Chapter Five: The Oath

“Yes, sir!” The constable cupped his hands in obeisance, then cracked the whip with all his strength.

A sharp snap rang out.

Among the crowd, some could not bear to witness the punishment and averted their eyes, murmuring softly. Some, not understanding the situation, cheered, while others secretly shot the constable and magistrate a glare before spitting on the ground in contempt.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

Blow after blow landed, and under the scorching sun, Qi Jun’s mind began to grow hazy. Before his blurred vision, he could only make out the vague outline of the constable’s form and the indistinct shadow of the whip as it lashed down.

The county magistrate sat to the side, cradling a teapot, eyes narrowed in pleasure at the rhythm of the whipping.

He longed to hear this frail scholar cry out, to satisfy the twisted craving for cruelty that festered in his heart. Yet, from beginning to end, not a single word escaped the scholar’s lips.

This only made him all the more furious.

By now, Qi Jun felt utterly drained, his parched throat too raw to utter a sound. He could only endure the protracted agony in silence.

“Please let me through! Let me in!” Suddenly, a youth’s voice cried out from within the crowd.

On the verge of fainting, Qi Jun vaguely heard the call—so familiar it seemed to echo from a distant memory. He strained to force open his eyelids, and, through the sweat and blood clouding his sight, barely made out a familiar figure.

“Xiaofeng…” His lips moved, and with what little strength remained, he whispered a name. The feeble sound was drowned in the clamor.

The boy tried to rush forward, sobbing, but was blocked at the edge of the crowd by constables crossing their staves.

“Please, stop beating him!” The boy collapsed to the ground, tears mixing with the dirt on his youthful face, making him appear all the more pitiful. “I’ll take the punishment for my brother! Please, don’t hit him anymore!”

Howling, the youth crawled forward a few steps, only to be ruthlessly kicked aside by a constable.

Tears streamed down Qi Jun’s face, mingling with blood as they traced his cheeks. He could not understand—how had the happiness he once possessed been shattered so suddenly and so easily?

“Vengeance… I must have vengeance…” He carved the word “revenge” deep into the core of his heart.

“Qi Jun, keep cursing! I’m listening!” The magistrate’s mocking laughter echoed, wild and taunting.

His last vestige of consciousness faded away, and the final sound in his ears was the magistrate’s jeering voice.

Returning from the depths of memory, Qi Jun jerked his head up, staring at the silent faces gathered in the little hut. Unwittingly, his eyes had filled with tears.

He seemed to understand now why he had been reborn into this unfamiliar age, possessing this frail body. At the final moments of his previous life, too, he had clung to a burning obsession for revenge.

By some unseen design, two souls from distant worlds—each longing for vengeance—had fused in that same unwavering resolve.

“But why did he choose me?”

He shook his head vigorously, forcing his thoughts to settle. Having accepted so much all at once, his mind throbbed with pain. He forced himself to ignore, for now, that which he could not grasp.

“All of them deserve to die!” Qi Jun nearly ground his teeth to dust as he spat out the words.

Xiaofeng stood before him, silent. His hands gripped the corner of the straw mat so tightly his knuckles whitened, and in his reddened eyes burned the same fire of vengeance and determination.

Aunt Zhao gasped, her mouth working soundlessly. She knew all too well how vicious the bandits of Coiling Dragon Ridge were. Her husband and son, passing by the ridge, had been used as target practice by the mountain bandits, their bodies lying unclaimed by the roadside for days.

In her dreams, she longed for the day those villains would face justice, but she had never dared hope her own feeble power could bring them down. The terror of the bandits was branded into her heart, and she could not help but glance with worry at this wounded, frail scholar.

Nor was she alone. In every family of East Ridge Village, the bandits’ evil was a festering wound.

Each year, the band’s second-in-command, the “Mountain-Splitting Panther,” would lead them down the mountain to extort grain and money from the villages. Before leaving, they would kill a few villagers at random and hang their corpses at the entrance as a warning—to brand the terror of Coiling Dragon Ridge deep into the heart of every poor soul in East Ridge.

Now, drought had struck again. If the bandits returned for more, not a single villager would be spared.

Thinking of this, Qi Jun could only wish for his wounds to heal swiftly, so he could take a few bandits’ lives to vent his hatred.

Liu Kui glanced at Qi Jun in surprise, then at his father. He, too, longed for the eradication of the bandits, but with so little strength, such hopes could only be buried deep in his heart.

The old clan elder sitting to the side remained silent. He drew his battered pipe, packed it with tobacco, and after lighting it, took several deep drags, exhaling a thin stream of smoke.

“Who among us doesn’t have blood debts owed by those bandits?” The elder tapped his pipe against the bench, sighing deeply. He gazed at Qi Jun, his eyes weary and sorrowful. “Child, what do you hope to do? Even if every one of us gave our lives, we could never topple that mountain!”

It was not cowardice that weighed on the elder’s heart, but bitter experience.

East Ridge Village had not always been solely the domain of the Liu family; the Xu clan had once lived here, too. The Lius and Xus were close—so close their patriarchs had sworn brotherhood.

Then the bandits came to Coiling Dragon Ridge—looting, pillaging, seizing women. The Xu patriarch’s daughter was defiled, and many clan members were slaughtered to set an example.

Unable to bear such humiliation, the Xu patriarch led his people in revolt, killing a dozen bandits including a minor leader. But soon after, the bandit chief himself descended the mountain, leading his men in a night of bloody revenge that wiped out Xu Village.

By the time the Liu patriarch arrived, the Xu settlements were ablaze, the ground littered with corpses. He could only gather their remains through tears and bury them together in a barren hill east of the village.

The Xu clan was destroyed—killed or scattered—leaving only the Liu family as the sole great house in East Ridge. No one dared live east of the village anymore; the land lay desolate.

The massacre of the Xu clan even alarmed the county magistrate, who launched several campaigns to exterminate the bandits. Yet with each campaign, the bandits grew more numerous, and the magistrate fatter; in the end, it was always the common people who suffered.

The Liu patriarch longed to avenge his sworn brothers, but with the authorities colluding with the bandits, and the memory of the Xu clan’s fate ever present, the sole prayer of the Liu family was simply to survive.

Every time these memories returned, the clan elder felt as though a boulder pressed upon his chest, threatening to suffocate him.

“I will have my revenge,” Qi Jun said again, raising his head, his eyes burning with hate. The memories of this body’s former master had given him a basic understanding of this “Great Liang.” Though the nation was called “Liang,” it was not the Liang of the Southern and Northern Dynasties; its history diverged entirely from the Huaxia of his previous life—a parallel world with its own fate.

Outside, the villagers exchanged glances—where once the air was abuzz, now silence reigned. Some looked at Qi Jun with sympathy; most, after a brief pause, returned to their numb indifference.

The clan elder’s gaze was complicated, a mixture of grief and anger. His Adam’s apple worked up and down, and his bristling white beard trembled.

But in the end, he only sighed and gripped his staff more tightly.

“Such a pity, Master Qi. But you have no way to take revenge… Who here doesn’t hate those bandits? Yet haven’t we all survived, year after year?” a villager couldn’t help but murmur.

Liu Kui glared at the man, who quickly hung his head to avoid his gaze.

The elder’s heart was pierced by those words. Over the years, countless villagers had died at the hands of the bandits. Yet now, people had grown numb to loss, numb even to the sight of the butcher’s blade.

What else could they do? Did they have the power to seek vengeance?

Whether death came by famine, by taxes, by plague, or by bandits, in the end, what difference did it make? Life was so bitter that some saw death as a kind of release.

So many villagers drifted through their days, dulled by despair. They pitied the tragedy that had befallen the Qi family, but could only shake their heads and smile wryly at Qi Jun’s wild words.

Coughing violently, the clan elder forced down his pain with several deep pulls on his pipe, only to be seized by a fit of choking. Liu Kui hurried to his father’s side, patting his back to ease his discomfort.