If they were heading back to Jizhou, there was no way they could make it before the end of the year no matter how hard they pushed — they had worked it out and even riding without stop, they wouldn’t reach Jizhou until around the fifth or sixth day of the new year.
They decided not to rush, and to go somewhere else instead. This would also let them avoid the main road running from Jizhou toward Daizhou Pass, since they had no desire to run headlong into Prince Wu, nor into Prince Yu either.
Taking the long way around would cost another six or seven days. But thinking it over, they were all together anyway — why insist on being in Jizhou City for the new year? They might as well find a nearby city, spend the festival there properly, and set off afterward.
Since they were talking about a nearby city, the most obvious destination for Daoist Changmei was—
—immediately vetoed by Li Chi and the others, since that place really had nothing worth going to. Ruling that out, the nearest option was Xinzhou.
Once settled in Xinzhou, they could also avoid Prince Wu’s army and save themselves a detour. Most importantly, they had talked Daoist Changmei into it.
“Daoist, you need to practice restraint.”
Yu Jiuling lowered his voice and said.
Daoist Changmei gave him a fierce glare and said, “Filthy-minded! Do you think the only reason I’d want to go to Qianlie County is that? I just want to be somewhere far from the battlefield. Xinzhou here is less than a hundred and fifty li from Xinzhou Pass — it’s too dangerous.”
Yu Jiuling said, “Daoist, your sincere expression looks like you’re joking.”
Daoist Changmei looked left and right for something within reach to use as a weapon. He came up empty.
Li Chi said, “Jiu’er, as I’ve told you before — I’m the only one among us who hasn’t yet made up his mind to get rid of you.”
Yu Jiuling said, “You too? Your teacher has been driven half to madness by me, so how can you still put up with it? Daoist, I’m not the one stirring this up — if he were my disciple, I’d have slapped him across the face long ago.”
Li Chi: “And now you’ve lost me too.”
Yu Jiuling retreated a step, grinning, and said, “Daoist, there’s really no need to feel disappointed. Qianlie County is just a small county town after all — how could it compare to Xinzhou? Xinzhou is relatively prosperous. Not just one river of spring flowing east — three rivers, four rivers, five six seven eight nine ten rivers — there might even be a sea.”
Daoist Changmei pressed his hands together in a seal and said, “I invite a bolt of heaven’s thunder to strike this wretched creature.”
Yu Jiuling said, “I’m not exaggerating — I mean it. Back in Tang County, there were far too many people who prayed exactly like that, Daoist.”
By now the group had chosen a small grove to make camp in. There were no places to stay either ahead or behind them, and they couldn’t reach Xinzhou in a single day, so they found a reasonably safe place to spend the night. Fortunately they had two large carts, so there was no need to worry about being attacked by wild animals. With the divine falcon and the falcon on guard, ordinary animals were nothing more than playthings for the two of them.
They went deep into the grove before stopping. Setting a fire at the edge would risk drawing unwanted attention.
“What’s there to enjoy in Xinzhou?”
Li Chi asked Mister Yan.
Yu Jiuling jumped in to answer first: “I haven’t been, so I don’t know — but if I went, I’d know what’s most enjoyable.”
Li Chi asked, “And how would you know?”
Yu Jiuling said, “If I went to Xinzhou, I would naturally be the most enjoyable thing there. How many people in this world are as entertaining as me?”
Li Chi: “Suddenly I don’t want to go to Xinzhou anymore.”
They joked back and forth, ate some travel rations, and each climbed back into a carriage to sleep. Up early the next morning and back on the road — once they got to Xinzhou there’d be nothing much to worry about.
Who knows how long he’d been asleep before Li Chi was jolted awake by a cry from the falcon. He immediately grabbed his long saber and opened the carriage door to look out. The fire had long since burned out, and the grove was dark enough that he couldn’t see far.
He didn’t wake Yu Jiuling. He looked up at the sky — the falcon was circling somewhere not far above. Had the moonlight not been so bright, he wouldn’t have been able to see it at all.
He crept in that direction, moving without a sound, and quickly reached the edge of the grove. Sharp-eared, he detected a group of people huddled along the roadside, murmuring among themselves.
Li Chi moved with feather-light steps and slipped behind a tree by the road.
Several black-clad figures were crouched there, speaking in hushed tones. Li Chi listened carefully. The gist was: a merchant convoy would pass through carrying goods headed south, and these men were lying in ambush ready to rob it.
One of them said, “The boss was very clear — kill the old ones. The girl must be brought back.”
Another said, “It’s strange though, aren’t they family? Why is the boss being so ruthless?”
The first one glared at him and said, “Don’t ask so many questions. We eat the boss’s rice, so we do the boss’s work…”
He paused and then added, “If you want to blame anyone — blame that girl for being too beautiful. The boss has taken a liking to her.”
Li Chi heard this and frowned slightly, thinking: well, it’s your bad luck.
He crept soundlessly around from behind the tree, put his long saber on his back, and drove his fist into the temple of the nearest man. The man went down without even a chance to react. The others were startled and scrambled to their feet, but Li Chi moved far too quickly, giving them no chance to fight back at all. These people’s ability was nothing to speak of — Li Chi hadn’t used a third of his strength before all of them were on the ground.
He found some rope on their persons and bound all of them up. He looked at the sky and judged that it was still a good while before dawn. These men couldn’t have left Xinzhou in the middle of the night — they must have set out the day before and gotten into position here before dawn.
Li Chi searched through these men for a while. He found only a dozen or so taels of silver in total — he had genuine contempt for them.
People doing the business of robbery, and this poor?
He was about to just leave it at that, but then one of the men happened to wake up at that moment and was foolish enough to call out.
“You wretch! Do you know who we are? Have you heard of the Liu Family of Xinzhou?”
He shouted at Li Chi, “Untie us right now and kowtow and beg forgiveness, or we will hunt you down and tear you to pieces.”
Li Chi responded by expressing his solemn trepidation — and then urinated on him.
The Liu Family of Xinzhou. He hadn’t heard of them.
Li Chi was about to leave when a thought struck him like a sudden crash. The Liu Family of Xinzhou? Wasn’t Liu Yingyuan the person who had come to Xinzhou to seek shelter with her family?
He thought about it — but it would be too much of a coincidence. Still, he wasn’t comfortable leaving it alone. What if it really was that much of a coincidence?
So he threaded a rope through all of them in a string, dragged them deeper into the grove. The men kept walking into trees and rocks as they went, and enough bumping about brought them all awake.
The sounds woke Daoist Changmei and the others. Yu Jiuling climbed down from the carriage and watched Li Chi drag a string of people back like he was hauling a plow.
“Good fellow — did you go out and commit an abduction?”
Yu Jiuling rubbed his eyes and asked.
Li Chi said, “I ran into a few men who were lying in ambush outside the grove ready to rob travelers, so I conveniently robbed them instead. If you want to commit an abduction, I won’t stop you.”
Yu Jiuling looked at the men — they were still fully clothed — and said, “Your robbery was not particularly thorough.”
He walked over and started pulling the night clothes off the men. Li Chi pointed at one of them and said, “Leave that one.”
Yu Jiuling paid no attention and pulled the clothing off that one too, then froze and looked at Li Chi. “Why is his clothing all wet?”
Li Chi said, “I urinated on him.”
Yu Jiuling: “……”
Li Chi crouched down in front of one of the men and looked into his frightened eyes. “You’re from the Liu Family of Xinzhou, are you?”
The man kept nodding rapidly. “Yes, yes, yes, we’re from the Liu Family of Xinzhou. If you’ve heard of the Liu name, you’d better let us…”
Before he could finish, he heard Li Chi say:
“We’re from Yanshan Camp.”
The man’s mouth immediately snapped shut. His eyes went wide. In an instant the words he’d been about to say were swallowed back down, and he gulped with difficulty.
Li Chi thought to himself: pulling out a tiger’s banner really does work.
He asked, “Who are you planning to rob? Tell me clearly, and I might let you go. Is the cargo large? Is it valuable?”
The men looked at each other, eyes all carrying much the same message — something along the lines of: well, this has gone spectacularly wrong, the amateurs just ran into the professionals.
“The convoy is the Liu Family’s own convoy. The person leading it is called Liu Shanshen.”
Li Chi thought back carefully. Liu Yingyuan’s father’s name did seem to be something along those lines.
So he pressed further: “Is Liu Shanshen someone who moved here from Jizhou? Does he have a daughter?”
The man nodded rapidly. “Yes, yes, yes, that’s him…”
Li Chi asked, “If they’re all members of the Liu Family, related by blood — why would the Liu Family want to kill Liu Shanshen?”
The man answered, shaking with fear: “Well — the master of the Xinzhou Liu Family, Liu Wenju, and Liu Shanshen are actually a kind of distant cousins — the connection is already very remote, barely enough to be counted at all. In the beginning, Liu Wenju’s household was in dire straits. He went to Jizhou to beg Liu Shanshen for help. Liu Shanshen gave him a large sum of silver to start a business — said it counted as an investment.”
The man glanced at Li Chi and continued: “Liu Wenju used that money to make a comeback. His business grew bigger and bigger. He also built close ties with the officials in the Xinzhou government. But then Liu Shanshen’s family ran into trouble and came to Xinzhou seeking shelter.”
“Liu Wenju had no desire to help, but Liu Shanshen held the written agreement from back then — he had no choice but to take them in. Liu Shanshen, for his part, actually conducted himself with dignity — when he arrived, he said nothing about the debt. He said he was simply coming to seek shelter.”
“Liu Wenju was worried Liu Shanshen might try to claw back a portion of his business, so he put the family to work chopping firewood in the back courtyard — fed them two coarse meals a day, and wouldn’t let them go out. But not long ago, Liu Wenju noticed that Liu Shanshen’s daughter had grown more and more beautiful, and so…”
The man kowtowed toward Li Chi: “Good fellow, we had no choice. We eat the man’s food.”
Li Chi’s fist had already clenched tight.
A girl of Liu Yingyuan’s background and upbringing, reduced to such misery in Xinzhou. Liu Wenju, treating his benefactor’s family this way — and now planning to kill Liu Shanshen and take Liu Yingyuan for himself…
Li Chi let out a long, slow breath.
Mister Yan reached out and pulled Daoist Changmei by the arm. The two of them turned away.
With one strike of his saber per man, Li Chi killed every last one of them.
“I’ll go wait by the road.”
Li Chi stood. “We meet the convoy first, then figure out the rest.”
Yu Jiuling gathered some dry grass and similar material to cover the bodies, then looked at Mister Yan and Daoist Changmei. After a moment of silence he said, “I sense a romantic entanglement on the horizon.”
Mister Yan: “……”
Yu Jiuling said, “Mister — am I not handsome enough?”
He asked, “Why does no girl ever fall for me?”
Mister Yan nodded. “You are indeed not handsome.”
Yu Jiuling: “Ahem ahem……”
Not satisfied, he said, “In the future I will definitely marry more wives than Li Chi — just watch.”
Mister Yan looked at Daoist Changmei and said, “Young people do have more ambition than us.”
Daoist Changmei gave him a withering look. “Don’t lump me together with you — I’ve had mine!”
Mister Yan paused, then understood what Changmei meant, and demanded indignantly, “Does that even count? How could that possibly count?”
……
……