How many guards a high family like the Xu clan could muster needed no elaboration. The vast compound was divided into eastern, western, and central sections. Xu Qinglin’s quarters were in the eastern wing.
More than a thousand people lived in the Xu family’s great residence. Every night, over a hundred household guards made their rounds, and hidden among the shadows, skilled fighters lurked unseen.
Li Diudiu crouched on the ridge of the wooden building, looked at the sea of lights, studied it silently for a moment, pulled the mask down over his face, and leaped.
These past two days, Li Diudiu had consulted at length with Yu Jiuling. The gap in natural talent can’t be easily bridged, but when it came to things learned through practice, Li Diudiu refused to fall behind anyone.
Yu Jiuling was born with godlike speed, but he also had a breathing technique he had worked out on his own — how to regulate your breath while running, to make your endurance last far longer.
The moment Yu Jiuling first said breathing was important, Li Diudiu committed it to memory. And when Yu Jiuling mentioned that it could help sustain things longer, Li Diudiu felt that was something he absolutely had to learn.
He hadn’t yet reached the age where he understood all the reasons why endurance mattered. But every man is born with a certain instinctive pursuit of lasting longer.
Following Yu Jiuling’s breathing method, he hadn’t managed to increase his speed — but he had noticed he saved considerably more energy. Before, he’d run at a decent pace, but through sheer force, with no understanding of breath control. The kind of inefficiency that drained stamina fast.
As Yu Jiuling put it: learning to run fast also required knowing what to trade. Because speed and endurance cannot both be maximized. The fact that Yu Jiuling had both — that was a gift from heaven.
Li Diudiu moved close to Xu Qinglin’s section of the compound. He pressed himself into the corner where the walls met and climbed — quickly, in moments reaching the top of the wall. He crouched there and studied the courtyard carefully. The layout of a household like this was largely predictable — where the servants lived, where the family lived, generally clear at a glance.
In the past, Li Diudiu would have hesitated many times before doing what he was about to do. But he had left that hesitation behind.
Before, he’d thought: kill only when unavoidable.
Now he thought: whoever tries to kill me — I have to act.
Moving through this compound at night: if at all possible, stay low and avoid the heights.
Unless everyone inside was blind and deaf. Even in deep darkness, someone running along a wall top — could no one see? And moving across roof tiles — could that make no sound?
He dropped to the ground and moved along the base of the wall, staying in the shadow. Before long he reached the back of the most prominent row of buildings. He had gone over every step of this several times beforehand, making sure the thing would look like an accident.
He stood in the corner between the buildings and the courtyard wall, straining to hear. Faint voices drifted out.
That row of buildings had ten rooms. The side wings on both left and right housed servants and guards. The main rooms in the center would certainly be reception halls.
So Li Diudiu chose the left side first. He crept along low and reached the back window. The voices inside became noticeably clearer.
“Don’t blame your father. He’s doing what’s best for you.”
A woman’s voice came from inside.
She continued: “Look how late it is, and your father is still out running around for your sake. Think about it yourself — you angered the old lord. If your father hadn’t gotten ahead of things to pull back some of the damage, you might already have been cast out of the Xu family.”
Then Li Diudiu heard Xu Qinglin’s voice.
“Mother, I know I was wrong. I shouldn’t have been so impulsive. I should have been more careful — and I shouldn’t have left evidence. Going forward, I’ll remember how to handle things properly.”
The woman gave a sound of agreement: “When your father comes back, go to him yourself and pour his tea, and apologize.”
She paused, then said: “He went to call on the Garrison Commander — I don’t know whether he’ll bring back any good news.”
As Li Diudiu listened to these words from outside, something shifted in his mind. He immediately changed the plan he’d just laid out.
He retreated quietly along the base of the wall, back to the courtyard wall, and climbed over it with careful, silent movements.
Leaving the Xu family’s compound, Li Diudiu moved through the shadows. He made his way to the route Xu Sheng would have to take coming back.
He knew where the Garrison Commander’s residence was. He knew which direction Xu Sheng would be returning from if he had truly gone there. In that split moment, Li Diudiu made his decision — because an accident occurring on the road was naturally more credible than one occurring inside a house.
Li Diudiu sat on the rooftop of a building looking ahead and waited roughly another two quarters of an hour. Then from the distance came the sound of a carriage. Bells hung from it, their ringing crisp and clear — their purpose to warn pedestrians to step aside.
In the silence of the night, the bells were somewhat jarring.
Li Diudiu watched the carriage gradually approach. He reached into the deer-hide pouch at his waist and withdrew a carefully crafted bamboo tube. Into the tube he loaded a single needle.
As the carriage drew near, Li Diudiu climbed down from the rooftop and hid in the shadow at the side of the building — not standing, not crouching, but lying flat on the ground. He picked his moment and blew the needle through the tube at the horse pulling the carriage.
Before this, Li Diudiu had spent a great deal of thought on the problem: how to startle the draft horse while not alerting the coachman, and without being spotted by the guards on either side of the carriage?
After he blew the needle, he silently apologized in his heart: Horse, I am sorry.
That needle had found its mark in a place unspeakable on the animal’s person.
That kind of pain — even a horse couldn’t endure it.
The horse let out a piercing shriek, nearly rearing up on its hind legs, then broke into a wild gallop on all four hooves. Li Diudiu couldn’t quite reason out why — when a horse was in pain or startled, why did it always run straight forward?
The horse lurched and thrashed several times before tearing ahead at full speed. The coachman, entirely unprepared, was flung from his seat. The guards on both sides were startled by the sudden chaos but reacted quickly, spurring their mounts to chase after the carriage.
Li Diudiu had observed carefully beforehand. The lanterns on the carriage bore the Xu household’s markings, and in the lantern light the Xu family emblem on the carriage body was faintly visible.
He had learned that emblem at Fengming Mountain — Xiahou Zuo had told him.
Watching the carriage lurch forward, Li Diudiu immediately turned and ran on the parallel street behind the row of buildings. The carriage and Li Diudiu were separated by an entire block — and anyone looking down from above would have been astonished to see that Li Diudiu’s burst of speed was a match for the runaway horse.
Of course, a burst like that could not be sustained.
He sprinted and listened to the shouts from the adjacent street — the two guards trying to seize the horse. Judging by the sound, he gauged he had already gotten ahead, then immediately swung around onto this street, pressed himself against the building wall, and waited.
The two mounted guards caught up to the runaway horse, one on each side, and simultaneously grabbed for the reins. The horse was in too much pain to be controlled easily.
Li Diudiu seized the moment when both guards had their full attention on the horse. He lunged forward, dove under the carriage, and drove a kick into one of the wheels.
The still-moving wheel flew off. That side of the carriage immediately sank. In theory, even this would not overturn the carriage — but Li Diudiu, having kicked the wheel off, immediately placed both hands against the carriage underside and heaved with all his strength.
The carriage tilted and rolled to one side, driven by momentum and Li Diudiu’s force. In the same instant, Li Diudiu stomped down on the axle. The wooden axle snapped. The undercarriage was also split through with a hole.
Li Diudiu rolled with the overturning carriage to the back. This put the two guards’ line of sight entirely behind him.
As the carriage slammed to the ground, the two rear doors were thrown open by the impact. Li Diudiu tucked in and slipped through into the carriage cabin, then drove the broken axle hard into Xu Sheng’s throat — without a single heartbeat of hesitation.
Xu Sheng, panicking, had instinctively been scrambling toward the exit. The two rear doors had blown open, and he was clawing his way out with all his strength.
In the instant Li Diudiu entered, the two men’s eyes met for a brief moment.
After a single anguished cry, Li Diudiu did not retreat back the way he had come. Instead he moved past Xu Sheng to the far end of the carriage cabin, used Xu Sheng’s body to prop him into a forward-slumping position, listened to the approaching footsteps as the guards rushed to the rear doors to pull him out — and slipped out through the front window.
That wound directly to the throat. Xu Sheng’s life had already departed.
A flicker of movement and he was into the narrow alley beside the road, pressing his back against the wall, watching the two utterly shaken guards. In that moment, Li Diudiu felt a remarkable calm.
He watched for a moment, then turned and walked deeper into the alley. In moments he had vanished into the night.
—
One hour later. Xu family compound.
The old lord was helped over after hearing the news. Xu Sheng’s body lay in the main hall, ringed by a circle of weeping figures.
“What happened?!”
The old lord’s voice trembled as he asked.
“Re — reporting to the old lord.”
One of the two guards who had been protecting Xu Sheng stepped forward and said: “We don’t know what came over the draft horse — it suddenly bolted. The coachman was thrown off. The two of us gave chase as fast as we could and caught up to the carriage. Then the axle snapped from the jolting, pierced up through the undercarriage — and by terrible misfortune, the master…”
The broken axle — thick as an arm, its broken end as sharp as a spear tip — was still in place. No one had dared touch the thing.
“How could this be?!”
The old lord demanded furiously: “You two — are you absolutely certain no one interfered?”
The guard immediately said: “Truly no one, old lord. The two of us were on guard on both sides of the carriage at all times. If anyone had approached, we would have spotted them well before they got close. We had already caught up to the carriage and were holding the reins when the axle snapped…”
Not far away, Xu Qinglin stared at the scene, his eyes blood-red.
He turned to his mother and lowered his voice: “Father had just arranged for someone to go outside Jizhou City to kill Li Chi. And tonight father met with this. I don’t believe this is an accident.”
His mother stared for a moment, then nodded: “We wait until Gao Liang comes back from outside Jizhou City.”
Xu Qinglin gave a sound of agreement, both fists clenched inside his sleeves.
—
At the same time, at an inn not far from Tang County.
Yan the Scholar had found an inn and made arrangements to spend the night. He told Li Diudiu and the coachman to drive the carriage around to the back courtyard. Li Diudiu gave a simple sound of agreement and said nothing more.
Yan the Scholar and Gao Liang went inside first. Gao Liang glanced back — Li Chi and the coachman were driving the carriage, following an inn attendant toward the back.
He suddenly clutched his stomach, his face going sour: “My stomach’s been bothering me the whole way. Might be those cold buns that did it. I need to find the privy.”
Yan the Scholar said: “Go ahead.”
Gao Liang clutched his stomach and hurried out of the inn. Then, out front, he lit the signal flare. The men waiting to kill Li Chi had been following at a distance this entire way — always just outside the line of sight — and the flare was the essential signal.
After lighting it, Gao Liang didn’t dare go back inside. He simply ran.
He ran out the front. Yan the Scholar, standing at the window, watched the man flee in his bedraggled haste. He couldn’t help but give a slight shake of his head.
—
In the back courtyard, Li Diudiu and Zhuang Wudi exchanged a look.
Zhuang Wudi reached out and pinched Li Diudiu’s face. Li Diudiu dodged, saying: “Ow ow ow — careful, don’t ruin it. I still need to use this face on the way back. The Daoren worked hard on this disguise.”
Zhuang Wudi glanced back. The signal flare rose into the sky.
He sighed: “Sure enough.”