Clouds drifted in large patches across the sky, revealing dense constellations between their gaps, resembling the Milky Way obscured above the cloud layers, scattering silvery stardust through the breaks. The spring night air still carried a biting chill as the convoy of prison carts moved along the ground, followed by a long line of prisoners with their hands bound. Surrounding the procession were hundreds of constables and soldiers.

Looking out from the bars of the prison cart, the silver-grey night sky possessed a captivating beauty. The night was always beautiful because it felt otherworldly. He used to enjoy looking at the sky at night, but now, he realized it had been a long time since he had done so.

But now, his body and mind were broken. His hands were useless, his legs were fractured, iron hooks pierced his pipa bones, and his martial arts were almost entirely destroyed. He was finally able to put aside worldly concerns and look up at the otherworldly things again, because his path in this world might have come to an end…

His name was Fang Qifo. In the spring of the eleventh year of Jinghan, he was thirty-nine years old. As the second leader of the rebellion led by the Fang clan in the Wu Dynasty, he was regarded by the outside world as an all-knowing strategist, even though he had never received a formal education in his youth.

The Fang clan was a large family near Qingxi. Originally, his family was considered reasonably well-off, with a house and land, and his parents worked diligently to ensure a comfortable life. From a young age, he and his siblings were recognized for their talents and taken in by martial artists from the Green Forest to learn martial arts in other places. When their training was near completion, they ventured out into the world. A year later, he returned home to find that his family's land was gone.

This was because his father had fallen ill a few years prior, and to pay for treatment, the Fang family had mortgaged their land. After recovering, his father's health gradually declined, making farming increasingly difficult. His mother went to work at a workshop run by a local landlord. The landlord was kind enough to occasionally bring things to visit his father. Eventually, they couldn't repay the debt, and the mortgage turned into a sale.

The landlord was concerned for the surrounding area, and Fang Qifo was grateful. Although his mother didn't agree with selling the land, she even fainted from exhaustion at the workshop to save more money for the family and children, his father's recovery was a great blessing. In reality, they couldn't repay the debt, and the social pressure forced the Fang family to sell their land.

However, he soon learned that the doctor had taken money from the landlord to deliberately exaggerate his father's illness and prolong the treatment. This forced the impoverished Fang family to mortgage their land. In his youthful fury, he charged into the landlord's house, but his martial arts were not yet fully developed. First, the landlord's servants, and then the government constables, without any evidence, the surrounding people's words, and the coercion of power forced him to submit.

But young people, full of youthful vigor, once they set their minds on something, would never back down. His cousin Fang La, cousin Fang Baihua, and a group of brothers gathered together and stormed into the landlord's house. But the landlord was prepared and had hired soldiers. After a fierce battle, they were eventually forced to retreat.

The very next day, they were branded as murderous bandits. Some families didn't have time to escape… From that day on, they became homeless fugitives.

Bearing a blood feud was indeed the best motivation for improving martial arts. Soon after, Fang La, Fang Baihua, and others gained a great reputation in the martial world. Although his own martial arts didn't improve as quickly, he who liked to lie on the rooftop at night and look at the stars was also an outstanding member of the Fang brothers. They joined the Mani sect. Several years later, they returned to Qingxi and stormed into the landlord's house once more. At that time, the landlord's business had multiplied several times. After defeating the experts hired by the landlord and exterminating his entire family, he walked through the pool of blood without much joy.

He just didn't understand why his parents' diligent and cautious efforts only led to their property dwindling, while these landlords, who did nothing all day, could simply move their lips and have those hard-working martial arts experts drive them like dogs. Why did he have to pay such a high price for his righteous revenge?

Two more years passed, and he returned to Qingxi again. The land that had been taken by the landlord had not returned to the hands of the villagers, not even a single piece. Others had divided the landlord's land and expanded even more. Those who diligently farmed the land like his parents were also among the most trusting of justice. In this game, they never had the power to speak.

His cousin Fang La was decisive. He had long realized this. Since they had become bandits, he wanted to rebel. He was also a natural leader. A large group of people gathered around him, willing to listen to him. Fang Qifo preferred to observe things, thinking about the reasons behind them. He began to learn to read and write, and understood even more that if he hadn't been so impulsive a few years ago, his parents might not have died. Life was like a tide; one should go with the flow.

Several years later, they forced back Sikong Nan. In that battle, many Mani sect protectors and elders had not stood on their side. His cousin's martial arts were not as good as Sikong Nan's at the time. However, in that battle, which was originally predicted to be a losing one, Fang Qifo, going all out, defeated several experts in succession, tilting the balance of victory.

After figuring out some things, his martial arts had unknowingly become comparable to Fang La's.

Later, the slogan "All dharmas are equal, without high or low" was devised by him and Fang La together. For more than a decade, he planned the development of the Mani sect, guiding streams of water, which, with the combined efforts of everyone, finally converged into a raging tide in the Jiangnan region. People who had lost their property rose up and killed the landlords, and people from the Three Mountains and Five Peaks responded.

And then, everything stopped… The water in that river died; they couldn't move it anymore…

Perhaps, as that guy named Ning Yi had said, without ambition, that's as far as it would go.

After capturing Hangzhou, the Yongle Army's momentum began to change. He, who had been watching everything there, understood this best. The leaders who were originally farmers and bandits began to seize gold and silver and divide the land. The battle methods that could once overwhelm the enemy became ineffective against large cities and armies. Everyone knew that this wouldn't work, but everyone believed that others were doing the same thing.

Cherishing life, being short-sighted, after capturing Hangzhou, the desperadoes couldn't go all out. Those who had been ruined by wealthy men actually just wanted to become wealthy men themselves… In this regard, there was truly no high or low between people.

He had walked this road for a long time, seen it for a long time, and thought about it a lot, but he couldn't figure out how to take the next step.

In fact, people who think too much are not happy. He thought, he used to be disappointed in this world, but after thinking and seeing too much, he began to be disappointed in people. In the period from the fall of Hangzhou to the death of his cousin, he kept thinking, was their success really meaningful? People were all the same. When they were planting in the fields, they were cautious, like their parents. When they had money and land, they were as cruel and cunning as those landlords. When they became officials, they oppressed the good and honest like those corrupt officials. Even if they really overthrew the Wu Dynasty, wouldn't they still fail to change anything?

Fortunately, he stopped thinking about it during this time. He finally had the leisure to look up at the sky, the place he might go to in the future. And in his spare time, when he looked back at the people and events of the past, two people occasionally flashed through his mind, who were different from others.

His disciple, Chen Fan. As his personal disciple, this child had excellent talent and was very smart. But perhaps because he was too smart, he saw through the contradictions of the world early on. There was an unresolved knot in his heart.

He had once had high hopes for him, but later, he didn't expect him to accomplish great things. Smart people were either snobbish or naive. Although he understood the ways of the world, he was ultimately too naive in his heart. Naive people couldn't accomplish great things.

Just like after the defeat in Hangzhou, his cousin retreated to Qingxi. In fact, anyone with a brain could see that the Yongle Dynasty was doomed. He had sold his life to the Badao Camp in order to kill Bao Daoyi, but when there was a chance to leave, he ran back again, secretly persuading himself and a few others to leave, to the point where Fang Baihua almost killed him. Later, when Qingxi was breached, he didn't evacuate. When he was captured this time, his shadow was also among the Green Forest people who were ambushed while trying to rescue the prisoners a few days ago.

Of course, such a person couldn't accomplish great things. But in the end, he hoped that he could find a place where the court couldn't find him and live out this life simply. Most importantly, he shouldn't end up being disappointed in people themselves like himself.

And the other person was the young niece of the Badao Manor.

He always felt that she was a truly naive person, even more naive and fearless than Chen Fan. After Liu Dabiao's death, she led the Badao Manor and always did some strange things. The reason why everyone tolerated her was partly because Liu Dabiao's kindness was too deep, and partly because the Badao Manor did have strong combat power.

She was muddleheaded and reckless, rushing to the front during battles and falling behind during retreats. The Badao Manor paid a heavy price in this uprising, and she, who always regarded the villagers as family, must have felt very bad. After breaking Hangzhou, she did some strange things in the city because of that man named Ning Yi. At the time, he felt that as long as she was happy, that was enough. But when Hangzhou fell and he and the others moved to Qingxi, his thoughts were a little different.

After leaving Hangzhou, she led the remaining Badao Manor villagers to choose a different path. He knew at the time that she had gone to Miaojiang. Later, Chen Fan came back and told him the whole story. He couldn't see through that man named Ning Yi, but in the process of the defeat at Qingxi, he had thought more than once that if he could have figured it out earlier, he should have left more reinforcements for the Badao Camp.

Qingxi was defeated, and everything was chaotic. He had thought that perhaps he could spare some people to escape to Miaojiang to increase the strength of the Badao Manor. But in fact, his niece might not be able to use these people. Finally, in the process of guiding everyone to disperse, he only selected some children, those who had studied at the Badao Camp's academy, or those who were younger, a total of dozens of people, and had them secretly go to Miaojiang to avoid disaster. This was probably the last thing he could do.

In the process of the melee in Qingxi, Chen Fan came back, but the Badao Camp did not take any action. Shi Bao and others had mentioned that they were not righteous, but he and Fang La, Shao Xianying, and others knew that for that naive and sentimental niece, how difficult it would be for her to hold down the people in the village at the end, so that they could be preserved.

But that was good.

When the sounds of an ambush to rescue prisoners came from the side of the official road, Fang Qifo looked up at the night sky, thinking this.

Perhaps one day, the roads that he couldn't walk through, these naive children, could walk through them…

************

People fought on the ground, clouds moved in the sky.

Tie Tianying, the chief constable of the Ministry of Justice, wielding his giant Que sword, led a group of constables and soldiers to repel an ambush by a group of Green Forest people. The prisoners in the back of the prison cart also became restless, and the soldiers on both sides began to suppress them with weapons. This time, in order to bring the leader of the Fang clan to Beijing to be tried, to publicly execute Fang Qifo in a dignified manner after showing him to the public, in order to show the court's prestige, the manpower arranged nearby was quite sufficient.

Fang Qifo sat in the prison cart, quietly looking up at the sky. If possible, he hoped that no one would come to rescue him, but now things were beyond his control. The Ministry of Justice obviously also wanted to use him as bait to wipe out these rebels. He could only remain silent and stop thinking about these things.

But beyond the reach of his vision, among the mountains shrouded in nearby forests, there were several figures walking, and as the battle below took place, they appeared on the nearby hillside, looking towards this side from afar.

There were more than a dozen figures in total. The leader was a woman wearing blue floral Miao clothing. She had a face that looked slightly baby-fat, with clear eyes and a hint of fearlessness. Standing in the gap of the hillside, she looked down below. She carried a long wooden box on her back. Beside her were "Heaven-Piercing Saber" Du Sha, "Ember-Quenching Saber" Luo Bingren, "Yuanming Saber" Fang Shuchang, "Nine-Death Saber" Zheng Qiming… and so on.

They took a look and came down below…