Gao Xining could never quite put her mind at ease. Visions would appear unbidden in her thoughts—waking illusions of Li Chi in danger, in one situation or another.
She knew herself that this was anxiety distorting her judgment. But for her, she could not allow anyone to harm Li Chi. She would not.
She began staying at Li Chi’s side at all times. Even when Li Chi cautioned her that she might put herself in danger by going to the front lines and tried to dissuade her, she refused to listen.
Li Chi told her that inside the military camp, there was virtually no opportunity for anyone to act against him.
But she still would not listen, because she suspected the enemy’s methods might not necessarily be assassination.
Within the Ning Army there were still a number of former intelligence operatives—these people were very likely to use some manner of covert technique.
Just as Li Chi himself had once said: when the enemy cannot defeat you on the open battlefield, they will seek their chance in the dark.
Still, the standoff between the Ning Army and the Yong Province Army would likely not last much longer. That was the one thing that gave Gao Xining some measure of peace.
The Yong Province Army had lost all their sheepskin rafts, all their catapults, and large quantities of their rattan shields.
If they wanted to find boats again and cross the river, it was impossible to say how many days that would drag on—and even with boats, launching a river crossing against the Ning Army was no easy task.
So Li Chi’s prediction was that the Yong Province Army would hold out for no more than ten more days before ultimately choosing to go around the mountain range and enter Jing Province through Liang Province.
Consider it: marching around those stretching mountain ridges with hundreds of thousands of troops for over a thousand li would take a great deal of time. By the time the Yong Province Army entered the field, the situation in Jing Province should already be under Tang Pidi’s control.
Li Chi was consumed with military affairs. Gao Xining was consumed with keeping him safe.
In this world, everyone has someone they care about. When that care reaches a certain depth, they will not stop short of risking their own lives.
People are divided into the near and the far, and nearness comes from closeness.
Even the worst of people have those they hold close, and those who care for them.
Take Yang Xuanji, for example.
Yang Xuanji had died in Daxing—in full view of all. And the troops who were his most trusted force were almost entirely camped outside the city.
Prince Wu had chosen his moment well. When the Liang Province Army broke through the Palace of Shiyuan and captured Yang Xuanji alive, the figure known as the Invincible Golden-Armored War God had not been at Yang Xuanji’s side.
That Golden Armor of his—he cared for one person and one person alone. Whoever else might die meant nothing to him.
Yang Xuanji understood this clearly, which was why he trusted him so completely.
Even many within the Heavenly Mandate Army had forgotten his name, because his name was one that no one ever really brought up. When people spoke of him, it was always those four words: the Golden-Armored War God.
When Yang Xuanji commanded his armies, he slept in the main command tent, and this man slept outside Yang Xuanji’s door. Wherever Yang Xuanji went during the day, this man followed at his back.
Everyone called him the Golden-Armored War God, yet what they meant in their hearts was this is a terrifying force—even someone as capable as the Seventh Ranked Warrior in All the World dared not provoke him.
Because the Seventh Ranked Warrior knew clearly: this man could tear him in two without much effort.
If Yang Xuanji ordered him to eat the Seventh Ranked Warrior, the man would have devoured him alive without a moment’s hesitation.
The Seventh Ranked Warrior himself had said that even with a blade held to his throat, he still would not want to provoke that fool.
Later, when Yang Xuanji entered Daxing and proclaimed himself emperor, everyone yearned for rewards—heavy, generous rewards.
Those who had followed Yang Xuanji from the very beginning—wasn’t this exactly the day they had been waiting for?
But this man, whom others called a fool, had no interest in whatever reward might be granted. He needed only to stand at Yang Xuanji’s side.
Among the entire Heavenly Mandate Army, he alone was permitted to address Yang Xuanji without calling him Lord.
He called Yang Xuanji Uncle.
Only the two of them knew what they meant to each other. All he knew was that if Uncle hadn’t been there in Shu Province to save him, he would long since be dead.
He had collapsed from hunger on a street. It was Yang Xuanji who had noticed, who had sent people to tend to him—though at the time Yang Xuanji had simply been curious about this enormous, strikingly ugly, astonishingly large person.
Afterward, Yang Xuanji took to calling him Tiger Fool. Though there was an element of utility in the arrangement, Yang Xuanji truly did care for Tiger Fool.
He had once declared: anyone who offends my Tiger Fool will die.
After Yang Xuanji became emperor and moved into the Weiyang Palace, Tiger Fool stood outside his study every single day. Even when Yang Xuanji slept, Tiger Fool kept his old habit of bundling his bedding and sleeping just outside Yang Xuanji’s door.
When Yang Xuanji held court in the main hall, Tiger Fool would stand beside the imperial throne. Sometimes he would grow so bored he fell asleep—that enormous frame collapsing to the floor with a tremendous crash.
Yet no one in the entire court dared laugh. If someone laughed at him, he might grab them and tear them apart, unless Yang Xuanji told him not to.
Prince Wu had been deeply wary of this man. In his scheming, he had once said plainly: so long as Tiger Fool was at Yang Xuanji’s side, making a move was out of the question.
And then came that one day when Tiger Fool was absent.
Tiger Fool loved meat above all things. Even when the Heavenly Mandate Army’s provisions ran critically low, Yang Xuanji never cut off his Tiger Fool’s meat ration.
Prince Wu had identified this as exploitable. He arranged for people to find a way to capture a black bear alive in the mountains outside Daxing, and had it presented as a tribute to Yang Xuanji. Yang Xuanji, who doted on Tiger Fool, bestowed the bear’s paw upon him.
Prince Wu had someone tamper with the cooking—not poison, but laxatives.
Tiger Fool fell victim to it, suffering uncontrollable diarrhea. But even Prince Wu hadn’t anticipated the sheer resilience of the man’s constitution—even in that state, it barely slowed him down.
Prince Wu had originally planned to take advantage of Tiger Fool’s weakened state and have the imperial physician add something extra to the medicine.
But because Yang Xuanji cared so much for his Tiger Fool, everything Tiger Fool ate, and everything he himself ate, was always tasted by someone first.
Poison would act immediately upon the taster. A laxative would not take effect so quickly.
Yang Xuanji was by nature deeply suspicious and would not use the palace physicians. He had Tiger Fool treated by the military doctors who had traveled with his forces.
When that scheme failed, Prince Wu devised another. He told Yang Xuanji that although the city was largely held by Yang Xuanji’s own troops—and the Liang Province Army and Yue Province Army were present—their commanders could not necessarily be trusted to be truly obedient. They only listened to Prince Wu’s people.
He suggested that while the moment was right, they should summon the Heavenly Mandate Army commanders from outside the city into the city, assign them to positions within, and gradually replace the Liang Province and Yue Province commanders.
This scheme was entirely to Yang Xuanji’s liking. Moreover, as Prince Wu laid it out, it genuinely seemed to have no downside. Yang Xuanji had no suspicions.
Prince Wu said he wanted to go personally among the Heavenly Mandate Army troops to select talent, but worried that those troops would distrust him and be difficult to manage.
Yang Xuanji laughed and said: what does that matter? I’ll send word—the soldiers in the army will naturally listen to you.
Prince Wu said: why not have Tiger Fool come with me? After all, it’s just a day’s trip—it won’t take long. With Tiger Fool there, the soldiers outside won’t have any reservations.
Yang Xuanji let himself slip in that one moment.
He reasoned that it wouldn’t even take a full day. It wouldn’t matter. And if nothing came up, he might even go to the Heavenly Mandate Army camp outside the city himself.
Prince Wu had anticipated exactly this, and so arranged for Emperor Yang Jing to come forward and say there was something to discuss about the Chu Imperial Sword.
So Yang Xuanji stayed inside the Palace of Shiyuan to wait. The Chu Imperial Sword was of supreme importance to every Chu emperor in every generation, and so Yang Xuanji let Tiger Fool accompany Prince Wu to the camp outside to select men.
Prince Wu had said the commanders of the imperial guards, the palace attendants—these were the people who needed to be replaced first, without delay. Such advice—how could Yang Xuanji have any reason to suspect it?
Besides, Prince Wu had said he would go alone, without a single soldier of his own. Yang Xuanji even felt a flicker of gratitude toward Prince Wu for that.
So he let Tiger Fool go with Prince Wu to the camp outside. And it was on that one day that the Liang Province Army attacked the Palace of Shiyuan.
Before leaving the city, Prince Wu had given orders: his Left Valiant Guard was to hold their position and not move, but if the Liang Province Army’s assault on the Palace of Shiyuan faltered, the Left Valiant Guard was to join the attack.
Once outside the city, Prince Wu had laid an ambush in advance. He knew how formidable Tiger Fool was, so he had not dared to be careless in the least. He had six hundred of his most capable fighters from his personal bodyguard unit.
Not long after leaving the city, they arrived at the prepared ambush point. Prince Wu suddenly wheeled his horse and galloped back. The ambush erupted on all sides.
A storm of arrows flew toward Tiger Fool. But his golden armor was thick and heavy—the arrows could not pierce it.
Six hundred warriors charged in at once. These were the elite of the elite in that already formidable Left Valiant Guard.
Every man in Prince Wu’s personal bodyguard was a killer of countless enemies.
Yet in this battle, Tiger Fool slew over two hundred of them. He was struck by countless arrows, cut and stabbed innumerable times—and yet he cut his way clean through and broke out.
Such ferocity—even Prince Wu had not dared to personally take to the field.
Against a brute like this, one moment of carelessness and you could be the one left badly off.
Prince Wu took up a three-stone bow and put an arrow clean into the back of Tiger Fool’s head. But as it turned out, the thickness of that helmet was absurdly extreme—where other men’s iron helmets weighed only a few jin, Tiger Fool’s was more than twice as heavy.
The arrow from Prince Wu’s bow had not managed to kill Tiger Fool.
But it had surely wounded him, and surely frightened him. And so that man built like a great bear fought his way clear of the encirclement and fled.
He could not return to Daxing—even if he had, it likely would have made no difference. He could not save Yang Xuanji.
From that day on, Tiger Fool vanished. Prince Wu, fearing this man might become a disaster, sent out a large number of men to search outside the city—but never found him.
The man’s build was so enormous and imposing that it should have been nearly impossible to hide. Yet somehow he had evaded them.
After months of searching with nothing to show for it, Prince Wu was forced to leave on his campaign to find provisions, and the matter of Tiger Fool was set aside for the time being.
Prince Wu set it aside—but Tiger Fool did not.
Tiger Fool was hiding right there in the Heavenly Mandate Army camp outside the city. Prince Wu had guessed as much and sent people to search at least seven or eight times, but found nothing. Eventually the thinking was that he must have retreated into the mountains to hide.
The mountains and forests outside Daxing were deep and tall—hiding one person there was easy enough. So the larger search parties were sent into the mountains.
None of them thought to look in the cattle pen inside the camp. He had killed a cow, and when searchers came, he would put the cow’s head over his own and wrap the cowhide around himself, lying flat at the very back of the pen—and somehow managed to go undiscovered every single time.
The Heavenly Mandate Army camp had plenty of people who knew, of course—but they were all Yang Xuanji’s loyalists.
Everyone called Tiger Fool a simpleton. But he was not truly as dim as he seemed. Those people who called him that were merely jealous of him.
He knew, at the most critical moments, who to turn to. He knew how to stay hidden—the cowhide trick, for instance, was his own idea.
Later the Heavenly Mandate Army was broken apart. Some were taken by Prince Wu on his campaign, some were distributed to other units, some stayed outside Daxing.
After Prince Wu left Daxing, Tiger Fool’s wounds had largely healed.
He had not hidden away out of fear of death. He had hidden because he could not yet die.
He had a debt of vengeance to repay.
—