Zeng Ling looked at Li Chi with curiosity and a touch of astonishment. He simply did not believe that Li Chi genuinely wanted to kill Yang Zhuo for the sake of one hundred thousand taels of silver.

For an ordinary person, one hundred thousand taels was an astronomical sum beyond all resistance.

But Zeng Ling felt that a man of Li Chi’s current perspective should not be someone who simply acts for money.

Had Li Chi known what Zeng Ling was thinking, he would certainly have reflected: *Excellency, I was already considering it even without you saying anything. Now that you’ve said it, I earn an extra hundred thousand taels. Why would I refuse?*

Zeng Ling asked Li Chi: “Are you confident?”

Li Chi shook his head: “Not yet.”

Zeng Ling frowned slightly: “If you have no confidence, how can you take the job?”

Li Chi said: “I have no confidence yet, and I also have not yet taken Excellency Zeng’s money.”

He smiled and said: “Three days from now, have Excellency Zeng send someone to ask whether I have confidence.”

Zeng Ling considered for a moment, then rose and said: “Three days then. If in three days you still have no confidence —”

He paused, smiled, and continued: “I can wait another three days.”

Li Chi said: “If after three days another three are still needed, then the price should drop — I am not worth one hundred thousand taels.”

Zeng Ling gave a nod: “Now I begin to understand why Xiahou speaks so highly of you — why he says you are far cleverer than he is.”

Li Chi smiled: “Don’t listen to him. He’s a shill.”

Zeng Ling paused — the kind of remark that required a moment to parse, because he was so accustomed to reading hidden layers into everything that even a joke had to be examined for other possible meanings.

A moment later he confirmed it was simply a joke, and smiled: “Then I will trust that shill once. Three days from now I will send someone.”

Li Chi smiled: “Does Excellency not wonder why three days?”

Zeng Ling said: “Then I will ask — why three days?”

Li Chi answered quite seriously: “Because earlier, Excellency sent word that I should meet him three days hence at the Yan Nian Pavilion. In all likelihood, your men have already reserved a table there for three days from now. No sense letting it go to waste.”

Zeng Ling was again caught off guard.

He was at something of a loss for words.

After Zeng Ling left, Li Chi gathered his brothers to discuss the matter — it was important, and the reason he had said three days was precisely to allow time for deliberation.

After Tang Pidi heard Li Chi out, he thought at length, then asked: “You took this job already knowing that Zeng Ling may intend to use you as the blade — and then push you out as the scapegoat.”

Li Chi nodded: “I thought of that.”

Tang Pidi asked: “He may want more from you than just Yang Zhuo’s death.”

Li Chi nodded again: “I thought of that too.”

Killing Yang Zhuo was merely the bait, the trap, the snare. If Li Chi accepted, Zeng Ling could use it as leverage to compel Li Chi to go on and find a way to kill Prince Yu as well. Otherwise he would let Prince Yu know that it was Li Chi who killed Yang Zhuo.

It was an interlocking series of traps. Once Li Chi accepted, the initiative over when and how to spring each trap rested entirely with Zeng Ling.

So Tang Pidi asked: “You still accepted — because you have already worked out something?”

Li Chi smiled as he replied: “With Zeng Ling’s methods, his strength, and his grip on Jizhou City — getting rid of Prince Yu on his own is not actually that difficult. Why did he choose me and no one else?”

This question, once asked, sent Tang Pidi into thought.

After a moment, Tang Pidi looked at Li Chi and said: “Zeng Ling already knows you must have some connection to Yanshan Camp.”

Li Chi said: “Most likely.”

Tang Pidi stood, brow deeply furrowed, and walked to the window to look out. He said nothing more — he needed to work out whether Li Chi’s gamble was worth making.

“What you are gambling on,” Tang Pidi said, turning back to Li Chi, “is that Jizhou can only have one person in command, and that person must be Zeng Ling — choosing the lesser of two evils?”

“If at the end of it all Prince Yu kills Zeng Ling,” Tang Pidi said, “Jizhou will be in a very dangerous position.”

Li Chi gave a nod: “But this matter must be handled like walking through ten thousand flowers without a single petal clinging to one’s robes.”

Tang Pidi asked: “How do you intend to do it?”

Li Chi said: “Zeng Ling wants to borrow a blade. We go and borrow a blade of our own.”

Night.

The Qinghe Pavilion.

The heir Yang Zhuo and a crowd of hangers-on were drinking inside. His retainers were busy toasting him and encouraging him toward violence, all of them noisy with enthusiasm and loyalty visible to heaven itself.

“Your Highness,” one of them said, “Zeng Ling is no good sort — he will certainly make his move.”

Another chimed in: “If Zeng Ling does not die, His Highness the Prince may come to harm. Who wants to die? And who would be willing to give up their power and station?”

Yang Zhuo gave a cold snort: “It is no longer for him to choose. Father has said the defeat must have someone to answer for, and if not Zeng Ling, then who?”

He raised his cup and drained it.

“I will spare my father this burden.”

He swept his gaze over those jabbering at him from all sides, then said: “You all say you want to spare me this burden. I ask you one thing: if we were to kill Zeng Ling, which of you would dare strike the blow?”

Those who had just been chattering loudest all fell instantly silent. An awkward stillness descended.

Of course they wanted to say what the young lord wanted to hear — but they were not fools either.

Go and kill Zeng Ling?

Among the Jizhou forces there were countless skilled fighters, and Zeng Ling’s guard was thick as a forest around him. In recent days, anyone could see that Prince Yu’s dissatisfaction with Zeng Ling was growing by the day — did Zeng Ling not know it himself?

Zeng Ling went out now with so many bodyguards that going anywhere near him uninvited risked being riddled with arrows, let alone trying to kill him.

Yang Zhuo’s expression darkened. He slapped his cup down with a sharp crack and glared at everyone: “Are all of you this gutless?”

No one spoke. Every man bowed his head in apparent shame.

“Useless rabble!”

Yang Zhuo looked as though he wanted to upend the entire table — but after a pause, he suddenly laughed, his whole expression shifting to one of genial ease.

“No need for any of you to go and kill anyone yourselves. You all go around claiming you have great connections in Jizhou City, all sorts of useful contacts. Well — go out there and find someone.”

Those present finally relaxed, nodding vigorously one after another, each promising fervently.

“What are you still sitting here for?!”

Yang Zhuo’s voice suddenly cracked like a whip.

Every man at the table leapt to his feet and was gone in an instant.

In the private room across the way, Li Chi and Tang Pidi exchanged a glance and smiled at each other. Killing Yang Zhuo was almost trivially simple.

The man was arrogant and preening — he fancied himself a lord of the old kind, with a thousand retainers at his side, and took pride in it.

But his retainers were mostly men who ate for free, collected rewards, and flattered shamelessly — yes-men and toadies to the last.

If Li Chi simply wanted to kill Yang Zhuo, the moment was right now, with a nine-in-ten chance of success. But he had no intention of disposing of someone so crudely.

Meanwhile, in the Yan Nian Pavilion roughly half a li away, another important figure was also drinking.

Ye Zhangzhu rose and poured a cup for the elegantly dressed young man seated across from him, smiling: “I was just saying — the outstanding men of this world, before General Luo, amount to nothing but undeserved reputations.”

The man seated across from him, Luo Jing, smiled and said: “Mister Ye flatters me too generously. There are countless remarkable men in this world — my meager abilities hardly warrant calling myself the first among them.”

Though he said so humbly, he was obviously enjoying Ye Zhangzhu’s compliments very much.

Ye Zhangzhu sat down and raised his cup: “Please.”

Luo Jing was in high spirits and drained it in one go.

Ye Zhangzhu continued: “Take this campaign as an example. His Highness’s forces suffered defeat on every front — and yet General Luo won victory after victory. When you served as vanguard, you were unstoppable. When you held the rear, you were equally unassailable.”

He said with an expression of deep respect: “I have heard that on the return march, when the Qingzhou forces with their hundreds of thousands came in pursuit, General Luo begged His Highness for permission to turn and fight. His Highness called the general arrogant — and it was only Excellency Zeng’s forceful arguments that finally persuaded His Highness, leading to General Luo’s great victory in which over ten thousand enemies were slain.”

He had embellished the facts somewhat. The event itself had occurred — but the ten thousand slain enemies was pure invention. Luo Jing had killed approximately two thousand in that engagement, which was the true figure.

At that point, the Qingzhou forces had been pressing hard in pursuit and the columns had broken apart. Luo Jing had seen his opportunity and said he wanted to strike back. Prince Yu called it fantasy and said he was just like his father — arrogant.

Luo Jing had naturally been aggrieved. It was Zeng Ling who had argued the case at length before Prince Yu agreed to let Luo Jing engage — though he gave Luo Jing only three thousand men.

Luo Jing indeed lived up to his reputation as the foremost young fighter of the northern frontier. With three thousand men he had driven the pursuing Qingzhou forces back more than ten li.

The originally exultant Luo Jing, the moment he was reminded of Prince Yu’s insult and the insult to his father, felt his expression shift and darken.

Ye Zhangzhu seemed not to notice, and went on as before: “Had it not been for the General, how could His Highness have made it safely back to Jizhou? Though this campaign ended in defeat, the defeat has nothing at all to do with the General.”

The moment these words fell, Luo Jing slapped his chopsticks down on the table with a loud crack, sending every dish and bowl bouncing.

Ye Zhangzhu acted as though startled, and hastily said: “General — what is wrong? Have I said something amiss?”

Luo Jing let out a cold snort: “Mister Ye has said nothing wrong. It is certain people who are unfit to be called a lord.”

Ye Zhangzhu said hurriedly: “General — such words, spoken by the two of us as subjects, are not for saying carelessly. That is the Prince. That is the heir. Even Excellency Zeng would not dare to dispute it openly… and yet —”

He paused.

“General Luo — do you know why today Excellency Zeng did not come himself?”

Luo Jing had been wondering that as well. Ye Zhangzhu had said today’s dinner was Military Governor Zeng Ling’s treat, to thank him for his efforts in the many bitter battles. Yet Zeng Ling had not come — only Ye Zhangzhu.

Luo Jing and his father, Luo Geng, were not without their measure of shrewdness, but their particular brand of cleverness did not run very deep. No one would call him dull — but the people he had been dealing with at this level of the world were all consummate operators.

“Ah…”

Ye Zhangzhu sighed. He too put down his chopsticks and said: “Excellency Zeng had already left when he happened to run straight into the heir Yang Zhuo. Yang Zhuo asked where he was going. Excellency Zeng dared not deceive him, and told him plainly that he was coming here to share a drink with General Luo.”

Ye Zhangzhu continued: “As it happened, the heir flew into a rage and said that with Jizhou in such a crisis, what gave defeated generals the face to gather and drink and make merry?”

By now Luo Jing’s face had gone somewhat pale with fury — yet Ye Zhangzhu still appeared not to notice, and carried on as before.

“The heir berated Excellency Zeng, saying he was a defeated general, a disgrace to the Jizhou army — and that all the generals under his command were the same, including that Luo Jing, who had bragged about being undefeatable and yet fled like a stray cur…”

Ye Zhangzhu had not even finished speaking when Luo Jing brought his palm slamming down on the table with a crack that sent every plate and bowl leaping into the air.

“A stray cur? Those two — father and son — they are the stray curs!”

Ye Zhangzhu, as though alarmed, immediately said: “General Luo — you must not speak carelessly. That is the Prince. That is the heir. Even Excellency Zeng did not dare argue back and could only withdraw. He sent me here to offer his apologies to the General — Excellency Zeng says he has failed you, and he has failed your father.”

Ye Zhangzhu sighed: “Excellency Zeng says that he and your father made a promise — to take good care of you. But now Excellency Zeng can barely protect himself, and has no power to shield you from harm…”

Luo Jing’s expression shifted at once: “What do you mean by that? Who means to do something to me?”

His gaze turned cold and dangerous: “Who dares?”

……

……