Outside the gates of Jizhou City, wind stirred up dust in swirling clouds.

Li Chi raised his head and studied the weathered characters carved into the gate above him. His mood was — in just the slightest way — complicated.

The carved characters were dotted with arrow scars. In that moment, Li Chi felt the ache of an ancient city.

“What’s wrong?”

Yu Jiuling, seeing Li Chi halt, asked the question.

From Yu Jiuling’s perspective, this had been a thoroughly pleasant journey home. He had no way to access whatever Li Chi was feeling, let alone to contemplate something like an ancient city aching. People are different.

For Yu Jiuling, Li Chi’s manner of experiencing the world was probably just excessive sentimentality. Yu Jiuling was far more interested in whether the Twin Star Pavilion was still standing.

For most of Yu Jiuling’s life, the better half of it had been spent in a tavern in Tang County — making mischief every day and then getting scolded for it. That was his life.

You could not quite call it bitter — at most, it was plain and unremarkable.

Li Chi was different. From his youth, Li Chi had sometimes seemed like a strange sort. There were moments when even his master Changmei had thought Li Chi seemed strange.

For instance, before they had come to Jizhou, they had passed through Yongqing County. In the town there, they had helped collect and bury the bodies of many people. Li Chi had seen the ruined city, and had put many questions to his master.

*”Master, when people die, they feel pain until the moment of death, and then they feel nothing — is that right?”*

*”Master, the city walls are covered in wounds. Do city walls feel pain?”*

*”Master, that tree has been burned. Does the tree feel pain?”*

Changmei, though he found his disciple’s thinking unusual, answered every question — telling him that only the living can feel pain.

Then Li Chi said — *I know. When animals are hurt, they howl; that is them feeling pain. When people are hurt, they cry out; that is them feeling pain.*

*Trees are hurt and they do not speak. City walls are hurt and they do not speak. The earth itself is hurt and it does not speak.*

At that time, Changmei had raised his hand and rubbed Li Chi’s head — wanting to comfort this sorrowful child, and also checking whether the boy had a fever and was talking deliriously.

Li Chi went on: *Trees feel pain. City walls feel pain. The earth feels pain. But they do not speak — and the tree will not come back to life, to shelter people again, to bloom and bear fruit again.*

*City walls feel pain and do not speak, but they will not repair themselves — and so they will no longer give people shelter.*

*The earth does not speak, but it will become barren and parched, even turn to wasteland — and will no longer grow grain.*

Changmei had fallen silent for a long time after that, thinking that these were things a child should not be contemplating. He raised his hand again and touched Diudiu’s forehead.

Li Chi said: *I don’t like this. I want to see trees casting shade. I want to see city walls standing tall. I want to see the earth full and rich.*

Changmei said: *Then imagine it. Having something beautiful in your mind is better than having only the ugliness your eyes can see.*

Now, in this moment, Li Chi raised his hand and pointed at the weathered carved characters on the Jizhou city walls. Almost to himself, he murmured two words.

*So ugly.*

Yu Jiuling nodded. “Ugly, yes. Shall we go in?”

Li Chi slowly exhaled, and urged his horse forward.

“We’ll carve new characters when this is over.”

Outside the gates of the military governor’s residence, Li Chi drew up and dismounted. Before he had even properly alighted, Luo Jing and Tang Pidi came out one after another, both wearing smiles.

Li Chi had not sent word ahead of his arrival. When he reached the city gates, he had been stopped and questioned by the gatekeeping soldiers. Once they recognized him, they immediately ran to the governor’s residence to report it.

But Li Chi was only a little behind the messenger. Luo Jing had come out to meet him, and seeing Li Chi’s road-weary appearance, he turned back and said something quietly to a personal guard: “Go boil water!”

Yu Jiuling muttered to himself, “First, boil Zhang Yuxu. Then boil Peng Shiqii. They’re both well-fed — should last till the fifteenth…”

Beside him, Zhang Yuxu lowered his voice and said, “I’ll boil you first. Cook you in parts — today the head and face, tomorrow the limbs, the day after your kidneys.”

Peng Shiqii said, “Those need to be roasted.”

Yu Jiuling: “…”

*Governor’s residence. Study.*

Luo Jing handed Li Chi a cup of hot tea, smiled, and said, “I’ve been waiting for you to come. There’s nothing I can do about your Old Tang — I told him he had three days to take whatever he liked, and he spent three days nearly clearing out all of Jizhou. Who does that?”

Li Chi looked at Tang Pidi. “You really almost cleaned the whole place out?”

“Yes,” Tang Pidi said. “Not far from it.”

“Now that,” Li Chi said earnestly, “I have to reprimand you for. Truly excessive. Why did you leave anything?”

“Can’t blame me for that,” Tang Pidi said. “If he’d given me four days, I reckon I could have taken it all.”

Luo Jing sighed. “I’m starting to regret inviting you here. You two are both villains — rotten to the core. Two of a kind: one corrupt, the other even more so.”

Li Chi grinned. “I thought you’d invited me here to own up to your mistakes. You feel bad about not letting us take everything. If you really feel bad about it…”

He had not finished before Luo Jing quickly said, “I feel perfectly fine about it. Completely fine. Not one ounce of dissatisfaction anywhere.”

“We’re friends,” Li Chi said. “No need to force yourself.”

“Let’s talk business,” Luo Jing said. “At this rate I’m going to end up signing over a promissory note.”

“I trust you,” Li Chi said. “You’re a gentleman. A gentleman always repays his debts — why bother writing a note? It makes me look petty.”

“You — big and generous — take other people’s things without a care in the world,” Luo Jing said. “Nobody has a bigger appetite than you.”

“I do like to hear people say I’m big,” Li Chi said.

Luo Jing turned to look out the window. “I’ve got too much free time. Why did I go and get mixed up with you…”

A moment later, he returned to his chair and sat down. His tone had eased slightly. “Let’s talk business first. Once business is settled, we can eat.”

“Let’s eat first,” Li Chi said. “I’m worried that once we get heated over the business, you won’t feed me at all.”

“If I don’t feed you it won’t be my fault,” Luo Jing said. “You can blame Tang Pidi — he’s the one who took everything.”

“There was still some left,” Tang Pidi said.

“What’s the business?” Li Chi asked with a smile.

“Jizhou is yours,” Luo Jing said.

Those five words landed, and Li Chi looked as though he had been briefly stunned. He stared at Luo Jing as one might stare at something monstrous, then turned to Tang Pidi. “Did you hit him?”

Tang Pidi shook his head. “I think he came down with it on his own.”

“Give me a straight answer,” Luo Jing said. “Do you want it or not?”

“No,” Li Chi said.

Luo Jing gave Li Chi the same look one might give to a strange creature, and said, “People have fought and bled and piled up bodies for this Jizhou City. Four military governors have been spent over this place. A prince. A great bandit from Yanzhou. They fought to their deaths for it — every one of them — and now I’m offering it to you for nothing, and you won’t take it?”

Li Chi nodded. “No.”

“Give me a reason,” Luo Jing said.

“Too undesirable,” Li Chi said.

Luo Jing stood up, took two steps forward until he was right in front of Li Chi, and looked him dead in the eye. He said at full volume, “I’ll ask you one more time: Jizhou City is yours. Do you want it or not?”

Li Chi shook his head.

Luo Jing deflated like a punctured bladder and returned to his chair, sitting back down with a face full of vexation. “Do you have something wrong with you?”

“If you say I have something wrong with me,” Li Chi replied, “then so do you — and not lightly. You said those people fought to the death over Jizhou, and here you’ve gone and taken it with ease — and now you want to give it away?”

Luo Jing let out a sudden bark of laughter: “Can’t hold it.”

“You have tens of thousands of crack soldiers,” Li Chi said. “I only have eight thousand. You can’t hold it, so you want me to hold it for you? What kind of logic is that?”

“Then name your price,” Luo Jing said. “What condition would it take to make you willing to hold Jizhou City?”

Li Chi did not answer, but turned the question around: “How many troops do you have right now?”

“Just over fifty thousand,” Luo Jing said.

“Give me forty-five thousand,” Li Chi said, “and I’ll hold Jizhou.”

“Get the hell out of here,” Luo Jing said.

“No need to disturb the old gentleman’s peace in the afterlife,” Li Chi said pleasantly.

“If you don’t take Jizhou,” Luo Jing said, “I’m not going to hold it either. With fifty thousand men, I can only barely hold Youzhou.”

“I also need to guard against Yanzhou to the south — it’s in chaos now with no one in control, roving bandits everywhere, rebel armies running rampant, the Yanzhou Army routed, Baishan Army routed, and floods of refugees pouring in from Yanzhou.”

“If I don’t return to Youzhou, the northern frontier loses the Youzhou Army as a bulwark against the Black Wu forces. And Youzhou is my home — if I’m not there, Youzhou could become someone else’s home.”

“Starting to sound genuinely earnest,” Li Chi said. “That’s never a good sign. You’re about to play the heartstring card.”

“You are impenetrable,” Luo Jing said.

Li Chi smiled. “Actually, it’s not as difficult as you’re imagining. Yes, Yanzhou has dozens of rebel armies of all sizes, but who in their right mind would come and pick a fight with Youzhou?”

He looked at Luo Jing. “Who are you? You’re the unconquerable Luo Jing of the northern frontier.”

“Don’t flatter me,” Luo Jing said. “It won’t work.”

“I’m being serious,” Li Chi said. “For at least the next several years, no one from Yanzhou will dare come to Jizhou and stir trouble. The bones of the Yanzhou Army’s hundreds of thousands, and the Baishan Army’s hundreds of thousands — they are not yet cold.”

He continued: “As for Yuzhou — the forces left behind by Prince Wu Yang Jiju can only barely hold their own. He has marched south with his main army, and there is no one guarding Qingzhou at all. Yuzhou’s forces have no energy to spare for Jizhou, with the Nanping River standing between them.”

He gestured toward the outside: “As long as the city walls of Jizhou fly the Luo banner for even one day, no one will dare come looking for trouble.”

Luo Jing sighed. “I can tell it’s flattery, and yet it still feels good to hear…”

Tang Pidi, who had not spoken the entire time, sat there looking as though he was very earnestly contemplating some weighty matter. In fact, his mind was occupied with the question of whether Li Chi had just said the Luo banner or the donkey banner.

“Be straight with me,” Li Chi said to Luo Jing. “You have other plans, don’t you?”

Luo Jing could not suppress a smile: “You see right through me… the people of Yanzhou won’t dare come at me, but I want to go at them. If I can take Yanzhou, there will be no rival left in the north.”

“You cunning creature,” Li Chi said. “You want me to hold Jizhou for you while you’re away, and to supply you with grain and provisions for the campaign as your rear base.”

Luo Jing actually looked mildly sheepish. He nodded. “The current situation in the north is favorable — a heaven-given opportunity. Not seizing what Heaven offers invites punishment. I’ll lead the strike; you manage things behind me.”

“Ha!” Li Chi said. “Trying to enlist me now?”

He looked at Tang Pidi. “Old Tang, what should I tell him?”

“Name your price,” Tang Pidi said. “Demand so much it drives him away.”

Luo Jing made a welcoming gesture. “Give it a try.”

Li Chi turned serious. He looked at Luo Jing and said, “I won’t name a price. But I’ll tell you plainly: if you march on Yanzhou, I won’t be working against you from behind — no treachery, no knives in the back. But the moment you suffer defeat and grow weak, Jizhou — and Youzhou — I’ll take them both.”

Luo Jing fell silent.

After a long, long silence, Luo Jing let out a slow exhale and said, “Do you know how many of my subordinates have urged me to kill you two?”

“I can guess,” Li Chi said.

Luo Jing stood up and began pacing the room. “I honestly can’t quite understand myself. The straightforward move would be to kill you both, right here, right now. Within the north, looking in every direction, only the two of you are worthy opponents. Kill you now and no one in the north can challenge me.”

He looked at Li Chi. “If you were in my position — should you or shouldn’t you kill yourself and Tang Pidi? Should you or shouldn’t you destroy your Ning Army?”

“You absolutely should,” Li Chi said. “But you’re a fool, aren’t you.”

Luo Jing was taken aback. Then he spat in Li Chi’s direction.

He fell silent again for a long time, then turned to face Li Chi and said, “The world is as it is. Time does not wait. I consider myself a man of mettle — if I do not contend for the world, I cannot live with myself. You two are my opponents — I should, in truth, kill you. But you are also my friends. And in my heart, if I am to march far away, you are the only two men I would dare leave at my back without fearing a knife in it.”

“Opponents…”

“In all of Jizhou,” Luo Jing said, “you two are the only ones I would trust my home to.”

Li Chi turned to Tang Pidi. “He’s being sincere.”

“Then we can talk money,” Tang Pidi said.

“He’s appealing to our emotions,” Li Chi said.

“The feeling has just about peaked,” Tang Pidi said. “The atmosphere is right. Let’s say what needs to be said — I’m hungry.”

“Go to hell — both of you…”

—