## Chapter 69: The Bounty Declared
The air in the village square didn't just go quiet. It died.
The lead enforcer, a man with a scar bisecting his eyebrow, froze with his hand raised to strike an old farmer. His knuckles were white. The other four enforcers, clad in the Martial Alliance's grey and blue uniforms, slowly turned. Their eyes widened, not with recognition, but with a primal confusion. One moment, the square had been theirs—a stage for their petty tyranny. The next, a young man stood ten paces away, as if he'd been carved from the mountain mist itself.
Li Chang'an didn't move. He didn't flare his aura. He simply stood there, his plain training clothes dusty from the descent, his expression unreadable. The silence he brought was heavier than any shout.
"Who…" The scarred enforcer, Captain Luo, dropped his hand. His voice was a dry rasp. "Who are you to interfere with Alliance business?"
Li Chang'an's gaze swept over the villagers huddled by the well. An old woman's cheek was reddened. A young boy clutched a broken wooden toy. The fear in their eyes was a familiar, bitter taste. It was the same fear that had filled his own village before he left.
"The business of stealing grain from those who can barely feed themselves?" Li Chang'an's voice was calm, almost conversational. "The business of beating elders for sport? Is that the sacred duty of the Martial Alliance?"
Captain Luo's face flushed with anger, cutting through his initial shock. "Tax collection! For the protection and order the Alliance provides! You speak like an outsider. A rebel." His eyes narrowed, assessing. Li Chang'an looked young, too young to be a threat. He had no visible weapon, no sigil of a major clan. Just the steady, unsettling calm of deep water. "You heard my offer. Leave now."
Li Chang'an took a single step forward. It wasn't a aggressive lunge, just a shift of weight. But the effect was instantaneous.
The five enforcers flinched back as one, hands flying to the hilts of their standard-issue sabers. The movement was so synchronized it was comical. Their own reaction scared them more than he did.
"You think you can face five of us, boy?" Captain Luo snarled, drawing his saber with a metallic shing. The sound was loud in the dead air. "You have a death wish. Take him!"
They rushed him not as trained martial artists, but as a pack of thugs, trying to overwhelm him with numbers. Li Chang'an didn't draw a weapon.
His [Heaven-Defying Comprehension] had long since dissected the basic Alliance Saber Art they used. He saw the openings before their muscles even tensed.
The first enforcer came in with a clumsy overhead chop. Li Chang'an sidestepped, his movement a blur of wasted motion. His fingers tapped the back of the man's wrist—a touch lighter than a butterfly's. There was a sickening pop. The man screamed, his saber clattering to the dust as his wrist bent at an impossible angle.
The second and third came from both sides. Li Chang'an dropped into a low stance, one leg sweeping out. He didn't just sweep; he channeled a whisper of internal energy through the movement, a refinement of the most basic Sweeping Leg technique he'd observed weeks ago. The air around his leg hummed.
Their legs were taken out from under them with the sound of cracking timber. They hit the ground hard, the wind knocked from their lungs.
Captain Luo and the last enforcer hung back, their bravado shattered. Fear, cold and sharp, now gleamed in their eyes. This wasn't a fight. It was a dismantling.
"Demon…" the last enforcer whispered, his saber shaking.
Li Chang'an looked at Captain Luo. "You still have your legs. Carry your men. Go back to your outpost. Tell your superiors the Black Mountain Village is under my protection. The 'tax' ends today."
Captain Luo's jaw worked. Humiliation warred with the animal instinct to survive. Survival won. He gave a curt, jerky nod, sheathing his saber with trembling hands. He and the uninjured enforcer dragged their moaning comrades to their feet, not daring to turn their backs until they were at the edge of the square.
As they limped towards the forest path, Captain Luo shot one last look over his shoulder, his eyes burning with venomous hatred. "This isn't over! You've marked yourself! The Alliance will grind you to dust!"
Then they were gone, swallowed by the trees.
The silence in the square stretched, thick and disbelieving. Then, the old farmer Li Chang'an had saved took a hesitant step forward. He fell to his knees, kowtowing in the dust. "Young master… thank you! Thank you!"
A wave of emotion broke over the villagers. Relief, gratitude, and a new, terrifying anxiety. They surrounded him, not crowding, but keeping a respectful distance, their voices a hushed, overlapping murmur of thanks.
Li Chang'an helped the old man up. "There's no need for that. Get the wounded seen to. Hide what grain you can. They will be back, and with greater force."
"But young master, where will you go?" the old woman asked, her voice frail.
"I'll be in the mountains," he said. "Watching."
He left them then, melting back into the treeline. His heart wasn't light. He'd known the consequences. He had simply decided the cost of inaction was higher.
*
Three days later, in the bustling trade city of Riverpass, the notice went up.
It was nailed to the central message board in the merchant's quarter, stamped with the official seal of the Martial Alliance's Southern Prefecture Branch—a clenched fist gripping a mountain. The crowd that gathered was large and murmuring.
BOUNTY DECLARATION
For the crime of assaulting Alliance officers, obstructing lawful duty, and sowing rebellion:
The individual known as 'The Mountain Ghost' (alias), male, approximate age 18-22.
Last seen in the Black Mountain region.
Ability: Unorthodox and powerful close-quarter combat. Suspected low-level Qi refinement.
BOUNTY: 5,000 Spirit Stones for confirmation of death.
10,000 Spirit Stones for capture alive.
By order of Prefect Zhu Jian, Southern Prefecture Branch.
A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. Ten thousand Spirit Stones! That was a fortune that could buy a manor, a lifetime of luxury. For a minor regional branch to issue such a sum… it spoke of panic, of a need to crush this insult decisively.
At the edge of the crowd, a young man in travel-stained robes watched, his face hidden in the shadow of a broad bamboo hat. Under the brim, Li Chang'an's lips curved into a faint, cold smile.
So, he thought, I've been given a name. 'Mountain Ghost.' And a price.
He turned and walked away, unnoticed. The notice fluttered in the breeze. The hunt was now official. But as he disappeared into the flowing crowd, a single, quiet realization settled in his mind, a truth more chilling than any bounty:
The Martial Alliance had just made their first, and greatest, mistake.
They had told every greedy, desperate, and powerful soul in the Southern Prefecture exactly where to find him.
And he was done hiding in the shadows. Let the storm gather. Let it break.
He would be the lightning.
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