Ever since fleeing the pursuit of the Great Brightness Sect, You Hongzhuo had spent several days in hunger and pain from his wounds; only after encountering these two elders the day before had he finally eaten his fill. This morning, sipping porridge while listening to Master Zhao speak of martial principles, he felt a peace and calm in his heart beyond compare.
He knew these two elders were formidably skilled; if he traveled alongside them, he need not even fear encountering that “Heavenly Blade of Heshuo,” Tan Zheng. But such a thought only turned over briefly in his mind — these two elders were, of course, powerful in the martial arts, but having already saved his life was an enormous debt; how could he drag these two benefactors into further trouble over his own affairs?
After breakfast, You Hongzhuo clasped his hands to take his leave. Master Zhao looked at him with a smile. “Where is our young brother planning to go?”
You Hongzhuo thought for a moment. “I… I haven’t quite decided yet. I imagine, given how weak my skills are, the Great Brightness Sect won’t expend too much effort searching for me. If any of my sworn brothers and sisters are still alive, I ought to go find them… And also, that day when we were ambushed, my eldest brother said my fourth brother had betrayed us — if that’s true, I must find him and avenge that blood debt.”
By now he had thought things through clearly. Compared to the Great Brightness Sect, he and his six sworn siblings were probably not much of a concern to anyone. Running into “Heavenly Blade of Heshuo” Tan Zheng’s own brother the other day had likely just been bad luck. With the world in such turmoil, and the martial world in even greater chaos, he need only keep a low profile for a while to weather this storm, and could then investigate his sworn siblings’ murder at his leisure.
“If that’s the case, you might as well travel with us for a few more days.” When You Hongzhuo finished speaking, the man smiled. “Your wounds haven’t healed yet, and you have nowhere pressing to be — traveling together a while longer would give you some company. No need to be so formal about it, child of the martial world that you are. My wife and I are heading south, and we’re about to pass through Zezhou city — that’s where the Great Brightness Sect’s branch hall is located. We might turn up some information there, and once your skills have grown stronger, you can go seek out Tan Zheng for your revenge — that would make for a proper conclusion.”
“Thank…” Hearing Master Zhao say this, You Hongzhuo no longer insisted, clasping his hands in thanks — but no sooner had the first word left his mouth than his throat inexplicably tightened. Fortunately, Master Zhao had already turned and walked off toward the grey mule nearby, seemingly not hearing the words.
In truth, You Hongzhuo was still only a boy of sixteen or seventeen that year. Though he had already witnessed life and death, and had no family left behind him, how could he truly be immune to the taste of hunger, the fear of injury, even of being killed? He had offered to take his leave only out of the upbringing instilled in him since childhood, and the last shred of pride still left in his heart — he knew that once he spoke those words, the connection between them would end. Who would have thought the other man would actually urge him to stay? The gratitude in his heart was almost too much to put into words.
The three of them traveled on together, heading south from Xiangzhou along the official road toward Zezhou. This road, once an important trade route during the Wu Dynasty’s prosperous years, had by now seen its traffic greatly diminished — partly due to the sweltering heat, and partly because of the Great Qi’s policy forbidding its people from fleeing south, which meant that the closer one drew to the south, the more chaotic public order became, and the more the trade routes withered.
This stretch of road, nearing Tian Hu’s territory, still had a fair number of travelers about — merchants, wayfarers, ragged long-distance porters in twos and threes, escort caravans driving carts, and along the way, monks of the Great Brightness Sect could also be seen. By this time, the Great Brightness Sect had countless followers within the territory of Great Qi; though You Hongzhuo had no fondness for them whatsoever, he did know of the sect leader Lin Zongwu’s reputation as the greatest master under heaven, and so he took the opportunity to ask his benefactor couple about it along the way.
It was from Master Zhao’s account that he learned a great deal about the Great Brightness Sect’s history, and only then understood that the “Evil Monk Lin” his female benefactor had mentioned the day before was, in fact, this very greatest master under heaven of the present age.
By this time the Central Plains had suffered through so much war that the oral traditions of the martial world had already broken down; only now-legendary figures like Lin Zongwu, whose disciples were spread across the realm, or Zhou Tong, who had been extensively promoted by the Bamboo Registry in earlier years, remained widely known. Though You Hongzhuo and his six sworn siblings had once heard some rumors of the martial world, the information he’d gathered from them could not compare in detail to what he was hearing now.
The entanglements and grudges among the previous generation and the one before it — the Demon Sect’s Holy Maiden Sikong Nan, the Holy Lord Fang La, the Overlord Blade Liu Dabiao, Fang Baihua, the Nine-Appearing Cloud Dragon Fang Qifo, Iron-Armed Zhou Tong, the Red-Faced White-Haired Cui Xiaolu, and even the Demon of the Heart, Ning Liheng, among other masters of the previous generation or two before — Master Zhao wove them all together in vivid detail, and the once-prosperous scenes of the flourishing Wu Dynasty and its thriving martial world grew ever more vivid and three-dimensional in You Hongzhuo’s mind. Now, all of that had already been scattered by wind and rain, leaving only the former Left Protector, Evil Monk Lin, who now reigned supreme over the martial world, while that Demon of the Heart, Ning Yi, had died years ago in the northwest, resisting the Jurchens.
Some of these things he had heard before, others he had not; woven together simply through Master Zhao’s telling, they left him feeling all the more wistful and moved.
“…If you were to head west along this road, even now it would still be a living hell. In the northwest, because of the three-year war at Little Cangriver, the Jurchens massacred cities in retaliation, nearly turning it into a wasteland of white bones; among the survivors, plague broke out, and now hardly anyone is left there. Go further northwest still… Western Xia — two years ago the Mongols came charging down from the north, pushed past Helan Mountain, and after taking Yinchuan, sacked the city as well; now the Mongol cavalry have put down roots there too, and it’s already become a river of blood as well… The realm is in chaos, and Evil Monk Lin has risen amid it, deceiving a few foolish men and women — it looks impressive on the surface, but in truth, his achievements are quite limited…”
Hearing Master Zhao finish this account, You Hongzhuo suddenly recalled that Madam Zhao had said the day before, “Even Evil Monk Lin wouldn’t dare speak to me like that” — what standing, then, must these two benefactors have once held in the martial world? He hadn’t even known who Evil Monk Lin was the day before, and had not yet grasped the implication; now he thought further — these two benefactors had saved him merely in passing. Where had they come from before this, and what were they now setting out to do? Of all this, he knew nothing at all.
He did not feel it proper to ask. Over the course of this day’s travel, Master Zhao occasionally shared old tales of the martial world with him, and occasionally offered pointers on matters of martial arts and blade technique to watch for. The You family’s blade technique was, in fact, already a fairly complete internal blade style; You Hongzhuo’s foundation was solid, only he had once not understood real combat, and now placed too much emphasis on it — the couple’s guidance could not suddenly make his blade technique leap forward by great strides, but it did help him walk a steadier path.
By evening, the three of them stopped to rest at an inn in a market town along the way. Zezhou was still a day’s journey from here, but perhaps because many merchants and travelers stopped over in this area, several inns in the market town were fairly crowded, many of the guests armed men of the martial world, eyeing each other warily, their expressions far from friendly. The Zhao couple, bearing the name Twin Fiends of the Black Wind, paid it no mind; You Hongzhuo, having only traveled the martial world for two months, had no idea whether such a situation was unusual. Only at dinner did he cautiously bring it up, and Master Zhao nodded. “They’re probably all heading to Zezhou nearby.”
“Did something big happen in Zezhou?”
“To walk the martial world, you must keep your eyes on all sides and your ears open in every direction,” Master Zhao said with a smile. “If you’re curious, go out and take a stroll while the sun is still up, listen to what they’re saying — or simply invite someone for a couple of bowls of wine, and you’ll find out easily enough.”
You Hongzhuo felt a jolt in his heart, realizing the man was teaching him the ways of navigating the martial world. He hurriedly finished the food in his bowl and, clasping his hands in thanks, went out.
In earlier days, worried about the Great Brightness Sect’s pursuit, he had not dared go near such marketplaces at all. Now, with these two elders holding the fort at the inn, he no longer felt so timid, and wandered around the inn’s surroundings for a good while, listening to people’s conversations. After about an hour, once the crimson sun had set beyond the western sky of the market town, he had finally pieced together, from scattered fragments of others’ talk, a rough outline of what had happened.
It turned out that during the time he had been fleeing the Great Brightness Sect’s pursuit, several hundred thousand “Hungry Ghosts” had been crushed on the north bank of the Yellow River by the army of the Tiger King, and their leader, Wang Shitong, was now being escorted to Zezhou.
Though the name “Hungry Ghosts” sounded unpleasant, in the eyes of people of the martial world, this force was not seen as villainous — quite the opposite, it was in fact a rather famous righteous army.
The rise of the “Hungry Ghosts” had come about for entirely understandable reasons. Ever since Liu Yu had established Great Qi with Jurchen backing, the Central Plains had remained in continuous turmoil, with the common people in most areas living in utter destitution. Great Qi had first gone to war with Old Cangriver, and on the other front had been locked in endless grinding conflict with the southern Wu Dynasty as well. Liu Yu, of limited talent, had shown little regard for the people’s livelihood after proclaiming himself emperor — with a single imperial edict, he had conscripted every man of age throughout the whole of Great Qi into the army, imposed countless harsh taxes upon the populace to amass wealth, and, to sustain the war effort, continuously requisitioned — and even outright seized — grain from the people.
Amid such man-made calamity, natural disasters, too, struck without end. The Yellow River had always been prone to flooding, and with the collapse of governmental order, its embankments could no longer be properly maintained, causing the river to breach its banks every flood season without fail. Flooding, combined with drought and locust plagues to the north, had over these years drained away all the accumulated wealth of the Central Plains, driving vast numbers of people to migrate south.
Liu Yu’s regime had expended enormous effort trying to stop this migration — on one hand, strictly guarding the borders, and on the other, no longer supporting or protecting any long-distance travel whatsoever. Anyone without connections, lacking travel permits jointly issued by the court and local powers, who wished to travel any distance, would have to endure repeated exploitation at the hands of horse bandits, fellow refugees, black inns, and petty government clerks; in areas where public order had broken down, it was common for local officials and clerks to treat visiting merchants and travelers as fat sheep, seizing or even killing them under cover of night.
Such dangers could not stop those with no other options. Every year, great numbers of displaced people, having exhausted every possible means, tried to make their way south, suffering along the way countless tragedies of families torn apart, leaving behind countless corpses. Most who could not reach the Wu Dynasty either turned to banditry or joined some army; women of good looks or healthy children were sometimes seized by traffickers and sold off.
By this year, Wang Shitong had gathered together a great mass of displaced people, attempting to fight his way through the layered blockades of various powers. This force had risen with astonishing speed, swelling to several hundred thousand strong within a few months, and had drawn the attention of all sides as a result.
Both the Jurchens and Liu Yu had issued orders to intercept and block them, and in truth, the various local powers along the way were none too pleased to see the “Hungry Ghosts” moving south either — their rise, after all, stemmed from the very conditions in these local areas, and if everyone simply left, whom would the local warlords have left to bully?
Under these circumstances, the several hundred thousand “Hungry Ghosts” had been trapped on the road, blocked at every turn; after breaking through several Great Qi army blockades, these displaced people, already struggling to find enough food and drink, had naturally gone on to plunder the towns and markets along their way. It was at this point that the Tiger King’s army had emerged, marching under the banner of “acting on Heaven’s behalf.” Just a few days earlier, the “Hungry Ghost” column that had reached the north bank of the Yellow River had been slaughtered and scattered by the advancing Tiger King’s forces, and Wang Shitong had been captured alive, now being escorted to Zezhou for execution.
Most of these people of the martial world were heading to Zezhou, under the Great Brightness Sect’s mobilization, to show support for this righteous man. Of course, “support” being what it was, when the moment was right, they would naturally also consider taking action to rescue him. And among them, too, was a certain group who seemed to be going with something more like a spectator’s curiosity — because, according to a small number of them, there seemed to be some hidden circumstances behind this matter of Wang Shitong.
It was said that this “Ghost King” Wang Shitong, who had gathered several hundred thousand people and tried to lead them south, had once been a member of the Black Banner Army of Little Cangriver’s Huaxia Army. The Black Banner Army, after its three years of resistance against the Jin, had become something of a legend across the Central Plains; after the Jurchens withdrew, it was said that a considerable portion of the surviving Black Banner forces had scattered and infiltrated various parts of the Central Plains in small groups.
It was also said that the Demon of the Heart, Ning Yi, had never actually died — that he had been lying low in secret all along, merely staging his own death to make the Jurchens call off their pursuit. Such rumors, of course, sounded very much like wishful bravado on the part of the Black Banner Army’s remnants, and yet it seemed that some people genuinely hoped to use this incident with “Ghost King” Wang Shitong to draw out the remaining forces of the Black Banner Army, or even to uncover the truth of whether the Demon of the Heart was alive or dead.
Having learned all this, he hurried back to report to the two elders. Along the way, it suddenly occurred to him that a name as sinister-sounding as “Twin Fiends of the Black Wind” clearly did not belong to any orthodox figures of the martial world — it was quite possible the two benefactors had once come from some evil sect, and had now evidently achieved a great awakening, which was why they now carried themselves with such calm composure.
After a moment, he thought again — but considering how Madam Zhao had struck down Tan Yan and the other seven in the blink of an eye, as easily as slicing a melon, such fearsome, murderous prowess did indeed seem to fit the name “Twin Fiends.” These two benefactors had perhaps been out of the martial world for a long time; now that all these forces were converging on Zezhou, he wondered what kind of reaction the younger generation would have upon meeting these two elders — or whether that greatest master under heaven, Lin Zongwu, might even appear, and what his reaction to meeting these two elders might be.
These thoughts alone were enough to set his heart racing with excitement.
Oh, and also — that Demon of the Heart, the Black Banner Army — could they really appear in Zezhou after all…