The phrase *set up an altar and call down divine judgment* seemed to trigger something in Little Zhang Zhenren, and he sank into a deep silence.
Peng Shiqi watched him with a smile. “You’re actually thinking about it. Are you planning to use the curse-doll technique?”
Little Zhang Zhenren shot him a withering look, then said, “Yesterday I heard the men in command discussing how, in order to break the enemy’s formation, you must first break the enemy’s spirit.”
He thought for a moment. “Surrounding without attacking, then bombarding with trebuchets day and night to maintain pressure — these are both ways of striking at the enemy’s spirit.”
“What does that have to do with setting up an altar?”
“What do wandering Jianghu men live by?”
“Deception?”
Little Zhang Zhenren stared at him, then nodded slowly. “Calling it deception is fair enough, I suppose.”
He looked across toward Xiushan.
“Those itinerant Daoist frauds who go into mountain villages to fleece people — what’s their method?”
“Making a great mystery of everything,” Peng Shiqi said. “We know all those tricks ourselves. We just have our pride.”
“And all those places we traveled through, all those villages we walked — what did we encounter most of all?”
“Pretty girls?”
“Limitless Celestial Worthy, send down divine thunder to smite this wretched creature.”
Peng Shiqi sighed. “You know I’m all talk. I’m not like Jiuling.”
“It was *snakes*,” Little Zhang Zhenren said. “We were moving through wild country mostly. Snakes and insects everywhere.”
Peng Shiqi suddenly understood. He looked at Little Zhang Zhenren. “You’re thinking of… *that* trick?”
Little Zhang Zhenren nodded. “When it’s done well, that trick is remarkably powerful.”
“Done well, it can deceive some very prominent people,” Peng Shiqi said. “I heard of someone who used it to take in a whole string of nobles and fabulously wealthy merchants — they all flocked to pay him homage as though he were a deity.”
“So it should work.”
The two of them went together to find Li Chi, with Yu Jiuling trailing behind in complete bewilderment, not the faintest idea what these two were going on about.
—
Three days later.
Yao Zhiyuan, observing the Ning army’s movements from the mountain, frowned at something below.
Three days ago, the Ning army had begun constructing a tall platform below the mountain — perhaps a zhang or so in height. It wasn’t particularly large, and it didn’t look like a command platform for directing troops. Besides, it was too close to Xiushan for that.
Yesterday, when the platform was finished, he had watched two men in black Daoist robes linger on it for a while, discussing something.
This morning, the Ning army had assembled below — but without any sign of preparing to assault.
While Yao Zhiyuan was still puzzling over this, he heard the Ning soldiers below chanting something in unison.
He strained to listen. The message: the Ning King’s campaign to subdue Shu Province was in accordance with Heaven’s will and the people’s hearts. To obstruct it was to obstruct Heaven itself — to act against the natural order. The man on the platform was a Daoist from Longhu Mountain called Little Zhang Zhenren, and he had come to admonish those on Xiushan who were thinking of resisting the Ning King. Furthermore, this Little Zhang Zhenren was about to demonstrate his arts, to manifest the divine authority of the Ning King, the Human Sovereign.
Yao Zhiyuan thought: do you really expect anyone to believe that?
To a man like him, every word Little Zhang Zhenren had said was nothing but a charlatan’s patter — cheap Jianghu trickery.
He was curious to see just how this Daoist intended to “manifest divine power.”
Down below, the chanting continued: if they did not descend the mountain and surrender, the ten thousand things of the natural world would exact their punishment.
Yao Zhiyuan almost laughed aloud at that. *The ten thousand things of the natural world…* was that just a fancy way of saying *I’ll send the dogs after you?*
But Yao Zhiyuan could think that — not all his soldiers could. More than a few were craning their necks out of the trenches, watching with wide eyes to see what would happen next.
On the platform, the black-robed Little Zhang Zhenren walked to the center, whisk broom in hand. He stood in silence, lips moving faintly — as if reciting an incantation.
After a moment, he turned and respectfully invited the Ning King, Li Chi, to mount the platform as well. Then he gestured toward Xiushan — said something to the Ning King that no one could hear from that distance.
Little Zhang Zhenren then pointed his whisk toward Xiushan — and in that instant, a burst of wind and dust erupted from beneath the platform, billowing outward in all directions.
The sight of it gave every soldier on the mountain a sudden fright.
Even Yao Zhiyuan was startled — and for one brief, involuntary moment, even he felt a twinge of dread.
A heartbeat later, Little Zhang Zhenren called out in a loud, carrying voice: “Longhu Mountain Daoist, acting on Heaven’s behalf, respectfully invites the Human Sovereign to command all living things!”
With those words, he looked to Li Chi.
Li Chi nodded, then raised his hand and pointed toward Xiushan.
The moment his hand rose — snakes poured from beneath the platform. Dozens, then hundreds. Some as thin as a thumb, some as thick as a man’s calf. And for reasons that seemed inexplicable, every one of them slithered in the direction Li Chi had pointed. Not a single snake went any other way. Every one of them headed straight for Xiushan.
The Shu Province soldiers went pale.
In this era, who didn’t fear the gods and spirits? This display was, to their eyes, a demonstration of miraculous power.
The snakes crawled up the slopes of Xiushan, and the garrison soldiers felt the hair rise on their scalps.
As Shu Province men, seeing a snake was no great thing. These were tough men who had no special fear of snakes.
But watching this many snakes being *summoned* was something else entirely.
Their faces blanched. Men looked to one another. In every pair of eyes, they could see the reflection of their own fear.
And Yao Zhiyuan, standing above them all, did not know — and would not have admitted — that his own face had gone somewhat pale as well.
On the platform, Little Zhang Zhenren exhaled a long breath. The trick had gone more smoothly than he’d dared hope.
Li Chi smiled and murmured, “Ah… since I became a famous man, it’s been a long time since I did something like this. I’m a little out of practice — and even a little embarrassed.”
“My lord, you’re too modest…”
Below the platform, Peng Shiqi, Yu Jiuling, and the others exchanged looks. Every one of them was covered in dust from head to toe.
The windstorm of sand rising around the platform hadn’t been easy to arrange. Several people scrambling beneath the planking, working desperately — and now they all looked like walking clay figures.
Peng Shiqi spat out mouthful after mouthful of grit.
The technique itself, of course, was trivially simple for men like them.
Catching snakes was easy — in this region, a thousand or more snakes in three days was no great challenge. Then a repellent substance was scattered in every direction except one, leaving a single channel open at the front. When the snakes were released from their sack, the smell of the repellent drove every one of them forward through the one clear path.
On the platform, Little Zhang Zhenren leaned close to Li Chi. “Quickly, my lord — the next phase.”
If they were going to “command all living things,” they obviously couldn’t stop at a single species of snake. Other creatures had to follow.
Li Chi acknowledged this and called out — and the several-hundred-jin Divine Pig came waddling and swaying up onto the platform.
Then the falcon let out a cry in the sky and dove down, landing on Li Chi’s shoulder.
These two were seasoned performers. Compared to the snakes, who were new to the trade, these two played their roles with complete conviction.
Especially the Divine Pig. Ugly as sin, but tremendous in presence.
Many soldiers in the Shu Province army had heard stories — that the Ning King kept a great wild Boar King, and a falcon capable of shaking the heavens. At the time, no one had thought much of it. Trained animals, that was all.
But having just watched that many snakes slither up the mountain on command, and now recalling what Little Zhang Zhenren had said about the Human Sovereign commanding the ten thousand things — the minds of the Shu Province soldiers began, in that moment, to genuinely shift.
Little Zhang Zhenren breathed a slow sigh of relief. “I have no idea if this will actually fool them.”
Li Chi said, “The staging was a touch lacking. But close to perfect.”
“Where lacking?”
“Consider: when we go to war, we bring two hundred thousand men but call it five hundred thousand. That’s an accepted practice, yes?”
Little Zhang Zhenren wasn’t sure where this was going, but nodded. “Yes — I’ve heard of generals claiming eighty thousand from ten thousand.”
Li Chi said, “So using these two creatures alongside some snakes — and calling it *all living things* — doesn’t that strike you as lacking in conviction…?”
Three species, claiming to represent all of creation…
Li Chi and Little Zhang Zhenren came down from the platform together, talking as they walked, no longer thinking too hard about the result. They hoped it would put some fear into the Shu Province soldiers. That was all that mattered.
After all, this kind of crowd psychology — Li Chi had used it plenty of times in his wandering days with the Long-Browed Daoist. It usually worked well enough.
“By rights I should have thought of this myself,” Li Chi said as they walked. “But ever since people started calling me the Human Sovereign, I’ve forgotten all my old skills…”
“I was actually trying to arrange something bigger,” Little Zhang Zhenren said.
“How big?”
“After releasing the snakes, I tried forming a Thunder-Summoning Mudra. It didn’t take.”
Li Chi said: “Ambitious of you, I’ll grant that…”
“As the rightful heir of the Longhu Mountain Daoist lineage, I firmly believe that everything our founding ancestors left behind has its use. If it doesn’t work, it’s only because my cultivation is insufficient.”
“If you put it that way,” Li Chi said, “I’ll try as well.”
The Long-Browed Daoist had not been a real Daoist, but his learning was eclectic and vast, and he had taught Li Chi things like the Thunder-Summoning Mudra.
Li Chi ran through the sequence of gestures, then looked up at the sky.
Clear skies. Light breeze.
Li Chi sighed. “It seems even the Human Sovereign cannot muster the power.”
The two of them laughed together and walked back toward camp.
But what no one had anticipated was how quickly the sky changed. About half a shichen later — it clouded over.
No thunder. But a soft, pattering rain began to fall.
Little Zhang Zhenren stood in the rain, staring up at the sky, then glancing back at Li Chi — who was inside the command tent, deep in discussion with his officers.
*Shu Province gets a lot of rain,* Little Zhang Zhenren told himself. *I know that. This is a coincidence. Obviously a coincidence.*
CRACK — a bolt of lightning.
It struck Xiushan with perfect precision, splitting one of the mountaintop trees. Even in the rain, a burst of fire bloomed and faded.
Little Zhang Zhenren jolted as though struck himself.
“What in the—”
And then — the anguish of it. The wasted opportunity.
*If only I’d stayed on that platform for just another half-shichen. If that lightning had come down while I was still up there, calling on Heaven — good God, that would have frightened people to death.*
Little Zhang Zhenren trudged into the command tent, dripping, and looked at Li Chi. “My lord — it’s thundering outside.”
Li Chi nodded. “I heard. What of it?”
He had been absorbed in his military briefing. He’d completely forgotten about the mudra from half a shichen ago. And even if he’d remembered, he certainly wouldn’t have connected the two. He knew better than anyone what a fraud that was.
“It’s just… it was only off by half a shichen,” Little Zhang Zhenren said.
Li Chi said serenely: “The route was long. Mudras travel slowly. It only just arrived.”
Little Zhang Zhenren: “…”
“You don’t believe me? In half a shichen, the rain will stop.”
He tilted his head upward. “Did everyone hear that?”
Laughter broke out around the tent.
Little Zhang Zhenren lingered a while inside, understanding nothing of the military affairs being discussed, and eventually went back out.
The air after rain. He spread his arms and drew in a deep breath.
*Wait…*
Little Zhang Zhenren froze. He tilted his head and looked at the sky.
The rain had stopped.
—