The old mongrel had connected with Guan Shanhai, and the bald villain had gotten his hands on the medicine. Ning Ji had expected the wicked deed to follow quickly on the heels of these two developments, but it seemed these people had all caught some strange disease called “taking things slow,” and the whole scheme afterward fell into a stalemate.

The old mongrel attended banquets every day, thoroughly enjoying himself; the young mongrel was locked in her courtyard, spending her days in a daze. The two Huang villains threw themselves wholeheartedly into the martial arts tournament, occasionally even gathering friends together, and from what could be overheard at a distance, it seemed they wanted to hold this or that “gathering of heroes” just like in the storybooks — books my father wrote, no less. Weren’t you all supposed to be doing evil deeds?

Time slipped past into the sixth month, and Ning Ji, through idle tailing during his boredom, had even worked out exactly where Huang Shan, Huang Jianfei, and the others were staying. Yet the two bands of enemies remained utterly unmotivated, achieving nothing whatsoever in the way of sabotage. Such inefficiency left Ning Ji speechless, and the deadpan face he wore every day at the arena nearly became permanent.

As time passed, the affairs of the world naturally moved forward as well. By the seventh month, the traveling merchants, scholars, and martial artists pouring into the city had grown even more numerous, and the atmosphere within the city bubbled ever more excitedly, the bustle growing louder by the day. More and more people were clamoring to give the Huaxia Army trouble, while several of the Huaxia Army’s own work teams continued arriving in Chengdu one after another.

On the second day of the seventh month, a clash broke out at the southern edge of the city, and in the dead of night a fire was set, its blazing light lighting up the sky — clearly some band of bandits had made their move within the city. Ning Ji ran the whole way there to help, only to find, by the time he arrived at the scene of the fire, that the mob of bandits had already been either struck down or captured, the Huaxia Army’s patrol having responded with astonishing speed. Two of the “martial heroes” among them, resisting to the last, had been killed by the soldiers on patrol.

The incident had erupted suddenly and been quelled just as quickly, but the ripples it left behind were considerable. On the evening of the third, Ning Ji went to eavesdrop at the old mongrel’s residence, where Wen Shoubin had brought two trusted companions along for a drinking session, sighing over the heroic sacrifice of the dozen-odd righteous men who had, he claimed, fought to the death against the Huaxia Army’s siege the day before, while also praising their actions for having “probed out the Huaxia Army’s deployment and true strength” in Chengdu — once such conditions were properly scouted, he said, still more righteous men would be able to act.

Over the past twenty-some days, Ning Ji had heard this sort of talk more times than he could count, and this time he finally managed to hold back his anger and simply laughed coldly to himself. What “dozen-odd heroic righteous men besieged and fighting to the death” — it had been nothing but a gang of bandits stirring up trouble in the city, who, once discovered, had set the fire and tried to flee before being rounded up and captured. Among them, two skilled fighters had run into two patrolling soldiers, and in that two-on-two clash the outcome had been decided in a single exchange; the patrol soldiers were battle-hardened veterans fresh off the front lines, and their opponents, thinking far too highly of themselves though genuinely skilled, had left them no choice but to kill in earnest — both bandits died, though the soldiers themselves took some minor wounds.

In a fair fight, one-on-one, the outcome might have gone either way, but even at two-on-two the result had turned out this way; if it had come down to five against five on each side, the Huaxia Army probably wouldn’t have been hurt at all. Ning Ji, arriving quickly and gathering the facts on the spot, could hardly believe that within a single day the story had already twisted into this kind of rumor…

“…I heard that this incident caused quite a stir within the Huaxia Army itself. The whole city was in an uproar over that fire — though outwardly they say only a few people were caught and the Huaxia Army suffered no losses at all, in truth they had five dead and sixteen wounded. Of course the newspapers wouldn’t dare print that; they can only paper over the truth…”

“…However it turns out, these righteous men truly performed a heroic feat. Our Wu Dynasty’s orthodoxy will never be extinguished — heroes like these will keep coming forward, one after another…”

“…Well, if you ask me, these days we needn’t confine ourselves so narrowly to this Wu Dynasty orthodoxy. Forgive my bluntness, but even under the founding of the new order, there’s been fault on our own side too…”

“…Now that I cannot accept. We scholars must never forget the great principle of ruler and subject. Aren’t you one of Wu Qimei’s traitors—”

“…Who’s a traitor, who’s a traitor! When the former crown prince Jun Wu succeeded to the throne at Jiangning, he abandoned the entire city’s population and fled — how is that any different from his father? The sage said: let the ruler be a ruler, the subject a subject, the father a father, the son a son. If the ruler no longer acts as a ruler should, then naturally the subject need not act as a subject should either — and father and son certainly resemble each other closely enough. Since you bring up orthodoxy, let me debate you on it — is this the orthodoxy of a single family and surname, or the orthodoxy that follows the teachings of the sages? What, exactly, is the great way—”

“…You heretic, spouting such nonsense, and you dare call yourself a man well-read in the sages…”

“…I act with a clear conscience—”

“…Hey, hey, hey, hey, stop arguing… don’t fight…”

The shadows and the farce in the room blended into a strange silhouette in the late-summer night, and the youth sighed, going to the back courtyard to keep watch over the girl named Qu Longjun.

Time would flow on, the world would shift and change, and many years later this atmosphere would become part of the imagery of his youth. The late-summer sunlight filtering through the treetops, the warm wind stirring up the cicadas’ cries, or the afternoons and evenings when the thunderstorms rolled in — the bustling city of Chengdu held a particular charm for him, fresh off the mountains and the battlefield.

People sparred atop the arena stage; scholars chattered on and on, pointing fingers at the state of the realm; the scent of iron and blood lingered beneath a surface that seemed, on the whole, restrained. As time passed, the tension of waiting for something to happen kept climbing higher and higher. The scholars and wandering swordsmen newly arrived in Chengdu grew bolder in their talk by the day; occasionally a true master would appear on the arena stage, and word would spread of the bearing displayed by some great hero or venerable elder at this or that gathering of heroes. Even the storytellers at the Bamboo House joined in the flattery, boasting of things like the Yellow Mud Palm, the Eagle’s Claw, or the Six-Powers Elder as though each were the finest under heaven.

Amid all this, the girl who often sat in her room dressed all in white, or in the pavilion, would also become part of this memory. Because Guan Shanhai’s side was making such slow progress, unable to pin down the movements of the “eldest young master of the Ning family,” Qu Longjun could only spend her days confined to the courtyard, with the little garden beside the river the only place she was ever allowed to move about in.

The girl was silent by temperament, and whenever Wen Shoubin was away her brow always seemed touched by melancholy. She preferred solitude, disliking having servants and maids disturb her frequently, and in her quiet moments she would often hold the same posture for half an hour, even a full hour, at a stretch. Only once had Ning Ji happened to catch her waking from a dream — he never knew what she had dreamed of, but her eyes were full of fright, sweat drenching her forehead, and she’d stepped barefoot out of bed, pacing back and forth as though she’d lost her soul…

Ning Ji had no fondness for this sort of melancholy, oppressive quality, but keeping watch on her every day, waiting to see when their treacherous scheme would finally be set in motion, had, over the course of those days, become something of a habit for him. Only, as time wore on, strange things occasionally happened. One night, with no one else about in the little tower, Ning Ji sat on the roof watching distant lightning begin to flash, when the Qu Longjun in the room below seemed suddenly startled by something, glancing left and right, and even softly asking aloud: “Who’s there?”

Ning Ji furrowed his brow, wondering if his skills had failed him and he’d somehow made a sound that gave him away. But he’d been sitting perfectly still and silent on the roof — what could she possibly have sensed?

The girl paced in a circle inside the room, puzzled, and finally gave up. She picked up her pipa and, facing the window, played a tune toward the distant thundercloud. Not long after, Wen Shoubin returned home half-drunk, climbed the stairs, praised Qu Longjun’s musicianship, and then said:

“That eldest young master of the Ning family moves about unpredictably — his schedule is hard to know in advance. Master Shan and I have discussed it privately, and given how tense things are in Chengdu these days, some great calamity must be coming, which means the Huaxia Army is on especially high alert as well; even getting close to him right now would only put them on their guard. Daughter, you must plan for the long term here — if this gathering of the righteous in Chengdu doesn’t succeed, and the Black Banner Army manages to weather this crisis after all, then afterward you’ll find another opportunity to get close to the Huaxia Army’s upper ranks — that won’t be difficult.”

“Your daughter obeys whatever her father commands,” Qu Longjun said.

“This is also for your own safety,” Wen Shoubin said. “Look at that lightning flashing in the distance, daughter — it’s just like the situation in Chengdu today. It won’t be long now before it arrives… The Black Banner Army, oh, they’re hiding something rotten indeed, and who knows how many benevolent, righteous men will lay down their lives in the great upheaval to come… A heroic feat, indeed — you’ll see it soon enough, Longjun, a bold and valiant deed, no less than back when…” He hesitated a moment, struggling to find the right example, and at last said, “No less than when Zhou Tong assassinated Nian Han!”

Idiot!

The thunderstorm really was coming. Ning Ji sighed, and climbed down to head home.

The restless stirrings from that fire on the second day of the seventh month continued to smolder, and by the time the rumored number of righteous men and the Huaxia Army’s supposed casualties had tripled or quintupled in the retelling, the sixth of the seventh month arrived, and the Huaxia Army published in the newspapers a series of concrete measures it planned to take, covering several key points.

First, on the first day of the eighth month, the Huaxia Army’s Fifth and Seventh Armies, along with the Twenty-Ninth Army stationed at Tanzhou, would hold a grand joint military parade within the city of Chengdu, along with a ceremony presenting captured enemies — a number of Jurchen commanders, along with several notorious ringleaders captured during the great southwestern campaign, would be publicly sentenced and dealt with.

Once the parade concluded, starting on the third day of the eighth month, the Huaxia Army’s first People’s Congress would begin, to deliberate every major question of direction and policy going forward.

And from the middle of the eighth month, the Huaxia Army would carry out its selection of talent, both civil and martial, throughout its territory at the same time. In the selection of soldiers and officers, performance at the great martial arts tournament would be considered a mark in one’s favor — it might even provide a path to promotion by exception. As for the selection of civil officials, for the first time the Huaxia Army publicly announced the standards for the mathematics and natural-philosophy sections of the examination, both in thinking and in general knowledge — of course, an official’s understanding and views on the great trends of the realm would also be tested where appropriate.

The announcement of these specific measures in the newspapers immediately stirred up a great uproar. The parade and the presentation of captives were, naturally, the events ordinary people most loved to watch, and they also drew deep vigilance from every faction. But the selection of civil and martial talent was the real move that pulled the rug out from under everyone — the moment word of this outside selection process spread, the various factions gathered in Chengdu found their “morale shaken.”

Some scholars called in the newspapers for others to boycott the selection process, while others analyzed from every angle just how heretical this selection was — for instance, what the papers most emphasized was the utterly nonsensical inclusion of things like “Mathematics” and “Natural-Philosophical Thinking” as part of the Huaxia Army’s own examination. They argued that the Huaxia Army was selecting mere clerks, not true officials, that this would ruin a lifetime of scholarly learning for every literatus under heaven, and that it was a truly vicious and underhanded method of opposing the great way of Confucianism.

Some also began discussing how the virtue and integrity of true officials ought to be selected, citing precedent after precedent to weigh the merits and flaws of every selection method used throughout history. Of course, even as this uproar raged on the surface, no small number of the scholars who had come into the city still went and bought a few copies of the Huaxia Army’s published textbooks on Arithmetic and Natural Philosophy, poring over them late into the night. It wasn’t that Confucian scholars never studied mathematics at all — only that in the past they’d spent far too little time engaging with or researching it. Even so, compared to the ordinary people, they naturally still held certain advantages.

For this reason, the strongest protests against Chengdu’s coming selection came precisely from the great scholars and famous figures who had their sights set on becoming marquises and ministers. But those scholars without much reputation to begin with, or the poor, unremarkable literati who had failed the examinations time and again and taken up unconventional pursuits instead, only voiced their objections aloud while secretly rejoicing. And some of the merchants who had come to the city, along with the accountants and clerks who followed them, were even quietly stirring with excitement: if it came down to a contest of arithmetic, those great scholars couldn’t hold a candle to them — they’d come here to sell goods, but who knew, might they even land themselves an official post?

People remained wary of these measures, debating them noisily back and forth, but toward the news of the grand assembly itself, most showed an attitude of indifference. Those who didn’t understand the stakes felt it had nothing to do with them anyway; the great scholars who understood a little more simply scoffed, feeling it was nothing but a show — the affairs of the Huaxia Army were decided by that demon Ning with a single word, so why bother putting on some grand assembly to disguise the fact, when it was all just for show…

The city’s atmosphere grew ever more chaotic and tense. Ning Ji went to the old mongrel’s place, where a whole crowd was cursing Ning Yi for his malicious scheme of pulling the rug out from under everyone. Some also pointed out that once these armies entered the city, it would mean the aftermath of the earlier great battle had been thoroughly wrapped up — the reorganization of the puppet troops, the resettlement of the Jurchen prisoners, all of it finally concluded. If they meant to act at all, it would have to be before this parade.

Of all the scholars, none brought up “making a move” within the city more often than they did, and Wen Shoubin spoke of it quite naturally himself, since he had already resolved to wait here with his “daughter” until matters had run their course before considering anything further — a resolution that left him, if anything, more relaxed, his words and manner growing bolder and more expansive by the day.

Having seen enough of this, Ning Ji no longer even bothered with a cold laugh.

He lived alone in that small courtyard, his identity concealed, though naturally people occasionally came to visit. On the afternoon of the sixth of the seventh month, Sister Chuyi came from Zhang Village to fetch him to a gathering at his father’s place. By the time he arrived, quite a few people had already gathered — it was a welcoming banquet, attended by his father and elder brother, Auntie Xigua, and several of Bàdāo’s uncles, all there to welcome the newly arrived couple, Chen Fan and Ji Qian’er.

The Ning family’s children were all extremely fond of this bold, sunny, and handsome Uncle Chen, and Ning Ji, having received the most instruction from him in boxing, counted himself among his direct disciples. Running into him now, everyone was unusually excited, chattering away asking Chen Fan about how he’d killed Yinshuke, while Ning Ji told him all he’d seen and heard on the battlefield over the past year and more. Chen Fan, delighted, grew so animated at one point that he pulled off his shirt to compare battle scars with Ning Ji — this childish, pointless display was promptly broken up by everyone with a round of kicks and cuffs.

Unable to compare scars, they turned to testing each other’s martial skill instead. Chen Fan then had Ning Xi, Chuyi, and Ning Ji form a team of three to face him one against three, a proposal the eagerly watching crowd readily approved.

“You’ve been living the easy life these past few years — try not to get yourself killed,” Fang Shuchang laughed.

“I bet Chen Fan can’t last thirty moves,” Du Sha said, laughing.

“That Ning Ji kid is ruthless — you’d better watch yourself,” Zheng Qiming said.

Ji Qian’er laughed. “Chuyi, his left leg’s injured. Go for the left side.”

Chen Fan cast a helpless glance their way, only to see Xigua approaching, carrying Bàdāo’s blade case. “Take it easy on him — don’t hurt him too badly. Once you’re done fighting, I’ll deal with you.”

Chen Fan wasn’t about to back down either. “Why don’t the two of you come at me together? I’ll go easy on both of you.”

Ning Yi, hands clasped behind his back, smiled at his leisure. “Get past my son and daughter-in-law first, then we’ll talk. Finish him off!” Then, remembering Ji Qian’er’s words, he added, “Go for his left foot!”

“I think it’s his left leg.”

“Same thing, comes to the same meaning.”

“Just don’t break anything.”

The whole crowd of masters, grandmasters even, mingled in among their own inner demons, laughed and joked together. Ning Xi picked up a staff, Chuyi drew her sword, and Ning Ji dragged over an entire weapons rack, selecting a pair of boxing gloves, meaning to open with his Little Vajra Consecutive Fists. As he pulled the gloves on, he asked casually, “Uncle Chen, how did you two sneak into the city? The troops haven’t arrived yet, have they?”

“Of course it’s your father plotting against someone,” Chen Fan said. “This time, even if Lin Zongwu himself came, we’d make sure he couldn’t get out of Chengdu.” He hadn’t picked up a weapon, only wrapped strips of cloth around his fists, and in the sunlight the two fists came together with a heavy thud.

“Ready?” he said, smiling. “Come on, then!”

“Wait a moment, Uncle Chen, I still—”

Before he’d even finished speaking, the three of them charged at once! Ning Ji’s fist came whistling through the air like a tiger pouncing—

To Serve the Isolation of the People.