend, hard to attack—but among the underworld fighters were many skilled at scaling walls and moving along cliff faces; even if these fighters made it up onto the embankment, the enemy surely couldn’t just breach the dam. In such a narrow space, the number of people who could actually fight at once would be limited, and besides, there was water on either side—many among the underworld fighters were also skilled swimmers. Led by Li Jun, this alone should be enough to catch the Little Cang River’s defenders off guard.

The real attack would come from the eastern side of the mountain, launched last, taking a path scouted out in advance, going up and over to strike directly at that devil’s lair. According to intelligence from the Ministry of Justice, since the Little Cang River’s entire garrison had gone out to raid grain, even if some defenders remained behind, there could not be many. The underworld fighters might be weaker in formal battle formation, but if they could just break in and find an opportunity to kill the Devil-Hearted One, everyone’s effort would be repaid.

Xu Qiang was among the main force of over two hundred on the eastern flank. He had no idea how the other two routes were faring; this route alone had barely begun when it ran into trouble.

“White Fang Spear” Yu Lie had stepped on a fire mine and been blown apart, his blood spraying all over Xu Qiang—this in itself wasn’t too surprising, since everyone had expected traps before setting out. But the sheer power of this particular trap meant the guards up on the mountain would certainly be alerted. “Chivalrous Thief” He Longqian, leading the group, shouted, “Everyone watch for freshly disturbed ground!”

“Broken Gate Blade” Li Yanni said, “We’ve already alerted them up there anyway—we shouldn’t linger, let’s press the attack now—”

For a moment everyone’s fighting spirit surged—but the real problem arose just a few steps into the charge, when a voice rang out from behind them: “Guan Sheng, I always knew something was off about you!”

The one speaking was Hao Siwen, once a hero of Liangshan. He, Lei Heng, and Guan Sheng were all standing nearby, not moving forward. At the sound, everyone instinctively turned to look and saw Guan Sheng, holding his great blade, his face darkening and shifting. Some people nearby asked, “Guan Sheng, why aren’t you moving?”

Someone stepped forward. “Brother Guan, speak your mind.”

At this moment, though the assault had just begun and the explosion had just gone off—no one knew what enemies awaited up the mountain—people instinctively gathered around. Seeing him apparently resisting, the nearby men instinctively closed in. Guan Sheng swung his great blade in a horizontal sweep; three men’s weapons clashed against his blade, and all parties pulled back.

“After Liangshan, that man surnamed Ning and I had no further dealings. But do you all really think you’ll make it up there today?”

Hao Siwen ground his teeth. “That devil broke your nerve!”

“This is a fool’s errand—suicide, nothing more.” Guan Sheng’s gaze swept across the assembled heroes on the mountainside. “Hmph, Hao Siwen, you’ve got me wrong on one count, but you’re right about something else—given how that devil calculates things, how could there not be his people planted among us? Probably not just one or two, either. Fighting a battle like this, I’d say it’s that Fan Zhong who’s the devil’s man!”

“Slander! Guan Sheng, speak plainly—you dare do it but not admit it?”

Someone charged at him; Guan Sheng spun, his blade flashing, forcing the man back, and stepped away toward the path they’d come from. “There’s little point in saying more at this stage…”

Before he’d even finished, a figure on the slope above raised a steel whip and, with two loud cracks, smashed the heads of two nearby men like watermelons. The man laughed loudly—it was “Thunderbolt” Qin Ming. “Brother Guan speaks true! A mob of you volunteered to come here—how could there not be a spy among you! He’s not the one—but I, Qin Ming, am!”

Someone quick to react drew his blade and charged. “Kill him!”

Qin Ming swung his steel whip in an arc and retreated several zhang in a flash; the man charging drew close again, only for the ground to explode beneath him with a boom, sending him flying, blood spraying across the ground.

Qin Ming stood there, and no one dared approach again. He gave his whip a shake. “A pack of fools! Ruining everything and accomplishing nothing! Calling yourselves men of righteousness, when really you’re nothing but ignorant fools. Do any of you even know why the Little Cang River is empty right now?”

“Don’t listen to his nonsense!” A flying pellet whistled toward him, which Qin Ming casually knocked aside.

“Do you know—the entire army of the Little Cang River has marched west! Two hundred thousand Western Xia troops are now rampaging across the northwest. The whole Little Cang River force went out to fight the Western Xia! And you rats and cowards—when China itself is being trampled and its people suffering, you don’t dare face the foreign invaders, but you’ll sneak over here to throw your weight around and chase after fame. Die here, every last one of you!”

His words echoed through the mountains; once he’d finished, his figure flashed backward and vanished into the distant rocks. The men on the slope stared at one another in silence. Xu Qiang, blood still on his face, felt his teeth go sour, all strength drained from him.

A group of men had staked their lives on ridding the world of this devil, and it had barely even begun before betrayal and infighting broke out. With this chain across the river, unable to go forward or back, how could they possibly fight on?

After a moment, someone shouted: “This is nothing but a ploy to confuse us—that devil is a master of such tricks. We knew the risks coming here; don’t let this shake you. Come, follow me and charge—”

Someone else immediately echoed him: “That’s right! Charge, and rid the world of this devil—”

The crowd roared and surged up the mountain; before long, another explosion rang out, sending someone flying. Figures began appearing on the mountaintop above, and arrows started raining down…

…

Within the valley, the faint sounds of fighting and explosions from outside could be heard. In the courtyard halfway up the mountainside, Ning Yi came out carrying tea and pastries, humming a light tune.

“A great river with broad waves and rolling wind, carrying the fragrance of rice flowers on both banks, my home is right there, mm~ beside it… I’ve grown used to the boatman’s calls, grown used to the white sails on the boats… the girl is just like… a flower…”

By the courtyard gate, the old man stood with his hands behind his back, looking up at the balloons drifting in the sky, the baskets hanging beneath them holding people waving red and white flags back and forth.

“This thing is about to fly away—how will it turn?”

“Friends have come… there’s good wine… but should the wolves come…” Ning Yi hummed, then answered, “hm, it can’t turn. This thing can only rely on the wind—wherever it blows is wherever it goes. Lord Zuo, come have some tea.”

Zuo Duanyou walked over, picked up a pastry, and ate it, then clapped his hands together and continued listening to the fighting outside. “A few hundred underworld fighters, charging up there—most of them dead by now, I’d wager. Seems Liheng really isn’t afraid of offending the entire world. Anger a commoner enough and blood flows five paces—you won’t know a peaceful day from here on.”

Ning Yi drank a cup of tea. “I offended them long ago, didn’t I?”

…

On the eastern flank of the mountain, on a rugged cliff face further back, two ropes now hung silently in place. Amid the noise of fighting elsewhere, several dozen men were climbing this most improbable of cliffs with great difficulty.

Li Pin was one of them. His face was flushed red, the rope having torn the skin of his hands, but with the help of those climbing alongside him, weak as he was, he stubbornly climbed halfway up the cliff.

So far, they had not yet alerted any of the Little Cang River’s defenders, because this cliff face was genuinely treacherous to climb, up or down. Finding a person skilled at scaling sheer rock had been Li Pin’s greatest asset for this expedition.

Ning Yi had spent a full year building up the Little Cang River; even with most of the army now away, sneaking in to assassinate him was still supposed to be impossible. For this attack, Fan Zhong had gathered a large group of underworld fighters, but Li Pin had distrusted this force from the very start—perhaps influenced, even then, by what he’d once learned from Ning Yi: a group with no proper organization was useless.

They were merely bait.

On this cliff face, everyone hung there on the ropes, climbing further up. The wind blew from the west. Li Pin stood on the last foothold, resting before climbing again, when he suddenly froze—and not a few others froze as well.

A giant hot-air balloon drifted out from within the mountains, riding the wind. Li Pin raised the spyglass in his hand and looked over; in the basket in the sky, someone was also looking back with a spyglass, their expression seeming to shift slightly.

The person in the basket lowered the spyglass and waved the flag in his hand vigorously!

“Now—”

Li Pin shouted loudly—

Down in the valley, a cavalry unit began charging toward this cliff.

Before the cavalry arrived, Li Pin’s men had already climbed over the steep cliff face and begun their defense and fighting. Elsewhere, the explosions on the slope continued, and braving the defenders’ arrows, Li Yanni and the others, drenched in blood, charged into the valley, hoping to find someone to fight—but the defenders above had already begun retreating faster than expected, and those charging down fell once more into traps and arrow ambushes.

Along the outer slopes, bloodstains and scattered corpses now lay everywhere—some already dead, some lying still among the rocks and soil, too afraid to move for fear an explosion might go off nearby at any moment; and some of the wounded were crying out in pain on this increasingly quiet stretch of mountainside.

Those who broke through into the valley pressed on a while further before someone finally emerged to engage them. Small groups of three to five men rushed at the scattered underworld fighters, cutting them down before retreating. “City-Burning Spear” Zhu Biao, Yuwen Feidu, Xiao Hei, and others moved like ghosts, reaping the lives of stragglers. For the attackers, this fight—already an unequal one—felt like sinking into a swamp. They pressed on toward the courtyard on the mountainside—the valley wasn’t large, after all, and from where they were, they could already make out Ning Yi and the others by the courtyard in the distance.

Meanwhile, Li Pin’s group was also struggling forward under the cavalry’s “kite” tactics. Of the men who had fought their way up the cliff with him, only some forty-odd remained, their advance and retreat still fairly disciplined and orderly—a tough nut to crack, relatively speaking.

Naturally, Ning Yi had never intended to meet them with brute force.

Chen Fan, Ji Qian’er, and other elite defenders were already stationed near the courtyard, waiting for Li Pin’s group to arrive.

Zuo Duanyou watched the column charging down from the northeastern slope, frowning slightly. “You don’t plan to kill them right away?”

“A frontal assault would still cause some casualties. By the time they’ve fought their way here, their fighting spirit will have mostly worn out,” Ning Yi said, teacup in hand, glancing over. “Besides, there’s a friend among them I haven’t seen in a long while—we should meet. Lord Zuo should meet him too.”

“Oh?”

“His name is Li Pin. He once held Taiyuan alongside Elder Brother Qin, through nine deaths and one narrow escape. He’s been tempered by experience since then—a fine scholar.” Ning Yi tilted his head toward Zuo Duanyou. “He could… carry on the Confucian tradition.”

“Carry it on?” The old man frowned.

Ning Yi nodded, offering no further explanation.

Before long, the two groups met on a stretch of open ground a few dozen meters in front of the small courtyard, preparing to engage. Around the courtyard, more than a dozen large shields were pulled out and set in a line like a wall; those defending the Little Cang River rushed out from all directions, their bows and blades all pointed that way.

Of those who had managed to reach this point, barely over a hundred remained—yet those now charging out from nearby numbered a full three to five hundred, surrounding the slope entirely. In truth, from the moment Li Pin’s group had been discovered, they had never stood a chance; now, one final charge would decide it all.

Xu Qiang was among this group, his heart filled with cold despair. As a martial artist, he hadn’t thought much beyond it—at first he’d said he’d set aside thoughts of life and death, then he’d simply charged forward on instinct; only now, at this final stage, did he realize this charge might only ever have amounted to giving the enemy a single shock, nothing more. Death, though, was truly, genuinely coming for him.

And what was more, he hadn’t even managed to cross blades with anyone the whole way here; he’d been wounded once by an explosion, taken two arrows, and otherwise had done nothing but wave his weapon around, dodging desperately. If he was meant to deliver some kind of shock to the enemy, that too now seemed unlikely.

Ahead of him, a voice rang out, delaying the moment of his death.

“Brother Li, it’s been a long time. Come, let’s catch up over tea.”

From within the crowd, Li Pin pushed his way through, glanced at the hundred-odd men beside him, and walked forward alone.

…

Past the shield wall, in the courtyard, Ning Yi raised his teacup toward him.

“Three hundred-odd underworld fighters, a few dozen constables and officers… even with the whole army gone from the Little Cang River, we’d still have kept back three or four hundred men. Have you lost your mind?”

The small courtyard, and this plain, simple voice. Li Pin, seeing Ning Yi’s figure, took a deep breath and straightened his robes. At this moment, he knew he was certainly going to die—though he had no idea yet just how far this conversation was about to go.

And so he answered: “I’ve lost my mind? You’re the one who’s lost his mind. The whole world says the Devil-Hearted One calculates ten steps ahead, never leaving anything to chance. Yet who would have thought that, in a fit of rage, you’d kill your emperor and make yourself an enemy of the entire realm. This step you’ve taken isn’t just madness—it’s insanity!”

“Killing Zhou Zhe was a small matter. I meant to rebel from the start. Oh, and this—Lord Zuo Duanyou.”

Li Pin drew closer, froze for a moment, then clasped his hands in salute. “This humble student, Li Dexin, greets Lord Zuo.”

Zuo Duanyou stood there and nodded. “You helped young master Qin hold Taiyuan, setting aside thoughts of life and death—well done.”

“That was merely my duty. In the end, Taiyuan still fell, and countless lives were lost—it hardly counts as ‘well done.'” With that, he stepped fully into the courtyard, picked up a teacup from the table, and drained it in one gulp, then poured himself another.

“‘I meant to rebel from the start’?” Li Pin fell silent for a moment before speaking again. “Rebellion has its proper path! Regicide in the imperial hall—heaven, ruler, parent, teacher—you have no path left to walk at all! Ning Liheng, you are beyond foolish!” You’ll die here today, and you won’t outlast tomorrow either!”

“Rebellion…” Ning Yi smiled faintly. “Then tell me, Brother Li, what path is there for rebellion?”

“You had so many paths—the Lüliang bandits backing you, the late Right Chancellor’s legacy at your disposal, and in the south, Prince Consort Kang as your friend, ties to the household of Prince Kang, who is about to ascend the throne. However you look at it, if you’d simply taken your time and planned carefully, every one of those paths would have led you further than where you are now. But you chose the most reckless path… no, you chose a place with no path at all.”

Li Pin shook his head, looking at Ning Yi, who stood there, still smiling. He poured more tea. “More?”

“That’s enough.”

“Fine. Then let’s talk about the difference between rebellion and killing an emperor.” Ning Yi clapped his hands. “Brother Li, why do you think I chose to rebel, to kill the emperor?”

Li Pin fell silent for a moment. “For the Wu Dynasty’s weakness? For the wronged loyal ministers? For efforts that came to nothing?”

“For the suffering of the common people,” Ning Yi added.

“Is there such a thing?”

“There is. You people always like to look at the big picture—old Qin was a loyal minister, and he suffered, and that counts as suffering—but no one else does? I fought at Xia Village and saw a woman who’d been violated by the Jurchen. When she was rescued, she was skin and bones, utterly pitiful. After resting a few days, she got up and cooked for the soldiers who’d saved her, dressed their wounds. Some men talked of marrying her. On the last day of the great battle at Xia Village, she charged out with a blade in hand—you see, she’d learned to hold a blade, had truly become a person… and died on the battlefield.”

Ning Yi shook his head. “How many people died defending Bian Liang—inside the city, outside the city, all those people at Xia Village—they died trying to save the Wu Dynasty. And after they died, there was no result at all. An emperor bears the fate of countless lives on his shoulders, and he weighs it all like a child playing a joke, taking no responsibility whatsoever. If he doesn’t die, who should?”

“And this—this is for the common people?”

“We may seek common ground while setting aside our differences—we clearly disagree on what exactly it means for the common people to suffer. But I’m the one who went into rebellion for the sake of the good things, the things that feel like they carry weight, things that are precious, and for people. Can you understand that much, at least?”

“You deserve death, but yes, I understand that much.”

“All right. Then, Brother Li, what do you think is the single most important thing in an undertaking as vast as rebellion?”

Ning Yi posed the question and looked at him. Li Pin, watching him, gave no answer. Ning Yi smiled.

“You—many of you—think it’s all about execution, about careful, step-by-step planning, about taking your time. You treat something like this as a cold, calculated case study—take the problem apart, see how it can be made to work. But I don’t agree: any great undertaking, one as lofty as rebellion, the most important thing is its founding principle!”

Ning Yi raised a finger, his gaze turning cold and severe. “Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, crushed under oppression, asked: are kings and nobles born of some special bloodline? Fang La rebelled in the name of equality under the law, no one above another. You’ve read so many books you’ve grown foolish, thinking such lofty ambitions are just something shouted for show, to fool the peasants.” He struck the table with his hand. “—This is the single most important thing there is!”

He smiled. “So why did I rebel? Those who did good deeds died; those who deserved good fortune died; those who deserved to live died; those who deserved to die lived on. To change these things—was my first step supposed to be ‘take my time’?”

Li Pin said coldly, “So you had to kill the emperor?”

“That depends on whether I had the ability to kill him,” Ning Yi said. “If I lacked the ability, of course I’d have to take my time. If I were Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, if I were Fang La, of course I’d take my time too. But I’m not—that possibility was right in front of me. If I meant to rebel, he would have to pay a price. If I could kill him and chose not to, then I’d have no need to rebel at all going forward.”

Silence fell over the courtyard for a moment. Ning Yi picked up his teacup and took a sip. “In everything a person does, in the end, your standards will retreat to some particular point, because the world is harsh. You set the highest standard for yourself—for life, for action, whatever it may be—and when it proves unworkable, you can retreat a little, compromise a little. But in the end, your achievement will be measured by how much you retreated. Those who refuse to retreat even facing death, who endure to the end—only they can accomplish great things. Those who talk from the start about ‘taking their time’ may think things through ever so clearly, but they’ll accomplish nothing in the end.”

“Have you ever thought about what will happen to the people of Bian Liang? What will happen to this world?”

“Nonsense.” Ning Yi drained his tea in one gulp. “They’ll die, of course.”

Bang! Li Pin’s palm slammed onto the table. “They’ll die!?”

Ning Yi’s gaze remained calm. “Choose the wrong side, and of course you die. Do you know—when old Qin was thrown into prison, they threw excrement on him.”

Li Pin roared out, word by word, “Was that their fault?”

“Wasn’t it their fault?” Ning Yi spread his hands, then shrugged. “Oh, it’s not their fault. They’re innocent.”

Ning Yi finished this line, his gaze carrying pity, but it had already begun to turn stern. Slowly, firmly, he shook his head. “No. It was their fault! They are not innocent! They are people of the Wu Dynasty! The Wu Dynasty could not defeat the Jurchen, and so they deserve their fate—”

His voice grew rich and resonant, his inner strength surging, until by the end his voice was echoing far and wide across the surroundings. “You speak of reason and sentiment because you together make up the Wu Dynasty! Farmers till the land and weave cloth, scholars read and govern, craftsmen build homes, merchants move goods across the realm! You all live together! When the nation is strong, the people share in its glory! When the nation is weak, the people deserve their suffering! This is heaven’s punishment! Because the nation faces this world, and this world knows no mercy! Heaven’s law is only eight words…”

His voice carried out, word by word: “—Natural selection, survival of the fittest!”

The sound rumbled like distant thunder. Li Pin frowned, wanting to say something, but across from him, Ning Yi, after this display, suddenly burst out laughing. “Ha, I was joking.”

At this, even Zuo Duanyou beside him frowned, unable to tell what Ning Yi was really getting at. Ning Yi turned, walked to a box nearby, and took out a few books, speaking as he came back.

“It’s true, though—the people of Bian Liang really are quite innocent. They spend their whole lives knowing nothing at all. The emperor makes his mistakes, the Jurchen come, and they die in humiliation and misery. And then a man like me rebels, and they die in humiliation and misery all the same. Whether or not they know the truth, nothing they say makes any difference—whatever falls from the sky, they can only take it as it comes… Ah, Li Pin, here—these are books Prime Minister Qin left behind. Take a set.”

Ning Yi tossed the books onto the table. “So, gentlemen—in the middle of all this, don’t you notice something off? They’re too innocent. That, in itself, is wrong. How can you commit such a wrong and still remain innocent? So I’ve been thinking—what if we gave them a nation where their words actually carried some weight? That way, the next time something happens, they’d have deserved their fate too, and the logic would finally add up.”

Amid this rambling, almost dreamlike murmuring, something unsettling seemed to be brewing. Ning Yi sat there, tapping his fingers on his knee, seemingly lost in thought. Li Pin, well aware that Ning Yi never spoke without purpose, was still turning over the deeper meaning of these words. Beside him, Zuo Duanyou’s brow furrowed deeply, and he finally spoke.

“‘The people may be made to follow it, but may not be made to understand it.’ The principle behind this is not something to be taken lightly.”

At that, the fingers tapping on his knee stopped. Ning Yi raised his head, and in his eyes, there was no longer even a trace of playfulness.

What he said next was as terrifying as an abyss…