Chapter 96: The World of the Man-Eaters

Ningxiu still went to Sanfang Township.

By all appearances, the men of the Six Gates had not yet found his tracks. They had somehow come to know his appearance, and their search had spread across the whole commandery. But if all that was required was to hand him over in chains, then he might as well have done so himself and spared everyone the pretense.

When Ningxiu reached Sanfang Township, he discovered the affair was not as simple as he had imagined. From the dense prints of horses pressed into the ground, he felt this time the village had truly been raided by mountain bandits.

He sniffed unconsciously; the air held a faint metallic scent of blood.

By the time he entered the village, his face had gone dark and grave. What he saw before him was no different from the village the evil ghost had butchered before. Corpses lay everywhere, and the blood flowing on the ground had already darkened into a deep, dull red. Several wild wolves were crouched on bodies, chewing. At the sound of his footsteps, they lifted their heads and growled at him in threat.

“Get away.”

Ningxiu gave a hard, thunderlike snort; the wolves cried out in fear and scattered in all directions.

He walked slowly into the village. The bodies on the ground were barely visible beneath the ruin and grime, still carrying the traces of terror, terror-stricken eyes, and pain. One could almost picture what torment they had suffered before death.

He noticed one thing stranger still: in the village, there were hardly any bodies of young women.

When he reached the central well and stopped abruptly, he bent over and looked down.

At last, he found one.

Ningxiu murmured softly and turned to leave. In the dark shaft of the well, a bloated corpse floated. The face was already lost to swelling and water.

How merciless. How desperate.

In this world of flesh-eaters, not only demons devour men—sometimes men devour men. That is how cruel this world can be.

He left the village and followed the horse tracks, tracking the mountain bandits’ trail. It was no difficult matter for him. By the prints alone, this bandit band must have numbered at least a hundred—a medium-sized mountain stronghold by rough measure.

Under the blood-tinted dusk, he moved with fierce speed. In less than half an hour he had already put a hundred li between himself and the village.

At last he found their lair.

Along the entire way he had not seen a single female corpse. That meant the women of Sanfang Township were almost certainly taken alive to the bandits’ camp.

Whether they survived, only fate would decide.

The brigands had seized them for one simple reason: the crude hunger to vent their violence. Nothing more. In such a world, no one could expect mountain thieves to harbor mercy or still see those women as human.

Ningxiu climbed the steps slowly and came before their gate. He curled his hand into a fist and struck.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The sound grew louder with each blow. By the third strike the gate split apart and collapsed inward.

The bandits guarding inside stood frozen, staring, utterly unbelieving.

Ningxiu said nothing.

From behind him, the Merciless Sword came from its scabbard with a rasp of steel. A line of cold light flashed. Four guards at the gate were beheaded in a single breath, their heads lolling and rolling away.

Ningxiu stepped forward three paces, and only then did a spray of dark blood rise as if trying to touch the sky.

“Draw the Merciless Sword!

Kill—

without—mercy!”

Even Ningxiu himself seemed unaware of it, but his eyes had turned a terrible red.

Inside the stronghold, swords of light flooded the place. Crossing and recrossing, the blades kept slicing through men, taking their lives as one might reap weeds.

He drove a clean, ruthless path forward and entered the heart of the camp. The bandits fell back again and again, until there was nowhere left to fall back to.

“Who… who are you?” the bandit chief demanded, voice cracking.

He was a broad-shouldered man, and though he held a steel saber in his hand, fear sat deep in his eyes.

Ningxiu gave no answer. He never answered questions from dying men.

“Don’t be afraid! He may be strong, but he is only one man. All together, hack him down!”

The chief forced down his panic and shouted loudly. He raised his steel saber high, moonlight flashing white off the blade.

The other bandits, seeing their leader draw steel, steadied themselves for a moment and then pulled their own blades.

But when they surged forward two steps, they saw something wrong. Their once-revered chief had not advanced with them.

He was running.

What they once called brotherhood in life and death had meant nothing but this: I live while you die.

They had no time to brood over it. Death had already come silently.

Sword lights flared up, crossed and interwove. In an instant they all felt their throats opened.

Ningxiu glanced toward the fleeing chief and flicked his right foot forward.

A steel saber leapt from the ground, cutting through the air toward the escaping man and pinning him, dead and rigid, into a distant wall.

When it was over, Ningxiu sheathed his sword and turned toward the rear of the stronghold.

The loot taken in raids would be hidden here.

He pushed open the largest room without asking permission. In a corner of the bed sat a thinly clad young woman, curled tight and shivering.

“Don’t—don’t kill me. I… I’ll do anything. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Heh… I’ll be obedient.”

At last she burst into tears.

Ningxiu lifted his eyes to the softly sobbing girl and asked in a rough voice, “Where are the others?”

It was clear enough this girl had been abducted by the bandits, though he could not tell if she came from Sanfang.

With her guidance, Ningxiu found the missing women from Sanfang Township at last.

Behind the stronghold, in a fetid drainage ditch, cold bodies lay motionless. All of them were young women, stripped bare to the bone of modesty.

A glance was enough—no fewer than dozens.

It was obvious now that the raid had taken women from more than Sanfang alone. Anyone who saw that sight would never again say their heart was untouched.

Beyond that corner of death, in another room at the back, Ningxiu found more than a dozen living women. Their eyes were vacant, their spirits already gone; the marks on them left no doubt of what had been done to them.

He also found in the camp a great deal of silver and gold, as well as stores of grain.

He gathered the women in the courtyard, then tossed the money and grain before them.

There were knives, too.

“Take these.”

At the front of the camp were enough horses, and the nearest township was less than half a day’s ride from here. If you want to live, your survival now depends only on yourselves.

In Ningxiu’s present condition, this was one more complication altogether. Yet if he did not do this, the hard knot inside him would have remained knotted still, and in time might have turned into a demon of the heart.

Now that the business was done, he could not possibly keep these women with him.

He suddenly thought of something, stepped forward, and gave them final instructions.

Then he turned away and left.