By the time darkness fell, Xiahou Zuo finally returned from the Sanyue River Pavilion — and he did not come back alone. Twenty large carts of grain came with him.
Xiahou Zuo had come back alongside the convoy. When they reached the carriage company gates, he told the grain carriers to go back on their own and promised to have their carts sent back to the granary the following day.
Li Chi stared at the twenty carts of grain, his eyes going wide. He genuinely hadn’t expected this windfall.
Xiahou Zuo laughed. “You were that magnanimous — could he afford to be stingy?”
He draped an arm around Li Chi’s shoulders and walked him inside, the casual camaraderie of the gesture already deeply familiar.
“I told him the carriage company’s business has been difficult lately — why else would you have brought all those things out to sell. I told him you hadn’t had a customer in ages, that you were so poor you couldn’t even afford pickled radish strips, that the pot was practically empty. Moved by the seal bringing him hundreds of thousands of taels in military funds, he had the granary send over ten carts of grain.”
Li Chi was taken aback. “Hundreds of thousands?”
Xiahou Zuo said, “Don’t play innocent. You dug that pit — do you not know how deep it went?”
Li Chi burst out laughing, then looked back at the carts. “This isn’t ten carts, though.”
Xiahou Zuo said, “I demanded ten more. The granary men couldn’t afford to get on my bad side. As for my father — ten or twenty carts makes little difference to him. He was all smiles today, barely containing himself. What does adding ten more carts of grain cost him?”
Li Chi was at a loss for words. Between him and Xiahou Zuo, it seemed, there was no need for formality.
“Then there’s the matter of the scrolls.”
Xiahou Zuo said, “Thirty or forty thousand taels came in, all told. Add the grain and it roughly matches what you’d hoped to get from the seal auction — slightly less, but something to work with going forward.”
Li Chi gave a sound of acknowledgment. “Let’s eat. I promised everyone hot pot tonight, and they’ve all been waiting for you.”
Xiahou Zuo grinned. “He also told me to tell you — don’t hold back so much.”
Li Chi smiled and nodded. In truth, Li Chi understood: everything Prince Yu was doing now was because of Xiahou Zuo.
—
Elsewhere. On a broad avenue, a company of armored cavalry escorted a carriage back toward the Prince’s Residence. Inside the carriage sat Prince Yu and Zeng Ling, the military governor who had arrived at the Sanyue River Pavilion later in the proceedings.
“Your Highness — this particular regard shown to the one called Li Chi is on account of the matter of Xiahou remaining to hold Jizhou, is it not.”
Zeng Ling ventured the question carefully.
“It is…”
Prince Yu exhaled slowly and said: “Although Zuo’er left Liu Ge as an aide for him, with only Liu Ge it is still somewhat thin. This Li Chi’s martial skill is such that he could exchange blows with Luo Jing — he should be formidable enough. So by treating Li Chi well for now, I also give Zuo’er one more person beside him. Zuo’er values him, so he will fight to the death to help Zuo’er.”
He looked toward Zeng Ling. “We march in two days. Once I lead the army out of the city, Yanzhou and Qingzhou may both send forces against Jizhou. Zuo’er will be carrying a heavy burden. Li Chi is a clever man — can you guess why he chose this particular moment to bring the seal out for auction?”
Zeng Ling thought for a moment, and then understood.
An involuntary jolt ran through him. He still couldn’t quite believe it — a young man of his teens, with a mind and a depth of calculation like this?
Li Chi had been borrowing flowers to offer before the Buddha — borrowing from all the gleaming, untouchable figures of Jizhou City.
Backed into a corner, he had extracted the maximum possible value from a single seal — ten times, twenty times its ordinary worth, perhaps more.
Using one seal to dig a pit, then letting all the great families fill it in. The borrowing had been done with remarkable ruthlessness.
Zeng Ling shook his head slowly. “This young man — if Your Highness’s reading of him is correct, he is genuinely impressive. A rare talent worth cultivating.”
Prince Yu nodded. “He extracted the flowers from all the major factions of Jizhou City. What did he himself lose? Were the hundreds of thousands of taels his to begin with? Of course not — yet they materialized because of him.”
Prince Yu smiled. “I find myself having to think well of him. Capable — genuinely capable.”
Zeng Ling smiled along. “And yet it is Your Highness who is the greatest beneficiary. Li Chi’s one stroke brought all the fence-sitters in the city into the open, enriched Your Highness considerably, and provided Your Highness with someone to support Xiahou Zuo in holding the city. Your Highness receives every benefit without paying any cost.”
“Ha ha ha ha…”
Prince Yu laughed. “And why do you think I rushed over to the Sanyue River Pavilion — a gentleman’s establishment, however refined in appearance, is still a gentleman’s establishment. To walk in there openly and come away with nothing would have been quite a loss.”
He closed his eyes. “Has there been any word from Luo Jing?”
As vanguard general, Luo Jing had led fifty thousand troops out of the city several days before.
“Not yet.”
Zeng Ling said, “This Luo Jing has courage without strategy, and is insufferably arrogant. He can be used for now, but he cannot be kept in the end.”
He had put it plainly enough that Prince Yu understood perfectly: if Luo Jing could not be kept, could his father Luo Geng be kept?
The Youzhou General Luo Geng, and the tens of thousands of elite troops under him — especially those several thousand heavy armored cavalry — remained a festering source of trouble.
Prince Yu fell silent for a moment, then said: “Do you know about the matter between Li Chi and the Xu family?”
Zeng Ling answered quickly: “I do.”
He recounted the events of the previous night — Xu Shengyu and the Surveillance Bureau — in full. Hearing it, Prince Yu couldn’t help laughing.
“This Liu Ge has a certain style.”
Prince Yu looked at Zeng Ling and asked: “What is your assessment of the Xu family?”
Zeng Ling knew his Prince well enough: the mere fact of the question meant Prince Yu was thoroughly displeased with the Xu family. From the moment the Xu family had first declared their allegiance to now, they had produced a grand total of that one hundred thousand taels — and only because circumstances had made it impossible not to.
Prince Yu’s displeasure with the Xu family also had something to do with the fact that they had recently been growing close to the Crown Prince’s faction. The men the Crown Prince had placed in the army were mostly Xu family people.
Zeng Ling spoke without hesitation: “The Xu family has an elder who has lived nearly a hundred years. A man who has lived that long is sharper than the most cunning fox. The advantage of such a figure at the helm is that the Xu family rarely loses. The disadvantage is that his sharpness makes him perpetually reluctant to accept any loss, which inevitably means trying to gain at others’ expense. That is not a good quality.”
Prince Yu laughed heartily. “I always say you have sharp eyes. The Xu family has stayed steady for all these years precisely because of that old fox — yet the Xu family’s failure to rise also traces back to him.”
He had been smiling, but his tone dropped suddenly.
“Going around me to arrange Xu family placements in the army through the Crown Prince, taking several generalships — is that old fox being clever, or being a fool?”
He looked toward Zeng Ling and asked: “What do you think?”
Zeng Ling bowed his head. “A fool. A spectacular one.”
Prince Yu gave a sound of acknowledgment and said: “I agree. There is one more drawback to living too long — it makes a man believe he has attained divine wisdom, that no one in the world can outmaneuver him, that no one is his equal…”
Zeng Ling said, “Then shall I go make the Xu family understand their situation?”
Prince Yu smiled without answering, but Zeng Ling already knew what was meant.
It wasn’t the old fox who had earned Prince Yu’s anger today in the Sanyue River Pavilion — it was the young fox, Xu Shengyu. This one thought that raising a hand and inflating the bidding twice constituted a demonstration of loyalty?
Such obviously transparent cleverness — it left a bad taste.
“Make the arrangements.”
Prince Yu’s voice was entirely unhurried. “Speaking of that — it brings to mind someone I had all but forgotten. The last time I mobilized Liu Chongxin’s private household troops, there was a Surveillance Bureau battalion commander — what was his name?”
“Yuan Wuxian.”
Zeng Ling answered.
Prince Yu said mildly, “Mm. Include him as well.”
Zeng Ling thought carefully, then ventured: “Then should this be done openly? Your Highness is about to lead a campaign against Liu Chongxin within two days…”
The corner of Prince Yu’s mouth curved slightly upward. “Didn’t I say that the person in the world who knows me best is you?”
—
The next day.
At the Surveillance Bureau. Xu Shengyu looked at the subordinate before him and asked: “How is Yuan Wuxian?”
“Reporting to the Bureau Director — Commander Yuan’s injuries are serious. He will need some time to recover.”
“Mm.”
Xu Shengyu nodded and said: “A small carriage company, behaving with such reckless insolence. If nothing is done, no one in Jizhou City will fear the Surveillance Bureau any longer.”
He looked at his subordinate and gave instructions: “Assign surveillance teams. I want that Yongning Tongyuan Carriage and Horse Company watched on every shift, around the clock. Don’t let me catch them in anything…”
He looked at the sky outside. The sun was perfect. A mild and unhurried breeze.
This kind of warm spring light, neither cold nor hot, was the most comfortable of all.
“Have men make arrangements. I’m going fishing.”
After issuing his instructions, Xu Shengyu walked out. “And bring along a few ladies — fishing alone gets dull.”
He had barely stepped out of the main hall when the light seemed to dim, as though a cloud had passed over the sun.
So Xu Shengyu looked up.
He saw a sky full of arrows.
—
Outside the Surveillance Bureau.
General Liu Ge sat on horseback, his long blade leveled toward the Bureau compound as he issued the command: “Don’t spare the arrows. Loose!”
Whoosh.
Another volley went out.
The entire perimeter of the Surveillance Bureau courtyard was encircled. Bowmen from every direction arced their volleys into the compound — the sound of arrows striking roof tiles and timber was unbroken, until the rooftops were blanketed in a layer of white fletching.
“Switch to fire arrows. Smoke them out.”
Liu Ge gave the second order.
By now the Bureau agents inside would have taken cover in the buildings. That meant making the buildings untenable.
Layer after layer of fire arrows flew into the compound. Soldiers nocked, drew, released, nocked again, drew, released — their movements uniform and precise.
In the distance, a great crowd of commoners had gathered to watch. They stood and stared, stupefied.
“What’s happening?”
“No idea — I got here early and there was already an army surrounding the Surveillance Bureau.”
“They’ve posted a notice over there — can anyone read?”
Someone hurried over to the notice and read it aloud, sentence by sentence. The meaning was roughly this: At the very moment Prince Yu was leading his army out to punish the traitors, agents of the Surveillance Bureau in Jizhou had attempted to send intelligence to Liu Chongxin — and therefore Prince Yu had ordered them all to be killed without exception.
“They had it coming!”
Someone spat on the ground and cursed: “That pack of wolves wearing human skin! They’ve deserved retribution for a long time!”
“Burn them to death!”
Somewhere in the crowd a voice was the first to cry it out. The commoners, watching from a safe distance, began to take up the chant in unison.
“Burn them to death!”
“Burn them to death!”
Liu Ge sat his horse and heard the crowd roaring behind him. A smile came to his lips involuntarily. Then he shouted loudly: “You heard the people — they say burn them to death. The will of the people speaks. More arrows!”
About half an hour later, fire broke out inside the Bureau compound. Clearly it was past controlling.
“Crossbow carts!”
Liu Ge thrust a hand forward.
The two rows of soldiers at the front immediately split apart, and three crossbow carts were rolled forward from the rear, aimed at the Bureau’s main gates.
The flames grew. Thick smoke billowed through the compound.
A short while later — less than a quarter of an hour — the people inside could no longer endure it. The gates were wrenched open and they came surging out.
As the gates swung wide, smoke and people poured out together.
“Loose!”
At the command, three heavy crossbow bolts shrieked through the air. The Bureau agents crowding the gateway had no time to react — three heavy bolts punched through over a dozen of them. At this distance, with weapons of such brutal power, flesh and blood had no defense.
The heavy bolts drove clean through, killing those behind as surely as those in front. The wounds they left behind were horrific beyond description — those who were pierced didn’t even register what had happened to them.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Three muffled concussions as the three bolts, having torn through the press of men at the gateway, buried themselves in the ornamental wall beyond. Blood spattered across the wall in a dense spray of droplets.
“Arrows!”
Liu Ge’s hand swept downward.
The soldiers massed at the gates directed a torrential pour of arrows into the doorway. The arrows were thick enough that some clashed in midair — a wall of black, filling the air. Every body lying across the gateway threshold bristled with no fewer than five or six shafts.
The pile of corpses at the gate grew until it turned the stomach to look at. Those Bureau agents still inside no longer dared to rush the gates — they began scaling the compound walls to drop over the other side.
What difference did it make?
Ring after ring of garrison troops encircled the compound on every side. Anyone who appeared on the wall top was knocked back by arrows before they could clear it.
In the courtyard within, Xu Shengyu — his face blackened with soot — looked out at the carnage surrounding him. He watched his subordinates fall from the walls one by one. His eyes had gone the color of blood.
“Yang Jixing!”
Xu Shengyu screamed with all his fury: “You will die a miserable death!”