A forest path.

Li Chi walked ahead; Tang Anchen followed behind. The two maintained this distance throughout — it had been this way from the moment they set out, and it remained this way now.

It was no small feat, in truth, for the two of them were still talking, and Tang Anchen was still thinking as he walked. Doing two things at once was not something everyone could manage.

“When you return to Yanzhou, what are your plans?”

Li Chi asked.

Tang Anchen said, “Li Xiaowan’s seizure of the Bohai throne was largely a matter of luck. He has little foundation within Bohai. When I return, I intend to bring about a second coup in Bohai as swiftly as possible.”

“Bohai is impoverished and broken. After one great war and then two military coups, they will have no capacity to bare their teeth at the Central Plains for the next twenty years.”

Li Chi nodded.

That Li Xiaowan was a general under Shi Zaixun — and not even a particularly high-ranking one. Now he sat on the Bohai King’s throne, but there was no shortage of people eyeing that seat. With proper scheming, it was only a matter of time before Li Xiaowan was toppled.

“That covers external affairs. What about internal ones?”

Li Chi asked again.

Tang Anchen answered, “Jizhou already has well-established experience in civil governance. Though the customs and livelihoods of the two regions differ somewhat, I believe that as long as the people’s lives are made good, everything else will follow.”

Li Chi nodded with satisfaction.

Tang Anchen had his plans. Li Chi could send him back to Yanzhou now.

The reason he had summoned Tang Anchen all the way from Yanzhou to Jizhou was not merely curiosity about this young man. Had it been only that, there would have been no need to summon anyone from such a distance.

A frontier governor who could fight but knew nothing of civil governance was a disaster waiting to happen. A man addicted to war would inevitably harm the people’s livelihoods. This was an unchanging truth since ancient times.

“When you return, as long as you don’t forget what you’ve said to me today, I’ll have nothing to worry about in Yanzhou.”

Li Chi said as he walked, “If Jizhou is our rear, then Yanzhou is the rear of our rear. Hold Yanzhou well, and you hold our foundation and our retreat.”

He looked at Tang Anchen. “I can guess that you’d rather go south than hold down the rear. One year, then — within a year, I’ll find the right person to replace you and bring you back.”

Tang Anchen bowed deeply. “Thank you, my lord!”

Of course he would rather go south. The situation across the realm had reached this point — what soldier didn’t want to be part of that final battle?

It wasn’t about making a name in history. It was that any general who missed that battle would regret it for the rest of his life.

After that battle, the age of chaos would end, Dachu would fall, and the new realm would take shape upon the foundation of that one fight.

In truth, the person best suited to remain in Yanzhou was Shen Shanhu. Li Chi had not failed to consider it.

But thinking of Old Tang, Li Chi had let some personal feeling sway him. This arrangement would also temper Tang Anchen, making him more seasoned in both military and civil affairs. One year — and he would have made a qualitative leap.

“I use you not because you are Tang Pidi’s younger brother. You should understand — if you lacked ability, I wouldn’t use you even if you were my own brother.”

Li Chi said, “So don’t let your mind wander into worrying about whether others might be jealous, or whether people might be speaking ill of you and your brother behind your back.”

Tang Anchen bowed. “I understand.”

“No matter who you are — if you can do great things, I will give you great responsibility. If you’re truly worried about what people might say, then do it more brilliantly. That is the only way to make them shut their mouths. And if that still doesn’t shut them up, I’ll shut them up for you.”

Tang Anchen bowed again in a deep salute.

After this meeting, Tang Anchen returned to Yanzhou. Though the word “acting” had yet to be removed from his title, whether it was removed or not had already ceased to matter much.

Li Chi arranged for Lian Xiwu to return to the northwest to continue overseeing the construction of Chang’an City — that was the great undertaking of the future.

Some might have thought it unwise and unnecessary to be building a new city before the entire realm had been won. But Li Chi knew well that once he had taken the realm, if Chang’an City was not yet ready, it would be no easy matter to leave Daxing City.

When the realm was at peace, people’s hearts would grow lazy, and lazy people would use rules and propriety as excuses.

If he first unified the realm and ascended the throne, then set about preparing to build Chang’an City, more than eighty percent of the court’s civil and military officials would oppose it — possibly more.

It was different now. Right now, Li Chi’s word carried more weight than it would after he became emperor.

Being emperor left so little freedom. Now, if he wanted to build a new city, he could. After ascending the throne, if he wanted to do the same, countless people would rise to speak of wasting the people’s resources and exhausting the treasury, of there being no need for it, of ancestral precedents.

Li Chi was a man who often thought ahead, and so he managed present matters extremely well too.

Not long after Tang Anchen’s departure, the Black Tortoise Sun Guiyin sought out Li Chi.

Li Chi felt a natural warmth the moment he saw this plain-faced middle-aged man, because in Sun Guiyin, he saw a shadow of Zhuang Wudi.

“I want to leave.”

Old Sun came straight to the point, blunt and direct.

“Where to?”

Li Chi asked.

He did not ask why. There was no need.

When a man resolves to stand guard over a woman, it is often because no one else is standing guard over her. When a man truly cares for a woman, even the most exceptional of men will have their moments of self-doubt — more or less. And that self-doubt magnifies without limit in the presence of the man that woman cares for.

Old Sun wanted to leave because the Azure Dragon Su Ruye had returned.

“Just to Yanzhou, then.”

Sun Guiyin smiled, looking genuinely at ease.

“I know the White Tiger Nie She is also in Yanzhou. If fate allows, we can catch up. But what I’d really like is to go take a turn through Bohai.”

He looked at Li Chi. “You understand, my lord. Don’t you.”

Li Chi gave a sound of agreement. “I understand.”

Sun Guiyin smiled. “Understanding… is enough.”

Li Chi took Old Sun by the arm, and the two of them walked to the doorway and stood there, watching the sun sink in the west.

Li Chi said slowly, “When you care for someone, perhaps there is something of smallness to it. But when you leave someone, you must leave with your head high.”

He gave Old Sun a pat on the shoulder. “So don’t slip away quietly. Slipping away quietly makes it look like you’ve lost. But you haven’t lost — you’ve only stepped back.”

Losing and stepping back were not the same thing.

Old Sun nodded. “I won’t go quietly. When I go, I’ll go with my chest out. But one thing — no one is allowed to blame her. She did nothing wrong.”

Li Chi nodded as well.

She had done nothing wrong. She had always made it plain to Old Sun that there was no possibility between them, that her heart had no room for anyone else.

Who had any right to blame her? To blame her would be to hold her in moral chains.

“Will you take a post?”

Li Chi asked.

Old Sun shook his head. “I don’t want that… Too many rules. Call on me when something comes up; don’t disturb my sleep the rest of the time. That’s the life I want.”

Li Chi smiled. “Go sleep, then. I’ll call on you when there’s drinking to be done.”

Old Sun laughed heartily. “Deal.”

After a few steps he turned back and looked at Li Chi. “I’ve never thought I was lesser than anyone. It’s only that I appeared later than someone else. If I think of it that way — am I fooling myself?”

Li Chi said, “If you didn’t think of it that way, that would be fooling yourself.”

Old Sun burst out laughing again and strode away.

That night, Li Chi and Old Sun and the others drank a great deal. Old Sun threw his arm around Yu Jiuling’s shoulder, and in his drunkenness talked of swearing brotherhood — even wanted to drag the Divine Eagle into the pact, and no one could stop him.

By all appearances, everyone was completely and thoroughly drunk.

At dawn, when the sky had barely begun to brighten, Old Sun got up, washed, dressed, and made himself clean and presentable.

He shouldered his pack and left his quarters, only to find Nihuan standing outside his door.

Nihuan handed him a bundle. “For the road.”

Old Sun grinned, genuinely pleased — he hadn’t expected Nihuan to come see him off.

He took the bundle and asked, “You made this?”

Nihuan replied, “Personally bought it.”

Old Sun burst out laughing. “That’ll do. Thank you.”

He cupped his hands in a salute, then walked forward.

Nihuan said nothing more, only watched Old Sun’s retreating figure in the distance. She could see that his steps were light and easy, carrying not the slightest trace of heaviness.

He had always been such an open-hearted man.

Rounding the corner at the end of the street, he saw someone standing by the road who appeared to have been waiting there for quite some time.

Old Sun took one look at that fellow and curled his lip. He walked over and stuck out his hand. “Just now Nihuan saw me off and gave me food for the journey — bought it with her own hands. And you?”

Su Ruye looked down at his own two empty hands.

Old Sun: “Showing up empty-handed to see someone off?”

Su Ruye said, “Well then — shall we have a fight? Hand-to-hand.”

Old Sun set down his bundle. “Fight it is.”

And they actually fought.

The two of them brawled right there on the quiet morning street — trading blows back and forth, fists and feet flying. At their level of mastery, ordinary martial artists should have been unable to make heads or tails of the exchange.

Yet even Yu Jiuling, watching from a distance, could follow it — because neither man used any technique or strategy. They simply hit each other, fist for fist, flesh meeting flesh in the most direct way possible.

If it were a matter of technique and skill, Sun Guiyin would be no match for Su Ruye at all. How then could the fight have gone on so long?

They fought until both of them were lying on the ground, faces bruised and swollen.

“Damn it…”

Old Sun cursed. “If you took pity on me and wanted to let me get in a few hits before I left to blow off steam, why did you hit so hard yourself?”

His face was swollen something fierce, purple and blue in patches.

Su Ruye, lying on the ground beside him, made a sound. “Wouldn’t have felt right otherwise.”

Old Sun actually burst out laughing. “If you’d really just stood there and let me hit you, I wouldn’t have felt right about it either.”

Su Ruye’s face was a mess too, swollen in every direction — because neither of them had dodged anything, and both had aimed straight for the face.

The two of them lay there on the ground for a good while, and then, for no discernible reason, they both started laughing — loud, open laughter.

Nihuan stood watching from a distance. She did not approach, because there was no need. That was something between those two men. It didn’t even really involve her.

If she had gone over, people would have said those two were fighting over a woman. But they weren’t. They had simply never been able to stand the sight of each other.

That was all.

“That really damn well hurt.”

Old Sun sat up and asked Su Ruye, “Did you bring a mirror?”

Su Ruye sat up as well. “What kind of man carries a mirror when he goes out?”

Old Sun: “You’re so effeminate, I assumed you’d have one.”

Su Ruye: “Calling me effeminate — do you want to compare something else?”

Old Sun glanced at him sideways. “Get lost…”

Then he called over toward where Yu Jiuling and the others were standing: “You lot over there — anyone bring a mirror?”

Li Chi and Yu Jiuling came over, everyone shaking their heads. What ordinary man carried a mirror when he went out?

Yu Jiuling asked, “You want to look at yourself?”

Old Sun made a sound of confirmation. “I want to see what I look like right now.”

Yu Jiuling turned his head and glanced at the Divine Eagle ambling in the distance.

Old Sun shot to his feet. “I’m not leaving anymore — not until I’m healed. I’ll go in a few days.”

He said it, shouldered his pack, and walked back inside.

Su Ruye also got up. After a few steps he turned back and asked Yu Jiuling, “And me?”

Yu Jiuling looked at the Divine Eagle again, then gave a sincere answer: “You’re a bit thinner than it.”

Su Ruye stood there for a blank moment — then leaped into the air and was gone.

—