Five-Sided Ambush came to two hundred taels, Ten-Sided Ambush three hundred — when you added it up, it was actually a discounted rate.

A rather considerable discount, one might say.

In this moment the proprietor also came to realize it — this seemingly harmless gentleman had been amusing himself at their expense.

The worst thing about this sort of person was that outward appearances were so easy to be taken in by.

Which was why people sometimes thought about it: why are fox spirits always beautiful? Parents never quite knew how to phrase it delicately — the thing is, if they were ugly, they couldn’t lure anyone in.

“Gentleman.”

Elder Guo said with a look of some displeasure: “I have long been devoted to music, and within music, most devoted to the pipa. Did you learn of this preference and come here deliberately seeking my acquaintance?”

Li Chi asked: “And you are?”

At that, Elder Guo’s expression darkened further.

Li Chi said: “I’m also a businessman, so I keep things clearly defined. If you want to hear this piece, it’ll be another hundred taels.”

When Li Chi had first laid eyes on this man, he’d noticed that upon hearing the error in the girl’s pipa playing, the man had paused, looked back, and shaken his head with a sigh.

That observation had prompted everything that followed. A man like Li Chi was not simply idling about causing mischief.

Moreover, this was not the first time Li Chi had seen this old man — it was the second.

Outside the prefectural yamen, when Li Chi had glanced back at the crowd lining the road to welcome him, everyone had been looking toward him — everyone except this old man and a middle-aged man, who had quietly withdrawn into the crowd and moved away.

A man like Li Chi had been raised from childhood to observe everything in his surroundings.

But that didn’t mean Li Chi was convinced this man had anything to do with the matter concerning Zhou Qixi — it was simply that the old man’s departure at that moment had seemed slightly off.

But what were Censorate troops for?

Li Chi had noticed something odd about these two men and said a few quiet words to Fang Xidao, the senior Censorate officer at his side.

The two men had barely left when Censorate agents were already following them covertly.

Those eight hundred black-armored soldiers in red capes were only the visible force.

Before long, the Censorate troops reported back: the man’s name was Guo Hui, a wealthy merchant of the city, one of considerable standing.

The city’s merchants had elected him as the presiding head of Jinzhou’s Merchant General Assembly.

Further investigation also turned up this teahouse — it served as the regular meeting place where Jinzhou’s merchants gathered to discuss business affairs.

All told, the Censorate had gathered this information in under two hours.

Li Chi had eaten at the prefectural yamen, returned to the post station, and had not even finished applying his disguise when the report arrived.

Which was why Li Chi had brought Yu Jiuling here to this teahouse, and why he now found himself facing this Guo Hui.

Guo Hui looked at Li Chi — he had no particular concern about a few hundred taels of silver. What genuinely annoyed him was something else.

“Friend, that’s no way to do business. If you’re a businessman, you should understand that the most important thing in business is integrity.”

Li Chi said: “What’s changing prices about? I gave you a clear price from the start — one hundred taels per listening, two hundred for two, and if you want to hear the complete piece, I’m asking three hundred. I’m actually asking you less than I should.”

Guo Hui said: “This is how you do business?”

Li Chi said: “Always have.”

Guo Hui let out a cold snort: “And with that, you expect your business to grow large?”

Li Chi said: “Probably larger than yours.”

Guo Hui immediately turned and gave an order: “Wherever he’s come from, whatever he’s come to Jinzhou to do — drive him out of Jinzhou. From this day forward, this man is never to be seen inside Jinzhou again.”

The men behind him responded at once.

The teahouse proprietor Yuan Xi Liu called down from the upper floor: “Bring some people — throw them out. Keep throwing until they’re out of Jinzhou.”

Li Chi smiled: “Bold words. And on what basis do you throw me out of Jinzhou?”

Guo Hui said: “On the basis that you conduct business without proper conduct.”

Li Chi asked: “Did I come begging you to do business with me? Did I force you into it? Or is it rather because you have ties to the officials in Jinzhou’s government — you have someone backing you — which is why you feel free to act this overbearingly?”

He held Guo Hui’s gaze: “Even the prefectural governor of Jinzhou has no authority to arbitrarily drive me out of the city. My documents are in order, and I have committed no crime — which article of the law provides grounds to drive a person out of a city on a whim?”

Li Chi took a step forward: “You and the prefectural governor — do you have some kind of collusion?!”

“Nonsense!”

Guo Hui’s face changed dramatically, and he glared at Li Chi: “Prefectural Governor Zhou is an upright official! How dare you slander him like this?!”

Li Chi smiled: “An upright official — and it’s such an official who has produced merchants as overbearing as yourselves?”

Li Chi circled around Guo Hui, paying no attention whatsoever to the serving boys now coming up the stairs.

As he walked he said: “People like you, throwing someone out of Jinzhou just like that, forbidden from ever returning — treating your own word as law. The arrogance, the brazenness of it. If you have no collusion with the authorities, I simply don’t believe it.”

He pointed toward the door: “I hear that Prince Ning is at present in Jinzhou city. Shall we go before him together and settle this with reason? Getting to see Prince Ning won’t take long at all.”

Guo Hui’s expression shifted again, and his eyes became somewhat flustered.

He had spent most of his life in commerce, seen a great deal of the world, and experienced the full complexity of human nature.

He knew well how words could be weaponized, how a hundred mouths couldn’t argue against a lie already spread — that what people feared most was simply: what others say.

This person, with just a few sentences, had placed him in a precarious position.

If Prince Ning weren’t in Jinzhou, he’d simply deal with this person and be done with it. But with the Prince inside the city, who knew whether the slightest disturbance might bring the Prince’s people swarming in.

“Don’t go making things up and damaging Governor Zhou’s good name. I won’t argue with you — just go, and go quickly.”

Guo Hui immediately reversed course.

But Li Chi had no intention of simply leaving.

He held Guo Hui’s gaze and said: “You’ve suddenly changed your tone — most likely you’ve grown uneasy. If you weren’t afraid, why be uneasy?”

Guo Hui suddenly realized something and stared at Li Chi: “Did you come here looking for me deliberately?”

Li Chi shook his head: “Not looking for you — looking for all of you.”

He raised his hand and pointed at the assembled men, and everyone looked at Li Chi, wariness in their eyes.

Li Chi said: “Just now you kept invoking Governor Zhou’s good name and your desire to protect it, yet what I see before me is an overbearing and domineering merchant. If Governor Zhou’s good name requires people like you to defend it, I’m afraid Governor Zhou isn’t much of an official either.”

“How dare you!”

Guo Hui immediately roared in fury.

“Throw him out!”

The serving boys who had been rushing up from below made to lay hands on Li Chi. Li Chi thought to himself — Yu Jiuling, you’re a general, couldn’t you have stepped in?

He looked around — Yu Jiuling was already outside the door, wearing an expression that said very clearly: please, just don’t splash any blood on me.

Yu Jiuling wasn’t being a coward, and it wasn’t that he was unwilling to intervene — he simply knew that all of these men put together couldn’t hold a candle to Li Chi.

Let alone whether they could beat him, whether they could even land a hit was an open question.

“Think numbers give you an advantage?”

Li Chi shook his head: “Still just abusing borrowed authority.”

The first serving boy to rush forward reached out to grab Li Chi by the lapels.

His hand had barely lifted when suddenly a flying rope came through the air, wrapping around that server’s neck.

With a loud crack, the man was yanked by the rope and sent crashing through the railing, plummeting from the second floor to the first.

Looking over, Yu Jiuling had a rope in his hand.

The fellow had dragged the man down, then retreated back outside the door, wearing an expression of: Your Highness, I have done all I can.

Li Chi simply leaped straight down from the second floor and landed solidly.

The teahouse proprietor Yuan Xi Liu immediately called out: “Don’t let them get away! Seize them right here!”

Li Chi nodded: “Indeed, can’t let me get away.”

He looked around: “Then why haven’t you shut the doors?”

With a whoosh, more than eighty percent of the customers sitting in the main hall on the ground floor rose to their feet.

These people bowed toward Li Chi in unison.

Li Chi gave a casual wave of his hand, and immediately people moved to close the front doors and seal the windows.

Yu Jiuling jumped inside just before the doors shut — and as he did, the tight seven-eighths trousers did outline a certain silhouette in the leaping.

Only now did Yu Jiuling understand — almost seven or eight out of ten of the people here were Censorate troops.

No wonder so many people had been calling out earlier, urging the performing father and daughter to step aside and demanding Li Chi finish the piece.

They were all plants.

In this moment, the expressions on the faces of Guo Hui and his group all changed.

Li Chi pulled over a chair and sat down, looking up at the people on the second floor — who were visibly panicking now.

Li Chi gestured for Guo Hui to come down. Guo Hui didn’t move — how could he dare simply descend? Dozens of people below were clearly all the Prince’s, and it had been a prepared trap — and they had walked right into it without any awareness.

“Not coming down?”

Li Chi stood: “Then let’s open the doors and go outside.”

The Censorate pulled the front doors open, and Li Chi stepped out. The thoroughly baffled Yu Jiuling followed immediately behind.

“Chief — when did you set all this up?”

Li Chi smiled: “I’ll explain it all to you in a moment. First, let’s watch something impressive.”

After going out, Li Chi walked to the far side of the street, and the Censorate filed out behind him. Someone placed a chair behind Li Chi, and Li Chi sat down, his robe settling around him.

He raised his hand and pointed at the building: “Tear it down.”

A Censorate officer immediately drew a signal whistle from inside his robe and flicked it skyward with a snap of his finger.

Moments later, the sound of hoofbeats came rumbling down the street.

A column of black-armored Censorate troops came riding up. They tied ropes to the window frames, to the door lintels, to the pillars outside.

At a single command, over a hundred Censorate troops spurred their horses outward. In an instant, window frames exploded, door lintels snapped, columns lurched and tilted.

The entire wooden structure shook, roof tiles and dust cascading down without stop.

Yu Jiuling swallowed: “Chief — when we came out earlier, didn’t you say this was a covert inspection? Didn’t you say we were just going to ask around about Zhou Qixi’s reputation?”

Li Chi said: “The thing is, with my current station, having a little fun with a few people like this — if I kept the scale too small, wouldn’t that seem rather underwhelming?”

Boom!

One pillar was dragged down, and one side of the building began to lean.

The people inside began scrambling frantically for the exits, emerging disheveled and covered in dust.

Before long Guo Hui and his group came stumbling out as well, and at the sight of black-armored Censorate troops everywhere outside, they were all rooted to the spot.

Li Chi raised his hand, and the Censorate troops halted. The wooden building was already tilting, creaking and groaning from every direction — perhaps it would collapse entirely in the very next breath.

“Send someone to invite Prefectural Governor Zhou here.”

Li Chi looked at Guo Hui: “I invited you down to speak with me, and you didn’t want to come. So there’s no need for you to speak. Let Governor Zhou come and speak to me.”

Guo Hui and his group exchanged glances with each other. Even if they had been fools, they now knew who this person was.

It was just that Li Chi’s disguise had truly been masterful — they had not recognized him at all as Prince Ning.

Li Chi sat in his chair, smiling as he looked at them: “You people, mouths full of talk about driving people out of Jinzhou, forbidden from ever returning — who gave you that authority? Or rather: whose power were you borrowing?”

Guo Hui fell to his knees with a thud: “No one, truly no one — it was all a misunderstanding.”

“Mmm…”

Li Chi said slowly: “I don’t know whether the authority you were borrowing was Governor Zhou’s. But that’s beside the point. You need to borrow someone’s power — whether it’s this official or that official.”

He looked at Guo Hui and said: “Whoever’s power you’ve been borrowing — I ask you only this: before you borrowed it, did you think to ask, the person you borrow power from — whose power are they borrowing in turn?”

He paused briefly and then continued: “If it is my power they borrow, then your luck may not be particularly good.”

—