The people of the prefectural city of Nanping County huddled in their houses in fear. Some even crawled beneath their beds, covering their heads with quilts.
Yet the shouts of killing outside the city remained so clear that people felt puzzled. Exactly how many rebels were there?
Hadn’t the authorities said there were just a few tens of thousands?
They had also claimed that the soldiers and the common people of their city, combined, outnumbered those bandits by ten times. They insisted the city would never fall.
“…That was utter nonsense! How could it be just a few tens of thousands? Judging by the noise, even saying hundreds of thousands seemed too few.”
The people in the city panicked, and the more courageous among them had already taken their hatchets and kitchen knives to sharpen. More of them could only chant the name of Buddha or Taishang Laojun in panic.
Over ten years earlier, when the three princes of the former Chu contended, the flames of war had never reached the prefectural city. Adding to that the thirty-nine years of peace in the flourishing era of the Chu Dynasty, the townsfolk now knew nothing of war. Hearing such fierce battle cries outside, they became horrified, their faces ashen.
Houses near the city walls had been torn down. Those still able to hunker down at home felt their houses were far from the walls.
The city was so large, yet they could still hear such dreadful commotion.
How many people were attacking the city?
Most common people could not read and were not skilled at numbers; they only listened to storytellers in teahouses who, with a few words, might speak of eight hundred thousand troops. If they gave a smaller number, the audience would be displeased, feeling it was not a grand spectacle.
Now, the worst had arrived. Everyone believed there were at least a million soldiers outside.
“That’s impossible. If there were that many, wouldn’t the officials have fled first?”
For the moment, King Jing was still in the city, and the authorities kept forcing laborers to dig trenches and build walls, obviously intending to hold the city.
None in the city dared to leave home, and no one knew where else to hide. Even though people became more terrified, they could only huddle with their families, weeping and making random guesses.
Initially, while everyone felt afraid, they still believed they could hold out a few days. But once they heard the shouts of killing, they trembled as they chanted or shivered, waiting for it to end. They watched as dusk settled outside, yet the fighting showed no sign of stopping.
That was not all. The shouts of those rebel bandits calling on the Ziwei Emperor and declaring Heaven’s Mandate sounded like ghostly curses, repeating again and again in their ears.
Could they really be heavenly troops?
The rebels had arrived at the prefectural city, and with King Jing trapped inside, it implied the entirety of Jingzhou was finished.
How long had it been? If not heavenly soldiers with eerie powers, how had they managed it?
“Boom!”
A deafening noise shook the city walls.
That was the impact of a catapult, and the people heard it like thunder from the heavens. Some lost their minds entirely.
Families held their heads and wailed, unable to muster a word of complaint, left only with despair.
No one knew how much time passed before an even louder boom came, as though something had collapsed.
“The city gate is broken!”
“The bandits have rushed in!”
At first, only a few streets heard it. Soon, the entire city fell into disarray.
The city gate, once sealed with planks and blocked with rocks, had been chopped down, axe by axe, blade by blade.
By then, nine-tenths of the defenders on the walls had perished. More of them fled in terror than were killed by the blades of the Holy Lotus Sect.
They had dug a big pit five zhang away from the gate, and the first wave of rebels did not notice it and fell right in.
Iron spikes and sharp blades lined the pit. Screams filled the air like howls from the depths of hell.
But those behind kept pushing forward. Those at the front saw the horror but could not retreat, and many were forced into the pit.
In the blink of an eye, the pit filled with sacrificed lives. The rebels behind, eyes bloodshot, knew nothing. They trod over rubble and corpses, waving their weapons as they rushed into the city. They had not seen such a vast, thriving place before.
Xuanchuan Pass was tall and fortified, yet it was only a fortress without residences or shops. Yizhou had fallen impoverished since the Chen Dynasty and, though partially restored under the Chu Dynasty, could not compare to Jingzhou’s prefectural city, with its thousand-year history at the heart of the southlands.
“Hahaha.”
Strange laughter mixed with the chaos of pursuit and slaughter, while firelight burned crimson.
On the city walls, torn limbs and blood rained down.
Many soldiers on the second defensive line behind the gate were willing to fight, but once they felt those severed limbs and chunks of flesh landing on them—drenched in a sporadic rain of blood—they panicked. They were not veteran troops accustomed to warfare, so how could they withstand that?
As comrades dwindled and they saw the rebels fighting like crazed tigers, even the officers who tried to maintain order with shouts could not halt the spreading collapse.
General Han Fu, supposed to be directing the defense, was carried down the wall by his personal guards and servants. A wound on his back still bled, and he clutched a bow, roaring frantically with bloodshot eyes.
He had once had a chance to lead the elite of Jingzhou to pick off those phantom-like figures scaling the walls because the first ones killed were ordinary soldiers. With ample space on the thick city walls, they could maneuver effectively. But worthless laborers fled as though they hated their parents for not giving them extra legs. Worse, they ran off screaming, shaking everyone’s resolve, so the defenders on the wall refused to fight to the end.
In a rage, Han Fu cut down one fleeing soldier. This did not scare away the others but revealed his own position.
The followers of Holy Lotus Sect rushed in from all sides, each wanting to kill Han Fu for merit.
After a frantic fight, both sides suffered heavy casualties, and the arrows of Jingzhou’s elite ran out.
By then, the city gate below had fallen. Supplies of new arrows and reinforcements had failed to arrive. Han Fu’s forces had no option but to withdraw from the wall.
Seeing the second line of defense behind the gates on the verge of collapse, with fire blazing high, the Heaven’s Mandate King’s army swept everything aside, surging into the inner city. Han Fu’s chest tightened, and he spat out blood before passing out from sheer anger.
The whole defeat began when panicked defenders hurled too many logs and stones without restraint.
Han Fu misread the rebels’ assault, believing they would stop at nightfall. He underestimated their abilities, took pleasure in their mounting casualties, and wished even more would die like ants.
That moment of hesitation and misjudgment caused everything to slip out of control.
Han Fu was outraged and mortified.
Like many who made grave mistakes, he quickly decided that his slip was minor, while the true blame lay with others.
“Cowardly soldiers, useless bunch!”
After personal guards revived him with pinches to his pressure points, Han Fu instantly cursed the Jingzhou army for its incompetence.
“General?”
“Go!” Han Fu picked up a spear and steadied himself, then snarled fiercely, “With no will to fight, how can we hold this city? Now we can only charge out and join Ning Wu, to avenge King Jing!”
Those words saved what little face remained for the surviving Jingzhou officers.
And truly, no one wished to die here. At this point, barging through the rebels to rescue King Jing was a guaranteed death. Merely proclaiming their loyalty out loud sufficed.
Within the inner city, Jingzhou’s nobility and officials were in shock.
They had never dreamed the rebels could breach the city on the first day, before the night had even passed.
—Was the city wall made of paper?
Overwhelming absurdity and astonishment filled their minds, and several older ministers, standing up too fast, suffered strokes.
Many rushed outside in disarray, barely throwing on their robes.
After all, only the inner city wall now stood between them and the rebels—and, perhaps, between them and sudden death.
The general defending the inner city led more elite soldiers, taking up a solid defensive posture. They finally withstood the rebels’ first wave of assault, buying a brief respite for the officials and nobles, so they would not be hacked to death in their own beds before they could even finish dressing.
But that brief respite might have been worse than none at all.
Half a shichen later, King Jing, his face deathly pale, barely managed to climb the city tower under the protection of numerous shields.
After just one glance outside, he fainted on the spot.
——The rebels held torches, converging into torrents of flame. Their twisted faces under the firelight looked like wicked ghosts.
They halted just outside arrow range, making no sound, merely staring at the city walls with bloodshot eyes.
Throughout the city came endless screams and wails. The people being slaughtered were not visible, only a hellish scene remained.
***
Meng Qi stepped over corpses and rubble as he entered through the city gate.
Firelight cast a deep crimson glow upon his cheeks, yet his gaze and expression were cold and bleak.
What he saw was utter horror. Within ten zhang of the city gate, only a few rebel soldiers wandered about, complaining about being left behind to strip armor from the dead.
“…All the good stuff was taken already.”
“If you don’t fear death, then go for it.”
Someone snapped out of their frenzy and, upon seeing their fallen comrades in the pit, promptly shut their mouth.
Grain, gold, and women were fine things, but one had to live first.
“The Holy Maiden said, once we take the Nanping County Prefectural City, we’ll seize Heaven’s Mandate. The Star Lord overcame this calamity, so our good days would arrive! And what the Protector said made sense too—how much wealth do you think these outer-city folks could have? How many beauties? Just leave them be. The inner city is the treasure house, full of pampered ladies and girls with dainty feet and tender hands, skin so smooth like—”
Before he finished boasting, he felt a sudden chill at his throat.
Baffled, he reached up to touch it. In that moment, he noticed the person facing him made nearly the same gesture.
A strange gust of wind lashed their faces and necks with a stinging pain.
He then saw someone, walking over the piles of bodies without touching the ground, appearing like a phantom.
“Who are you…”
His throat vibrated, and when he reached the fourth word, agony struck.
Blood gushed through his fingers. These rebel soldiers, terrified and unable to speak, staggered only a few steps before collapsing headfirst.
Meng Qi wore a blank expression. He snapped his sword, leaving no trace of blood upon its blade.
He moved faster and faster, and in mere moments reached the alleys where people were shrieking and struggling.
Few saw his face. Yet wherever he passed, the rebels in the midst of slaughter and plunder toppled one after another, blood surging from their necks.
Mo Li tried several times to catch up with Meng Qi, but realized Meng Qi had not lost control. He could only follow behind.
Mo Li knew Meng Qi had killed many people. Yet afterward, Meng Qi always avoided seeing blood to restrain himself, but tonight, he made an exception.
——That fury had become ice. It had not vanished; it demanded a bloodletting.
“A demon!”
Such commotion soon drew the attention of the Holy Lotus Sect. Those so-called martial experts who had been recruited did not believe in gods or demons. They knew it had to be a counterattack by Jiangnan warriors, so they converged toward Meng Qi.
Meanwhile, the rebel soldiers who did believe in ghosts and spirits dropped their loot and fled in panic.
Shadows flitted through the dark alleys, flickering under the firelight.
With fear in their hearts, they saw specters everywhere.
“The demon is after us!”
Mo Li frowned at the two Holy Lotus Sect followers who dashed screaming out of an alley. They dropped their torches and abandoned even their blades, eager only to get back to somewhere brighter, to the Chief and Holy Maiden’s side.
One of the torches rolled twice on the ground, about to set a house ablaze.
Mo Li swept his sleeve, summoning a burst of inner force. A weird gust blew up from the ground and snuffed the torch.
The townsfolk who escaped disaster ran desperately in the opposite direction from the rebels.
“Hey! Which vermin stirs trouble here? Identify yourself to Grandpa…”
The first ones to run into Meng Qi were a group of infamous rogues from the martial world, men who had once taken pleasure in killing and had wiped out entire villages. Yet their skills were not weak. They were brothers who had mastered a set of highly synchronized blade techniques, making them difficult to handle. If not for the severe drought in Yongzhou, they never would have joined the Holy Lotus Sect.
These four brothers seemed bold, standing carelessly in the street to block his way. In truth, they had already formed a tight circle, poised to capture this so-called demon—really an assassin (mistaking Meng Qi for the traveler from the previous day)—on the spot.
Meng Qi acted as though he did not see or hear them and kept walking forward.
His right hand rose slightly, revealing the sword’s edge.
The four rogues shouted in unison, ready to pounce. Yet the one at the eastern flank suddenly let out a muffled groan and flew backward.
“There’s someone in the shadows!”
“Retreat now!”
Seeing the situation turn dire, the remaining three tried to withdraw, but with Meng Qi right there, they could not flee at will.
Meng Qi made a casual flick, stirring a swirl of energy.
Mo Li, without needing a word, easily shattered the three rogues’ right arms, which they had offered up themselves.
If they kept struggling, he would break a left arm and both legs too.
“Die… ah!”
“Watch my blade… wait, no!”
One after another, Holy Lotus Sect fighters rushed forward, only to suffer baffling defeat. The cries of “a demon!” grew louder.
Meng Qi fought in the open; Mo Li lurked in the shadows.
They walked one behind the other through this fallen city, feeling each other’s presence.
Even there, amid ceaseless assaults by armed foes and their death throes, that connection was unbroken.
Meng Qi could hear Mo Li’s heartbeat, as though pressed against the doctor’s chest; Mo Li could hear Meng Qi’s steady breathing, as if Meng Qi were at his ear.
With deadly sword flashes and imperceptible blade arcs, none survived Meng Qi’s strike. Those who faced Mo Li instead lingered on the brink of death.
There were hundreds or thousands of scattered rebels in the city, impossible to kill them all. Yet the night and dread accomplished that task.
Wherever Meng Qi passed, the light suddenly vanished.
Stripped of torches, many rebel soldiers stumbled in the dark, terrified of the demon. They abandoned their looting and sprinted back to the main force attacking the inner city. The screams and clamor gradually diminished. Standing in a higher place, one could clearly see a wide swath of darkness fanning out from the city gate, growing ever larger.
“Hmm?”
Chief Luo’s expression hardened, and he whipped his head around.
