Atop the walls of Jizhou, Li Chi held the spyglass to his eye and looked toward the southern horizon — dozens of li away, the waters were raging sky-high.

The river channel was not so far from Jizhou that the elevation of the walls made it invisible. He could see it clearly — and that clarity made it all the more staggering.

From this distance, the force of those waters was still apparent. One could only imagine what the Anyang forces caught mid-crossing were seeing.

Li Chi and Tang Pidi had been preparing this ever since they stripped the estates of those officials. So when he had left, weeks before, he had said: he was confident in the face of Anyang’s forces — but it would be brutal.

The season was already the flood months. Even without particularly heavy rains in Jizhou, water levels rose every year at this time.

The Dading River’s channel south of Jizhou happened to run smooth and level — which had led the Anyang forces to believe they were in luck.

Li Chi slowly lowered the spyglass. His expression was somber.

Tang Pidi clapped him on the shoulder. “Thinking that killing this many people by such means weighs on you?”

Li Chi nodded. “When you borrow the power of heaven and earth to kill people — how could the dead be few?”

Tang Pidi said with a slight smile, “People say that killing by fire offends the harmony of heaven and invites retribution. No one has ever said that killing by flood invites retribution.”

Li Chi said, “I’m not afraid of retribution. If I were, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Tang Pidi said, “Then what are you worried about?”

Li Chi replied, “It’s high summer. With this many bodies, waterlogged on top of that — I’m worried about plague.”

Tang Pidi said, “At the point where the river enters Baipo Lake downstream, I’ve already had a wooden barrier erected. The water will pass, but the bodies will be caught there and not flow into Baipo Lake. You don’t need to worry about the people who live around it.”

“Once this battle is over, we’ll haul the bodies out and deal with them properly. Don’t worry.”

Li Chi looked at Tang Pidi. “Why did you ask me just now?”

Tang Pidi said, “I thought you were afraid.”

Li Chi curled his lip. “If I were afraid, and you asked — that wouldn’t make me unafraid.”

Tang Pidi gave a small smile. “Put it on my account.”

Li Chi paused. He narrowed his eyes at Tang Pidi. “What do you mean, on your account?”

“The lives.”

Tang Pidi’s voice was utterly flat. “In this life — the ones you kill, the ones I kill, the ones our people kill — put them all on my account.”

He glanced at Li Chi, his tone still without a ripple.

Tang Pidi said, “This life of mine — I was probably born to do exactly this.”

He braced both hands against the parapet and looked out at the land now swallowed by the flood. Then he laughed — quietly.

“Do you think the heavens actually concern themselves with these things?”

Li Chi shook his head. “They don’t.”

Tang Pidi made a sound of agreement. “If heaven did keep accounts, I still wouldn’t fear it. Heaven doesn’t — so what’s left to fear?”

He turned his head and looked at Li Chi again. A smile. “Guess whether I was sent down from above.”

He exhaled slowly. “Sent down to butcher this world.”

Li Chi felt a quiet shiver go through him.

He knew how hard and cold Tang Pidi ran beneath the surface — this young man who always wore a smile like sunlight on his face was a god of slaughter.

“The battlefield is where people die. That’s as it should be.”

Tang Pidi said, “When every enemy has understood there is no point fighting us — that’s when we’ll have accomplished what we came to do.”

“And if they keep coming — then we fight until there are no more enemies.”

Tang Pidi clapped Li Chi on the shoulder once more. “The plan to flood the enemy was mine. So stop worrying.”

He turned and leaned back against the wall, then dug into the deer-hide pouch at his side and rummaged around until he produced two mountain fruits, still a little green.

He handed one to Li Chi. Li Chi took it and asked, “They’re not ripe yet — aren’t they sour?”

Tang Pidi bit into his. The juice looked plentiful — it seemed sweet enough.

Li Chi bit into his.

In an instant, even his teeth went numb from the sourness.

He looked at Tang Pidi.

Tang Pidi showed no reaction at all and ate the whole fruit, bite by bite.

Li Chi asked, “You really don’t find it sour?”

Tang Pidi said, “After the sourness passes, it quenches your thirst for a long time.”

He turned and walked away, calling as he went: “Liu Ge!”

Liu Ge answered at once: “Here!”

Tang Pidi reached over to take his iron helmet from a guard’s hands, settled it on his head, and said, “Come with me. We’re going to fight.”

Liu Ge broke into a wide grin and slapped the palm of his hand against his chest armor with a resonant *thump*. “Let’s go!”

Gang Gang watched the two of them. He decided that knowing these two people was itself a mark of shame — a humiliation he could never let anyone know about.

He stood there watching until Yu Jiuling asked, “Aren’t we going?”

Li Chi shook his head. “I’m going back to wash up.”

Yu Jiuling asked, “Do I have to come too?”

Li Chi said, “Strange — why is there a backside attached to my foot?”

A kick sent him flying.

Jizhou city, the transport depot.

Cart after cart rolled slowly in. Ning Army soldiers moved with swift efficiency, lifting chest after chest of silver down from the wagons and carrying them into the underground vault.

They were all rather curious, too — how had the boss managed to bring back this much silver? It was like watching a conjuring trick.

Li Chi went first to the transport depot. When he arrived, Master Changmei the Daoist and the others were all there.

Seeing Li Chi coming, the corners of Changmei’s mouth began to climb — from a smile, into a broad grin.

There were times when Changmei would sit alone and marvel at how his foolish little disciple had become the man running all of this.

Li Chi glanced back at the family of seven following behind him and smiled. “No need to be frightened. You’re safe now that you’re in Jizhou.”

He turned to his junior martial brother Zhen Gen and said, “Help me settle these people. Give them a shop near Shen Medical Hall. Assign them grain rations and some silver.”

Then Li Chi turned back to the couple. “I’ve been craving your drop-furnace flatbreads and brine-soaked bean curd something fierce. Can you have them ready the day after tomorrow?”

The husband quickly said, “We could have them ready tomorrow.”

Li Chi said, “There’s no rush. Tomorrow you settle in. Day after that, take a look around Jizhou. The day after that — I’ll bring the brothers round to yours for flatbreads.”

The wife couldn’t hold back her curiosity. She asked, “Young master — who are you, exactly?”

Her husband was so startled he grabbed her arm immediately. “Don’t ask things that aren’t your business.”

Li Chi smiled and said, “My name is Li Chi. The great bandit Li Chi.”

Yu Jiuling stood to the side, grinning. “The greatest bandit in the realm.”

The words *great bandit* alone were enough to frighten the wife. Her husband was frightened too.

Yu Jiuling said, “Look at you both trembling. The greatest bandit in the realm — that means he’s not a bandit at all.”

All seven of them — the couple, the four elders, and the child — were equally baffled. They didn’t understand, but they didn’t dare say more.

They knew Li Chi meant well by them. Had they stayed in Shengren County, there was no telling whether they might face reprisals, entirely undeserved.

Once the arrangements were made, Li Chi went bounding toward Changmei, grinning the whole way, shameless and bright.

“Master — hug!”

Changmei pointed his walking staff at Li Chi.

Li Chi immediately dropped the request.

Changmei asked him, “All this silver — how did you manage it?”

Li Chi said, “Master, it’s all thanks to how well you taught me.”

Changmei chuckled to himself.

He said to Li Chi, “Storing it here isn’t safe in the long run. Sooner or later we’ll be returning to Yanshan Camp, won’t we?”

Li Chi shook his head. “We’re not going back.”

Changmei asked, “But you promised Luo Jing you’d hold Jizhou for a year and a half. Once that year and a half is up, he’ll want it back. We don’t go back on our word.”

Li Chi burst out laughing, then said, “He has ambition, he has vision, and he has courage that could stop ten thousand men. But he won’t be able to win in Yanzhou.”

Changmei froze and thought it over. “You calculated that he couldn’t win?”

Li Chi said, “I calculated it, and I advised him — but since when has Luo Jing been the sort to take advice? His plan was to take Yanzhou, then use it to recruit soldiers, skirt around Yuzhou for the time being rather than engage Prince Wu directly, and instead swing down the coast to attack Qingzhou, which would be comparatively exposed.”

Changmei asked curiously, “How did you calculate that he wouldn’t win?”

Li Chi said, “I’m hungry.”

Just as the words left his mouth, Gao Xining appeared, carrying a food box.

She had not gone to wait at Baipo Lake, nor had she gone to the city gate — because she knew Li Chi would be exhausted and hungry when he returned.

None of them had known when Li Chi would arrive at Baipo Lake. It was only as the procession was nearly inside the city that she had gotten word.

So she had arranged for water to be heated, gone to tidy his room, and laid out the bedding — freshly sun-dried, warm and full.

And when hunger came — Gao Xining arrived.

Li Chi saw her and broke into a wide grin. Gao Xining smiled too. When two little scoundrels grinned at each other like that, it was as if even the sunlight sweetened, and the wind sweetened, and the whole world took on a little sweetness.

Li Chi took the food box and asked, “What is it?”

Gao Xining said, “Guess.”

Li Chi grinned. “Dumplings.”

Gao Xining said, “Guess who made them.”

Li Chi said, “You.”

Gao Xining said, “You should guess Aunt Wu. Guess again.”

Li Chi said, “Aunt Wu.”

Gao Xining said, “Ha — wrong. It’s me. Surprised?”

Li Chi said, wide-eyed, “What — you made them?!”

Changmei let out a quiet sigh and walked over to where Gao Yuanzhang stood, only to find him sighing too.

Changmei opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it.

Gao Yuanzhang sighed, “Go ahead and say it.”

Changmei was quiet for a moment, then said, “You go first.”

Gao Yuanzhang was silent a while longer before saying, “Thank heaven these two fools are fond of each other. Otherwise, what would we do…”

Changmei asked, “No guilt on my end. You?”

Gao Yuanzhang said, “Of course not on mine either!”

Then he added, “They’re the ones who went and became fools — what does that have to do with us?”

The two old men exchanged a look, then laughed.

Those two little idiots, foolishly fond of each other — growing more foolish all the time, and the more foolish, the happier. Which made the two old men happier too.

“I wonder if the dumplings are good.”

Gao Yuanzhang watched Li Chi in the distance eating like a man who hadn’t had a meal in days, and quietly swallowed.

Li Chi ate every last one. Nothing left.

Gao Xining’s eyes were full of little stars.

She asked, “Really good?”

Li Chi said, “How did you do it — they taste almost identical to Aunt Wu’s. Practically indistinguishable. Remarkable.”

Gao Xining laughed. “Simple. I just had no shame about it whatsoever and insisted they were mine.”

Li Chi laughed too.

Then he exhaled with full contentment and looked into Gao Xining’s eyes. “You practiced all that time just to get the taste right. You’ve worked hard.”

Gao Xining felt her nose sting unexpectedly — but she made a sound of dismissal and said, “So you can still tell the difference. Aunt Wu’s are better.”

Li Chi said, “They are a little off.”

Gao Xining asked, “Where? I’ll pay more attention next time.”

Li Chi said, “It’s Aunt Wu who’s fallen a little short of yours — as if you’ve tasted what’s on my tongue and somehow knew exactly what flavor suits me.”

Gao Xining looked around quickly. Li Chi kicked the nearest dirt clod away and ran.

He ran over to his master, gave a quick grin, and said, “I was halfway through just now — let me finish. Why I knew Luo Jing would certainly lose… it’s because Luo Jing miscalculated two things.”

He drew a breath and said, “Luo Jing’s calculations never accounted for the Bohai people. The Bohai people put everything into building up the Baishan Bandits, but the Baishan Bandits were wiped out. The Bohai people would not accept that — they would pour themselves into backing another rebel force.”

Li Chi turned his gaze toward the northeast and said, “That’s only the reinforcement his enemies would receive. The reason Luo Jing wouldn’t win, and yet wouldn’t lose badly, is that cavalry are of limited use there.”

“The second thing he miscalculated was this: rebel soldiers, when they can’t win, take to the mountains. Once Luo Jing’s forces enter those mountains, they’d come off badly. So in the end he’d fall back to Youzhou.”

Changmei asked curiously, “If it’s a situation where he neither wins nor loses decisively — why wouldn’t he come to Jizhou?”

Li Chi burst out laughing. “Because he has too much pride. He didn’t win — which to him is the same as losing. He’d be too embarrassed to face me.”

Li Chi said, “I prepared for two possibilities, but I had already calculated that Jizhou would be ours.”

Changmei sighed. “How can you be this terrible?”

Li Chi said, “That would have to begin with a Daoist who picked up a child one day.”

Changmei raised his walking staff ever so slightly.

Li Chi turned to run, looked back —

Gao Xining, dirt clod in hand, came walking over with a smile bright as a bloom.

Li Chi thought: *Ah… this really is a family that loves each other.*

—