Dawn broke, and the bustling city stirred back into its usual rhythm.

The constables and soldiers who had spent the night on patrol and guard duty handed off their posts to their daytime counterparts, gathering near Mohe Lake for a meal, then reassembling once more to compile a full account of the previous night’s work before finally dispersing.

Some went home to sleep; others hurried off to check on comrades wounded the night before.

At the city patrol office, the process of accounting for and interrogating the captured rioters was proceeding at full speed. Once certain pieces of information were confirmed, the days ahead would bring a fresh round of arrests, or simple “tea invitations” for questioning.

Near several of the city gates, the crowds wanting to leave the city had nearly clogged the roads, but a notice had already been posted from above: due to last night’s disturbance by bandits, Chengdu’s gates would open three hours later than usual today. Some members of Bamboo Records stood on wooden platforms near the gates, noting down one conspicuous name after another.

By the time breakfast was over, the preliminary summary of events had already been reviewed once at the makeshift command post near the city patrol office, and the first list of people to be arrested had already been decided. Before long, Ning Yi and the others arrived, and together with everyone else, listened to a report on the full scope of the previous night’s chaos.

“…The basic outline of last night’s disturbance has now been established. Starting from the explosion at Courtyard C-3, Yumo Workshop, in the north of the city at around the first quarter of the hour of Xu, the total number of people who took part in the unrest throughout the night and came into direct conflict with us currently stands at four hundred fifty-one. Of these four hundred fifty-one, one hundred thirty-two died either on the spot or later of their wounds; two hundred thirty-five have been captured, and a portion of these are currently being interrogated. A number of ringleaders have already been named, and we’ve begun sending people to bring them in…”

The summary report was being delivered by Ning Xi. Despite having stayed up the entire night, the young man showed almost no sign of fatigue, and seemed rather pleased that Fang Shuchang and the others had assigned him to give this report—usually, his father kept him on as little more than an aide, and only when sent out on his own did he get a taste of anything truly important.

“Over four hundred people…” Ning Yi remarked.

“Mostly concentrated around the sudden unrest at the hour of Xu, and again at midnight,” Ning Xi said. “Around the hour of Xu, disturbances suddenly broke out in the city, and quite a few people came out to watch the commotion—some ended up clashing with us, while others were talked down beforehand thanks to prior arrangements. Of those who genuinely clashed with us during that period, the count comes to close to two hundred. At midnight, stirred up by Ren Jingzhu’s provocation, just over a hundred more people attempted to cause trouble—we’ve now confirmed that these mainly came from the two groups led by Guan Shanhai and Huang Nanzhong… In the remaining hours, there were scattered incidents involving just over a hundred more people, though the numbers reported by the patrol units may overlap somewhat.”

“…We’ve also confirmed the details of the explosion at Yumo Workshop around the first quarter of the hour of Xu.” Ning Xi couldn’t help laughing as he said this. “Apparently, the courtyard being rented there belonged to a fierce bandit named Shi Yuanmeng.”

He glanced toward his father across the table. Ning Yi waited a moment, then frowned. “Go on, then—is this someone important?”

Ning Xi grinned, glancing down at the file. “Well, this Shi Yuanmeng apparently tells everyone he meets about the time father killed the emperor—claims he marched into the throne hall right alongside you, was standing right next to you, and had barely knelt down when you opened fire… He’s carried that memory with him his whole life.”

“…Oh, him.” Ning Yi remembered now, and smiled. “That’s right—one of Tan Zhen’s favorites back in the day… Go on.”

“He wanted revenge. He got hold of two large barrels of gunpowder in the city, planning to have them hauled under Green Water Bridge, timed to go off when your carriage passed by. He had seventeen trusted men under him, one of whom happened to be one of Bamboo Records’ own planted agents inside the group. Because the situation grew urgent so suddenly, there wasn’t time to get word out, so our agent made an on-the-spot decision—while the men were all gathered together, he lit the gunpowder himself. Shi Yuanmeng was severely wounded in the blast… Since it ended up triggering unrest across the whole city, this comrade is currently quite troubled by guilt and is awaiting disciplinary review. Here’s his file.”

Since this involved intelligence work, it wasn’t appropriate to speak the name aloud in an open setting, so Ning Xi handed his father a sealed document. Ning Yi took it, set it down, and made no move to open it.

“He was just carrying out his duty—no fault in that. And the timing of the explosion was, frankly, perfect. This whole bunch talked a big storm and delivered barely a drizzle—if they hadn’t finally made a move, I might have been tempted to lend them a hand myself.” Ning Yi said with a smile. “Go on.”

“Right. Last night’s unrest cost us some losses on our side too… by current count, four soldiers killed, and just over thirty wounded, light and severe combined. The casualties mostly came from encounters with certain underworld fighters skilled in unorthodox techniques—sometimes we simply weren’t prepared for it. Here’s the list of the fallen… And also…”

Ning Xi went through the rest of the report point by point. Ning Yi nodded. “As planned, this isn’t over yet. Over the next few days—arrest who needs arresting, question who needs questioning, sentence who needs sentencing. But the trials need to be handled rigorously: convict where the evidence is solid, and release where it isn’t… I won’t go into more detail for now. Everyone’s had a long night—no need to drag this meeting out further. If there’s nothing else, let’s break for now, get some proper rest… Old Hou, stay a moment, I need a word with you.”

As the meeting broke up, Ning Yi called Hou Wu over and walked off with him, speaking with a smile. “Rest up this morning. I’ll have Manager Tan come find you sometime this afternoon—he’s got some writing to do regarding all this arresting and releasing, and the two of you can work out the details together.”

Hou Wu nodded. Tan Ping was currently in charge of managing Bamboo Records’ propaganda work in Chengdu, but unlike Yong Jinnian and others handling official, above-board publicity, Tan Ping oversaw the hidden threads—things like shaping public opinion in the newspapers, and the spread of information through intelligence channels. If Yong Jinnian, Li Shishi, and others led the kind of cultural outreach that shaped hearts and minds quietly, like rain soaking into soil unnoticed, then Tan Ping’s side used paper as a blade, words as a weapon to kill. The remarkable success of the public-opinion campaign within the city over recent days owed much to his work as well.

Ning Yi didn’t spell out exactly what kind of piece Tan Ping meant to write, and Hou Wu didn’t ask, though he could more or less guess at the shape of it. After he left, Ning Xi and Min Chuyi caught up from behind. Ning Yi looked at his son, puzzled, and Ning Xi gave an awkward grin. “Dad, there’s a small matter—Uncle Fang and the others weren’t sure how to bring it up directly, so they asked me to report it to you privately.”

“…What is it?”

“Heh heh.” Ning Xi scratched the back of his head. “…It’s about Second Brother.”

“…What’s he gotten himself into this time?”

“Second Brother’s been hurt,” Ning Xi said in a low voice.

Ning Yi shot him a look. “If he’s not dead, it’s not a big deal. Just tell me the whole thing at once.”

“…Last night, after Ren Jingzhu stirred things up, Huang Nanzhong and Yan Ying, one of Guan Shanhai’s men, led a group running all over the city, and eventually ended up at Second Brother’s courtyard. They took him hostage…”

“Hostage?”

“Yes, hostage—twenty of them in total, including the wounded Chen Wei and his junior martial brother Qin Gang, whom Second Brother had met at the martial tournament. They forced Second Brother to treat their wounds… Two of the twenty left partway through to find help getting out of Chengdu, so it came down to eighteen in the end. Then, right around dawn, they got into a clash with Second Brother…”

Ning Xi spoke evenly, trying to skip lightly over the messier parts in between. Ning Yi fell silent for a moment. “So if your brother only got hurt, what happened to these eighteen people?”

“One got away.”

“One got away?”

“Dad, don’t look at me like that—Second Brother’s no villain here. He was one man surrounded by eighteen attackers—of course he couldn’t hold back. Put it in front of a court, and it’s exactly what you’d call ‘legitimate self-defense.’ And besides, one did get away, and not all the rest died either—several were wounded, and two were even still alive when the patrol arrived, though they couldn’t stop the bleeding. As for Chen Wei, Qin Gang, and the other severely wounded ones in the room—they died because Second Brother threw a grenade in…”

Shade shifted overhead in the fine morning sunlight; father and son stood beneath the eaves for a while, Min Chuyi standing solemnly to the side.

“So he wiped out the whole lot of them, did he… He fought well—does that mean the third-class merit citation we promised him earlier isn’t going to be enough?”

“Dad, that’s not actually the most important part of this,” Ning Xi said, choosing his words carefully. “The really interesting part is, among them there was a young woman—she took two blade wounds in the fighting, and Second Brother saved her. Afterward he even vouched for her, said she wasn’t a bad person… Dad, here’s the thing. This woman’s name is Qu Longjun. According to what Second Brother’s confessed, she came into the city to cause trouble along with a scholar named Wen Shoubin, mainly with the intention of introducing her to… me. And then having her join the Huaxia Army as a spy.”

As Ning Xi explained this, he glanced somewhat awkwardly at Min Chuyi, who showed no sign of anger on her face. Ning Yi, noticing a bench under a tree at the side of the courtyard, said, “This is getting complicated—I’m having trouble following. Let’s go sit over there, and you walk me through the whole thing carefully.”

“It really is complicated—even after I went to see Second Brother, I came away a little dazed myself.” In the autumn sunlight, Ning Xi recounted, somewhat helplessly, in the shade of the tree, the whole business between Second Brother and this Qu Longjun. “So, after Second Brother came back and took up work as an army medic at the martial tournament… one day on the street, he overheard someone talking badly about us—that was Wen Shoubin. Second Brother followed him, kept him under surveillance… for over a month. This girl, Qu Longjun—her father was Qu Rui, who once led troops against us at Xiaocang River, and died in some muddled fashion. Qu Longjun @#¥#@%… and Wen Shoubin @###¥%&… and then Second Brother &&&&%¥¥¥%##… and then last night…”

As he rambled through this account, Ning Yi rubbed his forehead, looking rather at a loss. Ning Xi felt much the same—how had his little brother ended up tangled in all this? “So the situation right now is: the one who actually wanted to stir up trouble was mainly Wen Shoubin. Second Brother watched them for over a month and found the girl herself had no real intention of causing trouble—she even tried to kill herself once in the middle of it all. Now Wen Shoubin’s dead, the girl’s badly hurt, and Second Brother wants to spare her life. So the situation is…”

The young man gave his father a meaningful look, and Ning Yi returned his gaze.

“…”

After a moment, Ning Yi finally sighed. “So what you’re getting at is… you think your brother’s fallen for her.”

“Ugh, Dad, that’s exactly it.” Now that the message had finally landed, Ning Xi’s expression turned gleefully gossipy. “Think about it… if that’s really true, Second Brother and this Miss Qu really are star-crossed, aren’t they—her father died at our hands, and if he really does fall for her, Mom’s never going to let her through the door…”

“That’s hardly the worst of the tangled fate here,” Ning Yi said. “On top of that, this Miss Qu was groomed from the start to seduce you. If you two brothers end up at odds over this…”

“Dad, I’ve never even met this Miss Qu. I’m innocent in all this—I only heard she’s quite pretty, and talented too.”

“You heard about her, and knowing your personality, you didn’t go take a look for yourself? Chuyi, were you with him all morning today?”

Min Chuyi looked at Ning Xi, frowning as she thought it over. “After we went to see Second Brother, there was a short while when…”

“That was when I went to check on Chen Wei and Qin Gang’s bodies…” Ning Xi protested, eyes wide, throwing up his hands toward his fiancée across from him.

“…”

“Well, there’s nothing more I can do for you here.” Ning Yi took the file on Qu Longjun’s background from his son, sat there looking it over for a while, then handed it to Min Chuyi. “All right. Chuyi, you handle the matter between Ning Ji and this Miss Qu.”

“What?” Min Chuyi blinked. “Then how… how am I supposed to handle it…”

“Handle it however you see fit. I’ll back you up.”

“Dad, this concerns Second Brother’s whole future—you can’t just treat it so lightly.”

“He’s only fourteen, his head’s full of nothing but swords and guns—what does he know about his whole future? Go talk with your Second Brother a few more times, then decide.”

Ning Yi gave a dismissive snort at his eldest son’s fussing and walked off, waving a hand, leaving Ning Xi and Chuyi bickering playfully behind him. Before long, he ran into Chen Fan outside the gate and told him about Ning Ji’s exploits that morning.

“…I waited the whole night and didn’t see a single one of them manage to break through. And this kid Little Ji went and single-handedly killed seventeen of them.”

He sighed. “Guess it’s about time to send him back to school early…”

The sun climbed to its peak, and the city bustled on as it always did.

Under the clear midday light, Ning Yi walked into the small courtyard where his second son, still recovering from his injuries, was resting. He sat by the bedside for a while; the boy, his spirit undimmed, soon woke and gave his father, without holding anything back, a full account of everything that had happened over the past while—the confusion in his mind and how he’d finally resolved it. As for the deaths of Chen Wei, Qin Gang, and the others, he admitted plainly that he’d meant to prevent them from ever coming after him for revenge once healed.

Hearing Ning Ji lay out his “revolution is not a dinner party” theory, Ning Yi reached over and ruffled his son’s hair. “Some people can be persuaded, and some can’t. That’s simply a difference in method.”

He then asked about Ning Ji’s connection to Huang Nanzhong’s group, and Ning Ji admitted to the small matter of selling medicine during the martial tournament—he’d originally hoped the medicine trail might help him locate the group’s whereabouts, so he’d be ready to respond once they made their move. Who could have guessed that a full month would pass with them making no move at all, only for his own little courtyard to end up, of all places, serving as their refuge in the middle of their flight. Truly, fate had brought them together from a thousand miles apart.

Fate, from a thousand miles apart… Ning Yi pressed a hand to his forehead and sighed.

Compared to his eldest son, whom he’d always been grooming for responsibility, Ning Yi had never quite known what to do with this second son of his—upright, straightforward, someone who didn’t even bother hiding his own feelings in front of family. The two of them talked candidly together in the sickroom for a while afterward; once Ning Yi had left and Ning Ji had finished laying his heart bare, he fell asleep on the bed without another worry weighing on him. Asleep, his face carried the same delicate, untroubled look as his mother Chan’er’s.

…

Deeper changes were unfolding within the city.

Yan Daolun left the inn to check with the Huaxia Army on the progress of the negotiations, and to ask around about the previous day’s events. Out on the streets, Huaxia Army members could occasionally be seen moving about; most areas had already returned to orderly calm, with only a few burned-out courtyards remaining as traces of yesterday’s chaos.

Within one such courtyard, Yu Hezhong learned of how events had unfolded from a companion’s vivid retelling. The first wave of news had already been swiftly reported in the papers: the entire chaos of the previous night had begun with a foolish accident—a fierce Martial Dynasty bandit named Shi Yuanmeng, stockpiling gunpowder in an attempt to assassinate Ning Yi, had accidentally set fire to his own powder kegs, killing or wounding himself along with sixteen companions.

“This is the Huaxia Army’s response—this is their response!” Guan Shanhai ran about his courtyard, newspaper in hand. By now he understood clearly that this foolish opening act, combined with the composed manner in which the Huaxia Army had handled the chaos, was destined to turn the entire affair into a joke that people would remember for years to come—and the Huaxia Army’s propaganda machine would make sure the joke never stopped being funny.

Behind his outward loss of composure, what worried him more was the very real possibility that Huaxia Army troops might show up at his door at any moment. With Yan Ying and so many of his men lost, it wouldn’t be hard to trace the affair back to him. But under the circumstances, he knew there was no way out for him now.

Sure enough, before noon, someone came knocking at his door, politely inviting him to come have a cup of strong tea at the city patrol office.

A limited round of arrests was already underway, and people were gradually learning who had taken part and who hadn’t. By afternoon, more details had come to light: throughout the entire night, none of the would-be assassins had so much as caught a glimpse of Ning Yi. Meanwhile, plenty of the underworld figures who had damaged houses and property in the unrest had already been identified by the Huaxia Army, and the newspapers had begun their first wave of public condemnation against them.

Not long after, several of the great scholars, Guan Shanhai included, were released by the city patrol office. Since the evidence wasn’t especially solid, the patrol office hadn’t even bothered detaining them overnight to give them a boost in reputation. And privately, rumors had already begun circulating that certain scholars had secretly struck deals with the Huaxia Army, trading their honor for advancement—which wasn’t hard to understand, given the circumstances.

“Lord Huai” Yang Tiehuai, who had been among the most active in rallying and persuading various factions, in the end hadn’t let his own men take part in the chaos. No one knew whether he’d never intended to act from the start, or had delayed to the last moment only to find the opportunity gone. On the twenty-second, a wounded underworld fighter blocked Yang Tiehuai’s carriage in the road, attempting to assassinate him, shouting even as he was restrained: “You’re the one who egged my brothers into acting, and here you sit hiding in the back, you cowardly old cur—I’ll kill you to avenge my brother—”

The man was seized by Huaxia Army soldiers who arrived on the scene and thrown into jail. Yang Tiehuai, a bandage still wrapped around his head, stood atop his carriage, fists clenched, his expression grim as iron—the very same look he’d worn on the day he’d been struck on the head by a stone while debating a crowd of ignorant fools.

The city’s newspapers went on to track this minor incident: someone had leaked that Yang Tiehuai had been one of the organizers and persuaders behind the assassination attempt on the night of the twentieth, and as this rumor spread, some ruffians had attempted a retaliatory attack against “Lord Huai” Yang Tiehuai, narrowly stopped by nearby patrol officers. The city patrol office subsequently investigated and confirmed that this claim had no basis in fact whatsoever—Yang Tiehuai himself, along with his retainers and family guards, had stayed shut indoors the entire night of the twentieth and had done nothing untoward. The Huaxia Army condemned both the baseless rumor and the cold-blooded attempt to harm such a pillar of the Confucian community…

The autumn wind blew pleasantly, the setting sun glowing crimson through it. This early autumn, the people of the realm who had come to Chengdu had extended their greeting to the Huaxia Army, and the Huaxia Army had answered in kind—and afterward, people heard the sound of the great mountain they’d believed themselves to be crumbling within their own hearts. They had thought themselves strong; they had thought themselves united. Yet the Huaxia Army stood unmoved.

And they themselves, after this one collision, were falling apart.

Some began questioning, in open debate, the integrity of the great scholars; others openly declared their intention to sit for the Huaxia Army’s examinations. Those who had once furtively bought books and attended cram sessions began doing so more openly now. Some of the older scholars still in Chengdu kept publishing articles in the papers—some exposing the Huaxia Army’s sinister schemes, some denouncing the rabble as untrustworthy, and some scholars publicly severing ties with one another in print. There were even essays praising the “martyrs” who had died in the chaos, though these drew some measure of official warning.

The waves of public opinion were steadily widening, seeping deeper into people’s hearts. Amid this atmosphere, the situation within the city grew quieter—and, at the same time, more complicated.

Of course, this complexity was only felt by those caught up in it.

On the evening of the twenty-third, the scent of medicine drifted through a hospital room, sunlight slanting in through one side of the window. Qu Longjun lay uncomfortably on her front, feeling the ongoing ache across her back, when someone came in through the door.

She assumed it was one of the female doctors or nurses she’d seen over the past two days, coming to feed her, and turned her head to greet them—but her gaze froze. A chill spread through her, and her whole body tensed.

Coming through the door beneath the setting sun, dressed in a white coat, features delicate yet clearly in a foul mood, was that young killing god of a doctor—

Long Aotian.

…

At that same moment, on the post road east of Chengdu, a convoy of carriages was making its way toward the city, escorted by Huaxia Army soldiers. On the second carriage, someone gazed out deeply from behind the curtain at this scene of thriving dusk—this was Chen Shanjun, his hair now entirely white after two years at Old Ox Head. Beside him sat Li Ximing, who, after being coerced by Ning Yi, had followed Chen Shanjun to take part in the reforms there.

“…We paid no small price, but we held the Jin dogs back before Zizhou. Look at this stretch around Chengdu—the rice is nearly ripe. Should be a good harvest this autumn.”

The Huaxia Army soldier driving the carriage spoke these words unthinkingly to the man inside. Chen Shanjun watched in silence, and in his aged eyes, tears slowly began to well up. They too had once been Huaxia Army soldiers—the thousand-odd men who had broken away at Old Ox Head had, in fact, once been among the most devoted of soldiers. They had missed the southwest campaign entirely…

That evening, after dinner, they met with Ning Yi.