On the small boat, the scholar in the green robe was thinking through how to get back. On the large boat, Li Chi was thinking through whether he could use these heads to squeeze some money out of him.

Just then, someone rushed over and grabbed the burlap sack, wanting to take back their own money and belongings.

At first it may have truly been just that — wanting to reclaim what was theirs. Until they saw how much money was inside the sack.

Well. They were now looking rather like robbers themselves, because some were taking far more than their own share and had no intention of returning it.

Gao Xining watched this unfold and asked Li Chi: “What can even be done about this?”

Li Chi replied: “Give me a son. I’ll be extraordinary for one generation, my son extraordinary for the next, and my grandson the generation after that. Just three generations, and the Central Plains will be different.”

Gao Xining’s face flushed red. She let out a small “hmph”: “Who said anything about giving you a son.”

Li Chi: “Hmm…”

Gao Xining: “Life is long. Having just one would be such a waste.”

Li Chi: “…”

Li Chi said, first take this land under heaven, then use three generations of enlightenment to change the people.

Li Chi also said, the generation older than them was hard to change now, and their own generation was hard to change too — because the teachings they had received came from the older generation, and where there had been no explicit teaching, there had been the slow absorption of example.

But for the next generation down, every child would enter a public school to study, and every child would have teachers to instruct them in reasoning and right from wrong.

Their transformation would reach perhaps seventy or eighty percent. And the generation their children raised would surely be unlike the people of today.

When civilization keeps advancing, never rush to declare that the next generation is a lost generation — for the education they received from childhood is far superior to yours. You simply drew your conclusions before waiting for them to grow up.

Gao Xining said: what if our son turns out to be even more capable than you?

Li Chi said: by rights he ought to be, because my father was certainly not as capable as me, and my mother was certainly not as capable as you.

The two of them had somehow carried on this whole conversation before they even noticed that the small boat was drifting further and further away.

The scholar in the green robe — the one holding seven or eight human heads, not a drop of blood on him — seemed to be genuinely troubled.

So Li Chi looked at the boatman called Old Jiang and asked: “Can you go pick that person up?”

Old Jiang nodded and said he could — but the passengers who had been squabbling over the money refused to allow it.

Someone said: how can you bring back a man who killed that many people? How do you know he’s not another villain?

Someone else said: if you bring him back and something happens, can you take responsibility?

And someone said: not only should you not bring him back, if he comes near you should shove him off with a pole.

Old Jiang looked at Li Chi. Li Chi looked back at him.

Old Jiang saw that Li Chi was smiling — a smile full of boundless mockery. Li Chi saw Old Jiang’s fists tighten, as though he was regretting something.

Old Jiang took a deep breath. Then he stood up and spoke in a loud, clear voice.

“I am not a good man. If I were, I would have warned you before you boarded that there might be river bandits.”

“I am a ferryman. Five copper coins a person — no less and no more. It is what my family lives on.”

“If any of you keep taking money that isn’t yours, I will throw you in the river. Someone asked me earlier whether fish eat people — I’ll tell you: cut a person up and throw them in, and the fish will certainly eat.”

“If any of you get out of line, I’ll cut you up and throw you in. The money will all be mine. I had a look — it seems like quite a bit. Enough to see my family quit the ferrying business.”

When he finished, the crowd fell silent.

The man with the short temper who had been cursing at Old Jiang earlier — with a face that looked distinctly ungentle, somewhat fierce — raised his coin purse and said: I am only taking back what is mine, not a single extra copper coin. But if you now want to cut these people down and take all the money, I’m quite willing to help.

So Old Jiang picked up a blade. So that fierce-looking man picked up a blade.

Li Chi said to Gao Xining: you see, not every person needs saving. Perhaps it really won’t take three generations.

Everyone went quiet. Very quiet. Some silently put back the extra silver they had taken. Some didn’t even dare take back their own silver.

A little girl who looked only five or six years old blinked her big eyes and asked: “Shouldn’t you just take what’s yours? Why take other people’s?”

Everyone looked at her. Most of them thought: children are children — so simple.

Li Chi noticed one person still quietly stuffing pilfered silver into their clothing. He stepped over, picked the person up, and threw them into the river.

He looked at the little girl and gave a light pat on top of her head: “Put all of them together, and not one of them is worth as much as you.”

—

*One hour later. Huanghe City. The prefectural office.*

The newly arrived prefect was a man transferred from Yu Zhou named Luan Yongping. By seniority, he was Li Chi’s fellow student — he had graduated from the Four Pages Academy in Ji Zhou a few years before Li Chi.

Later, Master Yan had summoned him to work as an official in Ji Zhou, where he had earned a reputation for diligence and integrity.

After the Prince Ning’s army took Yu Zhou, he was transferred from a county magistrate in Ji Zhou to serve as prefect of Yu Zhou. Not long before, Li Chi had transferred him to Huanghe City to serve as its prefect.

Both were prefects — but not all prefects were equal, for Huanghe City was the seat of Jing Zhou’s governance.

Luan Yongping heard that someone had arrived at the prefectural office carrying a great many human heads and nearly had a fright. When he looked up and saw Li Chi and Gao Xining standing inside the office speaking in hushed tones, he realized he could apparently jump even higher from shock.

Li Chi gave him a slight shake of his head, indicating he should not reveal his identity. Luan Yongping immediately replied with his eyes that he understood.

—

*Another half-hour later. Rear garden pavilion of the prefectural office.*

Li Chi’s eyes narrowed slightly as he studied the coin purse in the scholar’s hand. The scholar in the green robe felt that the way he narrowed his eyes did not look like someone with good intentions.

Li Chi asked: “The authorities rewarded you quite well for killing those river bandits. Do you feel the reward was fair?”

The scholar nodded: “Fair. Twenty taels of silver per bandit killed — quite generous.”

Li Chi said: “I think you ought to give me some of it.”

The scholar tucked the coin purse into his robe.

Li Chi inwardly sighed, then decided to reason with him — after all, on the large boat, this scholar in green had struck him as a man who could be reasoned with.

“Didn’t you ask me to watch those heads for you?”

Li Chi asked.

The scholar nodded: “Yes.”

Li Chi asked: “So then…”

The scholar said: “Thank you. Goodbye.”

Gao Xining tugged at Li Chi’s sleeve and murmured… he looks like one of our own. Li Chi burst out laughing.

So Li Chi asked the scholar in green: “Why are you so stingy?”

The scholar said: “I still have many places to go, looking for the right person. I don’t know how long I’ll be traveling, or how far, so I need silver.”

Li Chi asked: “Seeking a destined companion?”

The scholar shot him a look.

Perhaps because he sensed that Li Chi was also no ordinary person, he asked one more question: “Do you think, in this world, there might be some people who should not exist? I don’t mean people who have committed wrongdoing and therefore should not exist — I mean people whose very existence is itself the error.”

Li Chi thought: people who can ask a question like that probably all have something a bit wrong with them — whether it’s a good kind of wrong or a bad kind, they certainly have a touch of it.

Li Chi asked: “Then why are you looking for the right person? It sounds more like you should be looking for the wrong person.”

The scholar said: “Someone taught me. He said the wrong person will appear directly across from the right person. Find the right person, and you will see where the wrong one is.”

Li Chi asked again: “The person who taught you — they’re not exactly normal, are they?”

The scholar thought about it — truly thought about it — then nodded: “Probably not very normal. I followed him from the Central Plains all the way to the Western Regions. If he hadn’t been riding a pig the whole time, I probably couldn’t have kept up with him.”

Li Chi’s eyes narrowed again.

The scholar was indeed a man who liked to reason things out, because he was afraid Li Chi might not understand, so he explained it very carefully.

“If he had been riding a horse, the traces left behind would actually be hard to distinguish, because so many people ride horses on the road that all hoofprints look alike. But the tracks left by a pig are far easier to identify.”

Li Chi heard this and felt it was genuinely, utterly sound logic.

He asked: “I’m guessing you also distinguished the horse dung from the pig dung?”

The scholar nodded: “Yes.”

Then he added: “The pig he rode produced an extraordinary amount of it.”

Li Chi: “A big wild boar — of course it would.”

This time it was the scholar who narrowed his eyes. He even appeared to be on guard.

Li Chi could see from his expression that one of two things would happen: either this man would turn and bolt away in a flash, or he would strike first and ask how Li Chi knew it was a big wild boar.

Li Chi sighed: “If I told you I also have a big wild boar, would you believe me?”

The scholar answered firmly: “No.”

In this world, there could not be two lunatics who had each ridden a pig ten thousand li — and moreover both on a big wild boar.

No — that is, two people each with one big wild boar.

—

*Another half-hour later, in the rear courtyard of what had formerly been the Jing Zhou military governor’s residence in Huanghe City, the scholar in green came face to face with the big wild boar.*

He looked at the Divine Eagle, thinking: so it really is enormous.

The Divine Eagle looked at him, thinking: is this person not well?

Then the scholar looked at Li Chi. Li Chi met his gaze with an expression that said: you see, I really do have a big wild boar.

The scholar was silent for a long, long while before he asked: “What’s it like, riding a pig?”

Li Chi turned the question back on him: “Did you ask that person?”

The scholar nodded: “I asked. He said, none of your business.”

Li Chi said, “Mm. None of your business.”

—

Just then, by a stroke of timing, Gui Yuanshu arrived — having been sent by Master Yan, setting out from Yu Zhou to reach Jing Zhou and take up his place guarding Li Chi.

After all, there were many matters in Jing Zhou that required people from the Intelligence Guard to handle. Had it not been for the business at the Yu Zhou docks that had delayed him, Gui Yuanshu would have traveled south with Li Chi.

Gui Yuanshu entered and, seeing Li Chi, quickly quickened his pace to pay his respects.

Before he could bow, two sounds came from somewhere behind him.

One was: “Ah!”

A woman’s low exclamation — brief and hurried, but full of meaning.

The other was: “What the —!”

Then a powerful silhouette flashed past Gui Yuanshu from behind — a figure that seemed to dissolve into a blur of movement — and in an instant was in front of the scholar in green, driving a fist at that rather handsome face.

In that moment, Li Chi felt as though he were witnessing an entire world of love, hatred, passion, and grudge — the kind that could not be untangled in two or three words.

He had seen what the scholar in green was capable of. He also knew the capability of the one flying at him with that fist.

With two people like this coming to blows…

Li Chi immediately called out: “Quickly.”

Yu Jiuling was already running over with two stools: “Coming, coming!”

In this world, the ones who could understand Li Chi this fast were few. Yu Jiuling was certainly one of them.

And when they looked again — somehow, inexplicably, Gao Xining already had a handful of sunflower seeds. That was hard to explain.

—