At the border pass, the north wind howled.

Master Ye stood atop the city wall, staring in silence at the wasteland to the north for a long, long time. No one dared disturb him. Everyone knew how heavily the guilt and grief weighed on him.

Yet to say he had committed some grave and obvious error seemed impossible.

Master Ye had failed to stop the border garrison commander Dou Weicheng — but that was because Dou Weicheng was the commanding officer of this pass. The several thousand border soldiers within this fortress took their orders from him. Although Master Ye, as the Deputy Chief *Tingwei* of the Tingwei Bureau, outranked Dou Weicheng in official standing, the Tingwei Bureau had no authority to intervene in military orders without special authorization.

Was it Dou Weicheng’s grave error? That seemed equally difficult to say. As the border garrison commander, staying on strict defense and not sallying out would have been perfectly safe. Yet he was a soldier — and soldiers fought to win. If there had been a chance to burn the Black Wu’s supplies and provisions in one stroke, that would have given the Ning army every advantage before the battle had even begun. A general was supposed to make judgments and act on them.

“Sir.”

Yu Hongyi saw Master Ye descend from the city wall and hurried to him.

Master Ye walked and spoke at once. “I stood up there thinking for a long time, and I kept swinging back and forth between impulse and reason.”

He paused mid-step.

“The border soldiers in this city have suffered heavy losses — seven or eight in ten are dead. So our Black Cavalry must take on the burden of holding the pass.”

Master Ye looked at his subordinates. “All *qianban* — draw up a rotation schedule. Of our twenty-four hundred Black Cavalry, at least two thousand must be on garrison duty at all times.”

“But we cannot abandon the mission His Majesty entrusted to us either. So the rest — taking four hundred Black Cavalry and the *Nalan* tribal riders — will split into small units and go out.”

Master Ye said gravely, “The first priority is to map out all the terrain in the Northern Wasteland as quickly as possible. Units going out must return with completed maps.”

He slowly exhaled. “In my heart, revenge comes first. But reason tells me that mapping the terrain is first, clearing other small bandit factions is second, and finding opportunities for revenge is third.”

“Yes, sir!”

Everyone answered in unison.

By lot, twelve *qianban* would rotate through duty inside the city — no fewer than six on station at any given time. The other six were to take their units out of the pass and map the Northern Wasteland terrain with all speed.

Yu Hongyi drew a slot that placed her on duty in a few days, so she selected twenty subordinates and prepared to leave the pass to scout the terrain.

Master Ye was waiting for her at the city gate. When Yu Hongyi saw him, she went to him at once and asked if there was anything to instruct.

“How is Xie Wanzhou?”

Master Ye asked.

Hearing that this was what Master Ye wanted to ask, Yu Hongyi could not help but shake her head. “Not well. His wounds are serious enough — but that’s not the most worrying part. He is racked with guilt.”

Master Ye nodded. “I’ll go speak with him in a while. The reason I’m waiting for you here is that I was afraid you might act impulsively. Xie Wanzhou is one of your people — I worried you might go looking for Han Sanzhou’s trouble.”

Yu Hongyi said, “You can set your mind at ease, sir. I know what matters.”

Master Ye gave a few more instructions before letting Yu Hongyi go.

After that, Master Ye made a circuit of everything inside the city — provisions, troop deployments, and all the rest.

He was now the acting commander of the pass, which meant there was far more to consider.

When everything had been tended to, Master Ye went to the physician’s quarters to see Xie Wanzhou. By then it was nearly noon.

The moment he saw Xie Wanzhou, Master Ye’s heart tightened. This young man looked as though his spirit had already departed. What lay there was nothing but a shell.

“Sir!”

When Xie Wanzhou saw Master Ye arrive, he tried to sit up in salute. Master Ye pressed him back down.

“Lie still.”

Master Ye drew up a chair and sat. “I know what you’re carrying. I’m carrying it too — because I had a chance to stop what happened, and I didn’t.”

Xie Wanzhou said, “Sir, the Chief *Tingwei* has issued standing orders that the Bureau is not to interfere in military affairs. You did nothing wrong.”

Master Ye said, “Perhaps. But what if I had simply refused to allow it?”

Xie Wanzhou went still.

Given Master Ye’s standing and authority, if he had flatly refused to allow Dou Weicheng to lead troops out, Dou Weicheng would likely not have pressed the issue to the point of open conflict with him.

Seeing that Xie Wanzhou had fallen silent, Master Ye continued: “So if we are assigning fault, the greatest fault rests with me. You did nothing more than bring back the intelligence you were supposed to bring back.”

Xie Wanzhou said: “But because of me, thousands of soldier-brothers died…”

Master Ye said, “If I were in your position, I would rest properly, recover, heal completely — because if I were you, I would also feel that those thousands of soldier-brothers had died because of me. And so I would want to avenge them.”

Hearing these words, Xie Wanzhou lifted his head and looked at Master Ye. A faint light had returned to his eyes.

“If you waste away in grief like this, the living will think what a pity it is, and the dead will think you are even more pitiable than they are.”

Master Ye gave Xie Wanzhou a light pat on the shoulder. “Recover quickly. Get well quickly. Go cut off your enemy’s head, and bring that head to burn incense before your fallen brothers.”

Xie Wanzhou gave a firm, heavy nod. “I understand, sir.”

—

Just over an hour later, outside the city.

In a grove of trees, Yu Hongyi instructed her men to bury the bodies properly.

When their column had reached this spot, a gang of bandits had blocked their path, pouring out from the trees — a hundred or more, howling as they came, putting on quite a show of menace. Apparently they had seen a force of twenty-odd riders and concluded the odds were comfortably in their favor.

When the fighting actually started, they regretted it deeply. But regret was useless, because they were not even given a chance to flee.

The twenty-odd people Yu Hongyi had brought were Tingwei Bureau elites — and the Tingwei Bureau itself was composed of fighters hand-picked from every army. The elites among elites. Twenty-odd of them failing to handle a hundred bandits would have been the real embarrassment.

Yu Hongyi ordered five or six kept alive. These bandits knew the terrain of the Northern Wasteland intimately, so having a few live prisoners was useful.

“You’ll regret this. The day will come when you’re on your knees begging in front of me,” said the man who appeared to be the bandit leader — a middle-aged man, kneeling there, still looking rather unsubdued.

Yu Hongyi glanced at him, then gave a small wave. “Quiet him down for a moment.”

So her subordinate reached for one of the Tingwei Bureau’s three standard-issue implements — the bamboo ruler.

The Tingwei Bureau’s three standard implements: first, the *feisuo*, the grappling hook — which was in fact a length of chain, though not a thick one. Nonetheless, it was forged to exceptional toughness. Its uses were broad: capturing and binding, wielding in combat, or aiding in movement, wrapped around something to help get out of tight spots.

Second, the iron awl — usable up close as a short sword, or thrown as a javelin. The tip was a three-edged blade, somewhat brutal. And coated in a faint film of oil from the saber scabbard — which was fine for killing, but inconvenient for cutting vegetables or fruit.

The third implement — the bamboo ruler, which looked completely ordinary — had earned its place as one of the three implements precisely because of its versatility.

During an investigation, the ruler’s gradations could measure lengths and dimensions. Out in the field without chopsticks, the ruler could be used as a spoon.

Its other use was the one the *Tingwei* was about to put into practice right now — striking the face.

The ruler was made using a special process that made it exceptionally resilient. It could split skin and draw blood without the ruler itself breaking.

Most importantly: each bamboo ruler had its user’s name branded on it.

Should something happen in the field and a *Tingwei* died without leaving an intact body — or with a face made unrecognizable — finding the ruler meant knowing who had died. And if there was no way to bring a fallen comrade’s body back, the ruler, buried with them on the spot, became their grave marker.

There was a saying in the Tingwei Bureau: *the ruler has eight uses — seven applied to others, one reserved for oneself.*

By the time the bandit leader had been slapped across the face seven or eight times with the ruler, his lips were oozing blood. And yet he was still cursing.

“You’re all dead men. Do you know who I am? I’m one of Han Sanzhou’s people…”

“Wait.”

Yu Hongyi walked over and looked down at the kneeling bandit.

“You’re actually one of Han Sanzhou’s people?”

The man was still dribbling blood from his mouth, but he slurred out: “Afraid now, are you?”

Yu Hongyi pointed at the man’s two ears. The *Tingwei* who had been handling him moved forward immediately.

The bamboo ruler had two sides — one blunt, one slightly edged. Among the ruler’s eight uses, one of them was wilderness survival: it could be used as a makeshift chopper.

The *Tingwei* stepped forward, grabbed the bandit leader by one ear, and brought the ruler down sharply.

A soft, wet sound. One ear came off. The next breath, amid the man’s screaming, the other ear came off as well.

“What is your connection to Han Sanzhou?”

Yu Hongyi asked.

The man was screaming and wailing, blood still seeping from his mouth, making him look particularly wretched.

Yu Hongyi frowned faintly, raised a finger, and pointed at the man’s nose.

This time the *Tingwei* did not reach for the ruler. He cleaned it and put it away, drawing a dagger instead.

The bandit leader was genuinely terrified now, kowtowing and begging for his life without stop.

“Answer me.”

Yu Hongyi looked at him.

The man rushed to explain: “We… we’re not actually Han Sanzhou’s people. No connection to him at all — not even a little bit!”

Yu Hongyi’s frown deepened. She raised her hand and made a small gesture.

*Thud.* The dagger drove into the bandit leader’s throat. As it was pulled free, blood sprayed in a fine arc.

Yu Hongyi didn’t spare the man a second glance. She turned and walked to the next bandit.

“You. Talk.”

This bandit was visibly trembling all over — an uncontrollable full-body shudder, rapid and incessant. It couldn’t be stopped. When he tried to speak, his teeth were chattering so hard that the clacking seemed louder than the words themselves.

Yu Hongyi’s frown deepened again. She raised her hand — had not yet made the gesture — and the man was already frantically *kowtowing*.

“We… we really aren’t Han Sanzhou’s people. We just have to do what he tells us. When there’s a big operation, he sends someone to come get us to go with them.”

Yu Hongyi asked, “Anything else?”

The man answered in a trembling voice: “Also — also on the twenty-eighth of every month, he sends people to collect tribute from us. Whatever we earn in a month — he takes half.”

Yu Hongyi thought about it without meaning to. Tomorrow was the twenty-eighth.

She asked, “How many men does he typically send to collect the tribute?”

“Not many. Some months ten or more, some months three or five. Doesn’t matter how many — we don’t dare cause trouble either way.”

“How far is your camp from here?”

“About… about sixty *li* or so. It’s because those people are coming tomorrow to collect tribute again, and this month we’ve had almost no earnings at all, so the boss brought us out to try our luck…”

Yu Hongyi thought for a moment, then looked at one of her men: “Take a few people and bring two of the prisoners back to see Master Ye. Tell Master Ye I’m going to that camp to wait for whoever Han Sanzhou sends — ask the sir to send reinforcements.”

Her subordinate answered immediately and rode back toward the border pass with two prisoners in tow.

Yu Hongyi looked at the man who had just talked: “Get up and lead the way. If you don’t try anything funny and do what you’re told, I won’t kill you.”

The man had been so frightened he’d wet himself. As he shakily got to his feet, everyone noticed — his trousers were soaked, still dripping. Given the bitter cold of the Northern Wasteland and the thick quilted cotton trousers these bandits wore, the sheer volume of what had apparently come through was considerable enough to soak clean through and still be dripping.

When you thought about what awaited him next — riding sixty *li* in the Northern Wasteland wind — it was safe to say the journey would be a uniquely bracing experience.

Yu Hongyi brought her people and, guided by the prisoner, rode the sixty-odd *li* to the bandit hideout.

The place was an abandoned village. Judging by how decrepit the buildings were, it had been uninhabited for at least several decades. Only the few courtyards the bandits actually occupied looked reasonable; the rest were mostly collapsed and crumbling.

Yu Hongyi dispatched people to stand watch, then walked around the few occupied courtyards herself.

It had to be said — these bandits were not doing well for themselves. She made a full circuit without finding anything worth her interest.

“We wait here, then.”

Yu Hongyi looked at her men. “Go get ready.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Her people gave a collective sound of acknowledgment and dispersed to prepare.

—