The sky spun, wind howling in the distance.

A club came crashing down, striking him on the head with a dull thud, and the taste of rust filled his mouth between his clenched teeth. People closed in around him, dragging him along; clubs and fists fell on him from time to time, but he did not resist, only laughing softly to himself.

Blood began to seep from his mouth, making him look especially wretched and ghastly as he stumbled forward, bound by ropes.

A group of men dragged him toward a rugged, uneven hollow in the mountains ahead…

Along this beating-filled journey, the ground was thick with mud and pitted with holes; the stench of muddy water mixed with filth clung to his body. By comparison, the blows landing on him seemed almost powerless—at this moment, both the pain and the curses seemed to lose their force. He hung his head low, still laughing softly, his eyes searching for gaps between the feet of the crowd around him.

Spring had already arrived. The mountains were gray. Over the past half year, the starving mobs gathered here had felled every tree nearby, burned everything that could be burned, and eaten every animal that could be found across the hills and valleys. Wherever they had passed, nothing but dead silence remained.

He looked toward this place, and in his eyes, too, was nothing but dead silence.

The tenth year of Wujian Shuo, spring, the twelfth day of the second month.

My name is Wang Shitong.

This is where I belong…

…

The weather was cold and damp. Ragged men armed with blades and clubs gripped their prisoner, beating and cursing him the whole way, as they made for the hillside ahead.

Among the mountains, rubble lay scattered like thickets; the trees had long since been felled, making the place unfit to live in—looking around in every direction, there was no sign of any starving people coming or going. Beyond the far side, at the very edge of sight, stood a dilapidated wooden hut. This was the farthest point the starving mobs’ patrols reached. In front of the hut, a group of men was waiting. Four men stood at the front, tall and short, all leaders among the starving mobs, their hearts uneasy as they waited for the crowd to drag the bloodied, beaten Wang Shitong into the clearing before the hut and hurl him into a puddle.

Wang Shitong’s head was submerged in the water; a moment later he suddenly thrashed and rose up onto his knees, coughing violently, spitting out mud.

“How is it, did anyone see!” one of the leaders was already asking quietly off to the side. The underlings answered: “Killed them all, killed them all… this Wang fellow didn’t dare fight back, we just knocked him down and tied him up…”

“He didn’t fight back?”

“Yes, yes… that’s right…”

The leader’s expression suddenly changed. He ordered his underlings: “Go check around the area.” Then he drew his blade and kicked Wang Shitong, who had just managed to stand, back down to the ground.

Wang Shitong fell, coughed twice, and laughed. “Heh, heh. What’s this, Xiuguo? Scared? If you’re scared, just let me go…”

“Don’t you put on airs with us, Wang! You’re in our hands now—we’re not afraid of you—” said the leader named Zang Xiuguo, brandishing his blade at him. Wang Shitong sat up from the ground; Zang Xiuguo took a half-step back, and this reaction made Wang Shitong laugh again as he looked around.

“Wuding, Chaoyuan, Uncle Dayi… heh heh… so it’s you all.”

“Damn you! Playing tricks!” Hearing Wang Shitong speak like this, the leader named Wuding suddenly charged forward, raised the club in his hand, and swung it down on him. Wang Shitong’s body rolled across the ground several times, blood spilling from his mouth, and he curled up on the ground. Wuding moved to charge forward again, but an old man nearby, his head wrapped in a white cloth, planted his wooden staff firmly on the ground. “Enough!”

Wuding spat on the ground and turned away. Wang Shitong lay curled on the ground for a long while, his body twitching for a moment before it gradually went still. His gaze fixed on a single blade of newly sprouted green grass on the wasteland ahead, and he stared at it blankly, lost in thought, until someone pulled him back up. He looked around again. “Heh heh.”

He smiled faintly, then, as though something had occurred to him, his expression sank. After a moment he spoke. “Since you’ve captured me, you’ve captured the others too, haven’t you?”

“Good that you know!” Wuding said, waving a hand. Someone pulled open the door of the wooden hut behind them. Inside, a woman dressed in a thin garment stood there, a blade held to her throat, her body trembling. This was Gao Qianyue, who had accompanied Wang Shitong through the winter. Wang Shitong turned his head to look at her; Gao Qianyue was looking back at him too. This terrifying leader of the starving mobs, now bound all over, his face bruised and swollen, his body covered in blood and mud, wore an expression at this moment that was calmer and warmer than it had ever been before.

“Brother Wang,” said the old man named Chen Dayi.

“Mm?”

“The decision to truly move against you—that was this old fool’s idea…”

“I know, I know.” Wang Shitong nodded and turned around. It was clear that, despite being the greatest leader among the starving mobs, he still held a fair amount of respect and regard for the old man before him.

“Getting rid of you was the Jurchens’ idea—you know that too, don’t you?”

“…Ah, I know, I know…” Wang Shitong glanced at Gao Qianyue, lost in thought for a moment, then finally nodded. Seeing this listless response from him, Wuding and the other leaders exchanged puzzled looks. The old man’s lips trembled.

“We… do you know why we’re doing this?”

“I know.” This time Wang Shitong answered quickly. “…There’s no path left.”

Hearing these words, the old man sank down onto a wooden stump behind him. “That’s not something you should be saying.”

“There’s no path left.”

“—That’s not something you should be saying!” The old man gripped his staff tightly and suddenly stood up, his voice shaking the air around them. After a moment he raised a finger and pointed at Wang Shitong. “Brother Wang, that’s not something you should say! You always said there was a path! No matter when, you always said there was a way forward! You told everyone that… Brother Wang, you… you saved my life, you saved my whole family’s life!”

“Xiaoyao still died.”

“But you saved my family’s life! My daughter’s death wasn’t your fault! Brother Wang, the Jurchens are coming, I never thought… I never thought I’d actually have to kill you…”

As the old man spoke these words, Wuding and the others beside him changed expression. “Old Chen!” The old man swept his hand sideways. “All of you, shut your mouths!”

His authority clearly outranked that of the men around him. As soon as he spoke, people near the hut made as if to draw their blades, and the crowd fell into a standoff. The old man paid them no mind and turned back to Wang Shitong. “Brother Wang, the weather’s about to turn warm. You’re a clever man, righteous and dependable—if you really must die, this old fool would gladly die in your place at any time. I just want to ask you one thing… what do we do from here? Say something—don’t just hide away in some woman’s little nest without a word, like before! The Jurchens are coming, the snow’s about to melt, it’s time to decide whether we fight or surrender—”

“There’s no path left.” Wang Shitong looked at him calmly, even with a trace of a smile on his face—a smile both at peace and utterly despairing. For a moment the air around them seemed to freeze. After a while, he spoke. “Last year, after I killed Brother Yan, I knew there was no path left… Brother Yan said there was no path either, that he couldn’t go on, so I killed him. After I killed him, I knew—truly, there was no going on…”

He began to laugh, and in that laughter there was a note of weeping. “Before… at Zezhou, that Master Ning advised me not to go south. He told me to gather everyone in the Central Plains, to fight battle after battle, and in the end, forge out a group of people who could survive. He’s… a devil, a beast. Where did he get the right to decide who gets to live—none of us have that right! These are people! These are living human lives! How could he say such a thing—”

As he said this, tears were already streaming amid his roaring voice. “But he was right… We went south, burning and killing the whole way. Harming people, eating people, step after step, until in the end, there was no path left. This world gave us no way forward. Millions of people—what did they do wrong?”

Wang Shitong wept—the grief-stricken, despairing sobs of a man utterly broken. Then he drew a long breath, blinked, and held back his tears. “I’ve killed everyone, heh heh, Uncle Chen… there’s no path left. You… you all should surrender to the Jurchens, surrender—but even surrendering leads nowhere…”

“If there’s no path, then cut one open! Just like you always used to say—we’ll fight our way through with you! Just say the word.” The old man struck his staff against the ground several times in succession. But Wang Shitong shook his head.

“There’s nothing left. No path to be cut, Uncle Chen. I’m… I’m tired.”

Over to the side, Wuding tilted his head back; the leader named Zang Xiuguo licked his lips. Only now did they finally understand why things had gone so smoothly this time—why this ghost king, who had led them ruthlessly and violently for over a year, had become so easy to subdue.

Only the old man stared at him blankly for a long while, his body seeming to shrink by half a head. “So… you knew all along, what we—what they were doing…”

“Heh heh. Bunch of fools.”

“You don’t want to live anymore…”

“…”

“But the rest of us still want to live…”

Wang Shitong lowered his head, dazed, and said quietly, “Then go live…”

“You…” The old man stepped forward, raised his staff, and struck it down hard on Wang Shitong’s head. Wang Shitong’s body tilted slightly to the side. The old man planted his staff and finally turned to leave. “I’ll grant you this mercy!”

“Old Chen.”

The old man turned back.

“Let me do it myself.”

“Heh, you…” A cold wind blew through the hut and the mountains. The old man, furious, waved his staff again, and his attendants rushed forward, drawing their blades to cut the ropes binding Wang Shitong. With that done, the old man led his men away; Zang Xiuguo followed soon after. Wuding and the leader named Wang Chaoyuan exchanged a glance. “I’ll watch him die,” Wuding said.

Wang Chaoyuan pulled at the corner of his mouth. “I’ll leave half my men.”

Wang Shitong paid no more attention to the commotion around him. He tore off the ropes and slowly walked toward the wooden hut not far away. As his gaze swept across the surrounding hills, the cold wind blew on, just as it always had, year after year. In the farthest reaches of his sight, among the mountains, new shoots seemed to have sprouted on the trees.

He no longer felt any attachment to this world…

He walked inside and embraced Gao Qianyue, but there was too much mud and blood on him, so he let go again, stripped off his ragged outer coat, and, since the clothing underneath was relatively dry, took it off as well to drape over her.

“I’m sorry, that it’s come to this after all…” Wang Shitong said. “But it’s alright. We’re together, I’m here with you, there’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s alright…”

He pulled away the cloth gag from Gao Qianyue’s mouth; the woman’s body was still trembling. Wang Shitong said, “It’s alright now, it’s alright, it won’t be cold much longer…” He walked to a corner of the hut and pulled open a hidden compartment. Inside was a bucket of pine oil. Wang Shitong opened it, poured it out into the room, then poured it over himself as well. Then he paused.

Gao Qianyue had run out through the doorway. Cries of alarm rose up from outside. He hurried to the door and shouted for them to stop. Beyond the door, the crowd stood layer upon layer, surrounding the hut, watching this ghost king’s suicide. These people had been starving all winter, and seeing Gao Qianyue run out on her own, some blocked her path, some reached to grab her. Gao Qianyue wrapped her arms around herself, with nowhere left to go.

“It’s alright.” Inside the hut, Wang Shitong called to comfort her. “You… you’re afraid of this. I’ll… I’ll send you away first, then I’ll join you. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt, it won’t hurt at all. Come inside…”

His face was streaked with tears, yet also carried a smile. He spread his arms wide, calling out.

“Come back, Qianyue…”

In this moment, everyone outside had vanished from his sight; all he could see was that weeping, terrified woman—the last remaining trace of light he had left in this world.

“Come back…”

He wept.

“Outside and in here… it’s all the same—”