Youzhou.

Li Chi and Gao Xining came back in from the street, Li Chi muttering away under his breath the whole way. Gao Xining walked beside him, listening and laughing — two little fools wrapped in their own world of warmth and noise.

When they came into the courtyard and spotted Luo Jing, they called out a greeting and went straight off to their quarters without a second glance.

Luo Jing watched the pair walk away as though he didn’t exist, and told himself: that pair of thieves — husband and wife — they’re doing it on purpose.

But he was curious.

So he stopped Yu Jiuling, who was trailing behind them.

“What were Li Chi and Miss Gao talking about?”

“Our chief said,” Yu Jiuling replied, “that after wandering all over Youzhou, he has sufficient evidence to conclude that the people here have no taste whatsoever.”

“Rubbish.”

Luo Jing shot a glare in Li Chi’s direction, even though Li Chi had already walked away.

“Why did that fiend say that?”

“Our chief said that our Ning-ge is a beauty beyond compare, and yet in all of Youzhou, not a single person was moved by the sight.”

Luo Jing’s eyes went wide. “What on earth does he mean by that.”

“He’s explaining why you don’t have a woman,” Yu Jiuling said.

“What does *that* have to do with *you*!”

“Our chief,” Yu Jiuling sighed patiently, “is complimenting Ning-ge’s beauty in a roundabout way.”

Luo Jing thought about it. What was the connection?

“Our chief says,” Yu Jiuling continued, “that he walked the whole of Youzhou’s main street and not once did some pampered young wastrel come swaggering out to harass Ning-ge, which meant our chief lost his chance to play the hero riding to the rescue—”

“He’s been listening to too many storytellers,” Luo Jing said.

“Our chief is a storyteller.”

Luo Jing saw that Yu Jiuling was moving to leave and caught him by the arm. “Drink with me a while.”

Yu Jiuling narrowed his eyes. “General Luo, in the middle of the day like this — what calls for drinking?”

“Since when does drinking require a reason.”

He steered Yu Jiuling back into the reception hall, ordered some delicate small dishes to be brought, and personally poured Yu Jiuling a cup.

Yu Jiuling recognized at once that Luo Jing was up to something.

But the men who followed Li Chi had never been in the habit of worrying about what others were up to…

“The matter our chief raised earlier — about Anyang. What do you think of it?”

“Meng Kedi led an army against Jizhou,” Yu Jiuling said lightly, “and our chief drowned half of them. Because of that defeat, Meng Kedi lost confidence in his top warrior Ding Shengyi. Ding Shengyi, knowing he was as good as dead, fled to Jizhou to seek our chief’s protection — he’s been with us in Jizhou ever since.”

“Our chief also sent men into Anyang City to assassinate Meng Kedi… the place is in complete chaos now. Every general wants to be the top man; none of them will yield to the others. No wonder they’re at each other’s throats.”

Yu Jiuling looked at Luo Jing and said: “We went to all that trouble to cut Anyang’s strength down to less than a third of what it was — General Luo, you don’t actually think our chief couldn’t take Anyang himself, do you?”

Luo Jing gave a slow nod.

Yu Jiuling’s account matched his own reasoning. Li Chi was giving him a favor in return. After all, Anyang — even without heavy extraction, just under normal administration — would yield more in a year than Youzhou in several.

“Then…”

Luo Jing smiled slightly. “Could you do me a favor? I refused our chief earlier, but now I’m thinking — I’d like to march on Anyang after all.”

Yu Jiuling understood immediately. He smiled. “The General is too embarrassed to say so himself?”

Luo Jing gave an awkward grin. “When I refused before, I was actually thinking of our chief’s interests — he did all the hard work weakening Anyang, and for me to just walk in and take the spoils seemed unjust. It wasn’t that I had no desire to go. It was that I didn’t want to profit at his expense…”

“But as I think about it now, our chief is a sincere man. If I keep refusing him, I’ll end up wounding his feelings.”

Yu Jiuling’s cheek twitched.

*Our chief is a sincere man.* The fact that Luo Jing had reasoned his way to that conclusion was, all things considered, quite an accomplishment.

“I can try,” Yu Jiuling said, “but our chief will certainly give me a scolding for it. I’d be taking that for nothing…”

Luo Jing gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. If you help me make this happen, I’ll repay you handsomely.”

“Then what kind of repayment does the General have in mind? You should really ask what I like first.”

Luo Jing thought to himself: *just as I expected — every single one of Li Chi’s men is exactly like this.* A rotten commander makes a rotten army; when the general is a scoundrel, his whole camp is a nest of scoundrels.

“So what do you like?”

Yu Jiuling leaned forward and lowered his voice. “The finest establishment of its kind in Youzhou… I wonder what the rates are like.”

Luo Jing burst out laughing and slapped the table with a crack.

“You call that a difficult thing to arrange?”

He said: “Once you make this Anyang business happen, stay in Youzhou as long as you like — I’ll see to your arrangements every day. As long as you can keep up, I’ll make sure the queue outside your door stays full.”

Yu Jiuling was startled. He narrowed his eyes at Luo Jing. “Something about the way you phrased that, General — it doesn’t sound like you’re arranging entertainment *for* me. It sounds like you’re arranging a queue to be entertained *by* me…”

“Depends on your preference,” Luo Jing said.

Yu Jiuling: “Ugh!”

—

One hour later. Li Chi’s room.

Li Chi listened to Yu Jiuling’s account, shook his head with a smile, and felt a certain reluctant admiration.

His master, Changmei the Daoist, was the one who truly understood the workings of human nature. What the master had said was: *when it comes to deception, you give only the seed — then you lead the mark to let their own imagination water it into a garden. The more they think, the more suspicious they become.*

This time, of course, Li Chi hadn’t come to deceive Luo Jing. But whose fault was it, then? No one’s but his own notoriety. If his reputation had anything at all in common with *honest, reliable young gentleman*, would Luo Jing not believe him?

Li Chi thought about it: if their positions were reversed, he wouldn’t believe it either.

Ah, well. A reputation, once made, was a burden you carried.

So there truly was no choice but to let Luo Jing work it out himself. Li Chi would never make a move against Luo Jing’s Youzhou. If things went wrong for Luo Jing in Anyang, and Luo Jing wanted to come home, Youzhou would still be here waiting. But say that out loud? Not even the most scrupulously *honest, reliable gentlemen* in the world could say such a thing and be believed — so what hope did Li Chi have?

And yet those reliable gentlemen would never have the ability to back up such a promise. Li Chi lacked the reputation — but what he promised, he would honor. In that regard, he put every reliable gentleman in the world to shame.

In fact, if Luo Jing turned to him right now and said with full sincerity, *give me Jizhou* — Li Chi would agree.

Which was, in the end, why a man as proud as Luo Jing was willing to call Li Chi a friend.

“When we sit down to dinner,” Li Chi said to Yu Jiuling, “say in front of Luo Jing that we don’t have the strength to take Anyang on our own.”

“And then?”

“That’s all you need. The rest is a ramp — a long, wide, easy ramp. If Luo Jing can’t walk down it after that, there’s nothing more to be done.”

—

When dinner came, Yu Jiuling spent the entire time trying to figure out how to raise the subject of Anyang.

The atmosphere grew somewhat awkward as a result. Li Chi was waiting for Yu Jiuling to find his opening; Luo Jing was waiting too. But idle table talk made any sudden pivot to Anyang feel forced and unnatural.

Yu Jiuling was flustered. The weight of the whole Anyang campaign rested on his shoulders alone — to say nothing of the matter of his own happiness during his stay in Youzhou.

It was genuinely uncomfortable. So Luo Jing gave two theatrical coughs and said with a smile: “Come, everyone eat. Why is no one touching their chopsticks.”

He looked at Yu Jiuling. “Have some food.”

Yu Jiuling looked at the dishes in front of him, and a flash of inspiration struck.

“This dish — I’ve never seen it before. What is it called, General Luo?”

Luo Jing looked at the dish in front of Yu Jiuling — a plate of shelled quail eggs — and thought: *you’ve never seen these before? Does Jizhou have no quail, or do Jizhou’s quail simply not lay eggs?*

He didn’t notice the earnest look in Yu Jiuling’s eyes.

What Yu Jiuling meant was: *just give the dish any name. Call it Anyang Eggs, and I can open the topic from there.*

But Luo Jing simply didn’t catch on, and answered with an honest, easy laugh: “Those are quail eggs.”

Yu Jiuling wanted to bury his face in his hands. *Whether or not the eggs are quail eggs isn’t the point. You’re the real egg-head.*

“Quail eggs!” Yu Jiuling exclaimed with feigned wonder. “I’ve never eaten them and never seen them. Tell me, General Luo — the character for ‘quail’ in ‘quail eggs’ — is it the ‘an’ in Anyang City?”

Li Chi turned and looked at the wall. Gao Xining lowered her head. Both of them told themselves they absolutely could not laugh.

Luo Jing stared at the ceiling, feeling that even the ceiling beams were a more pleasant sight than Yu Jiuling.

But he had to carry the conversation. He couldn’t just leave it.

He kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling, maintaining composure with great effort.

“It’s not the ‘an’ in Anyang… though, speaking of Anyang City, I did visit once, and I recall eating some remarkably authentic quail eggs there. Better than these.”

Li Chi thought to himself: *you’ve both suffered enough.*

Yu Jiuling, seizing his moment, cried with great astonishment: “Is that so! Are Anyang’s quail eggs really that good?”

Luo Jing, still looking at the ceiling: “They are… authentic. The cured pork too.”

“Chief,” Yu Jiuling said, turning to Li Chi, “if we take Anyang City, we can have proper authentic quail eggs every day.”

Li Chi, still looking at the wall: “How lovely.”

“Big brother,” Yu Jiuling called to Gao Xining, “isn’t that right?”

Gao Xining, head still lowered: “Yes, yes, lovely, lovely.”

Then Yu Jiuling let out a sigh. “But we’re short on troops. Taking Anyang isn’t exactly easy.”

Li Chi: “Mm… it isn’t easy.”

“I’ve thought of something, though,” Yu Jiuling said.

“What’s your plan?”

“We’re short on soldiers — but we could borrow some. With borrowed troops, it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Sensible. But from whom should we borrow?”

Luo Jing stared at the ceiling, telling himself: *if I respond to this, it proves I’m on the same level as those two idiots.*

Pride. He would not respond.

Then, a moment later, Luo Jing said with a smile: “I have troops… I can lend them to you. This isn’t me going to take Anyang — it’s me lending you my men and myself to go take Anyang.”

Li Chi nodded. “That truly is wonderful news.”

Gao Xining pressed her lips together, suppressing laughter, thinking to herself: *so this is what male pride looks like.*

Yu Jiuling leaned back with a self-satisfied smile, thinking: *that’s all there is to it?*

*What a trivial thing… when I, Old Yu, take the field, things get settled easily.*

—