Jingzhou. Rongcheng.

Li Chi stood in the courtyard, listening carefully to the intelligence operative’s report, attending to every single word.

“The month before last, several hundred thousand Yong Army troops entered Shuzhou territory. The exact number has not yet been determined, but it should be no fewer than four hundred thousand.”

“Shuzhou Military Governor Pei Qi personally accompanied Han Feibao on a tour of several famous scenic sites. From the look of it, these were not people meeting for the first time — the two of them spoke with great ease and familiarity.”

“When the Yong Army departed Shuzhou, Pei Qi mobilized hundreds of thousands of civilian laborers to transport provisions and supplies for them — making clear that what he gave Yang Xuanji had been heavily shorted.”

Li Chi listened and nodded as each point was made.

The assessment of the realm’s configuration would need to be revised quickly now.

Those willing to stake everything were not just Dachu Emperor Yang Jing alone. Between Han Feibao and Guan Tinghou, one of them would inevitably replace Yang Xuanji.

Yang Xuanji still commanded troops in the hundreds of thousands — but in Li Chi’s reckoning, this man could already be counted as a discarded piece on the board.

“Something just occurred to me.”

Gao Xining looked toward Li Chi: “Yang Xuanji is currently besieging Daxing City and cannot take it — and it’s also hard for him to withdraw. His decisive battle with Prince Wu Yang Jiju is now inevitable, with no one able to stop it… Was this too part of those people’s planning?”

Li Chi nodded: “It should be.”

Gao Xining sighed: “So Yang Xuanji is the most useful discarded piece of all.”

Li Chi said: “They used Li Xionghu as a foil for Yang Xuanji first — Li Xionghu was brutal, slaughtering people without end, while Yang Xuanji had policies of caring for the people, so Yang Xuanji gained considerable renown.”

“When the moment came, they killed Li Xionghu and kept Yang Xuanji — letting him believe he had already secured victory. Yet he has been completely trapped outside Daxing City.”

Gao Xining said: “Yang Xuanji’s greatest purpose as a discarded piece is to exhaust the last of Chu’s military strength — best of all if he kills Prince Wu and both sides destroy each other, ideally both dying — and then Yang Xuanji can exit the stage.”

She looked toward Li Chi: “Yang Xuanji should have sensed something by now, since Emperor Yang Jing’s abdication scheme forced those people to accelerate their plans.”

Li Chi said: “Yang Xuanji doesn’t have many ways out of his predicament. The most advantageous one is…”

Gao Xining: “Surrender to the Chu Emperor.”

Li Chi gave a sound of affirmation: “It just depends on whether Yang Xuanji has the resolve… If he refuses to accept being someone else’s chess piece — and a discarded one at that — he’ll go to one of two extremes.”

“First: Yang Xuanji still believes his odds are better, so in the coming days he’ll pour everything he has, sparing no cost, into attacking Daxing City — believing that once he enters the city and ascends the throne as emperor, he’s won.”

“Second: he comes to his senses, realizes that he’s still a member of the Yang family — and at this point, rather than continuing to be manipulated, he surrenders to the Chu Emperor, using everything he has left to defend the Emperor and protect the Yang dynasty.”

Li Chi said: “If so, that would also break one piece of those people’s scheme.”

Gao Xining frowned in deep thought.

As for Yang Xuanji’s character — as the Chief Tingwei of the Tingwei Army, Gao Xining understood him very well.

So she judged that Yang Xuanji would almost certainly choose the first option, still convinced his odds were better. Whatever else might be happening, he would take Daxing City first — once he ascended the throne as emperor, he believed he could still rally the realm to his call.

“So this is really why you were unwilling to lead the army into Jingzhou.”

Gao Xining said.

Li Chi nodded: “Going to Jingzhou right now serves no purpose whatsoever. But if we can hold the Yong Army firmly here — then there will be a gaping hole in those people’s plans. We pin the Yong Army here. If Yang Xuanji comes to his senses and joins forces with the court, they may still have one chance against Guan Tinghou — their only chance.”

Gao Xining suddenly said: “This seems like a very strange decisive battle.”

She thought of the things Mr. Li had said — so what exactly was this?

Those people considered themselves gods, while Li Chi was acclaimed as the sovereign of men. Was this, then, the decisive battle between the sovereign of men and the gods?

Thinking of this, she suddenly felt a surge of excitement — feeling once more that the man beside her was truly the most formidable person in all the realm.

In the world right now, no matter how great a force, no matter how powerful a figure, nearly all of them had been moved and directed by those people to some degree.

Only Li Chi’s side stood outside those people’s schemes — put another way, Li Chi was the one who had broken free of their layout long ago.

“From your expression, I can dimly make out that you want to compliment me.”

Li Chi said with a smile.

Gao Xining said: “But there are countless words in this world, and none of them is adequate for you.”

Li Chi shook his head: “That’s not right. Three words are quite sufficient to describe me.”

Gao Xining: “Which three?”

Li Chi: “You’re so great.”

Gao Xining: “I know — I really am quite great.”

Li Chi: “…”

Just then, Xie Huainan and Xie Xiu came in from outside the courtyard. The moment they entered, they bowed in greeting.

Xie Huainan said: “My Lord — Yong Army scouts have already appeared on the banks of the Tuotuo River. By our estimates, at most ten more days and the Yong Army will reach the riverbank.”

Li Chi asked: “Have the arrangements been made as I directed?”

Xie Huainan said: “All as my Lord directed. The river patrol units number no more than one hundred men each, with rounds every hour.”

Li Chi nodded: “They come fully prepared and must have already gathered a large number of boats. But due to the terrain, they have no way to cross at the lower reaches — they can only cross at the area around Loulou Town. So their boats will come upriver from the lower reaches to rendezvous at Loulou Town.”

Li Chi moved back inside; Xie Huainan and the others followed immediately.

On the north wall of the room hung a vast map, already heavily marked with charcoal notations in many places.

Li Chi pointed his wooden staff at the location of Loulou Town: “The first time Yang Xuanji crossed the river, he also came through Loulou Town.”

Xie Huainan nodded: “The waterway there is not particularly wide, and the current is calm with no hidden currents. If the enemy coming from Shuzhou wants to cross the river in the lower reaches, they would have to go around Zhuma Mountain — over a thousand li of detour to reach Liangzhou. And travel through Liangzhou is difficult, with waterways crisscrossing everywhere, so they can only choose Loulou Town.”

Li Chi’s gaze shifted from Loulou Town down toward the lower reaches.

If Shuzhou was Han Feibao’s support base, then Liangzhou must be as well.

Shuzhou Military Governor Pei Qi had given everything to provision Han Feibao’s forces — meaning Liangzhou Military Governor Du Ke, who on the surface still aligned with Yang Xuanji, must secretly also have made preparations to support Han Feibao.

Furthermore, Du Ke was almost certainly a blade positioned to eliminate Yang Xuanji — as for how Du Ke would accomplish that elimination, it couldn’t be worked out yet.

Li Chi surmised that to mislead the Ning Army in Jingzhou into believing the Yong Army had no boats to cross the river, all the boats would be coordinated from the Liangzhou side.

From the map, it was clear that Loulou Town, going by water, was only a little over one hundred li from the Liangzhou border — but in between lay Zhuma Mountain, impassable from the Yong Army’s side. The Yong Army could only go around it.

The most effective solution, then, was to bring the boats from Liangzhou — allowing the Yong Army to wait in ease on the banks of the Tuotuo River.

The greatest advantage of such a scheme was putting the Ning Army at ease.

What Han Feibao could not know was that Li Chi had deployed a large number of covert operatives into Shuzhou to gather intelligence well in advance.

So Han Feibao must at this moment be convinced that the Ning Army still did not know the Yong Army had exited Shuzhou and was approaching the Tuotuo River.

From Han Feibao’s perspective, even in the worst case — even if the Ning Army had somehow detected the Yong Army’s approach — the Ning Army would certainly gather up all the boats on the Tuotuo River, leaving the Yong Army stranded at Loulou Town without vessels.

But with boats coming from Liangzhou, the Yong Army could strike with the element of complete surprise.

If this was the plan, it was nothing short of perfect.

Unfortunately for them, their opponent was Li Chi — whose intelligence was almost supernatural — and he had long since dispatched operatives into Shuzhou to investigate.

To fight for the realm now, it was not enough merely to have more soldiers and more capable generals — what mattered more was who had the clearer, deeper view of the world entire.

Li Chi shifted his gaze and turned to share the news from Jingzhou with Xie Huainan and the others. When Xie Huainan heard the name Guan Tinghou, his brow furrowed slightly.

“I remember him.”

After carefully recalling, he looked toward Li Chi and said: “My Lord — this man, when he was young, came to study in Daxing City. Young as he was, he had a remarkably sharp mind, moved in wide circles, and after arriving in Daxing City made a point of calling on many of the city’s distinguished figures — including high ministers of the court.”

Gao Xining, hearing those words, suddenly realized something.

“Guan Tinghou’s father was the Yuezhou Military Governor — a high-ranking official, a powerful regional lord. So at the political level, he must have had enormous connections.”

She looked toward Li Chi: “We originally all assumed that Yang Xuanji was the person those people within the city had been waiting to receive. Now we can see clearly — the obscure and unknown Guan Tinghou is the real one.”

Xie Huainan smiled: “What a pity — all that planning to pave the way for Guan Tinghou, only for the Emperor to dig in and slaughter every last one of those aristocratic families in the city.”

He looked toward Li Chi: “At such a young age, Guan Tinghou had managed to cover every angle in Daxing City, winning unstinting praise from many powerful and prominent men — so perhaps he is the hidden true identity.”

If Yang Xuanji was a puppet, calling Guan Tinghou the true identity seemed a fair way to put it.

Looking at it now — Li Chi was an anomaly; Emperor Yang Jing was an anomaly.

These two, who in fact had nothing to do with each other, had now been bound together by that abdication.

And thinking again about the abdication itself — its significance was now clear when you understood Yang Jing’s absolute resolve in enacting it.

He had probably already seen through part of what was happening.

But Li Chi had been able to make this assessment because he had the vast intelligence network of the covert operatives, which allowed him to hear the voices of every corner of the realm. That was how he had come to understand.

Yet Yang Jing, trapped inside Daxing City with information cut off — if he had truly seen through any of this, it was proof enough that this man’s mind was extraordinarily out of the ordinary.

He was a man who had been consistently underestimated, yet could prove nothing on his own behalf.

That thought suddenly gave Li Chi pause.

He looked toward Gao Xining: “Send someone to bring Gui Yuanshu here.”

Not long after, Gui Yuanshu came hurrying in. Before he could speak, Li Chi had already begun.

“From this moment on — all intelligence passing through the old Mountain River Seal’s channels is to be temporarily suppressed.”

At those words, Gui Yuanshu’s expression couldn’t help but shift.

The reason Li Chi’s covert operative network had taken shape in such a short time — to the point where operatives could be found in virtually every prefecture and territory — came down to the fact that it had inherited a tremendous portion of the Mountain River Seal’s capabilities.

Especially after Cao Lie followed Li Chi — the usable forces within the Mountain River Seal had been absorbed by the covert operatives in large quantities.

To say the covert operative network had rapidly taken shape was almost an understatement — it was more accurate to say it had borrowed the enormous shell of the Mountain River Seal and the Cloud Mist Map.

And the Cloud Mist Map was the most useful of all, because its primary function had been to map the entire jianghu — the martial world.

Vast numbers of people had fed information to the Cloud Mist Map, which was what had built such a terrifying organization of assassins.

To know the entire jianghu — was that not the same as knowing the entire realm?

And all of this now served the covert operative network — or more precisely, served the Ning King Li Chi.

“I was actually negligent about this point.”

Li Chi said softly.

“Those people caused the Mountain River Seal to collapse — wanting to vanish without a trace was only one reason. The other reason was…”

Li Chi looked toward Gui Yuanshu: “To surveil us. To mislead us.”

Gui Yuanshu also came to the realization, and felt a tightening of unease in his chest.

The covert operatives were using the Mountain River Seal’s and Cloud Mist Map’s people to surveil the realm — and yet had never imagined that the surveillance might run in the reverse direction.

Li Chi said: “Looking at it now, Han Feibao not only knows our every move — he has certainly made preparations accordingly, and will let us go on believing that he doesn’t know our every move.”

Li Chi looked toward Gao Xining: “That was dangerously close.”

Gao Xining said: “From the moment the four Mountain River Seal operatives appeared on the northern frontier, this plan was already in motion.”

She let out a slow breath: “These people — they penetrate every gap.”

Li Chi said in a heavy voice: “They made me believe… that I knew everything — and then they planned to deliver a killing blow.”

—