Inside the carriage, Prince Yu let out a quiet sigh, looked toward Zeng Ling, and said, “Zuo is still too impulsive. In youth, impulsiveness is not so terrible — in this, he resembles me when I was young… yet he truly lacks the final measure of depth.”

Zeng Ling smiled. “Xiahou’s experiences are different from Your Highness’s. Your Highness had only yourself to rely on back then. Now Xiahou has Your Highness to lean on. As I recall, Your Highness once said that things were far harder for you at his age than they are for him now.”

Prince Yu smiled slightly. “Put that way, there may be some truth to it.”

He paused, then continued: “But what kind of thing is it to only do half a job? What sort of people were those survivors in Yiji Hall? A band of desperate outlaws worth nothing, yet willing to risk their lives for gain.”

Zeng Ling said, “Xiahou handled this matter poorly, but there will be many chances to be tempered yet. When he learns how Your Highness dealt with this, he should have something to reflect on.”

Prince Yu said, “He doesn’t think — if these desperate men have already been backed into this corner, and even one of them refuses to accept it, or believes his only path forward has been cut off, they will take desperate action. One person left alive is a hidden danger. Cutting out the root — that is something he has never learned.”

Zeng Ling said with a smile, “That said, this actually works out well. Your Highness can use this affair to establish your authority… The situation now is different from before. Your Highness’s influence has been steadily rising, and it is time for it to rise. There are people in the city who are still wavering, waiting to see which way the wind blows. After this affair — will they not be frightened?”

Prince Yu said, “No one knows me better than Zeng Ling.”

Zeng Ling gave a slight nod. “I learned it from following Your Highness all this time.”

Prince Yu glanced at him and smiled. “Then you have learned well.”

Zeng Ling felt a sudden nervousness inside, and instinctively looked at Prince Yu’s expression — finding nothing out of the ordinary, he told himself to be more careful in the future. Some remarks could not be made carelessly.

“Put the word out.”

Prince Yu closed his eyes and said, “Yiji Hall is no more — we set the terms now… Say that Yiji Hall had secretly conspired with the rebel armies, that my son Xiahou happened to uncover the truth, and Yiji Hall invited him to their hall in an attempt to silence him.”

Zeng Ling nodded. “Yes. I’ll have someone release that account shortly.”

Prince Yu acknowledged it. “Have General Jiang Ran of the Military Preparedness come to see me.”

Zeng Ling knew this affair would not end so easily. Jiang Ran was one of his people — something of a trusted subordinate, though not one of the old guard who had been with him from the very beginning, yet still someone he had grown accustomed to using.

Prince Yu wanted to make an example of someone over this matter, and not just a small Yiji Hall. Simply using Yiji Hall as a show of authority? That would be far from enough. If a Military Preparedness General were disciplined, the great families in the city still sitting on the fence would all understand what this meant.

Prince Yu had conducted himself with some restraint in how he presented and managed things before — but now it was different. He intended to do great things, to turn a household into a state. And so the people of Jizhou City needed to know who truly held power here.

Circumstances change, and this was a prime example.

Zeng Ling felt rather aggrieved inside, but could only endure it. Prince Yu was also using this affair to send a message to everyone in the city: this Military Governor here was not the one in charge. Look — I even dealt with a military general under the Military Governor’s command.

Yet Zeng Ling’s sense of grievance wasn’t especially severe, nor did he find it hard to accept. Prince Yu wished to use this affair to establish his authority; Zeng Ling wished to use it to demonstrate his loyalty. Each would gain what they sought.

“I’ll have Jiang Ran present himself to Your Highness to confess his fault as quickly as possible.”

Zeng Ling ventured carefully: “This evening, shall I invite those who still haven’t declared their position to a meal?”

Prince Yu gave a slight nod. “At the dinner, let them know I’m having a meal with another group elsewhere at the same time.”

Zeng Ling understood, and nodded. “Understood.”

He asked Prince Yu, “Shall I have Xiahou come to the Prince’s residence to meet with Your Highness?”

“No need.”

Prince Yu said, “I won’t actually go to dinner with anyone — it would make me look as though I’m deliberately lowering myself. Tonight I’ll go visit his mother. I may stay there. Arrange the escort.”

He slowly exhaled. “The Princess Consort’s family still has its uses, so I cannot yet give Xiahou’s mother the status of primary wife. If I were an ordinary man, it would be another matter — what difference would a primary wife make? But I am not… I still need the Yuwen family’s influence. When I have truly managed to transform my household into a state, the position of Empress will ultimately be Xiahou’s mother’s.”

Zeng Ling didn’t dare to even respond. Some things cannot be casually answered.

—

At Li Diudiu’s home, a rapid knock came from outside the gate — but from the rhythm of the knock, one could tell it was someone known to them.

This way of knocking was currently known to only five people: Changmei Daoren, Li Diudiu, Xiahou, Scholar Yan, and newly arrived Yu Jiuling.

Scholar Yan hadn’t been here last night — he had gone back to the academy side to look around, having been away for many days, and the house there perhaps needed tidying as well. The new year was almost here.

He had returned early in the morning and heard of last night’s events, and was gripped with worry along with everyone else.

Hearing the knock and recognizing it as someone known, Scholar Yan — closest to the gate — quickly pulled it open. Yu Jiuling slipped inside in a flash.

Li Diudiu saw him return and immediately asked, “Is everything arranged at Yunzhai Teahouse?”

“All arranged.”

Yu Jiuling said, “Tasks you entrust to me — of course I can handle them.”

Li Diudiu asked, “Where did you put them?”

Yu Jiuling replied, “Steward Sun has another residence in the city — bought by the couple as a backup, never lived in, not known to anyone else. Madam Sun said it was safe there, so I took them straight over.”

Li Diudiu asked, “Steward Sun values money above all else — he can’t bear to close up even for a day. Surely he didn’t agree so readily?”

“He didn’t.”

Yu Jiuling said, “On my way over I was already thinking — you said Steward Sun is obsessed with money, and a man who can’t bear closing for a single day would be very hard to persuade, and the situation was so urgent…”

Li Diudiu had already begun to sense that something was not quite right.

Yu Jiuling said, “I’m so clever, right? So I walked in, didn’t say a word, and knocked Steward Sun out cold on the spot.”

Li Diudiu covered her face with her hands.

Yu Jiuling said, “Madam Sun got a big fright — she grabbed her belly and said she was already with child, please don’t abduct her, all the money in the house was mine to take… I could see that if this kept up I’d frighten her into something terrible, so I hastily explained that you’d sent me, and it was you who told me to knock Steward Sun out.”

Li Diudiu’s hands, pressed against her face, began slapping her own forehead.

Yu Jiuling said, “Madam Sun is easy to talk to. The moment she heard it was you who sent me, she relaxed right away — even let go of the hands cupping her belly. She said, ‘Well, that’s fine then…’ She also said, something like — having a brother-in-law send someone to beat up your husband is perfectly normal.”

Li Diudiu said, “As long as no one’s hurt.”

—

While they were speaking, another knock came from outside. Li Diudiu went to open the gate. Xiahou Zuo appeared at the entrance, face smiling.

Xiahou Zuo had actually been in low spirits the whole way back. He didn’t like killing, didn’t like handling things the way his father did — yet he had to go and do it regardless.

The mood had been oppressive. And the moment the gate swung open, his face broke into a smile.

He was the kind of person who looked out for others. After his little sister had gone missing, he had been a hollow shell for a long stretch of time. The carefree, devil-may-care manner that came afterward was also directly connected to his sister’s disappearance.

It was after he met Li Diudiu that that feeling of being an older brother came back to him.

His little sister — she’d had that same insufferably smug streak.

So sometimes his thoughts drifted, and he’d wonder — could it be that his sister was gone from this world, and Li Diudiu was her reincarnation? But he knew these were foolish thoughts, because the timing was all wrong. His sister had only been missing a few years, and Li Diudiu was already more than ten years old.

“It’s all taken care of.”

Xiahou Zuo patted Li Diudiu on the shoulder and said with a smile, “Already handled.”

Everyone in the courtyard except Li Diudiu let out a collective breath. When Changmei Daoren heard Xiahou Zuo say it was all handled, he dropped straight onto the steps, that tightly wound tension finally releasing.

Of course he knew how dangerous this had been. If Xiahou hadn’t gone to resolve it, Yiji Hall’s assassins would have come in an endless stream until Li Diudiu was dead.

“Are you alright?”

Li Diudiu asked Xiahou Zuo.

Xiahou Zuo smiled. “What could happen to me? I went over there, said a few words, and it was resolved. Simple as that.”

Li Diudiu pointed at the bloodstains on Xiahou Zuo’s clothing.

Xiahou Zuo looked down, then shook his head with a smile. “Just a bit of a scuffle — isn’t getting blood on you during a scuffle perfectly normal? I told them, here’s how we settle this — have a fight with me. I win, we close the matter. You win, do as you please.”

He patted Li Diudiu’s shoulder. “I showed them what I was made of.”

Li Diudiu stood there, watching Xiahou Zuo talk and laugh, and suddenly felt a tremendous urge to cry.

This affair, on one level, concerned her — yet on another, what did it really have to do with her? She hadn’t known the Xu family would send people, hadn’t known assassins would come.

Before Xiahou Zuo had arrived and said he would go settle this, the plan Li Diudiu had already formed was… to storm Yiji Hall herself.

But then Xiahou Zuo came. With that older-brother manner of his that left no room for resistance — and only in this moment did Li Diudiu realize that she had genuinely started to rely on him.

That wasn’t good.

That was very good.

“It’s nothing now.”

Xiahou Zuo said. “Where’s that troublemaker? Let me have a look at him.”

The seventh leader had actually fallen asleep — and appeared to be sleeping quite soundly. Xiahou Zuo called twice in the courtyard. The seventh leader came out from the room with his clothing disheveled, and on seeing Xiahou Zuo, gave a slight nod as greeting.

Xiahou Zuo walked over in a few strides. Everyone present expected him to at least have a few words with the seventh leader — after all, what the seventh leader had done was very sudden, and then the man had simply gone to sleep afterward.

“Thank you.”

Xiahou Zuo cupped his fist in salute. “Thank you for saving my brother.”

The seventh leader was briefly stunned. Suddenly he felt that the people in this courtyard were unlike the vast majority of people he had ever known. This feeling he had only experienced before with his elder brother Yu Chaozong.

So for a moment he didn’t know what to say, or what to do. These people… were these people all not quite normal?

Like elder brother Yu Chaozong — that kind of not normal.

In this world where people devour each other, there was still a group of people like this who were not normal, gathered together in one place. That was an even more extraordinary kind of not normal.

If all these people were in Yanshan Camp, then there would be that many more people like his elder brother — and the scheming, the treachery within Yanshan Camp would surely be less.

He wasn’t fond of talking to people, wasn’t fond of speaking — because in all of Yanshan Camp he felt the only one truly worth talking to was Yu Chaozong.

The rest had their own agendas, every one of them.

“Don’t… don’t mention it.”

After quite some time, the seventh leader replied with three words.

Xiahou Zuo smiled. “Tell me if there’s anything you need help with — just say the word.”

The seventh leader was taken aback again for a while, then asked: “Anything goes?”

Xiahou Zuo said, “Anything goes.”

The seventh leader said, “Then could you help me go buy a set of clothes — and… undergarments. What I’m wearing now is Li Chi’s, and it’s rather tight.”

Xiahou Zuo nodded. “No problem… but, what you’re saying is — he’s small?”

The seventh leader was silent for a moment, and managed, for once, to exercise a degree of tact rather than simply answering yes.

He replied: “It just feels… rather confining…”