Snow came fast this year.
By late autumn, the mountains were already blanketed in white, the trails near impassable. Winds howled through the peaks like mourning spirits, and the Assassin Hall huddled close, firelight flickering through shuttered windows.
Inside the main chamber, Li Fan sat cross-legged, reading a letter he'd received from a traveling monk who'd once been a court scribe.
Zhao Liang leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "Another name?"
Li Fan nodded, setting the parchment down. "An elder of the Red Willow Sect. Hao Zhong."
"Never heard of him."
"He's not famous. But cruel. He owns a mining village in the west. The people are indentured. They dig spirit stones day and night for a wage they never see. Anyone who resists… disappears."
Zhao frowned. "You want to send someone?"
"I'm going."
There was a pause.
"Alone?"
"No," Li Fan said. "But this one's different. We can't just slip in and kill him."
Zhao raised a brow.
Li Fan unrolled a crude map of the mine. "He keeps the villagers inside the quarry, under watch. If we kill him without freeing them first, the sect will just send another master to seal the gates and silence them. We have to break the cycle."
"So we're liberating a village now?" Zhao asked, not mockingly—just weary.
Li Fan looked up. "We're testing what our Oath means."
They left that night.
Li Fan, Mei Xiu, and Lin Jian—the elder of the two brothers—took the northern pass to avoid the main roads. The snow slowed them, but the cold kept bandits away. Three days in, they reached the rim of the Red Willow Valley.
Below them, lanterns dotted the pit like dim fireflies, flickering in the haze of smoke and frost. The mine was surrounded by high wooden palisades. Guards in sect robes patrolled the perimeter with glowing talismans at their belts.
Mei Xiu scanned the camp with a spyglass.
"They've got cultivators," she muttered. "At least two in the Foundation Realm. The rest are lackeys."
Li Fan's breath steamed as he exhaled slowly. "We'll need to be careful."
They waited until nightfall.
Then they descended.
It was Lin Jian who found the old man first.
His name was Shen. Once a teacher in a mountain school, now a miner with hands like cracked stone. He didn't scream when the three strangers pulled him aside—just stared, tired and hollow.
"You're not guards," he rasped.
"We're here to help," Li Fan said.
Shen didn't laugh. "That's worse. Help means punishment. Or hope. Both are deadly."
Li Fan knelt. "You knew someone named Hao Zhong?"
Shen spat. A streak of red against the snow. "He killed my daughter. Ten lashes for stealing water."
Li Fan's jaw tightened. "Would you help us kill him?"
The man didn't answer for a long time.
Then: "Only if you let me bury her afterward."
They moved over two nights.
Using tunnels dug by desperate hands and long-abandoned escape shafts, they mapped the guards' movements, cataloged traps, and identified weaknesses. Mei Xiu took down two patrols without a sound. Lin Jian replaced a talisman with a decoy, allowing them to slip through one of the side gates.
Finally, they found Hao Zhong.
He was exactly as the letter described—bald, thick-bodied, swathed in fine robes with a ring of spirit stones around his neck. He lived in a private house overlooking the quarry, his meals served by frightened workers who dared not meet his gaze.
They could kill him.
Easily.
But if they did, the workers would still be trapped. No leadership, no plan, and worse—no proof.
Li Fan sat that night, listening to the wind hammer the canvas of their tent.
"This isn't just a kill," he said aloud.
"No," Mei Xiu agreed. "This is something bigger."
"If we fail, the sect will retaliate," Lin Jian murmured.
"And if we don't try, the people keep dying."
Silence again.
Then Li Fan pulled out the Oath scroll. He read it by lamplight, line by line.
"We strike only those whose corruption breaks the lives of the innocent," he said.
"And we do not harm the helpless," Mei whispered.
"Which means," Li Fan said slowly, "we can't burn the house down and walk away. We have to leave them stronger."
At dawn, they struck.
Not with blades, but with light.
They set off smoke charges in three places. Mei Xiu freed the locked sheds where tools were kept. Lin Jian coordinated with Shen and a handful of others, handing out small knives and instructions. The guards, confused by the chaos, rushed to the gates.
And Li Fan went for Hao Zhong.
They fought in the narrow corridor of his villa, the elder roaring with Qi-infused strikes. He was stronger. Faster.
But Li Fan was something else.
Precise.
He took three hits, cracked a rib, and bled from the mouth. But his eyes never wavered. He ducked under a chi-blade and drove his dagger into the man's gut.
No flourish. No speeches.
Just justice.
He left the body where it fell.
By nightfall, the mine was theirs.
They stayed only long enough to write a letter to the Red Willow Sect, signed with the symbol of the Iron Oath.
"We liberated this place not for control," it read, "but to remind you: not all shadows serve the powerful."
They left before the sect retaliated.
And behind them, they left a freed village, a buried girl with a name carved into stone, and a question none of them dared speak aloud:
How long could they keep doing this?
Back at the Hall, the others gathered in silence when they returned.
Li Fan stood at the threshold of the compound, face lined with bruises, cloak ragged from frost and smoke.
Jiao was the first to run to him.
"You made it back," she whispered.
He nodded, eyes distant.
"Yes," he said. "But I don't know how many times we can.