“In this world, when it comes to one heart trusting another, it’s never that simple. Never mind whether I trust you — do you even trust me?”

Li Chi looked at Yang Dingfang lying on the bed, his tone calm and even, his words carrying no particular warmth.

After deciding to surrender, Yang Dingfang had walked out of the main tent and drawn his blade to slit his own throat. His personal soldiers had wrestled the blade away from him with desperate force, and he had then slammed his head into a nearby tree, nearly losing his life.

Now Li Chi sat watching him, doing nothing more than informing him of how his troops would be handled.

“You chose to surrender — that is something you cannot simply call right or wrong. It all depends on where you stand to judge. But you are a great general, and I understand that you feel you cannot live on without honor.”

Yang Dingfang turned his head and glanced at Li Chi but still said nothing.

Li Chi said, “As for your men — those who wish to return home, I will provide traveling expenses and one year’s military pay. Those who wish to stay, I cannot send them to the front lines, so they will likely be posted to garrison the frontier.”

“The frontier?”

A flicker of light passed through Yang Dingfang’s eyes.

His voice trembled slightly. “Is Prince Ning certain he won’t send my men to slaughter each other against the men of the King of Heavenly Mandate?”

“You used the phrase ‘slaughter each other.’ How could I dare send your men to face Yang Xuanji on the front lines?”

Li Chi said, “I have already had notices posted throughout your army. Those who wish to stay may only go to garrison the frontier. Those who wish to go home may collect their pay from the quartermaster and leave.”

Li Chi rose to his feet. “As for you — a man who sets his heart on death cannot be saved.”

Yang Dingfang hesitated a moment, then struggled to sit up. “Your Highness Prince Ning, may I lead my men to the frontier garrison?”

Li Chi said, “You may not.”

Yang Dingfang froze. The light that had just appeared in his eyes instantly dimmed.

Li Chi paused, then continued, “At the very least, you must wait until your wounds have healed.”

Yang Dingfang’s eyes snapped wide open, and the light that had vanished flooded back into them in an instant.

Li Chi did not wait for him to say anything more and had already turned to leave.

Stepping out of the tent, Li Chi glanced at the group of generals waiting outside — all of them Yang Dingfang’s subordinates.

Seeing Li Chi emerge, every one of them, whether sincerely or not, bowed in salute.

“I am a straightforward person, and I care greatly about keeping my word.”

Li Chi looked at them and said, “Those who promised to go home — do not let me see you again in an enemy’s ranks. If I do, I won’t only kill you; I’ll dig up your ancestral graves. You all know who I am — I rose from banditry, so remember: when a bandit says he’ll wipe out an entire clan, he means every last word.”

“The same goes for those who promised to go garrison the frontier. If you arrive at the borderlands and find it too hard and wish to turn back — deserters will have their four limbs broken and be hung on the walls of the frontier pass. Once dead, they’ll hang there for forty-nine days. Don’t even dream of being reborn.”

Every head bowed low.

When he finished, Li Chi strode away.

Some might feel that since they had already surrendered, Prince Ning’s manner of treating people seemed rather cold and harsh.

Li Chi did not care what they thought.

Of the one hundred and fifty thousand men, the vast majority decided to go home. Over one hundred thousand chose to leave and return to their hometowns.

Perhaps it was because the cries of those elders outside the camp had drained them of the will to fight. Or perhaps years of slaughter had left them bone-weary.

Those who chose to stay were all Yang Dingfang’s most trusted men — men with conviction in their hearts, bound to go wherever their general went.

This contingent, Li Chi had them leave behind their weapons and armor, taking only food and provisions, and set out from Jingzhou toward the western frontier.

Out in the western frontier, Liang Zhou’s great general Dantai Qi had limited troops, while the peoples of the Western Regions kept watching with hungry eyes — and those Western Region peoples were even less trustworthy than the Black Wu. They were the truly wolfish and ambitious ones.

Once this force arrived, it would serve two purposes: strengthening the Liang Zhou army to resist foreign threats, and keeping watch on the situation in Yong Zhou.

As for weapons and armor, Li Chi would dispatch a separate shipment from Ji Zhou to be issued once the force reached the western frontier.

With Yang Dingfang’s troops having surrendered, there remained no force of resistance anywhere within Jing Zhou.

Li Chi dispatched Xie Xiu with his fifteen thousand Jing Zhou troops to move toward the southeast, taking up position along the border between Liang Zhou and Jing Zhou to block any reinforcements Yang Xuanji might send from Shu Zhou.

Xie Huainan was appointed as Jing Zhou’s military governor, but the civil officials at every level throughout Jing Zhou would be transferred in from Yu Zhou and Ji Zhou.

Xie Huainan understood perfectly well that Prince Ning was unwilling to employ officials from the old regime, and so he carried out Li Chi’s orders with absolute thoroughness.

—

**Jingzhou. Huanghe City.**

This was the seat of Jing Zhou’s governance — an ancient city with over a thousand years of history, magnificent and imposing.

Along one side of Huanghe City ran the Wulan River, which one could follow downstream heading east to enter the territory of Jing Zhou.

The reason Li Chi had told Cao Lie to send those several dozen large ships back was precisely out of consideration for advancing into Jing Zhou by water.

After arriving at Huanghe City, Li Chi and Gao Xining spent several days wandering through the city — a rare and welcome opportunity to relax.

The most famous landmark in Huanghe City was Wujiang Tower. Legend had it that on the walls of this wooden tower, generations of literary masters had left over three thousand poems.

When the founding emperor of Dachu had once visited, after viewing the poems on Wujiang Tower, he had sighed: *Having seen the thousand verses upon Wujiang Tower, one need not read another book for a lifetime.*

Gao Xining walked through Wujiang Tower with her hands behind her back, reading the verses left on the walls. She found them all fairly decent — only a tiny bit inferior to her own Li Diudiu’er.

“Do you want to write a few lines?” Gao Xining asked.

Li Chi leaned close and lowered his voice: “Right now there are people in Jing Zhou who hate me beyond counting. If I leave a few words on this Wujiang Tower, I’m afraid someone would set fire to this thousand-year landmark out of spite.”

Gao Xining felt a pang at those words and muttered under her breath, “If someone really did burn Wujiang Tower, the Tingwei Office would be quite pleased.”

Li Chi let out a burst of laughter.

This girl — whenever her man was wronged, she would turn the ones who wronged him into dust.

The Tingwei Office was making no moves at present, but if someone truly were bold enough to burn Wujiang Tower because Prince Ning left his name on it — just wait and see how great a fire the Tingwei Office would kindle throughout Jing Zhou.

“What the literary men through the ages left on these walls is not elegance.”

Li Chi gazed at the verses on the walls. After a long silence he said, “What they left is history.”

Just then, Li Chi noticed at the corner of the second floor a piece of doggerel — its words wild and arrogant, yet not crossed out or erased, which was truly remarkable.

He walked over and read it carefully, then burst out laughing.

*Two or three parts spirit, seven or eight parts nonsense — reading verses above and below, I am so annoyed my hairs stand on end. All I see are flaws burying the gems. What a heap of rubbish.*

That such doggerel had found its place on Wujiang Tower — truly a miracle.

Li Chi looked at the signature: just two characters — **Songming**.

Gao Xining was also drawn in by these lines. The more she read, the more she felt a kindred spirit. She thought: among all the literary men of ancient and modern times, one who was as unrestrained and utterly sincere as Master Songming — surely there was no second one.

Li Chi, having read it, could hardly contain himself. He had just said he did not want to leave any words — yet now his fingers itched terribly.

He called for a brush, and beneath Master Songming’s doggerel he left his own comment:

*Exactly right. Truly satisfying.*

Gao Xining burst out laughing again.

Climbing to the highest level of Wujiang Tower, one could look out over the Wulan River — its vast surface crowded with hundreds of vessels and sails both near and far, a spectacular sight.

Even Yu Jiuling felt something surging in his chest, an urge that was almost bursting to find expression in verse.

After suppressing it for quite a while, Yu Jiuling slapped the railing and declared: “Seen from afar, the boats look like shrimp and fish — seems like none of them have a home. The great river flows eastward and away…”

He had barely gotten those two lines out when, among the local gentry who had accompanied Li Chi, someone could not hold back their laughter — though they dared not let it out.

Yu Jiuling slowly exhaled: “Don’t worry, don’t worry — the Prince Ning’s banners spread like clouds across all under heaven. Is there anywhere that is not home?”

The one who had been laughing stopped laughing. However clumsy the verse, the more they thought about it, the more it seemed to carry a certain meaning.

Li Chi burst into loud laughter and turned to head downstairs. “Ha ha ha ha ha! — Someone, bring Nine Brother a jar of wine.”

Wujiang Tower’s most famous dish was braised river fish, renowned far and near, yet Li Chi and the others did not dine at Wujiang Tower.

They came down to the street and strolled along it, stopping whenever they spotted a street snack to buy a bite, eating and walking.

The local gentry and elders accompanying them found it painful to watch. Prince Ning was a man of great distinction — how could he eat such cheap roadside things so casually?

Even if Prince Ning’s origins were not noble, he was a prince now. He ought to learn to carry himself like one.

They were pained. Li Chi was not pained. So Li Chi paid no mind to their pain.

Reaching the riverbank and watching the boats come and go on the water, Li Chi drew a long, deep breath and slowly let it out.

He thought of how, when he was small, his master had once spoken to him of Wujiang Tower.

His master had said the poems on Wujiang Tower were a holy land in the hearts of the literary men of the world — yet now, seeing it in person, it seemed like nothing remarkable.

Just like this land under heaven: the way Diudiu had looked at this land back then, and the way he looked at it now — naturally they were different. Wujiang Tower was nothing remarkable; the land under heaven was nothing remarkable.

“Send word to Xie Xiu.”

Li Chi turned to look at Yu Jiuling. “Recruit large vessels to transport grain and provisions. From now until before the seventh month, he must recruit no fewer than three hundred large vessels.”

Yu Jiuling immediately nodded. “I’ll dispatch someone with the order at once.”

Li Chi’s hand came down on the riverside railing. “Such a great river flowing east — to not make use of it would be a terrible waste.”

He turned and left. None of those present quite understood what he meant by that.

Yet they had all heard Prince Ning say he needed large vessels to transport grain and provisions, and so they each had their own thoughts quietly taking shape.

—

*Several weeks later. Yuzhou City.*

At the docks, Cao Lie lay in a reclining chair. He listened as the man before him finished his report, and his eyes slowly narrowed.

His several dozen large ships had come back — and they had come back fully loaded with gold, silver, valuables, and provisions.

Furthermore, all the cargo across those several dozen ships had been sent by Li Chi as payment for the ships’ hire.

“You…”

Cao Lie asked: “When Prince Ning was telling you all this, did you perhaps mishear something? Did he say to fill up several dozen ships and send them to me — or did he say that when you return, I should fill up several dozen ships?”

The messenger quickly bowed. “In reply to the Young Master — Prince Ning truly said exactly this, not a single word wrong.”

Cao Lie stood up and paced back and forth on the dock for quite some time. Then he turned and gave his order: “Unload the ships.”

Cen Xiaoxiao could not hold back and asked: “Really?”

Cao Lie said, “Unload them my foot — I sense a great trap here. When has our lord ever been so generous? If I accept several dozen ships’ worth of goods from him, who knows how much he’ll extract from me in return down the road. My family and business are substantial, but I couldn’t survive ten times that amount coming back out. Unload the ships. Arrange carts and horses — send everything to the treasury. Have Master Yan arrange for people to take inventory.”

After saying this, Cao Lie thought it over once more, then waved his hand: “Leave one ship’s worth of goods… otherwise I’d feel like I’m getting the short end of it.”

Cen Xiaoxiao burst out laughing: “Do we keep the valuable things, or the not-so-valuable things? Several of those ships are packed with solid gold and silver.”

Cao Lie gave him a sideways look and said: “Keep the things that aren’t money. You actually want to take money from Prince Ning’s hands?”

Cen Xiaoxiao could not help but laugh again: “Just the thought of it is so delightful.”

Cao Lie sighed: “You’re too naive. I don’t even dare think about it.”

—