Near midnight.

Yuwen Dian had been watching the water clock without pause. Every passing moment seemed to weigh on him. The waiting was unbearable.

Yu Jiuling, on the other hand, appeared entirely relaxed — lounging in the command tent with one woman on each arm. The one on his left was holding his cup for him; the one on his right was feeding him fruit.

With the river nearby, the produce was abundant, and the fruit here was sweet.

Yu Jiuling decided this place was wonderful. Everything here was sweet.

To look at him, one would think he had passed these days in Anyang City in extraordinary comfort — so much comfort that he seemed almost reluctant to return to the Ning Army camp.

Yuwen Dian glanced over at him and cursed inwardly several times.

Yu Jiuling was still bantering with the two women at a moment like this. With conduct like that — how could anyone trust him with anything important?

If this were his subordinate, he would have cut the man down long ago.

He wanted to cut Yu Jiuling down now as well, only barely restraining himself — not yet the right moment.

“Just put yourself at ease.”

Yu Jiuling smiled over at Yuwen Dian. “By now, the General Commander’s forces should already be assembled outside the city. The moment you light the signal fire and open the gates, the army will move in.”

He looked at Yuwen Dian. “You don’t know how formidable my General Commander is. He has never been defeated on a battlefield. No man can stand against him in single combat. You know Luo Jing — the man they call the First Warrior of the Northern Frontier. Even Luo Jing is no match for the General Commander.”

Yuwen Dian thought: *spare me your nonsense.*

Who did not know of Luo Jing’s martial prowess? Prince Wu himself had once acknowledged it in so many words — though Prince Wu had no regard for Luo Jing’s command abilities, he had praised Luo Jing’s training methods and his personal combat skill without reservation. Prince Wu had even said that Luo Jing’s spear technique might rank first across the entire Central Plains.

Saying that, of course, was partly to ensure that Yuwen Shangyun took the threat seriously enough when he led troops north. But the fact that Prince Wu could praise someone that highly was itself proof enough.

Yuwen Dian was cursing Yu Jiuling thoroughly in his head, but on the surface he nodded and said, “I know something of General Commander Tang’s skill. I am simply anxious…”

“Commander, time is up.”

Someone beside him murmured a reminder.

Yuwen Dian drew a slow breath and let it out.

“Light the signal fire. And the moment General Commander Tang reaches the walls — open the gates!”

At his command, his officers turned and strode out of the tent.

Inside the city.

On the roof of every building along every street, Chu Army archers lay flat in hiding.

In every alley and lane, Chu Army soldiers stood packed in dense formations.

Had anyone been able to look down from above, they would have seen that even the courtyards of ordinary households were filled wall to wall with armored troops.

The plan: once the Ning Army entered, let the leading units pass — wait until Tang Pidi was spotted on the main street — then have the Chu Army surge from all sides, sealing the gate from behind and cutting Tang Pidi off inside the city, surrounding and killing him.

High up in a timber tower, Yuwen Shangyun was tense — more tense than he had ever been in all his years of command.

He had led a hundred thousand troops against the great southern bandit Li Xiongthu and felt nothing like this.

But this was Tang Pidi. This was Li Chi. These were the kind of people who could calculate their way into the heart of a man’s thoughts — who would lay you completely bare the moment you let yourself underestimate them even slightly.

Before encountering Li Chi and Tang Pidi, Yuwen Shangyun had believed no one in the world surpassed him in battlefield strategy.

That confidence was gone now.

“Send the order again: not one soldier makes a sound. No one moves a muscle. Unless my signal comes from here, no one leaves their position.”

“Yes!”

Yuwen Yingxiong acknowledged and rushed down from the tower to relay the order to each unit.

“What is the situation at the Nanping River?”

Yuwen Shangyun asked.

His subordinate general Song Dejing bowed. “We have been watching continuously. The Ning Army has been quiet tonight — no movement observed yet.”

Yuwen Shangyun said, “They cannot possibly be doing nothing. They are waiting for the right moment. The southern bank must be packed with soldiers ready to move — they are only waiting for the fires to start in the city.”

He looked at Song Dejing. “Do not concern yourself with anything else. Watch the southern front only and keep the line of communication open with Yuwen Jing.”

“Yes.”

Song Dejing acknowledged immediately.

“Commander!”

A guard pointed north toward the gate. “General Yuwen Dian has lit the signal fire. The Ning Army should be approaching the walls.”

Yuwen Shangyun let out a quiet sound of acknowledgment, his hands closing tight around the railing in front of him. His grip tensed and slipped — and he realized his palms were soaked with sweat.

Win this battle, and he could hold two provinces — Jizhou and Yuzhou — and stand as one of the true contenders for the realm.

If he lost…

“The gate is open!”

The soldier watching beside him spoke in a low, urgent murmur.

Yuwen Shangyun immediately raised his spyglass toward the north gate. Yuwen Dian’s men had pulled the gate open.

Up on the gate tower, Yuwen Dian was sweating as well, bracing against the wall as he looked down. Below, the streets were packed solid with horsemen.

But with the gate now open, the Ning Army cavalry outside made no move to rush in.

“What…”

Yuwen Dian looked at Yu Jiuling. “Why hasn’t the General Commander entered yet?”

Yu Jiuling said, “Ah — now I remember. The General Commander and I agreed that I would come down to the gate to receive him. If he doesn’t see me, he won’t enter the city.”

Yuwen Dian immediately snapped, “Why did you not say so earlier?!”

Yu Jiuling said, “I was enjoying myself. It slipped my mind.”

Yuwen Dian wanted nothing more than to cut Yu Jiuling’s head off on the spot — but he also thanked himself for somehow holding that impulse back until now.

Yu Jiuling said, “I’ll go down to the gate to receive the General Commander.”

Yuwen Dian said, “You don’t need to go down. Call to him from here.”

Yu Jiuling said, “Call out? You are truly naive. The General Commander will not enter without seeing me in person.”

Yuwen Dian gritted his teeth. “I am coming with you.”

Yu Jiuling said, “As you like.”

Even now, on the city wall, he still had those two women from the pleasure house with him. He raised his hand and smacked each of them once on the rear — two crisp, resounding slaps.

“Wait here for this lord to return.”

Yu Jiuling laughed loudly and descended from the wall.

At the gate, Yuwen Dian did not dare follow him outside. The darkness beyond the gate was filled with Ning Army cavalry in face masks — silent, motionless, unsettling.

Not one of them spoke. Not one of them made a sound.

Yu Jiuling walked up to the gate opening and shouted: “General Commander! I am Yu Jiuling! The gate is open! The city is secure! Move now to take Anyang!”

He called out, then turned and shouted back at Yuwen Dian, “Make way! The army is coming through!”

Yuwen Dian quickly pulled his men aside to clear the passage — and when he looked again, Yu Jiuling was gone.

Vanished.

Yu Jiuling had bolted straight out of the city gates, running as though his feet had grown wings.

In the instant of Yuwen Dian’s shock, from somewhere among those silent Ning Army cavalry, a voice suddenly called out: “Charge into the city!”

Then came the crack of a whip.

Not an ordinary short whip. By the sound of it — thunderously sharp — this was a long lash.

The crack split the air, and the horses surged toward the open gate.

Without warning, fire flickered to life among the cavalry formation — as if horses’ tails had been set ablaze.

In an instant, the horses were charging madly into the city, a flood pouring through the gate.

At the same moment, somewhere else in the city, high up in a timber tower:

Gao Fenglai and Cui Kuoyuan stood together, watching the horses pour through the gates. The two men looked at each other.

Gao Fenglai gave Cui Kuoyuan a nod, and Cui Kuoyuan called out at once: “Send the signal — tell everyone to move!”

In a single breath, fires broke out across the city from multiple directions.

The Ning Army cavalry poured into the city — and the Chu soldiers lying in ambush all tensed at once.

The cavalry surged through, wave after wave, thundering in without a voice raised in battle cry. The silence was eerie.

“Something is wrong!”

Up on his vantage point, Yuwen Shangyun’s instincts screamed at him immediately.

“Order the archers — shoot down the cavalry!”

At his command, the Chu Army archers hidden on the rooftops rose as one.

They drew, nocked, and loosed volley after volley at the Ning Army riders below — and yet, strangely, arrow after arrow found its mark, and not one rider fell from his horse.

The horses screamed. No human voice cried out.

Under that volume of fire, wounded men should have cried out. And wounded men should not have been able to stay in the saddle — yet not one fell.

“What is that smell?”

On a rooftop, one of the Chu soldiers caught a sharp scent in the air.

“Lamp oil?!”

“The riders aren’t bleeding — they’re dripping oil!”

“Demons!”

“No demons — they are dummies!”

Only then did the Chu Army soldiers realize: the cavalry that had flooded into the city were straw figures dressed in Ning Army uniforms, oil concealed inside them. Every arrow that landed released more oil flowing out.

“Arrows!”

From the wall came a screamed warning.

The voice broke raw, hoarse with terror.

Outside the city.

Tang Pidi raised his blade and pointed forward.

The Ning Army archers — every one of them — lit their arrows.

Then they arced them upward, into the city.

A sky full of fire fell.

And throughout the city, the families that Yu Jiuling had persuaded — each household had assigned their people to set fires at the agreed locations.

From his vantage point, Cui Kuoyuan directed the operation. The first fire, as agreed, was set to the Anyang Prefecture offices.

Then, taking advantage of the fact that the Chu Army camp was nearly empty, they set the camp alight as well.

They ran through the streets calling out that the Ning Army had entered the city, that the prefecture offices had fallen, that the camp had fallen.

Inside the city, thousands of horses ran burning in every direction. For ordinary people, a sight like this would have seemed unbearably cruel.

Those horses were innocent. Their bodies had been coated in oil beforehand, so they caught instantly, and beneath each saddle was a layer of oilcloth as well.

Thousands of fire horses erupted through the streets, shattering the Chu Army formations packed into the alleyways. Within moments, those formations collapsed into chaos.

Fires spread everywhere. Before long, the flames across the city were as dense as stars in a clear sky.

A river of fire in the shape of the Milky Way.

Standing above it all, the sight inspired pure dread.

Gao Fenglai said to Cui Kuoyuan, “After this, the people of the city will likely curse your name.”

Cui Kuoyuan said, “There are choices to be made. If the city holds out for the Chu Army, the people will starve before the soldiers do. They will not see what I see — I see no point in explaining myself. Let them curse.”

Gao Fenglai nodded slowly. “You had already decided long ago to go over to Prince Ning, hadn’t you?”

Cui Kuoyuan said, “Even though I am from the same Cui clan as the Jizhou Cui family, and might be expected to resent Li Chi and his people — I learned long ago that Jizhou, devastated as it was by war, has been rebuilt and is prosperous again. This Li Chi has the makings of a worthy ruler.”

Gao Fenglai made a sound of agreement and said, “You are one of my most capable pupils. I have asked you many times why you would never enter public service, and you always said you did not want to waste your talent, that you refused to go along with the current.”

He placed a hand on Cui Kuoyuan’s shoulder. “I hope that this time, you have chosen well.”

—

Meanwhile, at the Nanping River.

Yuwen Jing looked back and saw the fires raging in the city. He knew fighting had broken out — and the urgency rising in his chest was nearly impossible to suppress. He burned to act, but he had been ordered to hold this position and could not move without authorization. To split his forces recklessly was equally unthinkable.

Just then, the men at the front began shouting: “Attack! Attack! The Ning Army is crossing the river!”

Yuwen Jing immediately raised his spyglass and trained it on the Nanping River. Across the water, boat after boat was cutting toward him — densely packed on the surface.

—