Water Margin: From Wild Boar Forest to Shattering the Old World

Lin Chong had a dream. In it, a beggar asked him, “The skills you have are yours. No one can take them away.” A drunk asked him, “You can smash the table, so why do you keep smashing yourself?” When he woke, Lin Chong was still a prisoner in the same cell. But his hands no longer trembled. At Wild Boar Forest, the moment the two escorts raised their clubs, Lin Chong snatched them away, subdued the men, and forced a confession out of them. He obtained ironclad proof that Gao Qiu had hired assassins to kill him. From that moment on, he was no longer the Lin instructor who meekly endured everything. In the snowstorms of Cangzhou, he single-handedly wiped out three hundred bandits, and the prefect personally petitioned for him to be rewarded. At the court in Dongjing, he advanced step by step, paving the way with silver, making his case with his fists, and building his foundation on the blood and flesh of heroes from the martial world. Gao Yanei still coveted his wife, and Gao Qiu was still plotting to stamp him out once and for all. But they had no idea that Lin Chong, who once bowed his head before them, now had Lu Zhishen, Wu Song, Yan Qing, and others at his back, along with half the martial world. At the old site of Wild Boar Forest, Lin Chong stood with his spear in hand and brought twenty years of grievances to an end himself. Yet when he stood atop the pinnacle of power, he discovered that the realm was already riddled with wounds. Enemies threatened from beyond the borders, treacherous ministers held sway within, and the emperor was incompetent and benighted. He looked down at the spear in his hand, then up at the dragon throne. The drunk’s words from his dream echoed in his ears: “You can smash the table, so why do you keep smashing yourself?” This time, it wasn’t a table he would smash. This time, he would shatter the entire old world.