When all was said and done, the methods Li Chi employed traced back to the years he had spent at Changmei the Daoist’s side. All those years of watching and listening had seeped into him, and even the techniques he had never used before were already second nature.

Changmei the Daoist had spent decades wandering the rivers and lakes — carrying considerable silver on his back and a child in tow — and had emerged from it all unscathed. Just how formidable was that old man’s ability to read and respond to any situation?

It was true that age had caught up with him, and no matter how stubbornly he refused to admit it, he knew full well that he was no longer what he had once been.

But that hardly mattered, because Li Chi, young as he was, had already surpassed his master.

That same night, Li Chi and Yu Jiuling changed into dark night-traveling clothes, slipped out through the courier station’s rear window, skirted around the prefecture’s watching eyes, and crept silently to the outside of Liu Wenju’s compound.

In the dark, Yu Jiuling crouched and fidgeted, visibly eager.

Li Chi gave him his instructions: “Keep yourself in check. Don’t just go rummaging through everything. We divide the work — I’ll head to the rear courtyard to find the people, you take the front courtyard and see if you can locate the silver vault.”

“A place that important will be well hidden,” said Yu Jiuling.

“A place that important will also be well guarded,” said Li Chi.

Yu Jiuling sighed. “So I get the well-guarded place, and you get the unguarded one.”

Li Chi gave him a pat on the shoulder. “This is me trusting you, and acknowledging my own inadequacy.”

Yu Jiuling made a dismissive sound. “Don’t feed me that — you just mean I run faster.”

He loosened up with a few stretches, then said: “Whether we find anything or not, we meet back here in half an hour at most. Liu Wenju leaves tomorrow. There’s no reason to stir up unnecessary trouble tonight.”

“Understood,” said Li Chi.

Then he coiled low and shot out from the shadows. The speed was breathtaking. Yu Jiuling watched him go and felt a flicker of genuine surprise. Why did Li Chi seem to pick everything up so fast? A little over a year ago, Li Chi had been nowhere near as quick. Now the two of them were roughly neck and neck.

Still, Yu Jiuling consoled himself with the thought that he had better endurance.

Li Chi moved along the wall in swift, low bursts until he reached the rear courtyard of the Liu compound. The ambushers they had encountered on the road had mentioned that Liu Yingyuan and her family were being held in the rear courtyard and were not permitted to leave.

Li Chi’s guess was that at the beginning, when Liu Shanshen’s family first arrived, Liu Wenju had held back because he wasn’t sure whether Liu Shanshen might manage a comeback. And at that time, Liu Yingyuan had probably been much younger — still a child, not yet the woman she was now.

What Li Chi didn’t know was that if Prefect Cui Hansheng hadn’t happened to catch a glimpse of Liu Yingyuan, even a shrewd man like Liu Wenju would not so casually have decided to kill Liu Shanshen.

Liu Shanshen had served as an official in Jizhou City — fallen on hard times, yes, but who could say whether he might rise again? Liu Wenju’s original plan had been to simply wait two or three years, keeping the family on like servants, cheap to maintain. If Liu Shanshen hadn’t recovered by then, there would be nothing left to worry about.

In the world of officialdom, if you couldn’t turn things around in two or three years, the odds were you never would.

Then one day Cui Hansheng had come to Liu Wenju’s home and happened to encounter Liu Yingyuan hauling water to do laundry. She wore patched cotton clothes, but even those couldn’t conceal what she was, and the desire struck Cui Hansheng immediately.

He asked Liu Wenju who the girl was. Liu Wenju told him honestly. Cui Hansheng didn’t dare do anything reckless in the city — Liu Shanshen had been an official in Jizhou, after all, and doing things cleanly meant eliminating witnesses altogether.

So Liu Wenju arranged for Liu Shanshen to lead a merchant caravan out of the city. Liu Shanshen sensed something was wrong at once.

Since arriving, the family had been kept on the level of servants — if Liu Shanshen hadn’t held on to some silver of his own, the conditions would have been even more wretched. But he didn’t dare let on about the silver either; the Liu household’s rough-handed staff would likely take it by force.

They couldn’t leave. Liu Wenju had given orders not to let them out. They were, in effect, prisoners.

But Liu Shanshen had once been an official, and he was not without his wits. He had roughly guessed Liu Wenju’s intentions and had been scheming all along to get his daughter out. Liu Wenju’s people kept a constant watch on his daughter, however, and he had never found the right moment.

When Liu Wenju told him to go out with the merchant caravan, he knew what it meant. So he bit through his own tongue, coughed up blood, and staged a serious illness — both to get out of leaving the city, and to give the impression he was too sick and feeble to attempt escape.

In the room, the oil lamp burned very low. Liu Shanshen glanced over at his daughter, already lying down on the earthen sleeping platform, and let out a quiet sigh.

“Husband,” his wife whispered. “Is Liu Wenju really going to harm you?”

“Almost certainly,” said Liu Shanshen. “But I think an opportunity may be coming. After Liu Wenju came home today, quite a few of his people were called to prepare carriages and pack supplies. He may be heading out on a long journey, and taking many of his men with him. If the chance comes, we make our escape.”

His wife’s expression was troubled. “Liu Wenju runs this city unopposed. Even if we managed to flee — where would we go? Back to Jizhou?”

“We still have some silver put aside,” said Liu Shanshen. “If not Jizhou, we could find a small county somewhere and live quietly.”

“With the fighting and chaos everywhere, even a small county won’t be safe from the rebel armies,” his wife said. “Perhaps we should go back to Jizhou after all — slip back quietly. It’s been over a year since that matter. Perhaps it won’t be pursued any further.”

“Let me see how things look tomorrow,” said Liu Shanshen.

They were still speaking when they heard the faintest knock at the door. The sound made both of them flinch. On the sleeping platform, Liu Yingyuan sat up immediately — her parents realized then that she had not been asleep at all, only lying still to ease their worry.

“Who’s there?” Liu Shanshen grabbed a wooden club.

Liu Yingyuan, on the platform, snatched up the scissors she always kept close at hand. If she could not protect her parents, then she would end things for herself before anyone else could.

Outside, Li Chi kept his voice barely above a breath: “Li Chi from Jizhou. Yingyuan’s classmate from the academy.”

Liu Shanshen froze, still processing. Liu Yingyuan’s eyes flew wide. She swung herself off the platform, covered the distance to the door in a few quick steps, fumbled the latch open, and pulled the door wide.

The moment she saw that it was truly Li Chi standing there in the doorway, her whole body went still. Then, all at once, every grievance from the past year and more dissolved into tears that she could not hold back no matter how hard she tried.

“Let’s speak inside,” Li Chi said quietly.

Liu Shanshen looked him over carefully before recognizing him — Li Chi had changed considerably since more than a year ago.

Once inside, Li Chi gestured for their attention.

“In a short while I’ll get all three of you out. Start quietly gathering whatever you absolutely must have — but my hope is that you take nothing. I’m carrying three people, and that’s already taxing. Too much luggage and I can’t guarantee anything.”

“We take nothing,” Liu Shanshen said immediately.

Li Chi gave a nod and looked toward Liu Yingyuan. He smiled a little. “Stop crying. I’m here.”

Liu Yingyuan nodded hard.

“Everything else can wait until we’re out.”

Li Chi finished speaking, then calculated the time. The rendezvous with Yu Jiuling was fast approaching — he had spent quite a while searching the rear courtyard before finding this room.

“Close your eyes. Whatever happens, don’t pay attention to it, don’t struggle, and don’t make any sound. It would interfere with what I’m doing.”

He gave them one final instruction, then turned his back to Liu Yingyuan and crouched down. “On my back.”

Liu Yingyuan blinked.

“There’s no time to stand on ceremony,” Liu Shanshen said. “Don’t waste it.”

Liu Yingyuan flushed and climbed onto Li Chi’s back.

“You’ll need to hold on yourself,” Li Chi said. “Both hands are occupied.”

He had barely finished the words before Liu Yingyuan had even replied. With one hand on each side, he caught Liu Shanshen and his wife by their belts, lifted them clean off the ground as if picking up two carrying cases, and bolted.

The launch was so sudden that Liu Yingyuan’s legs sailed backward behind her.

Liu Shanshen and his wife were buffeted even more violently.

Li Chi carried one on his back and one in each hand, sprinting through the dark at a pace that filled his ears with the rush of wind. Liu Shanshen and Liu Yingyuan managed tolerably; his wife had gone white with fright, and her instinct to struggle rose up in her — but she remembered Li Chi’s words and forced it back down.

With the outer wall about one zhang away, Li Chi said in a low, rapid undertone: “Both of you cover your mouths.”

Liu Shanshen reacted fast, pressing his hand over his mouth at once. His wife had only just raised her hand when she was already airborne.

The wall was now about half a zhang away. Still at full sprint, Li Chi heaved Liu Shanshen and his wife outward with both arms. His feet left the ground, he kicked off the wall, hooked one hand over the top, swung his body over, dropped to the other side, and thrust both hands out — catching the two of them, one on each side, in a single unbroken motion.

It was not something a person should have been able to do.

“We’re outside,” Liu Shanshen said softly. “We can run on our own from here.”

“Too slow,” said Li Chi.

He picked them back up and kept running — Liu Yingyuan on his back, Liu Shanshen and his wife in hand. Liu Yingyuan clung tight, her hair streaming out behind her.

Li Chi ran all the way to the agreed meeting point. Yu Jiuling was already waiting. Out of the darkness, he saw a large and distinctly strange shape coming toward him — he nearly yelped aloud.

What was that multi-limbed thing?!

With such a rough-looking collection of heads and arms!

“Move!” Li Chi said.

Yu Jiuling let out a breath of relief and fell in alongside him. Li Chi glanced sideways and asked: “Feeling guilty about anything?”

“You’re perfectly balanced right now,” said Yu Jiuling. “If I helped carry one, your gait would be off.”

“I’m carrying three,” said Li Chi. “You could carry me.”

Yu Jiuling said nothing.

Liu Yingyuan lay against Li Chi’s back and felt the rhythm of his breathing as he ran, and the steady beat of his heart beneath. For the first time in over a year, she felt safe.

Her parents, however, were having a considerably worse experience. Being carried in someone’s hands was nothing at all like riding on someone’s back.

The two of them endured the sensation of being swept up and down, forward and back, as the wind came rushing at their faces, lifting their hair, pressing at their lips until they involuntarily made small flapping sounds.

After some time, Li Chi said again in a low voice: “Mouths.”

This time Liu Shanshen and his wife were ready for it. Both hands went up at once. Then Li Chi released them, and they were airborne.

This time he didn’t need to catch them himself — Yu Jiuling had gone over the wall ahead of him. But Yu Jiuling didn’t have Li Chi’s arm strength or agility, and he could only manage one. He stood there for a moment, uncertain which one to go for, and both of them came down.

In the instant before two noses met the ground, Li Chi grabbed both by the back of their clothing and hauled them upright.

That sensation must have been quite something for the two of them.

Yu Jiuling rushed over and got the door open. Li Chi strode inside, gasping, and set his hands down out of reflex—

Yu Jiuling’s eyes went wide.

Face down on the floor.

—