Chapter 58

Chapter 58: The Support Arrived

Zhai Le kept one eye on the field.

He shot down men trying to ambush the “thief,” then slipped to the wounded man’s side and yanked him out of the crush.

The “thief” was drenched in blood. He must’ve been fighting long before they arrived, held upright by nothing but stubborn will.

His saber fell from his fingers. He collapsed. “Thank you, young friend…”

“Save it,” Zhai Le said, still firing. “Just turn over a new leaf later.”

Helping the “thief” made Zhai Le a target. Waves of attackers pushed toward him, relentless.

Even he finally realized something was off.

He shouted over the din, “Who are these people? Whose deathsworn?”

What he really wanted to ask was simpler: What did this guy steal to deserve this?

The “thief” didn’t answer. He just bit down and swung his saber, cutting where he could.

Zhai Le sighed and fought alongside him anyway, muttering under his breath that with Brother Shen supporting, their odds would be a hell of a lot better—

“Stars strewn like a chessboard!”

The world shifted.

Black-and-white characters surged like a tide, spreading across the village in an instant until the ground itself became a massive grid, a towering chessboard laid over fire and corpses.

Zhai Le’s face lit up. “Brother! You finally—”

No one answered.

Instead, a calm voice recited from the darkness, “Wise and clear, to preserve one’s body; diligent night and day, to serve one man!”

The word-spirit hit like a bell.

Black-and-white literary qi twisted into a cocoon around the most heavily injured “thief,” taking blow after blow without trembling. Then it wrapped Shen Tang. Only after that did it shield Zhai Le.

Zhai Le didn’t need to turn around to know it wasn’t his brother. If it were, he wouldn’t be protected last.

Qi Shan stood above the chaos in a scholar’s robe, face hard and eyes cold, taking in the battlefield like it was already a corpse.

He didn’t care how this fight had started.

It had to end clean.

Bodies lay everywhere. Fire ate roofs. Blood soaked mud.

Qi Shan’s gaze slid to Young Master Shen, still fighting like a mad dog. His expression finally rippled.

This drunk was truly insane.

Low tolerance was one thing. A drinking temperament this bad was criminal.

But the mess was here, and it was his to fix.

His Literary Heart Signature Seal flashed at his waist. He spoke softly, and the air answered.

“Three hearts, two minds.”

Two masses of literary qi surged from under his feet—one black, one white—stretching, hardening, and forming into two figures identical to Qi Shan.

Three bodies. Three minds. Each one took a side.

A wen xin strategist’s higher-level word-spirit. It didn’t just split focus—it doubled his output, briefly boosting his literary qi to terrifying levels.

Qi Shan intended to leave no survivors.

The armored man’s jaw clenched as he watched. He’d spent too much effort chasing his target across distance and blood. He’d finally cornered him, ready to close the net.

Then the sword-wielding lunatic appeared—no support, only slaughter.

Then the archer—dangerous, but young.

Then Qi Shan—who showed up and immediately looked like he wanted to wipe the field clean.

With the three of them together—and the “thief,” a heavily wounded ninth-rank, fifth-dafu rank, still breathing—keeping the target here was impossible.

The armored man’s eyes burned as he stared at the “thief” behind Zhai Le.

It felt like sowing and fertilizing a field, nursing it to harvest… only for bandits to jump out and steal the grain.

I did the work. I did the killing. And now I get nothing.

His pride and rage battled. In the end, he chose retreat.

A gentleman’s revenge could wait ten years.

Qi Shan moved instantly, throwing up a wall of literary qi to block the escape.

The armored man didn’t slow. He cleaved it apart with one savage swing.

Qi Shan smiled thinly. He knew the wall wouldn’t hold without an army’s reinforcement. It only needed to delay.

And it did.

Shen Tang surged in like a storm, leaping high, sword thrusting for the man’s face.

Mounted hook-sickle spear versus footwork and a longsword—on paper, Shen Tang should’ve been losing.

In practice, she was too agile to pin down. She climbed, jumped, twisted, and slipped under strikes like she was born to make a fool of horses.

The armored man’s mount became a handicap. He couldn’t turn fast enough. He couldn’t adjust cleanly.

He got angry—really angry.

And he finally showed his hand.

He drove his martial gall and offered up his tiger tally.

Crimson qi exploded upward like a roaring beast and then scattered like rain, landing across the village and transforming into red-armored soldiers—three to four hundred at a glance.

An eighth-rank gong cheng. Four hundred soldiers.

And Shen Tang—

She’d charged straight into the middle of them.

She was surrounded.

Qi Shan’s irritation spiked. He was already reaching for Graft and Swap to yank her out—

When Zhai Le raised his own tiger tally.

Seventh-rank dafu rank.

Black qi slammed into the ground and became black-armored soldiers, three hundred and fifty strong. Zhai Le gave a command, and they collided with the red ranks.

Dozens fighting became hundreds.

Hundreds became a thousand-man brawl.

Pressure eased on Shen Tang. Her gaze snapped to the armored man.

Heads were heads, but his head was worth the most.

She shifted her stance, sword lifted, and murmured, “Leave no trace for a thousand li.”

Sword shadows burst into a web.

She walked forward like she had all the time in the world, carving a path through red-armored soldiers—each one losing their head in a single stroke.

Qi Shan shouted, “Don’t chase a cornered enemy!”

Shen Tang didn’t even look back. “I’m chasing him!”

“I’ll chase him to his grandmother’s house!”

Qi Shan’s temples throbbed.

Shen Tang drew on the literary qi in her dan palace stage Literary Heart and started another incantation, half-mumbling a line of verse—

“A silver saddle gleams on a white horse, swift as…”

Then her dan palace stage emptied in a blink.

The sword dissolved.

Her legs gave out.

She hit the ground with a hard slap.

And just like that—she sobered up.