Chapter 720: A Young Man’s First Steps into the World of Jianghu
Overhead, the Milky Way flowed across the night sky.
Beneath the darkness, a remote, impoverished hill and its village lay quiet — the village old, its houses and courtyards few, yet everywhere bearing the marks of long habitation, showing that people had lived here for a very long time. On the hillside stood a temple, clearly a newer structure, its red tiles and yellow walls a rare splash of color in this desolate mountain village.
At midnight, a figure staggered out from the forest on the hillside, making its way unsteadily toward the temple. His steps were weak and faltering; partway along, he stumbled and fell in the thick grass on the slope, then climbed back to his feet and crept forward again in silence.
This was a youth, half his body soaked in blood, his clothes tattered and torn, straw sandals worn through at the feet, his hair matted and wild with dried, crusted blood. His eyes held little light in them, and at a glance, he looked much like any other village boy one might come across in this rustic mountain region. The only thing setting him apart was the battered blade hanging at his waist — worn and old, yet clearly a fighting man’s blade, meant for cutting down other men.
The youth crept quietly toward the temple, his steps and posture growing ever more cautious. He felt his way around outside the courtyard wall for a moment, then climbed over it.
The world had fallen into chaos, and even temples were not entirely without watchfulness — yet, accustomed to dealing only with easily managed village folk, the monk on night watch had already dozed off beneath the eaves. The youth crept closer, hesitated a moment, then lunged forward suddenly!
The worn blade slashed down at the monk’s throat; the youth used all his remaining strength to clamp a hand over the monk’s mouth, pressing him down against the steps. A moment later, the monk stopped moving, and the smell of blood spread through the air.
The youth then crept toward the first building in the courtyard, easing open the door bolt and slipping inside. Within the room were two beds; a sleeping monk snored on one of them. By the faint light, the youth spotted the man’s throat, gripped the blade’s handle with one hand while pressing the flat of the blade with the other, and cut down, then threw his whole body’s weight onto it. Beneath him, there was a brief struggle before it stopped; not long after, the youth crept toward the other bed…
Beneath the flowing stars above, in this temple beneath the night sky, the youth staggered from room to room, killing one monk after another. It was only in the last few rooms that the commotion finally gave them away — fighting broke out within one of the rooms, and a stout monk, his robes in disarray, burst out through the door, a wooden staff in hand, shouting several times, but by then, the blood of the murdered night-watch monks had already pooled thick across the small courtyard.
From behind, the youth charged forward, still gripping that same worn blade, his eyes wild and ferocious as a tiger gone mad, and hurled himself at the monk. The stout monk raised his staff to meet him — his martial skill and strength both far surpassed the youth’s — yet in a life-or-death duel like this, one against one, skill alone did not always decide the outcome. After only two exchanges, the youth was struck across the head with the staff, and the stout monk, before he could even feel any satisfaction, stumbled a few steps forward and only then noticed that his own chest and belly had already been slashed open by a blade.
The stout monk had trained in martial arts before and was no stranger to killing, but a brawl among many was different from a one-on-one duel to the death. He had been certain he would kill the boy easily, and in his tension, he hadn’t even felt the blade cut into his chest. Now, looking down, he stood frozen in shock. The youth had already charged forward again, slashing once across his head and face before darting quickly away, circling behind the monk and striking again. The stout monk collapsed to the ground and, within moments, had stopped breathing.
Another figure now emerged from the stout monk’s room — a woman, half-dressed, still bleary with sleep. In this age, most people suffered from night blindness; she rubbed her eyes, and only once the light let her make out the scene outside did she let out a piercing scream. The youth rushed at her and struck her down.
Another sound stirred in yet another room. The youth’s expression turned agitated; he rushed over and kicked the door open, glanced inside — a woman’s voice cried out from within, someone shouting: “Dog Boy!” This youth, called Dog Boy, knew that if even one more monk remained in the temple, he would surely die. He went and opened the last remaining door in the temple, and finding no one inside, let out a small breath of relief — it turned out that stout monk had been the last man left in the entire temple.
Two women had come rushing out of the earlier room; seeing him, they screamed and tried to flee. The youth turned, his face already smeared with blood, now bleeding still more freely from the blow he had just taken, looking like some demon risen from hell. The two women screamed, and the youth chased after them, cutting down the taller of the two at the temple gate. The other, smaller in stature, a girl no more than fourteen or fifteen, ran quickly, but the youth hurled his blade from behind, striking her in the leg and sending her tumbling into the underbrush.
The girl clawed at the ground, trying to crawl away, and seeing the demonic youth closing in, she wept and cried out: “Dog Boy, don’t kill me, don’t kill me, we grew up together, I’ll be your wife, I’ll be your wife…” The youth walked closer, opened his mouth, and gave a low growl, as if hesitating — but in the end, he still brought the blade down on her head, killing her there in the underbrush.
Having killed this final person, the youth collapsed into the grass, sitting there dazed for a while, before rising unsteadily again and making his way back toward the temple. Incense still burned in the small temple’s main hall; the ever-smiling Maitreya Buddha sat quietly amid this scene of slaughter. The youth searched through every room, rummaging through chests and cabinets, found some rice and grain, then dug out firewood and an iron pot and cooked himself a pot of rice. While the rice cooked, he searched the temple once more, top to bottom, finding gold and silver, food, and medicine for wounds; in the courtyard, he washed his injuries and applied the medicine himself, treating his own wounds alone.
When the medicine touched his wounds, the youth let out a beastlike howl in the courtyard.
After a while, the rice was ready, and he brought the slightly burnt food out into the courtyard to eat, weeping uncontrollably as he did, tears falling one by one onto the rice, which he then scooped up with his hands and ate along with the tears. The night stretched on long; the villagers below still had no idea of the massacre that had taken place in the temple on the hill. The youth found what little gold and silver remained in the temple, a sack of millet, and a new, sharp blade, which he hung alongside his old one, before leaving the place and heading toward the far side of the mountain.
As the night began to lift, the youth crossed over mountain after mountain, and after more than ten li, the sun gradually grew fierce and blazing. Weary and wounded, he found a shaded spot in the mountains and lay down to sleep; by afternoon, he heard voices approaching from outside. The youth got up and went to the edge of the forest to look — not far off, villagers who appeared to be searching were coming his way. He hurried on at once, fleeing into the wilder, less passable terrain. After another ten-odd li of travel, once he judged he had escaped the search area, the land before him had already become rugged, desolate, and unfamiliar wilderness.
This murderous youth’s childhood name was Dog Boy; his formal name was You Hongzhuo. He had grown up in that mountain village, practicing the blade with his father without pause. As the saying goes, poverty breeds scholars while wealth breeds warriors — though the You family’s saber technique held little renown, thanks to the family’s inherited standing, they still counted among the well-off households in the region. Even at seven years old, when the Jurchens first swept south to ravage the Central Plains, the village had been remote enough that the You family’s life had, for the most part, remained tolerable.
But the once-peaceful Central Plains had changed beyond recognition, and even this small, remote village could not escape its effects entirely. When troops came through conscripting, the You family paid them off with money; as famine drew closer, the family’s accumulated resources allowed them to hold on for a while longer. It was only when the Great Radiance Sect came through to spread its teachings that You Hongzhuo’s father fell utterly under the sway of the monks’ preaching, unable to free himself from it.
By this time, the once-peaceful years of the Central Plains had already become something to be sought only in memory. The Great Radiance Sect rose to prominence on the tide of these hard times, teaching that these calamities had come about because mankind had grown too extravagant and lost all sense of reverence — that the Buddha had sent down the Great King of Calamity to bring the Jurchens’ rise, unleashing thirty-three great disasters upon the world to cleanse it of the ignorant and the faithless. The famines spreading across the land, the locust plagues, the rampaging of the Black Banner Army, the endless warfare — all of this, they claimed, was proof of it. You Hongzhuo’s father believed in the Great Radiance Sect completely, and in accordance with its teachings, donated the great majority of his family’s wealth, listening to sermons and reciting scripture in hopes of cleansing his family of sin.
By this particular year, the Great Radiance Sect had already drawn in a great many converts within the village. Though the You family still managed to hold on, most of their wealth had, by now, found its way into the temple’s coffers. Yet the monks within remained unsatisfied, coveting what little remained of the You family’s fortune. One day, under the pretext of praying for rain, the temple staged a “divine miracle,” selecting You Hongzhuo’s mother to be cast into the river as an offering to the Dragon King. You Hongzhuo’s father begged desperately, offering to give up the family’s remaining wealth to appease the Dragon King’s supposed fury, but before the matter could be settled, a monk who had long coveted the beauty of You Hongzhuo’s mother lured her into the temple and raped her.
In this remote mountain region, the ordinary peasant women, worn down by endless daily labor, rarely had much beauty to speak of. The You family, however, had always had some standing, and You Hongzhuo’s mother had once been something of a cultured, refined woman in her own right; since marrying into the You family, her husband had always treated her well, and he would occasionally bring her back small luxuries — rouge and powder — making her far more beautiful than an ordinary village woman. The monks of the temple, made up mostly of quick-witted village men and local ruffians to begin with, had long harbored their designs on her. After raping her, they drove her, half out of her mind, running naked from the temple, and when they caught up to her, they simply killed her outright, claiming she had suddenly gone mad and might have offended the Dragon King, a grave sin — and turned the blame back onto the You family instead.
Seeing his wife dead, You Hongzhuo’s father finally came to his senses. Taking up sharp blades, father and son rushed toward the temple to kill — but over these years, the You father and son had done little more than practice empty forms at home; through a neighbor’s betrayal, a group of monks lay in ambush and struck the two of them down on the spot. The father, said to possess considerable skill, was watched most closely of the two and was killed on the spot; You Hongzhuo, beaten bloody and left for dead, was fortunate enough to survive, and crawled back home that same night.
The You family’s saber technique — his father had only ever mastered the forms, without any real combat experience, and by the time it passed to You Hongzhuo, a boy still in his early teens, he had only ever practiced the routines each day, without truly knowing how to use them in a real fight. And yet, there exist in this world people of peculiar temperament — driven half-mad with grief over his mother’s death, he had rushed to the temple alongside his father, thinking, at first, only of a straightforward one-on-one duel: whatever move the enemy made, he would counter and respond in kind. But ambushed as he was, he had barely managed a single strike before nearly being beaten to death — and it was in that very moment that something in him broke open. Only then did he understand: this was how martial skill was truly meant to be used.
With this sudden awakening, he had returned to the temple and, in that one night, killed more than ten people, including the three women — one of whom had actually been a neighbor’s daughter from the village, a girl who had grown up alongside him, in fact promised to him in marriage since childhood. By then, the You family’s fortune had already been exhausted, and unable to send further support to her family, the girl had been given to the temple, to be used by the monks. In that moment, You Hongzhuo had felt a flicker of hesitation — but before he had time to think it through, the blade in his hand had already come down.
Life along the peach-blossom path, wine beneath the spring breeze; the rivers and lakes of the martial world, ten years beneath a lamp in the rain. Though it began in such bloodshed, this youth’s journey would, in the years that followed, lead him into an entirely new world of his own making.
This year was the eighth year of Wu’s Jianshuo era, the sixth year since the founding of the great Qi dynasty, a full ten years since the Jurchens’ first campaign south. This long decade had crushed over two hundred years of prosperity and peace that had once defined the Central Plains, and even the wealth that had once existed only in memory now seemed like nothing more than an illusion. A youth like You Hongzhuo could no longer even imagine what the Central Plains had once been like; along the road out of the mountains, what he encountered instead were parched, cracked lands, withered crops, and refugees fleeing in search of safety — even though it was still only early summer, a plague of locusts had already begun to spread.
The world stretched vast and indifferent before him, and You Hongzhuo, uncertain which way to turn, found himself instinctively heading south. He had little experience of travel, but being a young man, he gradually came to understand a great deal simply through listening and observing along the way. At this time, north of the Yellow River, though summer had only just begun, many places already bore the marks of drought; after two years of famine and locust plagues, many people, knowing they could no longer hold on, had already begun abandoning their homes, heading south in search of any way to survive.
Throughout these years of chaos across the Central Plains, such scenes played out again and again, year after year. At this time, several regions of the Central Plains had already seen the formation of large bands of refugees, spreading unchecked… You Hongzhuo had, as yet, little real sense of these matters — the area he found himself in was still among the relatively more peaceful parts of the Central Plains’s heartland, where gold and silver could still buy goods. Before long, though, his pouch ran empty, and with his heart still full of hatred, he began targeting the small shrines, outposts, and followers of the Great Radiance Sect wherever he found them, living by the blade, taking what he needed.
Over the following month, You Hongzhuo drifted from place to place, killing another seven or eight people and smashing one of the Great Radiance Sect’s small outposts along the way. Young and reckless, he assumed he had gotten away with it cleanly, but before long, he was found out — though, as fate would have it, he was not doomed after all. This time, those who found him were a band of fellow outlaws from the jianghu, men who lived, much as he did now, by preying on others outside the law. After a brief exchange of blows upon meeting, seeing the ferocity and sharpness of his blade work, they invited him to join their ranks.
At barely more than ten years old, You Hongzhuo tasted his first real taste of the jianghu. This group of six, upon meeting him, swore brotherhood with him at once, and just like that, he found himself with his first band of brothers who felt almost like family. As the others explained things to him, a cold sweat broke out down You Hongzhuo’s back — it turned out that, though he had believed himself entirely without any trace or history, killing at random and fleeing far each time, believing the Great Radiance Sect could never track him down, in truth, they had already been watching his movements closely all along. Had these six brothers not arrived just in time, he would soon have found himself caught in a deadly trap.
These six elder brothers and sisters, men and women both, treated this young newcomer to the jianghu — a boy with real skill despite his youth — with great warmth and affection.
The eldest brother, named Luan Fei, was already a man in his forties, his face scarred from old blade wounds, stern and unsmiling, yet steady and dependable. The second brother, Lu Guangzhi, was tall and powerfully built, his mastery of hard external martial arts earning him great respect from all. The third sister, Qin Xiang, bore a birthmark on her face and was not conventionally beautiful, but her temperament was exceptionally gentle, and she looked after him with particular care. The fourth, named Kuang Wenbai, was skilled with the single whip. The fifth brother, Yue Zheng, possessed a remarkable skill at sleight of hand, and was, of the group, the most open and cheerful in temperament. The sixth, Qian Heng, was two years older than You Hongzhuo, himself still a young man without parents, risen from the common streets, yet fiercely loyal and righteous in nature.
Over the following month or so, the seven of them traveled together across several hundred li, carefully scouting out and selecting two Great Radiance Sect outposts as targets. In the idle hours each day, the seven of them would gather to talk of the jianghu, of the affairs of the world; the fifth brother, Yue Zheng, understood these matters best of all and loved to talk about them most, and through his endless stream of stories, You Hongzhuo gradually came to understand a great deal about the state of the wider world and the legends of the martial underworld.
Sometimes Yue Zheng would speak of the origins of the Great Radiance Sect — of that great uprising that had once shaken the southern lands. That legendary generation of jianghu heroes from a bygone era — the Sage-Duke Fang La, the demon-cult saintesses Sikong Nan and Fang Baihua — and all the tangled fates and grievances among them, until at last only a scattered few survivors remained, who, picking up the pieces, had founded what was now the Great Radiance Sect.
At other times, he would speak of the man once acknowledged, without question, as the greatest fighter under heaven — “Iron Arm” Zhou Tong, undefeated across the realm — who, when the Jurchens swept south, had led a band of heroes northward to fight, wielding his steel spear, the “Subduer of Azure Dragons,” nearly slaying Nian Han himself upon its point. When the story reached the old hero’s death upon the battlefield, You Hongzhuo, too, could not help but well up, his voice catching in his throat.
Sometimes, the group would speak of the many legendary uprisings during the height of the Jurchen invasion, of that heartbreaking battle at Huangtiandang. And at other times, they would speak of that most complex and mysterious of grandmasters, the “Heart Demon” Ning Yi — of his violent rebellion in killing the emperor, of the Black Banner Army’s dominance in the northwest a few years back, holding the Jurchens at bay with reckless heroism, and of how the very mess he had left behind had thrown the great Qi state into utter turmoil, much to everyone’s satisfaction. In recent years, though occasional rumors surfaced that the Heart Demon was not truly dead, most people, by now, leaned toward believing that he was.
Whenever the conversation turned to that great battle, and to the Jurchens’ brutal slaughter that had left the northwest a wasteland of white bone, You Hongzhuo would find himself joining the others in cursing the Jin dogs for their cruelty, wishing he could take up a blade and cut them down himself.
By this time, with so many of the great heroes already gone, the largest remaining powers north of the Yellow River were, perhaps, the Tiger King Tian Hu, who held sway over his own territory; Li Xizhi, the General Pacifying the East, who guarded the Hebei and Shandong regions; the righteous army of a million men under Wang Juyun; and the Great Radiance Sect, spreading unchecked among the people, its countless followers presided over by Lin Zongwu, said to be the greatest fighter in the realm. As for the tens of thousands of “hungry ghosts” — refugees banded together under Wang Shitong, heading south in droves — and righteous armies like the Eight-Armed Dragon King’s forces, their foundations were too unstable to be compared to these larger powers.
All of this, piece by piece, opened You Hongzhuo’s eyes to a world he had never once imagined before. In his mind, he began to fantasize about roaming the jianghu alongside these very figures, dreaming of one day making a name for himself beyond anything he could yet imagine — but the complexity of the jianghu world came rushing in on him all too soon.
About a month after their sworn brotherhood, the seven of them were resting in the mountains one day. As You Hongzhuo practiced his forms, he heard the fourth brother, Kuang Wenbai, arguing with the eldest brother nearby; before long, Qin Xiang joined in to mediate, and Lu Guangzhi went over as well, their voices rising faster and more heated. You Hongzhuo had not yet worked out what was happening when figures began closing in from the distant treeline.
He only heard the eldest brother, Luan Fei, roar furiously: “You treacherous dog—” and then chaos erupted into a full-blown melee. You Hongzhuo caught only a glimpse of the eldest brother Luan Fei and the fourth brother Kuang Wenbai locked in combat with each other before the scene before him dissolved into pure carnage.
The elite fighters of the Great Radiance Sect’s branch temple had come charging in, led personally by the temple master himself — known as “River-and-Blade of the North,” Tan Zheng — and this was simply not a force that a handful of loosely sworn outlaws of the jianghu could hope to withstand. You Hongzhuo watched as the third sister, Qin Xiang, had her arm severed by a single blow, then her head cut off with another. He fought desperately, and by the end, he himself hardly knew how he had managed to escape alive, soaked in blood. Once he had finally broken free of the pursuit, he found himself, once again, utterly and completely alone.
Years later, looking back, he would come to believe the incident had likely arisen from some dispute over the division of loot between the eldest and fourth brothers — or perhaps because the Great Radiance Sect’s fighters had simply focused their attention on the more senior members of the group, allowing him, by sheer luck, to slip through the encirclement. But at the time, the complexity of the jianghu was something entirely beyond his ability to imagine or foresee. He bound his own wounds and fled onward in a daze, with no clear direction.
By this point, all the gold, silver, and grain he had carried was gone. He ate the last of his dried provisions, and all around him lay nothing but barren, desolate land — the wheat and rice in the fields had already been stripped bare by locusts, and even wild fruit in the mountains was hard to find. Occasionally he ate locusts to survive. Because of the many stories of heroes the fifth brother Yue Zheng had told him, though he still carried a blade and there were people living scattered nearby, he could never quite bring himself to use it to rob anyone.
With followers of the Great Radiance Sect scattered everywhere, he hid himself carefully, not daring to show himself too openly. One day, having gone without food for four or five days straight, he collapsed beneath the eaves of a farmhouse, certain in his heart that he was about to die. But in that moment of near-death delirium, someone emerged from within the house and, with great caution, fed him a bowl of rice broth.
Thanks to this, he survived. When he woke and tried to offer his thanks, the family inside only shut their doors and windows tightly, refusing to come out or speak a word. You Hongzhuo staggered away, and not far off in the mountains, finally managed to dig up a few roots and wild vegetables to eat.
After fleeing like this for two more days, one evening he came upon a few travelers taking shelter in a ruined temple in the mountains — with refugees scattered everywhere at this time, encountering strangers like this was no longer anything unusual. The mountain temple still had some of its roof tiles intact, sheltering what appeared to be two households. One group, about seven people, was a family fleeing south together with their children, carrying bundles and a little grain, and they had built a fire in the temple to cook rice. The other group, off to one side, was a man and woman traveling alone — likely husband and wife — the woman’s face covered by a veil, sitting off in a corner eating dry rations. They had even brought along a young donkey.
You Hongzhuo looked at the family of seven and, thinking of how he too had once had six siblings of his own, felt a wave of sorrow rise up within him, his eyes reddening in the corner where he sat. The family, seeing him carrying two blades at his waist, eyed him warily; the sturdy-looking father of the household gripped a wooden staff, staying alert to the youth’s presence the whole while. You Hongzhuo watched them eat their porridge but did not disturb them, quietly nibbling in his corner at the bitter roots and wild vegetables he’d managed to find.
Rain fell that night, and the three parties who had crossed paths by chance spent the night together in the ruined temple. The next morning, the seven-member family rose and began preparing to set off again; the husband among the traveling couple lit a fire using the branches gathered the night before and cooked up a small pot of porridge in an iron pan. The smell of rice drifted through the air, and You Hongzhuo, his stomach entirely empty, hid in his corner pretending to sleep, unable to resist finally pulling out the last of the roots he had saved and eating them.
Even as he secretly ate, the man approached carrying a bowl of porridge and set it down beside him, saying: “Chance encounters like this are a kind of fate. Have a bowl.” He then carried the other two bowls over to share with his wife.
You Hongzhuo sat up instinctively; his first impulse had been to refuse outright, but the hunger gnawing at him was too much, and in the end, the words of refusal never made it out of his mouth. He took the bowl and, as slowly as he could manage, drank the porridge down; when he returned the empty bowl to the couple, he only kept his expression stiff and gave a small, silent bow of the head. Had he been a little more seasoned in the ways of the world by then, he might have offered some word of thanks — but at that moment, he could not even bring himself to speak.
Not long before, when he had nearly starved to death, he had been given a bowl of rice broth beneath someone’s eaves; now, here was another bowl of porridge — as if the world were telling him that it had not yet grown so bad as to be entirely without hope.
But a moment later, despair arrived after all. Eight men appeared from a distance — two on horseback, six on foot — and as they reached the ruined temple, they came face to face with You Hongzhuo. One of the mounted men recognized him at once — these eight were all followers of the Great Radiance Sect, and moreover, men who had once served directly under that same “River-and-Blade of the North,” Tan Zheng. Leading them was a man in his forties, likewise carrying a long blade on his back, who gave a slight wave of his hand, and the eight of them surrounded the ruined temple.
“The Great Radiance Sect is here to apprehend a criminal! This man has murdered members of our faith and is a vicious, ruthless outlaw. Who are the rest of you, and why are you here with him? If you have no connection to him, leave at once!”
The family of seven, having just finished eating and packing up, saw the eight armed men blocking their way ahead and hurried to leave at once. The traveling couple, too, began packing up their iron pot, preparing to load it onto the back of their young donkey. By this time, the family of seven had reached the temple entrance, where one of the underlings among the eight blocked their path, questioning them harshly: “Do you have travel papers?” “What is your relation to this criminal?” “Did you help him carry anything away?” The seven of them hurriedly tried to explain themselves, but were searched regardless.
You Hongzhuo’s wounds had not yet healed, and he knew there was no escape for him now. Having just finished the hot porridge, his chest and belly still felt warm, and he no longer wished to drag anyone else down with him. He drew his blade and stood. “Some Great Radiance Sect — nothing but bandits. It’s me you want. What does this weak, helpless family have to do with it? If you’ve got the nerve, come face me yourself!”
The leading blade-wielder of the Great Radiance Sect fixed him with a cold gaze. “You ignorant little brat. I, Tan, was already a man of renown when you were still nursing at your mother’s breast. You can’t even hold your blade steady, and here you are, death staring you in the face, still trying to play the hero…” He paused, then stepped forward. “Very well then. Since you’ve got the nerve to draw your blade, I’ll start by taking your left hand!”
Even as this man named Tan spoke, You Hongzhuo had already charged forward, both blades in hand. Having, in that moment of near-death long ago, learned to abandon all restraint in a fight, he had, without realizing it, simplified and refined the sword techniques he had once learned; now his twin blades struck out with vicious, relentless force, rushing straight in even as the man’s words — “take your left hand” — were still leaving his mouth. A flash of light cut through the air, and You Hongzhuo instinctively jerked his left hand back, but not fast enough — blood sprayed as his left arm was slashed open, and the worn old blade he carried went flying from his grip.
The blade-wielder named Tan followed through smoothly. “Now I’ll kick your face in.” You Hongzhuo’s vision exploded like a thunderclap as the kick landed, sending him flying backward; his head rang, blood filled his mouth, and he slammed into the wall behind him before coming to a stop. This blade-wielder was, in fact, the younger brother of “River-and-Blade of the North” Tan Zheng himself — though not as widely renowned as his brother, he was, compared to You Hongzhuo, worlds apart in skill. He advanced step by step toward the fallen youth. From somewhere nearby, a voice spoke up: “Not bad, this swordplay.” The blade-wielder named Tan replied, “Your swordsmanship is far too poor. Go ahead and die.”
The two voices overlapped, sounding oddly discordant together. You Hongzhuo, with great effort, forced himself up, spitting blood as he rolled across the ground; the blade-wielder Tan slashed down into the temple’s earthen wall instead, carving a deep gash into it. At that moment, the family of seven, still being searched by the Great Radiance Sect’s men at the gate, watched as the woman among them was patted down roughly, unable to voice any complaint. The traveling couple, too, had already begun leading their young donkey away, their eyes drawn toward the direction of the fighting. It seemed the voice that had spoken earlier belonged to the veiled woman. The blade-wielder Tan glanced back, and one of the sect’s followers had already approached, and upon hearing the words “not bad, this swordplay,” shouted, “Who are you people!?” and reached out toward the woman.
In that instant, You Hongzhuo could only think that he was about to die. His head rang, and the scene before him did not register in any great detail — in truth, even had he been able to see clearly, it would have been difficult to describe just how strange and subtle that moment truly was.
As the sect follower reached out his hand, the woman reached out as well — and grasped the hilt of the blade at his waist.
It happened casually, almost dreamlike in its strangeness, for in that same instant, the Great Radiance Sect follower had also been reaching for his own blade; his hand, reaching for the hilt, was a fraction of a second too slow, and the woman drew the blade from his own waist as though it were nothing at all. The blade flashed, curved upward, swept across the man’s cheek, then slashed left across another man’s face; even as the blade fell, the woman shifted her stance and, with her free hand, snatched the sword from another follower’s grip, spun it once, and drove it straight into a man’s throat. Her body flowed forward, and in a strange, seamless motion, she had somehow acquired two more blades — one forward stroke, one back — a flash, forward becoming back and back becoming forward, one blade driven through a man’s throat, another planted straight into a man’s chest.
You Hongzhuo only caught fragments of what happened. In his own experience, every swing of a blade, every kill, came with the rush and roar of cutting air — and the more forceful and swift the strike, the more the blade’s light seemed to blaze and rage. And yet in these few brief moments, the woman’s simple, understated movements carried no such sound, no flash of light at all; she cut forward, slashed back, even drove her blade straight into a man’s chest, all without the faintest whisper of sound, as if the long blade had simply slid, soundlessly, back into its sheath — and by the time it stopped moving, it was already buried deep within someone’s chest.
A blade flew toward the blade-wielder Tan, and he dodged almost by pure instinct, blurting out even as he moved: “I am the brother of River-and-Blade of the North, Tan Zheng of Tan’s Blade clan — what manner of person dares stand against the Great Radiance Sect—” His words came out fast and urgent, and in You Hongzhuo’s eyes, the woman’s figure seemed to follow him like a shadow; after a few exchanges, the two of them were already several zhang away, Tan’s blade spinning wildly through the air — and yet there was no sound of steel meeting steel at all. As his words trailed off, Tan came to a stop several zhang away, and the woman drew a small blade from the man’s throat.
A blade could not, of course, simply be pulled from a man’s throat out of thin air — and yet in that moment, the woman seemed to have skipped the act of striking altogether, as if she had simply, effortlessly, pulled the blade free from nowhere at all. You Hongzhuo heard her murmur, as if to herself: “Even Lin Echan wouldn’t dare speak to me like that…”
Off to the side, the family of seven stood frozen, utterly stunned. The husband of the traveling couple still stood there, holding the young donkey’s lead. All around, the seven members of the Great Radiance Sect lay dead — some cut through the throat, some through the face, some through the chest — collapsed where they fell, blood sprayed across the ground around them, the mountain wind blowing through to form a scene both bloody and strange.
The veiled woman walked over and said to You Hongzhuo: “Your swordsmanship has something to it. Who taught you?”
In the course of one’s life in the jianghu, one encounters a great many people — but even many years later, when You Hongzhuo had become a renowned grandmaster of the blade, known throughout the realm, he would still remember, always, this very moment. This was how he first came to know this couple.