That night, Gao Xining and Li Chi talked idly about the braised trotters from the day before, which Li Chi was still praising. Gao Xining was careful not to claim credit directly in front of him — a lie that obvious wasn’t worth telling.

When she mentioned that she’d eaten a large bowl herself and had asked the cook about the dish’s other possible properties, Li Chi laughed. His eyes briefly, involuntarily, dropped to her chest.

Gao Xining sighed. “I was thinking of future children.”

“How so?”

She shifted forward on the bed, a gesture of comfortable informality entirely her own, and lowered her voice in the manner of someone sharing privileged intelligence.

“You know how newborns have poor eyesight. What if they can’t find what they’re looking for. I’m worried our child will be so frustrated, from the moment of birth, that they’ll walk straight to the kitchen and make themselves a three-course meal.”

Li Chi stared at her.

Gao Xining maintained her expression of wise parental foresight. “The old saying — he who fails to think ahead will find trouble close at hand. Is that not correct?”

Li Chi: “I’ll be there to help.”

Gao Xining: “You’ll lead the way to the kitchen?”

A warning look from Gao Xining, and Li Chi moved to the other side of the room. The founding emperor of the Great Ning, conqueror of realms, sat there looking remarkably like a quail.

Gao Xining sighed again. “One child I could manage. But twins — you’d only be able to guide one at a time, and the other—”

Li Chi said, with great seriousness: “Even with twins, their father doesn’t starve while they eat.”

Gao Xining’s face went red. “Get out.”

Li Chi: “Together?”

Gao Xining: “That’s inappropriate. It’s not fully dark yet.”

Li Chi: “You were thinking about it.”

Gao Xining: “Obviously. Why else would I have come all the way north?”

Li Chi: “…”

Before the conversation could develop further, rapid footsteps came from outside, and a voice: “Your Majesty. Military report.”

Li Chi quickly put his clothes back on. Yes, he was putting clothes back on. Exactly when they had come off during what had ostensibly been an idle conversation was not entirely clear, but there it was.

“What is it?”

The man outside was Ye Xiao Qian, newly appointed commander of the Imperial Guard. He bowed. “The generals are all at the city gate tower, Your Majesty. Enemy troops have appeared outside the walls. The General has sent to ask if you would come and observe.”

Li Chi told Ye Xiao Qian to hold his post here, then went to the walls.

The night was fully dark. From the battlements, the plain outside was visible only as a broad mass of torchlight. Based on its extent, the force outside was not enormous — a rough estimate put it at perhaps ten thousand, possibly less. Night observation at this distance made precision impossible.

“Are the Black Wu attacking the city?” Li Chi asked as he arrived.

Tang Pidi shook his head slightly. “It doesn’t look like a main force, Your Majesty. More like cavalry. They haven’t come close enough to be certain.”

Li Chi found it strange. What was the purpose of a cavalry force this size?

Then three or four torches broke away from the mass and came toward the walls at speed. They stopped at a distance below, and the man in the lead was Xu Suqing.

He looked up at the walls for a moment, then called out at full volume: “Is Luo Jing here?”

Yu Jiuling called back: “You’d be Xu Suqing, would you? General Luo Jing passed away during the southern campaign.”

One sentence, and Xu Suqing’s face transformed. He seemed to freeze.

He had come to call out Luo Jing specifically — the old debt between master and student, the resentment that had outlasted exile and years of desert wind, needed to be resolved face to face. And now he was being told that the man he’d come to face was already dead.

From the wall, the scholar Ye Xiansheng stepped forward and called down: “Before Liao Tinglou died, he told me about the matter between you and General Luo Jing.”

“When you were imprisoned in You Prefecture, Luo Jing had been deliberately sent away by his father. His father then told him you had already been released and had left. Luo Jing believed, until his own death, that you were alive somewhere and had simply moved on. He never knew what was done to you.”

Xu Suqing laughed.

A long, full-throated laugh that rang out across the dark plain and the torchlit walls — and carried absolutely nothing that could be called joy.

“He went and died.”

He laughed for a while, then his voice sharpened to a shout. “Who killed him!”

Ye Xiansheng answered: “During the assault on Jingzhou. He and the Wu Prince Yang Jiju killed each other.”

Xu Suqing paused. Then nodded. “That’s something, at least. A disciple of mine, dying to the hand of some no-account — that would be a disgrace to both of us. Against Yang Jiju, in mutual destruction — that’s no dishonor.”

There was something incoherent in the feeling that moved through him then — a man who had spent years wanting this other man dead, now hearing of his death, and his first impulse had been to demand to know who had dared to kill him.

Then: “Is the former Yanzhou military commissioner Zhou Shiren still alive?”

Ye Xiansheng: “Zhou Shiren has also been dead for some time.”

Xu Suqing let out a slow breath. The inside of his chest went hollow. All the men he had wanted to kill — already gone.

He had heard of Luo Geng’s death years ago and had laughed then. That had been genuine satisfaction. The only regret was that Luo Geng hadn’t died by his hand.

But hearing that Luo Jing was dead — he felt nothing like satisfaction. Something that felt more like pain.

“Did Luo Jing leave any sons!”

He called up again.

Ye Xiansheng shook his head. In the clear torchlight, Xu Suqing could see him.

No heir.

Something else that felt like pain.

All those years ago, when Xu Suqing was teaching a young Luo Jing, the boy had said: when I have children, I’ll teach them everything my master taught me, and it will pass on, it will never be lost.

Who could have known. He died young, left nothing behind.

Then General Gao Zhen stepped forward to the parapet and called down: “The General may have had no sons, but he had a disciple. I am that disciple. Speak to me.”

Xu Suqing looked up. Too far to see clearly, even with the torchlight. He could make out a young man.

“In that case.”

His voice carried clearly across the distance. “Come and settle what’s between your master and me. I know your army is coming for my camp. So I’ll choose someone myself — you, young man. What’s your name?”

“This general is named Gao Zhen.”

“Gao Zhen. You and Luo Jing, and you and I — there’s nothing between us. I wanted to kill him. He’s already dead. So you can die in his place. If anyone else leads the army that comes for my camp, I may take my men and disappear. If it’s you, I’ll be waiting in the camp.”

Gao Zhen: “Agreed. And no breaking that oath.”

Xu Suqing made a dismissive sound and turned his horse.

The torches moved north and were gone.

Gao Zhen turned and dropped to one knee before Li Chi. “Your Majesty — this general requests the vanguard.”

Li Chi said: “You understand that whoever leads this assault on the Blood Butcher camp will draw the Black Wu. Getting out will not be easy.”

“Understood.”

Gao Zhen said: “Even without this personal matter, the vanguard of this battle belongs to me by position. Now that there is this debt on top of it, there is no one else. The General is gone — but the General cannot be looked down upon. Cannot be insulted.”

Tang Pidi leaned slightly toward Li Chi and said quietly: “Gao Zhen leading the assault is workable.”

Li Chi nodded. “Good. Then the first battle is yours.”

Gao Zhen: “Your Majesty need not worry. I am not the reckless man I was. I won’t jeopardize the campaign.”

Li Chi reached down and helped him to his feet. “There’s nothing I’m worried about. One thing, and one thing only: while the Emperor is here, and the General is here — fight without restraint.”

Gao Zhen bowed. “Understood.”

—

An hour later, in the main hall of the border city garrison, Li Chi and Tang Pidi sat at the campaign table as the generals filed in one by one.

“Are we all here?”

Tang Pidi asked. An aide confirmed: all present except Bor Temur, who was already deployed.

Tang Pidi rose. Every general in the room stood to attention.

“You all just saw the bandits ride up and call for a match. Why did they feel bold enough to do that? Because they have support now. The Black Wu forces have consolidated. They can move at any moment.”

He looked around the room. “Why do a few thousand bandits suddenly have that confidence? What changed?”

General Gao Zhen answered: “Because the Black Wu army is fully assembled and ready to support them.”

“Exactly. Which means this battle has arrived.”

Tang Pidi began to walk. “I already dispatched Bor Temur’s cavalry in advance. So in this engagement we won’t have our steppe brothers’ horsemen in support. But the Black Wu Iron Float heavy cavalry has arrived. Their numbers are reported at over thirty thousand.”

He looked at Cheng Wujie. “We have six thousand heavy cavalry. They have thirty thousand Iron Float. How does your confidence feel?”

Cheng Wujie clasped his hands. “Considerably better than those bandits’, sir.”

Tang Pidi smiled. “Then if this battle draws out the Iron Float, I’m giving them to you.”

Cheng Wujie: “The General has my word.”

Tang Pidi turned to Gao Zhen. “In addition to your own Wolf Ape Camp, I’m assigning you five thousand light cavalry. As for how to fight the first battle — the Emperor told you: as long as you don’t lose, you have full tactical freedom. Everything else is not your concern.”

Gao Zhen: “Understood.”

Tang Pidi distributed assignments to each commander in turn. Every man took his orders.

When he finished, Li Chi had noticed that in the course of all this, Tang Pidi had not said a single word to him. He asked:

“What about me?”

Tang Pidi looked at him. “Does Your Majesty genuinely want to fight?”

“Of course I do.”

Tang Pidi shook his head, and smiled very slightly.

“They’re not worthy.”