The crimson blush of the morning sky faded as the mist cleared, and the heavens opened into clear, brilliant blue.

Mountains layered upon mountains, lush and vivid. A dirt road stretched toward the vast horizon, winding across the earth like a serpent.

The four — Shen Zhuxi and her companions — traveled light as they left Shouan City, heading in the direction of Xuzhou.

Li Que, seated outside the carriage, cracked the whip and called out, “Big Brother, we’ve just passed the boundary marker for Shouan — in about one more incense stick’s time, we’ll be joining the main road.”

Before Li Wu in the carriage could respond, the merchant surnamed Jiang set down his tea and waved his hands emphatically. “We’re not taking the main road!”

“Why not?” Li Wu asked.

Shen Zhuxi looked at him in equal puzzlement.

The main road was wide, the surface even, and far less likely to harbor bandits — under normal circumstances, taking it would always be the preferred choice. So why did this merchant surnamed Jiang refuse?

“Haven’t you been to Shouan before? Why on earth would you take the main road?” The merchant surnamed Jiang tugged at the collar of his fine robe, letting his impatience show. “The main road adds a great deal of distance. The back roads cut travel time in half, and I know this area very well — let me guide you on a shortcut.”

“The back roads might have bandits,” Li Wu said.

“I’ve traveled them many times and never once encountered any! Besides, it’s barely dawn — what bandit is diligent enough to be at their post this early? And for that matter——” The merchant’s tone turned disdainful. “——the main road has become a prime hunting ground for deserters turned outlaws. When you come right down to it, the back road is actually the safer of the two!”

Shen Zhuxi still had her doubts, but Li Wu had already nodded.

“You’re the one we’re escorting, so you say which road and we’ll take it.”

“Good, I’ll point the way.” The merchant said cheerfully. “When you reach the main road junction, watch for the small path to the west — take that one. It leads straight to Xuzhou, cutting our travel time roughly in half compared to the main road.”

“Understood.” Li Wu said lazily. “Que’er, did you catch what Brother Jiang said?”

“Heard it — the small path west of the main road junction.” Li Que answered from outside the carriage door.

“Is Brother Jiang satisfied?” Li Wu stacked two cushions together, lay back in a half-reclined position, and let his gaze settle idly on the merchant across from him.

“There’s nothing to be satisfied or dissatisfied about — this arrangement benefits us all,” the merchant smiled. “Am I not also trying to save us time?”

Li Wu gave an equivocal smile. “Brother Jiang — you mentioned you made a profit trading grain. Could you walk me through how that business works? To be honest, I’ve been looking for a proper livelihood for some time. Being a poet is all well and good, but it doesn’t put food on the table.”

“The grain trade isn’t so different from any other business — it all comes down to buying low and selling high. The most important thing is having access to low prices in the first place.”

“Then Brother Jiang must have his own reliable low-cost suppliers?” Li Wu asked.

“Not exactly suppliers, as such… It’s just that I’ve lived in Changzhou for many years and happen to know the owner of a Changzhou grain house fairly well.” The merchant said modestly.

“We passed through Changzhou on our way here. Had I known Brother Jiang earlier, I might have caught a profitable ride along with you. When we left Changzhou, the prefect was hosting a wedding banquet for his youngest daughter — apparently every grain house owner in the city had been invited. Did you happen to hear about that?”

Shen Zhuxi started, and glanced over at the merchant. The self-satisfied gleam in his eyes faded. His gaze drifted vaguely to the middle distance.

“That I wouldn’t know — I must have already left Changzhou by then.”

He was lying. Shen Zhuxi felt a sudden jolt of alarm.

Li Wu, in the course of buying grain, had dealt not only with merchants in Huzhou but had conducted substantial business with grain houses in Changzhou and Suzhou as well. Commerce meant dealings with the authorities, and in that process, Shen Zhuxi had learned a good deal about the three prefectures’ official affairs.

She was absolutely certain that the Changzhou prefect had no recently-married youngest daughter — because the Changzhou prefect had not even reached the age of thirty!

So why had this merchant surnamed Jiang lied?

And once that realization set in, everything about his behavior on this journey began to look far more suspicious. He had refused the perfectly good main road — why was he so determined to take the back path?

Could it be…

In a flash, a thought tore through Shen Zhuxi’s mind: Could the person who had caught a glimpse of Li Kun dropping the banknotes last night — had that been him?!

She looked urgently to Li Wu, hoping to know if he had reached the same conclusion. Li Wu’s expression was utterly calm, as though entirely unaware — yet Shen Zhuxi knew perfectly well that if he had truly been unaware, he would never have gone to the trouble of laying that trap for him.

But having seen through the man’s scheme, why did Li Wu say nothing?

Did they truly intend to take the back road this merchant was leading them toward?

“Some stray cat was yowling outside my window all night and I didn’t sleep a wink,” Li Wu complained, as he slid the window shut behind him. “Brother Jiang, could you close your window too — I’d like to shut my eyes and catch up on some sleep.”

“Of course.” The merchant closed the window at his back. “These wild cats are a nuisance in early spring. Brother Jia, rest easy — I’ll take a short nap myself.”

The merchant leaned back against the carriage wall and closed his eyes.

That Li Wu dared shut his own eyes in front of this man of unknown intent was more than Shen Zhuxi could manage. She held herself taut, sat perfectly upright, and listened with both ears to every sound from outside. The slightest shift from the merchant, and her gaze would snap back to him immediately.

She didn’t know how much time had passed. The tea they had brought for the road had gone cold in its pot. Shen Zhuxi poured a cup but had no heart for it and was about to set it back — when the merchant shifted again. This was the fourth time he had stirred in the span of a single cup of tea.

At last he could hold himself back no longer and pushed open the window at his back.

“What is this place?!” The merchant’s expression turned to alarm.

Shen Zhuxi met his eyes and had no answer for him. She glanced at the desolate view out the window and said, “Wasn’t it you who wanted to take the back road?”

“This is not the back road I told you to take!” The merchant’s voice rose in anger, the ease entirely gone from his face.

“Brother Jiang, there’s no need to rush.” Li Wu suddenly spoke.

He sat up, reached over, and took the teacup from Shen Zhuxi’s hand, tipping it back in one go as though it were wine.

“If you frighten my wife, don’t blame me for tearing your head off and hanging it as a lantern.”

“Brother Jia, what is the meaning of this?” The merchant’s expression darkened. “We agreed you would escort me to Xuzhou and I would arrange a guarantee for you to enter the city — why are you going back on our deal?”

“How have I gone back on anything?” Li Wu said pleasantly. “You wanted a back road. Is this not a back road?”

“This is not the back road I described!” The merchant’s face reddened with fury. “The road I meant was the one going——”

“Going through a back road where outlaws lay in ambush.”

Li Wu’s unhurried voice caught the merchant like a hand around his throat — suddenly, soundlessly. The color drained from his face, shifting from red to white.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the merchant said, holding his ground.

“Finishing breakfast and packing luggage shouldn’t take an hour. The reason it did was that you left the inn partway through, tracked down a group of miscreants, and talked them into joining forces with you, correct?”

The carriage gradually slowed. The wheels stopped turning.

The door was pulled open from outside. Li Que stood there, smiling pleasantly at the merchant’s ashen face. “Brother Jiang, after you.”

“…After me where?”

Li Wu kicked him squarely. His expression was cold. “If you can’t understand plain speech, then get off the carriage.”

The merchant climbed out of the carriage, his legs unsteady. Li Wu turned back to Shen Zhuxi. “Don’t worry — I am a reasonable man. I won’t take his life.”

Li Wu jumped down, remembering to close the carriage door carefully behind him.

“If you’re so reasonable, then what’s the door for?” Shen Zhuxi asked from inside.

Li Kun’s fist buried itself in the merchant’s stomach. Li Que, quick and practiced, clamped a hand over the mouth from which a scream tried to escape. Li Wu pinned down the man’s body as it curled like a shrimp in a wok, and with businesslike efficiency began searching him.

“He’s a grown man, after all,” Li Wu said without blinking. “Being disciplined in front of a stranger — where’s the dignity in that?”

“…How very considerate of you,” Shen Zhuxi said.

“Can I afford not to be considerate, given whose husband I am?” Li Wu said, and with that, drew from the inner sleeve lining of the merchant’s right robe the banknotes he had concealed there.

He counted what he had found: three notes of five hundred taels each, and one of one thousand taels.

“Brother Jiang, your business isn’t going very well — you haven’t even made as much as I have,” Li Wu said.

The merchant opened his mouth to speak, but Li Kun gave him another punch, and Li Que’s hand clamped down over his mouth once more with practiced ease.

“Business is hard these days — no one knows that better than I do. What drove you to this, I imagine, was not entirely your own choosing,” Li Wu said. “If you give me a genuine and heartfelt apology, I’m not beyond the reach of forgiveness…”

Li Que released the merchant’s mouth. The man said, barely breathing, “You country——”

The word ‘thug’ died before it could be spoken. A blow landed on his back. Li Que caught his near-collapsing body and once again smothered the pained cry that followed.

“So it turns out you have an elderly mother of seventy at home, and a newborn child not yet one month old, and you were driven to this out of sheer necessity to feed your family…” Li Wu crouched down, pinned the merchant’s frantically struggling legs, and pulled off both his boots. “That’s truly moving…”

He retrieved the banknotes hidden under the insoles, stood up, and casually tucked them into Li Kun’s collar.

“Since you planned to lure us onto the back road and work together with those vagrants to rob us, I take it the Xuzhou relative you mentioned was also a fabrication?” Li Wu pressed a dagger flat against the merchant’s cheek.

“It’s real! Completely real!” Feeling the cold blade slide from his cheek to his neck, the merchant’s face went white and he cried out frantically.

“If you truly know your wrongs and mean to correct them, I’ll spare your life — if not——”

“I know my wrongs — I’ll get you into the city!” The merchant scrambled to shrink his neck as far into his shoulders as possible.

Li Wu withdrew the dagger and gave Li Que a look. Li Que moved in with practiced hands, running them over the merchant from head to toe — only once he was confirmed to have nothing dangerous on his person was the merchant granted a temporary reprieve.

“You had better mean what you say — otherwise——” Li Wu said.

The merchant nodded rapidly, his forehead covered in cold sweat.

“Get back in the carriage,” Li Wu said, gesturing with his chin.

The merchant climbed into the carriage and threw a glance back at the three brothers behind him. Then, with the speed of a thunderbolt, he plunged his hand into his crotch and yanked out a dagger just over three inches long, driving it straight into the yellow horse’s hindquarters!

The horse screamed in pain. It threw back its hooves and bolted into a full gallop. The carriage lurched and swayed violently, and from inside came Shen Zhuxi’s startled cry amid a clatter of rolling and crashing objects.

Li Wu’s expression shifted completely. Without a second thought, he broke into a sprint after the carriage.

“Big Brother!” Li Que called after him.

Li Wu didn’t look back.

This was bad — how could two legs outrun four?

Li Que’s face hardened. He raised his hand and slapped himself square across the cheek.

How had he managed to miss the crotch?!