Though the weather remained cold, sitting in the courtyard by a fire under the noon sun kept the chill at bay.

An iron grill rack sat over the brazier, laden with cuts of meat nearly ready to eat, the savory aroma drifting through the air and coaxing hungry rumbles from the stomach.

Li Chi stood there basting the grilling meat with sauce, while Cao Lie sat to one side watching him, wearing an expression of languid ease.

He asked Li Chi: “As the lord of Jizhou, why do you always prefer to cook with your own hands?”

Li Chi glanced back at him. “Do you need me to point out the two mistakes in that question?”

Cao Lie said: “As you like.”

Li Chi said: “First, I am not merely lord of Jizhou — Yuzhou is now under my governance as well. Second, I don’t enjoy cooking. You should already know perfectly well why I’m grilling this myself.”

Cao Lie laughed a somewhat sheepish laugh.

The dishes sent out from the kitchen had indeed been rather plain and bland.

The main reason was that Cao Lie had been eating this way for some time — his midday meals were simple and light, with almost no meat to speak of.

Li Chi had glanced at the food that arrived, and at the time said one sentence to Cao Lie.

“Has the household really come to such hardship? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Cao Lie had shot Li Chi a sharp look at that.

Li Chi’s second sentence was —

“If you’ve truly fallen into such poverty, why are you still keeping up appearances outside, spending lavishly at the pleasure houses?”

Cao Lie asked: “Did you come here purely to provoke me?”

Li Chi answered: “Yes.”

Cao Lie was at a loss for words.

He sensed the meat was nearly ready to eat, and so sat there waiting for Li Chi to call him over.

But Li Chi showed no sign of calling him. Each piece came off the grill and went straight into Li Chi’s own mouth, as though he saw nothing remotely impolite in this.

Cao Lie finally could hold himself back no longer and rose to his feet. “You seem to have not one shred of propriety.”

Li Chi said: “How so?”

Cao Lie said: “You’re only eating it yourself?!”

Li Chi replied with an expression of exaggerated surprise: “Your meal was just sent out a moment ago, wasn’t it? To use your own words, those were refined dishes — refined whether they had meat or not. This meat I’ve grilled is coarse and rough. You wouldn’t enjoy it.”

Cao Lie said: “A person cannot be too much like Li Chi.”

Li Chi said: “Then how should a person be?”

Yu Jiuling glanced between Li Chi and Cao Lie, privately thinking: nothing to do with me. He’s grilling it himself and eating it himself — the rack is certainly big enough.

Li Chi shot Cao Lie a glance. “If you want some, do it yourself, like Jiuling.”

Cao Lie looked over at Yu Jiuling.

Yu Jiuling met his gaze, then smiled. “Don’t be shy.”

Cao Lie thought: don’t be shy, your great big head.

And so, lazy as he was, he had no choice but to get up and tend to the grill himself. His stomach was genuinely growling a little.

After all, at this hour every day, he was usually already lounging in soft pleasures with a fair amount of wine in him.

“You brought me to Jizhou. Two months. Twenty-one attempts by people connected to the Cao family to kill you.”

Cao Lie grilled meat and asked Li Chi: “Do you still not know where the problem lies?”

Li Chi replied with a question of his own: “The problem lies in my not having taken enough of your family’s business?”

Cao Lie’s hand stilled on the grill. He looked at Li Chi, suddenly turning serious.

“I know you have no liking for people of our background.”

Cao Lie spoke while looking into Li Chi’s eyes.

“Everything you have done here in Jizhou, not one thing fails to prove it.”

He asked: “Just like that great river bandit, Brother Li Hu from the south — people like you, who rose from poverty and hardship, the moment you gain power, go out of your way to target people like us who are —”

At this point, Cao Lie suddenly felt his choice of words had been somewhat heavy.

*People like you. People like us.*

Those six words, even if they did not quite draw a line of closeness and distance, at the very least drew a line between *you* and *us*.

Li Chi looked at him, still smiling faintly.

Cao Lie said, his tone more self-reproaching: “It’s… I myself have my biases. But you and I are different — you are now exalted as Prince Ning. You ought to understand what it means to rule, what breadth of tolerance and inclusion a prince must have.”

He looked at Li Chi again: “You have not hesitated to offend every aristocratic family and powerful clan, appointing only men of humble birth to your ranks. Do you not feel that makes you even more biased than I am?”

Li Chi nodded. “You are right in all of this.”

Cao Lie saw his perfunctory manner and grew all the more agitated.

“Don’t you dare have a real argument with me?!”

Cao Lie suddenly let out a shout, loud enough to startle.

Li Chi reached out and pinched a piece of meat directly off the scorching hot grill rack, lifted it, and examined it.

“The meat is ready to eat.”

He said this and then ate it.

Li Chi’s manner nearly made Cao Lie come apart with frustration.

“Li Chi!”

Cao Lie called out loudly: “Acting like this — do you only want to be a king for a single reign, or are you contending for an empire across ten thousand generations?”

Li Chi asked: “Is something wrong with the meat?”

The question made Cao Lie’s hands tremble slightly with anger.

He stepped forward and looked Li Chi in the eye, his voice raised: “Can you not work out the arithmetic? Among those in the same position as the Cao family under heaven, there are not merely ten, not merely a hundred. If you could gain the support of even half of them, that would be untold grain and coin, untold reserves of backing!”

Li Chi sighed softly.

Seeing Li Chi’s manner, Cao Lie assumed his words were having an effect, and pressed on: “Take my Cao family, for instance — if you treated us well, you would have the support of Yuzhou’s many distinguished clans. Then pushing toward Jingzhou would be half the effort for double the result!”

He looked into Li Chi’s eyes: “Why won’t you think about it — do you truly intend to stop at Jizhou and Yuzhou? The moment you lead your army into Jingzhou, with the great houses of Jingzhou lining the road to welcome you, this realm would be yours!”

“Earn their acknowledgment, and you are the rightful heir!”

Those last words, Cao Lie delivered with great weight.

Li Chi sighed softly again.

Cao Lie said: “I understand your difficulty. All the people around you came from poverty and hardship, so naturally you must perform for their benefit, placing their interests first in all things. But that need not stop you from appointing nobles as well. As the saying goes, the sea accommodates all rivers —”

Li Chi lowered his head, looking at the meat in his hand, his gaze beginning to drift.

Cao Lie had said a great deal without seeing any response from Li Chi, and could not help pressing him: “What are you thinking? Can you or can you not give me an answer?”

Li Chi set down the skewer in his hand and looked at Cao Lie. “You want to know what I’m thinking right now?”

Cao Lie nodded: “Yes, exactly — what you’re thinking right now.”

Li Chi answered: “What I’m thinking right now is… why did you have to interrupt me eating? I only came here to eat meat with a friend.”

Having said this, he wiped his hands. “Jiuling, let’s go.”

Yu Jiuling made a sound of acknowledgment and followed Li Chi a few steps, then turned to look back at the skewers he’d been grilling, quickened his pace back, grabbed the whole lot of them, and walked off eating as he went.

Cao Lie watched Li Chi disappear into the distance, opened his mouth, then said nothing more.

A long while later, Deng Zhaiyue returned and bowed: “Young Lord, Prince Ning has left.”

Cao Lie let out a sound of acknowledgment, reached out to pick up a fistful of ungrilled skewers, laid them over the rack to cook, smiled, and said: “Just now, my passionate speech — did it have any flaws?”

Deng Zhaiyue answered: “None.”

Cao Lie asked again: “What does Wuner think?”

Nie Yuwu answered: “Prince Ning was driven away by the Young Lord in a temper. He will most likely only think the Young Lord still harbors resentment over the pressure placed on the Cao family.”

Cao Lie gave a sound of acknowledgment. “As long as you two see no flaws, good…”

He looked at the spot where Li Chi had been standing — there was a finished piece of meat there. He reached out and pinched it, held it up before his eyes, and looked at it.

“Is something wrong with the meat?”

He murmured this to himself.

Having said so, he placed the meat in his mouth and chewed.

Nie Yuwu walked to his side and drew a handkerchief from inside her garment, offering it to Cao Lie.

Cao Lie feared the cold most of all, especially in winter — he had no patience for receiving things that were cold to the touch.

Even a handkerchief he needed to use had to be kept warm inside Nie Yuwu’s garment.

Cao Lie glanced at the handkerchief, then shook his head: “This meat is actually quite good. What a pity he wouldn’t eat it.”

“Now that he holds such power — governing Yuzhou — the great houses are rushing to push meat into his mouth, feeding him with both hands. And he won’t eat.”

Cao Lie said: “It’s not a matter of casually brushing them off and tossing them a few morsels — they’re chasing after him bowl in hand, trying to feed him. Yet he turns his nose up at it, deeming the meat unworthy of his palate…”

He spat.

Cao Lie spat out the half-chewed meat in his mouth: “Meat is meat. What is there to find worthy or unworthy? There is only whether one wants to eat it or not.”

Deng Zhaiyue said: “He’s been provoked thirty-two times and still doesn’t understand.”

Cao Lie said: “Then perhaps the provocation hasn’t been enough.”

He made a beckoning gesture, and an attendant immediately brought out the reclining chair for him.

He settled into it, pulled the blanket over himself, and gestured to Nie Yuwu to tend the grill for him.

But then he noticed something odd in Nie Yuwu’s expression — her eyes were wide with surprise.

Then Cao Lie himself realized: if someone else had reclined in this chair, if someone else had used this blanket, he would have thrown it all away long since.

Yet now, he felt not the slightest aversion.

And so Cao Lie himself was taken aback for a moment.

He let out a wry laugh and murmured to himself: “This is rather not good.”

—

At the same time, in Jizhou City. The Dongyuan Escort Agency.

This escort agency had existed for a long time — said to be at least a hundred years old. Business had halted during the great chaos in Jizhou earlier, but it had endured and survived.

In the study of the agency’s owner, Wei Dongqing, the one seated in the master’s chair was not Wei Dongqing, but Zhuge Wutu.

“Director.”

Wei Dongqing bowed and said: “That Zhang Tang truly has some ability. He has already traced the Cloud Mist Diagram.”

Zhuge Wutu frowned. “The Jizhou branch of the Cloud Mist Diagram has at least three to five hundred assassins registered under its name, with no fewer than ten or twenty capable of ranking among the best in the realm. How is it that…”

He looked up at Wei Dongqing: “They cannot kill one Zhang Tang?”

Wei Dongqing hastily explained: “The guards around Zhang Tang are exceptionally fierce — elite soldiers from the Tingwei Army. And there seem to be skilled fighters protecting him in secret as well. Our people have made more than ten attempts, all without success.”

“Moreover, this man’s disposition is vicious and unyielding. The more one tries to kill him, the more fearless he becomes — and the more determined he is to root out everyone who wants him dead.”

Zhuge Wutu slowly exhaled: “Either you are all incompetent, or Lü Wuman told you when he fled that you were not to exert yourselves in earnest — to preserve your strength and await his return?”

Wei Dongqing’s complexion changed drastically in fright: “Director, there was truly nothing of the sort. When Lü Wuman escaped, he never came to Jizhou at all, nor did he contact any of us.”

Zhuge Wutu waved a hand: “No need to explain. I only look at the results of what you do.”

He rose and began pacing back and forth through the room.

After a moment he asked Wei Dongqing: “The Gate Master’s meaning is that Lü Wuman and Mei Wujiu betrayed the Mountain-River Seal, and they must die without exception. I have come not to move against Prince Ning Li Chi, but to investigate this matter.”

“If there is nothing troubling your conscience, then do a few things and let me see. I will make my own assessment.”

Wei Dongqing immediately bowed: “Please instruct, Director.”

“One.”

Zhuge Wutu said: “As quickly as possible, find out where Lü Wuman and Mei Wujiu have gone, and once found, find a way to let the Tingwei Army know.”

“Two, Zhang Tang must die. If he keeps digging, both the open and hidden matters will soon all be dug up by him.”

“Three…”

He turned and looked at Wei Dongqing: “Who under Prince Ning’s command is most greedy for money? Who is most lecherous? Who appears to have the most weaknesses? I need to know this as soon as possible.”

Wei Dongqing said: “Rest assured, Director, I will see to all three matters with dispatch.”

He said this, paused, and then asked with some hesitation: “Director, have you received a secret order from the Gate Master?”

Zhuge Wutu startled: “What secret order from the Gate Master?”

Wei Dongqing said: “Yesterday I received a secret order from the Gate Master, instructing all of our people in Jizhou to lie low and not move about carelessly.”

“Impossible.”

Zhuge Wutu said: “I came from the Gate Master’s side. Why would he not have told me?”

Wei Dongqing immediately produced a letter and handed it to Zhuge Wutu: “Someone delivered it yesterday, left it and walked away.”

Zhuge Wutu unfolded the letter and read it, and then his expression changed.

“The Gate Master’s meaning is…”

Zhuge Wutu suddenly understood, and the shock hit him so hard he could scarcely believe it. It was something he had never imagined — the Gate Master was far away in Yuzhou, yet his scheming ran this deep.

The Gate Master’s meaning was for all Mountain-River Seal personnel in Jizhou to lie completely still, neither leaving nor exposing themselves.

And this order was not for the purpose of protecting them — it was to ensure that when Zhuge Wutu made his move, not a single one of them would be able to flee.

And so Zhuge Wutu was afraid, because he now understood what the Gate Master truly intended: every last one of their people in Jizhou — the Gate Master was prepared to sacrifice them all.

His name was Zhuge Wutu. And the Gate Master had sent him here to carry out a slaughter.

—