The Captain from the Prince of Xiushan's Residence

Chen Fan hoisted the ghost-head saber onto his shoulder, turned, and walked back down the passage to the rear chamber.

Trouble.

Eighth Rank against Eighth Rank, and at best it would be an even match.

If Zhang Shan really came looking for me, and I couldn't beat him or escape, I'd be in trouble.

It looked like, if I really didn't want that when the time came, I should die at someone else's hands before Zhang Shan came looking.

The soldiers under that Prince of Xiushan or whatever he was called, down at the foot of the mountain, or the imperial army, sounded like a good choice. If I could possess a general and try being one, that wouldn't be bad either.

As Chen Fan planned his own "affairs after death," he pushed open the stone door to the bandit chief's chamber.

The stone chamber was brightly lit.

The clamor and the stench of blood were shut outside, leaving only a faint scent of rouge and powder.

Hong'e and Cuiqiao were chattering as they compared the fabric they had just stolen, discussing what new clothes to make.

Only Yun Niang sat alone on a low stool in the corner, needle and thread in hand. She had yet to make a stitch, merely staring blankly at the lamplight.

"Chief!"

When Hong'e and Cuiqiao saw him enter, they immediately came over with coquettish laughs and hung on him, one on either side.

Imitating Black Wind Baleful Intent's manner, Chen Fan roughly kissed each of them on the cheek, drawing a round of coy protests.

His gaze, however, fell on the quiet figure in the corner.

"What's wrong?"

He walked up to Yun Niang, and his rough voice made her flinch as if startled.

She hurriedly stood and lowered her head, not daring to look at him. "N... nothing," she replied softly.

"Nothing?" Chen Fan gripped her delicate chin and forced her to raise her head.

Two trails of clear tears ran down her gentle, lovely face.

"Missing home?" Chen Fan asked, as if possessed.

Yun Niang's body went rigid.

She could hold back no longer. Her tears broke through the dam, sliding down her cheeks and dripping onto the back of Chen Fan's rough hand, hot to the touch.

She only wept, not daring to make a sound.

Hong'e and Cuiqiao stopped laughing and looked at her with some sympathy. They had come from the pleasure quarters, with neither parents nor a home, so naturally they did not understand the pain of homesickness. But Yun Niang was different. She was a respectable woman from a good family, abducted and brought up the mountain.

Chen Fan fell silent.

He had regarded Yun Niang as nothing more than one of the spoils of his career as a mountain bandit chief, an accessory to that identity.

He had forgotten that she, too, was a living, breathing person.

There was no point in keeping someone at his side by force when all she wanted was to leave.

"If you want to go, then go."

Chen Fan released her and spoke in an even tone.

The stone chamber instantly fell into a deathly silence.

Yun Niang's sobbing stopped abruptly. She raised her tear-streaked face and looked at the man before her in disbelief.

Hong'e and Cuiqiao's mouths fell open too, as if they had heard something straight out of a fantastical tale.

Let her go?

The chief was actually going to let her go? And a beauty like Yun Niang, one in a hundred at that?

"I... I..." Yun Niang's lips trembled, and for a moment she didn't know what to say.

"Tomorrow, I'll send a couple of quick-witted men to escort you down the mountain."

With that, Chen Fan turned and walked toward the broad stone bed, as if he had merely spoken of something utterly insignificant.

That night, Yun Niang climbed into Chen Fan's bed of her own accord.

She said nothing, but with all her strength and everything she knew, she responded clumsily yet ardently to the man who had changed her fate.

It was both repayment and farewell.

Chen Fan did not refuse.

He could feel the trembling and devotion of the soft body beneath him.

That night, the sounds from the stone chamber were louder than ever before.

Early the next morning, Chen Fan picked two reasonably honest bandits, gave Yun Niang a heavy bag of silver, and sent her down the mountain.

Watching the slender figure on the mountain path look back every three steps, Chen Fan felt nothing in particular.

He was only a passing traveler.

Yun Niang, too, was only a passing traveler in this stretch of his life as a bandit.

After Yun Niang left, life on Black Wind Mountain went on as before.

Half a month passed in a hurry.

Iron-Armed Monkey took men down the mountain to "open for business" twice more, and the stronghold's granary and treasury were filled to the brim.

Their reputation for "robbing the rich to aid the poor" spread farther and farther.

But the imperial army Chen Fan had expected still had not arrived.

His readiness to "march nobly to his death" and try life as a general gradually faded.

Until this day.

A group of uninvited guests suddenly arrived at the stronghold.

There were six of them, all dressed in ordinary short fighting clothes. But each carried a long saber of the same standard design on his back, and they stood ramrod straight. As they walked, they carried the grim, murderous bearing of soldiers.

"Chief, the men at the foot of the mountain say they're captains from the Prince of Xiushan's Residence!" Smiling Tiger came trotting over with the news, his fat face full of anxiety.

In the Gathering Hall, Chen Fan sat in the great tiger-skin chair, turning a walnut over in his hand.

They were here.

Later than I'd expected, and fewer of them too.

"Let them come up."

Before long, the six men were brought into the Gathering Hall.

Their leader was a square-faced, stern-looking middle-aged man. As soon as he entered, his gaze locked onto Chen Fan, and he cupped his fists.

"The chief of Black Wind Mountain?"

"That's me." Chen Fan squeezed the walnut in his hand. With a crack, he crushed it into powder.

The middle-aged man's pupils contracted slightly, but his face remained impassive.

"I am Li Zhong, a captain of the Prince of Xiushan's Residence. I have come on the prince's orders to investigate a case."

"What case?"

"The case of the missing princess consort."

Li Zhong's voice echoed through the cave.

Iron-Armed Monkey and the other bandits all instinctively tightened their grips on their weapons.

Chen Fan, however, laughed.

Imitating Black Wind Baleful Intent, he laughed roughly and wildly.

"Hahaha! The princess consort? What kind of precious person is she? She's gone missing, so how did you end up looking for her in a poor mountain hollow like ours?"

"Someone reported that the princess consort might be on Black Wind Mountain," Li Zhong said, enunciating every word.

"Bullshit!" Iron-Armed Monkey was the first to jump up. "What bastard dares slander us? We don't even know what the princess consort looks like!"

Chen Fan waved a hand, stopping Iron-Armed Monkey's shouting.

He stood, his imposing frame exuding tremendous pressure, and walked step by step up to Li Zhong.

"Search."

He said only that one word.

Li Zhong froze.

The captains behind him froze too.

They had imagined all sorts of possibilities: being driven out under a barrage of blades, or the other side flatly denying everything before a fight broke out.

But they had never imagined that this bandit chief, said to kill without blinking, would be so straightforward.

"You're a forthright man, Chief." Li Zhong gave him a long look. "Then forgive the intrusion."

He waved a hand, and the captains behind him immediately spread out and began searching the stronghold.

Chen Fan simply stood in the middle of the Gathering Hall with his saber on his shoulder, letting them turn everything upside down.

Half a shichen later, the captains returned and shook their heads at Li Zhong.

They had found nothing.

"It seems the information was wrong." Li Zhong cupped his fists to Chen Fan once more. "Sorry for the disturbance."

"Take care. I won't see you out." Chen Fan grinned.

Li Zhong turned and left with his men.

Just as they were about to leave the cave, Li Zhong suddenly stopped.

He did not turn around, only leaving them with a warning.

"Whether or not the princess consort's disappearance has anything to do with you, Xiushan Province hasn't been peaceful lately. The rebel bandits of the Yellow Robe Army are roaming everywhere, and the imperial army will be here soon. Your Black Wind Mountain is caught in the middle. You'd best look after yourselves."

With those words, they disappeared beyond the cave entrance.

In the Gathering Hall, the bandits let out long breaths, as though they had narrowly escaped a calamity.

Chen Fan carried his saber to the cave entrance and watched the retreating figures, lost in thought.

This was only a probe.

Though the Yellow Robe Army's scheme to frame them was crude, it had worked in the end.

They were being watched.

Just then.

A bandit assigned to keep watch at the foot of the mountain came scrambling and stumbling up in a panic, his face as terrified as if he had seen a ghost.

He had been running so fast that he tripped over a rock at the entrance to the Gathering Hall and fell flat on his face.

"C... Chief! B... bad news!"

Iron-Armed Monkey kicked him in the backside.

"What's all the shouting for? Has the sky fallen?"

Ignoring the pain, the bandit scrambled to his feet on hands and knees and pointed down the mountain, his voice changing pitch.

"There's... there's a Daoist at the foot of the mountain!"

"One Daoist scared you this badly?"

"N... no!" The bandit was nearly in tears. "That Daoist... he came alone, with a sword, and said... said he wanted to see our chief. He asked for him by name!"