Chapter 39

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Bian Hong leaned his ear against the door, listening carefully to the sounds outside. A few agonized cries rang out, followed by Rong Feng in the room drawing his bow fully and loosing an arrow. A sharp "whoosh" cut through the air, followed by the clang of the arrowhead striking metal, along with a man's scream.

Outside the courtyard, the soldier-bandits who had intended to slip silently into the yard and swiftly finish off the household found themselves dropping straight into a trap pit the moment they scaled the wall. One man was immediately impaled on the sharpened wooden stakes at the bottom, while two others, quicker to react, clung to the edge of the pit, waiting for rescue.

Though they were deserters, several among them were no slouches when it came to skill—each had his own reasons for having fled the ranks.

Now that they had encountered a trap, they finally began to take the people in this house seriously. Their earlier nonchalance vanished in an instant, replaced by razor-sharp focus and an even denser killing intent.

They stopped probing for other ways into the yard, wary of more traps, and instead took running leaps to clear the already-triggered pit before scaling the wall with practiced agility.

Rong Feng's arrow struck the first man to clear the wall dead center in the chest, but it was stopped by his armor and failed to pierce through. The man managed to stumble a few steps after landing, throw open the gate, and only then collapse, unable to move.

Rong Feng's expression darkened. These men were formidable—unlike the poachers they'd run into that day on Miemeng Mountain, these were men of real skill.

A bow was only good for ranged combat. Seeing them enter the yard, Rong Feng set aside his bow and took up his blade, charging out the door alongside Bian Hong. As Bian Hong stepped outside, his expression froze. Under the moonlight, the armor these men wore was all too familiar—even if they were not Tiger Guard, they had to be border soldiers who'd once fought alongside his own.

And now they were raising blades against each other—brother killing brother. A nameless sorrow welled up in his chest.

But the soldier-bandits opposite were seasoned fighters. The moment the blades clashed up close, they moved to separate the two men, planning to pick them off one by one. They tried to occupy Rong Feng while concentrating their numbers on the shorter Bian Hong first—only to realize within the first exchange that they'd bitten off more than they could chew.

The tall, burly man fought with devastating power, his martial arts grounded in orthodox training. With his wide, sweeping strikes, a few men could barely hold him off for long. And the slender man they'd assumed was the weak point—after only a few exchanges, the bandits felt a chill run down their spines.

Because this man fought exactly like them. The same techniques, the same ruthlessness. His blade gleamed coldly as he thrust, hooked, chopped, and stabbed—his movements weren't graceful, even ugly, but every single one was instinctively aimed at a vital point. Everything served one ultimate goal: killing.

This was a skill forged on the battlefield, tempered by countless lives lost.

The bright moon hung high as the two sides faced off, their expressions visible even in the dim light. After just a few exchanges, the bandit leader let out a cold laugh—he'd found this slender man's weakness.

His killing intent wasn't firm.

Then, with a surge of ferocity, the bandit leader shrugged his shoulders and charged in, eyes red, blade swinging. Bian Hong had just parried two men's slashes when the leader came at him with a wind-cutting strike aimed straight at his face. Gritting his teeth, he raised his curved blade to block in front of his eyes, but the heavy saber pressed down lower and lower, inching toward his neck.

From across the yard, Rong Feng let out a thunderous bellow. He kicked out with tremendous force, twisting his waist as the leg, carrying internal energy, snapped a bandit's neck clean. Then he hurled his weapon at the bandit leader—but a one-armed man bursting out from a hidden corner intercepted the throw.

Rong Feng's blade carried so much momentum that it sent the one-armed man tumbling a great distance. At that very moment, a window in the house cracked open, and a child poked half his body out. A thin arm gripped a solid iron counterweight and, with all the strength he could muster, hurled it at the bandit leader locked in struggle with Bian Hong. It struck the man square in the forehead, drawing blood.

Bian Hong's heart went cold, because out of the corner of his eye, he saw several wounded bandits on the ground heading straight for the house.

They were like hyenas sniffing out carrion, keenly scenting the weakness of these two formidable fighters.

All of this happened in an extremely short span—from the bandits' appearance to the clash of arms—and even startled Yan Qiu, who hadn't yet slept in the adjoining room. He heard the commotion and dressed and opened the door as fast as he could, but when he came out, the yard was already littered with bodies and blood.

His face went pale with terror, but then he looked up and saw a figure at the window reaching in to drag Yuan Ding out. Without a second thought, Yan Qiu grabbed a wooden hoe from under the window and, with a shout, smashed it at the man.

The hoe shattered on impact, and the man grabbing Yuan Ding let go, then turned toward Yan Qiu with a grim face and lunged at him. Yan Qiu was no match for him at all—that single swing had been all the courage and strength he had. Now all he could do was flail the broken half of the hoe handle in a desperate bid to survive.

But just as the man lunged forward to grab his throat, a curved blade gleaming with cold moonlight slipped in from the side of the man's neck like a specter, then was yanked sharply back.

Under the moonlight, the man's shadow cast upon the wall suddenly split in two—head from body. Then a torrent of blood gushed forth, as if the body itself didn't know its head was gone, the artery still pumping blood in rhythm with the beating heart.

Yan Qiu was splattered with hot blood across his face, and as the headless body toppled sideways, it revealed a face behind it—one that was both familiar and strange to him.

It was Bian Hong. But a Bian Hong with dull, pitch-black eyes, killing intent radiating from every pore.

Yan Qiu felt Bian Hong was as heroic as a savior in that moment, and yet, at the same time, a little afraid.

"Xi... Brother Xi?"

The words slipped out unconsciously, and the next moment, a crisp crack of bone and a scream rang out beside him. He turned his head to see his benefactor driving a fist directly into the chest of the man who'd just held a blade to Brother Xi's neck. Though the soft armor blocked it, the fist visibly sank half a knuckle deep.

The man's chest bones were surely shattered. He collapsed, twitched a few times, and went still.

In the span of a few breaths, the dozen or so fierce soldier-bandits who'd come in the dead of night were nearly all down.

Most had died from blunt force trauma with their bodies intact; a smaller number had been cleanly decapitated.

This was the most common method of killing in the army.

For the convenience of claiming battle merits.

Yuan Ding and Guan Bao, hearing that the commotion outside had ceased, ran out from the house and clung to Bian Hong's legs. They were terrified, but in this moment, they felt safe. Their Brother Xi, just like before, had driven off the bad men and protected them once again.

At some point, the warhorse that had been recuperating in the kitchen had run out into the yard, neighing loudly and stamping its hooves. Rong Feng immediately went out to check, only to see the one-armed man he had knocked out of the yard trying to sneak away. But the injured man was kicked down by the warhorse's iron hooves, and the horse paced around him, waiting for him to rise before striking again.

"Silver Frost!"

The horse tilted its head at the call, stamped its hooves, snorted, and stood still. Rong Feng walked over, patted the horse's neck, then advanced with a grim face to seize the man.

But the man made no sound and didn't move. Rong Feng thought the horse might have kicked him to death, but reaching out, he found the man still breathing—he had likely just passed out from the pain.

Rong Feng didn't rush to kill him. The ones in the yard were already dead beyond dead. With this one remaining survivor among the attackers, it wasn't wise to kill them all. He would take the man to the prefectural office to close the bandit case and serve as a witness—after all, quite a few people had been killed tonight.

Though he had the authority to handle it himself, his master had taught him that appearances mattered. It was proper to inform the prefectural office, lest the Mountain Guard seem overbearing and arbitrary.

With that decided, he bound the man and dragged him into the yard, intending to discuss with Bian Hong the plan to deliver this half-dead man to the prefectural office the next day—a journey that would likely take a full day.

But as he entered the yard, Bian Hong was still standing there, covered in blood, motionless.

He immediately dropped the one-armed man and rushed over, only to see Bian Hong's face ashen, his body trembling violently, his jaw clenched so hard that a trace of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

Without a second thought, he scooped Bian Hong up and hurried into the house, turning back to say to Yan Qiu—one of the few sentences he had spoken since the man's arrival.

"If you would, please look after my children."

Yan Qiu hastily wiped the blood from his face, forced his trembling legs to stand, and nodded vigorously at Rong Feng.

"Thank you." With that, Rong Feng immediately carried Bian Hong inside.

In truth, Yuan Ding and Guan Bao were calmer than Yan Qiu. Though Yan Qiu had suffered in life, he hadn't been born in a famine-stricken region; he had never left his home and had always had food to eat, if barely. He wouldn't even dare approach when an elder in the village passed away, let alone face a yard full of blood like this.

But Yuan Ding and Guan Bao had been led by Bian Hong through death's door. The evil of human nature they had witnessed defied description. A yard full of corpses was nothing compared to their plague-ravaged homeland, the months of fleeing famine along roads littered with the starved dead.

Life had taught them: don't fear the dead. Only fear the living.

And at this moment, what Yuan Ding and Guan Bao cared about most was whether their Brother Xi would be all right.

But they also knew in their hearts that they had no power to protect him. They were too weak, too lacking in strength.

They had understood this since that morning when they were staying at the Min family's home and Brother Xi had gone missing—when their uncle had sighed and pushed two bowls of millet porridge toward them.

But Big Brother had that power.

Yuan Ding hugged Guan Bao, who leaned against him. Right now, he had blind faith in Rong Feng as their big brother.

Yan Qiu didn't know how to comfort these two young boys. As he hesitated, searching for words, Yuan Ding had already taken Guan Bao's hand and looked up to speak to him.

"Brother Yan Qiu, let's go back to the room and sleep."

"Huh? Oh, oh."

So Yuan Ding led Guan Bao, with Yan Qiu tagging along, back to Rong's mother's room, and as he closed the door, he glanced at the neighboring door.

He hoped Brother Xi would get better soon—they still had so much good food to eat, so many fields to tend, and so many good times to come.

Meanwhile, in the room next door, Rong Feng carried Bian Hong bridal-style and quickly laid him in the warm bed, then went straight to the porcelain bottle in the little box on the far right of the cabinet, grabbing the medicine he'd made from gastrodia root, plus the bottle of pills his master had given him.

The two didn't clash—in fact, they were just what Bian Hong needed. So he got a bowl of warm water, propped Bian Hong up, and gave him the medicine.

He shoved the pill into Bian Hong's mouth, but Bian Hong, convulsing, couldn't swallow properly, and the water at his lips just spilled down his chin.

So Rong Feng, frantic, took a big mouthful himself, cupped Bian Hong's head with his big hand, and leaned down to feed it to him.

As their breaths mingled, he worked it past Bian Hong's throat and made him swallow the medicine.

Then, holding Bian Hong's cold body, he lay down quietly, waiting for Bian Hong to slowly come back.

Bian Hong's body kept twitching. In his daze, he thought he was still on the battlefield, the battle almost over, a crowd shouting excitedly as they hacked off enemy heads.

Before the state master changed how military merits were counted, the Tiger Guard counted merits by heads—killing wasn't enough; you had to take the head.

Soldiers who came back empty-handed were sent to the punishment cell, faced extra training, and got bullied.

After nearly six months of being thrown in the cell, training, and being tormented, Bian Hong finally raised his blade.

His skill had been honed to near perfection through endless practice, just waiting for the moment to be used.

Your surroundings change you, and Bian Hong wanted to live.

A year later, he was used to cutting heads straight off when he killed, because the instructor said it was more efficient.

That night, he was ordered to chase down a deserter, and as usual, he was to behead him on the spot.

The deserter had run for three days and three nights, and the dozen or so men chasing him had run for three days and three nights. Finally, by an old village, Bian Hong numbly obeyed the instructor and chopped the head off in one stroke.

Orders were ironclad; the head dropped, blood sprayed, but behind him, a shrill cry rang out: "Dad!"

He turned. A little girl, seven or eight, clutching a stone, ran at them screaming, ready to fight to the death.

A pebble against a mountain—but it didn't make her look foolish.

Because he'd chopped off a father's head right in front of his daughter.

The deserter's body hit the ground, and the severed head never closed its eyes, even in death.

Bian Hong stood frozen, numb, until the instructor took care of it all—gave her money to live on and found her a safe place.

But Bian Hong knew something inside him shattered in that moment, with a clear, sharp crack, and over time, the cracks spread through his whole being.

New wounds and old scars piled on top of each other, impossible to piece back together.

After that, to everyone's dismay, he gave it all up and left the camp, carrying those unhealable cracks that ran all over him.

He slowly pieced and glued himself back together, until he looked human again, but now and then, cold wind still seeped through the cracks, cutting him to the bone.

Bian Hong's mind was still pretty clear. His body didn't fully obey him, but it was way better than before. He thought maybe, one day, he'd be whole again.

His body slowly came back to life, and every so often, a low voice called out to him.

"Bian Hong?"

And after a moment of blankness, it would repeat itself.

"Bian Hong."

In this strange world, it kept reminding him that he was Bian Hong.

Finally, he let out a soft gasp and answered.

"Mmm."

Rong Feng suddenly sat up and leaned over Bian Hong to check on him. "You feeling better?"

Bian Hong managed to move his neck a little and nodded.

Rong Feng finally sighed in relief, flopped down beside him, and then hugged Bian Hong tightly from behind.

He said softly, "Don't be scared. I'm right here."

And for some reason, those words hit Bian Hong hard. Tears silently soaked the pillow by his temples. He still shook now and then, but in Rong Feng's warm arms, he slowly spoke.

"I'm not a wife—I'm a man. I can't have kids, can't start a family with you. There's something wrong with my heart—I'm not a good partner. One day, I'll go my own way. You... you don't need to do this."

He still didn't let go—held Bian Hong even tighter.

He bowed his head from behind, pressing into Bian Hong's soft hair, not asking anything, not prying, just saying in a tight voice.

"I... I only want you. No one else. Until you find that place..."

He paused for a long moment, then finally, almost begging, said slowly.

"Until then, stay with me for a while."

After knowing what it's like to be held tight.

Being alone is just too lonely.