Ashes to Crown

Chapter 211: Chapter 36: In the Mountains

Eagle Beak Mountain was tall and its forests deep, making travel difficult. Merchants steered clear, and towns or villages were nearly nonexistent.

Life as a bandit here was not easy.

Ding Dachui had originally been a hunter. After making an enemy of a powerful gentry family, he had fled and become an outlaw. He had fantasized countless times about the day he would storm back home with his brothers, the gentry family kneeling at his feet, begging for mercy—

But a decade had passed, and that scene had yet to materialize. In fact—

”Boss!” a man beside him exclaimed, slapping his arm excitedly. He hissed through his teeth, ”A wild boar, a wild boar—”

Ding Dachui shoved the man down with one hand. ”Quiet.”

He held his breath, watching a dark shape emerge from the dense woods opposite. The creature had been leisurely grazing and rubbing against trees, but it suddenly stepped on a trap. Two wooden spikes shot up from the ground, piercing its throat—

The wild boar let out a piercing squeal that seemed to make the whole forest tremble. But it didn’t fall. Instead, it went into a frenzy, charging—as luck would have it—straight for Ding Dachui.

The man Ding Dachui had pushed down scrambled to his feet. ”Boss, run!”

Ding Dachui released him, and the man bolted like a rabbit. After a few steps, he glanced back and saw Ding Dachui hadn’t followed.

”Boss!” he yelled, his eyes wide as he stared at Ding Dachui.

Ding Dachui stood his ground, raising his Hunting Bow to aim at the rampaging boar—

’Is he crazy!’ The man’s voice cracked. ”Boss, don’t—”

The boar closed in, a foul, bloody stench carried on the wind. With a great roar, Ding Dachui loosed two arrows from his bowstring, and they flew true, sinking deep into the boar’s eyes—

As the man shrieked, the wild boar collapsed in front of Ding Dachui. It thrashed so violently the ground seemed to shake, then, after a moment, it convulsed and fell still.

The man dropped to his knees with a THUD. A cold sweat broke out on his back, despite the late autumn chill.

”Boss,” he said, finally regaining his composure and stumbling over. ”You scared me to death.”

Ding Dachui’s expression was nonchalant as he shook out his arm. ”Nothing to be afraid of. Wild boars just look scarier than they are.”

’Just look scary?’ The man stared at the path the boar had carved through the woods. It looked like a field that had been plowed, and trees as thick as a man’s thigh had been snapped in two.

”What happened?” ”Did you catch something?” ”What was all that noise?”

Seven or eight other men came running over from all directions. The moment they saw the boar on the ground, they broke into joyous cheers.

”A wild boar!”

”Amazing!”

”What a great hunter!”

Ding Dachui accepted the first few compliments with ease, but the last one irked him. He snapped at the man, ”What are you talking about? We’re bandits!”

’He came here to be a bandit, so how did he end up being called a hunter again!’

The man looked embarrassed and quickly amended his praise, shouting, ”The boss is the most amazing bandit!”

But hearing this, Ding Dachui didn’t look pleased. Instead, his expression darkened. ”I’m not the boss anymore,” he said. ”We have a new leader now.”

The men’s expressions grew complicated.

One man said indignantly, ”Boss, you’ll always be our boss. I only recognize you. How can a woman be the leader?”

But others turned away, avoiding Ding Dachui’s eyes. Their gazes fell on the boar’s carcass. This boss was incredible at hunting, true, but the other boss—even though she was a woman—had beaten Ding Dachui to a pulp.

Ding Dachui saw their averted glances but didn’t get angry. ’What right do I have to scold them?’ he thought. ’My skills were inferior. The only reason I’m still alive is because she showed me mercy.’

It was still hard to believe, thinking back on it.

A while back, a few people had suddenly shown up at their stronghold and announced a robbery.

A robbery.

Even now, Ding Dachui found it almost laughable.

They were bandits, sure, but they barely managed a few robberies a year.

Eagle Beak Mountain was remote and the paths were treacherous. The wealthy all traveled closer to the County, where the roads were wide and flat, the towns were prosperous, and the government had a strong military presence. Hardly anyone passed through here all year, and those who did were just poor locals.

Half the time they tried to rob someone, they wouldn’t even get a single tattered piece of clothing out of it. Worse, sometimes their victims would cling to them, crying and begging to join the bandits, just for a mouthful of food—

’He often wondered who was really robbing whom!’

And now, someone had actually come to a bandit stronghold to rob *them*.

The most ridiculous part was that one of them was a woman.

The woman wore a veiled conical hat that hid her face, but you could still tell she was a delicate, graceful lady—

At the time, they had been both furious and amused, ready to teach these upstarts a lesson. But they never expected—

The six of them took down all thirty of their men. And they’d done it without killing anyone. The injuries weren’t even cuts or bruises—they had twisted tendons and dislocated joints.

And that so-called delicate woman... with just a few flicks of her whip, she had dislocated both of Ding Dachui’s arms—the same arms that could shoot with world-class precision. She’d twisted the tendons in his ankles, and the burly man had been left dangling from a treetop like a broken doll.

Even now, the memory filled Ding Dachui with shame, indignation, and fear.

Looking down from the treetops, those people—especially the woman—had looked like demons from the underworld.

’Was this the government coming to wipe them out? Since when did the government have such terrifying agents?’

But once the entire stronghold was subdued, the group didn’t take their heads to the government for a bounty. Instead, they announced the stronghold was theirs now. The woman went even further, declaring herself the new leader.

Her veil hung low, and her long whip was coiled around her waist, its golden threads glinting like a beautiful sash. It accentuated a waist so slender it looked as if it might snap. Her voice was soft as she said, ”Now *this* is a robbery.”

In this day and age, even bandits get robbed—and by a woman, no less. What else could Ding Dachui and his men do but bow their heads and accept their fate? True to her word, the woman didn’t kill them. She put their joints and tendons back in place and became their new boss.

And that wasn’t all.

The other two bandit strongholds on Luoying Mountain didn’t escape either.

The sprawling mountain range resembled a great eagle crouching over the land, and its various peaks were named for their shapes.

Because the mountains were vast and full of game, Ding Dachui’s group of hunters—bah, bandits—weren’t the only ones. And because the high peaks and deep forests were easy to defend and perfect for ambushes, other bandits also made their homes there.

The three strongholds had fought amongst themselves often enough, each wanting to swallow the others. But since they were all evenly matched, they had eventually drawn their borders and agreed to stay out of each other’s way.

Who would have thought that now, all three strongholds would be robbed, swallowed up, and merged into one by an outsider.

”Enough.” Ding Dachui pushed aside his complex feelings. ”The brothers are still alive, and we’re still together. It doesn’t matter who’s boss.”

With that, he gestured for them to lift the boar. ”—take it back to the stronghold—we’ll cure the meat!”

As the men lifted the boar, one of them couldn’t help but mutter, ”I wonder what the new boss looks like. She must be gorgeous—”

Before he could finish, Ding Dachui kicked him.

”If you want to live, shut your mouth,” Ding Dachui said coldly. ”Her looks have nothing to do with why she’s the boss.”

The man flinched and didn’t dare to grin again.

The group carried the boar forward. They had only taken a couple of steps when a sharp bird call echoed through the forest.

The cry made everyone freeze. Ding Dachui instantly remembered it. When the new boss had first arrived, the forest had been filled with that same sound—an urgent, high-pitched, piercing cry that felt like a hand squeezing his heart.

’What’s happening?’

The call stopped for a moment, then an overwhelming chorus of bird cries erupted throughout the entire forest, a sound so immense it was chilling.

”Something’s wrong,” Ding Dachui yelled. ”Drop the boar! We have to get back!”

The men dropped the boar and ran after Ding Dachui toward the stronghold. Before they even reached the gate, a figure appeared before them.

It was another female, but unlike the new boss, she was small and petite—just a teenage girl.

The bird-like cry turned into a sharp shout. ”Who’s here—” she yelled. ”Who is it—”

The long saber in her hand flashed as she charged toward the stronghold.

Ding Dachui stopped in his tracks. The stronghold wasn’t the same as it used to be.

Death lurked in the shadows around it now.

He had seen it firsthand.

Not all the bandits had truly accepted their fate back then. Chang Laizi from the neighboring stronghold had tried to launch a surprise attack under the cover of darkness. The moment he reached the gate, he ran into something like a great net. A net of glittering gold, as sharp as blades, that instantly dismembered him.

That gruesome scene had extinguished any last thoughts of rebellion.

’This girl is trying to force her way in. In the next moment, she’ll also—’

But the next moment, the girl in Ding Dachui’s line of sight seemed to slip through empty air and passed right into the stronghold.

At the same time, a woman’s figure flew out from within the stronghold, the veil of her conical hat fluttering in the wind.

Ding Dachui clenched his fists. ’The two of them are meeting. Who’s stronger?’ he wondered.

But there was no flash of blades, no spray of blood and gore.

”Auntie! What are you doing here?”

”I was worried about you.”

”Auntie—I’m so glad you’re here—she’s so dangerous—SOB SOB SOB—I was so scared.”

Urgent and gentle female voices intertwined, then gave way to only the sound of sobbing.

The girl threw herself into the new boss’s arms like a lost bird returning to its nest.