The moon crossed the peaceful night sky, and above the city upon the earth, the lights gradually dimmed. After passing through the deepest hours of darkness, a pale fish-belly white finally began to emerge faintly from the winter horizon.

The rooster crowed three times, and Zezhou city began to stir with life once more. Early-rising peddlers hurried into the city, though today none of them had the heart to call out their wares loudly—most wore looks of unease and apprehension. Patrolling constables and officers filed through the city streets in long lines. You Hongzhuo had already risen and stood in the street watching a small squad of soldiers pass by with grim purpose, followed by a column of troops escorting captured bandits.

Most of the bandits being escorted by the entering soldiers bore wounds, some covered entirely in blood. Unlike the prisoners seen the day before who had shouted that in eighteen years they would be brave men again, this new batch, when they occasionally spoke, carried a tone of despair and grim finality. If yesterday’s condemned men, left to bake in the sun, had wanted to project the image of “your grandfather is a hero,” today’s bandits seemed more like ghosts crawling out of a desperate, hopeless end—angry, yet pitiful.

“Watch closely—there will be retribution—” one blood-soaked man, bound with rope, was being carried half-dead in a prisoner’s cart when he suddenly shouted this toward the crowd. A soldier beside him swung the hilt of his blade down hard, striking him square in the mouth. The man collapsed, blood filling his mouth—it looked as though half his teeth had been knocked out.

Murmurs of unease rippled through the crowd. “Starving ghosts… they’re starving ghosts…”

“Hundreds of thousands of them scattered along the Yellow River’s banks… arrived this morning…”

“If they can’t get south… they’ll come eat us instead…”

“What sin have we committed…”

That morning, several thousand of the starving refugees had already arrived from the south. Just as the people said, unable to cross the Yellow River, they would turn back and prey on others—and Zezhou now stood right at the eye of the storm.

Amid the crowd’s murmuring, You Hongzhuo watched the column pass by. Suddenly, something happened up ahead—an officer let out a sharp shout. You Hongzhuo turned to look and saw that above one of the prisoner carts, a man had raised his arm high, holding up a piece of black cloth. The officer nearby shouted loudly, and a soldier rushed forward, swinging his blade and severing the man’s arm with a single stroke.

Blood sprayed through the air, and amid the chaotic noise, the wounded man cried out furiously: “There’s no living through this—what did the people who wanted to go south do wrong, what did they do wrong—you want to starve them to death…”

His furious shout, mixed with the pain of his severed arm, rang out with particular bitterness amid the crowd’s gasps of shock. The surrounding soldiers and officers shouted back fiercely, and one of them swung his long blade and thrust it into the man’s mouth. At this point, some in the crowd began to realize something else, and someone murmured under their breath: “Black Banner… Black Banner…” The words rippled outward through the crowd like waves on water. You Hongzhuo, standing a bit farther away, could not see clearly, but he now understood as well—what that man had been holding was very likely a Black Banner Army flag.

The crowd stirred with murmurs, and then someone shouted: “So what if it’s the Black Banner!”

It was the officer leading the column. He dismounted, picked up the piece of black cloth from the ground, and held it high.

“Whatever others may do, we people of Zezhou have always lived in peace and never sought quarrel with anyone. Hundreds of thousands of starving refugees marched south, slaughtering through several cities and bringing ruin to countless lives. Only then did our great army move to act on Heaven’s behalf! Today we seek only to punish Wang Shitong and his gang of ringleaders—we have not touched anyone else. What more is there to say! Brothers and sisters, we soldiers exist to protect our homes and country, to safeguard all of you. Whoever comes to Zezhou today—starving refugees or so-called Black Banners—if they cause trouble, we will give our very lives to defend Zezhou, without the slightest hesitation! All you need do is live your lives as usual, obey the law as always, and Zezhou will remain at peace—no one can shake it—”

The general’s speech was impassioned and resounding. When he finished, he drew his blade and slashed the black flag to shreds with a few swift strokes. The crowd suddenly erupted into a roar: “Well said—!”

Someone shouted: “That’s exactly right—”

“We people of Zezhou never provoked you—”

“If you’re starving, you come cause chaos, but what about the people you’ve killed—”

“Bah—you beasts, if you really dare come, we’ll kill you ourselves—”

“Scum!”

The crowd’s emotions found their outlet. Amid the shouting and cursing, someone picked up a stone and hurled it at the prisoner cart, and soon the street was boiling with curses and jeers, falling like rain without pause.

Outside Zezhou city, the army moved toward the southern side of the city like a long dragon, guarding the key roads outside and awaiting the arrival of the tide of starving refugees still dozens of li away. Even in this situation, Zezhou’s gates remained open. The army worked on one hand to calm the public’s hearts, while on the other hand reinforcing defenses throughout the city. The general, Sun Qi, led his personal guard into the prefectural offices and began to truly take command from the center.

The wealthy gentry and great households within the city grew even more panicked. Just the night before, they had gone together to visit the relatively reasonable Lu Anmin, but seeing the army’s posture today, it was clear the military had no intention of letting the refugees force the city gates closed. Each household reinforced its own defenses, and now, worried and anxious, they conferred among themselves again, debating whether to pool money and goods to petition the general to deal with matters strictly, or whether to simply strengthen the guards within their own homes.

In the past, when the Martial Dynasty had been prosperous, occasional waves of refugees and famine victims would appear in winter, and whether the various great cities closed their gates was a matter of careful deliberation—even without closing the gates, relief efforts were usually enough to prevent major unrest. But the situation now was different. These starving refugees had been through battle, had killed, some had even sacked cities. If they took a desperate gamble, even if the army could suppress them, the common people themselves might well become collateral casualties.

Amid everyone’s unease, the local common folk in the city had grown increasingly agitated, and had become rather unfriendly toward outsiders. By that afternoon, on the southern side of the city, the chaotic, ragged procession of beggars and migrants gradually approached the soldiers’ blockade point. Then they saw, planted on poles ahead, corpses and severed heads—these belonged to Gu Dahao, Tang Side, and others, along with the charred, mangled body of Li Guifang. No one could recognize him, but most could identify one or two of the others to some degree.

The crowd gathering grew larger and larger—ragged clothes, gaunt frames, hair wild as straw. Some pushed wheelbarrows, some carried bundles of this or that on their backs, and in most eyes there was a look of despair. Most of them were not beggars by nature; some had even come from well-off families when they first set out south. But by now, they had all become much the same.

Before the army and the corpses, the crowd fell into helpless confusion. After a long while, a white-haired old man led a large group of people to kneel before the army, kowtowing and pleading, and the crowd broke into loud weeping. The wall of soldiers remained unmoved. Toward evening, the commanding officer finally waved his hand, and carts loaded with rice porridge and steamed buns were wheeled out, at last allowing the starving refugees to line up to receive food.

With food now available, the great mass of starving people began to obey the army’s commands. The officer in front watched all this with a look of satisfaction—in truth, without a leader, most of them were harmless common folk incapable of causing much trouble.

Threats, incitement, suppression, division… That night, word of what the army had done outside the city spread into Zezhou, and the city buzzed with excitement, speaking with relish of Sun Qi’s actions. With the tens of thousands of refugees no longer a threat, even if bad elements remained among them, they could no longer stir up trouble. The people, who had once felt that Sun Qi’s army should not have scattered the starving refugees at the Yellow River and brought disaster north, now suddenly felt that General Sun was like a reincarnated military sage, brilliant in strategy.

That day, even within the halls of the Grand Luminous Sect’s temple, You Hongzhuo could clearly sense the restless mood among the crowd. People cursed the starving refugees, cursed the Black Banner Army, cursed the state of the world, and in low voices, cursed the Jurchens too, balancing their emotions through this kind of venting. Several bands of criminals were uncovered by the army from within the city, leading to various small-scale clashes—one of which occurred near the Grand Luminous Temple. You Hongzhuo quietly went to watch the commotion; the bandits, cornered by the soldiers in a room, were shot dead one by one with arrows.

You Hongzhuo couldn’t help but feel worried in his heart. In circumstances like these, an individual was powerless. Old hands who had spent long years in the martial world had many ways of hiding themselves, and various means of dealing with the underground and the wandering fighters of the martial world, but You Hongzhuo was completely unfamiliar with such things. Back in his small mountain village, when his family had been driven to their deaths by the Grand Luminous Sect, he had crawled out from among the dead and slaughtered every man and woman in a small temple. At that time, he had set aside all thought of life and death, fought with everything he had, and thereby seized a chance at victory.

But fighting these soldiers to the death now would be meaningless—the only outcome would be death.

When he had entered Zezhou city, Mister Zhao had arranged a travel permit for him, but by now, You Hongzhuo wasn’t sure whether the permit would actually hold up. If it were fake and discovered—perhaps he should have left earlier.

He mulled this over, but then felt that such worry was simply too cowardly. Before he could decide, that very night soldiers came to the Liang’an Inn, checking room by room. You Hongzhuo prepared himself for a life-or-death struggle, but fortunately, the travel permit worked—after a few questions, the soldiers finally left.

After this small incident, he felt there was no need to leave immediately after all.

This day was the twenty-seventh day of the sixth month in the eighth year of Jianshuo, four days before Wang Shitong was to be executed. During the day, You Hongzhuo went again to the Grand Luminous Temple, waiting for Tan Zheng and the others to appear. Listening to news circulating among the crowd, he learned that the previous night there had been another attempted jailbreak that had been caught, along with several more waves of unrest—some people had even died on the city’s east side. By afternoon, Tan Zheng and the others still had not appeared. Watching the sun sink lower in the west, he knew there would likely be no result again today, and so he left the temple.

Walking through a few streets, he realized he was being followed.

There were few people on the evening streets. A man with a sword on his back approached him directly from the front, while two others closed in from behind, forcing You Hongzhuo into a nearby alley. All three appeared to be skilled fighters. You Hongzhuo took a deep breath, trying to think of what to say, when a figure appeared at the end of the alley.

“…Fourth Brother.” You Hongzhuo murmured softly. Standing before him was none other than his former “Fourth Brother,” Kuang Wenbai. Dressed in white, a single whip slung across his back, he looked at You Hongzhuo with a faint trace of smugness in his eyes.

You Hongzhuo steadied himself and smiled. “Fourth Brother, how did you find me?”

“Fifth Brother taught me a lesson once: a thief may act for a thousand days, but no one can guard against a thief for a thousand days. After what I did, and after you ran off, I could hardly go off carefree to drink and chase women without a worry in the world. So yes, I put in quite some effort waiting for you.”

After what I did… Hearing these words, You Hongzhuo’s heart already sank with a silent sigh.

“So… Fourth Brother…” His heart grew heavy, and even speaking now felt difficult. “The other brothers and sisters—are they still alive?”

Kuang Wenbai looked at him, silent for a long moment, then suddenly smiled. “What do you think—how could that be possible.” He reached up and touched the whip at his back. “Now that you’re leaving today, I can finally rest easy.”

“But… why?” You Hongzhuo shouted. “We were sworn brothers and sisters!”