Winter had arrived, and north of the Yellow River, heavy snow kept falling.

The city of Wozhou lay shrouded in the grim, desolate atmosphere that follows a battle.

This was a city near the front line along the northern edge of Prince Jin’s territory. Ever since the first signs of the Jurchens’ southward advance appeared, over the past two or three months the city’s defenses had been steadily reinforced. During these preparations, Lou Shuwan, the female chancellor who stood second only to the prince himself in Prince Jin’s domain, had personally visited Wozhou twice. Now that the war had actually broken out, wounded soldiers retreating from the front and refugees numbering in the thousands upon thousands had converged here, and in a short span of time the area around Wozhou had become extraordinarily grim and chaotic.

There had once been a minor clerk named Mu Yi, who had gone on a violent rampage within the city after his family was murdered — but in times like these, few remembered that story any longer.

North of Wozhou, the line running from the ruins of Taiyuan to Yanmen Pass had once been the site of the fiercest fighting after the Jurchens’ southern invasion; over more than a decade, the population there had plummeted and the people had been left destitute. A leader named Wang Juyun had come to this land and, using tenets similar to those of the old Manichaean faith, had gathered the local people together, opposing the Jurchens and calling for equal distribution of wealth. After crushing the surviving wealthy households of the region, he had gathered a righteous army a million strong — called the “rebel host” in the parlance of the puppet Qi state and the Jurchens.

Li Xizhi had twice launched campaigns, together with the garrison forces near Yanmen Pass, to wipe out this “rebel host,” but both times had returned in defeat. The elite core of this “rebel host” had been thoroughly indoctrinated by religious fervor, chanting divine invocations, fearless of death, pressing forward wave after wave. Wang Juyun, moreover, proved skilled in the use of arms — in both campaigns against him, he had launched surprise raids on his enemy’s supply lines, and Li Xizhi’s forces, failing to eliminate him, instead lost considerable supplies to him. After that, the campaign to wipe him out was abandoned.

This time, when the Jurchen eastern army marched south, it was Wang Juyun’s righteous army that bore the initial brunt of the assault. Afterward, Tian Shi in the south issued his proclamation to the realm and rose in response; a million-strong army marched forth in succession, turning the region north of Taiyuan into a field of slaughter.

In the span of little more than a month, four major battles erupted successively across that desolate stretch of land between Yanmen Pass and the ruins of Taiyuan. Wanyan Zonghan, the Jurchens’ god of war, moved his troops like a mountain in motion, and with Xiyin’s assistance, commanding formidable Jin generals such as Yinshuke, Shuliesu, Balishu, and Wanyan Shaba, first crushed Wang Juyun’s two attacks, then routed the vanguard of Prince Jin’s advancing forces, and not long after, shattered the combined armies of Wang Juyun and Tian Shi together. Beneath the city of Taiyuan, reduced to ruins a decade before, Han blood and Han corpses once again blanketed the plain.

And yet, even after four consecutive crushing defeats, Wang Juyun’s righteous army and Tian Shi’s Prince Jin forces still had not collapsed. After these repeated battles, the vast numbers of wounded and scattered troops began converging toward places like Wozhou, and refugees fleeing from the north likewise streamed south alongside them. Wozhou and similar cities did not turn these people away; amid the chaos, the local authorities took in the wounded, arranged for the reorganization of scattered troops, and even for the skin-and-bone refugees streaming south, prepared at least enough charitable gruel to keep them alive, arranging for them to continue their journey southward.

In the more than a decade since the Jurchens came south, the Han people had struggled simply to survive — such selfless acts of charity had not been seen in many years. In this short span of time, countless people were moved by Prince Jin’s righteous conduct; some, reduced to skin and bone, wept as they took up arms — they had had more than enough of this inhuman existence, and no longer wished to continue fleeing south to suffer further. In weather like this, in a world like this, even if people kept fleeing south, what awaited them there was very likely nothing but a dead end, or a suffering worse than death itself — better, then, to leave their lives here, and go down together with the Jurchens. And moved by this atmosphere, some of the fleeing, scattered soldiers picked up their blades and spears once more, rejoining their original units…

In war, alongside such tear-inducing scenes of solidarity, there was of course also every manner of cowardice, depravity, terror, and cruelty.

Within Prince Jin’s faction, the high-pressure purges Lou Shuwan had set in motion, carried out with the cooperation of the Bamboo Records network under Zhan Wu, continued unabated. From south to north, in every city, anyone suspected of collaborating with the enemy was largely hunted down; every day, there were arrests and executions.

Naturally, among all this there were also spies and persuaders dispatched by Wanyan Xiyin operating actively, and no small number of wrongful convictions occurred as well. In a normal regime, purges on this scale would have been enough to shake the very foundations of the state — but facing an enemy as formidable as Wanyan Zonghan, with no reinforcements to come from anywhere behind them, only this kind of ruthless, high-pressure control could keep the front lines fighting on.

Some soldiers, unwilling to keep fighting, fled into the mountains. At the same time, there were also those, whether out of cowardice or a desire to seize wealth and status amid the chaos, who rose up in rebellion, waiting in the turmoil for the arrival of the Jurchen “royal banner.” Around Wozhou, this problem was especially severe.

In the mountain forests north of Wozhou, over the span of more than a month, five or six bands of gathered bandits had successively declared their submission to the Jurchens, waiting for the “royal army” to arrive. Some were larger in scale, some smaller, but taking advantage of the chaos, these men looted and burned villages; some specialized in ambushing fleeing soldiers retreating south along the roads, blocking the way and forcing small groups of stragglers to join them — refusing meant instant death, their bodies stripped and hung from poles. One group even ambushed supply convoys coming north from Prince Jin’s forces, and after failing, sabotaged the roads and even boasted they would infiltrate Wozhou itself to kill indiscriminately and open the gates for the Jurchens when they arrived, spreading panic throughout the surrounding area.

On this day, the snow had just stopped. Dozens of li east of Wozhou, columns of smoke rose from a village that had just been ravaged by a band of bandits. This particular band numbered around five or six hundred men, its banner crudely emblazoned with the words “Great Jin Wozhou Pacification Army.” After the village was sacked, all the able-bodied men had been slaughtered, most of the women violated and then carried off.

The departing column stretched out in a long line; at its head rode a tall, broad man on a large horse, clad in sturdy armor, a long saber at his hip. A woman was bound across the back of his horse, struggling. As he rode on, he casually reached back and slapped her across the face several times, and she stopped resisting. He laughed loudly, thoroughly pleased with himself.

This man at the head of the column was named Wang Gan — formerly a bandit chief who had held sway in the hills around Wozhou. His martial skill was formidable, and he thought highly of himself; once the Jurchens arrived, he had secretly accepted their offer of amnesty and hoped to render good service and win himself glory and rank. In recent days he had been raiding the surrounding area, and following the schemes of the Jurchen envoys who had come south, had even been spreading various false rumors within Wozhou itself, throwing the populace into panic. Now, having razed this village as well, killing its able-bodied men and leaving only the old and the young, he was piling further terror and burden onto the city of Wozhou.

Since the Jurchens’ southward advance, the combination of Wanyan Zonghan and Wanyan Xiyin was regarded as unmatched in that age; in open battle, no one believed they stood a chance of victory. With this understanding, whether it was Wang Juyun, Tian Shi, or Yu Yulin, none of them were thinking in terms of defeating the enemy outright in a single battle — losing was acceptable, retreating was fine too, as long as they could harass and pin down this eastern army to the greatest extent possible; that alone would achieve their purpose for the war north of the Yellow River. Both Jurchen armies were eager to press south against the Wu Dynasty, and even if every last pot and jar within Prince Jin’s territory were smashed in the effort, once they withdrew their people into the mountains, Zonghan and Xiyin surely wouldn’t have the patience to hunt them down to the last man.

As long as the realm still belonged to the Han people in the end, even if they were defeated, there would surely be a place for Prince Jin north of the Yellow River — and with such a reputation gained, as the times shifted, even contending for the throne itself might not be entirely out of the question.

It was precisely because of this psychological preparation that the several crushing defeats on the front had not managed to completely break the command structures of either force. Wang Juyun kept gathering up his scattered troops after each defeat, and Prince Jin’s side, too, had long since prepared for the prospect of fighting on after losing. But amid this chaos, control over these disordered regions had grown correspondingly sluggish. Wang Gan had struck repeatedly, focusing his effort on the cities and their surrounding garrisons in this post-snow landscape, and no timely relief had been sent to the areas around them.

This time was no different — the band that had sacked the village, laden with plundered goods and captured women, hastened away along the mountain trails, back toward the hills, Wang Gan in high spirits, boasting to his lieutenants beside him of this campaign’s spoils and the wealth and glory to come, all while reaching a hand into the woman’s clothes to grope at her carelessly. Though the true battlefield lay to the north of Wozhou, where the real armies clashed, he had not the slightest fear that the forces around Wozhou might intercept him now — for the Jurchen envoy who had come south had already assured him: Tian Shi’s resistance against the Jin was a dead end, and though the ruthless female chancellor holding court had killed countless people, the spies quietly informing the Jurchens couldn’t all be wiped out.

As he rode along, swaggering through a bend in the mountain road, a “boulder” lying dormant in the snow beside the path suddenly reared up — beneath the “boulder,” an iron staff whirled and swept upward with a whistling roar. A soldier walking alongside the column had no time to react before his whole body was yanked upward as if someone had seized him by the neck and hauled him half his own height into the air, flesh and blood spraying skyward.

“What the… f—!”

That “boulder” had been nothing but a disguise, and the point where it had reared up was no more than a zhang or so from Wang Gan, separated by only two soldiers. In the sudden commotion rising from the snow-covered hillside, Wang Gan was the first to react — he shouted, yanked hard on his reins, and drew his saber even as he wheeled his horse around. To the side, another soldier had already swept his own staff sideways into the flank of the horse ahead of him, belonging to one of Wang Gan’s lieutenants. The figure charged forward violently across the distance of more than a zhang. Wang Gan, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end mid-swing, twisted his body aside just in time — the whistling staff grazed past his forehead with a boom, striking his warhorse square on the back of its skull like a hammer shattering a stone drum, and the horse was sent crashing sideways in an instant.

The falling horse crashed down like a landslide, knocking into two other soldiers on the far side as well. Wang Gan tumbled from the collapsing horse and rolled clear in a desperate defensive maneuver, only to feel something fly past overhead — it was the woman who had been thrown from the horse’s back by the attacker. Wang Gan scrambled up from the ground in a roll, scooped up a handful of snow and flung it behind him, his body already lunging toward the rear ranks of his column, shouting at the top of his lungs: “Stop him! Kill him — kill him—!”

The pursuing figure moved just as fast, tracing nearly the same small arc as the tumbling corpse of the horse; the snow beneath his feet sprayed up with each step, one burst still settling as the next erupted ahead — like blossoms opening one after another. The rear of the column formed ranks of foot soldiers six or seven deep, row upon row, spears bristling like a forest. Wang Gan ran shouting toward them, and the assassin pursued relentlessly; facing the wall of spears, Wang Gan spun and retreated back into the ranks — ahead of him, closing in, were eyes as fierce and blazing as fire.

The assault had come without warning, like a tidal wave crashing down a mountainside; there was no time to gauge the attacker’s skill. All he could do was raise round shield in one hand and long saber in the other in pure defense, while the soldiers behind him, having finally reacted, thrust a forest of spears in from his flank. The charging assassin’s iron staff whirled, stirring up the snow and sending it howling out in all directions like a great whirlwind — more than a dozen spears, most of them not even made of iron, shattered and scattered the moment they met that staff’s arc, several white wax-wood shafts sent spinning up into the sky.

Faster than words could tell, the figure closed the distance, and the iron staff came crashing down, slamming into Wang Gan’s saber and shield together, driving him backward into the soldiers behind him.

“Roar—!”

With that violent impact, the charging man let out a savage bellow. Wang Gan’s body was driven staggering backward; the dozen or so men behind him, caught utterly off guard, had no way to hold their footing — some stumbled back, some tumbled to the ground. Wang Gan himself was sent flying back several paces; the staff, drawn back, then swept forward again with a whistling roar, and he barely managed to block it with his shield, his arm going numb from the shock — before the swinging arc of the staff came at him from the other side, slamming into his shoulder, and then the wild flurry of blows swallowed him whole.

By this point only the front of the column had rounded the bend; those behind, hearing the sudden shouts erupt ahead, had no time to react before they saw the wall of men in front of them suddenly thrown open, a single figure wielding an iron staff scattering the crowd in the blink of an eye. Even the commander Wang Gan was driven, amid frantic shouting, further and further back up the slope beside the road. Some tried to intercept him, some tried to strike from behind, but amid the wild whirl of the staff, someone suddenly toppled sideways, his head caught by the staff’s arc. In the space of a few brief moments, amid the whirling of the staff, the clanging din like a blacksmith’s forge, Wang Gan was driven through the chaotic crowd, sent flying nearly eight or nine zhang up the slope, everyone behind him scattered and thrown wide. The staff’s arc suddenly stopped, sweeping through the air and driving down into the ground behind him; with a thunderous crash, a great stone in the snow shattered, the staff embedded within it. The assassin closed in without pause on Wang Gan, who by now staggered like a drunk man before him — with one hand he wrenched away his saber, with the other he tore off his helmet, seized him by the hair, and pressed the blade to his throat.

Amid a thick spray of blood, the head was severed in a single stroke. Wang Gan’s body seemed to lose all its bones at once, collapsing along with his armor, thick blood seeping out from within.

“Han men should not be slaves! You all deserve death!”

The voice, thick with fury, driven by inner power, tore through the snowy ridges like thunder. The assassin, head in hand, turned back around, the iron staff still embedded in the rock beside him; for a moment, not one of the several hundred bandit soldiers before and behind dared step forward. Then he spoke: “Kneel—”

No one, of course, was going to kneel — but at that furious roar, military horns suddenly sounded from the nearby forest, followed swiftly by the sound of a great army crashing through the trees. Wang Gan’s several hundred followers, nothing more than a rabble to begin with, had just watched their leader slain single-handedly before their eyes by this assassin — and now they scattered in a panicked uproar.

The assassin wrenched free his staff and gave chase, striking down bandit after bandit in the snow along the way; spotting others further off attempting to flee with seized gold, silver, and captured women, he surged forward after them. Meanwhile, men now poured out from the forest in force; some of the bandits dropped to their knees in surrender, others flung down their stolen goods and fled for their lives without a backward glance.

By the time two or three hundred of the bandits had thrown down their weapons and knelt in the snow, most of the men from the forest had also emerged — though all told, they numbered no more than thirty-odd. Some tried to slip away secretly, only to be run down by the staff-wielding man who had first charged out, his blows caving in their skulls. In short order, the thirty-odd men had bound up nearly three hundred prisoners in a line, and had also rescued the group of women who had been abducted; along the mountain road, the air was filled with pleading and weeping.

The staff-wielding man gazed for a long moment at the rescued women in the distance, his expression sorrowful, though he did not approach them. Watching most of the prisoners now bound in a line, he turned his gaze toward the direction the bandits had fled, seemingly lost in thought. At this point a scarred woman in military dress approached from behind, asking him for instructions on what to do next. The staff-wielding man said: “Take the women back to the village. Bring along anyone still alive, and escort these beasts to Wozhou… I’m going after the ones who got away.”

He paused. “The Jurchens have an envoy heading south. I need to find him.”

This man was, of course, none other than Nine-Dragon Shi Jin, who had made his way back to Wozhou. Ever since reuniting with Lin Chong, and later confirming that Lin Chong had died delivering a message, he had grown disheartened, his only remaining concern being the whereabouts of Lin Chong’s son, Mu Anping. But regarding this matter, the only thing he knew was a single name: Tan Lu.

Since returning to Wozhou, Shi Jin had investigated many times, even enlisting the help of the local authorities, but still had found no trace of Tan Lu’s whereabouts. As the situation around him grew increasingly tense, Shi Jin’s anxiety mounted; he had also gathered together some of the men who had remained loyal to him after the dissolution of Red Peak Mountain. Though finding the child remained his first priority, as the chaos around him deepened, he found himself unable to simply turn a blind eye to such calamities.

But having learned the hard lesson of Red Peak Mountain, Shi Jin now confined himself only to small-scale, covert assassination operations. Having just struck down Wang Gan, Shi Jin took no time to rest, pressing on into the forest ahead in pursuit. His martial arts had already reached a transcendent level; tailing one of Wang Gan’s lieutenants closely, by the third day he finally discovered signs of a Jurchen-dispatched envoy.

This man turned out to be a Han from Liaodong, serving under Wanyan Xiyin. Shi Jin captured him and interrogated him through half the night, but learned little of value. Having traveled the world with an upright, unyielding heart, though he now faced an enemy, he found himself disgusted by this kind of brutal, endless torture and interrogation; by the latter half of the night, the spy took his own life. Shi Jin sighed, dug a pit, and buried the body.

The next day, back in Wozhou, word had already spread through the city of a righteous man who had slain Wang Gan, rescued the villagers, and captured the bandits. Shi Jin, having no wish for fame, quietly returned to the inn where he was staying. There, a companion brought him unexpected news — someone claiming to know the whereabouts of Mu Anping’s son wished to meet with him.

This man, too, he knew: the head of the Great Radiance Sect, Lin Zongwu.