Just as Yao Zhiyuan had predicted, the Ning army did not keep him waiting long. In this season, where three parts of autumn had already turned to winter cold, the Ning army’s columns appeared at the foot of Xiushan.

Standing on the heights, Yao Zhiyuan studied the Ning army’s formation through his spyglass, and the more he looked, the more he felt a stirring deep in his chest.

They had come a long way. Yet their formation was not the slightest bit ragged — and it was not one regiment but every regiment, all of them marching in impeccable order.

Yao Zhiyuan had no choice but to concede: the Ning army before him was the most strictly disciplined force he had ever seen.

Maintaining formation was not merely a matter of looking impressive on the march. Formation discipline was first a sign of military order, second an indicator of soldier quality, and third a guarantee that in the event of a sudden enemy contact, the army could complete a realignment in the shortest possible time.

When the Ning army halted below the mountain, they began to erect camp shelters and construct wooden palisades.

At this, a faint unease settled over Yao Zhiyuan.

If the Ning army had arrived and done nothing of the sort, it would have meant they were eager to assault the mountain. Eagerness meant underestimating the enemy — which was exactly what Yao Zhiyuan had been hoping for. He had prepared so long, so carefully, to defend this vital chokepoint; he truly wanted the Ning army to charge up recklessly and discover the price of their arrogance.

But they were clearly settling in for a prolonged campaign. At the very least, they had no plans to take Xiushan within three to five days.

The enemy’s composure gave Yao Zhiyuan a bad feeling.

Then he saw it: the Ning army was deploying forces to both flanks, gradually encircling Xiushan.

In an instant, Yao Zhiyuan understood what they intended. They were going to starve Xiushan out — seal it in and let the defenders wither.

This was a small mountain. No matter how well-stocked the food supplies, there was only so much they could hold.

If the Ning army was truly in no hurry — if they were willing to wait through the winter — they could simply bottle them up for an entire season.

Food might last. But what about winter clothing?

The climate in Shu Province meant even winter never got truly cold — at least not like the north — and so Shu Province soldiers on a normal campaign rarely brought heavy winter gear. But “not cold” was a relative thing. Two months frozen on a barren mountain would be miserable beyond reckoning.

Below the mountain, Li Chi swung down from his horse and tilted his head to survey the Yong Province defenses on Xiushan.

The battle banner still flew from the highest point, still wearing the design of the Chu dynasty’s war flag.

While he, Xiahou Zhuo, and Shen Shanhu conferred over plans for the assault, Yu Jiuling spotted a group approaching from another direction. Among them, two pudgy men in Daoist robes. He grinned and went to meet them.

Little Zhang Zhenren and Peng Shiqi had both been assigned to the Military Intelligence Division under the Guiyuan network. They had been sent out earlier to scout enemy positions and were only now returning. When they saw Yu Jiuling, they both broke into smiles.

Peng Shiqi looked Yu Jiuling up and down. “Fully recovered?”

“Fully,” Yu Jiuling said cheerfully. “And the moment I see you, an ancient saying springs to mind — one that fills me with warmth.”

“What saying?”

“A single day without sight of you feels like three long autumns.”

Little Zhang Zhenren took a step back and made an inviting gesture. “Go ahead. Take a swing.”

Peng Shiqi shot him a sideways glance, then looked back at Yu Jiuling. “You know, being a Daoist of some ability, I can divine certain things from what you just said — things that reach into the depths of your character.”

“How so?”

“‘A single day without sight of you’ — that tells me you’re someone who never misses an opportunity. Like a man who visits a pleasure house and ends up with the most hideous courtesan in the establishment, yet by the end manages to convince himself: *well, I’m already here…*”

Yu Jiuling blinked. “You’ve been spying on me?”

Little Zhang Zhenren: “…”

“Little Peng-Peng,” Yu Jiuling said, “how can you read a man’s character so accurately from a single phrase?”

“Because I’m the same way,” Peng Shiqi said.

Yu Jiuling: “…”

“On the subject of shamelessness,” Little Zhang Zhenren said, “Jiuling, you may not have the edge on Little Peng.”

“It’s called candor,” Peng Shiqi said.

“You’re candid as a pair of exposed buttocks,” Little Zhang Zhenren shot back.

The three of them went back and forth in cheerful nonsense while, a few steps away, Li Chi and the others conducted a very serious, very sober discussion of their plans for the mountain assault.

The contrast was striking. Put side by side, those three really did seem like they needed medicine.

—

“Where were you two before this?” Yu Jiuling asked.

“All over,” Little Zhang Zhenren said. “We passed ourselves off as wandering Daoists, moved through mountain villages—”

“And then,” Peng Shiqi said, “we discovered a monumental secret.”

“Whose secret?”

“See? You’re still the most shameless.”

“What? I thought you said *nearby* — were you uncovering secrets about Little Zhang Zhenren?”

Peng Shiqi burst out laughing and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Walking through all those villages, seeing so much — we noticed that the girls in Shu Province are remarkably pretty.”

Yu Jiuling sighed. “It’s no mystery why your sect has fallen on hard times.”

Little Zhang Zhenren said stiffly, “That is utterly wrong. Their sect’s decline has its reasons. Mine is doing perfectly fine — the blame for anything amiss with us lies with my Shifu. Hmph. *Our* sect is flourishing.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the group —

Li Chi nodded, accepting the joint proposal from Shen Shanhu and Xiahou Zhuo.

Both of them were in agreement: to fight well at Xiushan, the Ning army could not appear eager. On terrain like this, the first thing to break wasn’t the enemy’s fortifications — it was the enemy’s state of mind.

Let the Shu Province soldiers, top to bottom, become convinced that the Ning army intended to besiege and wait rather than assault.

The human heart would do the rest. It wouldn’t take long. Five or six days of encirclement without a single attack, and the garrison would start to doubt. Once doubt took root, there was no containing it. Once every soldier was in the grip of it, morale would crumble.

Just now, Li Chi had asked Shen Shanhu and Xiahou Zhuo each to think of one approach, and write it on their palm.

Both hands opened at once. In Shen Shanhu’s palm was the character *引* — *entice.* In Xiahou Zhuo’s palm was the character *诱* — *lure.*

Shen Shanhu: “The garrison’s mental state is the crux of this battle. Surround them for ten days first, then send men below the mountain to offer terms — generous terms.”

Xiahou Zhuo: “Under the temptation of generous terms, some soldiers may sneak down from the mountain. Even if only one comes the first time, we’ve already won.”

Li Chi looked to Xiahou Zhuo. “Deploy men and set up the trebuchets. Surround them for ten days and bombard them for ten days. We want to break their spirit — and to do that, we hit from every direction at once.”

General Gao Zhen spoke up from nearby: “My lord, shall we send the Wolf Ape Battalion on a night raid to test them?”

Li Chi shook his head. “The Wolf Ape Battalion isn’t meant for a place like this. Without tree cover, even their speed would cost them dearly. Besides — sending them in as the very first move would give the enemy too much face.”

Once the orders were given, the Ning army moved according to plan.

On the first day, they completed the encirclement of Xiushan, then raised their camp and built fortifications — surrounding the mountain while guarding against relief forces from Shu Province.

On the second day, they assembled their trebuchets in a ring around the mountain.

From the third day onward, they continued reinforcing their camp while beginning to hurl boulders at Xiushan.

In Shu Province, there was never any shortage of stones for the task.

On a rise below the mountain, Yu Jiuling sat on a boulder watching Xiushan, swinging his legs with an air of leisurely ease.

“Do you think it’ll frighten them?” he asked Peng Shiqi and Little Zhang Zhenren.

Little Zhang Zhenren said, “Even without the stones. Even without the encirclement. The moment a man knows war is coming for him — the fear has already begun.”

These words stopped Yu Jiuling. He let out a slow breath. “That’s exactly why I could never be a Daoist.”

“Why?”

“I don’t have a heart full of sorrow for the world,” Yu Jiuling said. “I just think: hit the enemy, never mind whether they’re afraid — if they’re afraid, hit them anyway; if they’re not afraid, hit them harder until they are.”

Little Zhang Zhenren fell quiet for a moment. “You know, I sometimes think — when Longhu Mountain was first being established, we weren’t the only sect fighting for it. So why is it that we’re the ones who came to sit at Longhu Mountain? Why is it our Sect Leader who holds the title of Longhu Mountain Zhenren?”

He exhaled. “I imagine it’s because our founding ancestors… probably did exactly what you just said.”

Yu Jiuling burst out laughing.

“Of course, that was a joke,” Little Zhang Zhenren added quickly. “We Daoists have always prevailed through virtue and reason.”

“I can tell from your Shifu,” Yu Jiuling said.

“There you are — you’ve developed a keen eye. That’s basically a Daoist quality.”

“The rate of disciples disgracing their masters at Longhu Mountain,” Peng Shiqi remarked, “has gotten rather alarming, hasn’t it?”

“You wrestled your own master to the ground,” Little Zhang Zhenren shot back. “Don’t talk to me about disgracing anyone.”

“That’s a cultural difference between our sects,” Peng Shiqi said earnestly. “At Longhu Mountain, if a Shifu doesn’t like his disciple, he glares and scolds. In our sect, if a Shifu doesn’t like his disciple, they wrestle. The disciple who loses gets tossed around until he can barely see straight.”

“And what happens,” Yu Jiuling asked with genuine curiosity, “when the disciple grows strong enough that the Shifu can’t beat him anymore?”

“How do you think I left the mountain?”

Little Zhang Zhenren said, “I assumed it was because you ate too much.”

Peng Shiqi reflected with a hint of self-reproach. “I often think — if I’d only been the kind who ate a lot but stayed obedient, I probably never would have gone out into the world…”

He suddenly turned serious. “The three of us are sitting here chattering away. Shouldn’t we think about what we can actually do?”

“That would depend on what each of us is good at,” Yu Jiuling said.

“If you’re putting it that way,” Peng Shiqi replied, “then that rules you right out. It’s down to us two.”

“If you were my Shifu,” Yu Jiuling said, “I’d wrestle you myself.”

But Little Zhang Zhenren had already fallen into genuine thought. Two Daoists and one fast operative — what could they do to tip the scales of what looked to be a grinding siege?

He looked at Peng Shiqi. “What do you think you could do?”

“What can two like us do?” Peng Shiqi said. “Set up an altar and call down divine judgment?”

Little Zhang Zhenren froze. Then seemed to think very hard about that.

—