One word: ram.

The phoenixcypress war vessel slammed hard into the merchant ship. The merchant vessel’s stern shattered outright. Countless people fell into the water.

Li Chi vaulted from the war vessel and landed on the merchant ship — no hesitation, plunging straight into the midst of the Azure Cord Army soldiers.

These Azure Cord Army fighters were genuinely formidable. In truth and fairness, ordinary Prince Ning infantry were not their match.

But it was not only Li Chi who had come. It was Li Chi along with his personal guard company.

One punch — the skull of the Azure Cord Army soldier who came at him caved inward — and Li Chi led the charge into the mass of men.

With him as the spearhead, the personal guard company was unstoppable.

The fighting on the deck was fierce. But fiercer still was what happened in the water.

The vessel’s hull had split open, and this merchant ship was sinking fast.

The hold was full of people — not only those ship workers, but many Azure Cord Army soldiers who had not made it out in time.

After the tremendous collision, the ship workers who were thrown down scrambled back up. Seeing the great crack that had split the hull open, they rushed in all directions — some climbing toward the deck, others diving out through the porthole windows. Every one of them was a seasoned river worker. They all knew that the break in the flooding hull was not a way out.

But Wang Bin and that young ship worker — four limbs broken between them — lay in the corner. They could not move.

“Scared?”

Wang Bin asked.

The young man, at this moment, was genuinely at ease. He shook his head: “It’s come this far — what is there left to be afraid of? A man like me who has made his living on the water all his life — dying in the water is like going home.”

Wang Bin made a sound of acknowledgment, looked at the water rising around them, and smiled as well: “You know what I think? Maybe it was fate. Somehow I just ended up as the lead deckhand of this vessel. And now I’ll just as somehow go down with it.”

The young man smiled: “Honestly, I never much liked you. I always thought you were putting on airs.”

Wang Bin said: “If you were the lead deckhand, you’d put on airs too.”

The young man burst out laughing.

The water had reached them now. They were soon submerged.

“I’ll go first.”

The young man said with a smile: “If you go before me, you might frighten me. The old-timers say — a drowned man looks quite terrible.”

Wang Bin nodded: “All right then. I’ll go first.”

The two of them looked at each other and smiled.

Up on the deck, Li Chi and his company could no longer push forward. The bow of the vessel was nearly standing upright. They could not keep their footing.

Li Chi saw a ship worker about to jump into the water and called out to him: “Where is Wang Bin?!”

The ship worker looked as though it had only just occurred to him — and his expression became even worse. “He… he’s still in the hold. They broke his hands and feet. He can’t move.”

Li Chi’s heart jolted.

He had not imagined Wang Bin’s limbs would be broken. The vessel was sinking this fast — most of the ship workers, all strong swimmers, had already gotten themselves free. But a man who could not move could only drown in the hold.

Li Chi drew a deep breath. He spun around, dove from the vessel into the water, glanced to find where the breach was, and swam toward it.

The vessel was still going down. After Li Chi swam inside, he could see nothing — it was pitch black all around.

The space below the deck ceiling had not yet been fully taken by water. Li Chi surfaced, drew a deep breath, and dove again.

He swam one pass through the hold, caught sight of an Azure Cord Army soldier’s body floating in the water, reached out and turned it to look at the face — not him. He swam to the next body, checked it at close range. The light was far too dim; he could only see clearly when very close.

His air was running out. Li Chi made his way to a broken porthole window and swam out, then shot upward to the surface. The moment he broke through, he gasped in great lungfuls of air.

He had not found Wang Bin. But what he saw, not far away, was a person clinging to a plank of drifting wood, eyes blazing with fury as they looked at him.

Li Chi swam toward this man. He did not know him, but instinct told him: this was the Azure Cord Army’s commander.

He had not found Wang Bin. So let this man pay with his life in the water instead.

The Azure Cord Army soldiers were poor swimmers — one could say almost none of them knew how to swim at all. They were heavy infantry. In their past lives, water had had no bearing on them whatsoever.

But Guo Wei could swim reasonably well. He was from Shuzhou, born and raised beside a great river.

Seeing someone swimming toward him, Guo Wei had the same thought: eliminate the one coming at him.

Li Chi closed the distance. Guo Wei took a deep breath and dove under, wrapping both arms around Li Chi’s waist and pulling him downward.

Anyone else in this situation would have felt a rush of panic — as people pulled into the water always do.

But not Li Chi. As he was dragged under, he did not struggle free or pry at Guo Wei’s arms.

He dug his fingers into Guo Wei’s eyes.

Guo Wei’s eyes screamed with pain. He could not hold on. He released Li Chi and shoved him away.

Using the force of that shove to create distance between them, Guo Wei tried to reorient — but before he could, Li Chi was already closing in again.

Guo Wei pulled his legs together and then kicked outward, trying to push Li Chi away.

Li Chi seemed to have anticipated this move. He shifted aside in time, then grabbed Guo Wei by the ankle and yanked him closer.

In the water, resistance was useless. Guo Wei was hauled in. Li Chi closed both hands around his throat.

Caught in a grip like two iron clamps, Guo Wei thrashed violently — but in the water his efforts felt helpless.

Guo Wei was a strong swimmer. But when it came to surviving, what skill did Li Chi not possess?

After a time, Guo Wei could no longer hold on. His mouth opened — and the moment it did, water poured in.

Li Chi released Guo Wei’s throat. One hand gripped his jaw, the other locked onto his upper teeth. Guo Wei instinctively tried to close his mouth. Li Chi forced it open with both hands. The water kept flowing in.

Before long, this Azure Cord Army general — whom Yang Xuanji had called a true match for ten thousand men — drowned in the water.

Li Chi pulled the corpse upward. Breaking the surface, he shook the water from his hair with a hard toss of his head.

He saw the soldiers on the war vessel reaching out with grappling hooks. Li Chi grabbed hold of one hook with one hand, gripped the corpse with the other, and let the soldiers pull him back.

Li Chi had killed Guo Wei. And yet his heart felt no relief.

The soldiers on the vessel lowered a rope ladder. Li Chi took hold of the ladder and looked around him — the surface of the water was scattered with shattered planks, and with an uncountable number of floating bodies.

He swept his gaze across the water. He did not see the person he was looking for.

Li Chi breathed deeply in, preparing to climb back aboard — but then, in that moment, he saw something in the distance. A group of people was swimming toward them, stroking hard.

The ship workers had come back.

The ones in the lead were swimming with one arm, because each of their other arms was wrapped around someone — someone floating on their back on the water’s surface.

They had done it again and again — diving under and surfacing, diving under and surfacing — until they pulled those two people free.

How could they ever give up? Those were their comrades. That was their lead deckhand. That was their hope.

They had shouted it themselves, hadn’t they — it was me, it was me, all of us — a bond built on that. Was that bond light?

Aboard the great vessel.

Li Chi crouched beside Wang Bin. Wang Bin’s face was full of shame. “My Lord… I — I know I was wrong.”

Li Chi patted him on the shoulder. “Go home first. Get your injuries treated.”

Wang Bin asked: “What about Magistrate Xie?”

“I’m here.”

Xie Huainan came over quickly and crouched beside Wang Bin too: “Thank you. You saved my life.”

Wang Bin actually felt embarrassed and did not know what to say.

Several days later, back in Youzhou City.

In the Tingwei Office courtyard, hundreds of people were bound and kneeling — just like those hundreds who had been cut down here before, kneeling in the same place.

Li Chi sat in his chair and said nothing. Cao Lie sat beside him and said nothing.

After a long silence, Li Chi slowly let out a breath.

“It is not that I did not give you chances. I gave them. You yourselves wasted them. You always say I dislike using those who once served in the Dachu government. I do dislike it — because the stench of rot on you is something I can smell from the moment I get near you.”

“And yet I also understand: as long as a man’s crimes do not warrant death, he deserves one chance to reform. But you have continued to believe that when the Dachu banners on the city walls were replaced with Prince Ning’s banners, it had nothing to do with you. You continued to take bribes as you always had. You continued to neglect your duties as you always had. Every person I see before me now has had their crimes verified by the Tingwei Office. Not only have you brought death upon yourselves, you have brought ruin on those old-official colleagues of yours who were of the same origin. They will have no chances in the future — not because I won’t give them, but because you destroyed those chances for them.”

Deputy Chief Tingwei Zhang Tang stepped forward and bowed: “Simply cutting them down here seems to lack sufficient force as a warning, Your Highness. This subject wishes to have them taken to the dock for execution.”

Li Chi waved his hand.

Zhang Tang issued the order at once. The hundreds of men kneeling there were hauled to their feet by Tingwei soldiers and marched out the gate.

Cao Lie said nothing. After a long silence, he rose as if to leave.

Li Chi, seeing him move, said: “None of this has anything to do with you. What face are you pulling.”

Cao Lie stopped. Then he turned back, broke into a grin, and sat down again. “None of this has anything to do with me. Why didn’t you say so sooner.”

Li Chi gave him a sidelong look.

Cao Lie settled back into his seat. He held it in for a good while, but could not squeeze out whatever he had been about to say.

Li Chi said: “The man wasn’t recommended by you — he was recommended by someone who answers to you. That won’t do. Looks like you’ll have to swap everyone out.”

Cao Lie said: “You’ve had them all cut down. Of course you’ll need to swap them out.”

Li Chi said: “The dock trade — the biggest operation there still belongs to your family. So this time I have two people I’d like to recommend to you.”

Cao Lie asked: “Who?”

Li Chi turned and beckoned toward the outer room. Four Tingwei soldiers came in carrying two stretchers.

Li Chi pointed to the person on the first stretcher: “His name is Wang Bin. He knows the dock’s affairs reasonably well — though he’s only been at it for two months. But as for how those scoundrels used to operate, he knows it inside and out.”

Wang Bin, hearing these words, turned his head away in embarrassment.

Li Chi said: “This man will be the dock’s new registrar. His former rank was junior sixth-grade captain. Consider this a promotion.”

Cao Lie smiled: “It seems the new registrar will need some time before he can formally take over dock affairs.”

Li Chi pointed to the young man on the other stretcher: “Remember him. His name is Gao Fulai. He’ll be Wang Bin’s deputy.”

Cao Lie said: “The deputy also doesn’t look like he’ll be up and working anytime soon.”

Li Chi said: “So in the meantime, you personally oversee the dock. When Wang Bin and Gao Fulai are ready to take over, you can go back to your other business. Starting now, you are the chief of dock operations — no official post, no rank, no salary.”

Cao Lie nodded: “Not unreasonable.”

Li Chi said: “Bring the box over.”

Yu Jiuling came over with a smile, accompanied by two attendants carrying a wooden chest — not very large, but evidently quite heavy.

Li Chi asked Wang Bin: “Do you know what’s inside the box?”

Wang Bin shook his head: “This subject does not know.”

Li Chi said: “It’s the silver you turned over. I counted it — one thousand four hundred taels in total. When I arrange for someone to see you home, take the silver with you.”

Wang Bin said hurriedly: “That is tainted silver that this subject surrendered. I cannot accept it, I absolutely cannot accept it.”

Li Chi said: “There is no such thing as tainted silver — only tainted people. So the silver cannot be called tainted; it is the people who can be called tainted. This silver, as I have thought it over, amounts to something like Yang Xuanji compensating you for your medical costs. Take it in good conscience. Yang Xuanji’s silver — there is no reason to refuse.”

“Only…”

Li Chi looked over at Gao Fulai, the young man who had been injured.

“Wang Bin has one thousand four hundred taels of silver for his medical costs. But you have nothing.”

He glanced at Cao Lie. “I’ll have to think of something…”

Cao Lie immediately said: “One thousand four hundred taels — I’ll cover it.”

Li Chi raised his hands and applauded.

A moment later, Cao Lie looked at Li Chi. “But why am I the one covering it?”

Li Chi said: “I don’t know either. I didn’t ask you to cover it. I only said I needed to think of something. I was terrified just then — afraid you’d change your mind.”

With that, Li Chi stood up. “Gao Fulai — remember that Young Lord owes you one thousand four hundred taels.”

And he left.

He ran.