Bandits

The place where Chaotian Capital stood was called Jingzhou, once the very center of Great Shang's thirty-six prefectures.

Southwest of Jingzhou lay Yunze Prefecture. Its terrain was dominated by towering peaks and ridges, with countless lofty mountains and sheer cliffs rising a thousand ren high.

The scholars of Chaotian Capital had always described Yunze Prefecture's myriad mountains and peaks as the work of supernatural craftsmanship.

A broad Official Path had been built between Jingzhou and Yunze Prefecture, serving the people, caravans, and relay stations of both prefectures.

But a few days ago, an Earth Dragon Overturn had struck Yunze Prefecture, collapsing more than a dozen mountain peaks. The Official Path had been buried and blocked, and the terrain had changed drastically.

No one knew how long it would take to clear the road and restore it to its former state.

Zhengwu was heading to Cloud Mist Mountain at his master's instruction to visit Master Chan Hui, who was stationed there. Naturally, he couldn't let an accident delay him.

So Ning Xiu and the others followed Ren Qianxing onto another road that led to Yunze Prefecture.

Compared with the broad, level Official Path, however, this road was in a dreadful state.

"Taking this road will add a day or two to the journey to Yunze Prefecture. In the early years, before the Official Path was built, this was the only route from Jingzhou to Yunze. But no one's maintained it for years, so the ground's inevitably become riddled with potholes." Seated atop a Black Wind, Ren Qianxing gestured to the surrounding mountain scenery as he explained it to Ning Xiu.

They had already traveled more than a hundred and forty li from Chaotian Capital. The farther they got from human settlements, the more primitive the natural landscape became.

That meant their chances of encountering wild beasts and Evil Spirits would rise considerably.

The term Evil Spirit was actually a blanket name for demons and other evil beings. It encompassed a great many dangerous creatures.

The Demon Subduing Bureau had been established for hundreds of years, and it had devised a classification system for them.

They were broadly divided into Evil Spirits, Demonic Creatures, Fierce Gods, and Malevolent Spirits.

Evil Spirits: Filthy, yin-tainted beings born in places steeped in yin energy, or entities that appeared when someone died bearing an injustice and a heart full of resentment.

Examples were the Resentful Yin Woman and Grievance Yin Fetus that Ning Xiu had dealt with at the Yun Family Cloth Shop. Solitary Souls and hairy stiff corpses might also appear in wilderness burial grounds.

Demonic Creatures: Birds and beasts that had gained intelligence and learned to cultivate. They preyed on humans and grew stronger by consuming their blood and flesh.

Examples included Fish Demons that lived in great rivers and sometimes came ashore to attack people, and Wild Boar Demons and Wolf Demons that dwelled in the mountains and sometimes came down to seize people.

There were also Fox Demons and Snake Demons that hid among ordinary folk and fed on men's essence.

Fierce Gods: These were much rarer. They were mountains, forests, rivers, or fields that had gained intelligence and possessed divine abilities far beyond those of Demonic Creatures.

They often used their powers to summon wind and rain, drive away clouds, and bring out the sun in their territories. As a result, people living nearby thought these were the works of immortals.

They worshiped them as Mountain Gods, Forest Gods, River Gods, Land Gods, and the like.

These Fierce Gods were the hardest to control. Some were neutral and harmless, and wouldn't hurt people. As long as you didn't provoke them, they wouldn't make an enemy of you.

Others, however, were vicious. Their domains were sure to be thick with yin energy and strewn with bones. The places they influenced became like ghostly realms, lifeless and shunned by birds and beasts alike.

Malevolent Spirits: They came into being when ignorant, frightened commoners worshiped immortals of dubious origin and unknown provenance. People's worship generated a force known as wish power.

Though this force was intangible and elusive, it possessed great power. Through the worship of countless people, it could bring forth spiritual entities that had never existed before.

These entities usually took on human forms, making them more acceptable to the ignorant commoners.

Spiritual entities could increase their strength by gathering this force of worship, so they secretly spread preachers far and wide, sending loyal believers to carry their names everywhere.

The commoners who worshiped these entities called them immortals, but the Demon Subduing Bureau invariably labeled them Malevolent Spirits.

That was because they were not true immortals. They possessed neither the disposition nor the methods of immortals; their very nature was to seek the force of worship.

To obtain it, they would do anything. They were a threat to the nation and its people.

Many commoners who worshiped Malevolent Spirits also received wicked cultivation methods from them. These methods were often bloody and cruel.

Their cultivation invariably involved taking lives, carving up bodies, binding souls, and extracting vital essence. These gullible commoners were what people had once called Demon People.

One or two hundred years ago, Great Shang had suffered several upheavals in which Malevolent Spirits incited commoners to take up arms and rebel.

At the time, the Demon People under the Malevolent Spirits' command had caused many Iron Horse Demon Subduing Captains to meet an unfortunate end, inflicting heavy losses.

In response, the Demon Subduing Bureau devised an extermination plan and launched a massive demon-subduing campaign.

Every immortal, Buddha, or saint within its jurisdiction whose origins were unknown and had no record in ancient texts was wiped out.

Temples were demolished, idols smashed, and scriptures burned.

Demon People were beheaded and the gullible punished. The campaign was more severe than anything in Great Shang's history.

The history books therefore called it "the Son of Heaven Subdues Demons."

"It looks like plenty of people have chosen this road to Yunze Prefecture now that the Official Path's blocked," Zhengwu said, looking at the fresh cart ruts of varying depths across the ground.

"Of course. There's a great deal of trade between the two prefectures, and every day the road's closed means lost money. People can't just hold it in until they burst. Even if there's no road, those merchants will surely carve one through these mountains by sheer force of will," Ren Qianxing replied.

They continued another five li. The journey had been quiet and peaceful, and Ren Qianxing and Ning Xiu occasionally chatted about matters concerning the Demon Subduing Bureau.

Master Zhengwu and Xia Yunsi also shared what they knew from time to time, and the atmosphere was quite harmonious.

Just then, the clanging of weapons suddenly rang out ahead, loud and clear. Anyone could tell at a glance that people were fighting with weapons.

Large-scale armed brawls were strictly prohibited inside and around Chaotian Capital, but feuds and clashes between merchant guilds and other factions were hard to avoid.

So it wasn't unusual to come across a large-scale fight in the wilderness.

By then, they were nearly a hundred and fifty li from Chaotian Capital, where the strict rules held less sway.

If the other party was fighting over some blood feud, then even as Demon Subduing Captains, they could simply step in and smooth things over.

When Ning Xiu and the others rode their exotic beasts to the scene, they saw two groups of people fighting each other with reckless abandon. The battle was utterly chaotic.

One group wore finely made blue outfits, each with the character "Li" embroidered on the chest.

The other group looked like refugees, dressed in tattered clothes and filthy from head to toe.

The only thing that stood out about them was the quality of the weapons in their hands.

The men in blue surrounded four carriages as they fought, refusing to move even a step away. They were clearly defending them.

"Looks like we've run into bandits. We've got work to do," Ren Qianxing said at once.

In this era, the people all lived in cities, towns, villages, and hamlets. The Demon Subduing Bureau stationed personnel in every one of them.

The lowest rank was a Ninth Rank Iron Horse Demon Subduing Captain. Many apprentices from Champion Camp who turned eighteen without being chosen by the Demon Subduing Bureau were sent to various places to assist the Demon Subduing Captains with such matters.

In this world, apart from experts who lived in seclusion, there was virtually no ordinary person who dared to live in the wilderness, deep in the mountains and forests.

Even so, bandits and robbers had never disappeared. They built strongholds deep in the mountains and lived by going down to rob and plunder.

They dared to do so because most bandit strongholds had Demon People stationed there. The bandits needed the Demon People's protection, while the Demon People relied on the bandits to go out and seize whatever they needed.

With their interests intertwined, bandits became one of the few groups able to settle in the wilderness amid this chaotic age of Evil Spirits.

When Ren Qianxing said they had work to do, he meant they had to find the bandits' stronghold and arrest the Demon Person behind them.

Xia Yunsi wasn't much of a talker, but she was exceptionally efficient when it came to action.

She leaped straight from the back of her Black Tiger mount, drew the pair of short batons from the sheath at her waist, and plunged into the crowd, swiftly laying into every man dressed like a bandit.

As a Martial Dao Seventh Rank practitioner, Xia Yunsi was highly skilled with her twin batons. Her movements flowed like water, and she controlled her strength with exquisite precision.

Every strike sent someone crashing to the ground, but none of the blows were fatal.

As more and more bandits fell, the rest, their blood up from the slaughter, noticed the tall woman who had suddenly appeared.

On an ordinary day, they would have gone wild at the sight of a woman with a figure like hers. But when they saw the Mysterious Silver Lock Armor she wore, their expressions changed in an instant.

A Demon Subduing Captain!

The men in embroidered blue, on the other hand, couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief at the Demon Subduing Captain's arrival.

Everyone knew there was no need to keep fighting. No matter how many bandits there were, they couldn't possibly be a match for a Demon Subduing Captain.

"Retreat!"

Someone among the bandits shouted. They all turned and fled, planning to plunge into the nearby forest. They knew these mountain paths better than anyone.

Once they made it into the mountains, even the Demon Subduing Captain wouldn't be able to do anything to them.

Unfortunately, the bandits hadn't run into just one Demon Subduing Captain that day, but four.

Bang!

Ning Xiu had already anticipated their move and was standing beneath a tree with his hammer in hand. He swung it down, snapping through the trunk near the base. The massive tree immediately toppled to one side.

It fell right across the mountain entrance, frightening the fleeing bandits into scrambling backward. If they went any farther, they would be crushed beneath the tree.

Escape mattered, but life mattered more.

Before the tree even hit the ground, Ning Xiu had moved to another one. He struck, broke the trunk, and did the same again and again.

In no time, the trees on the hillside had toppled one after another, forming a wall that completely blocked the bandits' way into the mountains.

Ren Qianxing's two puppets came running over. Their palms split open by themselves, revealing square openings.

Then a vast web of tough ropes shot out, blanketing the tightly packed bandits and netting them all at once.

As a Buddhist Seventh Rank, Master Zhengwu was every bit as efficient as Xia Yunsi at subduing the bandits, though he used a different technique from Xia Yunsi's one-strike-per-bandit method.

Whenever Master Zhengwu pressed a hand against one of the bandits, that person immediately froze, unable to move a muscle or take a single step.

It looked a lot like the acupoint-sealing martial arts Ning Xiu remembered.

Working together, the four of them subdued every bandit. Not one managed to escape alive into the forest.

The whole thing had been swift and smooth, leaving the bandits no chance to resist.

The men in blue watched, secretly marveling. "Just as you'd expect of Demon Subduing Captains."

Once all the bandits had been subdued, a woman in a green skirt slowly stepped down from one of the carriages.

She looked to be around twenty-five, with a graceful figure and the face of a young woman paired with the air of a married one. She walked straight up to Xia Yunsi, who had just put away her batons, and bowed. "Greetings, honored Demon Subduing Captains. I'm truly grateful for your help today. Without you, we would have lost many good men before driving them off."

"Think nothing of it. Helping those in need is our duty. Bandits threaten the people, so protecting them falls within our responsibility," Xia Yunsi said righteously.

"May I ask where in Yunze Prefecture you're headed? If we're going the same way, perhaps we could travel together. I have plenty of fine food and wine in my carriages, and I'll cover our expenses when we reach a town. I certainly won't let you go hungry or sleep under the open sky, or find the journey dull." The woman in the green skirt extended an invitation.

The meaning behind her words was easy enough to understand. This road led only to Yunze Prefecture. If she could persuade Ning Xiu and the others to accompany them, their journey would become a hundred times safer.

Bandits and Evil Spirits would pose no threat at all, and they could rest easy.

But Ning Xiu and the others had caught these bandits, so they had to go to their lair and deal with the Demon Person sheltering them. Naturally, they couldn't accept the woman's invitation.

Ren Qianxing declined on their behalf. "We can't continue on our way just yet. We need to head into the nearby mountains and destroy this bandit stronghold."

A trace of disappointment showed in the woman's eyes. Her Li Family Caravan was in a hurry to deliver important goods to the prefectural seat of Yunze Prefecture, and couldn't afford to waste time on the road.

She couldn't wait for Ning Xiu and the others to return from suppressing the bandits, so the invitation to travel together would have to be dropped.

The woman in the green skirt could only say, "Then I wish you all a safe and successful journey."

After exchanging farewells with Ning Xiu and the others, she returned to her carriage. The Li Family Caravan set off again and slowly disappeared into the distance.

"Let's go too. We need to deal with the Demon Person quickly. Take one each and question them separately. Make sure we get the bandit stronghold's true location out of them." Ren Qianxing grabbed a Demon Person whom Xia Yunsi had knocked unconscious and dragged him back onto the Black Wind. He planned to wake him up and force him to reveal the location of the lair.

The remaining bandits who had already passed out could be left alone. Xia Yunsi and Master Zhengwu went to the ones caught in the rope net and dealt with them one by one, either knocking them unconscious or sealing their acupoints.

They had to make sure none of them could run back and warn the others, giving the Demon Person a chance to escape.

The greatest advantage of exotic beasts over ordinary horses was that they could easily traverse terrain horses couldn't handle.

Forests, slopes, mountains, and the like.

Ning Xiu grabbed one of the bandits whose acupoints had been sealed, climbed back onto the Iron Eater Beast, and urged it into the nearby woods.