Xiahou Zhuo did not bother sending anyone ahead as a probe. There was no need. The state of the Shuzhou Army’s camp left nothing to the imagination.

Looking down from the heights into the enemy position, you could see men so starved they could barely walk. You could see them gnawing on the remains of their leather armor, chewing on what few scraps of bark and root were left.

People in that condition, if they still had any capacity for trickery, could only be called immortals.

As Xiahou Zhuo walked up the hill, something in his chest tightened with a feeling he had not expected — something close to pity for the Shuzhou troops.

Enemies who had endured conditions like this for a year and a half without surrendering deserved to be respected.

The scenes along the way were enough to make one’s scalp crawl. Dead men and living men lay together in the same trenches — not because the living had no wish to move the dead, or no desire to leave their spot, but because they were already half dead themselves.

Virtually every living person on that hill was not far from death.

Those skeletal figures — skin stretched tight over bones — were frightening to look at.

Many lay or sat, blank-faced and hollow-eyed, watching the Ning Army come up. Some did not even have the strength to speak. And if they had the strength, they would not have known what to say. Perhaps something like: *What took you so long?*

When Xiahou Zhuo came face to face with Pei Jinglun, he was taken aback despite himself.

Here was a general who had commanded tens of thousands — and though he had done his utmost to make himself presentable, his armor hung on him like it had been draped over a rack of thin sticks. It swayed with each movement as though a gust of wind might topple it, and the man wearing it along with it.

Pei Jinglun had not put on his iron helmet — perhaps because he felt that a helmeted general was a general on the battlefield, still fighting. Or perhaps, at his current level of strength, even wearing an iron helmet was more than he could manage.

His hair looked less like hair and more like a clump of matted fiber stuck to his skull. Everyone here was filthy beyond description — not because the water had run out, but because in the final stretch they had simply had no strength left to wash.

Even Pei Jinglun was like this; the ordinary soldiers were worse beyond imagining.

“I am Xiahou Zhuo.”

Xiahou Zhuo looked Pei Jinglun in the eyes and said nothing unnecessary, telling him directly what he and his men needed to do.

“Step away from your weapons, as best you can. Our men will come up to collect the arms, and bring food up to you at the same time.”

Xiahou Zhuo looked at Pei Jinglun. “I respect the courage and the endurance of General Pei and his soldiers. I need it from your own lips, because I believe that a man like you, once he gives his word, will not take it back. General Pei — do you surrender?”

After a brief silence, Pei Jinglun nodded. “Please do what you can to save my men. It is I who have failed them.”

Xiahou Zhuo clasped his fists. “If you can still walk, please come down the mountain with me now. If you cannot walk, I will have men carry you.”

Pei Jinglun shook his head. “I will walk myself.”

This, perhaps, was all that remained of his dignity.

Before long, Ning Army soldiers were carrying up bucket after bucket of hot gruel and hot broth.

For the Shuzhou troops, solid food was beyond them now. And even though they desperately longed for something substantial, even the hot broth and gruel could not be taken too much at once.

Yet even as the Ning soldiers tried to slow them, the men could not help themselves. The heat of the broth seemed not to register at all.

Some drank too fast and doubled over, clutching their stomachs in pain, faces twisted — and still could not stop.

Others were drinking steadily, and then, without warning, they simply began to wail.

War has never been beautiful. Only its outcome can bring joy to the winning side. And anyone who describes war’s victories as beautiful has never fought in one — because even the victors, after so much blood and horror, can feel that winning is worth celebrating, but never beautiful.

Of the tens of thousands of Shuzhou troops who had held Meishan, fewer than half came down alive.

Even if you gave these men full bellies and put weapons back in their hands, they could not fight again. For those who had survived by pure endurance, this experience would haunt them. However many years passed, whenever those survivors looked back on these days, they would feel something reach into their chest and squeeze hard.

—

In the Ning Army’s main camp.

Pei Jinglun, who had walked down under his own power, had spent all he had. He had meant to stand before the Prince Ning with his last shred of dignity intact — but he had failed. His body had beaten him.

He sank to his knees on the ground. Two hands reached out to accept a bowl of meat broth from a Ning Army soldier — and he froze.

The next moment he raised the bowl and drank in great, ragged gulps.

Then, still holding the bowl, he turned his head to the side and retched violently.

When it was done, he raised the bowl and drank again. His stomach cramped in spasms, pain twisting his face — and still he could not stop.

Over and over he told himself: *don’t disgrace yourself like this.* But he seemed to have no control over his own hands, no control over his own mouth.

After eating, he felt as though life itself were returning to his body.

He looked at Xiahou Zhuo. Xiahou Zhuo said, “Prince Ning says — please, General Pei, rest first. His Highness will see you tomorrow.”

Something made Pei Jinglun want to say *thank you* —

Thank you, Your Highness, for not insisting on seeing him now, in this state of utter wretchedness. Thank you, Your Highness, for letting him rest one night, so he might be even slightly more himself when they met.

Sometimes the dignity a person clings to is nothing more than a small act of consideration from another, received at the lowest moment.

After all of the Shuzhou Army’s men had come down, Li Chi brought Yu Jiuling and the others up to Meishan.

The attending physician from Shen Medical Hall advised everyone going up to cover their mouths and noses, as there was a risk of disease on the mountain. Li Chi went only partway before he could go no further.

Rotting corpses, unrotted corpses — the mountain was full of them.

“Have the men go and find lime — as much as they can gather. Spread it from the bottom of the hill upward, then bury the dead.”

Li Chi gave the instruction and turned back down.

The smell that clung to the entire mountain was unbearable. These were people who had been through countless great battles, and yet none of them had ever seen anything quite like this.

War’s processes are always different. War’s endings are always the same kind of cruel.

At the base of the mountain, the cloths they had used to cover their faces were pulled off and discarded — but the smell seemed unable to leave the inside of their noses.

Yu Jiuling looked pale, whether from the sight or the smell or both.

“Soon,” Li Chi said, as if to himself. “We will soon put an end to all fighting in the Central Plains.”

Even as the victor, even in winning, he simply could not feel glad.

This was not an affectation. Those who know war only from books and ballads and stories — who find those accounts stirring and romantic — feel that way because the people who wrote them, who told them, never lived through any of it.

“Yes… soon,” said Xiahou Zhuo, repeating the word after hearing Li Chi say it. Then he raised his eyes and looked north.

A little north of Meishan was Meicheng — the last place where Pei Qi’s pride still held.

If Pei Qi had succeeded, his story too would have been one that later generations found stirring and romantic. A powerful regional lord, controlling the strings of a puppet ruler, then reclaiming the realm from the puppet with his own hands. Not only Pei Qi — any of the ambitious men of this chaotic age, whoever had ultimately prevailed, would have been a figure worthy of admiration in the history books.

There was Prince Yu, Yang Jixing — if he had succeeded, he would have been the restorer of Great Chu, the man who revived a dynasty. The same praise could have gone to Yang Xuanji.

There was the great brigand of Jiangnan, Li Xionghu — if he had succeeded, he would have been the towering hero who toppled a tyrannical dynasty and saved the people. The same praise could have been given to any rebel leader who had made it to the end.

But the man who had made it to today’s end was only Li Chi.

So the one who would be celebrated and admired by generations to come, the one whose name would make hearts race with longing — could only be this founding Emperor Taizu of the Great Ning.

“Xiahou,” said Li Chi, staring north, “when there are no more battles to fight — what is the thing you want most to do?”

Xiahou Zhuo was silent for a long time. Then he smiled. “Marry a wife, have children — and have more than you.”

He exhaled slowly, then planted both hands on his hips.

“When the time comes I’ll stand in front of you just like this, chin lifted, and tell you: *Your Majesty* — when it comes to eating, I cannot match you. When it comes to children, you cannot match me.”

Li Chi thought it over and shook his head. “I don’t believe you can win that one.”

Xiahou Zhuo laughed.

Then, as if to himself: “When the realm is at peace, I’ll find somewhere with clear mountains and clean water, and do nothing at all. Just be a man with money. Take girls as lovely as flowers. Quietly have a whole brood of children. Astound myself.”

Li Chi: “…”

Yu Jiuling suddenly laughed. Xiahou Zhuo shot him a glare. “What are you laughing at?!”

Yu Jiuling said, “I just love watching people like you talk big in areas where you have absolutely no experience.”

Xiahou Zhuo: “That is not lack of experience — it is merely… as yet unexplored territory.”

Yu Jiuling looked at Li Chi. Li Chi turned his head away. “Don’t look at me. Same. As yet unexplored.”

“Well then—” Xiahou Zhuo turned to Li Chi. “Since the subject has come up today, let me ask something of you.”

Li Chi said, “If you want to say that when the realm is settled you want to leave — don’t bother.”

Xiahou Zhuo rolled his eyes. “Leave? What are you thinking? We bled and fought our way to this peace — and I should walk away from it? I’m not going anywhere. That bit about clear mountains and clean water was nonsense. I want to live in the most bustling place there is. I want to see all that prosperity and never get my fill.”

He looked at Li Chi. “But I truly do not want to command troops anymore. I don’t want to wear armor. I don’t even want to smell armor. Just give me money — as much as possible. Let me enjoy myself properly.”

Yu Jiuling: “Same.”

Li Chi let out a long breath. “You two really are — you always find the way that costs me most. Titles, appointments, high commands — those cost nothing. And you ask for money…”

Xiahou Zhuo: “You won’t need to be so tight-fisted by then, will you?”

Li Chi: “Why not?”

Xiahou Zhuo: “Because all the wealth in the realm will be yours.”

Li Chi: “And because it’s all mine — why would I give any of it to you? Dream on!”

He turned and walked away, hands clasped behind his back.

Yu Jiuling watched his retreating figure for a long moment, then asked Xiahou Zhuo: “Is he genuinely a miser, or genuinely shameless, or both at once?”

Xiahou Zhuo: “Take that question, remove the ‘or,’ and you have your answer.”

—