When Li Diudiu had seen the caravan earlier that day, there had been more than ten wagons in total. How many people were inside was uncertain, but even counting only four per wagon, that came to fifty or sixty. The mounted escorts riding alongside were another fifty or sixty — which meant the group was at minimum a hundred strong.

And these weren’t just anyone — they would be hand-picked fighters from the Yanshan Brigade. Li Diudiu had come here alone, and in all honesty, his confidence was bordering on reckless.

He hadn’t gone to tell Xiahou Zuo first for two reasons. The first was that he didn’t yet know the true situation of the enemy, and if he told Xiahou prematurely, that man’s nature was to immediately call the Qingyi Ranks together and come in fighting. With the enemy’s numbers and weaponry unknown, a blind charge could mean heavy losses.

Li Diudiu intended to act as a scout — gather the intelligence first, then inform Xiahou Zuo.

The second reason was that Li Diudiu was greedy. If the Qingyi Ranks came and dealt with the bandits, he would feel awkward claiming any share of the spoils — those would be the Qingyi Ranks’ gains.

Getting money was Li Diudiu’s top priority right now. He wasn’t entirely sure why he had such a strong drive to accumulate it — probably because his master had always been this way, and it had rubbed off. In such a turbulent world, his master often said that having money at one’s side was what gave a person some sense of security. Li Diudiu figured the more money his master had, the more secure the old man should feel.

When Li Diudiu went after money, he never thought of using it himself — he thought of giving it to his master.

At this moment, Li Diudiu, lying flat on the roof, took a careful look — and had to admit to himself that he’d misjudged earlier. When they’d encountered the men at the restaurant, he’d thought they seemed undisciplined compared to a real army, with none of the orderliness of military troops.

The outside world had long said the Yanshan Brigade was governed by strict military discipline — but after meeting them, Li Diudiu had thought that reputation was overblown.

But looking at the layout inside and around the inn now — he had to take that back.

Not only were there alert lookouts posted outside the inn, and guards pacing in the rear courtyard — Li Diudiu also spotted dark figures shifting at the alley junctions behind the inn, positioned to secure their retreat. These people were different from the supposedly feeble rebels described in the rumors.

If he had gone to Xiahou Zuo without scouting first — even with the Qingyi Ranks at full strength, a blind assault would have cost them dearly.

Because what Li Diudiu saw in the hands of the guards pacing the rear courtyard were repeating crossbows. The kind of standard-issue weapon carried only by Dachu’s regular garrison forces — and yet they were in the hands of rebels. Either captured in battle, or obtained by someone trading their conscience for profit.

What’s more, the city gates were supposed to be strictly inspected. These men had entered disguised as a merchant caravan’s escorts. With official permits for carrying blades, knives and the like would have passed through without issue — but repeating crossbows? If those were found in a merchant caravan, there would be serious consequences.

Yet these men had walked right through. Which suggested that the supposedly tight inspections at the city gates were no match for a few dozen taels of silver slipped into a guardsman’s pocket.

Because of the crossbows and bows in the enemy’s hands, Li Diudiu was now reconsidering his earlier plan to slip inside.

This was not a game. These were battle-hardened rebels with countless engagements behind them. Even with some confidence in his own abilities, Li Diudiu understood the saying — two fists can’t fight four hands. And he was up against at minimum two hundred hands.

Just then, Li Diudiu heard a faint sound behind him. He turned immediately — in the faint moonlight, he spotted a figure in black moving swiftly in his direction.

He didn’t move. Moving now would mean being spotted instantly.

To his surprise, the figure crouched flat on the roof not far from Li Diudiu — seemingly targeting the same Yanshan Brigade men in the inn below.

Li Diudiu lay there without daring to lift his head. The white-teeth ghost mask was conspicuous. He was flat against the shaded side of the roofline, and if he stayed perfectly still, he was very hard to see.

The figure in black lay on the other side of the ridge, having not anticipated that someone had gotten there first — let alone someone who’d made exactly the same choice.

Li Diudiu was trying to work out how to extricate himself from the situation when, suddenly, a stirring made itself known in his stomach. He’d eaten rather a lot at dinner, and after lying on this freezing rooftop for a good while, his digestive system had begun to register a protest.

He clenched and held, clenched and held — until finally he squeezed out what had, with great effort, been compressed into a thin and nearly silent trickle. A notable achievement under the circumstances.

But they were, it had to be said, rather close together. The figure in black seemed to detect something and immediately looked up, scanning the area. Li Diudiu was on the other side of the ridge — the figure didn’t spot him at once.

The black-clad figure seemed to decide it was perhaps imagining things, and was about to lie back down — when the nose began to twitch, pulling in what it had detected.

*I’m done*, Li Diudiu thought.

He could smell it himself. It was genuinely bad.

He immediately rolled sideways. Tiles scraped and rattled. The figure in black had already brought a blade down — if Li Diudiu hadn’t rolled in time, that strike would have landed.

Li Diudiu rolled down the slope of the roof and hit the ground running — four hooves… rather, both feet, taking long strides.

The figure in black jumped down behind him and gave chase.

Li Diudiu felt his footwork was reasonably good. Back when he was young, he’d asked his master Changmei Daoren — if he wanted to learn martial arts, what should he learn first?

At the time, Changmei Daoren had told him gravely: for people like them, wandering the roads, the first thing to learn was footwork — the lighter your feet, the less likely you were to get beaten to death.

The truth was that Changmei Daoren’s own martial arts were nothing remarkable — quite ordinary, if one were being direct. But from the time he’d taken in Li Diudiu, he had spent his days collecting techniques from every school and lineage he could find. He never practiced them himself, knowing his own aptitude was poor — but he didn’t want Li Diudiu to have no means of defending himself at all.

Li Diudiu’s childhood had been spent in continuous self-teaching. He learned everything. When he didn’t want to learn, his master made him learn.

The first things he’d drilled were footwork techniques. “Light footwork” was just a more impressive-sounding name for what it really meant — being fast. Learn to be fast on your feet, and jumping far would follow naturally. Fast feet, long leaps — and there you had what ordinary people marveled at as the seemingly supernatural art of running along rooftops and scaling walls.

Li Diudiu ran and silently berated himself — next time he planned to do something like this, he absolutely could not eat so much beforehand. He’d thought suppressing a digestive outburst would be easy. Clearly, that had been naive.

He ran at full stride. Behind him, the figure gave chase at full stride. Their speeds were surprisingly close — if anything, the figure behind him was marginally faster, and the gap was slowly narrowing.

Li Diudiu ran and thought. He glanced back to gauge the distance — and the figure behind him actually stumbled, instinctively losing a step.

Faintly, he heard a startled murmur from behind: *oh damn.*

The white-teeth mask had struck again.

Li Diudiu surged forward. The figure, apparently angered by having been startled, poured everything into catching up.

Li Diudiu found himself being closed on again. He thought to try the same trick — turn his face and startle the pursuer — only to find when he turned that the figure was gone.

His instincts sharpened immediately. He dodged sideways just in time as the black-clad figure dropped from above, blade sweeping down toward him. Li Diudiu evaded by the narrowest margin, then raised his hand and shouted: “Projectile!”

The figure in black flinched and dodged hard — but Li Diudiu had no projectile at all. If a particular earlier emission could be counted as a projectile, he’d already used that one.

He used the moment to open up the gap again. The figure in black, having been startled twice now, was clearly furious — there was no way this pursuit was ending without catching him.

The two of them ran — rooftops, walls, alleyways, back streets — for what must have been the time it takes a stick of incense to burn. Then, for the third time, the figure began closing in.

Li Diudiu felt the rush of displaced air behind him and dodged again. The blade swept past his shoulder.

“Wait a moment!”

Li Diudiu stepped to the side and raised a hand.

He asked, “Were you also up there watching those bandits?”

The figure had been about to press the attack and wasn’t inclined to listen to idle talk — but the word *bandits* stopped the hand.

“How do you know they’re bandits?”

Li Diudiu said, “I am the all-seeing night-demon.”

The figure in black: “Looking for death!”

Li Diudiu quickly stepped back to dodge the blade, then bent over — winded — and said, “We’re after the same thing. The enemy of your enemy is your friend. That’s not wrong, is it?”

The figure in black was clearly curious about Li Diudiu’s identity. Being able to identify those men as bandits so readily left uncertain just what Li Diudiu’s purpose was.

“Tell me clearly how you know they’re bandits, and I won’t kill you. Say nothing — and your time is up in the next breath.”

The black-clad figure took a step forward. The blade glinted faintly in the moonlight.

Li Diudiu let out a sigh and straightened up. “They’re from the Yanshan Brigade, aren’t they? And you — you’re also from the Yanshan Brigade?”

He said this as a gamble. His guess was that this person was from a different faction within the Yanshan Brigade — probably also suspicious that there was a traitor in the organization, and so had quietly shadowed these men.

And it turned out his guess was right. The figure clearly froze — then asked, voice sharp, “How do you know that?!”

A spark of satisfaction lit inside Li Diudiu. He’d gotten lucky. He pushed a little further.

If the men in the inn were the villains, then this person should be from the side of the righteous in the Yanshan Brigade. The villains wanted to kill Yu Chaozong — so this person was likely one of Yu Chaozong’s people.

“I’ve had the pleasure of meeting your camp’s chief commander — not once, but twice. Once on the Yanshan mountain — I threw a stone. Once in Qianlie County…”

He hadn’t finished before the figure in black sheathed the long blade behind him. The person studied Li Diudiu from head to foot, up and down, and then asked in a puzzled tone:

“It’s you?”

Li Diudiu felt that *it’s you* was stating the obvious — but still gave a sincere, slightly enigmatic nod.

“It’s me.”

The black-clad figure was quiet for a moment, then said, “Why are you watching those people?”

Li Diudiu said, “I think they came here to kill me.”

The figure asked again, “Why do you think that?”

Li Diudiu let out a sigh. “Can we stop with the pointless questions? Your camp has a villain in it, and I’m clearly on the side of the righteous — otherwise why would anyone bother killing me? You don’t need to ask things that obvious.”

The black-clad figure pulled down the face cloth, paused, and said, “My name is Old Seven. I was sent by the chief to protect you.”

Li Diudiu smiled. Life felt beautiful.

A moment later, Old Seven said with unmistakable disappointment, “The chief said you were formidable in martial arts and upright in character. But judging by the footwork and tactics you just showed while running away… you’re really nothing special.”

Li Diudiu looked at the man — who’d taken down his face cloth and clearly had no intention of fighting anymore. He relaxed his shoulders and unclenched his hand. The fistful of dirt he’d scooped up during the rooftop roll fell away in a soft rush.

Old Seven looked down at Li Diudiu’s hand. After a long moment, he let out a reluctant sigh. *Why does the chief think this kid will outmatch me in a year’s time?*

He looked at Li Diudiu in silence, and then said one final thing:

“You… you really are nothing special.”