Mangdang Mountain. The Chu army camp.

Prince Wu now had almost no capable commanders left to speak of. In the previous breakout attempt, three of his generals had been killed in action. One died at the hands of Ning general Gao Zhen. One was slain by a volley of arrows while holding the rear guard. One was run through the heart by Luo Jing’s spear.

He still had a handful of officers who could be of use, but the matter of leading the charge — that he could not entrust to anyone else.

The Ning army had at least three men who could single-handedly fight ten thousand. None of his remaining subordinates could match any of them.

Though he was nearly seventy years old, he now had no choice but to bear this burden himself.

Perhaps it was precisely because of the circumstances he faced that Prince Wu found himself drifting involuntarily to other thoughts.

Over these past decades, the number of young men who had served under him was beyond counting. Many of them he had thought extraordinarily highly of. More than one he had regarded as a potential successor — men of dazzling talent and exceptional gifts.

Yet for the sake of Great Chu, he had fought for decades, and those brilliant young men, one after another, had all died before him.

Sitting in the nighttime darkness, watching the sea of lights that made up the Ning army’s camp below the mountain, Prince Wu was overwhelmed with feeling.

Looking back, the faces that had long since grown hazy — one by one, they appeared in his mind, clearer than they had ever been. And all of those faces wore the expression of their final moments.

He saw the young man being struck down by a storm of arrows, still twisting his neck to look back at him, no fear in his eyes — as though asking: *General, did I bring you shame?*

He saw the young man collapsed in a pool of blood, his chest split open and his entrails spilled across the ground, still crying out: *Zuo Wu Wei! Advance!*

He saw the young man who had been the first to scale the city wall, cutting a path through the dense ranks of defenders — and when Prince Wu finally reached the top, he couldn’t find that young man’s body. It had been hacked to pieces. After a long search, he finally found a blood-soaked head pressed beneath the pile of corpses.

One by one. Scene by scene.

*Is it my turn to die?*

Prince Wu murmured the words almost to himself.

It was said that just before death, a person sees many images from their past — sees people who have been gone for years.

“Your Highness.”

At that moment, General Zhao Chuanliu came running from a distance, pointing in a direction. “We’ve spotted a large number of Ning army torches in the forest over there.”

From where Prince Wu stood, the cliff face blocked his view. He rose and followed Zhao Chuanliu to another vantage point, and sure enough, he could see flickering light in the forest below.

“Are the Ning forces trying to come up the mountain from another route?”

Zhao Chuanliu ventured the question tentatively.

Prince Wu shook his head. “They wouldn’t. If there were another way into Mangdang Mountain, Tang Pidi would never have chosen this place.”

“Then why would the Ning army suddenly appear in the forest in the middle of the night, if not to find a way up?”

Prince Wu couldn’t immediately think of an answer. Another of his generals, Wu Suohai, offered, “Could they be planning to set the mountain on fire?”

The suggestion startled everyone for a moment.

But they quickly set it aside. The mountain was divided by too many rocky outcroppings; it would be impossible to burn the whole thing.

“I think I can hear the sound of trees being felled,” Zhao Chuanliu said, tilting his head to listen.

“Felling trees?”

Prince Wu raised his telescope and looked — but the Ning soldiers were in the forest, and he could only see the flickering of firelight. There was no way to make out what they were actually doing.

“Keep a watch on that location. After dawn tomorrow, check whether any trees have been removed.”

“Yes, sir!”

Prince Wu turned and walked away, turning over in his mind: if the Ning army was truly cutting down trees, what were they planning?

Meanwhile, at the base of Mangdang Mountain — in the same area where soldiers had earlier been disguised as Chu troops — the Ning forces were indeed felling trees.

Tang Pidi stood watching. He said to Li Chi: “Almost overlooked this. Prince Wu is that suspicious. There can be no loose ends.”

The plan was to fell the trees, then at dawn pile the logs at the mountain pass — giving Prince Wu cause to wonder whether the Ning army was preparing for a new assault.

The next morning, Prince Wu returned to his observation point, raised his telescope, and sure enough — a gap had appeared in the forest. Looking further down toward the mountain pass, he saw Ning soldiers stacking the felled timber.

“Your Highness,” Zhao Chuanliu said, “I suspect they’re planning to use rolling logs to haul up heavy siege equipment.”

Prince Wu nodded. “That’s possible. Though I’m also thinking — now that the Princess has arrived, they may be worried we’ll take the opportunity to break out. They could be using the timber to seal off the mountain path.”

Wu Suohai’s expression shifted. “Tang Pidi plans far ahead. That may well be his intention.”

Prince Wu nodded. “He knows the Princess won’t withdraw, and he knows I won’t surrender. He doesn’t know when I’ll lead the breakout. So perhaps his answer is simply to seal the road.”

“If that’s true,” Wu Suohai said uneasily, “it will make our breakout considerably harder.”

Prince Wu was quiet for a moment, then said, “If they block the road, they’ll only be building a timber wall across the mountain path. When we charge downhill with ladders, that wall won’t stop us.”

Below the mountain.

Li Chi looked at Tang Pidi. “Piling this wood here — Prince Wu will certainly overthink it. There’s a real chance it’ll make him wonder if we’ve guessed he’s planning to break out.”

Tang Pidi frowned slightly. “So to make it more convincing — should we actually use the timber to block the road?”

Li Chi nodded. “If his will to break through is firm, a timber blockade won’t stop him anyway. And it would conveniently put his suspicions to rest — he won’t be as concerned that we’ve set up an ambush beyond it.”

Tang Pidi turned and gave the order: “Get the auxiliary troops over here. Block that road.”

Li Chi said, “All this effort just to fool one Prince Wu. We’ve certainly wrung our brains dry.”

Tang Pidi smiled. “Mostly you.” He paused. “Speaking of which — something just came to mind.”

“What?”

“The years you and Master Changmei wandered the jianghu together, scraping by — it seems like it was all fated. All of it was forging you for exactly what you’re doing today.”

Li Chi said, “If I ever amount to something great, the official historians had better be supervised by you. All those cons and schemes my shifu and I pulled — according to you, those were ‘arduous trials and tribulations.'”

“What else do you think the historians would say?”

Tang Pidi considered it. “Future generations will read: *When the Founding Emperor was born, heaven sent auspicious signs. Still swaddled in cloth, he was taken away by a great hermit sage and underwent ten years of cultivation…*”

Li Chi said, “You might as well take the post of Official Historian yourself.”

Tang Pidi burst out laughing, then continued: “*The Founding Emperor was born amid heavenly omens. Furthermore, his appearance was unlike ordinary men — his face radiated a crystalline luminescence, and the faint outline of dragon scales could be glimpsed beneath the skin. The midwife, upon beholding this sight, was so startled that she dropped her scissors. The scissors struck his face — and were deflected clean away…*”

Li Chi: “Traitor. Prepare to die.”

Meanwhile, Yu Jiuling had been listening with complete seriousness and was muttering to himself: “I really should have brought a small notebook to write all this down.”

At that moment, someone came to report that the two women Princess Wu had sent had already left — they were in a hurry to return.

Yu Jiuling said, “Hey — those two pretty girls didn’t even wait for their Brother Yu.”

Tang Pidi said, “If it weren’t to escape from you, they wouldn’t have been in such a rush. Just going back to report could wait until after breakfast.”

Li Chi looked at Tang Pidi. “Here — have your notebook ready to write that down too.”

Zhaoluan and Cainan were genuinely in a hurry. They had lost time the day before, but had fortunately managed to meet Prince Wu through the night, so they were able to set off early this morning. Barring incident, they could be back at the Chu camp before dark.

But for two delicate young women, covering over two hundred li in two days of hard travel was genuinely exhausting.

They took the water they’d brought and asked the Ning soldiers for some dried rations, then set off without resting. By the time they crossed the Panxing River, night had fallen.

On the southern bank, people sent by Princess Wu were waiting, and they quickly escorted the two women back to camp.

Back at the Chu army headquarters, the two women reported everything in detail to Princess Wu.

“The Jinzhou ham,” Princess Wu asked, “was it personally handed to Prince Wu?”

Zhaoluan nodded. “Yes, placed into His Highness’s hands directly. His hands were trembling when he saw it.”

Princess Wu felt a pang in her heart.

Zhaoluan then relayed the matter of the smoke signals. Princess Wu was quiet for a moment, then said, “The smoke signals cannot be lit. This was the Prince testing you — he was worried you were not genuine.”

Princess Wu rose and began to pace slowly around the tent.

It was also in this seventh month, years ago — the very time Prince Wu had been stripped of his military command and was idle with nothing to do. Restless in the capital, he had taken only a few attendants and gone out traveling among the mountains and rivers.

It was during that time, in Jinzhou City, in a certain inn, that Princess Wu and Prince Wu encountered each other.

“Encountered” — but it had all been arranged by the Cao family.

The Cao family had already been working on drawing Prince Wu to their side for some time, but had never found the right opportunity. Then Prince Wu’s first wife passed away, and the Cao family caught the scent of their moment arriving.

In that period, Prince Wu had lost his wife and been stripped of his command. His mood was at its bleakest.

The Jinzhou encounter was a promising beginning for the Cao family — but for Princess Wu, it was the transformation of her entire life.

Before that day, she had truly not wanted to get involved with Prince Wu. She was in the full bloom of her most beautiful years, and Prince Wu was nearly forty. Moreover, he was a prince who had fallen from grace — suspected by the Emperor, driven out by the eunuch faction. Even if she successfully married into his household, it seemed a life of quiet obscurity was all that awaited her.

Princess Wu had been headstrong and proud since childhood. She especially chafed at the idea that all the great matters were decided by men, and women could only ever be ornaments.

But family obligation — she could not resist it in the end.

What she had never anticipated was that this single so-called “chance encounter” would pull her under completely, beyond any hope of climbing back out.

That night in Jinzhou, the moon was exceptionally round. Exceptionally bright.

Prince Wu had noticed the serving boy bringing the Jinzhou ham he had ordered to another table, and felt a flicker of irritation. Just as his attendants were about to go and argue, a young woman appeared — breathtakingly beautiful — carrying that very plate of ham.

She said: the establishment made an error in the order. You placed your order first, so this rightfully belongs to you.

That single sentence caused Prince Wu to look at this young woman in a completely new light.

In later years, Princess Wu always said: that day, that hour — she would never forget it as long as she lived. Prince Wu himself had not committed the details to memory with such care — but because Princess Wu said those words, he deliberately asked until he knew the exact time and then memorized it.

After a long silence, Princess Wu turned and gave the order: “Summon all commanders for a council. In two nights’ time, the Prince will break out.”

By coincidence —

It was the exact night that Prince Wu had told Liu Yingyuan and Yuan Jiabei.

Even though Prince Wu had never laid eyes on that Jinzhou ham.

The ways of this world.

No one can fully control them.

—