The two constables had left, but before departing they’d exchanged a few words with the attendant at the Spring River Pavilion’s entrance—saying these were friends of Constable Captain Liu, and to take good care of them.

This was enough to rouse even the establishment’s madam, a woman who looked to be in her thirties or forties, still possessed of a certain allure. She came bustling out from inside with quick, swaying steps, hand already reaching for Li Diudiu.

“Oh my, young master! Any friend of Constable Captain Liu is a friend of mine—come in, come in! Don’t you worry, I’ll take excellent care of you.”

Li Diudiu was so startled he stumbled backward, pointing at his master Changmei Daoren: “It’s him! It’s him, not me…”

The madam looked Changmei Daoren over, and her expression dimmed slightly—but she ran this sort of welcoming business, and her smile quickly reassembled itself.

She took Changmei Daoren’s arm in hers and said with a smile: “One look at the Daoist and I can tell you’re a man of vigorous constitution. Our young ladies are going to be very fortunate indeed.”

Changmei Daoren went pale, his breathing rapid. For a moment he didn’t know what to say. Li Diudiu noticed that his master’s legs were actually trembling—and trembling quite badly at that.

“Master, be brave!”

Li Diudiu gave him a push from behind: “I believe in you. You can do this.”

Changmei Daoren turned back to look at Li Diudiu: “Right now I could wring your neck, you little wretch!”

Li Diudiu said: “Save your strength—you can beat me later.”

The madam called out, and a whole host of young women came streaming out of the Spring River Pavilion—they arrived in a veritable cloud of fragrance. Li Diudiu thought this would certainly broaden his master’s horizons—but then he found himself grabbed by several pairs of hands and hauled straight inside.

“Oh my, what a handsome young master!”

“Come over here, young master—let me pour you a drink.”

“Young master, come this way—I’ll play you a tune.”

Li Diudiu was pulled inside by the crowd, utterly flustered and at a loss. Changmei Daoren watched him—so wildly popular—then looked at the madam still holding his own arm, and let out a long sigh: “You go over that way too.”

The madam shook her head quickly: “Certainly not—I’ll keep the Daoist company myself.”

It was just past noon, and the Spring River Pavilion didn’t have much business yet. Li Diudiu was naturally handsome, with a fine figure, and compared to Changmei Daoren beside him, it was abundantly clear who commanded more attention.

In the end, Li Diudiu had no choice but to use the old trick of excusing himself to the latrine to slip away from the crowd. He told himself: close call—if he’d stayed any longer, he might really have gotten pulled in.

By now, Changmei had finally worked out what that scoundrel Li Diudiu must have said to Constable Captain Liu Que. He would have said something like: my master has been alone all his life—he denied himself any female company to raise me, and now that I’ve grown up, I wanted to bring him here to see if perhaps he might… well, you know.

That was why Liu Que’s expression had been so wonderfully expressive.

“You wretched thing! I’ll beat you to death!”

Changmei Daoren spotted Li Diudiu and let out a shout. Li Diudiu had already handed out several banknotes—ten taels each—and without anything having actually happened, he’d scattered dozens of taels of silver already. The rascal was backing away while calling out:

“Sisters, please take good care of my master!”

The young women who’d received their banknotes immediately surrounded Changmei Daoren, and the whole group swept him up the stairs to the second floor.

With Changmei settled upstairs, the madam breathed a sigh of relief. She turned around to find Li Diudiu just heading toward the outhouse, and their eyes met.

They looked at each other for a moment. Li Diudiu gave a sheepish smile and said: “Don’t be alarmed. My master and I—this is what filial devotion looks like for us.”

The madam’s lip twitched. She smiled along and said: “I can… I can see that.”

Li Diudiu pulled out another banknote and handed it to the madam: “My stomach’s a bit unsettled—I need to use the outhouse first. Could you do me a favor? My master has worked hard his whole life, and he still hasn’t… you know what I mean?”

The madam immediately nodded: “I understand completely!”

Li Diudiu said: “Then take good care of him—don’t hold back. Make it enthusiastic.”

The madam held her banknote and laughed: “Understood! Leave it to me, young master!”

She headed upstairs, then partway up the staircase she turned back and looked at Li Diudiu: “And young master… are you also still, you know…?”

Li Diudiu waved his hands in a hurry: “I’m not ready, I’m not ready—I’m still young…”

The madam was so amused by him that she burst out laughing, waving the banknote in her hand: “Don’t you worry, young master—just leave it all to me.”

Using the outhouse as cover, Li Diudiu escaped the fluttering crowd of women in all their varied charms, and when he came back, he found a spot to sit in the main hall.

He had the establishment’s attendant bring him a pot of tea and a plate of dried nuts, then opened his pack and took out one of the books Mr. Li had given him before departing. He sat there and read in quiet composure.

Though he was very curious about what was happening upstairs—and would have loved to see the expression on his master’s face—he never once left his seat. He settled his mind quickly, and his eyes never strayed from the pages.

After quite a while had passed, a sudden cry of alarm erupted from upstairs, followed immediately by two young women running down, clearly badly frightened.

“Young master, young master—this is terrible! Your master looks like he’s having some kind of episode—he’s foaming at the mouth and convulsing uncontrollably!”

“Young master, we had nothing to do with it—out of nowhere he just… became like that.”

Li Diudiu leaped to his feet and shouted: “Go fetch a physician! The best physician you can find!”

“Right, right—fetch a physician! The very best!”

Two young attendants immediately ran out, and before long came rushing back leading a physician with them. Li Diudiu took one look at the physician and felt a wave of relief. He’d been worried they might bring back the wrong person—but now, having confirmed it, he relaxed.

He had seen Yu Chaozong earlier in this very county town, had watched Yu Chaozong say his farewells to a physician, had glanced over at the physician’s clinic and made note of the man’s appearance.

He followed the physician upstairs with great urgency, but didn’t go inside the room itself. It wasn’t long before the physician came back out, shaking his head and muttering to himself: “A man his age, and he still plays so recklessly…”

Li Diudiu immediately asked: “Is my master alright?”

“He’s fine—just overtaxed himself, with some emotional agitation on top of that. A bit of rest and he’ll be right.”

The physician glanced at Li Diudiu, and something flickered through his eyes and was gone. He was about to leave, then seemed to think of something. He turned back and asked: “Would it be convenient for the young master to give me a name? I like to keep a record when I return—it’s a habit I maintain for every patient, in case there’s a need to follow up later.”

Li Diudiu understood immediately. He knew the matter was done.

He smiled and said: “My master and I are from Jizhou. Whether or not you keep a record is of no consequence—we’ll be heading back to Jizhou tomorrow.”

The physician nodded: “Very well, then. I’ll take my leave. If there’s anything further, you can find me at my clinic.”

Li Diudiu thanked him again. Then he saw his master lying on the bed looking genuinely feeble. He walked over with an apologetic expression, crouched down by the bedside, lowered his voice—and then burst out laughing.

“You were faking all along.”

His master immediately raised a hand and rapped him on the head. In a very quiet voice he said: “If it weren’t for your master’s quick thinking, would your scheme have worked?”

Li Diudiu sighed: “Things took a turn we didn’t expect. Liu Que stopped us the moment we entered the city—I improvised on the spot. Fortunately, Master understood what I had in mind.”

Changmei Daoren gave a snort: “I raised you. You think I don’t know every one of your devious little plans? Damn it all… your old master is absolutely exhausted.”

Li Diudiu grinned: “You acted brilliantly. In a little while, let’s go out and get you something good to eat to replenish your strength…”

Shortly after, Changmei Daoren made a great show of looking weak and frail as Li Diudiu helped him out. Li Diudiu kept apologizing to the Spring River Pavilion’s staff, and the madam—seeing that no one was actually hurt—let out her own breath of relief.

A man that old, and if something had genuinely gone wrong at the Spring River Pavilion—she’d never do business again.

Li Diudiu and Changmei Daoren left the establishment. The master rode; Li Diudiu led both horses on foot. The old Daoist sat in the saddle feeling as though his back had completely stopped belonging to him.

“Master?”

“Mm?”

“Was it fun?”

“Get lost!”

“Hmm… so that means it was fun.”

“Get lost!”

On the other side of town, the men sent by Governor Zeng Ling had been watching the establishment the entire time. When Li Diudiu and his master came out, people followed behind them.

Chen Songzan watched Li Diudiu and his master disappear into the distance, then waved for his men to enter the Spring River Pavilion. The madam saw new customers arriving and plastered on her smile to greet them, but before she could get a word out, the sight of an iron badge held up stopped her cold.

“Adjutant under the command of the Jizhou Military Governor.”

Chen Songzan looked at the madam and said: “The Daoist and the young man who just left—they are friends of the Military Governor. What happened here?”

The madam didn’t dare conceal a thing and told them everything.

“Sir, you gave me quite a fright. The Daoist—he may simply have been too old, and got a little too excited all at once, and so… and so he truly did exhaust himself. He very nearly… thank heaven he’s alright.”

The madam kept her head lowered as she explained, her heart genuinely terrified. She’d thought this was simply the new constable captain’s friend—who could have imagined it would involve the Jizhou Military Governor, one of the most powerful men in all of Jizhou?

When Chen Songzan heard it all, his expression shifted, his lip twitched—and he just barely kept himself from laughing out loud. In his mind he thought: the Military Governor must have been overthinking it. Those two weren’t delivering messages to the rebels in Yanshan at all. Li Chi had taken advantage of the outing to do something filial for his master.

This kind of filial devotion… was truly one of a kind.

He thought it over, then came back out and told a few men to stay behind and keep watching Li Diudiu, while he led the rest back to the military camp to make his report to Governor Zeng Ling.

Twenty-some li wasn’t far, and before long he was back in the main camp, where he told Zeng Ling everything exactly as it had happened. Prince Yu was also present. When Chen Songzan finished, Prince Yu and Governor Zeng Ling looked at each other, and after Chen Songzan withdrew from the tent, the two of them burst into helpless laughter, rocking back and forth.

“I truly don’t know what to say.”

Zeng Ling laughed until tears streamed down his face: “A country bumpkin is still a country bumpkin. His master never had a woman his entire life, so he wanted to bring him to a brothel—ha ha ha… though in its own way, I suppose that does count as filial devotion.”

Prince Yu gave a sound of agreement, laughing hard enough that his stomach ached.

After a good while, Prince Yu said: “Even so, those two are worth keeping a close eye on going forward.”

Zeng Ling said: “Your Highness need not worry. Xiahou has introduced Li Chi to certain people in the Turquoise Formation—every one of them can keep watch on Li Chi. As long as he remains in the Turquoise Formation, his every move will be within our sight.”

Prince Yu nodded: “Good. Since there’s nothing going on, go and meet with the men from Yanshan Camp. Tell them to go back and proceed with the plan—eliminate Yu Chaozong as quickly as possible, and ideally kill two birds with one stone.”

Zeng Ling said: “Your Highness need not worry—I’ll make the arrangements immediately.”

Just prior to all this, at the north gate of Qianlie County, the physician’s apprentice, in disguise, had slipped away in great haste.

At the east gate, Li Diudiu and his master rode out of the city on horseback. After a good meal of food and drink, Changmei Daoren looked notably better—though every now and then his old face would flush red.

When Li Diudiu looked at him, he refused to look back.

“Ai…”

After a long while, Changmei Daoren let out a deep sigh: “My lifetime of good reputation—all of it will end at the hands of you, this wretched creature. And those dozens of taels of silver, gone just like that. What a waste!”

Li Diudiu snorted: “Was it worth it or not?”

Changmei Daoren looked at him sideways, turned away, then after a moment looked up at the sky and said: “It was… it was not entirely without its worth.”

—