The weather was scorching, wind moving through the mountains, stirring the green trees on the ridges and the golden fields below. In Hedeng county, nestled deep among these mountains, black banners had already begun stirring among the scattered houses.

The trouble struck without warning that morning. At the sound of the horn, troops gathered in large numbers and set out swiftly. Within a single hour, half of the Huaxia Army’s garrison forces in Hedeng had already departed, while the rest moved into a state of martial alert. Though the three counties of Hedeng had already tightened their defenses since the Mangshan clan’s offensive began, with militia patrolling constantly, this sudden mobilization still sent a jolt of tension through the townsfolk.

Ever since the open break with the Mangshan clan, something significant was clearly unfolding this time.

Hedeng was the political center of the three counties, and most of its residents were veterans of the Huaxia Army who had come from Green Wood Stockade, Little Cang River, and the broken remnants of the northwest campaign. Seeing this sudden shift in circumstances, many took up arms of their own accord and went out to join the perimeter watch, while others made inquiries and pieced together the likely cause.

Ever since the court had formally sealed off the Liangshan region and the Mangshan clan, together with several smaller tribes, had made their move, the Huaxia Army had been in continuous contact with the various Yi clans, discussing how to respond and cooperate going forward. This time, under the initiative of the Hengqing clan — relatively well-regarded among the tribes — sixteen Yi clans in the surrounding area had gathered for a council to discuss how to handle the situation. Two days earlier, Ning Yi himself had gone to take part in this council, and now today, word had apparently come that something had gone wrong.

Xiaohuiling, the settlement of the Hengqing clan where the sixteen-clan council was being held, lay dozens of li of mountain road away from Hedeng, and Ning Yi had brought only five hundred men with him. If something had truly gone badly wrong during the council, the Huaxia Army might well be unable to reach them in time to help.

This sudden mobilization of several thousand garrison troops, and the lockdown across Hedeng and the surrounding area, was clearly a response to the possibility of an all-or-nothing attack that could come at any moment.

By midday, in the middle of the lockdown, a carriage suddenly appeared on the road at one end of the county seat, accompanied by soldiers and a physician. This hurried group had nothing to do with the day’s lockdown; the patrol that intercepted them immediately let them pass upon inspection. Not long after, a crying child could be seen running alongside the carriage, calling out, “Grandpa Chen, Grandpa Chen…” Only from what people overheard did they learn that Chen Tuozi, a veteran of considerable standing within the army, had been gravely wounded outside the mountains and was now being brought back. Chen Tuozi had lived a ruthless, fiercely proud life and had no children of his own; later, on Ning Yi’s suggestion, he had taken in and cared for several orphans within the Huaxia Army. That he was being brought back in this condition suggested something had gone badly wrong outside the mountains as well.

The sudden mobilization of the garrison troops, the escalation of the alert, Ning Yi’s absence, and now this calamity from beyond the mountains — all these events converging together soon had veteran soldiers taking up arms and heading up into the mountains to volunteer for battle. In no time, public sentiment had grown fervent, and the whole situation in Hedeng had turned even more charged.

Su Tan’er, who was overseeing Hedeng at the time, learned of Chen Tuozi’s condition almost immediately. The old man had fought his way into the mountains, and was still conscious when the Huaxia Army sentries ahead rescued him, managing to relay word of Su Wenfang’s ambush outside the mountains before losing consciousness. Whatever had happened beyond the mountains likely reflected Lu Qiaoshan’s true intentions, but that wasn’t the most urgent matter at hand for Su Tan’er right now — Su Wenfang, though now a member of the Huaxia Army, was still her own brother, and with two of her own family members now caught up in danger, their fates uncertain, it was genuinely hard to say what turmoil churned within her.

Su Tan’er fell silent for a moment in her room. By her side, Hongti, in charge of security, had already begun organizing a rescue effort beyond the mountains. Su Tan’er remained silent only briefly before composing herself. “Sister Hongti, don’t act rashly… Let’s first go calm the elders outside. We can’t force things beyond the mountains.”

She lowered her head and walked out briskly, with Hongti following close behind. Over the years at Hedeng, with Ning Yi rarely present, Su Tan’er had come to command considerable respect and authority among the people, and this time, going out, she managed to calm those clamoring to march off to battle. By afternoon, the weather had turned muggy and overcast, and word came that old Chen had woken up.

…

In the sickroom, Chen Tuozi’s wounds were severe. He had fought his way through blade after blade, taking many cuts, and had then pushed himself through a long, grueling journey afterward — had it not been for his refined, deeply cultivated skill, or had he been even a few years older, he might well never have woken up after such an ordeal.

The moment he saw Su Tan’er enter the room, the old man, wrapped head to toe in bandages, struggled to sit up. “Eldest Lady, I’ve failed you…” Seeing him try to move, both the attending nurse and Su Tan’er rushed over to hold him down.

“Uncle Chen, this isn’t your fault. You’re a hero…”

“Send people to save him — send people, it might not be too late…”

“I know, I know.” Su Tan’er’s eyes reddened slightly. “That Wenfang ran into this — call it his own trial to bear. Uncle Chen, you must focus on recovering, or when Liheng comes back, he’ll…”

“Send people to save him. Wenfang did well — he may have to endure some hardship,” the old man forced himself to say, his voice strained with effort. “And someone must tell the master — Lu Qiaoshan means no good. He’s been stalling for time all along. If he’s not planning to act in good faith, he’s probably already made his decision. Someone needs to tell the master…”

“Yes, yes, I will.”

Chen Tuozi had followed Ning Yi since the days of the Bamboo Records, and his form of address had never changed over all these years. Having forced out these words with great difficulty, he lay back and caught his breath for a moment, then turned his gaze back to Su Tan’er. “Eldest Lady, what’s happened out there? I heard people saying something’s happened. What is it…”

“Nothing’s happened, Uncle Chen. Just focus on recovering.”

“I heard the master went out — did something happen to him? Eldest Lady, if you want this old man to rest easy, tell me…”

Su Tan’er shook her head, fell silent for a moment, then took a breath. “In the mountains, we’re dealing with the Mangshan clan. Sixteen Yi clans arranged a council at Xiaohuiling to discuss it, and Liheng went there in person. But this morning we received word that the Mangshan clan has mobilized in force, marching on Xiaohuiling — and… it seems someone has defected to the court’s side. Things have taken a turn.”

“…How many men does the master have with him?”

“Five hundred.”

“…Then there’s nothing to worry about. The master will make it back.” Chen Tuozi said this almost instinctively, then looked up again at Su Tan’er. “Does the master have some private arrangement in place, Eldest Lady? No one could ever outmaneuver the master — is there a plan in place?”

“I don’t know. There might be, there might not,” Su Tan’er said, shaking her head. “But whether there is or isn’t, I know he’d want us to handle things here in the normal way, without letting anyone find an opening to exploit…”

Her eyes were rimmed with red, yet she never let herself cry. At that very moment, several thousand Black Banner troops were crossing ridge after ridge deep in the Lesser Liangshan mountains, pressing north toward Xiaohuiling. And at ninety degrees to their path, the full strength of the Mangshan clan and several smaller allied tribes was surging forward through dense forest and river crossings, converging on Xiaohuiling as well!

…

Everything had come down to this moment of reckoning!

Vast gray clouds blotted out the sky, the air heavy and oppressive. Near Xiaohuiling, chaos reigned across the Hengqing clan’s settlement — flames burning, columns of smoke rising, gunpowder smoke drifting on the wind, not yet dispersed, while the sounds of chaos and slaughter still carried on the air.

Li Xiannong, styled Chengmao, forty-one years old, strode briskly through the chaotic forest, agile and composed, twigs snapping beneath his feet with sharp cracking sounds. Reaching the edge of the woods, he raised the telescope in his hand and looked out across a ravine toward the halfway point of Xiaohuiling in the distance.

That regicide, Ning Yi, was there, standing on the stone platform on the far side. Through the blurred view of the telescope, Li Xiannong could just make out the faint outline of that figure.

The sounds of fighting boiled up from the flank. Lowering the telescope, Li Xiannong’s expression remained calm and composed, though a faint tremor in his eyes hinted at the turmoil stirring within him. Maintaining that calm exterior, he was, in this age, a true strategist and schemer — for years in the southwest, as nothing more than a scholar, he had maneuvered among various barbarian peoples, even facing choices between life and death along the way. And now, at last, he had drawn the greatest villain in the realm into his trap.

In this grand scheme, countless people had dreamed of bringing down this formidable enemy through sheer force of numbers. The court had sent troops; Long Qifei and the others had pressed the Wu Dynasty toward an early, decisive confrontation with the Black Banner, hoping to restore the public morale and spirit lost since the regicide. But Li Xiannong wasn’t confined to such methods — so long as it achieved the goal, he was willing to use any means necessary.

Over his years in the mountains, on the surface he had stirred up Langge and the others, positioning them in opposition to the Huaxia Army, working alongside the Wuxiang Army to weaken it. But in truth, his greatest scheme had always centered on the Hengqing clan — secretly aligning himself, through Chieftain Shimeng of the Hengqing clan, who stood on the court’s side, with the Black Banner Army, cultivating friendly relations, and speaking as fairly as possible on the Black Banner’s behalf during the subsequent conflicts that erupted — all building toward organizing this “impartial” council, where, at the final moment, he would reveal his true intentions and capture Ning Yi and the others in one decisive stroke.

That he’d been able to plan this far ahead was because, over his years in the mountains, Li Xiannong had come to recognize the fundamental predicament and limitations facing the Huaxia Army in Liangshan. Newly arrived, surviving on borrowed land, even with formidable fighting strength, the Huaxia Army could never afford to openly break with the surrounding Yi clans. Over these years of cooperation, though the Yi tribes had helped the Huaxia Army maintain its trade routes, in this arrangement, the tribes bore no true obligations of their own. The Huaxia Army depended on them on one hand, while having no real leverage over them on the other — regardless of how business went, they had to keep channeling benefits to the Yi people continuously.

The Black Banner would never willingly resign itself to being trapped and worn down in Lesser Liangshan, and Ning Yi was not a man who would sit idle in the face of such a predicament.

Li Xiannong knew he needed this council — a council that would seem to deepen their cooperation even further.

And so Ning Yi had walked straight into the trap.

With the two armies engaged, the Black Banner would surely never let its guard down against the Mangshan clan’s forces, which meant they couldn’t strike too early. But the Hengqing clan’s betrayal was something no one could have anticipated. The chieftain’s guards had been deliberately scattered and divided, and Li Xiannong had even arranged for cannon fire to strike the council hall itself — though the Black Banner’s keen instincts for war had thwarted this particular step, with an elite suicide squad managing to seize the cannon before it could fire. But by then, any counterattack would already come too late; the assembled chieftains, along with Ning Yi, had already been driven up onto the dead-end heights of Xiaohuiling. Though the Black Banner guards fought back desperately, the chieftains’ scattered guards, divided as they were, could no longer muster any real fighting strength. So long as they could break through the roughly thousand-strong combined defense line of the Black Banner and the various tribes at the foot of the mountain, the whole affair would be settled.

And even should this drag on, the main force of the Mangshan clan was already on its way, closing in.

Until matters were settled, even standing right there within the Hengqing clan’s own settlement, Li Xiannong dared not act carelessly in the slightest — he hadn’t even dared so much as steal a distant glance at Ning Yi, as if even a single glance from afar might somehow alert that terrifying man to his presence. But now, at last, he could finally raise the telescope and take a proper look.

Even though the telescope couldn’t make out his opponent’s features clearly, Li Xiannong felt he could grasp the man’s state of mind well enough. In truth, he had long believed that, as an outstanding figure of this age, even adversaries could recognize kindred spirits in one another. On this chessboard of the southwest, Li Xiannong had slowly, deliberately placed his pieces, and Ning Liheng could hardly have failed to notice his moves — but the man simply had too many enemies to contend with.

A single move could decide the whole game. At this moment, he knew that Ning Liheng on the other side must surely have already realized who it was that had made this move against him.

If it were at all possible, he genuinely wanted to shout out loud right there, just to draw the man’s attention, and then savor his opponent’s teeth-grinding reaction.

Footsteps approached from behind — Chieftain Shimeng had arrived with his men. The two had known each other a long time; Shimeng was a burly man, though somewhat headstrong and proud by nature. Li Xiannong handed him the single-barreled telescope.

“If it were possible, I’d truly like to see that Ning Liheng face to face before he dies, to hear what’s on his mind… but reality tells me that the moment we have the chance, we must kill him immediately, without leaving any room for error.”

“I’d like to chat with him too — see the look of regret on his face,” Shimeng said.

“You don’t need to indulge me like that,” Li Xiannong said with a laugh.

Shimeng gave a cold smile of his own, gazing at the scene through the lens. “What do you suppose they’re discussing? Are they debating how best to drag Ning Liheng out and force his surrender?”

In the distance, atop the stone platform, one could make out the forests, houses, gunpowder smoke, and fighting below. Ning Yi stood with his back to it all; just moments earlier, a warrior from the Jijin clan on the platform had tried to seize him, only to be cut down in a pool of blood by Liu Xigua at his side.

“…The situation is urgent, and it’s time for each of you to decide your own future — I don’t blame you for it! But I hope all of you elders will consider carefully: how did Shimeng treat you just now? Those cannons — were they only meant for me, or were they meant to kill all of you together!” Ning Yi looked around at the assembled crowd, his expression grave and earnest as he spoke.

“Of course, I won’t say Shimeng simply wants to dominate all of Liangshan for himself — he couldn’t manage that anyway. What the court wants most is my head. But they never regarded any of you as anything worth considering. I ask you all to think back — how did the court outside ever treat you before? Now that the Huaxia Army has come, they suddenly want to offer you amnesty and recognition — is that really the truth of it? Without the Huaxia Army here, I guarantee you the court’s attitude toward you would remain exactly the same as it always was. But I’m different. I intend to put down roots here.”

“In the six years the Huaxia Army has been here, whatever promises we’ve made, we haven’t broken a single one. Whatever benefits we owed you, we’ve tightened our own belts to make sure you received them. Life has been good under this arrangement. But this time, the Mangshan clan has acted recklessly, and many of you chose not to take a side, because you felt this wasn’t your fight. What the Huaxia Army has given you is what the Huaxia Army rightfully owed you — like cakes falling from the sky — so even when the Mangshan clan acted without restraint, even when they turned against your own people, you endured it in silence, because you didn’t want to be the ones standing at the front.”

“But if you simply stand by and watch, and the Huaxia Army disappears, everything you’ve gained will disappear along with it. The court can’t give you what we can — they look down on you.”

“When the Mangshan clan decided to move against us, some asked me why the Huaxia Army didn’t strike back. Are we afraid of them? Because Liangshan is their territory? — We have fought the most vicious Jurchens in the north, we have fought a million-strong army in the Central Plains, and we drove them back! The Huaxia Army does not fear war! But we do fear having no friends. Liangshan belongs to all of you; you are the masters of this land, and you have allowed us to stay here — for that, we are grateful. If the day ever comes when you no longer wish us here, we will leave. But for as long as we remain here, we hope to share more with all of you — and I have nothing but the deepest respect for the courage and skill of the Yi warriors in battle.”

“A melon you didn’t grow yourself never tastes as sweet.” On the platform, Ning Yi spread his hands. “We want to be brothers with all of you.”

“So, even in circumstances like these… we have come here in good faith.”

…

At the edge of the forest, Li Xiannong watched as Ning Yi, up on the platform, turned and looked this way. He had finished saying what he had come to say, and now waited for the assembled chieftains to deliberate. At the foot of the mountain, the fighting remained locked in stalemate; in the distant forest, the Mangshan clan’s forces and the Black Banner’s men were both racing forward, closing in with every passing moment.

At a certain instant, a signal flare shot up into the sky.

“The Black Banner is staking everything on one desperate counterattack,” Li Xiannong said, lowering the telescope.

Shimeng laughed heartily. “Bring me my wolf-slaying blade!”

One of his subordinates carried over a heavy, jagged-edged blade; Shimeng hoisted the great weapon onto his shoulder, radiating a presence as imposing as a mountain.

In the distance, at the foot of the mountain, more than two hundred Black Banner soldiers had formed ranks and launched their charge. The Hengqing clan’s warriors surged forward to meet them!

“Let’s see just how formidable this legendary Black Banner Army really is!” Li Xiannong said through gritted teeth, his eyes shining with excitement.

In the very next instant, an inescapable nightmare came crashing down upon them like a collapsing mountain!