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

Heaven and earth stood in desolate silence; the wind blew across the wild, barren hills and slipped away with a mournful cry. The man’s voice was sincere yet weak, and in the woman’s eyes it turned into one last flicker of hope amid deep despair. The smell of pine oil was spreading through the air.

But the woman did not come.

Gao Qianyue held herself tightly, surrounded by the starving men who had stayed behind. Seeing the standoff hold for a moment, someone from behind reached out a hand toward her. The woman wrenched herself free with all her strength, screaming through her tears. Wang Shitong snatched up half a broken stool and hurled it at them.

“Touch her again and I’ll kill you before I die—”

He had led these starving people for nearly two years and carried real authority; some only made as if to step forward, not daring to actually act. Amid the clamor of voices, the space left for Gao Qianyue to run grew smaller and smaller. Wang Shitong watched this from the doorway. “Come here, I won’t hurt you. They’re not human, I told you that…”

“Ahh—” the woman’s scream rang out. “You’re not human either!”

Wang Shitong froze.

“Wang Shitong, you’re not human.” Gao Qianyue wept. “You killed my whole family, you ruined my body—if they’re not human, then are you human!? Wang Shitong, I hate all of you, I miss my parents, I’m afraid of you! I’m afraid of all of you, beasts, you’re all beasts…”

The woman had always been timid by nature. After shrieking and screaming for a while, her voice gradually faded; she collapsed to the ground, holding herself, and hung her head, weeping.

Wang Shitong simply stared at her blankly. He swallowed hard, shook his head, as if trying to shake something off, but in the end could not manage it. Mocking laughter rose up from the crowd.

The world was a nightmare.

There had once been a desperate struggle.

But in the end, that last sliver of light finally closed over.

In the crowd, someone approached and lifted the woman up from the ground; her screams carried away into the distance. Just as it had happened countless times before this past year, these scenes were always accompanied by a slaughterhouse worthy of hell, by flames, by the weeping of countless people and the wild, unrestrained laughter of madness. Countless heart-wrenching screams and cries circled endlessly in his mind—that was the face of hell.

“There’s no going on like this… do you still want to be human—” Amid the half-heard cries, he had killed his best brother, Yan Hong, already starved to skin and bone.

“This whole world is full of wicked men… but it’s alright, as long as I’m here, I’ll lead you all out of this… as long as I’m here…” Countless expectant eyes had looked to him, and then all those eyes had turned blood-red. Above and below, all around this sea of people, everywhere was the sound of human voices—weeping, pleading, the sounds people made as they starved to death right before his eyes—sounds that should never have existed. Yet Wang Shitong looked at them, at the skeletal corpses lying on the ground, and it seemed that in their occasionally twitching eyes and lips, something unsettling was still being uttered.

Ke ke ke, ke ke ke, ke ke ke… ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke…

Watching people starve to death right in front of you would drive anyone mad. Every night, those countless people would reach up, seize him, gnaw at him, until they had devoured him entirely. He would wake from his dreams, greedily, madly drinking in the soft warmth of the living body beside him. The woman was always gentle, like the kittens and puppies he had raised as a child—together, they lived in paradise.

“I’ll protect you, don’t be afraid…”

…

“…Mm.”

…

…………………………………………………. A lie.

…

Wang Shitong held his head in his hands and began to weep.

Out in the crowd, someone had torn open Gao Qianyue’s clothes. More people, after glancing at Wang Shitong, finally began moving in this direction too. The woman screamed and struggled, trying to run, even begging for mercy, yet in the end, she never ran toward Wang Shitong. Her clothes were finally torn away entirely; the starving men dragged her, lifting her feet off the ground, tearing at her trousers. Strips of cloth tore away with a ripping sound. Something came whistling through the air and struck down into the crowd—pine oil splattered outward.

“Do it.” The voice rang out. Many hadn’t yet realized it was Wang Shitong speaking, but Wuding, standing nearby, had already heard it and gripped the club in his hand. Wang Shitong’s second shout had already come.

“Second Xin! Yao Xian! Do it now—”

Beside Wuding, someone suddenly drew a blade and slashed at his neck.

In that same instant, many voices cried out through the crowd; blades flashed upward, blood sprayed high into the air, and figures nearby crashed to the ground.

The slaughter—or rather, the massacre—expanded in an instant.

This Second Xin was one of Wuding’s trusted men, and Yao Xian had followed Wang Chaoyuan for a long time. Wang Chaoyuan had withdrawn half his men, and of the half that remained, most were under Yao Xian’s command. No one had imagined that Wang Shitong, who had shown no resistance at all at first, could still command men even now. A large group of people were cut down by blade and spear in an instant, the smell of blood spreading through the air. Though Wuding had braced himself the moment Wang Shitong gave his first shout, he too was soon driven steadily back by the very blade-men he had trusted as his own confidants, blood spattering repeatedly across his body.

This violent slaughter came quickly and ended just as quickly. Perhaps only a few had actually taken part, but the timing of the strike was too well chosen. In moments, most of Wuding’s and Wang Chaoyuan’s men lay in pools of blood. Wuding himself was cut down by Second Xin, struck by several blows, his lower leg nearly severed in two, screaming in agony and no longer able to resist.

Wang Shitong had also cut down two men himself. Blade still dripping blood in hand, he walked toward Gao Qianyue. The woman, her clothes torn to shreds, kept backing away. Wang Shitong crouched down and took hold of one of her hands.

“Shh, shh… it’s alright, it’s alright now…” A man named Yao Xian brought over a ragged blanket. Wang Shitong took it and wrapped it around Gao Qianyue, then reached out to try to comfort her, but she lowered her head and instinctively pulled back again. Wang Shitong stood up, a flicker of confusion and blankness passing through his eyes.

“What are you doing! You bunch of fools! He’s not the ghost king anymore! Following him means certain death, don’t you understand…” On the other side of the pool of blood, Wuding was still screaming amid his own blood. The crowd standing nearby also showed some measure of confusion. Second Xin spoke up: “Ghost King, it’s good you’ve come back to yourself.” He was naturally one of Wang Shitong’s trusted men, and at this moment he was even more concerned with whether Wang Shitong had truly returned, whether he had come to some understanding.

Wang Shitong, bare-chested, walked over to a nearby wooden stump and sat down, staring blankly. After a good while, he spoke quietly. “Is there… anyone from the Black Banner Army here?”

In the whistling wind, the men looked at one another in a terrible silence. Wang Shitong waited a moment, then spoke again. “Is there anyone from the Huaxia Army? Come out. I want to talk to you.”

The ghost king’s hollow gaze swept across everyone present. After another long pause, Wuding, still lying in the pool of blood, laughed mockingly. “Heh heh… you, you madman, you…”

From within the crowd, Yao Xian slowly stepped forward and stood before Wang Shitong.

Wang Shitong looked up at him. Yao Xian’s cheeks were gaunt, his gaze grave, showing little change as their eyes met.

“So it’s you…”

“Fang Chengye, of the Huaxia Army. I was assigned to follow you… Congratulations, Ghost King. You’ve finally come to understand.”

“I haven’t come to understand anything…” Wang Shitong murmured. “In the end, I’ve simply lost…”

“My teacher says you were only drowning.”

“…Drowning… teacher?” Wang Shitong looked at Fang Chengye, and after a moment, understood exactly who this “teacher” he spoke of was. At that moment, birdsong cut across the sky above. He said, at last:

“I have one request…”

The sky hung heavy and gray. Outside Xuzhou, the starving mobs were gradually gathering in one direction.

On a hastily erected platform, people climbed up one after another; among the crowd was Li Zheng, a Han man from Liaodong. Someone began speaking loudly on the platform. After a while, a group of people, guarded by armed men, was dragged out and pushed to the front of the platform to be killed.

To be divided up and eaten.

Before the man on the platform had finished speaking, disturbances broke out from different directions. Some rushed up onto the platform, others surrounded it from all sides, and still others were cut down where they stood. Amid the tremendous chaos, most of the starving mob had no idea what was happening—but the dark, blood-soaked cloak finally came into view for all to see. The ghost king approached slowly, walking toward the men on the platform.

Some roared, some howled, some tried to stir the crowd below into action. The old man named Chen Dayi, leaning on his staff, made no move at all. Wang Shitong, coming up from below, passed by his side. Not long after, soldiers seized those trying to flee, including the outsider Li Zheng from Liaodong, and dragged him to the edge of the platform.

Li Zheng tried to speak, but a soldier beside him thrust a blade into his mouth and cut out his tongue.

The ghost king walked forward and, one by one, cut off the heads of the kneeling troublemakers.

He tossed the heads into the bonfire, and the flames roared up fiercely.

…

Beneath the somber sky, the “starving mob” finally began to scatter. Half of them started circling south around Xuzhou; another portion followed the only one they could still rely on—the “Ghost King”—toward the nearest source of food.

That was to the north, toward the Jurchen military camp.

A few more days passed. At some point, an unbroken line of battle formation appeared before the “starving mob” like a great wall. Wang Shitong, in the midst of the crowd, shouted hoarsely at the top of his voice. At last, they threw themselves forward with all their strength, charging toward that nearly insurmountable wall across from them.

That dark, blood-soaked cloak ran at the very front of the crowd, the surging thunder of their footsteps shaking the whole earth as if with the roll of spring thunder. Ahead, the figures of the Jurchens grew clearer in view. Wang Shitong swallowed hard.

“So hungry…”

Spring had already arrived.

Across the whole land, there remained only a bleak, lifeless gray.

A cannonball came roaring through the air with a boom.

Wang Shitong ran amid the crowd; the cannonball hurled him high into the sky…

So hungry…

…

Far, far away, a woman’s figure merged into an escort convoy, setting out on the road south.

No one knows whether, on that road, she ever once looked back toward the north.

“…I have one request. I hope you’ll see her safely to the south…”

“…I hope you’ll make sure she has food and clothing, I hope you’ll find her a good husband…”

“…I hope she can live somewhere that will never know war again, I hope her husband will cherish her, I hope she has many children and grandchildren, I hope that when she’s old, her children will be devoted to her, I hope there is always a smile on her face…”

“…I hope she forgets me, I hope she never… never remembers this nightmare of a time…”

“…I hope she…”

…walks toward happiness.

…

Somewhere unknown, tears and smiles met and mingled.

His body flew up into the sky…

In the fifth year of Tianyou, thirty-three years before this moment, in the spring, a child was born into a wealthy household west of Zhending. The child’s parents were devout Buddhists, praised throughout the surrounding villages as kind and benevolent people, yet this was the son they had late in life. In the sixth year of Tianyou, when he turned one year old, his parents took him to a temple to play. He sat at the feet of the statue of Manjushri and refused to leave. The abbot of the temple said the child had a bond with the Buddha, that he was the green lion beneath the bodhisattva’s seat come down to the mortal world, and since the family’s surname was Wang, they named him Wang Shitong—”Wang the Lion Child.”

The Buddha is merciful, and Manjushri is a symbol of wisdom above all. Wang Shitong was clever from a young age; he passed the entry-level examination at seventeen and the provincial examination at twenty. Though his parents passed away early, the family was well-off, and his virtuous wife bore him a son who was equally bright.

In the thirteenth year of Jinghan, the Jurchens swept south. Twenty-one-year-old Wang Shitong led the villagers and common folk of the area into the mountains to escape the ravages of war. After the Jurchens withdrew, though his family estate had been destroyed, not a single one of the people he had sheltered had died a violent death. Wang Shitong took out his family’s savings and lent them to the nearby farmers to help them rebuild their livelihoods.

Yet in the years that followed, natural disaster and human calamity came one after another. His young, frail child died in a plague brought on by the chaos of war, and his wife never recovered from the blow. Wang Shitong stayed by his wife’s side and looked after the villagers. When natural disasters struck, he stopped collecting rent, and eventually gave away his entire family fortune for the sake of the refugees from the surrounding countryside. His kind wife, in time, finally passed away, worn down by grief. In her final moments, she said: I have lived a happy life at your side, but I’m sorry that from now on, you’ll be all alone…

Wang Shitong buried his wife and led the refugees south.

As long as I am here… I will never leave a single one of you behind…

That was the promise he made to them…

…

The tenth year of Wujian Shuo, the second month.

Wang Shitong flew up into the sky…

Before this, he had already spent an entire lifetime struggling…

…

The starving mob still ran on, across the endless, unbroken land.