Li Chi waved a hand, and the guards withdrew on all sides.

This gesture left Zangjie more baffled than anything else. He could understand the impulse to settle it personally — after all, Zangjie had struck at his wife and child. An Emperor who could let such a thing pass unchallenged would leave his whole country feeble and without spine.

But Li Chi was the Emperor. The Emperor of Great Ning. How could he take such a risk?

He did not have to act himself to forbid Zangjie from acting. He could simply give the order and let someone else handle it.

While these thoughts were still moving through him, Li Chi had already stepped out into the open ground and turned to make a gesture of invitation.

Zangjie walked forward slowly, drew a breath, and said, “Your Majesty has great ambitions, and ten thousand common people have good fortune because of it. So if Your Majesty merely wishes me to die, there is no need to do it personally. Should something go wrong — Your Majesty should know that I am not someone who has come here truly resigned to dying.”

Li Chi simply looked at him — with a stillness so complete that Zangjie’s words didn’t even seem beside the point to him. There was nothing beside the point. He was simply waiting for Zangjie to strike.

Li Chi had always been this way. Once he chose to fight, his mind held nothing else.

Zangjie saw this as the rashness of youth. However much admiration and awe he now held for this Emperor, he still thought: he is too young. No matter how composed a young man appears, he still carries flaws he has not shed. Still impulsive, in the way the young always are.

So Zangjie thought to teach this young Emperor a lesson — to show him that a sovereign’s person was not something to be risked.

He walked toward Li Chi and made a gesture of invitation in return.

Li Chi, quite at ease, gave a small nod — and then simply walked straight toward Zangjie.

Watching this Emperor move with such casual arrogance, Zangjie thought: *if I simply killed him here, let the world fall into chaos, let it fall — it would have little to do with me.*

There is a saying in Chan Buddhism: *If I don’t go to hell, who will?* Back in Daxing City, Zangjie had once spoken that line to the old Emperor of Chu. The old Emperor had smiled and replied, in a very easy, unhurried voice: *Once I am gone, heaven and hell can look after themselves.*

Zangjie did not know that in the time between those words — *if not I then who* to *when I am gone, whatever comes* — he had shed all connection to the monk’s robe he had worn for so many years.

He struck.

A fist toward Li Chi’s face — but he knew a blow this plain and unremarkable would not touch this Emperor.

Li Chi had the confidence to stand here, and it was not performance. Zangjie had long heard that the Emperor of Great Ning possessed extraordinary martial skill. He had seen with his own eyes, in the attempt on Li Chi’s life, the flowing sleeve technique — the way Li Chi had moved. A martial artist who had advanced from physical cultivation into Qi circulation — that alone told you his level.

But Zangjie did not believe he fell short of Li Chi.

So the punch was a feint. What came after it was the killing blow. He was watching how Li Chi would respond to this strike.

However Li Chi evaded or deflected it, the moment he moved there would be an opening — even if that opening lasted only a third of a breath, even a tenth, he had the skill to find it and step through.

Li Chi did not evade. He did not deflect. He simply threw a fist in return.

And so Zangjie’s feint could not be a feint anymore — because he realized he was slower than Li Chi.

The entire art of a feint lay in speed: the swiftness of the initial strike, the sudden shift of the follow-up, the attack before the opponent could defend. But he had no time to shift from feint to killing blow. Li Chi’s fist was already arriving.

His eyes went wide.

He had no choice but to take it — his feint had become a real strike, and Li Chi had already answered it in kind.

Fist meeting fist — and Zangjie’s arm was flung backward by the force of it. In that instant, he heard clearly the sound of his own bones breaking.

Not one crack. A rapid sequence — *crack, crack, crack, crack, crack.*

The bones of his fingers were gone. The bones of his forearm, gone too.

In that moment, all hope left him — because he knew he could not take a second blow.

One exchange and he was defeated. There would be no recovery. Let alone that he faced an Emperor.

And an Emperor who had seized the throne through conquest — who was not such a man if not a predator who, once he had the advantage, would never waste a single breath in letting go of it?

But Zangjie was wrong again. Li Chi made no immediate second strike.

He stopped where he was. So Zangjie’s panicked, flailing defense looked all the more wretched by comparison — his right arm broken, his left arm raised and sweeping back and forth in a frantic warding motion. This was the reaction of an ordinary person who had been struck and feared being struck again — lashing out blindly, trying to drive the other person back.

But he was not an ordinary person. Even this blindly flailing fist still carried tremendous force.

“My teacher used to say: in this world there is no such thing as absolute certainty, for this world contains the word *unexpected.* Everything I have learned, trained, thought through and refined throughout my life has been in service of one thing — when I act, that act is *absolute.*”

Li Chi looked into Zangjie’s eyes, from which the will had already fled, and shook his head.

“Do you know why so many men want to become Emperor?”

The instinctive thought that came to Zangjie was: *isn’t it desire?* Desire to be the greatest under Heaven — absolute power, absolute standing, absolute supremacy.

What man, given the chance to be Emperor, could lay it aside with a calm heart?

He did not answer aloud, but Li Chi had read his thought in his eyes.

So Li Chi shook his head slightly. “I cannot say why others seek the throne. But as for myself—”

He threw a second fist.

Zangjie could not dodge, could not evade, could not even raise a hand in defense. His eyes held only a brief flicker of bewilderment before the fist arrived, and with a dull, heavy impact, Zangjie was sent flying backward.

One punch — and Zangjie had sailed more than a *zhang* through the air before landing.

Li Chi watched the man crumple to the ground and spoke on, calmly:

“I became Emperor to set an example for my children and my children’s children — to show the people of this world what the Emperors of Great Ning should be. *My will is the will of Heaven. My wrath is the wrath of Heaven.*”

When those words were done, he did not look again at the man lying there barely clinging to life, and simply walked back to Master Yan’s side. “Teacher, it is time we set off.”

Master Yan was himself a martial artist. He had known that His Majesty had advanced rapidly in his cultivation these past years, but the sight before him had startled him deeply.

He knew that since His Majesty’s enthronement, the time available for martial practice had grown far thinner than before. And in the martial arts, a single day’s neglect shows in a day; a year’s neglect ruins half a lifetime’s work.

Yet His Majesty seemed entirely unaffected. Those two fists — the force behind them — ordinary eyes could not have read them, but he had managed to make out two words.

*Domineering.*

Whatever technique you use, whatever transformation you attempt — once I have moved, you are bound by how I move.

Master Chu, standing at a distance, felt his composure stir — because his heart could not be still.

He had said, long ago, that he believed Tang Pidi was the rarest martial talent he had ever seen in this world. If Tang Pidi had not gone off to lead armies and had devoted himself entirely to the martial path, he would surely have become the greatest fighter of his age.

He had also, privately, considered His Majesty’s gifts in the martial arts. And the only answer he had ever arrived at was: His Majesty is second only to Tang Pidi.

But those two fists today had changed that.

*One in ten thousand?*

No. His Majesty was, perhaps, the only one of his kind alive.

Which was precisely why Tang Pidi stood as the foremost martial artist in the realm beneath His Majesty — because Tang Pidi was genuinely second to him, and to none other.

In this moment, Master Chu found he suddenly understood the words His Majesty had just said: *everything I have done and endured has been for the sake of* — *when I act, that act is absolute.*

And Master Chu could not help but wonder silently: if he and His Majesty truly fought, with nothing held back, how would it end?

He did not know the answer — not from confidence in himself, but because he could see himself clearly, and he could no longer see to the bottom of His Majesty.

Heaven alone knew whether those two fists represented His Majesty’s limit.

To those who did not know better, seeing Zangjie defeated so easily would suggest the man had been a fraud all along — all show, no substance. But Master Chu knew: count every martial artist under heaven, and Zangjie would still rank among the highest tier.

Still — he had not withstood even one exchange.

Master Yan swallowed and came back to himself, quickly responding, “Very well, let us set off now.”

Li Chi walked to the carriage and lifted the curtain to invite Master Yan in first, already appearing to have entirely lost interest in the man named Zangjie lying on the ground.

He and Master Chu had spoken of it before: this person must still die.

His Majesty had also said: this person had come all the way to Chang’an to cause trouble, and it was truly out of loyalty and righteousness — something to be admired.

His Majesty personally putting him to death was, perhaps, the greatest respect that could be paid to such a man.

Otherwise — Zangjie would not have been worthy of His Majesty’s hand.

The carriage moved forward. The guards mounted their horses. Master Chu walked slowly to where Zangjie lay, looking down at him, his expression carrying something complicated.

Zangjie still held a last breath. Looking up at Master Chu’s face — the last thing in the world left to him — an impulse came over him to ask: *Did he even need you?*

Master Chu was quiet for a moment, then crouched down beside him and said softly, “Ten thousand common people need His Majesty. And so His Majesty needs me.”

Something in what remained of Zangjie’s ruined face still managed to form an expression of *ah, I see.*

“No injustice in it…”

He pressed out those two words with the last of his strength, and then that last breath too was gone.

No one could say with certainty what he meant by *no injustice* — whether it was that the Great Chu Emperor he had cared for deserved his defeat, or that he himself, struck down by those two fists and departing this world, had no injustice to complain of either.

Master Chu reached out and gently pressed closed the eye that had remained open.

Only one eye, because the other — the eye and the ring of flesh around it, the full width of a fist — was gone.

“Everyone who has ever been defeated by His Majesty has no injustice to complain of.”

Master Chu rose, walked back to the *cha tang* stall, took out some silver coins, and set them on the counter — a silent offering of comfort.

Then he turned to the stall keeper. “Excuse me — do you have a hoe here? I would like to dig a hole. Whatever manner of person he was, he should be given a burial.”

The stall keeper had long since gone bloodless in the face, and could only manage a dazed shake of his head.

That he was still standing upright at all after witnessing this was already something.

“No hoe?”

Master Chu looked mildly disappointed. Without a hoe, digging a grave was going to be somewhat more strenuous.

He walked a short distance away, crouched down, and drove a fist into the ground—

*BOOM.*

One punch — and a wide hole appeared in the earth, rocks and loose soil blasting outward like a wave.

At this, the stall keeper could hold on no longer. He let out a strangled cry and sat down hard on the ground.

Master Chu stood and examined the pit, expression unreadable — something like:

*You see. Digging a grave this way is, indeed, rather more exhausting than using a hoe.*

—