"Five times?!"
The villagers' mouths fell open.
"My lord! Five times... You're trying to kill us!"
"Kill you?"
Dire Wolf sneered. "Your lives aren't worth much. If you have money, pay up. If you don't, pay with grain. If you have neither money nor grain, bring your belongings and come with me."
The commotion in Mirage City had been so great that even remote Snowfall Village had heard about the human-trafficking business. Someone cried out in alarm:
"You're going to sell us?!"
Second Brother walked over and kicked the speaker in the stomach.
"Say 'my lord.' You really are a bunch of boors, with no manners at all."
Dire Wolf waved a hand, keeping his smile pleasant. "Don't be like that. As Lord Morimura put it, you're 'means of production.'"
"Everyone, you aren't being sold. You're being invited to work somewhere you can earn more money."
"This village is holding back your potential. You can't even scrape together a little tax money, so I'll send you somewhere you can show what you're worth."
For example...
A coal mine.
"You have one night to raise the money. Go on."
The villagers scattered, rushing back to their homes. At first, they argued and wept. Before long, people were stealing and fighting.
Families who couldn't raise the money were robbing others of their food and valuables.
The years of neighborly affection they'd shared had all turned to dust in the face of a real threat to their lives.
Dire Wolf sat in his carriage, eyes narrowed. He treated the wailing, cursing, and screams as snacks to go with his wine, tapping his fingers lightly against his scabbard as he drank and sang, utterly carefree.
The four brothers left behind circled the village, making sure not even a bird could escape.
The chaos lasted from dusk until dawn.
Some handed over money and grain.
Some accepted their fate.
And some died.
Dire Wolf drained the last of his wine and tossed away the jug.
"Fifth Brother, Fourth Brother, take them back to the county ahead of me. I'll wait two more days. If that 'Doctor Lin' still hasn't returned, I'll go back."
"Yes, Big Brother!"
Fifth Brother drew the whip from his waist and cracked it loudly, driving the villagers forward like livestock.
Among them were Haku and his family of three.
Just then, a carrier pigeon flew over and landed in Dire Wolf's hand.
He glanced at the secret message and raised an eyebrow.
"Wait a moment."
"What is it, Big Brother?"
"I'll take them back myself."
Dire Wolf licked his dry lips. "Lord Morimura says two of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen have arrived. I have to hurry back and welcome them."
The deal between Yagura and the Feudal Lord of the Land of Water, the standing of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, County Magistrate Morimura's prospects... Countless thoughts flashed through Dire Wolf's mind. His instincts told him—
The time had come.
The time for County Magistrate Morimura to soar into the heavens had arrived!
He had to get back and witness it.
As for Lin Qing?
Dire Wolf didn't believe the four brothers left behind couldn't handle him.
One elite jonin and three chunin. That was more than enough.
There were three horses hitched to the carriage. Dire Wolf rode off on one, taking four or five dozen people with him toward the county seat.
Snowfall Village was now left with fewer than twenty people. Some had paid enough tax, while others weren't worth taking back.
Old men and women who couldn't work, for example, and people with physical disabilities.
They were left behind in the village to die.
Blade Master stood by the window, gazing at the desolate village. The veins stood out on the hand gripping his hammer.
If only his right arm weren't injured.
If only he were thirty years younger.
He would smash those bastards' heads in himself.
"Knock, knock—"
Someone knocked on the door.
Blade Master went over and opened it. The Lame Man stood outside.
His wife had been taken from him again.
This time, without Lin Qing there to stand up for him, he could only watch helplessly as Dire Wolf's whip struck his wife and drove her away like livestock.
The Lame Man knelt at the doorway.
"Blade Master, please lend me a knife."
He was slender and handsome. Many people called him a sissy, a coward who hid behind his wife.
But today, resolve burned in the Lame Man's eyes.
"You want to risk your life?"
"I want to bring my wife back."
Blade Master shook his head.
A lame man couldn't beat a ninja. Neither could a perfectly healthy person.
After a long silence, he drew a short blade from his waist and tossed it down in front of the Lame Man.
"Leave the village and keep heading north. Before you freeze to death or a bear kills you, find Lin Qing and bring him back. That's the right way for you to risk your life."
"Me? But—"
The Lame Man glanced at his severed leg. "Blade Master, wouldn't you be better suited to go?"
Blade Master gripped his hammer tightly and rekindled the forge.
"I have to make him a blade. That way, when he comes back, he'll be able to kill."
The Lame Man understood.
He picked up the knife and limped away.
The village's blockade had long since been lifted. They'd already taken everything of value and everyone who could work. It made no difference to them whether the people left behind stayed or went.
The Lame Man's figure disappeared into the snowstorm, accompanied by the sound of Blade Master's hammer.
Mei Terumi sat by the shore, grilling fish.
Sasuke and Xiaotao practiced hand-to-hand combat nearby, grunting with each move. With the breathing technique, the children fought with fierce vigor, and a faint sheen of light appeared with every punch and kick.
As for Lin Qing—
Mei Terumi looked at the frozen lake, then turned to Sasuke. "That guy's been down there for almost twenty minutes. Is he really not going to suffocate?"
After more than ten days together, Mei Terumi had a rough idea of what Ripple was: the power between each breath in and out.
How was Lin Qing supposed to breathe after sinking into an icy lake?
"I believe in Brother Qing!" Sasuke said.
Mei Terumi rolled her eyes. Damn brat. He was always blindly idolizing people.
Rumble—
She heard thunder and looked up.
The sky was overcast, but anyone with even a little common sense knew that thunderstorms were almost unheard of during the snowy depths of winter.
Mei Terumi soon realized the thunder wasn't coming from the sky.
It was coming from the bottom of the lake.
Golden currents of electricity flickered across the thick ice. Another rumble sounded, and the ice collapsed into fragments as the water surged.
Sasuke and Xiaotao came over to stand beside Mei Terumi.
As the water rose and fell, it flowed off to either side, forming what looked like a staircase made of water.
Lin Qing stepped up the watery stairs, one step at a time. Not a drop of water clung to him.
Mei Terumi handed him a grilled fish. "Have you mastered your divine art?"
"Divine art... Who taught you that phrase?"
Mei Terumi pointed at Little Sasuke.
"I'm not quite there yet," Lin Qing said.
Lin Qing had grown completely familiar with transforming the properties of the scarlet, blue-green, and silver-white Ripples. But the strongest, the Sunlight Yellow Ripple, remained beyond his grasp. He still couldn't complete the transformation.
To train, Lin Qing had left Snowfall Village and come to this lake, which stayed frozen all year round. He relied on the daily chill to cultivate his Ripple power.
The icy water enveloped his skin, forcing him to fight against it. It made him shift from breathing in and out with the world around him to focusing on the flow of air inside his body.
It wasn't a comfortable process.
Each time he nearly suffocated, Lin Qing felt for his limits. In the instant he reached them, he sensed the flow of Ripple.
But he was still a little short.
He was still missing a breakthrough.
Lin Qing took the grilled fish Mei Terumi offered and ate in big bites, replenishing his strength.
"Why are you training so hard?" Mei Terumi asked.
Lin Qing replied with a question. "Does getting stronger need a reason?"
In his experience, aside from a few ninjas who chose to do nothing, most were either training or on their way to a mission. They almost never stopped.
"Of course it does. Ninjas train to protect their villages, get ahead, or earn money... There has to be some goal driving you to do something this uncomfortable."
Mei Terumi fixed her gaze on Lin Qing. "What's your goal?"
Lin Qing didn't belong to any village.
He didn't need money.
As for getting ahead... With his strength, he could join the Daimyo's service as a retainer whenever he wanted.
Mei Terumi had watched Lin Qing for a long time. She'd found that his personality was simple: right was right, wrong was wrong, with none of the usual complications.
Yet this simple, straightforward man was the one person she couldn't understand.
"My goal..."
Lin Qing watched the lake settle back into stillness. "I suppose I want the people around me and me to have the power to choose, no matter what difficulties we face."
The opposite of "the power to choose" was "submitting to fate."
Lin Qing didn't want a day to come when:
A friend was captured and accepted their fate because they couldn't fight back.
A loved one fell gravely ill and accepted their fate because they couldn't afford treatment.
Mei Terumi said, "So you're being driven forward by the fear inside you."
"What drives people forward is either fear or desire. I thought someone like you would have a clear desire."
"But Lin Qing, have you ever considered that some people don't want the power to choose?"
"When faced with a choice, they panic. They might even beg those above them to take away their right to choose and whip them like animals."
"Only then can they feel at ease in their suffering."
Lin Qing stared at Mei Terumi in surprise. "Are you really not talking about some kind of weird fetish?"
"Pervert!"
Mei Terumi's cheeks flushed, but she quickly recovered.
"When you rescued the survivors in Mirage City, you told them, 'Stand up. No kneeling.' Wasn't that also taking away their right to kneel?"
Lin Qing thought for a long time. Just as Mei Terumi was about to assume he wouldn't answer—
"People have to stand up first, and see the world as human beings."
"After that, whether they stand, kneel, or gladly face death—that's their choice."
"I just can't stand it when certain people and things keep pressing down on everyone, so I want to turn all of them upside down."
Mei Terumi gave a soft laugh. "So what you want to overturn is the entire Ninja World."
Lin Qing didn't laugh.
"Who knows?"
Silence fell between them. All that remained was the faint crackle of branches in the campfire beneath the grilled fish.
Mei Terumi wrapped her arms around her knees and watched Lin Qing's profile.
The man before her was unlike anyone she had ever met.
So unlike them.
"If it's him... maybe he really could."
Mei Terumi took a deep breath. "Lin Qing, you—"
"Doctor Lin!"
A distant voice from the woods interrupted Mei Terumi.
Lin Qing stood and looked over. The Lame Man was staggering toward them.
One of his arms was gone, and a deep claw mark ran across his chest. Mei Terumi recognized it at once—it had been made by a bear.
His padded coat was long gone. He wore only thin clothes.
The village was eighty miles away. No one knew how the Lame Man had managed to make it all the way here.
The moment he saw Lin Qing, the Lame Man crumpled into the snow.
Lin Qing rushed over and lifted him up, sending Ripple into his body to stir his life force.
It had no effect.
The Lame Man had long since drained every last bit of his life force along the way.
"Doctor Lin, please... save the village..."
"All right."
Hearing Lin Qing's answer, the Lame Man finally smiled and closed his eyes.
Many people had mocked the Lame Man for not being a man, for hiding behind his wife all his life.
At this moment, he fulfilled his duty as a man.
The Lame Man died.
Lin Qing stood up.
But he certainly wouldn't be the only one to die today.
Before you continue