Liao Tinglou died in the border city. In the moments before his death, he learned that Luo Jing was already gone — but he had no way to pass that news to his leader.

So Xu Suqing still didn’t know. The man he had been burning to kill, the disciple whose death he had been planning across years and wilderness — Luo Jing was already dead, and had been for some time.

What would he feel, if he found out?

Luo Jing was Luo Geng’s son, raised by Luo Geng — but he had inherited very little of his father’s particular viciousness. Some things cannot simply be learned; you either carry them in the bone or you don’t.

What Luo Jing had in common with his father was something else: irresolution.

Luo Geng had wanted to rebel but hadn’t quite dared. He had tried to threaten the Chu court while simultaneously courting its favor, demanding rewards while holding a weapon to the throat of the state. In the end he got nothing. The bamboo basket came up empty every time.

His death by illness was, in no small way, a product of his own character. The Wu Prince had understood exactly what lever to press. If Luo Geng hadn’t been that particular kind of man — half-daring, half-holding-back — the Wu Prince would have had nothing to grip.

Within the Chu court at that time, the military men had broadly respected Luo Geng. His command ability was genuine, his talent real. But his character was a source of open mockery. Countless people had said it: the will was there but not the nerve; and when the nerve appeared, the wisdom wasn’t. The Wu Prince, by the time he left Jizhou, had reduced his opinion of Luo Geng to something close to contempt — delivered, as befitted a member of the Yang imperial line, in the form of a story.

On the road south, the Emperor Yang Jingnan had asked the Wu Prince how he assessed Luo Geng.

The Wu Prince had thought it over, then said: a guard dog that shows its teeth at its master has three solutions.

First: give it a bone. Let it eat well, and next time it will wag instead of growl. The problem: if the bones ever stop coming, it will bare its teeth again — and this time it might actually bite.

Second: beat it until it submits. It’s still useful for keeping strangers away, so you don’t kill it — but it needs to learn that baring teeth has consequences.

Third: kill it at the first offense. A dog that shows its teeth to its master gets one chance, then it gets none.

Perhaps that verdict was what truly broke Luo Geng — more than any illness, more than any defeat. To be described that way by a member of the royal house he had served was something that could not be unfelt. He fell sick not long after, and never recovered. Too much ambition, too little follow-through: an epitaph that fit.

As for Luo Jing — had he not eventually fallen in with Li Chi’s company, fighting and enduring alongside them, the parts of himself that resembled his father would likely have grown dominant. But the person was gone, and there was not much use in elaborate postscript.

—

Back at the Blood Butcher camp.

Xu Suqing’s expression had not lightened. He was fairly certain that something bad was coming soon — and it wasn’t hard to work out why. A Grand Sword Master of the Sword Sect had died in this camp, along with a senior disciple. If the Black Wu could let that pass without response, they would never have become the power they were. A thousand years of pride and ferocity — it wasn’t something that just sat quietly.

So the Blood Butcher had reached a turning point. And it was not a turning point they had any power to choose their way through.

Xiao Ting worked up his courage and said what he’d been holding back: they should leave. They had managed to antagonize both sides at once. The Black Wu would not forgive them, the Ning Army would not forgive them. They were bait for a battle they had no stake in.

He said it all. The whole thing. He’d decided that if he was going to say it, he might as well say everything.

Xu Suqing listened without interrupting until Xiao Ting nearly finished, then cut him off.

“I’m not leaving.”

He looked up. “Go down to the parade ground and tell everyone: anyone who wants to leave may go now.”

He glanced at Xiao Ting. “That includes you.”

Xiao Ting erupted.

“What does that mean?”

Xu Suqing was feeding the burning brazier slowly. “You were just telling me to leave. Now I’m letting everyone leave. You’re angry?”

He pushed the last of the paper offerings into the fire and stood. “If you want to go, I’ll let you go. I’ll let all of you go. But think clearly before you do. There’s a million Ning soldiers on one side and a million Black Wu soldiers on the other. How far do you get?”

He scanned the room. “From the moment I heard the Black Wu were moving south, I knew we had to choose. Side with the Ning Army against the Black Wu — impossible. Our reputation is too black; they won’t take us. Which left one option.”

He turned to go, pausing with his hand resting on Wang Huan’s coffin. The gesture was ambiguous — something between grief and comfort, something between anger and love. It was impossible to say what it meant, even to him.

After he was gone, Holy General Gao Wukan looked at Xiao Ting. His eyes asked: You see? He’s changed, hasn’t he?

Xiao Ting looked back. He didn’t speak. But his eyes answered: Yes. He’s changed. What of it? We chose to follow him for life. That choice doesn’t change just because he does.

Gao Wukan read it perfectly. He had nothing left to say.

He looked at the coffin for a long time.

“Maybe,” he finally said, “Wang Huan and Liao Tinglou were the lucky ones. They walked ahead.”

The words hit Xiao Ting like a physical blow. He was quiet for a moment.

Then he nodded.

—

One day later, in the Black Wu main camp.

Prince Kuo Ke Di Ye Lan was in his tent reviewing the military accounts when two Sword Sect disciples came in stumbling, dropped to their knees, and delivered the news about Da Xin Tuonuo and Ye Fu Zhi in voices that trembled — whether from grief or terror, it was hard to say.

“Noted.”

The response was so calm it was disorienting. The Prince’s face showed nothing. No flicker of emotion. As if the loss of two of the Sword Sect’s elite was entirely without significance.

He turned to the guard beside him. “A servant who outlives his master is a disgrace. Send them to keep the Grand Sword Master company.”

The guards moved. The two disciples had gone white, but they didn’t resist.

Two screams from outside the tent. Then silence. Then two heads brought back in briefly for the Prince’s inspection, then removed.

His chief strategic advisor Desen Lü asked, quietly: “Should we move against Xu Suqing’s men now, Your Highness? Once word of the Grand Sword Master’s death spreads through the army, the men will be furious. They’ll expect an order to go and destroy those bandits. If nothing happens, people will feel the shame of it.”

The Prince looked at him. “Why would the army know? Why would word reach home?”

Desen Lü paused. Then understood completely.

The Prince rose and moved slowly, stretching. “Nothing matters more than going south. Compared to taking the Central Plains, a Grand Sword Master and a Sword disciple — what does that weigh?”

He looked at Desen Lü. “Xu Suqing’s bandits are bait. Without that bait, the Ning Army stays behind its walls. We never get the open engagement we need.” He held the advisor’s gaze. “So if anyone disrupts that — they are the one who should die. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The Prince walked to the tent entrance and exhaled at the sky. “If this campaign succeeds, our Emperor will be the greatest Khan in the history of the empire. And my name will be written into that history.”

“Ten thousand li of the Central Plains. What is one Grand Sword Master against ten thousand li?”

“The Sword Sect fighters will feel the shame? Then don’t let them feel it. They can’t feel what they don’t know.”

“The soldiers will feel the anger? There is nothing to be angry about that they are aware of.”

Desen Lü pressed carefully: “There are still a few Sword Sect disciples in the army, Your Highness. Eventually they will ask where the Grand Sword Master has gone.”

The Prince looked at him.

“Are there Sword Sect disciples in my army? I thought they all went out with the Grand Sword Master on a task.”

Desen Lü went very still. Then he bowed low, voice quiet: “Your Highness is correct. There are no Sword Sect disciples remaining in the army. They all accompanied the Grand Sword Master. As for what they encountered — since there were no survivors, no report has come back. Your Highness remains uninformed.”

The Prince made a small sound of acknowledgment. “A pity, isn’t it.”

He waved a hand. “Go.”

Desen Lü bowed. “I will see to it.”

—