Li Chi had no immediate plans to return to Yuzhou. The journey was long and grueling, and even if he set off after a brief rest, he wouldn’t arrive until early summer.

The soldiers had fought for a year on the northern frontier and needed rest. Li Chi had already granted the vast majority of them two months of leave.

If Li Chi had ignored the exhaustion of his troops and driven them straight back to Yuzhou, the casualties along the way would have been severe. More critically, morale would have crumbled, and the ranks would have fractured from top to bottom.

And so, after arriving at Jizhou City, Li Chi arranged for a message to be sent to Grand General Tang Pidi, informing him that he would not return until before the new year.

Whether it was the troops who had fought the Heiwu forces in Jizhou’s northern frontier, or those who had battled the Bohai forces in Yanzhou — all of them needed a long period of rest before they could recover.

What lifted everyone’s spirits was the stream of good news that kept coming in. First came word from Yanzhou that the Bohai King, Shi Zaixun, had died in a military coup. Hard on the heels of that came news from Liangzhou in the northwest that the Western Region forces had already withdrawn.

Li Chi knew that given Grand General Dantai Qi’s temperament, those Western Region forces would not be getting off easily. As for the so-called Coalition of Ten Nations — Dantai Qi would divide and conquer them. That was what he did best. It wasn’t the first or second time the Grand General had made short work of those Western Region people.

“We’ll head south after the summer grain harvest is in.”

Li Chi looked at Gao Xining. “While we’re in Jizhou, we’ll need to think of a way to convince those three old men to agree to let us hold our wedding here.”

Because no matter which of them you asked, both he and Gao Xining desperately wanted to hold the ceremony in this little courtyard — their true home, their very first home.

But after the great battle, those three old men had gone back to their superstitions. It was, in a way, the same as the old belief about twitching eyelids.

During the war, when the situation was at its most desperate and the Heiwu forces might break through into the Central Plains at any moment, those three old men had been moved to let Li Chi and Gao Xining wed. As for hexagrams and destiny and all that nonsense — to hell with superstition.

But now that the Heiwu forces had retreated and the Bohai forces had withdrawn, those three old men had nothing to worry about and had reverted to their insufferable “better safe than sorry” faces. Truly ugly.

It was no different from the eyelid-twitching superstition. Left eye twitching means wealth — wonderful, a fortune is coming! Right eye twitching means disaster — to hell with that feudal nonsense.

Gao Xining gritted her teeth. “If all else fails, we’ll just have to use drastic measures.”

Li Chi gave a noncommittal sound. “You take out my Master, and I’ll take out your grandfather?”

Gao Xining burst out laughing.

“If it really comes to it, let’s just buy them off.”

“Besides bribery,” Gao Xining said, “I honestly can’t think of anything else.”

“Actually,” Li Chi said, “it’s all your fault.”

“Why is it all my fault?”

“Your main profession is matchmaking, with your role as Chief Tingwei of the Tingwei Army as a side job. Now your side job is flourishing, but you’ve completely neglected your main profession. If you’d done your main job well and found each of those three old men a companion to keep them in line, would they even have time to meddle in our affairs?”

Gao Xining felt a sudden pang of guilt upon hearing this. She sighed. “When you put it that way, I do bear a great deal of responsibility.”

“Good that you know,” Li Chi said.

“Hmm?” said Gao Xining.

Li Chi immediately stepped back two paces. “What I mean is, you don’t need to be too hard on yourself…”

Gao Xining began digging through her pockets. Li Chi couldn’t believe she’d actually have a clod of dirt in her own pockets. Who goes around carrying that sort of thing? One wrong move and it crumbles, leaving a pocket full of grit.

As it turned out, Li Chi was still too naive. Gao Xining really did fish a clod out of her upper pocket — clay, the kind that wouldn’t crumble. Li Chi immediately caved. The thought of getting a face full of wet clay was genuinely terrifying.

Caving quickly meant no beating. Gao Xining grinned wickedly. “I’ve thought of something drastic.”

Li Chi hurried to ask, “How drastic?”

Gao Xining said through gritted teeth, “Those three make life difficult for us two, so we make life difficult for those three. We find them two old women. In ancient times, two peaches killed three warriors. Today, two old women can torment three old men and make them tear each other apart. Drastic enough?!”

Li Chi glanced at her sideways. “Can you even find one? Let alone two?”

“Shut up! Maybe let’s just talk about bribing them after all.”

He sighed. “We’ll have to think of something else. Just look at those three. My Master — can money buy him? He’s a con artist. And Old Zhang Zhenren is even worse; if my Master is a freelance swindler, he’s the institutional kind, the sort who could hang out a proper shingle. “

“Then bribe my grandfather first?”

“Director Gao was decent enough on his own, but he’s been spending too much time with those two…”

Gao Xining sighed along with him, wearing the expression of someone whose household has brought her great misfortune.

Near midday, Li Chi summoned the Jizhou officials for a meeting. Once everyone had gathered, he settled all the affairs pertaining to Jizhou.

Then Li Chi announced several decisions. Because of the northern frontier battle, a large number of people were to receive rewards. Among the names was one that left everyone both unfamiliar and stunned — for that name had simply not existed before the northern frontier battle, and the person bearing it had not yet even joined Prince Ning’s ranks.

That person was Tang Qingyuan.

Li Chi had already dispatched someone to summon the Jizhou Regional Commissioner Xu Ji back. As for Yanzhou — military affairs and civil governance would be entrusted to Tang Qingyuan, who would serve as acting Regional Commissioner of Yanzhou.

“Acting” it might be in name, but everyone understood clearly that since Prince Ning had made such an arrangement, this rapidly rising young man had climbed from an ordinary commoner to a frontier governor in less than a year.

Yet no one could find anything to say against it.

First, at Liaocheng, had Tang Qingyuan not rallied the people of Liaocheng to hold the city to the last against Liaoshan’s naval forces, Jizhou and Yanzhou might already have fallen to foreign invaders.

Second, in the Battle of Yanzhou, he had led troops to raid the Bohai forces’ rear camp, causing the Bohai army’s great defeat and forcing their retreat.

Third, he had arranged for people inside Bohai to engineer a coup, killing Shi Zaixun — and this act would drag Bohai into internal strife, leaving the Bohai Kingdom unlikely to know peace for the next decade.

For these three deeds alone, however Prince Ning chose to promote this young man, it would not be excessive. So the word “acting” before “Regional Commissioner” would not last long — perhaps it would not be long before those two characters were dropped entirely.

“Have him come to Jizhou City so everyone can meet him.”

After finishing with Tang Qingyuan’s matter, the second name Li Chi raised was General Shen Shanhu.

Her accumulated military merits made her promotion something everyone had anticipated. What no one had expected was that Prince Ning would elevate Shen Shanhu to the same level as Grand General Tang Pidi — equal in military rank, honorary rank, and noble title, all three.

This too was a reward no one could dispute. Shen Shanhu had first taken Yanzhou, then secured Jizhou, then defeated Li Xionghu’s rebel forces in the Battle of Suzhou, then made a dash of several thousand li back to Yanzhou to engage the Bohai forces — and that was still not all, for she had then made another dash of several thousand li to reinforce the northern frontier.

Had she not arrived at the northern frontier, Beishan Pass might already have been broken through by the Heiwu forces.

The third name raised was Xiahou Zuo.

Without any dispute whatsoever, Xiahou Zuo’s military rank, honorary rank, and noble title were likewise made equal to Tang Pidi’s in all three.

From this point forward, the Ning Army had three generals who were Grand Generals in the true sense of the title.

Ranked just below these three were Dantai Yajing, Zhuang Wudi, Luo Jing, and others.

Beyond these veterans, several young people had also shone brilliantly. Among them was Peng Bo, the garrison commander of Beishan Pass, whose speed of promotion was equally astonishing. Before the northern frontier battle he had been a sixth-rank colonel; after it, he was promoted to a third-rank general and stationed in Youzhou to hold that territory.

On the civil officials’ side, many received rewards as well. Jizhou Regional Commissioner Xu Ji was granted a first-rank marquisate. Lian Gongming, who had led troops from the northwest to reinforce the northern frontier, was promoted to full third rank and granted a third-rank marquisate.

Once these great matters were settled, the days that followed grew considerably more relaxed.

Li Chi and Gao Xining spent their days scheming about how to outwit those three old men, while those three old men spent their days scheming about how Li Chi and Gao Xining were scheming against them. The two young ones were digging a pit; the three old ones were working out how to dig a pit within the pit.

After roughly two months of rest and recovery, Tang Qingyuan — having put Yanzhou’s affairs in order — arrived at Jizhou City to pay his respects to Prince Ning.

The moment they met, Tang Qingyuan revealed his true identity. He dared not conceal anything from Prince Ning.

Shen Shanhu, who was present at the time, wore an expression that was remarkably entertaining. First came shock, then pride — her face was written all over with the smugness of *so he’s my little brother-in-law*. Or rather… *worthy of being my little brother-in-law.*

As talk turned to what had happened on the steppe, Li Chi learned that Tang Pidi’s father had already passed away — something Tang Pidi had never mentioned to Li Chi even now.

Li Chi was silent for a moment, then immediately gave instructions for arrangements to be made: a posthumous title was to be conferred upon Old Man Tang, and Li Chi himself, in the role of a junior, would wear black mourning cloth.

As Tang Qingyuan recounted those experiences on the steppe, he mentioned the origin of his name. At the time, the tribal chief Ajin had treated Old Man Tang with great respect and regarded Tang Pidi as his own kin, but toward other people from the Central Plains, he was not particularly welcoming.

When the old man had first taken Tang Qingyuan in, Tang Qingyuan had come to his side as a slave. To keep the tribal chief Ajin from having any misgivings, the old man had given him the name Qingyuan — and at its root, this too had been done to protect Tang Qingyuan.

“Father said he knew there was resentment in my heart, and so he told me: when I returned to the Central Plains in the future and served under Prince Ning alongside my elder brother, I could change my name.”

Tang Qingyuan continued, “Father had long since decided on it. He said the two characters ‘Anchen’ were his charge to me — that upon meeting Prince Ning, I was to recount all of this in full and let Prince Ning decide.”

“Anchen?”

A faint tremor passed through Li Chi’s heart. Those two characters Old Man Tang had chosen might carry some deeper meaning.

“Make the decision yourself,” Li Chi said. “The name was given to you by the old man. It’s not for me to decide — only you can choose.”

Tang Qingyuan was silent for a moment, then bowed and said, “Then from this day forward, I shall take the name Tang Anchen.”

In truth, how could Li Chi have failed to grasp the old man’s intent?

The two characters “Anchen” — ostensibly a name given to Tang Qingyuan — were in truth a message that Old Man Tang had sent to Prince Ning through Tang Qingyuan.

His son Tang Pidi served as Grand General under Prince Ning. His adopted son, too, had come to the Central Plains, and with his ability would naturally make something of himself. The old man’s intent, on one level, was to tell Tang Qingyuan to remain steadfast and dutiful, to know his place. On another level, it was a quiet assurance to Prince Ning: both of them would serve faithfully as his subjects.

But that was not the whole of his intent. There was yet another layer — it was a request the old man had made to Prince Ning in his final days.

With two sons serving under Prince Ning, he wished to ask Prince Ning to stand in his place, as an old father would, and look after his children well.

This, too, was a form of entrusting his sons to another’s care.

After thinking through all of this, Li Chi’s reverence for the old man deepened considerably.

As for the matter of the name — Tang Qingyuan had honored the old man’s dying wish and had not spoken of it until he stood before Prince Ning. He had not even breathed a word of it to Tang Pidi. This spoke to the old man’s meticulous nature, and to Tang Anchen’s faithfulness in carrying out that final wish.

The old man might not have been any great figure by the world’s measure. At the height of his renown, he had been no more than a martial arts teacher in Daizhou.

And yet he had taught two sons — Tang Pidi and Tang Anchen. If history’s brush were ever to give the old man a line, it would be a bold and weighty one.

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