Qishan. The main peak.

Li Chi looked up at the enormous throne of black jade set on the high dais, and felt a trace of genuine puzzlement.

Why are people so obsessed with chairs?

No—more precisely, why are people so obsessed with bigness?

Tang Pidi was also looking at the throne, and also somewhat awed.

In his imagination, perhaps the Nine-Dragon Throne in the great hall of Dachu’s imperial palace was not as large as this.

Li Chi asked Tang Pidi, “Looking at this chair—what does it make you think of?”

Tang Pidi considered for a moment. “Power. Desire. Control…”

He looked at Li Chi. Li Chi cleared his throat and said: “Silver. Silver. Silver. A thing this size—cart it into Yuzhou City and auction it off. It would fetch a fortune.”

Tang Pidi said, “After we take this place, we’ll be carting silver back by the wagonload. After we turn Cao Garden upside down, that’s another wagonload. You’re probably the wealthiest person in the world—and you’re still eyeing the proceeds of selling a chair?”

Li Chi said, “You’ve gotten too big for your boots.”

Tang Pidi: “Come on…”

Li Chi said, perfectly seriously: “Even if I had hundreds of millions in wealth, would I refuse one more copper coin?”

Tang Pidi said, “You just interrogated the people here—you heard what they said about Cao Ziluo. About what kind of man he is.”

He looked at Li Chi and said, “His men said Cao Ziluo is the kind of person who can’t be bothered to pick up a banknote he’s dropped on the floor—because the time it takes to bend down, he’s already earned that much.”

Li Chi said, “That’s just his men making wild guesses. Like how a poor commoner probably thinks the greatest thing about being Emperor is having meat at every meal.”

He shrugged. “A banknote drops on the floor, you don’t pick it up, because the time spent bending over you’ve already earned it back—that has absolutely nothing to do with whether you bend over or not. Bend over, you still earned it. Don’t bend over, you still earned it.”

Tang Pidi: “How are you getting flustered over this.”

Li Chi said, “Any talk that treats money as beneath notice gets me flustered. One banknote—the lowest denomination is ten taels. Ten taels is enough to sustain a family for most of a year.”

Tang Pidi said, “And perhaps that is why he’s a merchant—and you are Prince Ning.”

Li Chi looked at Tang Pidi and said, “Is that a compliment?”

Tang Pidi: “Be confident about it.”

Li Chi said, “Coming from you, it couldn’t possibly be a compliment.”

Tang Pidi smiled and clapped Li Chi on the shoulder. “The only reason I don’t often compliment you is that every book I’ve ever read, every word in it that might suit the purpose of praising you—none of them are appropriate. None of them are up to the task.”

Li Chi was pleased with himself.

Then he felt something was off.

He asked, “Why does that line sound a bit familiar?”

Tang Pidi: “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go look at the silver.”

Li Chi smiled. “Let’s.”

And bounced along after him.

—

The castle. The treasury.

When those two enormous, heavy iron doors swung open and Li Chi beheld the mountains of silver heaped inside, his eyes seemed to transform into searchlights—wherever his gaze fell, his eyes lit up like twin beams.

Tang Pidi nudged Li Chi. “Show some restraint.”

Li Chi said, “Restrain what exactly? Heaven sends me a silver vault—and I’m supposed to be restrained?”

This remark gave Tang Pidi pause.

Heaven sends Li Chi a silver vault?

He stood in the doorway, and a great many thoughts rushed through him at once.

Li Chi had gone to the northwest and, midway, stumbled by chance upon the Kingdom of Xiaoyao—and so Li Chi had the seed money to raise his army.

In Jizhou, Li Chi had discovered the underground palace of the ancient Kingdom of Youshan, inside which he found vast quantities of gold sand and worthless sand currency.

If those two windfalls could still be chalked up to coincidence, what about this one?

This was neither a gift nor a buried treasure stumbled upon by accident. If the first two could charitably be called reasonable, how did one explain this?

The Mountain River Seal—already a thousand years old—had been accumulating this fortune. And for what purpose?

To wait for Li Chi to arrive, and then give it to him? Was the Mountain River Seal putting money away for Li Chi all along?

A fixed deposit, for a thousand years?

Zero-deposit, lump-sum withdrawal?

Tang Pidi fell into deep thought.

Li Chi had already begun giving orders, dispatching men back to Yuzhou to round up every cart and horse available.

And it wasn’t just the silver that needed to be moved—there were too many other treasures here.

For Li Chi, this place was paradise—the purest, most earnest form of paradise he could conceive of.

By the time Tang Pidi surfaced from his reverie, Li Chi was sitting atop the silver mountain, sliding down it.

In the center of that vast storeroom, the silver had been heaped loosely into a mountain at least three or four *zhang* high—like a great steamed bun made of ingots.

Li Chi slid down from the silver mountain. The ingots couldn’t have been kind to his backside, but whether his rear end was comfortable or not didn’t matter—his heart was thrilled.

Tang Pidi said, “Looking at all this silver—doesn’t it seem like it was put here specifically for Gao Xining? Just about the right size and shape for her.”

Li Chi spat dismissively. “How could this base and contemptible silver compare to the noble worth of a clod of earth?”

He turned back to Cao Ziluo, who sat bound to one side. “Isn’t that right?”

Cao Ziluo stared at him—hard and hateful and cold.

Li Chi walked over and studied Cao Ziluo’s face with great attention. This man must have been quite handsome in his youth—come to think of it, that was easy enough to understand; otherwise he couldn’t have fathered a son as good-looking as Cao Lie.

But then again, Cao Lie resembled Cao Dengke more.

Li Chi said, “Gate Master—a man as kind-hearted as you must have done a great many good deeds in your previous life, which is why in this life you have been counted among the ranks of the immortals.”

Even Tang Pidi was baffled by that remark. *Has Li Chi gone so giddy with joy that his mind has given out?*

“In what sense has he been counted among the immortals?” Tang Pidi asked.

Li Chi said, “Don’t you know? An ordinary immortal stands alone, with no attendants. But a high-ranking immortal always has two young attendants at his side—and those two attendants have specific titles. One is called *Songzi*, the Deliverer of Children, and the other is called *Sancai*, the Scatter of Wealth…”

Tang Pidi thought about it, then said, “Then the Gate Master’s immortal rank must be middling.”

Li Chi asked, “Why so?”

Tang Pidi said, “He only has one attendant—but that one attendant does the work of two.”

Li Chi: “Ugh…”

Tang Pidi: “What are you *ugh*-ing at? I was just following your own logic.”

Li Chi said, “The mood called for it.”

Cao Ziluo would have let loose a torrent of abuse long ago if he’d been able—but his mouth was sealed, and he couldn’t produce a single word.

Tang Pidi said, “You said you learned from Master Changmei a great talent for reading a person’s heart through their eyes.”

He pointed at Cao Ziluo. “Take a look. What do his eyes say?”

Li Chi looked, then said very earnestly to Cao Ziluo: “You can curse me all you like—but leave my ancestors out of it.”

Tang Pidi: “…”

—

From Yuzhou City to Qishan was a journey of slightly more than two days. So when Cao Lie had left Yuzhou, he had instructed his men to stall for five full days—because five days would be enough for a round trip from Yuzhou to Qishan and back.

Li Chi hadn’t left Qishan in those two-odd days, because there was simply too much here to be moved.

Watching cartload after cartload being hauled away filled him with joy. Being the kind of person he was, Li Chi naturally couldn’t bear to leave behind even a table or a stool.

Never mind tables and stools—Li Chi had already begun calculating whether it was at all feasible to pry up the floor tiles and take them too.

Up on the main peak, on the vast flat platform, Li Chi stood watching the convoy stretching out below—a grand procession, back and forth, endlessly moving.

He looked over the cropfields ringing the peaks. They were almost ready for harvest.

While he was looking, Gao Xining and Yu Jiuling arrived.

Li Chi heard footsteps and turned back, smiling. “Here—this is the empire I seized for you.”

Gao Xining smiled.

Li Chi said, “I was talking to Yu Jiuling.”

Gao Xining’s eyes widened just slightly.

Li Chi said, “Little Sister, look at this terrain, these crops, this geography—by what you’ve studied, what does this place put you in mind of?”

Gao Xining listened to the question and looked around, taking in the scene. Given the mountain formations and the name Qishan—Chess Mountain—it was likely meant to evoke a world-spanning chessboard, with all the chess pieces drawn from this place. A chess canister, perhaps.

She was still working through the thought when Yu Jiuling replied: “A pigpen.”

Gao Xining’s mind took a moment to catch up. Then it dawned on her—Li Chi had asked *Yu Jiuling*, and by what *he* had studied. By Yu Jiuling’s studies, if he saw anything here other than a pigpen, something would be very wrong.

Li Chi heard the answer and burst out laughing. “Exactly right! This place is the single most ideal location for raising pigs in all the world!”

He swept a hand around the full circle of the view. “Look at these green hills and clear waters, look at the crops already prepared for us—if you don’t raise pigs here, you’re wasting the place.”

Yu Jiuling nodded. “Obviously. I could tell the moment I looked that you wanted to raise pigs.”

Li Chi laughed. “We’ll be staying in Yuzhou for a while yet. The pigs will be your responsibility—best to have it up and running within six months. I’ll have Old Tang assign troops to help. Cao Ziluo treated this place as a fortress; we’ll treat it as a granary…”

Yu Jiuling thumped his chest. “The matter of pigs—leave it to me.”

Li Chi: “The matter of pigs?”

Yu Jiuling: “No, no—I mean—your matter, leave it to me.”

Gao Xining sighed. “Cruel and heartless sovereign—why not put him to death?”

Li Chi said, “After the pigs are raised.”

He asked, “You’ve come—is it because there’s a resolution on the Tingwei Army matter?”

Gao Xining nodded. “Cao Ziluo was brought back, and not long after he arrived in Yuzhou City, we had our answer.”

She paused, then said, “I’d assumed he would try to arrange a rescue for Cao Ziluo. Instead, he chose to flee immediately.”

Li Chi asked, “Is it Du Yan?”

Gao Xining said yes. “The moment the news reached Yuzhou City, he vanished.”

She let out a slow breath. “Which is why this has been, to date, the most difficult case the Tingwei Army has ever handled.”

*Difficult in the nature of the human heart.*

—

Guzhen County.

Du Yan—in disguise—surveyed his surroundings, eyes wary.

He had everything Master Changmei had taught him: disguise, impersonation—second nature to him. One did not rise to the rank of Lead Officer without being an exceptional practitioner.

In truth, from the time he had first traveled south with the army to Yuzhou, he had never quite shaken a sense of foreboding. He kept feeling something would go wrong. Yet he had told himself that his cover in Jizhou had originally been arranged by Lu Wuman, and the Yuzhou side might not know his identity—not even the Mountain River Seal’s inner circle might know, because Lu Wuman also kept his own reserves.

Yet he was afraid.

The moment the news arrived in Yuzhou that the Mountain River Seal’s Gate Master had been captured, Du Yan had chosen to run.

After entering the county town, he made his way along the main street to the outside of an inn.

Du Yan gave a look. His men fanned out around the perimeter to stand watch, while others went inside to assess the layout.

He twitched his nose.

Someone inside the inn was eating hot pot. The spicy broth popular in the Shuzhou region.

The smell was strong.

This was not Shuzhou, and the spicy hot pot was rare here. He knew that smell—he knew it because he knew someone who loved eating this particular hot pot.

That person prepared his own chili oil and broth from scratch, and his hot pot habits were nothing like those of northerners. Northerners indulged most heavily in winter; this person, no matter the season, ate hot pot the moment he had any spare time.

Du Yan let out a heavy breath.

He turned and stepped into the inn.

There in the main hall, he saw a young man seated before a hot pot, eating with sweat pouring down his face.

The young man was roughly twenty-four or twenty-five, and didn’t look up—entirely absorbed in eating.

Du Yan walked to the seat across from him and sat down. He looked at the table—no extra bowl or chopsticks had been set out. He sighed. “How petty.”

The young man across from him shook his head. “Sir never liked eating—and never liked watching me eat.”

This young man wore the embroidered uniform of a Tingwei Army hundred-officer.

Du Yan asked, “Have you made your choice?”

The young man sighed. “Sir ran without calling me along. What choice do I have left?”

He seemed to have eaten his fill, set down his chopsticks, and clasped his hands in salute.

“Hundred-Officer Yu Hongyi—reporting to Lead Officer, sir.”

Du Yan was silent for a moment, then said, with something like chagrin: “Have I ever told you? Your name is truly grating.”

The young man said, “You have, sir. You also said this name is as revolting as the red broth I love to eat.”

Du Yan said, “If I’d known it would be you coming to intercept me, I wouldn’t have said something so harsh.”

He asked, “Is it too late to take it back?”

The young man nodded and replied seriously, “Not too late—but whether sir takes it back or not has no bearing on what sentence sir will receive.”

Du Yan said, “Then I won’t take it back. Your name really is as revolting as that red broth.”

—